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[Article Heading]
Alumna Living Her Dream As Designer, Entrepreneur
published: 2018/08/24
contact: Nolan Searl and Rebecca Gratz - University Communications
email: nsearl@unomaha.edu
Hannah Nodskov (right) during a rack check in preparation to show in Omaha Fashion Week at the Omaha Design Center in Omaha, Nebraska.
Nodskov, founder and CEO of Hannah Caroline Couture, started the company when she was in her dorm at UNO.
Nodskov works in her home studio in Omaha, Nebraska.
Hannah Nodskov, a 2016 UNO alumna, will debut her new line this Friday at Omaha Fashion Week. Here she is at a photo shoot in preparation for the event.
Hannah (Olson) Nodskov hasn't slowed down much since graduating from the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) in 2016. And she wouldn't have it any other way.
Nodskov is the CEO and founder of Hannah Caroline Couture, which focuses on custom bridal and evening wear for women of every size with a special focus on plus size women. She's the winner of the 2014 Maverick Business Plan Competition, she's shown at Full-Figured Fashion Week in New York City, and she presented lines at fashion shows in Omaha, Kansas City, Portland, and Atlanta.
All this in addition to her role as marketing manager at Scorevision, an Omaha startup company.
Nodskov's success comes as no surprise to Dr. Dale Eesley in UNO's Center for Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Franchising. As an advisor to Nodskov during her time in the College of Business Administration, Dr. Eesley saw Nodskov create an award-winning fashion line with a focus on creating a valuable organization she can build on in the future. "At UNO students are able to explore what it is that interests them in a low-risk, low-cost setting," said Dr. Eesley.
"I definitely think that UNO was instrumental in me getting my career to where it is now," said Nodskov. "If I had gone to a fashion school in one of the glamorous cities like New York or L.A., I really don't think it would have given my business and my career what it needed."
Nodskov likes to say she has two of her dream jobs. "It's kind of a crazy balancing act, but it's a dream come true to work full time in a field that I love while also being able to work on building my company," she said. "They both complement each other. Everything I do at work translates to what I do at home."
Working at Scorevision helped Nodskov think about her brand as a whole, which led her to create an official brand guide, color palette, and logos.
Between both jobs, Nodskov averages 60 hours of work per week. It isn't easy. It is stressful at times, but worth it, she said.
She handles the marketing for a growing start up by day, and by night Nodskov conducts fittings and fills orders for customers around the country.
Over time, Nodskov has found balance between two jobs and a social life, which is a far cry from when Hannah Caroline Couture first started in her UNO dorm room.
"Near graduation I started getting burnt out doing all the different orders I was doing," Nodskov said. "I stepped back and thought about which of the orders I like doing and which ones I absolutely dread."
This revelation led Nodskov to pivot her focus to bridal and evening wear along with her bread and butter of plus-sized fashion, which amounts to about 80 percent of her sales. Nodskov's ability to network with bloggers and industry influencers help her reach potential customers across the country whenever she releases a new product. Along with local orders, Nodskov has developed a reliable customer base in the southern and northeastern United States.
Even though most of her customers are from outside the Omaha area, she doesn't have any plans to leave. On Friday, Nodskov will debut her new line at Omaha Fashion Week, a reminder that she's still here.
"I can be 22 and own a home. I can afford to run a business. It's just a great place to be based," she said. "With e-commerce, why not be based in a place that is comfortable to live?"
If a lucrative job offer in New York or Los Angeles came along, Nodskov isn't sure she would be able to accept.
"I don't know if I could work for someone else in the industry," she laughed.
About the University of Nebraska at Omaha
Located in one of America's best cities to live, work and learn, the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) is Nebraska's premier metropolitan university. With more than 15,000 students enrolled in 200-plus programs of study, UNO is recognized nationally for its online education, graduate education, military friendliness and community engagement efforts. Founded in 1908, UNO has served learners of all backgrounds for more than 100 years and is dedicated to another century of excellence both in the classroom and in the community.
Become a fan of UNO on Facebook and follow UNO's Twitter updates.
UNO News Center
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I am the ROI: Garry Clark
If you have a story idea, news tip, or other question, please email the UNO News team at unonews@unomaha.edu.


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Q: Chart Web Part Data Aggregations I have a list with the following sample data:
Title  |  Rank1   |    Rank2
Foo    |    2     |      4
Foo    |    4     |      6
Foo    |    6     |      8

Trying to construct a Column Chart around just "Rank1" data as an aggregated average.  For example, expecting a single column to appear with the value of "4" (the average between 2, 4, and 6).
Is this possible using the Chart Web Part?  Do I need to somehow configure something in the Advanced Properties?  Does the Chart Web Part not do any aggregations like this?  Would I have to pre-aggregate the data somehow (like putting into a separate list)?

A: Chart Web Part does not do Aggregations, only displays tabular data. I would suggest you create a calculated column that performs the aggregation and than use the Chart Web part pointing to that new column.
One alternative is to go for Performance Point if you have Enterprise License.

A: Plumsail Dashboard Designer supports aggregation and grouping as well. Also, it works in Office 365 and SharePoint on-premises. Not free but good value for price - flexibility, modern view, animation, interactivity, and no coding.

A: Brian,
Try Visifire for SharePoint webpart. This user friendly webpart will let you quickly create silverlight charts. The Visifire for SharePoint supports Group Data functionality using which you will be able to achieve your requirement as you have mentioned above. Please check out the documentation link below on how to group data.

http://www.visifire.com/documentation/Visifire_Documentation/VisifireForSharePoint/Working_with_GroupBy_in_SharePoint_Charts.htm
Full disclosure: I have been involved in the development of Visifire for Sharepoint webpart.

A: The Chart Web Part doesn't do aggregation.
My company offers a solution that does charting of data aggregation and allows drill-downs. Here is a demo:
http://blog.pathtosharepoint.com/2012/11/06/interactive-demo-charting-in-sharepoint/
It relies on the out of the box "Totals" available in SharePoint views.
Another option would be Excel services, but it is a multi-step process as you would have to transfer your data to Excel.

A: Look into SQL Report Builder. It works well with SP2010 lists, and be displayed on a SharePoint site rather easily.

A: Another 3rd party chart web part for those who are researching this is Collabion. similar to Nevron, it enables grouping of data

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


When our Temple stood in Jerusalem and was destroyed, the community entered a period of collective grief. In response, the Rabbis began to create a Judaism that would be viable to any contemporary time. The curiosity and imagination of the collective Rabbinic mind took a leap of faith: to contain the caution and fear brought forth at the destruction of the Temple by forming a transportable Jewish life that could live beyond the venue of Jerusalem and move with the people, no matter where they lived. Out of the destruction of the Temple, the Rabbis strived to scaffold a Judaism that through its text study, holiday observance, historical perspective, and guidance for living would create templates for daily life: how to eat, how to conduct business, how to build community, how to teach, how to treat others, how to die, how to mourn, how to stand in Awe.
Out of this context, the Rabbinic imagination crafted a spiritual stance that encompasses the human experience of grief. They declared all mourners be greeted: HaMakom y'nachem etchem b'toch sh'ar aveilei Tzion virushalayim, "May the God who comforted the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem comfort you now in your grief." With this, the Rabbis encapsulated the core paradox of grief: grief is a universal human experience, and each of us experiences it unto ourselves. The Rabbinic mind teaches us that for each person, our own grief is as cataclysmic as the destruction of the Temple. Every person's individual loss is linked by the historic arc to the communal loss of our Temple.
This declarative link of historic fact to the inevitable human experience we all come to know binds our communal experience to every individual soul. Its resonance of the inner life with the outer historic experience is a generational vibration across the millennia that catapults us into a future that will forever be linked one generation to the next across time and space. It takes imagination, leaps of faith, curiosity, and the containment of caution to move through one's own grief. Mourning may lead to new ways of seeing, acting, choosing, living. Grief may affirm our faith, it may alter it, it may destroy it, it may leave it untouched. Grief rarely ends a conversation. Rather, grief affirms the thrill and the disappointment of relationship. Death may take a body, but it cannot take a relationship; fraught or healed, relationships often continue after death. We may see our dead, if only in our peripheral vision; we may hear them, if only in memory; we may smell their scent, recall their touch.
Since the destruction of the Temple, our tradition has met each moment by threading our history into the present so that we can wrap ourselves in a fabric that warms the soul. All theology strives to frame our human experience into ritual, prayer, and spiritual reflection. We will never tire of this poetry because it is the endless form with which we express our deepest yearnings. Spiritual reflection—in prayer or ritual—is the form that allows us to link our history to our personal story. This glimpse into moments of life that yearn to be significant, comforting, of solace and succor, follow a path toward wholeness. From the secular to the religious, our natural spiritual hunger seeks nourishment. It is a desire that rises with a demanding vulnerability from the throes of grief and looks all around—inside, outside, and above, for anchor, for firm footing, for the horizon.
[The] collection, Mishkan Aveilut: Where Grief Resides, is an effort to provide the spiritual sustenance we all crave in the midst of one of life's greatest vulnerabilities. Whether grief comes because a loved one died or one is relieved they have left this earth, we are filled with a loss that demands attention. At any moment along the spiritual journey we can be filled with either surety or doubt. We may struggle with language, metaphor, and theology, or we may find them satisfying. Our hope is that the moment you enter into prayerful engagement here, the experience will bequeath you, across the millennia, your place within our people's unbreakable relationship to God, Torah, and Israel. Vulnerability in any endeavor brings the soul's yearnings into new arenas of expression. We hope that this healing book will help weave our human capacity for curiosity into our capacity for spiritual life.
Rabbi Eric Weiss is the CEO/President of the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center, and is the and the editor of both Mishkan R'fuah: Where Healing Resides and Mishkan Aveilut: Where Grief Resides.
Mazel Tov Eric on providing the rabbinate and the Jewish people another great spiritual resource.


