There is no entry in the Handbook of Texas for John Hayward Randolph, nor was he ever elected to the Texas Institute of Letters, but he was a Texas author who probably did more than anyone else in the latter half of the 20th century to shape the popular conception of Texas. Randolph was the originator of Texas Brags, a series of booklets that sold close to a million copies between their first appearance in 1944 and Randolph's death in 1972.
Each edition of Texas Brags consisted of 64 pages bound in a stiff cardboard wrapper with each page devoted to a different Texas topic. The booklets were profusely illustrated with colored drawings by Houston artist Mark Storm. Topics included Texas geography, agricultural products, natural resources, demography, history, customs, food, vocabulary and humor.
The tone was boastful ("If all the hogs in Texas were one big hog, he could dig the Panama Canal with three roots and a grunt"), but the statistics were fairly reliable ("There are more sheep in Texas than people in Massachusetts. Over five million of them produce twice as much wool as the next ranking state and nearly 25 percent of the U.S. total."). The jokes were terrible ("I went to Amarillo but came home broke." "Why?" "I'm a soft touch for Panhandlers.") Texas Brags is an abbreviated, lighthearted, and wonderfully illustrated version of The Texas Almanac.
The later editions have a self-mailer on the back cover that includes this boxed notice: "Postmaster: Take time out for laughs and education. This parcel may be opened for postal inspection whether necessary or not." Clearly John Randolph had a flippant attitude toward the formalities of publishing.
Several years ago I decided to try to learn more about John Randolph, and I made a small collection of copies of Texas Brags ranging from the first 1944 edition published in Houston by the Anson Jones Press to the "new, revised, Space Age edition" published in Tomball in 1968. The content does not really vary much over 24 years.
John Randolph proved to be a hard man to learn much about, and I still do not know as much about him as I would like. In fact, one of the reasons I am writing this column is the hope that someone who does know something about him will read it and get in touch with me. My first clue about him came from the online Library of Congress catalogue, which I was consulting in order to learn how many editions of Texas Brags had been published. I noticed an entry there for another book by Randolph called Marsmen in Burma, a history of a military unit that Randolph had served in during World War II.
Then I stumbled on a short article about Randolph by Terry "Tex" Toler in the January 1986 issue of Texas Monthly. Toler is also a Texas Brags fan and has treasured from childhood a Texas Brags map depicting Texas as stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts and lapping over into Canada and Mexico, one of those items advertised in Texas Brags that my parents would not let me buy. Toler had corresponded with Randolph's widow, Ruth Moore Randolph, and learned that Randolph had conceived Texas Brags while stationed in Marfa with the 124th Cavalry Regiment at Fort D. A. Russell in the winter of 1943 – 1944.
He wrote his wife and asked her to send him his files from that campaign, and the manuscript for the first edition of Texas Brags was the result. He worked on it in off-duty hours for four months and sent it to his wife just before his regiment was transferred to Fort Riley, Kan., and then shipped to India to become part of the Mars Task Force charged with clearing the Japanese army off the Burma Road.
Before he shipped out he arranged for his Houston friend Mark Storm, a graphic artist for the Humble Oil Company's magazine The Humble Way, to do the illustrations and for the Anson Jones Press to publish the results. By the time he came home from the war in 1945, the first edition had sold 160,000 copies.John Randolph, a native Floridian, was in business promoting Texas for the rest of his life.
Lonn Taylor is a historian who lives in Fort Davis, Texas and writes columns about Texas history for the Marfa Big Bend Sentinel and Texas Monthly magazine. For 20 years, Taylor served as a historian at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. He lived in Round Top from 1970 to 1977 when he was director of the Winedale Historical Center. This piece was originally published in the Marfa Big Bend Sentinel on August 18, 2016.


Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump may have been facing off at the second presidential debate, but the real winner of the night was an undecided voter in a red sweater who captured America's hearts. The man in question, Ken Bone, gave his debate verdict on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday night.
"This is an unusual political cycle," 34-year-old Bone told Kimmel. "It's been so negative and I try to really base most of my decisions on positive things and neither [candidate has] given me many."
Bone chose to question the candidates about energy at the debate, asking "What steps will your energy policy take to meet our energy needs, while at the same time remaining environmentally friendly and minimizing job loss for fossil power plant workers?" Since Bone works at a coal-fired power plant, his question was pertinent to his occupation and experiences.
"I'm just glad I was able to spark the energy debate a little bit," he told The New York Times. "It was kind of getting overlooked."
But Bone was divided on how each candidate answered his question; he said Trump answered the part of his question about jobs well, while Clinton's focus on environmental issues was similarly commendable, according to an interview conducted by The Washington Post. But it would have been better if the candidates had answered both parts of his question, he said.
When considering the candidates, Bone is conflicted by his personal interests and America's greater interests. Trump's policies are more in line with his economic interests, and his job in the fossil power industry would more likely be protected under a Trump presidency, he told The Washington Post. But, as he told Kimmel, "We fought so hard to get marriage equality and rights expanded to more Americans. It'd be unconscionable for me to see those [rights be] taken away by a Supreme Court justice appointed by Donald Trump."
Bone is in a difficult position; when he came into the second debate he was leaning towards voting for Trump. But now he thinks he's "more undecided than before," he told Kimmel. "I had to kind of put my head down while Mom and Dad were arguing over Thanksgiving dinner last night," he said of the candidates' debate behavior.
While Bone may be holding off on making a decision one way or another until after the final presidential debate, he is using his newfound fame to bring awareness to what he deems relevant issues, such as the importance of voting.
For now, Bone is busy working 12-hour shifts at his job, speaking to media outlets, and trying to keep things positive.
The final debate between Clinton and Trump is on Oct. 19. Maybe we'll get a chance to hear Bone's final decision after that.


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Child's Play (2019)
Sky High (2005)
Men In Black: International (2019)
See You Yesterday (2019)
iBoy (2017)
I Am Mother (2019)
Child's Play 2 (1990)
Three Men and a Little Lady (1990)
Three Men and a Baby (1987)
Child's Play 3 (1991)
Bride of Chucky (1998)
Seed of Chucky (2004)
Cult of Chucky (2017)
Always Be My Maybe (2019)
Masters of the Universe (1987)
The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997)
The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019)
James Badge Dale
Max Martini
Directed by Nic Mathieu
Spectral is a movie that just swings high with a bad ass dude with Iron Man level brain, who can make weapons out of scrap parts. This Sci-Fi movie is about a U.S. war in Moldova, when the U.S soldiers are being massacred by something invisible to the naked eye.
The production budget for this film has to be massive because of the scenery, artillery and costumes on display. The acting is top notch on every side and the movie seems to be set in an altered present where human tech is on a high level. You may need to brush up your Einstein for this one, because in between all the jargon there are some elements of truth.
Do not get carried away thinking about aliens when watching this film, this is a spoiler it is not aliens it is something more creative than that. The writers were not trying to get away easy on this one.
The movie plot starts when we see some American soldiers getting killed by what looked like a ghost. They can't see these things with their naked eyes, but when they adjust the settings of their googles on their helmet, they see these ghosts.
These ghosts are highly dangerous, when they contact human body, the human's organs are frozen stiff and their outer body is burnt and definitely they die instantly.
These ghosts can go through walls, jump very far and seem to be able to cause damage on even movable items.
They call in the expert, the man who created the googles, Dr. Mark Clyne (James Badge Dale) to come to Moldova and see if he can explain what the men are seeing before they die.
While the American government thinks the Moldova's have developed a new form of camouflage suit and they wanted it.
The whole challenge in this movie was stopping these things and Clyne was bent to find where they were coming from. With him is Fran (Emily Mortimer) a CIA agent who was sent to get the technology so the Americans can adapt it and use it.
So, like everyone will think, the best way to catch something that looks human is, pack a bunch of soldiers to try and catch one of these things that look like ghosts. You will be surprised how weird people are when they see their colleagues die, by something invisible to the naked eye and cannot be stopped by bullets. You will expect their common sense to say, run.
The movie is fun and is worth the time.
By Tosin Laguda 0 comments
Mark Hamill (voice of Chucky)
Directed by Lars Klevberg
The new Child's Play reboot is cool after a patient wait to see Chucky go rogue. It does start small and we get to see Chucky build his way from killing a cat, to all round massacre. The movie may have been fun to watch and to see a change in the plot and the origin of Chucky, but you just wish the made the movie creepier from the early stages. It took a while before Chucky gets obsessed in the way he was handling his obstacles to Andy. Then somehow even Andy became an obstacle in the end, to Chucky trying to please Andy.
I did enjoy seeing this movie and for those who loved the old franchise you will enjoy seeing the movie too. Yes, you may miss the idea of a serial killer's soul possessing a doll, but I felt they over flogged that horse until there was nothing left. Both the creator Don Mancini (who has been involved in all the old Child's Play movies) and the voice actor Brad Dourif, who has been the voice of Chucky for all seven movies are not in any way involved in this movie.
Mark Hamill was the voice of Chucky in this movie and he was magnificent.
The changes here are obvious from the get go, instead of a Good Guy Doll we have a Buddi doll instead. We know the Good Guy Doll was just a doll possessed by the soul of a serial killer making it kill. Here the Buddi doll is a broken toy which glitched its way into a serial killing doll.
