I finished up my instagram music challenge #Project365 a couple days ago! I'm so excited that it's done with to be honest. Partly because having kids and a husband and a busy schedule made it hard sometime to get that little bit of time to record a song. Kids are always loud and demanding your attention. It's like getting out of school for summer. I am free of commitments that I made for myself.
On the other side of it though I'm glad I pushed myself. I felt like I became more confident in putting myself out there every single day to be judged. Also, it pushed me to be more creative. It was actually really fun to come up with different ways to sing popular songs. I didn't get to every request and I didn't get to every single song I wanted to do. There's just way too many. I'm so thankful for the continuous support and encouragement from my followers. They still hung in there with me while I blew up their feed with videos of me singing every single day.
With that said the very next day I got to start working on my original music with my awesome producers and I can't wait to get into the recording studio and share it with everyone.
Since so much is going to be going on with the music I made separate social media pages for it.


text:
← Table That
Moving It →
A Habibi Roundtable
BY Charles Hatfield Oct 27, 2011
Charles Hatfield:
Joe, per usual, your reading leapfrogs into fascinating territory, particularly your dazzling take on the book's reigning cluster of metaphors and its, as you say, narrative super-structure. That super-structure is what I had in mind when I spoke of the unity and cohesion of the book's design schema—that "diagrammatic table of contents" which, as Hayley points out, supplies the novel's entire structure. I see this designing tendency as a mighty, though not wholly successful, attempt to strengthen a story vitiated by its, as you suggest, very length, breadth, and wandering nature. The book tries to disguise, or shore up, its sloshing with a hyper-disciplined presentation, which works like a form of secondary elaboration, a willed architecture to box in its poetic waywardness.
To me, Thompson's careful rigging of this super-structure (which, yes, calls to mind Moore's work) tensely coexists with the almost physical ardor of the work, including his supple line, his emphasis on sensual pleasure as well as pain, and the overall thematic of longing. As Tom says, Habibi is a story "of longing for a beloved," perhaps too an attempt to recover a lost faith. It's a mixing of religious and sexual passion, in that sense like Blankets. Yet it seems uneasy in how it seeks to reconcile a distanced view, meaning an architectonic view of the book as a total design, nested, layered, and deep, with that more spontaneous, or at least initially spontaneous, spiritual ache. Habibi puts the lie to anyone who still thinks Thompson is an unreflective navel-gazer without a grasp of form—but it may be that the book's design is too clever, thus airless, controlled and controlling, overdone, overly finished (Hayley's tight leash?). In other words, it may be that the book's formalism vitiates the sense of longing we get from it—or at least makes it harder for us readers to participate in that longing. This seems to be a theme in many of our comments: nothing is left to our process of discovery; everything is overdetermined.
I was talking to a colleague at a conference just days ago who dearly wanted to love Habibi but who was repulsed a bit not only by the Orientalist tropes but also by the book's quality of obsessive deliberation and finish, a quality she and I agreed might be best described as overbaked. Is it perhaps this quality that leads Tom to call the book manipulative, to say that it leaves "nothing to the reader"? Is it this that prompts Joe to say that Thompson leaves nothing implicit, and Hayley to say that the reader "can add nothing" to the tale? Thompson's level of craft is so high, it's perhaps suffocating.
On the other hand, I sympathize with Katie's point (rebounding from Faber), that in the comics world, or at least in a certain part of it, there is a prejudice against virtuosity. This may help explain our resistance to Thompson's "manipulation." It also helps explain why Thompson's debt to Eisner, who in discussions like these often serves as the epitome of melodramatic manipulation, has come under such intense scrutiny (see the comments thread after Nadim's Damluji's review of Habibi, for instance). Thompson's "Eisnerian approaches" are part of jerking on that leash, eh?
A Contract with God ©1996 Will Eisner
Hayley, I agree that the Eisnerian strain shows through especially strongly in the chapter with Noah the fisherman. Yes, that chapter reads like a lost Eisner work, particularly Noah's arc from naive optimism to icy pessimism to renewed faith. The gestures there are especially broad. But I also agree that this is a lovely chapter, one of the gleaming highlights of the book. (Is it just me, or does the poignancy of Noah's tale not remind you of Captain Chuck in Good-Bye, Chunky Rice?)
Katie's point about mistrust of virtuosity reminds me of so many things, not least discussions of why people value what they value in music. The reverse snobbery of the punk fan who distrusts skillfulness and fetishizes supposed authenticity via technical clumsiness comes to mind. Such dislike of virtuosity smacks of James Kochalka's notorious, though long-ago, declaration that "craft is the enemy," by which I take it Kochalka meant that mastering everything in one's art to the point of having nothing else to discover is a drag. Good point. More vexingly, though, Kochalka has also said that "there is no art in illustration." I don't believe this. It's a commonplace, though, in circles where suspicion of craft leads people to prize crudeness for its own sake.
I'm reminded of John Sheinbaum's essay "Progressive Rock and the Inversion of Musical Values" (in the book Progressive Rock Reconsidered, edited by Kevin Holm-Hudson [Taylor & Francis, 2002]), which shows how the very skills valorized within classical music criticism are damned in rock criticism. Sheinbaum's point is not to reprioritize classicism at the expense of rock's energy and iconoclasm, but to show how the mere upending of classical values cannot usefully account for all genres of rock and creates its own kind of critical narrowness. Point taken. Similarly, the idea that rough directness in comics is always to be preferred over technical virtuosity rules out of court a lot of work that is interesting and beautiful (I take it this was Faber's point).
That said, I admit to taking a Kochalka-esque view of some things. For instance, I've always found Pink Floyd's later output (including Dark Side of the Moon) to be labored and oppressive in its well-crafted slickness. Maybe that's because of a mismatch between the band's lacerating cynicism and its technical polish? And I find myself wishing that Thompson would create another short blast of a book, something like his Carnet de Voyage, something that could serve as a tonic contrast to the laboriousness of Habibi. I'm not wholly consistent on these things.
But perhaps the issue of craft is a red herring. Like Tom, I don't mind being manipulated if it's well done. I think my misgivings have more to do with Habibi's basic conception: to me, the novel's most important troublesome element is its participation in Orientalism as a genre (the core issue for Damluji as well). The hyper-elaboration of its design and its surface strikes me as overcompensating for that dicey conception. Yet I also must confess that, again like Tom, the book's hopefulness moved me. When I got to the end of it, I was pretty close to Hayley's what a fucking book. Yes. Perhaps that was simply a reaction to my own considerable investment in it, both the hopes I had had for it and the sheer effort I put into reading it?
I want to say, before I forget and let the point slip through my fingers, that I consider Katie's point about racism in the novel important. I don't agree with her, though, that the black characters often look inhuman—something I hadn't even thought of. It's their speech that often disappoints, particularly in the case of Hyacinth, the chief eunuch, who, as both Katie and Tom point out, is taxed with particularly obnoxious dialogue. His Black Power rhetoric is woefully flatfooted. The other efforts at humor I don't mind, including the "walnut" joke about skin color, which I took to be the result of Thompson's research into slavery and racism in Arab history—which are hard, unerasable realities (I suppose a useful starting point on this issue would be Race and Slavery in the Middle East, by Edward Said's antagonist Bernard Lewis [Oxford, 1992]). In general, I think the humorous asides are surprising because they don't conform to the prevailing image of Thompson as achingly sincere (this is more a Blankets image than a Chunky Rice one, I'd say). But I agree with Hayley that these sallies are welcome.
Another unattached thought: the pivotal Chapter 8, "Orphan's Prayer," which consists of picture-less nine-panel grids—that chapter Joe calls the near picture-free alif chapter—is a brilliant stroke. It's brilliant because (a) it finally confronts the aniconism (ban on images) that is so important in Islamic art and culture, and (b) it's the one place where the overwhelming leash-tugging power of Thompson's virtuosity is stilled, and yet it still remains powerful. Of all the ingenious formal moves in Habibi, perhaps the smartest is the one in which Thompson's drawings disappear.
Chris Mautner:
Charles' "overbaked" comment in a way gets at the heart for me of what was problematic about Blankets. All of the criticisms the book has received—it's too shallow, there's no subtext, it's too bourgeois (isn't that what Menu said?), it works better as a book for young readers—miss what I think is the book's critical flaw, mainly that it's overstuffed. Quick, what is Blankets really about? Is it about Thompson's relationship with his girlfriend? With his parents? With his brother? With God? All of the above? And what about the girlfriends' parents and siblings, who are given more space in the book (or at least equal space) than Thompson's own parents? For me, Blankets' central problem is that it tries to juggle too many subplots, too many characters and too many themes, with nothing ever jelling (transcendent moments aside) into a cohesive narrative whole.
That being the case, what impressed me right off the bat about Habibi is what a comparatively smoother read it is. If anything, the book boasts a larger cast and twice as many subplots and yet I never once felt all these disparate units weren't part of a greater naarrative structure. This time around, I could admire the individual joints and beams without feeling like I was failing to grasp how they interlocked into each other (if I may use a weird housing analogy).
What troubled me about the book—or at least one of the central things that troubled me about the book upon my initial reading—was its incredibly bleak outlook on life and humanity. With the exception of a very small number of people (most notably Nadidah, who I think serves as a very important counterpoint to Dodola), about every single person other than the two protagonists is greedy, mean, and abusive. What with all the child rape and slavery and rape and global warming and rape and prostitution and rape and social exploitation, I began to wonder whether Dodola and Zam shouldn't just enter into some sort of suicide pact to escape the brutal world they abide in.
But of course, all that misery is really just the flip side of Thompson's romanticism. At its core, Habibi is a familiar tale of two lovers separated by overwhelming adversity, a self-aware, modern-in-spirit-if-not-in-dressing version of Tristan and Iseult (or whatever star-crossed lovers of classical lore you prefer to reference). To throw so many enormous obstacles in the couple's path gives Thompson the ability not only to comment on modern man's general inhumanity to his fellow man, but also to emphasize the couple's deep (and fated) connection with each other. To put it another way, it raises the stakes of the game and gives the reader something to root for. The worse off the young lovers are, the more desperate you are to see these crazy kids reunite. No wonder he indulges in so many Orientalist trappings; that sort of material just feeds into the kind of pulp romanticism that Thompson is ultimately indulging in here.
By the way, I'm not trying to doubt Thompson's sincerity here or ascribe any sort of mercenary impulse. He's very clearly a heart-on-his-sleeve kind of guy. Nor am I saying that, despite my concerns (some of which have already been well articulated by the rest of the roundtable), I didn't enjoy Habibi, though I suspect I ultimately may end up admiring it more than outright liking it. Certainly there can be little doubt that it is a visually stunning book, full of striking sequences. I especially appreciated how Thompson blends word and image so frequently and to such eloquent effect, and I'm waiting for R.C. Harvey's thoughts on how that final "all-text" sequence at the end that CH mentions upsets the "verbal-visual" applecart.
And yeah, Haley's dead on about the Eisner influence. That fisherman looks like he walked right out of A Contract With God.
Katie Haegele:
I'm afraid I'm very short on time now but I wanted to pop in for a minute. Charles, thanks for your comparison of authenticity in punk to this problem of "virtuosity" in comics. It seems apt. I see this in my zine corner of the writing/art world too (which is a punk corner too of course): things being dismissed out-of-hand because they look too polished. I am sympathetic with this view when I sense that the maker is pretending to be one thing but is actually another, or is using a more accessible format as a stepping stone for something he deems loftier, but I get angry when what is being put down is "craft" or perfectionism or even formal education. Thompson's drawings are so "controlled" as you say, and so detailed and elaborate, that it seems to me what's being shown off isn't his skill (though he's got it) so much as a certain devotion to his subject matter, and I can get behind that. It feels appropriate to the subject and his relationship to it. I'm reminded of a friend who told me there was a particular prayer her Chinese grandfather wrote out hundreds of times over the years, perfecting the lettering as a way of praying.
But content-wise, overstuffed feels about right to me too. For all that was crammed into the book I took little away. Getting through it felt like work; I finished reading it a few weeks ago and no aspect of it has lived in my mind since then. And I stand by my assessment that the way most of the "black" characters in this book were handled is off in several ways—especially in light of the book's "Orientalism" as we're politely calling it, which everyone was quick to identify—to the point that what Thompson was attempting to give us with these characters was totally lost on me. Comic relief? At whose expense? Anyway, the pompous attitude of this book cannot support hammy jokes; i.e. they aren't funny. I wasn't giving this some pointy-headed liberal reading, looking for things to be offended by. I'm honestly surprised that jive-talking eunuchs, etc., didn't startle all of you right out of the narrative like they did me. Charles—I appreciate your insight that he may have been commenting on Arabic racism in the "walnut" gag that bothered me, but it still stands out to me as insensitive and just, like, ODD to make some Gong Show gag in that context (a slave auction). I take your point but overall I don't believe that the humor rankled me because I expected or wanted the book's tone to remain pious and sincere—I just didn't find it funny! Most of the attempts at levity felt misplaced, either anachronistic or inappropriate to the subject matter (or, yeah, to the overall studiously reverent feeling of the book), so rather than relieving tension, for me, it fell flat. And the farting dwarf was just weird.