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'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' star Stephanie Beatriz marries in L.A.
0 0 Tuesday, October 9, 2018 Edit this post
Stephanie Beatriz tied the knot with Brad Hoss at a wedding Saturday in Los Angeles. File Photo by Christine Chew/UPI
Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Stephanie Beatriz is a married woman.
Entertainment Tonight confirmed the 37-year-old actress tied the knot with Brad Hoss at a wedding Saturday in Los Angeles.
Beatriz's Brooklyn Nine-Nine co-stars Melissa Fumero and Chelsea Peretti were among the 300 guests. Peretti shared a photo from the nuptials Saturday on Instagram.
"#stephandbrad," she wrote alongside two heart-eyes emojis.
Beatriz told People she had an L.A.-themed celebration to honor the city where she and Hoss fell in love. The couple incorporated the theme into their decor and menu.
"The wedding is our reflection of all the stuff that we love about L.A. We're doing a lot of theatrical recreations of our favorite stuff," Beatriz said. "Like the flora and fauna of L.A., how no matter the time of year something is blooming."
"We're doing a lot of fun, cool surprises," she added. "We're recreating the entrance into the Beverly Hills Hotel."
Beatriz also honored Brooklyn Nine-Nine and her character, Rosa Diaz, with her wedding dress.
"There was a dress I came across called the Rosa. I'm not even kidding you," she said.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine will air its sixth season on NBC. Peretti, who portrays Gina Linetti, announced last week she will leave the series partway through the season.
😍😍#stephandbrad
A post shared by Chelsea Peretti (@chelsanity) on Oct 6, 2018 at 10:19pm PDT
Entertainment - U.S. Daily News: 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' star Stephanie Beatriz marries in L.A.
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-otDm5AJ9oKI/W7x-aJEHSVI/AAAAAAABDIg/LhExRVZzYKIJGB1bpkVz_TMfiYdLZilmQCLcBGAs/s1600/8.jpg
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-otDm5AJ9oKI/W7x-aJEHSVI/AAAAAAABDIg/LhExRVZzYKIJGB1bpkVz_TMfiYdLZilmQCLcBGAs/s72-c/8.jpg
https://entertainment.dailynews.us.com/2018/10/brooklyn-nine-nine-star-stephanie.html