In the factory where these dolls are being made an employee wanted to get even with the company that made the dolls/line manager. He decided that the best way to do this was to remove all the safety features on the Buddi doll before shipping it out.
This caused the doll to malfunction and when it was bought – it was returned to the store where it was gotten from, because it glitched a lot. The store clerk that received this broken doll was Andy's mom. She decided to keep the doll instead and give it to her son.
She is a single mom, trying hard to make things work for her and her son so getting this doll free was a great deal for her. Andy immediately noticed that something was wrong with Chucky, and when Chucky tried to strangle their cat for scratching Andy. Andy told it not to do that again.
Chucky always wanted to play, but Andy has made new friends and Chucky did not like that. The doll decided to make Andy happy by getting rid of anyone or doing what it believes will make Andy happy and be his best friend only.
The movie ends by making sure there is a room for a sequel, but with the slow start at the box-office, it must make a huge splash overseas to see this happen.
Directed by Mike Mitchell
If you have not been blessed to see Sky High, I beg that you do.
The movie is not spectacular, nor is some amazing stuff I need you to see, but the idea of superheroes having superhero school, great. Then we have heroes getting married and having super kids, just cool and they go to superhero school, ah!!! You have to see it.
It reminds me of something we all love, The Incredibles (2004) and Incredibles 2 (2018).
This movie was done after The Incredibles (2004) and both are from the mouse house (Disney). The movie, plays with many dynamics and it flaunts girl power way back in 2005. We have a character named Layla who is all about girl power, vegetarianism and a pacifist.
Then we have Will, the son of the superhero duo The Commander and Jetstream. Will is something of a regular guy who is lying to his parents about his ability so they can be proud. The only person who knows Will's true power ability is his best friend Layla.
It is time for Will to go to high school and children of heroes go to a special high school hiding in the sky called, Sky High. It is there that the children are grouped by the powers into Hero or Sidekick.
It was at this point we learned of Will's super powers, he hasn't gotten any.
Even though his parents are the most popular heroes in the world, their son has no powers. He is relegated to sidekick duty and so is his best friend Layla.
He also has eyes for a young lady in his school, Gwen.
Not to steal the whole movie, things did not go as Will would have planned his life in high school as a side kick. When he was being attacked by an archenemy that he did not know he has, Will had to develop quickly in order to protect himself.
Will made friends with the side kicks and as the movie develops, we see him ruin it and also put on the line his relationship with his best friend and we get to see Daddy's demons come back knocking.
Sky High is a cool film and it is a huge surprise that the movie did not spawn a sequel. It seems there was so many strings the writers could pull to make tons of movies and spinoffs. Well, we know Disney they will one day remember this in their archive and do an animation one day or a tv series with it. Until then, Sky High is always a gem to see.
Starring the voices of
Directed by Josh Cooley
This animation is just amazing and all I felt throughout watching this animation is just some deep level of nostalgia. It is funny, interesting and very thrilling. The whole focus on Woody at first felt like the animation was getting derailed, then the introduction of Forky and the moment we get to see Bo Peep, I was just captivated and didn't want the reunion between Woody and Bo to end.
The movie plays hard on the idea that it has set from the first Toy Story (1995), toys have one focus to get played with and to give joy. I felt though that they dumbed down Buzz Lightyear's intelligence a little, just to add some jokes. This was not the same Buzz we saw in Toy Story 2 (1999) or Toy Story 3 (2010). And like the previous movies before this, the ending of this movie just set's itself up on a new dimension. You never see it coming, and when it hits you, the emotions make you wish, "it ain't so."
But the way the animation is always written that Woody finds a way to take care of his crew and also his kid is something I never get tired of seeing.
Toy Story 4 is a computer-animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the fourth installment in Pixar's Toy Story series, and their twenty-first full length production for Disney.
It follows the tales of Woody after the story of Toy story 3 (2010). We get to face something that we witnessed in the first Toy Story – Woody being left out of playtime. Woody is more matured about this and handles it just a little better than he did the first time around.
Bonnie is starting kindergarten and Woody decided to tag along, by sneaking into Bonnie's bag. There in school, he (without her knowledge) helped her by giving her the materials needed to make Forky. Bonnie loved her new toy Forky, who at the moment was suffering from existential crisis. Forky so much wants to go back to the way he was and Woody was hellbent to make sure that Bonnie will be happy. She seems to have found love in Forky and Woody was willing to do anything to make sure she is never sad again.
The whole movie is the length Woody was willing to go for Forky.
The Toy Story franchise has been a financial juggernaut for Disney and each time a new animation film is released it tops the weekend and does better than the previous that weekend. The story grows with the time is what I enjoy. We see Andy grow to an adult and now we see Bonnie get into kindergarten.
I do not know if Disney will like to make a Toy Story 5, but if they decide to, I will be watching. Here is an animation that has found a way to entertain at every turn.
Take time to go see this movie with the family.
Directed by F Gary Gary
Great chemistry. Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson did a movie that just had that, great chemistryand cool special effects. The movie just plays on what both of them already had when we saw them play Thor and Valkryie in MCU's Thor: Ragnarok (2017).
The sad thing about this movie though is that it was a drag. It was just missing its step along the way of a tale we so much enjoyed when we first watched Agent J (Will Smith) and Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) in the black suit saving the world. This here MIB tries to play on that, in the first Men in Black (1997) Agent K was showing Agent J (the rookie) the ropes. Here it is something similar, but with Agent M (Tessa Thompson) being the rookie who seems more grounded and Agent H (Chris Hemsworth) being the veteran who has lost his way.
We first see Agent H and High T go against the Hive in Paris. We later get to know that they won that battle, propelling H and T to superstar status in the MIB realm of things.
More than twenty years before this a little girl named Molly witnessed the MIB use neuralysation on her parents making them forget the alien that was in their house. Molly, helped the alien escape. From then on Molly has been obsessed with finding these people in black suits.
She has her life put on pause, doing work that makes it easier for her to track anything resembling alien presence so she can investigate. Well, such an incident happened and she used that opportunity to infiltrate the MIB, but gets caught.
Note, she has done something no one has ever done, locate the MIB base and even get in the front door. So, when she was being interrogated by Agent O she passed and joined the team on probation. O sends her to High T's branch in London. There she partners with H to protect Vungus an alien royal family, who also happens to be H's friend.
Things got ugly fast, when Vungus was murdered, but not before informing Agent M (while he slips something to her for safe keeping) that there is something wrong about H.
The two identify the culprits and tried to apprehend them and fail. Things got tricky when it was discovered that Vungus gave M a device and she has failed to tell anyone about it. Agent C, decided to investigate, with T's approval.
The movie had its funny moments especially when both our leads had to battle his (Agent H) former love. From that moment on the movie was fun to watch – with thrills and suspense, but you have to wait for eighty minutes to get to this part. Then the movie decided to have a cheesy anticlimactic ending.
The odd thing about this movie, is that I feel it will end up being one of those movies we will probably enjoy some time later. At this time the movie has been a commercial loss and all hope of rebooting this franchise kind of died here or else the studio has some trick up their sleeves to turn a profit on this movie, this will be the last MIB we will see in a while.
Directed by Kyle Newacheck
I cannot remember the last time I watched an Adam Sandler movie and I was laughing and interested to see the way it will end. I would not have even watched this movie if Jennifer Aniston was not in it. I felt she had the Midas touch that was lacking in the Sandler movies and I was right. Murder Mystery is a movie that takes its cue from some old time Agatha Christie kind of thing for the first thirty-five minutes, with Aniston delivering on the comedy. After that, the movie got a little too serious for its own good, but still had me glued.
The last Adam Sandler movie I saw by year was done in 2012 and for seven years until now I have avoided him in any starring role like a plague until now.
This movie is about lies and mystery. Sandler is not trying anything here to be funny, Aniston did the heavy lifting and she did it so well. Memorable actors, sweet dialogue and a fun time, with the below plot which starts with Nick Spitz (Adam Sandler).
Nick has just failed his detective test again for the third time. He felt so bad about it and lied to his wife Audrey (Jennifer Aniston) about it. He further lied that he got a raise and that he has been planning a honeymoon for him and her.
This lie led him to fly them both to Europe where they meet Charles Cavendish, an aristocrat (Luke Evans). Charles ended up inviting them both to come with him on a yacht.
On the yacht they meet Charles family which has a weird connection with his billionaire uncle Malcom.
· Charles ex Suzi, is now marrying his uncle, Malcom.
· His uncle's son Tobey, is a nobody who just wants to inherit daddy's money.
· Then we have a colonel who saved Malcom's life when they were younger, by saving him from a bomb.
· Juan Carlos, a race car driver and god son to Malcom.
· Grace an actress
· Lastly, Sergei the colonel's bodyguard
All these people were present when Malcom disowned them all from his will and willed everything to Suzi. He was about to sign the will when he was murdered.
You will think things will focus on that, giving us a movie about Nick and Audrey (an addict for crime novels) solving a murder on the high seas. That did not happen, they docked and more people get murdered as the movie progresses, making Nick and Audrey the prime suspects.
The movie was released on Netflix and it is doing well, setting a record as the biggest opening weekend as at June 2019.