Katie, I agree both about appreciating Thompson's devotion to his craft but also his very uncertain way with dialogue and, on reflection, his terribly self-conscious treatment of race. The book doesn't earn the authority that it seeks to assume in those passages—though I don't think Thompson should have retreated from the issues; rather I think he should have followed them more doggedly. Honestly, I don't think one has to be a "pointy-headed liberal" to find things in the book to object to.
Joe McCulloch:
I don't have much of a problem with virtuosity so much as the book's studied content becoming ungainly enough that its probably unwitting implications and clusters of internal contradictions become too much to float over. Then again, Tucker Stone linked to a nice Economist piece the other day where the artist Grayson Perry declared it a male tendency to cloak aesthetic preference in the guise of function, so maybe I'm being a total boy here and wishing for a perfect-humming comics machine when the very act of processing Thompson's inquiries can be a unique pleasure of its own.
Still, I love Chris' notion of all this mystic electricity as power for the romantic trials facing this most unhappy couple. He calls it pulp romanticism, and I'll cartwheel my way toward a sheer cliff by declaring it Bollywood as fuck. And while India might not spring to mind as primarily where Habibi is casting its gaze—to the extent it's gazing anywhere with much specificity, which is part of the problem—the country does contain about a tenth of the world's Muslims, and, crucially, many popular and exportable Muslim performers in quite a few complication-laden melodramatic love stories which share not a little common ground with melodramatic tenants long-active in American fiction, as recently detailed by Kailyn Kent. Many of these works also sprinkle broad and seemingly jarring bits of humor in with the blend—as, admittedly, did manga à la Tezuka, who totally would throw in weird comedy basically whenever he felt like it, even in seemingly totally serious works. I actually thought the slapstick, antic aspect of Habibi wound up as one of its more successful invocations of a distant, if faintly rendered cultural space, though maybe an accidental one; there's a grand tradition of humor in American comics too, of course, but little that sprinkles humor so liberally throughout so grand a singular narrative.
Likewise, I'm hesitant to declare notions of the book's setting as ancient-yet-modern to be specifically Orientalist, in that (again, per Kent) the dichotomy between "rural" and "urban" settings is a melodramatic trope, frankly active today in popular entertainments consumed by millions of actual, diverse foreign peoples; the bits with Zam and Dodola staring out over the city from their terribly profound unfinished skyscraper squatting ground might look like something straight out of Slumdog Millionaire, but Danny Boyle bit that from actual regional stuff. Ah, but then we're faced again with the globular "Arabia" that is the Habibi setting, as opposed to the particularities of "global" tropes active in a particular nation-of-diversities; if a recent Hindi-language feature like Mausam (just to name the latest to hit my city multiplex) tracks its lovey-dovey couple from an old-timey village in Punjab to the modern, national scene of military jets and international aid—with some attention paid to handwritten notes luxuriously dissolving into water, I must say—it's because the filmmakers are in part selling a familiar brand of nationalized identity narrative hailing traditional roots while acknowledging no small effect of globalization. It's the lack of such specificity that troubles Habibi, emphasizing Thompson's status as an outsider with cultural baggage to carry, if one intent on keeping his head up.
Charles Hatfield once more:
Agreed. The fantasy Arabia that gives Habibi its setting is the heart of the problem, I think. This setting, which, Thompson's research notwithstanding, is a generic rather than historic one, is the very warrant of his story, the ground without which he could not invent so freely or range so widely—but, still, the book implicitly makes claims on our knowledge of the real world, of Islam, Islamophobia, East-West relations post-9/11, environmental racism, and the ecological traumas and challenges of our time. The book bids for relevance in specific ways, some allegorical, many overt, and that makes its reckless deployment of the Oriental tale—what Thompson himself has identified, accurately, as a genre—seem like an essential dodge. We can't quite critique the setting because, as Tom points out, the book freely explores and riffs on several disparate cultures, the result being a synthetic storybook version of Islamic empire in some (despite the skyscrapers) premodern age. This seriously complicates both the book's virtues and its attempts at social and political relevance.
It may be, as both Chris and Joe argue, that Habibi uses Orientalist set dressing to lend grandeur and pathos to a generic story of star-crossed lovers. Joe rightly points out that this kind of story is greedily consumed by diverse peoples worldwide; it's not simply an imposition from without (notably, there are florid examples of the genre in the 1001 Nights itself). But Thompson strikes me as trying to do something else; the freightedness of Zam and Dodola's final consummation is not simply emotional and sensual, but, implicitly, political: symbolically, the crossing of a cultural divide. Habibi, though, for all its artfulness, doesn't quite earn that. The problem is one of treating disparate cultures interchangeably. Helen Bannerman did this in Little Black Sambo (1899), a book that has inspired diametrically opposed readings—degrading, empowering; positive, negative—because of its fundamental instability. Bannerman lived in India, a setting that Sambo hints at, but the pictorial depiction of the characters courts the stereotypic Blackamoor in ways that blur African and other racial meanings. That Bannerman could get away with this is itself a symptom of the imperialism under which she lived. I am convinced that she meant well—Sambo has a sweet, well meant, funny story at its core—but her readers' very indifference to the mixed-up racial signifiers in the book (Indian, African, African-American, etc.) was an imperial indulgence. (Elizabeth Hays' book Sambo Sahib [Harris, 1981] well covers this topic.) Despite many smart attempts to update the story, Sambo remains notoriously dated, mired in a particular time, and it has the defects of its virtues. Will we say the same about Habibi if and when we are able to view East-West relations from a different, less traumatized perspective?
What I'm gleaning from our discussion—not to say we're all in entire agreement, which we clearly aren't, but there are threads in the above that are shared—what I'm gleaning is that Habibi inspires awe for its thoroughness and devotion, but that its willed coherence, i.e. its painstaking scaffolding, comes at the cost of great effort for Thompson and readers alike. This is either because its myriad explorations dilute its power, or, on the other hand, because its overdetermined pattern of associations denies readers a longed-for role in teasing out and contributing to that power. Habibi is, undeniably, massively, the result of a heroic effort of will. It is the Eisnerian graphic novel writ large. For every reader who admires its elaborate construction, though, others will find it elephantine and unwieldy, or simply too rigidly formed and airtight to grant a way in. (Speaking personally, I'd love to see Thompson put aside the graphic novel for a while and put his ravishing artistry to work in sundry shorter forms.)
Most troublingly, Habibi is a haunted exercise in exoticization that traffics in images that, on some level, it cannot help but disapprove—but that Thompson the artist cannot help but love. Thompson, after a long, deep plunge into risky waters, has come to the surface with a work that resolves little and provokes much, one we'll be wrangling about for some time—perhaps the ultimate irony for a book that so avidly does the work of what Eisner called reader discipline, that is, tugging on the chain, seeking to affirm and cement its own self-interpretation, its own thoroughly crafted meanings. Habibi, in the end, will have done something if its provocations goad readers into thinking and investigating the issues on their own, beyond the suasive envelope of Thompson's beguiling artistry.
Thanks to everyone here for pushing the conversation forward.
FILED UNDER: Craig Thompson, Habibi
19 Responses to A Habibi Roundtable
JMD says:
There are 11 herbs and spices depicted on page 60 in Habibi. Maybe Craig was hungry for some fried chicken at the time?
Mike Hunter says:
At least Miller shows a touch of wit (in the second "Holy Terror" panel above) by giving a nod to Piranes's Carceri d'invenzione: http://popartmachine.com/artwork/FASF-FASF.59101/0/Giovanni-Battista-Piranesi-The-Round-Tower,-plate-III,-from-the-series-Carc-painting-artwork-print.jpg .
More about "The Prisons" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Piranesi ; which tells how Piranesi supposedly composed these nightmare scenes "during the delirium of a fever." No doubt "trembling on his bed alone… filtering…an iconography built up over longer years." (Piranesi first became famous through a series of prints depicting — though exaggerating the size and grandiosity of — the ruins of ancient Rome.)
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Piranesi reference or not, that is some horrible art!
I know which book I'm getting.
Joe McCulloch says:
Ah, excellent! Thanks for this…
JWE says:
Both books look corny and hamfisted.
Charles Hatfield says:
"Corny and hamfisted" means what, exactly? That they lack subtlety? Both Sousa and the Ramones lack subtlety, but that doesn't get us very far. The comparison between the two books will need to be supported by… something, if we're to take this anywhere.
I'll go on record as saying that Habibi's corniness, if that's a fair tag, is the result of genuine questing and a profound desire to understand, communicate, and see some good in this world. Holy Terror, on the other hand, is loathsome.
Uland says:
"environmental racism"
Hayley Campbell says:
Re "Holy Terror"…
"This is Information," Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's wise, thoughtful, humane "response to 9/11" comics story explicitly rejected seeing Al-Qaeda as a SPECTRE-type conspiracy; satirizing this asinine attitude by showing Osama bin Laden in the Persian cat-stroking pose of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Warning how it's "Dangerous, now, to simplify, to trade reality's moral grey for comic-book black and white."
It's painfully telling of Frank Miller's, um, limitations that he depicts Al-Qaeda in James Bondian terms; even outfitting them with a massive underground HQ, armed and costumed acolytes swarming about it like a scene from "You Only Live Twice"…
("This is Information" can be read at http://www.oesquema.com.br/trabalhosujo/2011/09/11/this-is-information-alan-moore-e-melinda-gebbie.htm
Annotations about that masterwork at http://www.enjolrasworld.com/Annotations/Alan%20Moore/This%20is%20Information%20-%20Annotations.htm )
Regarding environmental racism, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_racism
The concept and phrase are not mine, but widely shared. In essence, the phrase denotes the disproportionate concentration of adverse environmental effects in poor and working-class communities, particularly communities of disenfranchised minorities. That this happens is a solid fact.
The environmental effects of maquiladoras on the Mexico-U.S. border is but one pressing example, close to home.
Good connection, Mike, thanks!
Holy Terror is trumped by Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca's raucous one-page spoof, USApe vs Axis of Evil, in pood #2.
What has kept me from getting Thompson's books is a discomfort with his art, something I can only define as a "slickness" of execution in the drawings. That is perhaps unfair—this and HU's roundtable have made a case that I should dedicate some increasingly precious bank to getting the book (I'll definitely pass on Holy Terror). I do take exception to the mentions above to the writing as something apart from the drawings. In comics, the two are joined and inseperable. The art is not "illustrations" simply there to decorate and support the "writing" and I imagine he does both simultaneously.
Two reactions to/reviews of Habibi by women of color:
I'm Not Your Habibi, by Fatemeh Fakhraie
http://www.racialicious.com/2011/11/03/i%e2%80%99m-not-your-habibi-thoughts-on-craig-thompson%e2%80%99s-graphic-novel/
Self-Conscious Orientalism in Craig Thompson's Habibi, by Tasnim
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mmw/2011/11/self-conscious-orientalism-in-craig-thompsons-graphic-novel-habibi/
Longer version here:
http://majjal.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/self-conscious-orientalism-in-craig-thompsons-graphic-novel-habibi/
I think Tasnim's piece is stronger, and is quite perceptive in where she places the problems with Craig Thompson's claims and those of his defenders.
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Lucas says:
I agree with Katie: "…what's being shown off isn't his skill (though he's got it) so much as a certain devotion to his subject matter, and I can get behind that. It feels appropriate to the subject and his relationship to it." It's very interesting to get to know Thompson and his relationship to these topics whether or not I agree with the messages he's trying to portray. I found myself gawking at the detailed frames around most of the pages that he painstakingly drew. I feel the same way about the amount of research that he clearly conducted to produce this work.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Blog Is Africa on your logistics horizon?
Is Africa on your logistics horizon?
Being a logistician is different from working in logistics. To be a logistician requires more than knowing how to do the planning and operational roles; you must know why they are done in your organisation – that is, the role they play in the strategy of your business.
The business strategy must not only manage the planning to meet current customer expectations, but also planning and managing the changes required for adapting to the future. A logistician must therefore understand and be capable of managing change.
To do this requires you to study changes in international business and socio-political trends, so that advice on new supply chains and their challenges can be provided to the CEO and Board. For example, as China moves up the development scale, companies involved with clothing, footwear and items requiring simple assembly are starting to relocate. Some will go to countries in Asia, but not all. If your business is in apparel or simple assembly, then Africa must be in your supply chains change plan.
An outline of African development is contained in the free app World in 2013, published by the Economist magazine. The media generally provides sad stories about Africa, but positives are happening. This is especially so around industrial investment coming from the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), but also from Africans investing in Africa.
Growth is in minerals, agriculture and low labour cost manufacturing. Countries that are within the world's top ten for GDP growth are Ghana, Mozambique and Rwanda. Other growth potential countries (in alphabetical order) are Angola, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
Investment is occurring in infrastructure (mainly financed by China); professionals are starting to return to Africa from the developed countries where they have been working and innovation is happening in mobile technologies that addresses African challenges. These are positive stories.
Research the positive stories and the growth countries so that you know more about your future supply markets, supply chains and customer needs. It may take some years, but a logistician must always be ready for the future.