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Law Dictionaries
Federal Judges
608 F. 2d 988 - National Labor Relations Board v. Appletree Chevrolet Inc
Federal Reporter, Second Series
608 F.2d.
608 F2d 988 National Labor Relations Board v. Appletree Chevrolet Inc
608 F.2d 988
103 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2066, 87 Lab.Cas. P 11,649
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner,
APPLETREE CHEVROLET, INC., Respondent,
Sheet Metal Workers' International Association, Local 66,
AFL-CIO, Intervenor.
No. 78-1780.
United States Court of Appeals,
Fourth Circuit.
Argued July 11, 1979.
Decided Nov. 1, 1979.
Sara McLaurin Green, N. L. R. B. (John S. Irving, Gen. Counsel, John E. Higgins, Jr., Deputy Gen. Counsel, Robert E. Allen, Acting Associate Gen. Counsel, Elliott Moore, Deputy Associate Gen. Counsel, John H. Ferguson, Washington, D. C., on brief), for petitioner.
Asa Ambrister (George V. Gardner, Gardner, Ambrister & Smith, Washington, D. C., on brief), for respondent.
Raymond J. Sweeney, Toledo, Ohio, for intervenor.
Before RUSSELL, Circuit Judge, FIELD, Senior Circuit Judge, and WIDENER, Circuit Judge.
DONALD RUSSELL, Circuit Judge:
The National Labor Relations Board has petitioned for enforcement of its order in a consolidated proceeding involving a complaint of unfair labor practices under 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3) and (1) of the National Labor Relations Act and a representation proceeding under 8(a)(5) of that Act. (29 U.S.C. 151, Et seq.)1 We enforce in part and remand in part the order of the Board.
The respondent operates a Chevrolet dealership in Asheville, North Carolina. In connection with that business, it maintains a service department, a parts department, and a body shop. The bargaining unit involved consists of the employees in these three departments, who number between 45 and 51 employees. The Union's2 organizational efforts among these employees began with a meeting on January 6, 1977. It thereafter undertook actively to solicit authorization cards from the employees. On January 24, 1977, it advised the respondent by letter that 31 of the latter's employees in the relevant departments had signed authorization cards in favor of the Union and it requested "the Company (to) honor the rights guaranteed to employees under Section 7 * * *," in favor of these employees.
The complaint alleges that a few days before the receipt of the letter advising the respondent that the Union had secured authorization cards from a majority of the employees, the respondent undertook a series of acts intended to interfere with its employees' rights under the Act in violation of Section 8(a)(1). These alleged acts consisted of the solicitation of employees' grievances, the announcement of increased retirement and other employment benefits, threatening and coercive interrogation of employees, and, finally, the discharge of five employees in violation of 8(a)(3). After all this alleged misconduct on the part of the respondent had concluded, an election among the employees was held on February 25, 1977, under the Board's procedure to determine whether the employees wished to have the Union as its bargaining agent. At this election, a number of challenges were made, primarily by the respondent. The election resulted in 23 votes cast for the Union, 17 votes against it, with 17 votes challenged and uncounted. Hearing on these challenges was then consolidated with the hearing on the 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3) alleged violations. After the consolidated hearing was concluded in August 1977, the administrative law judge filed his report.
The administrative law judge disposed of the unfair labor practice charges by finding that the respondent had violated 8(a)(1) of the Act in the particulars charged and 8(a)(3) by discharging four employees.3 He concluded, on the basis of these findings, that the respondent should be ordered to bargain with the Union as "the majority representative of all employees in the appropriate unit from and after January 20, 1977, the date on which the Respondent first demonstrated to employees that it had embarked on an unlawful course of conduct." In connection with the representation proceedings, the administrative law judge resolved the various vote challenges entered at the representation election. After resolving the challenges, the administrative law judge recommended in this phase of the proceeding that the ballots of those employees who, although their right to vote had been challenged, were found qualified to vote, should be "opened, counted and that a revised tally of ballots issue," that if "the revised tally of ballots show(ed) that a majority of votes has been cast for the Union, then the Regional Director for Region 11 shall issue a certification of representative," but if "a majority (of) votes has not been cast for the Union, then the election shall be set aside, the Petition in Case No. 11-RC-4300 dismissed and all prior proceedings thereunder vacated."
The respondent excepted to the report of the administrative law judge both on his findings of 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3) violations and on the challenges of the election. The Board, however, affirmed the "rulings, findings, and conclusions" of the administrative law judge and adopted his recommended order save in one particular. The administrative law judge had sustained the respondent's challenge of the ballots of three janitors working in the departments whose employees were within the stipulated bargaining unit. The Board disagreed with this conclusion of the administrative law judge and ordered the ballots of the three janitors counted in tallying the votes in the representation election.
The Board has petitioned this Court to enforce its consolidated order in the two proceedings. We enforce in part, deny in part, and delay in part enforcement. We find substantial evidence to support the Board's findings of violations of 8(a)(1) by the respondent. However, we do not find the evidence in the record sufficient to support the Board's findings of discriminatory discharges in violation of 8(a)(3). Neither did the Board have a sufficient factual basis for the issuance of a bargaining order. Finally, we find the resolutions of the challenges to votes at the representation election on February 25 by the Board fully supported by substantial evidence. In summary, we enforce the Board's cease and desist orders relating to the respondent's 8(a)(1) violations and uphold its decision on the challenged votes at the representation election, but we refuse to enforce the Board's order of reinstatement of employees Emory Gilley, David Bartlett, Pearson Junior Baines, and David Gillespie, and we remand the order providing for a bargaining order for consideration in the light of the results of the representation election.
We consider first the respondent's objections to the 8(a)(3) charge. The General Counsel charged that "these four employees were signaled out for discharge because of their specific union activity, especially their statements at the Moseley meetings." It was the respondent's position, on the other hand, that the parties discharged were the least productive employees in their respective departments and that they had been discharged in an effort to improve the productivity and efficiency of the departments. The administrative law judge found specifically that these employees "were not discharged because of statements made at the Moseley meetings" or "because of particular union activity," as the General Counsel had charged in his complaint. He also, found that the employees discharged "were among the least productive" in the two departments concerned, that "the Respondent certainly might discharge low producers," and that a discharge "in order to improve service department efficiency," which was the reason advanced by the respondent for the discharges, was "certainly (a) respectable" ground for discharge. On the basis of these findings the administrative law judge found that the respondent had what he described as "supportable" grounds for discharging these employees. These findings of the administrative law judge, affirmed by the Board, amounted, in effect, to a dismissal of the Board's charge of discriminatory discharges of these four employees.
Despite these specific findings against the charges of discriminatory discharges as alleged in the General Counsel's complaint, the administrative law judge went on to find that the employees' discharge violated the Act on a ground not raised by the General Counsel. The rationale for such a finding was unique under the circumstances. The administrative law judge, to quote his exact language, concluded, after finding that the General Counsel had not proved his claim of discriminatory discharge, "that the Respondent made a determination to discharge a group of employees in order to discourage the union activity generally," and then undertook to pick particular employees against whom some "supportable cause (for discharge) could be made." He then reasoned from this determination that the "supportable cause" for discharge was "pretextual" and that the dominant, motivating purpose of the discharges was to discourage union activity. In essence, what the administrative law judge concluded was that, even though these four employees were clearly unsatisfactory employees with the lowest productivity in their departments and even though their conduct had not been marked by any particular union activity, the respondent had discharged them, not for the reason given, which the administrative law judge found to be both "respectable" and "supportable," but in order thereby to frighten the other employees, whose productivity records did not place them in the same situation as these four and for whom there was no "supportable cause" for discharge, save possibly their Union prominence, into abandoning the Union.
In advancing this theory that the "supportable cause" for the discharges was not the real, but only the "pretextual" reason for the discharges, the administrative law judge was confronted with the well-settled rule that when an employer has a "supportable cause" for discharging an employee involved in an 8(a)(3) claim as both the administrative law judge and the Board found there was the burden shifts to the Board to find and identify " an affirmative and persuasive reason why the employer rejected the good cause and chose a bad one," that is, why he rejected the "supportable" cause and " chose a cause intended to discourage union activity."4 And this burden cannot be sustained by evidence that rises no higher than conjecture or suspicion. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. N. L. R. B., supra, 539 F.2d at 1337. The administrative law judge seems to have recognized this obligation and sought to satisfy that burden.
In his effort to sustain this burden, the administrative law judge offers no really plausible reason why the discharge of a mere four employees, whose particular union affiliation or activity had no connection with their discharges, could be calculated to discourage union activity, especially when there was a reasonable or "supportable" basis for those discharges, as found by the administrative law judge and as manifestly known to the other employees. If, of course, the dischargees had been particularly active in the union campaign, an inference of improper motivation may have been appropriate. There are an infinite number of precedents where a determination of discriminatory discharge has been sustained under such circumstances. But it is difficult to find any basis for assuming that a discharge for a proper cause of a few employees out of a much larger force, even during a union campaign,5 warrants such an inference in the absence of any particular union activity or prominence on the part of the dischargees.
The Board has sought to fortify the administrative law judge's unusual finding of discriminatory discharge in this case by citing Majestic Molded Products, Inc. v. N. L. R. B. (2d Cir. 1964) 330 F.2d 603 and M. S. P. Industries, Inc. v. N. L. R. B. (10th Cir. 1977) 568 F.2d 166, as authority supporting the administrative law judge's determination. Neither case, however, is at all analogous to this case or can provide authority for the determination made. In Majestic Molded Products, Inc. v. N. L. R. B., the employer was faced with an effort by a new union to organize its employees and to replace an existing union bargaining agent in one of its plants. A representative of the older union, after being rebuffed by the employees in his effort to induce the employees to abandon their petitions in favor of the new union, threatened that he was going to advise the employer to close down the plant and transfer the work over to a plant where the older union was the bargaining agent. The next day the employer began laying off employees and within 2 days had laid off approximately 90 per cent of the employees in the plant, thereby giving countenance to the threat. A few days later 3/4Ths of the employees disassociated themselves from the new union. There could have been little doubt in such case of the motivation or of impact, or that the action of the employer, manifestly induced by the other union, was a "power play" intended to discourage affiliation with the new union.
M. S. P. Industries, Inc. v. N. L. R. B. is equally distinguishable. In both written letters to and in oral exhortation of employees, intended to encourage employees to vote against the union at an approaching union election, the employer boasted that it had never had a layoff and assured the employees there would never be a layoff at its plant. When, however, the Union won the election, the employer, in obvious pique and with the plain purpose of showing its spiteful reaction, immediately began layoffs. Again, the purpose of the layoffs was clear.
No circumstances such as existed in the two cited cases, can however, be instanced here. There was nothing to connect directly the discharges with discouragement of the Union campaign, as in Majestic Molded, or with an obvious intention to retaliate against Union members as in M. S. P. In Majestic Molded and in M. S. P. there was absolutely no justification for the layoff, other than to discourage Union affiliation by the employees. Here, on the other hand, the Board has found that there was a "supportable cause" for the challenged discharges. This case accordingly presents an entirely different question than that confronted by the Board in Majestic Molded and M. S. P. and one that requires a different rationale from that adopted in Majestic Molded and M. S. P., if the claim of discriminatory discharge is to be sustained in this case. The administrative law judge in effect seeks to do this by impugning the good faith and reasonableness in what he had earlier found was a "respectable" and "supportable cause" for discharge and to draw from this a basis for a finding of illegal discharge.
The administrative law judge's attack on the discharges is, accordingly, not that the discharges were not for good cause, but that they were pretextual because (1) there was no warrant for discharging at the time for inefficiency in the service departments since the efficiency was then improving, (2) the dischargees were actually "competent employees" whose level of productivity was about that of most other employees in the department, and finally (3) the employer had never warned the dischargees of their deficiency in productiveness. No one of these grounds seems to us to have substantial support in the record. It may be that there was some increase in productivity in the service department in the last part of 1976, as the administrative law judge stated, but, and this is the important circumstance, there was no suggestion anywhere in the record that these four dischargees were in any way responsible for this increase or that their individual productivity had improved any at all over this period. Actually, it is inferable that their low productivity was one of the factors preventing further improvement in overall productivity. Neither can it be fairly said that the record gives any support for the finding by the administrative law judge that the productivity of the dischargees was about on a level with that of other employees in the service department, the ground on which the administrative law judge apparently rests primarily his pretextual finding; in fact, the record is conclusively to the contrary. Thus, in the truck service shop the employee with the lowest productivity was Baines, one of the four dischargees ordered reemployed by the Board. In the automobile service department, the lowest four producers were Gilley, Cordell, Gillespie, and Gurley. Their scores varied from 71 for Gilley down to 54 for Gurley. The average in the department was in excess of 88 and the leader had a score of 166. All four of these low producers in this department were discharged.6 Contrary to the statement of the administrative law judge, the evidence does not support accordingly any finding that the production level of the employees discharged, including both these two that the Board found properly discharged and the two it found improperly discharged, was "about the same" as that of the other employees in their departments.
The final reason that the administrative law judge cited as reflecting adversely on the good faith of the discharges was that, other than Gillespie, none of those discharged had been warned of his low productivity. Presumably, however, these employees did not have to be told by the respondent of their low productivity. They unquestionably knew they were at the bottom of the ladder in efficiency. Employees in that condition, especially when their employer is engaged in a program of improving productivity, could not have been surprised that they were discharged. And certainly the other employees would not have been surprised.
We are accordingly left with nothing but conjecture to sustain the critical assumption that the respondent selected for discharge four employees whose only prominence as employees was their low productivity in order to frighten other employees from supporting the Union. To warrant this assumption, it would be necessary to relate their discharges to some fact or circumstance that would indicate that they would not have been discharged but for the coercive effect their discharge would have had on other employees. When the administrative law judge made the twin findings, adopted by the Board, that the discharges of these employees were for a valid "supportable cause" and were not for any "particular union activity" on their part, he removed any basis for such a finding. We accordingly refuse to enforce that part of the Board's order that requires the reinstatement, with back pay, of Emory Gilley, David Bartlett, Pearson Junior Baines and David Gillespie.
We likewise refuse to enforce the Board's issuance of a bargaining order in this case. In NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co. (1969) 395 U.S. 575, 89 S.Ct. 1918, 23 L.Ed.2d 547, the Court identified three categories of cases,7 in only two of which is a bargaining order permissible. The first of these consists of those " 'exceptional' " cases marked by " 'outrageous' " and " 'pervasive' " unfair labor practices of " 'such a nature that their coercive effects cannot be eliminated by the application of traditional remedies, with the result that a fair and reliable election cannot be had.' " Gissel at 613-14, 89 S.Ct. at 1940. In this classification of cases, a bargaining order may issue even though the Union may not be able to prove it ever had a majority status among employees. The second category and the one with which we are concerned8 is represented by "less extraordinary cases marked by less pervasive practices." The essential justification for a bargaining order in this latter category of cases, as stated in Gissel, depends on findings (1) that the Union once had a majority status, (2) that such status had been dissipated by pervasive misconduct on the part of the employer, (3) " that the possibility of erasing the effects of (these) past (pervasive) practices and of ensuring a fair election (or a fair rerun) by the use of traditional remedies, though present, is slight" and (4) "that employee sentiment once expressed through cards would, on balance, be better protected by a bargaining order." Gissel, 395 U.S. at 614, 89 S.Ct. at 1940; N.L.R.B. v. Kane (4th Cir. 1970) 435 F.2d 1203, 1207; N.L.R.B. v. American Cable Systems, Inc. (5th Cir. 1969) 414 F.2d 661, 668-69, Cert. denied, 400 U.S. 957, 91 S.Ct. 356, 27 L.Ed.2d 266 (1970).9 It is also to be borne in mind as a condition to the exercise of this extraordinary power that an election, not a bargaining order, remains the traditional, as well as the preferred, method for determining the bargaining agent for employees. It is only because the misconduct of the employer has so dissipated the union majority that a fair expression of employee sentiment, uncoerced by the employer's improper conduct, cannot be secured by the traditional procedure that, in this second class of cases, a bargaining order may issue.10 It is thus not sufficient that an employer has engaged in unfair labor practices; a bargaining order in this second category requires the Board to go beyond a finding of such unfair labor practices and to "make 'specific findings' as to the immediate and residual impact of the unfair labor practices on the election process;" that is, the Board "must make 'a detailed analysis' assessing the possibility of holding a fair election in terms of any continuing effect of misconduct, and the potential effectiveness of ordinary remedies.' " N.L.R.B. v. Armcor Industries, Inc., supra, 535 F.2d at 244; Shulman's, Inc. of Norfolk v. N.L.R.B. (4th Cir. 1975) 519 F.2d 498, 501; General Steel Products, Inc. v. N.L.R.B. (4th Cir. 1971) 445 F.2d 1350, 1354;11 N.L.R.B. v. Pacific Southwest Airlines (9th Cir. 1977) 550 F.2d 1148, 1152; Peerless of America, Inc. v. N.L.R.B. (7th Cir. 1973) 484 F.2d 1108, 1118.12