Eden Duncan-Smith
Danté Crichlow
Directed by Stefon Bristol
The movie is the typical, predictable time travel problem meets black lives matter. We also get to see Michael J. Fox do a cameo and say, "Great Scott!"
Do you remember any time travel movie you have seen? Now try and remember the one problem they all have in common. When you try to change something in the past to get a future you want, it always comes with a baggage.
You can tell that this film is a low budget black film, trying out things in the science friction genre. I liked the way the director and co-writer Stefon Bristol found a way to keep me wanting to see how the movie ended. Then, I did not like the end where our lead is just lost in her desire to get a perfect ending.
Many words in this here film. Science words or muddled together to what made sense in the world crated for this film. Add to that many science circuitries with 80s special effects, then the actors acting all needed some touch, and you have See You Yesterday.
The movie plot is about a teenager named C.J and her best friend Sebastian. Both are into time travel and have been working on making it happen for I want to believe years. Taking things from their school lab and making many other things at home, they were able to create a backpack of some sort that they use to time travel.
They decided to give it a test drive and witnessed first-hand the result of what happens when you interfere with an incident in the past.
You will think this lesson will deter them from trying it again, but when C.J lost someone due to police shooting a black person with no probable cause, C.J. was hell bent to save that person's life.
The challenge is each time she tries, she gets a new outcome which does not give her the present she wants.
Now the movie has many plot holes with the whole time travel thing, much of which are similar to the same things we see when we watch other movies trying to make the same thing happen.
So, if you got the time – you can catch this movie on Netflix. You will enjoy the look and idea that the movie is trying to pass across.
Then there is the lesson we have all come to learn from time travel being repeated here, time travel is a power that just doesn't get things right in the end without repercussions.
Bill Milner
Directed by Adam Randall
Rape is not an issue someone should take likely. This movie using it as the main angle to which the whole film develops, did not sit well with me. In the idea of making a revenge film about a boy who got shot in the head and turned to some kind of mutant, the makers of this film decided to localize his view. He lives in the dark path of gang filled London, and his actions are similar to that of someone whose view are limited to his surroundings. That is an A+ to the concept, but the execution is a D.
This movie is just painfully annoying and stupid. Our guy gets shot while trying to make a phone call and some part of the phone gets stuck in his head. Now his brain gets fused with the phone's CPU and our man becomes a hybrid – he becomes a working human/computer.
Now, that's just putting it mildly, he became so advanced as the movie progresses that anything that has any form of electrical wiring he could control. Then he stepped up a notch again, being able to control the electromagnetic waves around. His entire view can become digitalized if he wishes and even though it may sound cool, this was just over the top silly.
The movie is based on a book of the same name by Kevin Brooks. Our hero (Bill Milner) goes to school with the lady of his dreams Lucy (Maisie Williams). He is head over heels for her and one day she tells him to come over to give him some tutoring. On his way to her place, he witnesses some men coming out of her apartment (apparently after raping Lucy). He picks his phone and starts dialing the cops when he gets shot in the head. Pieces of the phone CPU gets into his head and fuses with his brain. Now he has developed some extraordinary skills, and the movie is hell bent on him trying to get revenge on what was done to Lucy.
The argument you may have is, if Marvel and D.C. can make their movies about weird incidents giving people super powers why can't anybody?
True, why can't anybody? Well other people have made Sci-Fi movies with people having abilities beyond normal human comprehension. We have seen the Unbreakable series (Bruce Willis), Chronicle (2012), Matrix (series), Sky High (2005), recently John Wick (that character is not normal), Just to mention a few. Whether you will like to admit it or not, there have been movies about humans with great abilities done better than this.
The acting in this movie may have been well done, but the story was too easy and the plot was just another superhero movie missing the mark.
Clara Rugaard
Rose Byrne (voice of mother)
Directed by Grant Sputore
I Am Mother is an interesting Sci-Fi thriller flick that twist and turns on you the viewer so that in the end you are left wondering what the big picture is here.
The movie is a catalog of controversies. Which you will like to run with as the movie progresses is not an easy choice. Even when the movie ends, it does so by planting the thought that there is still more about the tale that the movie is not telling.
Seeing Hilary Swank was a breath of fresh air, her face is one that is stuck in my mind when you have to mention magnificent performers. The movie only has three humans present, so that is something you have to have in mind if you sit to watch the movie.
We spend the first half of the movie watching Mother (a Maternal Robot) raising a girl, teaching and nurturing as she grows over the years to an intelligent young lady (Clara Rugaard). Half way into the movie, we get to meet another human, a Woman (Hilary Swank). The last human we meet in the film was a baby.
Here goes the plot. In the distant future, humans have made a mess of the earth and have become their own worst enemy. There was a contingency plan for such an instant, they created an AI whose job is to repopulate the earth, when humans wipe themselves out. With this AI is many fertilized embryos waiting to be brought to life.
The movie starts at a point in time where the AI countdowns to human extinction and kicks off the process and brings to life a girl. A girl who all through this movie we call Daughter.
Daughter grows up to be a nice young lady and all she knows is that the robot with her is her mother, who has informed her that there is no life outside the bunker they are living in.
She is told the atmosphere is polluted and going outside can risk the life of Daughter. Daughter believes this, but still wonders. One day something Daughter did not expect happens, a woman comes knocking on their bunker, one night when she was having trouble sleeping and was considering breaking the rules.
Daughter is for the first time facing a challenge that is beyond her teachings by Mother, what is she to do when another fellow human needs assistance. Also, this is the first human Daughter is seeing and the only other person she has engaged in conversation with other than Mother. Daughter's instincts kicks in and offers help to the woman, an act she well knows that Mother will not allow, if Mother was the first to see the Woman and not her.
The movie is very captivating and it grows on you and you will not notice the time pass by as you watch. The movie is not perfect, there are times when I feel the writers got so involved in their mystery that they forget that movies such as this needs to have a clear path to keep you entertained. The acting in this movie is top notch and the director had a firm grip on where he wanted this movie to go. Here is a fine film to see on Netflix any day.
Directed by Luc Beeson
Anna is a spy film with no thrills and a tiresome plot.
Watching Anna reminds you of another of Luc Beeson's movie Lucy (2014), the only sad thing here is that, Lucy was fun. In Lucy the action was fast flowing, strong and very engaging. The plot was not complex, but simple with well-choreographed fight scenes.
What's there to like about Anna?
Is it the very boring and bland plot, or the action scenes that were missing the main ingredient of every action scene engaging and heart racing? If you have seen the trailer and expect something cool like me, get ready to be disappointed
Here is a movie about a KGB agent trying to get out and instead of us getting a Hanna (2011) focused kind of lady when it comes to getting what she wants, we get Anna. Anna is our female badass whose time in this movie has been more devoted in choreographing unneeded sex scenes, than putting together a good plot.
Another annoying thing about this movie is that it is too long a drag.
The movie plot is about Anna's life, which is a conspiracy waiting to happen, a feel you get when things start to develop. Although when the conspiracy does happen you are left wondering, why you invested this much time to see this happen anyway?
Anna has had a dark past, which led her to be recruited into the KGB. There she is assigned to work as a model and carryout many high-profile killings, using her pretty face.
Her handler Alex has a desire to head the KGB, a dark desire we do not know about until Anna got herself into trouble with the CIA and was given the task to kill the KGB head. Alex finds this out and believes this will open doors for him to get to where he desires. The undertone in this movie is Anna herself wants out of the KGB, she wants to get the various tasks done and be free, a promise the head of the KGB has promised and also the CIA who wants her help.
I have seen better spy films and I wish to forget that I saw this one. The movie is not doing well in the box office and after the time I have spent seeing it I can understand why. I expected better from Luc Beeson, but every good movie maker, gets their bad days. Anna is Beeson's and I hope the next movies from him live up to the height he has set for himself as a movie maker.
Brad Dourif as voice of Chucky
Alex Vincent
Directed by John Lafia
Here is my problem with Child's Play 2 – Chucky's ability to over power people.
He is not sneaking up on them to slice them up, nope he just has this ability to over power them. If you can recall, Chucky is a doll and a doll with such ability is so unreal and just made everyone in the movie look stupid and dumb.
How was he able to tie Andy to the bed? He tied the boy's both legs and hands and gagged him too. Then he was able to tie another man, in his car both hands. He seems not just to have extra ordinary strength, but could have also extra hands.
Then comes continuity, if you have seen the rest of the Child's Play movies you will notices that everything that this movie is about, is absolute nonsense. The whole time is running out for him to do the transfer to another body, didn't apply in all the movies the followed. It was not even mentioned.
This second movie in the franchise may not have been the worst, but it was just plain dumb. Yeah, it didn't have the dark humor all plastered over the screen like the others, or it did and I substituted it for stupidity. Also, it didn't bother to make any sense of the things happening on screen either.
The plot follows the events of the first film. The company that made the Good Guy doll took the doll Chucky possessed and brought brought it back to their factory. Chucky was badly burnt by Andy in the first film. They were trying to find out what went wrong with that doll so as to wrap up an ongoing investigation.
When the doll was being repaired, some electrical energy from the voodoo I guess, fried the men working on the doll.