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Shakespeare's Pub Celebrates 18th B-Day with 44 New Draft Beers
Chelsea Rose Published: July 14, 2021
Via/ Google Maps
Shakespeare's Pub in Kalamazoo is getting ready to observe their 18th Anniversary!
As posted on their Facebook page, Shakespeare's Pub is turning 18 and is inviting everyone to enjoy a specialty draft list to celebrate the occasion.
The celebration, happening on Monday July 19th, will feature drafts that previously have been unavailable outside of the breweries where they were made. Check out this list:
A full 44 drafts that have never been tapped anywhere in Kalamazoo outside of the original breweries. Amazing.
I reached out to Shakespeare's Pub to see if any other festivities would be happening that day. While they're celebrating with that impressive list of drafts, there won't be any giveaways or live music. Still, surviving 18 years in one location, especially through a pandemic that put the world on hold, is impressive and worth a cheers with a freshly poured beer.
Normally, Shakespeare's Pub opens at 3PM but, for their anniversary, they'll be opening their doors at 12PM for the celebration.
For those who have never visited Shakespeare's Pub before, they have 30 big screen tv's, a huge outdoor patio, daily drink specials, darts, shuffle board and more according to their Facebook profile. They're located at 241 E Kalamazoo Ave with their patio facing the Arcadia Festival Site. If you'd like to celebrate their 18th Anniversary with Shakespeare's Pub you're free to stop by!
Again, their celebration is happening on Monday July 19th starting at 12pm.
Whatever you may be celebrating during the summer whether its a birthday, anniversary, not being stuck at home, there are a ton of gorgeous picnic spots you can check out especially on Michigan State University's campus:
Best Summer Picnic Spots on Michigan State University's Campus
Michigan State has one of the most beautiful college campuses in the country. We went around and took pictures to show you a few spots where you might want to put a picnic blanket down and sit for a while to enjoy the gorgeous summer weather.
Filed Under: Kalamazoo, Shakespeares Pub
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Natuk Collection: Indie Underdogs
Tom Proudfoot's follow-up to his excellent RPG Nahlakh goes by the name of Natuk. It's a tile-based RPG that is heavy on combat, but with an interesting twist. This time you are not playing as the usual party of heroes in shining armor, but a band of orcs and trolls out to get revenge. Again the graphics and sound are not the strongest point here (but they are much better than those in Nahlakh), but the great game system makes this an excellent choice for die-hard role-players.
The character generation is guick, but still allows creating a diverse lot of characters. You select a race (orc, ogre or half-troll) and a profession (warrior, scout, assassin, shaman and witch-doctor) before selecting some skills your character has earlier training in, as well as some new skills. There is a diverse collection of skills, from weapon use to alchemy and bullying, and as your characters gain experience, you can allocate the experience points to the skills you want. This is not as good a system as the one in Nahlakh where you advanced only in those skills that you actually used, but still much better than the ordinary level-based experience system.
The tactical combat mode will get really familiar to you during the game. Luckily it's really good one. You have a lot of options to choose from during the combat. In addition the basic moving and attacking, your characters can aim to specific body parts, choose their method of attack (from an all-out berzerker attack to a feint), hide and try for a backstab and use some skills like Command that allows you to control your NPC allies and Chanting that has the chance of boosting your morale and skills. Not to mention that the orcish chants sound really funny too. ;)
The spell system is identical to Nahlakh, and pretty much resembles the one from Ultima games. Each spell consists of three magical syllables. And because the spells are quite logical, it is not hard to deduct new spells once you figure out what each does. A welcome addition is the list of those spells you have already cast, so you don't have to type the same old magical syllables again and again.
The game is quite hard, but not too hard for someone who has played role-playing games before. There are two different ways of finishing the game, with the other being a really, really difficult one. So there should be enough challenge to even the most experienced veterans of the genre. Very much recommended indeed.
Publisher: Proudfoot Games
System Requirements: Windows XP
Where to get it: Official site
If you like this game, try: Nahlakh, Tower of Darkness, Prince of Destruction