The administrative law judge, in his recommendation of a bargaining order, based his conclusion on his assessment that the acts of the respondent " were pervasive and egregious unfair labor practices. Thus the Respondent should be ordered to bargain with the Union as the majority representative of all employees in the appropriate unit from and after January 20, 1977, the date on which the Respondent first demonstrated to employees that it had embarked on an unlawful course of conduct." He made no findings of the "residual impact" of those practices, "the likelihood of recurring misconduct" on the respondent's part, or "the potential effect of ordinary remedies," such as the issuance of an 8(a)(1) order.13 The administrative law judge apparently assumed that by merely repeating the magic words "pervasive and egregious" and by simply engaging in "perfunctory or 'boiler-plate,' " language, or using " 'a litany, reciting conclusions by rote without factual explication,' "14 he had met the criteria established by Gissel. This is manifestly insufficient to meet the test for a bargaining order. Hedstrom Co. v. N.L.R.B. (3d Cir. 1977) 558 F.2d 1137, 1150-52.15 To approve such a procedure would be to approve in effect the automatic issuance of bargaining orders in any case where the Board declared the misconduct of the employer to be "pervasive and egregious." Such a procedure would not accord with the standards declared in Gissel and General Steel Products, Inc. v. N.L.R.B. And the Board seemed to recognize this, for it attempted in its order to bolster the administrative law judge's recommendation by adding some analysis and findings in support of the bargaining order.16
The primary reason assigned by the Board for a bargaining order was the finding of discriminatory discharges. It assumed that these discharges were "because of union activity" on the part of the dischargees. The Board overlooked the findings of the administrative law judge, affirmed by it, to the contrary. This, however, is unimportant in view of our conclusion, as stated earlier, that the discharges were not violative of the Act and cannot, therefore, provide authority for a bargaining order. This leaves as the only basis for the bargaining order (1) the solicitation of grievances of employees during the Union campaign by a psychologist employed by the respondent, (2) the announcement of certain improved benefits to employees during the same period, and (3) threatening interrogations of "employees regarding their union sympathies." We find that these grounds all involving simple 8(a)(1) violations do not provide an adequate showing for a bargaining order in the absence of any credible findings that there is any "likelihood that the employer's misconduct will recur" or that the residual impact of these practices is sufficient to make the likelihood of a fair election scanty, if not impossible, despite the prophylactic effect of a cease and desist order.17
The first ground stated by the administrative law judge was the solicitation of grievances from the employees by a psychologist employed by the respondent. However, there was nothing threatening about this solicitation nor is there the slightest suggestion in the record that any employee was influenced to alter his support of the Union by the inquiry of the psychologist. Unlike the employees in Majestic Molded there is no evidence that a single employee changed his authorization card because of this conduct of the respondent. During the solicitation there was never a reference to the Union. Under these circumstances it would be difficult to find that the solicitation had any adverse impact on the fairness of a subsequent election, and this is perhaps the reason the administrative law judge made no effort to find such impact.
The promise of benefits to the employees the second fact mentioned by the Board concerned a contribution to the employees' profit-sharing plan by the employer, certain changes in vacation and holiday pay, and bonus plans. The profit-sharing plan to which the respondent made its contribution was not something that evolved during the Union campaign in 1977. The respondent had inaugurated the plan in 1974 with a contribution from profits for the year 1973. It is true that it had not made a contribution to the plan out of profits for 1974 or 1975. Whether this was because 1974 and 1975 were years marked generally by deflation in the automobile trade is not developed in the record. However, in December 1976, before the Union began its efforts to organize the respondent's employees, the directors of the respondent approved a contribution from profits in 1976 to the plan. What the administrative law judge found improper in this contribution was not that the respondent made the contribution. That was consistent with respondent's earlier action in inaugurating the plan. What he found objectionable was the timing of the announcement of such contribution in early February 1977, in the midst of the Union campaign. The respondent also announced certain changes in vacation and holiday pay and bonuses for increases in sales of certain parts. There was nothing apparently unusual in any of this: the respondent did this generally two or three times each year. Again, the evil in the action, as perceived by the administrative law judge, was the timing in these particular instances during the Union campaign. We, however, declared in Louisburg Sportswear Company v. N. L. R. B. (4 Cir. 1972) 462 F.2d 380 at 384:
"Wage increases during union organizing campaigns are not forbidden, unless the increase is granted and announced for the purpose of restraining employees in the free exercise of their right of choice. Such a purpose is negated if it can be shown that the announcement is consistent with established company practice, or was planned and settled upon before the organizing campaign began. The evidence here meets the criteria for validity of the wage increase."
Again, in Delchamps, Inc. v. N. L. R. B. (5th Cir. 1979) 588 F.2d 476 at 479, the Court said that "a wage increase made during a union organizational campaign is not forbidden unless it is granted for the purpose of restraining employees in the free exercise of their right of choice of whether to unionize."
There are several factors that must be considered in determining whether the gratuitous benefits were intended "to restrain employees in the free exercise of their right of choice." The timing of the grants of benefits is certainly a factor and an important factor to be considered. But there are others to be considered. In Louisburg we referred to whether the benefit was " settled upon before the organizing campaign began." Delchamps identifies "the relation of the wage increase to past practices" as another factor. All of these factors are involved here. The change in holiday, vacation, and promotion benefits was announced during the Union campaign. It was not unusual, however; such changes apparently followed "past practices" of making such changes two and three times a year. The contribution to the employee benefit plan, too, was announced during the Union campaign. But it had been authorized before the Union entered on its campaign. Of course, the administrative law judge considered all these factors and concluded that the timing of the benefits rendered them coercive under the circumstances. We have accepted that finding as supported by the record. But we emphasized the other factors because these are factors that, though passed over in resolving the 8(a)(1) issues, must be weighed in resolving whether the misconduct was such as to have a coercive effect rendering impossible a fair election sufficiently to support a bargaining order. As we have seen, this determination is the critical one in the determination of whether a Gissel bargaining order should issue, since it is the impact of the violation on the likelihood of an uncoerced election, and not the violation Per se, that is important in that connection.
Finally, the Board refers to threatening interrogations of employees "regarding their union sympathies." In making this claim the Board is relying on the fact that on one occasion the manager of the respondent "said something to the effect * * * that the employees should not get their names on the 'wrong list'." While the manager denied making any such statement, the administrative law judge credited the contrary testimony. He did find the language, if expressed, was ambiguous, but he gave it the aspect of "an implied threat should they support the Union." While this inference is not entirely clear to us, we accepted it for purposes of reviewing the 8(a)(1) violation. The other language, found objectionable by the administrative law judge and to which apparently the Board referred, was an inquiry of two employees about who among the employees were for the Union and who against it as well as a request that one of those spoken to would "do some 'politicking' for the Company."
The serious omission in both the Board's and the administrative law judge's conclusion that a bargaining order was appropriate was, as we have already observed, the failure to make anything more than the most cursory findings on the impact of the 8(a)(1) violations on the possibility of a fair election. Both seem to have proceeded upon the erroneous assumption that a finding of unfair labor practices automatically engendered a coercive atmosphere that would support a bargaining order. They take no account of the fact that a bargaining order is warranted only if the unfair labor practices found rise "to the level of imminent or future threat to the process of collective bargaining * * *."18 And, to make these findings, the Board must, as we have seen, assess "the possibility of holding a fair election in terms of any continuing effect of misconduct, and the potential effectiveness of ordinary remedies,"19 should consider whether the respondent's conduct has dissipated the Union's majority and whether the employer is likely to "ignore the Board's cease and desist order."20 A bargaining order is not punitive in purpose; it is purely remedial.21
Gissel makes it clear both in its statement of the question being reviewed and in the circumstances of each case reviewed that it is the unlikelihood of a fair election which is the critical issue in determining whether the remedy of a bargaining order is permissible. The issue, as stated by the Court in that case was "whether a bargaining order (was) an appropriate and authorized remedy where an employer rejects a card majority while at the same time committing unfair practices that tend to undermine the Union's majority and make a fair election an unlikely possibility * * *."22 There seemed little question that in the several cases reviewed in Gissel there was a dissipation of the previous Union majority and that was the really significant fact in each case. Thus, in one of the cases, the Union did not seek an election because the employer's misconduct had completely dissipated the Union's support (Gissel ), in a second, the Union petitioned for an election but did not press it because again it had clearly lost its support as a result of alleged misconduct (Heck's, Inc.), and, in the other two cases, (General Steel and Sinclair ) the Union had lost the subsequent representation election.23 In this case, however, there is no contention that the prior Union majority had been dissipated by the respondent's misconduct. Unlike the unions in Gissel and Heck's, the Union here did not withdraw its petition for an election because it knew its prior majority status had been dissipated; it continued to press for an election and we assume it did so because it assumed its membership had not been dissipated. And unlike the situation in General Steel and Sinclair, the Union had not lost the election; actually it had received a substantial majority of the unchallenged votes, and, if the challenged votes are distributed between the Union and the opposition in accordance with the percentages each received in unchallenged votes (which is the general procedure by election prognosticators in political elections), the Union's share of the vote is a clear majority, with its votes exceeding the number of authorization cards it had procured from the employer when it requested representation on January 24 and before the respondent had committed any of the unfair labor practices charged by the General Counsel. This circumstance emphasizes that there is not any reasonable basis for finding that any misconduct of the respondent had made "a fair election an unlikely possibility." N. L. R. B. v. Gissel Packing Co., 395 U.S. at 579, 89 S.Ct. at 1922; Shulman's, Inc. of Norfolk v. N. L. R. B., 519 F.2d at 502; N. L. R. B. v. Lloyd Wood Coal Co., Inc. (5th Cir. 1978) 585 F.2d 752, 757.
Moreover, the Board apparently had misgivings about the propriety of a Gissel bargaining order in this case. If it had been satisfied that such an order was proper, it would have been unnecessary for it to have reviewed the challenges to the election held or to have ordered the votes in the election tabulated. Normally, it would be expected that the Board would have deferred the consideration of the propriety of a bargaining order until after the result of the election had been ascertained. In any event, we will defer consideration of the propriety of a bargaining order in this case until the result of the election has been determined. The proceedings are accordingly remanded to the Board to complete the tallying of votes in the representation proceeding and for the determination of the result, without prejudice to the right of the Board to reverse its request for enforcement of the bargaining order provision in its order or to the right of the respondent to resist such an order, should the Union not prevail in the election.
The Board's Order, dated August 25, 1978, is reported at 237 NLRB No. 103
The Union involved is Sheet Metal Workers International Association, Local 66, AFL-CIO
The original charge involved the discharge of five employees. However, the administrative law judge found the charge as it related to one of these employees unproved and the Board affirmed
American Mfg. Assocs., Inc. v. N. L. R. B. (4th Cir. 1979) 594 F.2d 30, 36; Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. N. L. R. B. (4th Cir. 1978) 583 F.2d 1268, 1273; Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. N. L. R. B. (4th Cir. 1976) 539 F.2d 1335, 1337; N. L. R. B. v. Patrick Plaza Dodge, Inc. (4th Cir. 1975) 522 F.2d 804, 807; N. L. R. B. v. Consolidated Diesel Elec. Co. (4th Cir. 1972) 469 F.2d 1016, 1024-28; Maphis Chapman Corp. v. N. L. R. B. (4th Cir. 1966) 368 F.2d 298, 304; N. L. R. B. v. Covington Motor Co. (4th Cir. 1965) 344 F.2d 136, 138; Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. v. N. L. R. B. (4th Cir. 1942) 127 F.2d 109, 114-117; Waterbury Community Antenna, Inc. v. N. L. R. B. (2d Cir. 1978) 587 F.2d 90, 96-99; Western Exterminator Co. v. N. L. R. B. (9th Cir. 1977) 565 F.2d 1114, 1118; Famet, Inc. v. N. L. R. B. (9th Cir. 1974) 490 F.2d 293, 296
In Waterbury Community Antenna, Inc. v. N. L. R. B. the Court, after an exhaustive review of the authorities, states the issue that arises in an N. L. R. B. case when the employer has a valid reason for the termination of the employee's services as follows:
"The issue before us, therefore, is whether there is substantial evidence in the record considered as a whole to support the Board's conclusion that Tabaka would not have been discharged but for his union activities." Id. at 99.
In Western Exterminator Co. v. N. L. R. B., supra, the Court said (p. 1118):
" * * * '(w)here a party has two motives, one permissible and the other impermissible, the better rule is * * * that the improper motive must be shown to have been the dominant one."
It is well settled that the mere fact that an employee even a union activist was discharged during a union campaign, standing alone, will not support a discriminatory finding if there is a "supportable cause" for the discharge. Wellington Mill Division, West Point Mfg. Co. v. N. L. R. B. (4th Cir. 1964) 330 F.2d 579, 586, Cert. denied, 379 U.S. 882, 85 S.Ct. 144, 13 L.Ed.2d 88; Federal-Mogul Corp. v. N. L. R. B. (5th Cir. 1978) 566 F.2d 1245, 1259; Iowa Beef Processors, Inc. v. N. L. R. B. (8th Cir. 1977) 567 F.2d 791, 799. In Federal-Mogul, the Court said:
"The burden of proof in a case such as this (I. e., where there is 'supportable' cause for discharge) is upon the General Counsel and requires that he present substantial evidence that the discharge came from improper motives * * *. Furthermore, mere suspicions of unlawful motivation are not sufficient to constitute substantial evidence. An unlawful purpose is not lightly to be inferred * * *. The employer does not have the burden of disproving the existence of unlawful motivation in discharging an employee * * *."
It is noteworthy that the discharges of two of these employees is not challenged by the Board on this appeal as improper
One court has characterized the classification under Gissel as the positing of "a tripartite categorization of unfair labor practices for considering the issuance of bargaining orders without requiring elections." N.L.R.B. v. Armcor Industries, Inc. (3d Cir. 1976) 535 F.2d 239, 244
The Board stated that, while it was "unnecessary to determine whether Respondent's conduct comes within the first or second category of unfair labor practices defined by the Supreme Court in N.L.R.B. v. Gissel Packing Co., Inc., 395 U.S. 575 (89 S.Ct. 1918, 23 L.Ed.2d 547) (1969), as a bargaining order is warranted under either finding," it analyzed the facts of the case as one falling within the second category. We conclude that this is the proper categorization for this case, and, as did the Board, we analyze the circumstances of the case under the rules for a bargaining order in a case of the second category
In American Cable, the Court said:
"Under the Gissel holding a bargaining order may issue where: (a) the union had valid authorization cards from a majority of the employees in an appropriate bargaining unit; (b) the employer's unfair labor practices, although not 'outrageous' and 'pervasive' enough to justify a bargaining order in the absence of a card majority, were still serious and extensive; (c) 'the possibility of erasing the effects of past practices and of ensuring a fair election (or a fair rerun) by the use of traditional remedies, though present, is slight'; and (d) employee sentiment can best be protected in the particular case by a bargaining order. * * * "
N.L.R.B. v. Pilgrim Foods, Inc. (1st Cir. 1979) 591 F.2d 110, 120; N.L.R.B. v. Craw (3d Cir. 1977) 565 F.2d 1267, 1272
In Pilgrim the Court said:
"In NLRB v. Cott Corp., 578 F.2d 892, 894-95 (1st Cir. 1978), while passing on a question involving successor employers, we acknowledged that the Supreme Court in NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., supra, 395 U.S. at 602, 89 S.Ct. 1918, made it clear that an election remains the preferred method to determine a bargaining unit's representative and that a bargaining order should be enforced only when an election is not feasible. There have been no concrete reasons given by the Board as to why a fair election is not now feasible."
In Craw the Court said:
"First, it must be recalled that the affirmative relief provided by a bargaining order is not a traditional remedy under federal labor law. It is appropriate, as the Supreme Court stressed in Gissel, only in cases in which the unfair labor practices are so 'outrageous' and 'pervasive' that their coercive effects could not be eliminated by customary remedies; or in which 'less pervasive' practices 'nonetheless still have the tendency to undermine majority strength and impede the election processes.' The rationale undergirding the Armcor ruling is that because these effects must exist in order for the bargaining order to be an appropriate remedy, the Board should be required to explain with specificity the results of the unfair labor practices and, in particular, the unlikelihood of a fair election."
For the full history of this proceeding, See General Steel Products v. N.L.R.B., 503 F.2d 896 at 897, Cert. denied, 420 U.S. 947, 95 S.Ct. 1328, 43 L.Ed.2d 425 (1975)
In N.L.R.B. v. Pacific Southwest Airlines, the Court said:
"Effective appellate review, as well as judicial and administrative accountability, requires that the Board clearly articulate the reasons behind any order, and particularly why other remedies were found to be inappropriate."
In Armcor Industries, Inc., the Court said:
"The Board therefore must make 'specific findings' as to the impact of the unfair labor practices on the election process and clearly explicate the basis for its decision to issue a bargaining order." (p. 245)
In Peerless of America, Inc. v. N.L.R.B., supra, 484 F.2d at 1121, the Court said:
"The entry of the Section 8(a)(1) cease and desist order and notice we are sanctioning will itself be of considerable significance in connection with a possible fair election for two reasons. First, the order will provide added protection against the likelihood of the recurrence of misconduct, and second, the posting of the order finding the Company guilty of unfair labor practices will almost certainly have a favorable impact on the Union's chances for success in the election."
In First Lakewood Assocs. v. N.L.R.B. (7th Cir. 1978) 582 F.2d 416, 424, the Court said:
"The § 8(a)(1) violations in this case did not, in our opinion, have a significant impact on employee voting sentiments, and any initial impact will have dissipated prior to the next election, especially if the Board's ordinary remedies of a cease and desist order and a posted notice intervene."
See N.L.R.B. v. Pacific Southwest Airlines, 550 F.2d at 1152; N.L.R.B. v. General Stencils, Inc. (2d Cir. 1971) 438 F.2d 894 at 901, On remand enforcement denied, 472 F.2d 170 (2 Cir. 1972)
See N.L.R.B. v. Pilgrim Foods, Inc., 591 F.2d 119:
"Although the language glows with Supreme Court sanctioned terms, the Board failed to go beyond semantics and give specific examples and precise reasons for this extreme remedy."
The Board noted that the Union had not charged an 8(a)(5) violation. There was such a violation charged in the complaint, and this was found sufficient to present the issue
First Lakewood Assocs. v. N. L. R. B., 582 F.2d at 424
Shulman's, Inc. of Norfolk v. N. L. R. B., 519 F.2d at 502
N. L. R. B. v. Armcor Industries, Inc., 535 F.2d at 244
First Lakewood Assocs. v. N. L. R. B., 582 F.2d at 424. See also Peerless of America, Inc. v. N. L. R. B., 484 F.2d at 1121:
We also referred to the same point in Shulman's, Inc. of Norfolk v. N. L. R. B., 519 F.2d at 501:
"If the breaches of the Act ceased or their virility was spent so that their influence did not extend into the period of a reelection, a bargaining order was out of place."
See also First Lakewood Assocs. v. N. L. R. B., 582 F.2d at 424, the Court said:
Bandag, Inc. v. N. L. R. B. (5th Cir. 1978) 583 F.2d 765, 773
395 U.S. at 579, 89 S.Ct. at 1922
Pettibone, The Sec. 10(j) Bargaining Order in Gissel-Type Cases, 27 Lab.L.J. 648, 652 (1976)