The now repaired doll, begins a what looked like an impossible task. Finding Andy in the now child services system. Andy's mother was just mentioned briefly as being institutionalized which is just sad and very annoying.
Andy is in the system, Chucky called and asked for his whereabouts, and he was given. I do not live in America, but if it is just that easy to find someone then that system is broken. He locates him and in the house Andy was being fostered was already a Good Guy doll, so he destroyed that doll and buried it, so as to take its place.
Now Chucky is in the house with Andy and immediately things started to go from weird to tragic really fast.
After completing my run of all the movies, only the first film is worth the whole aggravation, the rest are just plain dull.
Directed by Emile Ardolino
After the success of the first film, you cannot expect the movie studio not to try and make a second part and cash in on the money that movie goers will part with to see the trio and Mary again. The sad thing is, this movie was not anywhere close to the first movie and lacked the needed push to make this film enjoyable.
The movie plot failed it again in this second part, with making Mary's mum (Sylvia) husband to be the villain, was just cheesy.
Everything went down from then on, it was like you are watching three movies. The first half of the movie is Three Men and a Baby with Sylvia. Mary now grown and all fun to see how children adapt to life in this weird living conditions. She is living with three men and her mother.
Then the movie drops all the fun for the second part, trying to get Sylvia to get a life, her own man and home since the man she fancied (not Jack) Peter, was being elusive.
The last part of the movie, was all about Peter and his intent to get Sylvia.
So something like two thirds of the movie, had little to do with the remaining two leads from the first film Guttenberg and Danson. That means the magical chemistry between these three was gone. It was that Chemistry that made the first film good, now all we are left with is a romantic comedy, with a bad plot.
As already shared above, the three men and Sylvia were now living together with Mary. A very weird arrangement indeed.
Mary was getting all the love and support she needed so things were fine. Until Sylvia wanted more for herself and Mary. She decided to marry a man who although wealthy and seemed stable, everyone knew was bad for her long term happiness.
So now that she is in this relationship, it seems there is nothing the guys could do. Things got worse when they found out that the man lived in England and wanted Sylvia and Mary to come live there with him and his family.
Now the gang decided to do all they can to mar the marriage plans and see if they can bring together the two people they believe were meant for each other. Which strangely you will expect in this sort of situation to be Jack and Sylvia, but it is Peter and Sylvia.
The movie was a mistake from my view.
Disney is planning a remake for their new streaming channel Disney+. I hope it goes back to the root of what made the first film a memorable one.
Directed by Leonard Nimoy
They do not come any lighter and sweeter than Three Men and a Baby. Here is a cast of three men who get a surprise when two of them work up and found a baby on the floor in front of their door belonging to the third, who was away acting in a movie.
The movie is a diamond, it has a comedy thrill because of the three leads. It is the thrill you do not get regularly and it did not play that magic you see on T.V. when people who are not caught out to be parents, magically figure it out and become great at it.
These guys at the beginning could not get things right and even though they did figure it out in the end on how to manage things, it still made their lives a living hell as we see them struggle to balance things.
Let me continue the plot from where I stopped above. The three men in question are Peter (Tom Selleck), Michael (Steve Guttenberg) and Jack (Ten Danson). Jack was the one who went away on an acting gig. Peter and Michael were the ones who found the baby in front of their apartment door where the three lived together.
Apparently, the child belonged to a lady which Jack had worked with before. She thought she could care for the child on her own, but the pressure of motherhood made her abandon her baby on the father's door step with a note of her name (Mary) and the father.
The men immediately took responsibility of the child, but could not reach Jack because he was in another country.
Jack had told the other two to expect a package that will be sent for him and they are to leave the package anywhere until someone comes for it.
Unknown to Jack (who was receiving this package for a friend) the package content had something the police were looking for and had traced it to their apartment when it was delivered.
The two think the baby is the package, and could not wait to get rid of her as she was a pain and disrupted their lives. How things turned on their heads, is what this movie is all about.
The movie is based on the 1985 French film Trois hommes et un couffin (Three Men and a Cradle). I have not seen that one so it will be hard to say which was better. The only down side to this movie is the script. It seemed to dangle weird circumstances for the movie to play out, and it was only the comedy and strength of the actors that made this movie what it was.
There is a chemistry between everyone in the movie, from the villains to Jack's mum and even the nice old lady living next door. As long as the actor had more than one scene in the movie they made the best of it to make each moment memorable and themselves just exquisite to behold.
Nice movie, which then had a sequel Three Men and a Little Lady (1990) which was not up to the level of this one here.
Brad Dourif (voice)
Justin Whalin
Directed by Jack Bender
What ever reason it was for them to make this movie, the end result was just dreadful. Child's Play 3 is more like Chucky goes to army camp. The movie is so much of a drag, playing the general stereotype of what T.V. tells us army schools are like. The whole CGI was a step up to the previous film, but other than that the movie was a step down.
Everything about this movie screams stop watching. The characters were not engaging enough and there was a forced love interest on a much older Andy. This for me is the worst movie in the franchise, and it was not worth the minutes spent seeing what it has to offer.
Written again by Don Mancini, following the events of what happened to Chucky at the end of the second movie. This is the third installment in the Child's Play franchise with Andy now sixteen and enrolled in army school.
Andy's life was not alright after the incident, we see his struggle to get back to normal life, which is what landed him in army school.
The company that made the Good Guys doll has also had a rough eight years. The bad publicity brought about by Chucky's murders caused the company to close shop, for a while.
Now that Chucky was stopped, they decided to relaunch the Good Guy doll line again. The company restores the old factory (where Chucky's dismembered body still remains). It so happens that when they packed up the old dolls to be melted and remodeled into new ones, Chucky's body was one of them.
Chucky's blood was added into a mix and the doll made from that mix, had his soul in it.
The new Good Guy doll (first from the line) was given to the company's CEO, the doll contained Chucky and he kills the CEO. Then uses the man's computer to locate Andy.
Now that he knows where Andy was, Chucky decided to mail himself as a package to Andy. A young boy named Tyler instead of just dropping it off opened the package. Chucky decided that Tyler would be the best candidate for him to transfer his soul.
Then Andy gets wind of his presence and now both are after one another. Chucky trying to get Tyler for himself to move his soul into his body and Andy trying to stop him.
There are better things in life to do than to sit down and watch this film again, if you cannot remember the things that happened, thank your stars.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Building the Ohio Innovation Economy: Summary of a Symposium (2013)
Chapter: Panel IX: Early-Stage Finance and Entrepreneurship in Ohio
« Previous: Panel VIII: Growing the Ohio Flexible Electronics Industry
Suggested Citation:"Panel IX: Early-Stage Finance and Entrepreneurship in Ohio." National Research Council. 2013. Building the Ohio Innovation Economy: Summary of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13538.
Panel IX
Early-Stage Finance and Entrepreneurship in Ohio
Lisa Delp
Ohio Department of Development
Ms. Delp said that she and her fellow panelists anticipated "the most valuable session of the day" in addressing the essential process of early funding. She began by saying that she manages the entrepreneurial assistance, capital access, and incubation program of the Ohio Department of Development (ODOD). "The collaborative nature of the organizations here is frankly phenomenal. We encourage that at ODOD, certainly with the Entrepreneurial Signature Program (ESP). In fact, in some parts of the state, we held what we referred to as 'shotgun weddings' to make sure everyone played nicely together." That, she added, was not necessary in northeast Ohio, where partnerships have already formed.
MAKING OHIO A PLACE TO 'LAUNCH, BUILD, AND GROW YOUR BUSINESS'
The broader goal of the Third Frontier program, which falls under the ODOD, is to build the innovation ecosystem in Ohio, including early-stage activities and early-stage funding. The Entrepreneurial Signature Programs in northeast Ohio are represented primarily by Jumpstart. The ESP programs are designed to help entrepreneurs by offering support packaging them for later stage investment activities, and help preparing them to be growth-oriented organizations that bring high value, high quality jobs, and remain focused in their communities. This all helps to keep jobs in the state and helps build supply chains—a "continual, aggressive, concentrated effort to make Ohio a good place to launch, build, and grow your business," Ms. Delp said.
The other programs she manages are the Edison Incubators, which include the University of Toledo, the Youngstown Business Incubator, GLIDE at the Lorain County Community College, and other organizations in and around the state. She also manages Ohio Third Frontier supported angel capital funds, her first role when she came to the state about three years ago. "We try to
provide incentives for our angels to make investments in Ohio companies. We want to make sure that all of our money stays in Ohio, so we've provided grant funding to the angel capital organizations. These organizations professionally manage funds to help the angels by providing money that matches their own investments. So, in a sense, our angels are playing with 50-cent dollars when they make their investments. And about 50 percent of the angel funds in the state have received capital from the Ohio Third Frontier."
The Innovation Fund at Lorain County Community College is a good example of that, Ms. Delp said. The fund started in the ESP program and then moved on to start its own fund, receiving grant money from the state. Ohio also provides a 25 percent investment tax credit from the Ohio Technology Investment Tax Credit program when angels invest farther down the road. The tax credit carries forward for 15 years, and does not have to be used against a specific investment, so if the investors have a good exit at a later date, they can use their credit to offset the profits from other investments. This further reduces the risks and barriers for those early-stage angel investors.