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La Driedaagse De Panne - Koksijde 1991, quindicesima edizione della corsa, si svolse dal 2 al 4 aprile su un percorso di 504 km ripartiti in 3 tappe (la prima suddivisa in due semitappe), con partenza a Harelbeke e arrivo a De Panne. Fu vinta dall'olandese Jelle Nijdam della squadra Buckler davanti al connazionale Frans Maassen e al britannico Maximilian Sciandri.

Tappe

Dettagli delle tappe

1ª tappa - 1ª semitappa
 2 aprile: Harelbeke > Herzele – 86 km

1ª tappa - 2ª semitappa
 2 aprile: Herzele > Herzele (cron. individuale) – 17 km

2ª tappa
 3 aprile: Herzele > Oostduinkerke – 238 km

3ª tappa
 4 aprile: De Panne > De Panne – 163 km

Classifiche finali

Classifica generale

Collegamenti esterni

Driedaagse De Panne - Koksijde
Ciclismo nel 1991

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Second "Mysterious" Massive Hole Suddenly Appears in Siberia
Jolene CreightonJuly 24th 2014
/ From Quarksto Quasars
Siberian hole. (via Siberian Times)
This massive hole recently appeared in Siberia (shown is the first hole). Upon its discovery, a number of news agencies began reporting about this "mysterious" beast that has the world baffled. Individuals started to blame aliens, massive geothermal explosions, and a host of other potential (but zany) culprits. Admittedly, the hole is a bit baffling… if you're not an Earth Scientists.; however, it you've studied geology, it does not take too long to figure out the details surrounding the creation of this hole—which is precisely what happened.
But before we get into how these two holes were created, here are the basic facts about the first gaping maw in the Earth:
The first hole (the one that has been extensively studied) is 50 to 70 meters (164 to 230 feet) deep. For comparison, Niagara Falls is 53.6 meters (176 feet) high. The diameter of the hole is difficult to measure precisely, due to its distorted shape, but it is approximately 30 meters (98 feet) in diameter, which is large enough to swallow a few school buses. About 80% of the hole is filled with ice that is slowly being melted by the sun, and the sides are running streams of water. Thus, the bottom is covered in water, and scientists estimate that the holes appeared within the last 2 years.
Shortly after reaching the first site, scientists announced that the holes seem to be natural phenomena occurring in the region's permafrost (technically, "permafrost" is any soil that has been frozen for at least two years; however, much of our planet's permafrost has been at subzero temperatures for tens of thousands of years). The initial findings state that the "melting permafrost via climate change" hypothesis is all but confirmed.
Indeed, the second hole that has been discovered in Siberia's Yamal Peninsula is strikingly similar is composition to the original finding (it is "exactly" like the first hole, except that it is much smaller). Ultimately, this supports the "climate change" hypothesis surrounding the first hole. The second crater lies about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) away from the original.
Currently, evidence indicates that these holes are caused by global warming (or climate change), which causes dramatic sifts in Earth's permafrost. It is believed that the heating cycle causes pressure to mount, and a sudden release causes a collapse in the permafrost. University of New South Wales polar scientist Chris Fogwill agrees with the findings, which report that global warming is the cause. He asserts that what we see is likely a collapsed "pingo," a natural geological phenomenon associated with the melting permafrost.
"We're seeing much more activity in permafrost areas than we've seen in the historical past. A lot of this relates to this high degree of warming around these high arctic areas which are experiencing some of the highest rates of warming on earth." Unfortunately, scientists have yet to collect all the necessary evidence, as the crater is so fragile that researchers were unable to explore the quickly forming lake at the bottom. However, aliens and other such things have been thoroughly ruled out.
The Yamalo-Nenets Region is an area known for its permafrost and pingos. (via Siberian Times)
Scientists predict that the crater could potentially form into a hearty lake, which would offer important insight into Siberia's geographic and geological history. This is process is of paramount importance, as scientists assert that similar processes appeared to be taking place in the landscape's ancient history, about 8,000 years ago. It is possibly that these patterns are repeating. If this theory is proved to be true, it will offer notable insights into the formation of the Yamal Peninsula.
You can read our initial reports on this development here.
(via Siberian Times)
Astronomy Picture of the Day: 01/20/2013 – Red Spider Planetary Nebula
The Rainbow Mechanism
André Kuipers in Low Earth Orbit
GPS, Gravitational Influences, and Measuring Time
Portal "In Spaaaaaaace"