A coming-of-age story set in 1950s, small-town Long Island, at a time when suburban America is about to undergo seismic societal changes. With this backdrop, a teenage boy falls in love with one of the town's few black girls, a relationship that has repercussions leading to permanent transformations for the couple — and for the town.
What can I say? I have to admit, when I first began reading The Test and saw that the entire book was but 29 pages, I figured there was an error with my download. There was not. How can a 29-page book tell a story? I mean, come on. The very idea is ludicrous, is it not? No, it is not.
Yes, The Test is short. But it's sweet, and it's satisfying. That's saying something. How can an author adequately tell a rich, compelling story in 29 pages? I don't know, but John Lansing did it. I was engrossed, wishing the book was longer as I was reading but, once I reached the conclusion, it just felt…right.
The characters had depth, which came as a surprise to this regular reader of novels. The storyline was interesting and engaging and I cared — about the characters, about the events, about the outcome. That's huge, when you're reading a book, and it's incredibly significant when you're talking about The Test. It proves that you don't need 250 pages — or 700 — to develop characters and tell a story. Well, John Lansing doesn't, anyway.
I stepped out of my comfort zone with this book and I encourage you to do so as well. It's well worth it. Not only did I treat myself to a fine story, but I treated myself to a new experience when it comes to reading in general.
John Lansing started his career as an actor in New York City. He spent a year at the Royale Theatre playing the lead in the Broadway production of "Grease." He then landed a co-starring role in George Lucas' More American Graffiti, and guest-starred on numerous television shows. During his 15-year writing career, Lansing wrote and produced Walker Texas Ranger, co-wrote two CBS Movies of the Week, and also co-executive produced the ABC series Scoundrels. John's first book was Good Cop, Bad Money, a true-crime tome with former NYPD Inspector Glen Morisano. The Devil's Necktie was his first novel. Blond Cargo is the next book in the Jack Bertolino series. A native of Long Island, John now resides in Los Angeles.
To sign up, either complete the form with your blog name, book format, requested date(s), and how you'd like to host; or email me at gina@providencebookpromotions.com. Thank you for your interest in this tour.
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Musdapher died in the early hours of Tuesday at the age of 75.
The jurist retired from bench five years ago on attaining the mandatory retirement age of 70.
Musdapher was educated at the Ahmadu Bello University and the School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London.
In 1976 he was appointed Kaduna State attorney general and commissioner of justice.
He switched to the bench in 1979 with his appointment as a high court in Kano state. He was made the state's Chief Judge the same year.
In 1983, Mr. Musdapher was appointed to the Court of Appeal where he spent 18 years, until his appointment to the Supreme Court in 2003.
He hailed from a family of emigrant Kanuri scholars and jurists in Babura local government of present-day Jigawa state.