STIMULATING ENTREPRENEURSHIP:
THE LORAIN COUNTY MODEL
Roy Church
Lorain County Community College
Dr. Church said that one reason for Lorain County Community College's deep involvement in economic development was that "Lorain County for the last 30 years has had the highest percentage of its work force directly involved in manufacturing of any county in northern Ohio." In 1980, 43 percent of the work force was in manufacturing, but today that figure has shrunk to about 14 percent. "Our county has epitomized the transformation that has taken place from traditional assembly line manufacturing to whatever is evolving in the knowledge economy of the 21st century. As a community college, we have to be responsive to the needs of the local community, and that means rejuvenating the entrepreneurial spirit of the manufacturing economy."
The effort began, he said, with a focus on work force development, but it quickly became apparent that this effort was directly connected to the larger economic development milieu. "We knew that if people were going to be able to live in our county and enjoy the quality of life, they had to have jobs." The county has always had limited resources, he said, "So we knew we'd have to learn how to partner with others and create synergies." The college started by forming the Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise, GLIDE, as a business incubator, in partnership with the Lorain County commissioners and chamber of commerce. "The goal was to try to wrap good business processes around entrepreneurs who had good product or business ideas." The project began in 2001, at the beginning of the recession. The first step was to go to the Third Frontier program at the Ohio Department of Development and ask for
support as an Edison technology incubator. The director of development, Bruce Johnson, said he was then cutting funds to technology incubators, and to come back again "when you've got a track record."
Learning How to 'Wrap a Good Business Around Their Idea'
In 2006 Dr. Church and his partners returned to share their early success. By then the GLIDE business incubator had placed third out of twelve then existing in the state, and Third Frontier agreed to take them on. "It really was a teaching and learning process consistent with the role of higher education," he said. "We discovered that most of the entrepreneurs had great business ideas, technology ideas, and passion for what they were doing, but they were not trained in business. They didn't know how to wrap a good business around their idea and breathe life into it."
Since 2001, GLIDE has worked with more than 1,900 entrepreneurs and incubated 65 companies, about 45 of them on the Lorain campus and the others "virtually" in the community. "The exciting news is that 62 or those 65 are still in business."
However, Dr. Church found that most of the young companies ran into the Valley of Death as soon as they had exhausted friends and family, second mortgages, and credit cards. "We knew we had to figure out a way to bring in some pre-seed capital that would enable them to move their ideas to market." The team assembled by GLIDE came up with the notion of using the foundation to raise some funds philanthropically that could then be invested at that earliest stage.
Using Philanthropy to Support Business
Here they encountered a legal roadblock. "We knew that if we were going to use philanthropic dollars, the IRS would have to agree that the donation was tax deductible—even though invested in a private business. It took us three and a half years and five IRS reviewers, but we won. We have the only private letter ruling in the country allowing those contributions to be tax deductible, and for us to invest them in private enterprise." The IRS ruled in 2006 that a "public good" was served if the entrepreneur receiving the award provided one or more students with a work-based learning experience. This brought a "triple win"—for the college in gaining educational value, for the community in building a business, and for the entrepreneur in reducing financial risk.
Dr. Church realized, however, that if the fund were going to be successful, it would need to draw great ideas from across northeast Ohio. Rather than restricting it to Lorain County, it now serves 21 counties. A first natural step was for form alliances with other educational partners. The first was the University of Akron. The two institutions began to raise funds together to provide matching dollars and bring eligibility for the Ohio Third Frontier preseed funds. They added Youngstown State University, and have now added
Cleveland State University, NEOUCOM,18 and Stark State College as partners. "So this is in fact a partnership of the state, higher education, and business, utilizing philanthropic dollars to drive that earliest pre-seed investment."
He said that GLIDE makes investments at two levels: $25,000 for the "imagining stage," to help finish the research, build a prototype, or prove a concept, and $100,000 to mature the business, which must be matched 1:1 by the entrepreneur. And the entrepreneur must agree to replenish the fund after five years. "Our notion was to create something that is sustainable," he said, "certainly for a decade or more."
Success of the Innovation Fund
With state funding and favorable tax status now secured, the Innovation Fund was rechristened the Ohio Innovation Fund and officially launched in July 2007. Since then, the Innovation Fund has received almost 4,000 on-line inquiries, and 424 completed applications—including a business plan, financial figures, and a rigorous due diligence process staffed by volunteer entrepreneurs. It has made 71 awards to 60 companies, each of $300,000 or more, totaling $4.3 million. Applications have come from 17 of the 21 counties, "so it truly is a regional fund." These come from professors, students, and citizens from the community. "We provide the support and just a little funding to get them started."
Dr. Church added that "the most exciting aspect part to me is the return on investment. If you look at the performance metrics required by Third Frontier, and add follow-on investments, earnings, other kinds of investments, we've experienced an 11 times return on investment." The $3.8 million invested by the end of September 2010, he said, drew $42 million in follow-on investments. "So this is a good indication that these companies are going to be successful, launch, and move forward. The whole notion behind the Innovation Fund was to help reinvent and rejuvenate the entrepreneurial spirit of northeast Ohio."
ANGEL INVESTING: THE ARCHANGEL EXPERIENCE
Barry Rosenbaum
The University of Akron Research Foundation
Dr. Rosenbaum said he had come to Akron in 1990 as vice-president for technology of a joint venture between Exxon and Monsanto, and finally he had the opportunity to "learn to be an entrepreneur." For the last five years he had worked with the University of Akron Research Foundation, helping small businesses. "My passion in life," he said, "is to engage higher education in the
18Northeast Ohio Universities and Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy.
THEB19 ecosystem, and to take the Akron model and spread it not only in northeast Ohio, but across the U.S., and even in a venture we're developing with the University of Le Mans in France."
The priorities of the University of Akron strategy, he said, are not only excellent student education and world class research, but also societal impact—a concept accentuated by Dr. Proenza. This concept includes fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, engaging in regional economic development, and providing leadership and assistance in technology commercialization.
Dr. Rosenbaum said that his office is dedicated to excellence in technology transfer and commercialization of research; outperforming national benchmarks for the number of startup companies; partnering with industry to create jobs and increase business profitability; and strategic partnerships with industry, government, other educational institutions, and the VC community. "My point is," he said, "that the ARCHAngel experience is a natural part of the strategy of the University of Akron and its Akron model."
He noted that Dr. Proenza highlighted the University of Akron Research Foundation, which has the responsibility of managing the intellectual property of the University of Akron. "But it's not about the University of Akron," he said, "it's about the community, about northeast Ohio, about the state of Ohio. So we get involved in translating intellectual property into real products across the community."
Creating Networks to Leverage Market-ready Technology
The ARCHAngel network was formed in 2005 as an angel network. "To get it started," Dr. Rosenbaum said, "we gathered the Rolodexes of some of the people in this room and brought together about 30 accredited investors from the greater Akron community." The network was sponsored by the University of Akron Research Foundation, and the initial leaders were Baiju Shah of BioEnterprise and Ray Leach from Jumpstart. "The vision that we had was to create wealth in the northeast Ohio community. The strategy was to create intimate networks and partnerships among universities, industry, the business leadership and regional government, and to leverage leading-edge market-ready technologies. We wanted the ARCHAngel experience to be primarily market-driven."
At the outset there were 30 investors, and the initial vision was "rather conventional." After conversations with Dr. George Newkome of the University of Akron, its role has expanded and changed. The membership has grown to about 550 people who are primarily business leaders and service providers from all sectors of the community. About 20 percent are accredited investors, "but money is not the goal of what is required to create that ecosystem for entrepreneurs to be successful," he said. "We ask three or four companies to present at our quarterly network meetings, along with a keynote speaker. We
19Technology-based economic development.
invite active core of mentors and service providers to startup companies. Many members are people in the community who want to give back, to help the entrepreneurs, who want to provide the services and support. So the network substitutes invaluable service, mentorship, and support for just financial aid." The network is also strongly allied with the Lorain County Innovation Program. Most of the companies presented at the regular meetings are technology-based companies in the area which are supported by the Ohio Third Frontier; those companies, in turn, tend to advance to the Lorain County Innovation Fund and often to "pre-Jumpstart."
A Strong Interest From Students
An interesting development of ARCHAngel is the strong interest it has drawn from students. About 125 people attend the quarterly meetings, and of those typically about 50 are students from across northeast Ohio. "The educational experience these students get is quite important," Dr. Rosenbaum said. "We've even spun off a student venture fund which is now expanding beyond the University of Akron into northeast Ohio."
ARCHAngel is strongly allied with the Austen Bioinnovation Institute, the Akron Global Business Accelerator, and GLIDE in Lorain County. ARCHAngels has become syndicated with all the angel groups in Ohio "because we want to strengthen the role of universities as participants in the ecosystem. That includes supporting early-stage companies. We've become an advocate for university engagement in SBIR and STTR programs, trying to get universities more involved with SBIR companies. We also work with the educational foundation of the Angel Capital Association to develop tools for improving education across the boundary between angel investors and tech transfer offices."