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SCANDAL: Shorr-Parks admits to never attending an Eagles OTA, no journalist has
Eliot Shorr-Parks is blowing the lid off of a massive Philadelphia sports media scandal.
In a stunning admission this morning on NJ.com, Eagles beat writer Eliot Shorr-Parks published a column apologizing to his readers after he admitted to not attending a single Eagles OTA this season, nor any over his entire journalistic career.
In fact, no sports journalist has ever attended an OTA in the past decade, he claimed.
The veteran journalist admitted to "just hanging out at a bar" for several hours each day with a number of other journalists from various city publications who were supposed to be covering the informal team workouts leading up to July training camp.
"Everything you read about OTAs in any of the newspapers in this city? All made up. Nobody actually goes to them, who would do that?" he wrote in a column published on NJ.com this morning. "We tried to cover them at first, but they're so boring. Athletes running around in their shorts, playing catch? You try to crank out 1,000 words a day on that bullshit."
"Where do they even hold OTAs anyways? Clearwater? No, that's baseball…umm….Lehigh Valley? That sounds about right."
Shorr-Parks decided to come clean this year, though, claiming he was feeling guilty about lying to his readers.
However, it's believed he was forced to admit to his scam after accidentally publishing a screen shot from the NES classic "Tecmo Super Bowl" on his Twitter account over the weekend and trying to pass it off as action from OTAs.
"QB Eagles looks great this year! Really working hard on his touchdown celebrations," Shorr-Parks wrote under the published photo.
"Nobody really seemed to notice, to tell you the truth," Shorr-Parks said in his column that was published on NJ.com this morning at 8:34 a.m. "I could have said Norm Van Brocklin came back from the dead and took a few snaps under center in the morning session…who's going to say otherwise? Have you ever been to an OTA? Do you know anyone who has been to one? I didn't think so."
Shorr-Parks said he would typically leave the NJ.com offices to "go cover the OTAs" and would head to Fitzy's Tap and Cap for several drinks with other Philadelphia sports journalists such as Les Bowen, Marcus Hayes, Sam Donnellon and Jeff McLane.
"Les would call it his 'summer vacation' and give everyone a big wink and buy us a round each morning," Shorr-Parks wrote.
Shorr-Parks said he was typically able to get away with not attending OTAs each summer by singling out a player high on the Eagles fans radar and writing column after column about how they were "under performing" and "not having impressive showings" at the voluntary workouts.
"Typically fans would get so pissed off at me and my opinions that they wouldn't dig too deeply into what I was writing. I thought I was in trouble last year when I wrote three straight columns about Kiko Alonso's inability to tackle in the open field and completely forgot he was traded to Miami in the off season. Everyone just wanted to yell at me on Twitter, though, so it worked out," he wrote.
Shorr-Parks apologized for his actions and asked to be placed into Witness Protection for fear of reprisal from his journalist colleagues.
Posted in BREAKING NEWS and tagged Eagles, Eliot Shorr-Parks, Jeff McLane, Les Bowen, Marcus Hayes, NJ.com, OTAs, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Eagles, Sam Donnellon on June 12, 2017 by BL. Leave a comment
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At Relish Bar & Bistro in Ilfracombe, North Devon, our delicious menu includes locally sourced seafood, homemade gourmet pizzas, bistro meals and sharing platters.
We also have a selection of fine wines chosen to complement your meal.
Here are some images of our restaurant and tasty fresh, home cooked food.
Call on 01271 863837 for a reservation or email us at info@relishbarandbistro.co.uk or complete our booking form on our contact us page, click here to see our contact page.


Thank you to everyone who visited EFC/Wesco's booth this year at APEC 2019! All of us at EFC/Wesco are looking forward to next year!
Check our Upcoming Events page for all of the latest information on the various tradeshows and events EFC/Wesco will be attending this year. Also, don't forget to follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram to stay up to date on EFC/Wesco news and events!
What new design can EFC/Wesco fit in to in your future?
Copyright © 2018. Electronic Film Capacitors, Inc. - EFC/WESCO. All Rights Reserved.


Can't find Asetian Bible...like, anywhere.
I've checked Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Ebay, and every ebook website you can think of. I can't seem to find this thing. Can anyone recommend a reliable and safe website to order it from? Worst case scenario I just pick it up in Salem, MA in a few weeks. I'm sure I can find a copy of it there.
Re: Can't find Asetian Bible...like, anywhere.


Every Thursday during the fall and spring terms, two or three current students volunteer in in the college counseling center, called The College Plaza, at Santa Fe High. Last Thursday was the launch of the Junior Jump Start program. All high school juniors were invited to attend this lunchtime meeting. To sweeten the deal, pizza and cookies were provided for everyone! The St. John's students introduced themselves and helped ask some ice breaker questions to loosen everyone up and bring anxiety levels down. Then there was a short presentation explaining the series of activities and events that will take place to help juniors start college search process.
This unique partnership arose from the efforts of our former, now retired, Director of Admissions, Larry Clendenin. He knew that the district was in dire need of some broad college counseling support. Over the course of several years, Larry formed a strong friendship with Missy Gurule, Santa Fe High School's part-time college counselor. Now every Wednesday and Thursday (11am-2pm), College Plaza is bustling with students, college reps, and chrome books!
The St. John's students will be involved in many of the aspects of the college counseling process and they will be working directly with the high school students. Sometimes the support will come in the form of a simple, encouraging conversation. At other times, the support will come in the form of assisting a student with online research about colleges and financial aid. The Johnnies are also being trained to enter data into the school's tracking system. The hope is that having some college-age students in the counseling center will help make the highschoolers feel more comfortable and less intimidated by the whole college search process. For some 16 year olds, talking to a 19 year old can be more engaging and meaningful than talking to someone in their sixties.


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Carriera
Mo Wandan inizia la propria carriera nel mondo della moda apparendo all'età di 17 anni sulla copertina della rivista cinese FHM nel 2005.

Grazie ad un contratto con l'agenzia di moda NEXT Model Management, Mo Wandan inizia a sfilare con importanti marchi come Christian Dior SA, Emporio Armani, Enrico Coveri, Jefen, Krizia, Luciano Soprani, Mariella Burani, Martin Grant, Rocco Barocco, Tsumori Chisato, Valentin Yudashkin, Narciso Rodriguez e Vivienne Westwood. Nel 2006 è apparsa sulla copertina delle riviste cinesi Notebook e Trading Up, nel 2007 su Elle, L'Officiel e nel 2008 su French.

Nel 2008 è anche stata protagonista del calendario Pirelli, fotografata da Patrick Demarchelier, insieme alle colleghe Agyness Deyn, Lily Donaldson, Doutzen Kroes, Catherine McNeil, Gemma Ward, Sasha Pivovarova, Coco Rocha, Caroline Trentini, Du Juan e Maggie Cheung.