text:
Stocks Plunge 460 Points on QE Exit
"Financial markets are faced with uncertainty that isn't going away. The slowdown in Europe is probably in the early innings, the Fed hasn't begun to raise interest rates, and geopolitical crises seem to pop up by the day." Jeff Cox, Finance editor, CNBC
Six years of zero rates and trillions of dollars of asset purchases couldn't stop stocks from falling sharply on Wednesday. All three major indices moved deep into the red, with the Dow Jones leading the pack, dropping an eye-watering 460 points before rebounding nearly 300 points by the end of the session. Risk-free assets, particularly US Treasuries, rallied hard on the flight-to-safety move with the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield slipping to a Depression era 1.87 percent before climbing back above the 2 percent mark. US financials were the worst hit sector, taking it on the chin for 9 percent by mid-day, while Brent crude was soundly walloped, falling to a 47-month low on oversupply and deflation fears. Stock market gains for the year had nearly been wiped out before a miraculous about-face turned Armageddon into a so-so day with survivable losses. Even so, analysts have already started paring back their estimates for 4th quarter growth while traders stocked up on antacid for Thursday's opening bell.
The proximate cause of Wednesday's bloodbath was weaker than expected economic data from Europe–which is sliding towards its third recession in five years– droopy retail sales in the US, and a report from Department of Labor showing that wholesale prices for producers are edging closer towards deflation, the opposite of what the Fed is trying to achieve via its aggressive monetary policy.
But the real trigger for the selloff was not the dismal data, but the policies that have been in place since the Financial Crisis of 2008. While the Obama administration has steadily decreased demand by shaving the deficits which provide vital fiscal stimulus for the economy, (On Wednesday, the USG announced the budget deficit fell to $483 billion, the lowest since 2008) the Federal Reserve has been providing trillions of dollars of cheap money to the banks and brokerages. The result of this one-two combo has not only been the biggest transfer of wealth in human history, but also "a fundamental breakdown in the functioning of the global capitalist economy." As the International Monetary Fund (IMF) noted in a recent paper on the global recovery: "a pickup in investment has not yet materialized…reflecting concerns about low medium-term growth potential and subdued private consumption." Demand shortfalls in the advanced countries "could lead to sustained global economic weakness over a five-year period." (IMF report records global economic breakdown, Nick Beams, World Socialist Web Site)
Simply put: The Fed's policies have made investors richer, but they haven't created opportunities for recycling profits, which is a critical part of capitalism's so called virtuous circle. Anemic investment, means less hiring, less spending, weaker demand and slower growth, all of which are visible in today's sluggish, underperforming economy. Pumping money into financial assets (QE) can fatten the bank accounts of rich speculators, but it doesn't do jack for the economy. It just creates bubbles that burst in a flurry of panic selling. Here's more from Larry Elliot at the Guardian:
"Six years after the global banking system had its near-death experience, interest rates are still at emergency levels. Even attaining the mediocre levels of activity expected by the IMF in the developed countries requires central banks to continue providing large amounts of stimulus. The hope has been that copious amounts of dirt-cheap money will find its way into productive uses, with private investment leading to stronger and better balanced growth.
It hasn't happened like that. Instead, as the IMF rightly pointed out, the money has not gone into economic risk-taking but into financial risk-taking. Animal spirits of entrepreneurs have remained weak but asset prices have been strong. Tighter controls on banks have been accompanied by the emergence of a powerful and largely unchecked shadow banking system. Investors have been piling into all sorts of dodgy-looking schemes, just as they did pre-2007. Recovery, such as it is, is once again reliant on rising debt levels. Central bankers know this but also know that jacking up interest rates would push their economies back into recession. They cross their fingers and hope for the best." (World leaders play war games as the next financial crisis looms, Larry Elliot, Guardian)
The policies implemented by the Obama administration and Fed have achieved precisely what they were designed to achieve; they've enriched the voracious plutocrats who run the system but left everyone else scraping by on less and less. An article in the Washington Post explains what's going on in greater detail. Here's a short excerpt from the piece titled "Why is the recovery so weak? It's the austerity, stupid":
"Welcome to Austerity U.S.A., where the deficit is back below 3 percent of GDP and growth is still disappointing—which aren't unrelated facts.
It started when the stimulus ran out. Then state and local governments had to balance their budgets amidst a still-weak economy. And finally, there was the debt ceiling deal with its staggered $2.1 trillion of cuts over the next decade. Add it all up, and there's been a big fiscal tightening the past few years, something like 4 percent of potential GDP. Indeed, as Paul Krugman points out, real government spending per capita has been falling faster now than any time since the Korean War demobilization. (chart)
Fiscal Impact Measure
Source: Hutchins Center
And, as you can see above, all this austerity has been hurting GDP growth since 2011. It shows the Hutchins Center's new "fiscal impact measure," which looks at how much total government tax-and-spending decisions have helped or harmed growth. The dark blue line is what policy has actually done, and the light blue one is what a neutral policy would have done. So, in other words, if the dark blue line is below the light blue one, like it has the last three years, then policy has subtracted from growth." (Why is the recovery so weak? It's the austerity, stupid. Washington Post)
By cutting the deficits, Obama reduced the blood flow to the real economy and weakened demand. That's what torpedoed the recovery. In contrast, stocks and bonds have done remarkably well, mainly because the Fed pumped $4 trillion into financial assets which was a taken as a greenlight by risk takers everywhere to load up on everything from overpriced equities to low-yield junk. Now, after more than three years without as much as a 10 percent correction, the momentum has shifted, volatility has returned, earnings are looking wobbly, and the fear is palpable. Stocks appear to be headed for a major repricing event. Here's how investment guru John Hussman sums it up in his Weekly Market Comment:
"Our concerns at present mirror those that we expressed at the 2000 and 2007 peaks, as we again observe an overvalued, overbought, overbullish extreme that is now coupled with a clear deterioration in market internals, a widening of credit spreads, and a breakdown in our measures of trend uniformity…
…it has become urgent for investors to carefully examine all risk exposures. When extreme valuations on historically reliable measures, lopsided bullishness, and compressed risk premiums are joined by deteriorating market internals, widening credit spreads, and a breakdown in trend uniformity, it's advisable to make certain that the long position you have is the long position you want over the remainder of the market cycle. As conditions stand, we currently observe the ingredients of a market crash." (The Ingredients of a Market Crash, John P. Hussman, Ph.D., Hussman Funds)
Sounds ominous, doesn't it? And Hussman is not alone either. The bearish mood on Wall Street is gaining pace even among those who focus more on geopolitical issues than fundamentals, like the Bank for International Settlements' Guy Debelle who said in an interview on CNBC on Tuesday that he was concerned about the possibility of a "violent" market drop, particularly in bonds.
"If I had told you that there were heightened tensions in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, uncertainty about the turning point in U.S. monetary policy, a succession of strong U.S. job numbers, uncertainty about the future direction of policy in Europe and Japan, as well as increased concern about the strength of the Chinese economy, you would not be expecting that to make for a benign time in financial markets," Guy Debelle of the BIS said. "But that is what we have seen for much of this year." (CNBC)
But stocks aren't cratering because of tensions in the Middle East or Eastern Europe. That's baloney. And they're not falling because of decelerating global growth, plunging oil prices or Ebola. They're falling because no one knows what the heck is going to happen when QE stops at the end of October. That's what has everyone in a lather.
Keep in mind, that 20 percent of the current market cap (more than $4 trillion) is stock buybacks, that is, corporations that have bought their own shares to juice prices. Do you really think that corporate bosses are going to play as fast and loose after the Fed stops its liquidity injections?
Not on your life. They're going to pull in their horns and see what happens next. And if things go sideways, (which they very well could) they're going to cash in and call it a day. That's going to drive down stock prices and send markets reeling.
Stocks have nearly tripled since March 2009 when the Fed started this "credit easing" fiasco. So if stocks rode higher on an ocean of Fed liquidity, then how low are they going to go when the spigot is turned off? There are some, like technical strategist Abigail Doolittle, who think the S and P 500 could suffer a major heart attack, dropping as much as 60 percent before equities touch down. Check it out from CNBC:
"(Abigail) Doolittle, founder of Peak Theories Research, has made headlines lately suggesting a market correction worse than anyone thinks is ahead. The long-term possibility, she has said, is a 60 percent collapse for the S&P 500.
In early August, Doolittle was warning both of a looming "super spike" in the CBOE Volatility Index as well as a "death cross" in the 10-year Treasury note.
And so it's come to pass at least for the VIX, which has jumped 74 percent over the past three months and crossed the 20 threshold that historically has served as a dividing line between complacency and fear. That's its highest level in nearly two years. From Doolittle's perspective, the spike represents a bad-news/bad-news scenario … that the near-term selling action is likely to continue and even accelerate…
…she thinks "violent waves of selling action" could send the VIX all the way to 90—even beyond its peak during the financial crisis." (CNBC)
Now maybe Doolittle is just exaggerating or paranoid, but her conclusions do seem to square with CNN Money. Here's a clip from yesterday's article:
"CNNMoney's Fear & Greed Index is a good indicator of market momentum. Today it hit zero. That's a huge red flag and showcases extreme fear in the stock market. The only other time the index ever touched that low point is in August 2011 — shortly after Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. debt.
Volatility — or what some are calling "market whiplash" — is clearly back in the market. The VIX, an index that measures volatility and is one of the factors that goes into the Fear & Greed Index — spiked again today. It's up a whopping 60% in the past week alone." (Extreme Fear in stock market, CNN Money)
So fear and volatility are back, but liquidity has suddenly gone missing. That sounds like a prescription for disaster to me. So what can we expect in the weeks to come?
Well, more of the same, at least that's how Pimco's former chief executive officer Mohamed El Erian sees it. Here's how he summed it up on Wednesday in a Bloomberg editorial:
"Though unlikely to be as dramatic as today, market volatility can be expected to continue in the days and weeks to come as two forces compete: first, the forced deleveraging of certain investors, particularly overstretched hedge funds registering big October losses; second, central banks scrambling to say all sorts of reassuring things. All of this will serve to reinforce October's longstanding reputation as a threatening month for investors around the world." (October's Wild Ride Isn't Over Yet, Mohamed A. El-Erian, Bloomberg)
Did he say "forced deleveraging"?
Uh huh. So, after a 6 year bacchanal, the Fed is finally going to take away the punch bowl and force the revelers to pay down their debts, clean up their balance sheets, and take a few less risks. Is that it?
Yep. It sure looks like it. But, that could change in the blink of an eye, after all, the Fed has its friends to think of. Which means that Ms. Yellen could announce QE4 any day now.