Leaders Who Give Back
Most of those who have worked for the ARCHAngels, he noted, have done so pro bono. Many of them are community leaders who want to give back to future entrepreneurs and innovators. The network has engaged about 65 companies in its five years of existence, and generated an estimated $80 million in follow-on funding. "This is not surprising," he said, "because a lot of those companies moving through the ecosystem are supported by Jumpstart in the region and by the Third Frontier in the state."
Dr. Rosenbaum offered several conclusions from his experience to date. "The most important," he said, "is that research universities can be strategically vital to regional economic development. Some do this better than others, and we are fortunate to have some of the best. Also, the culture of the community is critical. We work hard at improving the economic development culture in Akron. Third, the creation, attraction, and retention of entrepreneurial talent are vital. And finally, early-stage funding will always be precious, but it's
not the only thing that drives entrepreneurship. The other is successful community engagement in the economic development ecosystem."
INNOVATION CAPITAL AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN OHIO
Ray Leach
Mr. Leach began by saying that JumpStart, which was founded by NorTech and Case Western Reserve, was "an incredibly robust and exciting story that had help to achieve a revolution over the last decade." The three themes of JumpStart, he said, were Leadership, Activities, and Outcomes.
"When I came back to northeast Ohio in 2003," he said, "a key reason was the leadership. In philanthropy, the private sector, higher education—everyone was organized and had the same sense that economic development was an urgent need." And the Third Frontier was beginning to focus on not just providing resources for services, but also resources for capital, assisting pre-seed and seed stage companies that typically would not be able to raise private sector capital for another six to 24 months. So I had the good fortune of great timing."
The Commitment and Talent of the Intermediaries
In 2002, Mr. Leach said, a total of five pre-seed stage investments were made. "There wasn't much going on; the region was like scorched earth." Then collaborators across the state demonstrated to Ohio voters the commitment and talent of the intermediaries, NGOs, institutions, private sector, and philanthropic community, and they approved a $500M expansion of the Ohio Third Frontier program in 2005. "Groups had the ability to act on common interests," he said, "even though they did not necessarily know how they were going to execute. But now we've done it, we had a vision, we executed against that vision and then we generated not just a lot of activities—that's easy—but a huge amount of outcomes."
Among the activities, he said, was an overall framework to which the state in 2007 committed $87 million to accelerate the entrepreneurial ecosystems in all six regions of the state. Each region identified a single leading nonprofit entity—sometimes a university, sometimes an NGO—to coordinate entrepreneurial development activities. That original grant, which had to be matched by non-state funding sources and competitively scored and awarded, propelled each region to a great start and showed that these organizations were there not just strengthen themselves but had the mission, ability and competence to help build out the broader innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem—this was especially in the case of northeast Ohio.
Sharing Knowledge with Others
Since that set of grants in 2007, the innovation ecosystem had raised another $50-60 million across the six regions, again through a competitive process, that have promoted expansion of the ecosystem and helped to identify additional market gaps and opportunities. Starting in 2004, JumpStart focused exclusively on its own outcomes, but over the last three years it has spent more effort and resources trying to help other organizations or funds by providing due diligence, marketing and other back-office services at no cost. It has also become more engaged with higher education institutions at the programmatic level, and with a new set of incubation activities in the nonprofit and private sectors. This kind of evolution has occurred across the state, so the level of collaboration is high. "We meet regularly," Mr. Leach said. "We're excited about the new administration's interest in what we are doing, and in leveraging tools in more significant ways."
As part of this "experiment," he said, resources from the state can be used flexibly to "meet the regions where they are" and enable them to design and develop their own strategies. For example, the program has been able to take the best regional companies to Silicon Valley and other centers of capital to encourage investors there to invest in the best of the Ohio private sector.
Feeding the Pipeline to the Private Sector
In terms of outcomes, Mr. Leach said, 2010 data from northeast Ohio show that in greater Cleveland, an all-time high number of companies, 79, have received investments totaling 234 million from angel and private-sector investors and/or members of the northeast Ohio Entrepreneurial Signature Program. Of those 79, 68 percent received capital and services from one of the four funds in the ESP: Glengarry Ventures, North Coast Angel Fund, the Ohio Innovation Fund, and JumpStart's Evergreen Fund. "We anticipate, for pre-seed and seed stage, that this percentage will exceed 85 percent starting next year. So what we're doing by investing in these companies that are not ready for prime time is feeding the pipeline to the private sector."
Of the 79 companies in northeast Ohio, he said, 57 percent were in health care, 32 percent in IT, and 10 percent in clean tech, energy, or advanced materials. There is also a robust pipeline in instruments, controls, and electronics and in chemistry in the pre-seed and seed stages. In 2010, 42 of the 79 investors were located outside Ohio. "We have an opportunity to do an even better job of attracting capital from outside Ohio."
Looking forward, Mr. Leach saw challenges in finding enough equity for the financing pipeline. He said that Michael Camp of Ohio State estimated that between now and 2018 there will be at least $500 million in seed investment opportunities available across the state, with some 800 companies needing seed capital. In 2010, $22 million were invested in the seed category. The universities
are generating more commercialized technology, and industry is continuing to do so, "so we have a huge amount of capital to raise, a challenge."
Overall, he said, Dr. Camp has estimated a total need for $1.6 billion in growth-stage capital in the state to fund about 200 companies. In the aggregate, all these needs total some $3.5 billion, principally in private sector capital. "I am on the board of the National Venture Capital Association," he concluded, "and one reason my work there is a priority is that we have to do a much better job connecting to large amounts of risk capital, which is likely to be even more highly concentrated on the coasts over the next 10 years."
A questioner closed the discussion on capital needs by urging a more ambitious target of $5 billion and greater participation of Ohio pension funds. He said that this amount would constitute only 5 percent of the holdings of those funds, and would constitute an appropriate and patriotic use of Ohio resources. "It's not too much to ask that we invest in ourselves," he said, "because if we don't do that, certainly no one else is going to do it."
Bringing the symposium to a close, Dr. Wessner once again thanked Dr. Mary Good for her leadership of the National Academies study of State and Regional Innovation Policies, thanked the sponsors for their support, and thanked the participants and audience for what he deemed a very informative and successful meeting.
Next: III: APPENDIXES »
Building the Ohio Innovation Economy: Summary of a Symposium Get This Book
Since 1991, the National Research Council, under the auspices of the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy, has undertaken a program of activities to improve policymakers' understandings of the interconnections of science, technology, and economic policy and their importance for the American economy and its international competitive position. The Board's activities have corresponded with increased policy recognition of the importance of knowledge and technology to economic growth.
One important element of STEP's analysis concerns the growth and impact of foreign technology programs. U.S. competitors have launched substantial programs to support new technologies, small firm development, and consortia among large and small firms to strengthen national and regional positions in strategic sectors. Some governments overseas have chosen to provide public support to innovation to overcome the market imperfections apparent in their national innovation systems. They believe that the rising costs and risks associated with new potentially high-payoff technologies, and the growing global dispersal of technical expertise, underscore the need for national R&D programs to support new and existing high-technology firms within their borders.
Similarly, many state and local governments and regional entities in the United States are undertaking a variety of initiatives to enhance local economic development and employment through investment programs designed to attract knowledge-based industries and grow innovation clusters. These state and regional programs and associated policy measures are of great interest for their potential contributions to growth and U.S. competitiveness and for the "best practice" lessons that they offer for other state and regional programs. STEP's project on State and Regional Innovation Initiatives is intended to generate a better understanding of the challenges associated with the transition of research into products, the practices associated with successful state and regional programs, and their interaction with federal programs and private initiatives. The study seeks to achieve this goal through a series of complementary assessments of state, regional, and federal initiatives; analyses of specific industries and technologies from the perspective of crafting supportive public policy at all three levels; and outreach to multiple stakeholders. Building the Ohio Innovation Economy: Summary of a Symposium explains the of the study, which is to improve the operation of state and regional programs and, collectively, enhance their impact.
Front Matter i–xvi
I: OVERVIEW 1–2
Overview 3–22
II: PROCEEDINGS 23–24
DAY 1 Welcome and Introduction 25–26
Keynote Address 27–31
Panel I: The Ohio Innovation Economy in the Global Context 32–44
Panel II: Stimulating Manufacturing in Ohio 45–58
Panel III: Innovation Clusters and Economic Development 59–71
Keynote Address: Investing in Ohio 72–73
Panel IV: State and Regional Innovation Programs 74–83
Panel V: The New Energy Economy in Ohio 84–93
DAY 2: Welcome and Introduction 94–95
Panel VI: 21st Century Universities: Drivers of Regional Growth & Employment 96–106
Panel VII: Biomedical Growth Opportunities 107–116
Panel VIII: Growing the Ohio Flexible Electronics Industry 117–127
Panel IX: Early-Stage Finance and Entrepreneurship in Ohio 128–136
III: APPENDIXES 137–138
Appendix A: Agenda 139–143
Appendix B: Biographies of Speakers 144–173
Appendix C: Participants List 174–182
Appendix D: Bibliography 183–204


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No dearth of capital in SEA, valuations to be modest: Reapra's James Bitanga
By Tanu Pandey
Venture Capital firm and business builder Reapra Pte Ltd, an aggressive investor in Southeast Asia with 30 companies funded last year, is expanding into diverse sectors in the region while being bullish on digital media, education and real estate in the region, a top executive with the company said.