Agenzie di moda
 NEXT Model Management - Parigi
 The Fashion Model Management
 MC2 Model Management - New York
 Next Model Management - Londra
 PT - Taiwan

Note

Collegamenti esterni


Every two (2) years pharmacists will be required to complete thirty (30) hours of CPE that meet ACPE criteria.
Each pharmacist is responsible for keeping his or her own records.
No carry over of credit is permitted.


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Getting A Better Grasp On Traceability
Jim Prevor's Perishable Pundit, July 19, 2007
Few issues are more important to the future of the produce industry than the development of an effective traceability mechanism. And no one should be under the delusion that we have one.
The FDA grew so frustrated at the inability of one of the national companies involved in one of the food safety outbreaks last fall to deliver traceback information that they were on the verge of invoking the Bioterrorism Act, which requires a traceback within 24 hours. Failure to comply would have turned the vendor's incompetence into a criminal act.
The FDA held back only because it was convinced that the vendor actually had the information but sincerely had no idea where it was — so they cut them a break. The vendor finally came up with the information — two weeks after the event.
Many vendors think they have effective traceability but it turns out that if you call them on Sunday morning, they have absolutely no ability to give you any information. The real goal is time and personnel-neutral traceability, in which answers are as easily available on Christmas day when your vice president of food safety is on vacation climbing Mt. Everest as when he is sitting at his desk.
Early on we turned to Gary Fleming, Vice President of Industry Technology and Standards of the Produce Marketing Association, for insight into this important area. First, in Guest Pundit — Traceability And the Need For A Common Language, Gary explained the crucial role that data standards play in any industry-wide effort to establish trace-back capability. Then, in Guest Pundit — Pairing The Global Language With Technology, he helped us understand how we could actually make this happen. In a third piece, Guest Pundit: Traceability — A Forgotten Piece of Food Safety, Gary traveled to Argentina in search of a specific and effective traceability solution.
When Bruce Peterson resigned from Wal-Mart, people were waiting with baited breath to find out what his next step would be. So when the press release arrived advising that Bruce had entered into a collaboration with Michael McCartney, Principal of QLM Consulting, to promote a traceback effort for the produce industry, we wanted to find out more.
Bruce Peterson Focuses On Traceability detailed his basic point: that the produce industry is more likely to reduce the negative impact of food safety problems by enhancing traceability than through any other single measure.
Now, to find out how we might make this happen, we asked Pundit Investigator and Special Projects Editor, Mira Slott, to speak with Michael McCartney so we could better understand the collaboration between Bruce and Michael and so we could fill in the details about the challenges ahead:
— Michael McCartney
Founder and Principal
QLM Consulting
Q: Could you clarify your collaboration with Bruce Peterson? In your pursuit to develop global traceability guidelines, are you looking to provide consulting work with individual companies or is this a public service to try to make traceability more high profile?
A: We would be doing this as a public service, and certainly we wouldn't be doing this for anything beyond what our costs would be. Both Bruce and I are doing fine with income and not looking to enrich ourselves financially through this venture. We have not been paid by anyone to do this quite frankly. We can offer our services on a cost basis and we're committed to make this work as opposed to another approach of needing this for bottom line revenue.
Costs are a reflection of where we are getting our support. We have strong support from between 10 to 20 companies that have said they are willing to contribute in some way to have us put together meetings to iron out types of methodologies to create a traceback recall system.
We are looking to facilitate this process and do it at whatever it costs, but at the lowest cost possible. Costs depend on a number of factors: the level of participation, how easy is it going to be to reach common understanding or approach on what is important. Participants may not necessarily be contributing funds directly. For example, a retailer may provide in-kind services, give us part time access to three different folks that could share their expertise and research, etc. The grower might say, here are resources and access to all the information you need.
Q: Are you speaking hypothetically or do you have an actual meeting scheduled or larger summit in the works?
A: We want to set a meeting no later than the end of August, either in Chicago or Dallas and it will be an all day meeting. We need grower/shipper participants and major players in the foodservice and retail industries. Many of these people are already on board, but we need to galvanize everyone in one place, lay out the parameters, exert the leadership.
Readers should know if you are interested and want to participate, come join us. With Bruce and me running this, people can be assured we are going to take the straightest line between two points. Up until now, there have been a lot of divergent activities. We need to converge these activities into single actions. We need industry organization support at a high level. We're not looking at dollars but for leaders to reach out to their memberships.
Our problem has been we that we have a strong tendency to collaborate and not to dictate, and we've been acting in that manner for the last several months, but now we have to take all this collaboration into one room and craft a plan and take action. We're not saying, 'do it this way'. We want to examine the methodologies, and who is doing this well. We don't need vendors and software data guys there. Collectively we must think through problems and come up with common solutions. At that point we pick the best systems, test and compare. I could list five solutions now, but what I want is for people to bring in their solutions and then we can pick the best approaches together. We think the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement took about a year to get going, and we're looking at that timeframe.
Q: After this initial meeting, will you be orchestrating a larger summit?
A: Assume for a moment we have 20 companies on board. We'll call a summit, meet for dinner before hand and spend the next day participating in small group workshops culminating in a set of principles to outline methodology; it's going to cost x amount of dollars, etc. We'd look to do it at the lowest cost, say someone offers their big executive office in Dallas, Texas, to gather these folks and everyone flies in at his or her own expense. Now we create different working groups that have specific tasks, and create a common data dictionary.
Nothing like this exists today. For example, a retailer might define 'receiving' as when the product comes into its distribution center and is offloaded to the floor of the warehouse, another retailer says the product is only received once a quality inspection is completed, and a third retailer doesn't say product is received until it is posted to inventory.
Further, PMA and the industry have focused on creating a global product identification code, but what we're saying is before you get there, you have to identify the lot of the parcel of where it's created, everything from the seed through the supply chain before the product is ready to ship. Up until now, all this information has been largely invisible. We want to make that information more accessible to stakeholders with common definitions and in a structured universal data format.
If the perishables industry was so structured, that would be great, but we have a myriad of systems and many ways of annotating this information now. We don't have a common approach up the supply chain that a retailer or foodservice company could turn to if they received a food safety inquiry from the public.
Q: Aren't there systems on the market that already do a great job of traceability as long as everyone in the supply chain is in the loop? How do you solve problems that have stopped traceability from being fully implemented?
A: There are actually a number of different approaches, a lot of methodologies, and dozens and dozens of solutions, so I don't want to leave the reader with the idea that there is just one. That's part of the problem; being able to ferret or sort out all those solutions in an open, constructive way to move the process along.
Q: Isn't this quite complex since you're dealing with the entire, fragmented supply chain?
A: Essentially there are three major stakeholders: retailers, foodservice operators and suppliers. If you draw a line starting on the left to the beginning of the food chain, you want to know what is in the soil, what chemicals and fertilizers are used, more importantly the seed, what its origin, is it GMO, produced locally, from a major manufacturer, or different seeds over time. Farmers already have all this information, maybe on index cards, written down on a field notebook or journal going back 10 to 20 years.
A key question would be what is the source of the raw material and, once the seed is planted, all things that go into the soil, the weather conditions, water systems, whether the land is welled, is there a natural abundance of rain in the area? Then there's the testing of that water, sourcing of that water as well as other materials, usually information that is kept pretty privately.
Essentially it involves painting a picture, creating a timeline from the birth of the product. You want to establish what happens from the cradle and follow it all the way to the fridge, or at least to the shelf and point of sale. Along the way, you need to document data points of events that occur. This is about the story — really multiple stories — this product needs to tell.
The first story is the seed, the second is the soil, third pre-harvest and the inspection done within that time all documented on paper. Then the harvest itself involves a series of steps that you need to identify; what parcel, block of land, the lot where it's harvested accomplished with latitude and longitude global positioning systems, the start time, who actually performed the work, whether it was a hand or tow process, the crew name, crew dates, and employee ID number. You also need the amount of products harvested that day, and if they go into separate containers, those may hold 100,000 products each. Is the product field harvested, graded and inspected to put right into the container to be shipped? What happens to that product during the day? Does the crew move from one field to the next, from one parcel to another?
Northeast or southwest of that parcel a neighbor might have horses or there may be a dairy around. You're in farmland. You need to be able to identify who your neighbors are as they need to identify who you are. When harvested to another location, when and by whom? What ever container or pale being used needs to be identified. If a tractor or trailer equipment is involved, you need to identify it.
Q: How extensively and thoroughly is this kind of information gathered and documented now?
A: It is being done now; the questionable part is the level of granularity. Certainly the crew and the barn are being identified. But the details vary from farm to farm, practice to practice, and commodity to commodity. For example, the crew may be documented, but with no separate ID's for each employee and not having that ID directly tied to that particular box. That crew might be at the same farm, which has eight parcels.
In this system, you have variability. The whole harvest area has a series of changes that are critical to traceabilty. You're a farmer, I'm a farmer, and there are 20 others picking lettuce in bins coming in from these 20 farms that all end up at the same food processor.
You can't do traceability if you don't have a unique product identity already established.
Once product arrives, how do you separate each lot or bin or farm? The only way to do this is to create a time gap. If three farmers supplying the same product each have a unique identity, all bets are off once the food processor dumps the product in bins and it's all blended together. It can happen like this now. If there isn't a gap between your produce and mine, we lose our identity. We lose our ability to trace back. If an inquiry comes in, we have to look at a three-farm recall instead of a single farm, and what comes before and what comes after.
Assuming we've maintained separate identities, and we know it takes a certain number of minutes to process what's in each bin, we have narrowed in on our ability to track the problem. This is taking a simple example without multiple grades. With oranges for example, you may have five different grades, your farm grades two, three and four, and these have to be sorted out.
Now it gets stored temporarily, either a barcode or RFID label is affixed to the carton, then if it's in a pallet, it receives another barcode or RFID association to read and match up to a purchase order. Those all go together and now you have a tractor or trailer with all that information, refrigeration number identification, etc. There's a whole series of transportation things that have to be taken care of. On a macro level, the truck has a number; it may go direct if one load to a distribution center, if not it may pick up other product. It gets logged in, and then it's inspected. Transportation is another significant event where about 30 events occur that I've glossed over.