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Archive for category: New York City
You are here: Home / New York City
You Know Who You Are
The December holiday period is noteworthy not only for end of year festivities, but for charitable giving, hospitality and caring. But what about the rest of the year? What cities rank highest in the country for volunteer work, donations to charities, being compassionate?
You guessed it, because most likely if you're reading this (point of origin: New York City), you're a New Yorker by birth, geography or spirit. And you know your tribe.
Forget that Travel + Leisure Magazine has repeatedly named New Yorkers the rudest people in America; we are also some of the most generous and kind. Caring, in fact, according to new research by Wallet Hub on "2018's Most Caring Cities in America."
Their methodology compared the top 100 most populated U.S. cities based on levels of caring for the community, the vulnerable, and in the workforce. They then did evaluations using metrics for each category ranging from crime rates to energy efficiency, child and adult poverty rates to pet shelters and rescues, and the number of social workers, physicians, doctors, special-ed teachers, firefighters and paramedics.
End result: Out of 100 U.S. cities, New York is #2. Yes, we said #2. Madison, Wisconsin was #1.
It may be difficult to believe that we are not a number one, top of the list. Guess we'll just have to try harder.
See the report here:
https://wallethub.com/edu/most-caring-cities/17814/#methodology
By Steven J. Schleider, MAI, LEED-AP BD+C, President, Metropolitan Valuation Services
December 28, 2018 /0 Comments/by mvsadmin
https://www.mvsappraisal.nyc/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/0.jpg 293 378 mvsadmin http://www.mvsappraisal.nyc/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/MVS-blog-logo-rev.jpg mvsadmin2018-12-28 12:56:042019-01-30 01:19:19You Know Who You Are