The Singapore based firm with an investment of about $100 million in 40 startups and 14 companies, recently made its fourth Malaysian investment in online florist BloomThis Flora Sdn Bhd. It had invested $600,000 in the company, in a bid to expand into diverse sectors in the country.
Its earlier investments in Malaysia were property portals Samurai Internet, PropertyPricetag.com. and beauty company Aspiria.
The company even has investments in hospitality players — those building hotels, hostel brands and others as well as education segment in other countries like Japan.
"We think there might be an opportunity to bring those products and opportunities into the Malaysian market. At the end of it, we should be able to introduce these companies to Southeast Asia," Reapra CLO James Bitanga told DEALSTREETASIA in a recent interaction.
Founded by Shuhei Morofuji, a prominent investor in over 10 startup companies, Reapra invests through its two funds Coent and Reapra Ventures.
The firm does believe that there is no dearth of capital in the regional market with Venture Capital funds, some traditional funds, private money and larger Private Equity funds, all trying to enter the VC space.
"A mix of those means there is plenty of money to go around. I don't think there is dearth of money. I am quite bullish on the availability of funds," said Bitanga.
He, however added that valuations cannot be expected to be what it was about five years back in Silicon Valley. "You are going to see modest valuations of companies. I don't expect there to be a unicorn boom but that is not a bad thing. I think if there is a correction in any of the big companies that are making the news, that is probably because there is a global correction, non necessarily a regional one," he said on the direction company valuations could take this year.
With an investment ticket size of between $200,000 to $600,000, the firm is quite bullish on Indonesia which is a big market but at the same time difficult to crack. "It has a potential and it is the same with Philippines," he said adding that Thailand, Malaysia and of course Singapore are the countries that the firm is looking at.
On its website Reapra says that it establishes new businesses locally, with the intention to expand regionally, taking off throughout South East Asia and beyond. Rather than simply starting a business in an already established market, REAPRA intends to cultivate industry scale marketplaces. In order to create these new industries, we plan to start and manage numerous businesses ourselves, while simultaneously investing in brilliant entrepreneurs and innovative companies, the firm says.
Meanwhile, his advice to the startups in the region, is this: "Don't fall into the trap of making false generalizations about market fit and remember that Southeast Asia is only a region by name; it isn't a singular, homogeneous market."
He added that growth or success, whether actual or perceived, can be distracting and it takes a lot of discipline and humility to remain skeptical and continually question the assumptions of ones startup idea.
We're very focused on ASEAN, especially Indonesia: Hari Krishnan, Propertyguru
Malaysian florist BloomThis bags $600k seed funding from Reapra
Japan's Darma Tech Labs closes $17.5m fund backed by Kyoto Bank
BloomThis Reapra Pte Ltd
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Singapore Reporter/s
In Singapore, we are looking to double our reporting team by this year-end to comprehensively cover the fast-moving world of funded startups and VC, PE & M&A deals. We want reporters who can tell our readers what is really happening in these sectors and why it matters to markets, companies and consumers. The ability to write precisely and urgently is crucial for these roles. Ideal candidates must have to ability to work in a collaborative, dynamic, and fast-changing environment. We want our new hires to be digitally savvy and ready to experiment with new forms of storytelling. Most importantly, we are looking for hard-hitting reporters who work well in a team. Collaboration and collegiality are a must.
Following vacancies can be applied for (only in Singapore).
A reporter to track companies/startups that have raised private capital, and have the potential to become unicorns. SEA currently has over 40 companies with a valuation of over $100 million and under $1 billion.
A reporter who can get behind the scenes and reveal how funding rounds are put together, or why they've failed to materialise. She/he in this role will largely focus on long-format stories.
A journalist to track special situations funds, distressed debt and private credit (from the PE angle) across Asia.


Soul singer James Ingram has died of brain cancer.
Ingram, who was born in Akron, Ohio, was also a successful songwriter, credited with co-writing the worldwide hit "P.Y.T." for Michael Jackson and worked with many other artists as a singer and songwriter, including Ray Charles, Kenny Rogers, Natalie Cole and Nancy Wilson.
Actress, dancer and director Debbie Allen tweeted about Ingram's death this afternoon.
"I have lost my dearest friend and creative partner James Ingram to the Celestial Choir. He will always be cherished, loved and remembered for his genius, his love of family and his humanity. I am so blessed to have been so close. We will forever speak his name," she wrote.


The blog header picture is a detail of my favorite of portrait of Princess Elizabeth painted near the mid-point of the Tudor period. The photo was found at Luminarium and is copyrighted by the Royal Collection. As this blog is non-commercial I believe that "fair use" rules apply.
More about me and my wargaming life can be found at my main blog, In Red-coat Rags Attired.


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The UK Corporate Leaders Group (CLG UK) provides a strong voice to support UK leadership, nationally and internationally, for the transition to a climate neutral, nature positive and socially inclusive economy.
The CLG UK has frequently defined the UK's business response to climate change – one of the greatest challenges of our time. Since its founding in 2005 under the leadership of the former HRH The Prince of Wales, CLG UK has helped build consensus across the UK business community in support of climate action. It spoke first and loudest in support of the UK's Climate Change Act, and now sits at the heart of a growing community of progressive business voices in Europe and around the world.
CLG UK is convened by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership's world-leading expertise on sustainability and a team that has a deep understanding of the political landscape and how to shape it.
Our ongoing mission and role is to continue to offer leadership on the UK economy, by convening significant progressive business voices with credibility to show leadership and furnishing them with the intellectual insight and evidence to make the case for action to policy and business audiences.
CLG UK works collaboratively with other actors in the UK. It is well networked internationally, working closely with a broader European group of businesses in CLG Europe and with other business-focused organisations in the We Mean Business coalition, as well as business groups inspired by its work as far afield as Chile and Japan.
Achieving Zero
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You and I are in a fight, but are we fighting against an enemy that has already been defeated? Why are we allowing fear to keep us from living into the calling God has placed on our lives?
We avoid what we are afraid of because avoidance is comfortable. But only in the short term. The problem is the longer we avoid something the harder it is to overcome.
What is it in your life that you are afraid of? Is it hindering you from loving your neighbor and living a life that is Christ centered?
"Fear not" is a common phrase in the Bible. Why? Because the battle has already been won. Yes, there are fears to overcome. Yes, there will be difficulties in this life. But the truth is that you and I know how the story ends, and God is victorious.
While we each struggle with personal fears around health, relationships, and earthly comforts, a common fear is the fear of being found out. This fear can keep us from putting ourselves out there. Whether it is online, at work, or at church we project an image of how we want the world to view us.
The reality is there is a gap between what we want to be and who we really are. Again, the battle has already been fought and God is victorious.
God has declared us righteous before we ever are.
We do not have to get everything right before we come to God. Even after we are welcomed into God's family we will continue to get things wrong, but masks are not necessary. God knows each of us fully and welcomes us in just as we are.
Our sin was conquered on the cross. There is no need to fear because God does not disappoint.
You have been given the opportunity to defeat fear. The choice is yours. Will you live as a victim or pursue victory? There is victory to be had. The spirit of God is greater than the enemy outside of you. He has already proven that through Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. So why fear?


Pacific Hoists, leaders in lifting solutions, has entered a new era where innovative new technology and new product releases will be the main focus.
centering on a redesigned Pacific Hoists logo.
This logo now features fresh colors and an upwards open arrow which is firstly a reference to the lifting solutions Pacific Hoists offer and secondly translates the company's way of thinking – outside the square and open to changes.
Another change and step into the new direction was announced more recently when the new Pacific Hoists website went live.
Besides a fresh new look, the site contains up-to-date product, industry and company information.
The easy navigation and live search facilities direct visitors through the website without wasting a single click.
Industry Solutions which provides industry-related information including case studies, applications and extensive safety documentation.
Our Products pages – updated with new images, features, specifications and dimensions tables. A selection of products feature in 360° rotation images, which ensures that the product can be viewed from every angle. The Support section offers the option to download all product information sheets, case studies and other related documentation.
Live Chat – visitors can now receive immediate answers to their questions. With a simple click on the Start Chat button on the top left hand side of each page, a request is sent to the Customer Support team who will respond within minutes to all enquiries received.
"The refreshed Pacific Hoists corporate identity was the beginning of a new direction and the launch of our new website was the second step, with many more to follow, says Pacific Hoists CEO Richard Crake.
The next step for Pacific Hoists is coming soon with the launch of Product Smart Codes, which will enable the user to quickly access product information and manuals through their smart phones where they can save it for future reference.


This dish is my combination of Middle Eastern tabbouleh and Greek salad. It's got more bulgur than a traditional tabbouleh, but keeps the same bold use of parsley and mint. Cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, and feta cheese come from the Greek side of the table. Together, the flavors and textures make a great light lunch dish. Campari tomatoes are small hothouse-grown tomatoes. They have an intense tomato flavor year-round and the small size makes them ideal when you're cooking for two.
Pour the bulgur into the inner pot. Add the water and kosher salt. Lock the lid into place. Select Pressure Cook or Manual, and adjust the pressure to High and the time to 0 minutes. After cooking, let the pressure release naturally for 2 minutes, then quick release any remaining pressure.