Now Wal-Mart or Target or Kroger accepts it, assuming everything is ok, and it goes to temporary storage for the next call to action from a store that needs x amount of these cases, say five per store… these cases are broken down into 10 separate pallets with other things to go to the store.
Now it leaves the distribution center, and there could be intervening steps along the way, where the same process is replicated again and again. It could go to a wholesaler and another wholesaler. It could be one ingredient of a bag of salad, and another supplier could provide carrots.
The product goes to the store, and hopefully the produce merchandiser understands what the best use-by date is and the employee rotates the product. As individual items are sold, the retailer has to keep track of the pieces that go into rotation. You may have three farms supplying tomatoes, and normally the retailer will keep track of that because they want to know which tomatoes are selling better.
Then it goes to point of sale, and there's the problem of non-branded commodities becoming aggregated. A retailer puts Roma tomatoes from three farms together, and doesn't differentiate which farm. It could be related to supply/demand — a product is selling well in one area of the state, so the retailer may want to divert product from one area or another. Maybe the retailer is doing a promotion with wine, grapes and cheese, always being challenged in managing inventory.
Q: What are some strategies to better document the product's movement through this complicated supply chain system to improve traceability?
A: One methodology is to set up data bases as a way to input information about the product at each significant point along the supply chain; seed, soil, harvest production, transport, distribution center, store, and all stakeholders are involved in each of these events, and share the private data bases.
Your soil information goes to a separate data base. You may be a farmer, also doing the harvest, so you'd be involved in two data bases. But you might be the food processor with another private data base and only you define who looks at that data. You line up all these notes. You may have eight or 10 different data bases, and depending on the operation, share one if not more.
If someone gets sick and notifies the food service operator or retailer, you may give your food service operator or retailer permission to go through your data base. Now you have a lot of data on a particular product by looking at a unique bar code or RFID number. If you have one individual that has a health concern, that's one thing. If you have 10 people saying the same thing from 10 places all connected to the same date, time harvest and crew, you know you have a problem. They may or may not have called their local health department, but you have a means to detect and act on the problem.
Q: This sounds like PulseNet. Are you suggesting that individual companies take on this function?
A: You could be the grower, a retailer, or a food service person. You could have the ability to see complaints from 10 restaurants, and all this correlation from one grouping and take immediate action, rather than wait weeks and weeks. You could voluntarily withdraw product from the market and start testing.
Q: The example you give seems quite simplistic and straight forward. Wouldn't most investigations involve a significantly more complicated and time-consuming process? Will most companies have the expertise or inclination to do the necessary legwork?
A: The food service industry is on the front line. In the grocery store there are many other intervening events. It could be related to the cleanliness with food preparation, meat on cutting board contaminating product. In each event category, there are places where food safety could be compromised.
These data bases could provide the ability for the industry to investigate on its own, define the problem earlier, take more immediate action and do preemptive work. Right now there is not all the information at hand to do that.
Q: What's your plan to develop these data bases? And what parameters will be put in place for use. Will the FDA and CDC have access to this information?
A: We want to first get the three parties together — retailers, food service operators and suppliers, to find out what data they have already, what format this can be put into, and discuss the rights with sharing partners. We need to do the foundational steps to create this private data base network. It's only for the industry. We could see PMA and varying others overseeing this data base so the industry becomes the custodians rather than the government.
We need to take a horizontal view of things and get away from a silo view. We need a universal system.
Q: How does your vision relate to other efforts underway such as PMA's work to develop an international product coding system?
A: We want to incorporate produce industry organization efforts. For example PMA is actively involved in GS1 technology, to get farms and companies to create a product catalogue for all the items they produce. Right now we have a generic catalogue through PLUs. RSS gives the ability to put much more data in a much reduced space. That data can better pinpoint the product's origins, and is readable throughout the supply chain and certainly very viable, as is RFID. All these things are pieces to the puzzle, a way to document more information. The companies control what information is shared and what's not in the greater interest. And all this inspires customer confidence.
Bruce [Peterson] and I are trying to drive discussion. There are so many stakeholders and complexities, and up until now all these have been silos. We're trying to facilitate common dialogue and help create common methodology and approach.
A good analogy is the system Wall Street went through to computerization as a seamless way to trade commodities. The same system that runs through Wall Street is ubiquitous.
Another example is what happened in the airline industry. American Airlines had a proprietary reservation system. United and everyone else had their own systems but knew they were inferior. They approached American, and American enabled the other carriers to utilize its system. American was the big enabler.
A third example is the approach high tech companies used to avoid federal regulation It must be 15 years ago they got together, Microsoft, Intel and IBM, and all agreed to do business the same way. They set up guidelines to become self regulated. These industries have come together and agreed on the way they will do business.
Q: The produce industry is so fragmented though, with challenges unique to perishables.
A: Traceability solutions only work if you have a completely aligned supply chain.
The problem is that's not the way the whole produce industry works. Not everything is predetermined to end up at Wal-Mart.
We have people in competition, and people that buy from each other. There are all kinds of challenges in the way the industry procures product. We can improve traceability and food safety as an industry if we all agree these are the things we need to keep track of and this is the way to do it. We need an industry-wide solution.
We appreciate Michael's time and were impressed with Bruce's resolve to tackle this daunting issue of traceability. Yet we find ourselves baffled by what, exactly, they want to do.
Bruce has been saying that food safety is getting a lot of attention, but effective traceability is not. This is exactly what we have been saying at the Pundit for months, and it is exactly what Gary Fleming of PMA said in three articles for us. All the trade associations and most major companies are in strong agreement.
Beyond this point, however, things get confusing. Here is the best we can understand the situation:
1. Michael wants to create standards for information needed at the farm level.
Although there are no standards stating what detailed pieces of information must be captured at the farm-level (beyond the GTIN capturing the item and the lot number capturing the field and lot from which the item came from), is this really necessary? The information would be hard to standardize as it could vary greatly by commodity, harvest method, etc.
This issue seems to raise a question as to what is the purpose of traceability? The information Michael wants to standardize is more for finding the cause of the problem, rather than isolating the location of the problem.
In other words, the trade's goal has been more limited. Traceback brings you to the location of the problem — from which other records allow thorough investigation. Michael seem to be saying he wants an FDA officer to be able to not merely see that the product came from the Jones Farm, field 7, lot 6 — but to be able to note the seed source as well.
This seems very hard to standardize as it is such a broad group of issues — seeds, rootstock, etc.
2. Michael wants to create a standard communication protocol with which to communicate this traceability information between trading partners, even potentially with government agencies.
This is where the ideas become very vague. Why would we need a standard communication protocol (e.g. XML) if we were not feeding information into a central repository?
Michael doesn't seem to want to commit here. A "central repository" of information? This is definitely the "Cadillac" version of retrieving, sending and storing information and one that a lot of small to medium companies would have trouble implementing. Some have mentioned the use of 1SYNC (formerly UCCnet) as the example of what we would be attempting to build. Well, 1SYNC is a very expensive model to build and a very expensive and complex model to participate in. Even the larger produce companies avoid 1SYNC like the plague. Is there a practical way to do this?
3. Determine "when" and with "whom" to share the data.
Giving access rights as to who can see your data is appropriate and an important issue IF you have a central repository of information OR if you have an Intranet-type database accessible by your trading partners. The question is: "Why would a grower/shipper want to make that type of information available to their buyers?" All a buyer would want to know is what do I need to pull off my shelves and out of my inventory AND what other stores did you ship this product to? It is up to the grower to quickly determine where the source is and where did I ship that product. This does not require a central repository.
Overall, everyone agrees with Bruce's premise that traceability needs more attention. Everyone also agrees that you have to start somewhere or nothing will ever get done. As Bruce is wont to say, you have to create the "will" to do this. This was done in the Leafy Greens Marketing Order by a band of companies getting together with the help of key trade associations to make it happen. It seems that Bruce and Michael envision the same type of activity will be needed for traceability. As such, they hope to rally several companies to support this and then get the trade associations to help facilitate a "solution" — though the precise solution they want support on is still unclear.
It is not clear if this is going to happen. We had something tangible to address with food safety and had some concrete solutions. With traceability, and with everyone claiming they already have a traceability solution, we do not have something tangible to address. PMA has already given solutions via the study it did with CPMA in their report, "Fresh Produce Traceability: A Guide To Implementation".
The truth is that the reaction to Gary Fleming's articles was less than we had hoped. It seems that when PMA says "create an effective traceability solution," the grower community responds "we already have one".
But we do not.
To some extent all these traceability solutions break down because the nature of the industry is such that the supply chain is destined to be fragmented. When Michael says, "Traceability solutions only work if you have a completely aligned supply chain," he is not being encouraging about the produce industry finding a traceability solution.
Our take is that the fragmented nature of the industry means that only a central depository of information can work.
Why couldn't the Center for Produce Safety maintain a confidential database, and the requirement is simply that anyone who buys produce in commercial quantities has to scan or enter a code whenever they buy or sell?
Most of this data transfer could be done electronically so it wouldn't be too burdensome.
This won't solve all food safety issues — if the traceability goes back to a processing plant that hasn't stopped to clean its lines in years, you won't get a certain demarcation between the product of different farmers. So there are still issues to resolve.
But an industry database would let an FDA official with nothing more than a contaminated bag in his hand trace back to a plant and trace forward of all product produced that day. He could press a button and have a printout of every company in America that has purchased product produced on a particular line on a particular day. You can see who sold product and who might have some left.
And the FDA official could do this on Christmas day, no matter who is on vacation. That would be an excellent start to a traceability system for the industry.
It is not everything Michael would like to see in there, but we don't want to make the best the enemy of the good.
Many thanks to Michael and to Bruce for their strong efforts in this area.