Francisca Gaoiran Mariano, 78, of Haleiwa, a Green Growers Farm fieldworker in Hauula, died in Kailua. She was born in Ilocos Norte, Philippines. She is survived by sons Romeo, Abraham and Roquito Mariano; daughters Mamerta Villena, Juliet Davidson and Luisa Mariano; sisters Maria and Irenia Gaoiran, and Magdalena Labrador; 12 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. Visitation:5:30 p.m. Friday at MililaniMortuary-Waipio, makai chapel. Services:6:30 p.m. Casual attire. No flowers.


Wise Construction recently completed the first two phases of a multi-phased renovation for the Department of General Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).
Wise Construction recently completed renovations to reposition the Boston Design Center for Jamestown.
Wise Construction worked with Alexandria Real Estate Equities (ARE) to convert underutilized space at 215 First Street into valuable tenant amenity space.
Wise Construction recently completed Living Proof's new 28,000SF headquarters, located in the Seaport's Innovation and Design Building (IDB).


Student success is about so much more than high test scores.
How my experiences in school shaped my commitment to connect with young Black males.
Filed Under: Featured Content, Social Justice Tagged With: black history month, Black males, Civil Rights movement, classrooms, education, family, high school, Martin Luther King Jr., mentorship, opportunity, potential, rosa parks, school, social inequality, Vernon Lindsay Ph.D.
Education is a path toward permanent liberation in which people became aware of their multiple positionalities, and through reflection and action, transform the world.
We're told males in academics are in crisis, from grade school disengagement to less collegiate matriculation. What do our young men embedded in the experience think is needed in male education?
Can you miss a building almost as much as the people within? Perhaps.
How Could We Possibly Forget About the Boys?
Why is it that we keep trying to change boys to fit the educational system instead of the educational system to fit boys?


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Often the Long Lasting Popularity connected with Escape Video games Online


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Home Tags Stan Sakai
Tag: Stan Sakai
The exodus continues, USAGI YOJIMBO is leaving Dark Horse for IDW...
Talk about a Friday surprise!
USAGI YOJIMBO/TMNT: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION Coming from Dark Horse
Joe Grunenwald - 04/09/2018 10:45 pm
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Miyamoto Usagi's adventures together are in one volume for the first time.
Kibbles 'n' Bts 2/7/18: Usagi Yojimbo cartoon is in development
https://twitter.com/e_charretier/status/960607585962549248 § Nice Art: Elsa Charretier's Childish Gambino as Lando sums up the general feeling. No one cares about young Han Solo. https://twitter.com/EdPiskor/status/960996963914342400 § Nice Art 2:...
SDCC'17: TMNT Cast & Crew Talk Samurai Rabbits and Series Finale
When Viacom acquired the Ninja Turtles franchise back in 2009, it may have underestimated the strength of the Turtles fanbase. Certainly, the last few...
ECCC: Dark Horse News Round-Up Bounty, Groo, Moebius and Conan!
Rounding up the news aout of Emerald City Comic Con which certainly seems to have become the spring news drop. In addition to the fine-looking...
Dark Horse announces Groo: Friends and Foes from Evanier and Aragones
Mulching, blunders and barbarian action. Groo is eternal and Groo is back with Groo: Friends and Foes, a year long series by Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragones, Stan Sakai and Tom Luth, the same team that's been turning out this book since the 80s. In the first issues, Groo meets Captain Ahax, the seaman with the world record for most ships sunk. It's a safe asumption that all hell will break loose from that point on.
Dark Horse Announce The Stan Sakai Project
Steve Morris - 01/31/2014 3:35 pm
To celebrate thirty years of Usagi Yojimbo, and to raise donations for the series' creator Stan Sakai, Dark Horse have today announced The Stan...
Things to do today: Benefit for Stan and Sharon Sakai
As we've been reporting here for a while, Sharon Sakai, wife of Usagi Yojimbo cartoonist Stan Sakai has been undergoing a long, costly illness....


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Staff Columnist
Columns are the opinion of the author, and include both facts and the individual's personal insights and perspective. The Gazette employs three staff columnists who live and work in Eastern Iowa, and also serve on the editorial board.
Sat., August 29, 2020
Iowa was reporting false COVID-19 information for months, until this nurse blew the whistle
State epidemiologist knew about the problem since July
Lyz Lenz
Grassley is lying again
We have another health crisis: STIs going undetected
It's time to hold our leaders accountable
Theresa Greenfield will not make you squeal
Back to school in a pandemic
All articles by Lyz
Dana Jones knew there was a problem the Iowa's COVID-19 data in May. Since the first reported cases of COVID-19 in March, Jones, a nurse practitioner who lives in Iowa City, had been keeping careful records in her journal of the daily positivity numbers.
She was keeping a record in her daily journal, not just of the numbers, but of her days at the clinic, what her patients were saying, what her kids ages 5, 11 and 16 were thinking and saying about the pandemic, what groceries she could no longer find in the stores.
The COVID-19 numbers aren't just data and metrics for Jones. They are the people she sees and works with, they are her children and parents.
Nothing is adding up
She began by handwriting her notes usually in the morning before work, or in the evening right after. She works full-time as an essential worker and is the mother of three. Her days are busy. Keeping track of the numbers helped her feel like she had a handle on the pandemic tearing through America, killing nearly 200,000 so far.
On May 26, she decided to download the COVID-19 data from Iowa's Department of Health website. The next day, she went to add in the new numbers and saw the problem: Positive case numbers were being added to earlier days and not reported in the current days' totals.
The next day, it happened again. And again. So she did what many frustrated Americans do, she tweeted. On May 29, she tweeted, "Fun fact: on March 20th I was told there were 49 cases of COVID-19 in Iowa on the @IAPublicHealth site. Today that total on that date is 80. Yesterday that total was 79. The day before that it was 78 ... WHAT GIVES?"
The next day it happened again. This wasn't an accident, this was how the system was designed.
Shouting into the void
On May 30, Jones tweeted at the news site Iowa Starting Line, "@IAStartingLine did you know that the total daily cases you were reporting in March are now being reported by @IAPublicHealth as double that number now?"
Meanwhile, Gov. Kim Reynolds was reopening the state using Iowa's low positivity numbers as justification for lifting bans on gatherings of 10 or more people, bars, restaurants, water parks.
Jones was telling anyone who would listen about the numbers shell game that the state was playing with COVID-19 tests, but she was shouting into a void.
Reynolds was opening the state. Nothing would stop her, not even the truth.
Others in the media had noticed the data problems, but were not getting their questions answered by IDPH or the governor's office. Emails were going unreturned and calls unanswered. Working in journalism in small newspapers and TV stations in 2020 feels like trying to report from the deck of the Titanic — there is too much going on and your world is sinking. But reporters were asking for answers. Sara Konrad Baranowski, editor for the Times Citizen in Iowa Falls, was relentless in pushing for answers. Over the course of 20 days, she sent 10 emails (the governor's office prefers emails and refers phone calls from the press to email), but the state didn't reply.
Meanwhile, Reynolds was touting the transparency of her administration and forcing schools in-person in the fall.
So, Jones watched the cases back date for months. Finally, it was August, and Jones sent an email through the IDPH portal asking what was happening. She got a response. On Aug 14. Rob Ramaekers, the lead epidemiologist for the department's Surveillance Unit, wrote back to Jones noting that they were aware of the problem and working to fix it. On Aug. 17, the Iowa news site Bleeding Heartland, the AP and the Times Citizen reported on the "glitch."
The state knew
On Aug. 19, in an interview with The Gazette, state epidemiologist Caitlin Pedati said that IDPH had known about the data problem since July but didn't fix it. In fact, the problem still isn't fixed.
Pedati tried to downplay the severity of the issue, but the reality remains: While the governor was pushing to send kids and teachers back to school, the state was actively hiding positive tests and refusing to answer questions from the press about it.
And it wasn't just the "glitch." At a news conference on Aug. 27, Reynolds admitted that antigen tests, which are a different type of COVID-19 tests, were not being added to the positive case totals. The tests were added to the overall tests performed, but if they came back positive, were not added to the states positive totals. That's changing, but the fact that for months Iowans were misled about the reality of the virus in the state, that's a truth the state can't shuffle around on an Excel sheet.
On Aug. 28, the antigen tests were added to Iowa's numbers and our infection rate shot off higher than an illegal firework in a Des Moines suburb. If Iowa were a country, we'd have the third highest rate of infection in the world.
It's not numbers, it's people
Jones told me in an interview that the way the data has been recorded is also constantly changing, making it hard for her and other data watchers to get an accurate picture of the spread of the virus in Iowa.
"We were told that there was one picture of the virus in the state, when the reality was something else," said Jones, who noted that even as case counts rise, the reality of the COVID-19 infection spread in the state is worse than we know and worse than our state is telling us.
"Even now," said Jones, "numbers still aren't adding up."
"The thing is, numbers are a lagging indicator," explains Jones. So whatever we see now, that was the picture from the past. Acting on those numbers now, is too late.
But Jones is quick to remind me again, this is more than just numbers, "Behind every data point is a person, a human life." That's what is at stake.
Just three days after I spoke with Jones, Iowa became number one in the United States for COVID-19 cases per capita. And Reynolds moved to shut down bars in only six counties. But schools are opening in person and the reality is worse than we know.
lyz.lenz@thegazette.com; 319-368-8513
Mask mandates are enforcable if you enforce them
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The real natural disaster
Why did it take so long for help to arrive after Iowa storm?
MORE Staff Columnist ARTICLES TO READ NEXT ...
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In silica optical fibers, the refractive index control is one of key technologies in mode confinements, chromatic dispersion controls, and birefringence manipulation. The control should be in both ways—increasing and decreasing the refractive index. In comparison to relatively sufficient and efficient doping of the index-raising GeO2 into silica, the index-lowering agents in silica glass such as B2O3 and F have shown severe limitation of doping concentration due to the huge excess loss for high B2O3 and chemically unstable glass forming for high F. The lowest possible refractive index is that of air and holey regions have been incorporated in optical fiber to maximize the refractive index contrast, and various air–silica guiding structures have been proposed in various forms [1–3].
However, it is since 1996 when Knight et al.  first reported a transverse periodic air hole structure in silica cladding that intensive and explosive research efforts have begun for innovative nano- and micro-scale air–silica structured optical fibers and their applications. There are various names for these air–silica guiding optical fibers such as photonic crystal fibers (ASHF), microstructured optical fiber (MOF), and holey fiber (HF). In this chapter, we will use the term air–silica holey fiber (ASHF) to be more inclusive in classification of similar fibers.