Unlock the lid. Remove the pot from the base. Fluff the bulgur with a fork and let it cool for a few minutes. Transfer it to a medium bowl.
Add the cucumber, tomatoes, scallion, and olives, and toss to combine. Drizzle with the olive oil and lemon juice. Add the feta cheese, mint, and parsley, and toss gently. Adjust the seasoning, adding salt or pepper as needed.
Gluten-Free: Substitute cooked quinoa for the bulgur.
Use It Up: Extra feta can go in the Lentils with Red Peppers and Feta .
Would love to try this but how can you pressure cook the wheat at 0 minutes??
0 minutes for the pressure cook time?!
As the pressure cooker is coming up to pressure the heated can cook some food items. That is why wheat can be cooked in the time it takes to pressurize and that is why the pressure cooking time is zero.
Yes. We have many recipes that call for 0 minute cooking time.


"Color rendering: Effect of an illuminant on the color appearance of objects by conscious or subconscious comparison with their color appearance under a reference illuminant"
The CRI of a light source does not indicate the apparent color of the light source; that information is under the rubric of the correlated color temperature (CCT). The value often quoted as 'CRI' on commercially available lighting products is properly called the CIE Ra value, 'CRI' being a general term and CIE Ra being the international standard colour rendering index.
CIE Ra's ability to predict color appearance has been criticized in favor of measures based on color appearance models, such as CIECAM02 and, for daylight simulators, the CIE Metamerism Index. CRI is not a good indicator for use in visual assessment, especially for sources below 5000 kelvin (K). A newer version of the CRI, R96a, has been developed, but it has not replaced the better-known Ra general color rendering index.
As specified in CIE (1995), the original test color samples (TCS) are taken from an early edition of the Munsell Atlas. The first eight samples, a subset of the eighteen proposed in Nickerson (1960), are relatively low saturated colors and are evenly distributed over the complete range of hues. These eight samples are employed to calculate the general color rendering index R_a. The last six samples provide supplementary information about the color rendering properties of the light source; the first four for high saturation, and the last two as representatives of well-known objects. The reflectance spectra of these samples may be found in CIE (2004), and their approximate Munsell notations are listed aside.
I will not go further into pure technical details about different methods to measure the CRI or alternatives proposed to initial CIE 1995 method, but rather I would return to our tanks.
Is CRI an important parameter for corals or plants?
According to definitions and theories above the answer is NO. Indeed, corals and plants don't care at all about CRI but we, as hobbyists have to care about.
A high CRI level will bring natural and vivid colors into corals, plants, fishes and any other living organism or object under such lights. Many aquarium LED fixtures on market uses low CRI white LEDs in combination with different narrow bandwidth LEDs (red, orange, green, etc) as an attempt to improve the color rendering, but results are often unnatural colors, "disco effects", etc. Any of those "enhancing" LEDs have a very small influence on photosynthesis of any organism.
This is the reason I strongly recommend the high CRI white LEDs for beautiful, vivid and natural colors even if a bit more expensive than lower CRI leds.
On the other hand, studio lights, commercial lights and any domestic use lights should have highest CRI values.


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If Philly caves on 'sanctuary city' status, the extortionists win
By Brian Hickey
Opinion Sanctuary Cities
Thom Carroll/PhillyVoice
Jim Kenney advocates for "sanctuary city" policies during a rally at LOVE Park in July 2015.
Within hours of being sworn in as mayor, Jim Kenney signed a handful of executive orders. (Hey, that sounds familiar!)
The one that got the most attention – and continues to be a hot-button issue more than a year later – involved Philadelphia's "sanctuary city" status.
Specifically, Kenney made good on a promise to reinstate full sanctuary status by refusing to automatically detain undocumented immigrants facing nonviolent crimes – aka "ICE holds" – like federal authorities would prefer. Kenney's predecessor, Michael Nutter, had rolled back the city's stance on sanctuary on his way out of office.
Trump to sign executive order stripping federal funding from Philly, other sanctuary cities
Mayors of 'sanctuary cities' say they'll fight Trump's plans
Reports: Kenney says Philadelphia will stay a sanctuary city, no matter Trump
Sure, the Nutter administration said the issue was more nuanced than that, that his rollback had nothing to do with ICE holds, only that information would be shared with authorities about whether someone they're seeking is in Philly.
That nuance disappeared as soon as Kenney signed that executive order, though, and the issue took on greater importance in the months since Donald Trump was elected president.
Trump's threats to cut funding to cities with sanctuary status took the form of – yep – an executive order signed with the first two weeks of his administration. That could be bolstered by the state senate which is considering its own bill to slash funding to sanctuary cities like Philadelphia.
Translation: Cash-starved Philly could lose even more cash if it doesn't back down.
Before we go any further, a quick primer:
"History has shown us that sacrificing one group does not ensure that the rest are spared. All it does is place them all in greater danger." – Lauren Hitt
Sanctuary-city defenders claim the policy helps police maintain decent working relationships in communities where undocumented people live – i.e. they'll come forward with information because they don't fear deportation. Its detractors argue that the status invites bad people to do bad things in American communities, and that no community should position itself above the law of the land.
With the sides having dug deeply in their respective trenches, compromise feels like a pipe dream.
Late last week, though, City Council President Darrell Clarke offered up a quote that I read as his assertion that addressing a potential loss of federal funding is more important than sticking to principle.
"While I believe in individuals' rights regardless of their citizenry, the simple reality is we cannot lose federal and state funding," he reportedly said after Thursday's City Council meeting, before whining about not being consulted on the policy.
Then, taking a page from Trump's blame-the-media playbook, he tweeted that people should "read past the misleading headlines" and linked to a 480-word Facebook post. (He or a staffer with access to his account actually Tweeted the link not one, not two, not three, but four times within 10 minutes, but who's counting?)
"I am not 'at odds' with Philadelphia's sanctuary city status but I also cannot ignore my fiduciary obligations to taxpayers," he (or a staffer) claimed in a word salad. "It would be the height of irresponsibility to not do everything we can as a city to protect taxpayers and all of our most vulnerable residents – not just certain groups – from his Administration."
You can read the whole post via this link.
Brian Hickey/PhillyVoice
City Council President Darrell Clarke.
If you're anything like me, you'll walk away thinking Clarke is "at odds" with Philadelphia's sanctuary city status, because Philadelphia's sanctuary city status is the reason that he's worried about losing state and federal funding.
Some may say that's all about semantics, that Clarke's A-OK with the policy itself, just not with the ramifications of that policy could soon become.
I'll respond that that's damage-control nonsense at a time when it's easy to cast the media as the villain. If not for that status, there would be no funding threat; ergo, Clarke is at odds with it in its entirety.
I don't like that my city could lose a bunch of cash because of a policy that a bully of a president doesn't like any more than Clarke does.
But I also don't like suckling a bully's teet to get a belly rub at the expense of some of my city's most vulnerable residents – whether they're here legally or not – as Clarke has.
To hear Kenney spokeswoman Lauren Hitt tell it, Clarke "has never once raised these issues with the Mayor."
If Clarke had done so face-to-face instead of mouth-to-microphone, "we would have discussed his concerns and offered information proving them invalid," Hitt said.
She went on to explain that the "reasonable compromise" Clarke broached was done away with by Trump.
And that Clarke's fellow city councilmembers have supported the policy to the point where she doesn't think the majority shares Clarke's views.
"Where we do agree is that we must do all we can to protect all Philadelphians. Over the past two weeks, we've seen federal actions that threaten the rights and well-being of one group after another, and we're fighting against those just as we will challenge those to come," she said. "History has shown us that sacrificing one group does not ensure that the rest are spared. All it does is place them all in greater danger."
I feel the same way, but let me explain why in blunter terms.
There is a reason why negotiating with terrorists or kidnappers is frowned upon. And that reason is once they get you to give one thing, they'll ask for more and more and more until you're a shell of what you once were.
When you cave in to that type of person, you cede all power. They will proceed to walk all over you at every turn because they don't – and, quite frankly, shouldn't – respect a pushover like you.
In this case, external forces saying they'll take money away from Philadelphia are no better than run-of-the-mill grifters blackmailing their target.
They don't like the policy, so they threaten to take away unrelated funds to force their victim into a corner from which they can't emerge.
When we have an elected official – in a powerful position, no less – publicly indicating that they'd be willing to bend, that puts the other side squarely on the path to victory. They'd be foolish not to keep pushing, having already successfully pulled off half of the divide-and-conquer strategy.
What Clarke (or whomever handles his online messaging) ought to do is fire off another social-media screed, and what it ought to say is this:
Philadelphia will not be bullied.
Philadelphia doesn't cave; it fights.
Philadelphia will continue to stand up for its vulnerable populations regardless of how misleading the presentation of what sanctuary cities actually are.
And, Philadelphia doesn't negotiate with terrorists or back down from challenges just because would-be extortionists seem to have the upper hand.
Sometimes, it's not easy to do the right thing. This is one of those times.
If Clarke keeps it up, he's placing all Philadelphia residents at greater danger of succumbing to the next whim of Trump of Republicans in Harrisburg.
Read more Opinion Sanctuary Cities Center City Jim Kenney Philadelphia ICE Holds Darrell Clarke Immigration Donald Trump