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Recalls in January 2006
NHTSA Probes Saturn Timing Chain Failures
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened a preliminary investigation of Saturn L Series vehicles because of persistent complaints of timing chain failures.
The NHTSA probe involves the 2003 Saturn Ion, 2000 to 2003 Saturn L-Series, 2000 to 2003 Saturn L series Sedan, 2000-2003 Saturn L Series Wagon, 2001-2003 Saturn L200, 2000-2002 Saturn LS, 2000 Saturn LS1 and 2000 Saturn LS2.
The North Carolina Consumers Council (NCCC) brought the timing chain failures to the attention of NHTSA after consumers in the state complained that the timing failures resulted in a sudden loss of power in the Saturn.
Some of the timing chain failures occurred at highway speeds.
NCCC reports consumer concerns that an improper oil flow in the timing chain lubricating mechanism contributed to the failure.
In most circumstances, the Saturn engine would stall resulting is a sudden loss of power when the timing chain malfunctioned.
GM has issued a technical service bulletin advising dealers of a timing chain design change for the some Saturn Vues and Ions.
The bulletin stated that "all timing chain service kits now available will include the oiler nozzel" and that the nozzel is a new design that "will increase oil flow to the timing chain under low RPM operating conditions."
Since there are no complaints of timing chain failures with the Saturn VUE and Ion covered by the service bulletin, NHTSA has opened a preliminary investigation of timing chain failures in Saturns not covered by the new service bulletin.
The NHTSA evaluation will assess the frequency, trend, scope and safety consequences of the timing chain failures.
NCCC brought the timing chain failures to the attention of NHTSA after consumers in the state complained that the timing failures resulted in a sudden loss...
01/31/2006 By Unknown Author
NHTSA Probes Honda Odyssey Suspension Failure
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is beginning an investigation of 2001 and 2002 Honda Odyssey minivans because of complaints that the front tire of the Odyssey was punctured by a broken coil spring.
"One report," according to NHTSA, "alleges that smoke appeared from the front of the vehicle due to the broken spring contacting the tire while the vehicle was in motion."
"Another report," NHTSA says on its web site, "alleges the collapse of the suspension system caused the vehicle to veer into an oncoming lane of traffic and that a few days later the spring on the other side of the vehicle fractured."
The agency has received two reports that "allege that an adjacent front tire was punctured by the fractured spring after it failed with the vehicle in motion."
According to NHTSA's announcement of the investigation, seven of the spring failures occurred between 50,000 and 60,000 mile odometer readings on the Honda Odyssey minivans.
NHTSA is uncertain how many Honda Odyssey minivans will be involved in the investigation because the agency is using "an estimate of the number vehicles residing in salt belt states." NHTSA reports "the number will be reviewed during the investigation."
The goal of the NHTSA investigation, according to the agency, is to determine "the frequency and safety consequences associated with the alleged fracture of the front coil springs."
Owners of the Honda Odyssey minivan haven't reported any crashes or injuries because broken springs or suspension failure on the front of the vehicle.
"One report," according to NHTSA, "alleges that smoke appeared from the front of the vehicle due to the broken spring contacting the tire while the vehicle...
Volvo Recalls 42,000 Trucks
Volvo is recalling 42,000 of its Volvo VN and VHD truck model in the U.S. market because of a possible fire risk from pipes leaking hot gases into the engine.
In a statement, the company said engineers have discovered that the inlet pipes on the exhaust gas recirculation system may crack or break. If the pipes are not repaired or replaced then components in the engine compartment may be exposed to hot exhaust gases.
The Volvo recall says the condition could lead to a fire or at least heat damage. Volvo reports two cases of fires, though without any personal injury.
Volvo plans to inspect and replace any damaged parts and install a heat shield on all of the trucks.
Volvo Recalls 42,000 Trucks...
Feds Probe Shattered Cadillac SRX Sun/Moon Roofs
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating 17 complaints of shattered sun/moon roofs in the 2004 to 2006 Cadillac SRX.
Shattered glass falling on the front seat of the SRX has injured 19 people causing cuts and scrapes to their face, arms, hands or legs.
Some of the injuries, NHTSA reports on its Web site, were the direct result of the falling glass fragments while other injuries occurred when occupants were exiting the vehicle or were handling the glass fragments.
Cadillac has received five warranty claims for shattered sun/moon roofs on the SRX. General Motors analysts are unable to identify any manufacturing or quality control issued with the glass or the roof mechanism, according to NHTSA.
GM told NHTSA the most likely cause of the breakage is random stone or shark debris impacting the glass roof structure.
In ordering the preliminary investigation, NHTSA said that the evidence indicates that broken glass fragments will fall directly onto both front and middle row seat occupants of these vehicles.
There is continued risk, according to NHTSA, of driver distraction and injury.
Feds Probe Shattered Cadillac SRX Sun/Moon Roofs...
Porsche 911 S and 911 4S Recalled
Porsche is recalling 18,600 of its 911 Carrera sports cars worldwide to fix welding joints in the exhaust systems.
The recall vehicles are the high performance 911 Carrera S and all-wheel drive 911 Carrera 4S cars built between April 2004 and October 2005.
Porsche reports that the defective welding joint could lead to the loss of the tail pipe.
The repair, according to Porsche, will take roughly 25 minutes and will be at no charge to the customer.
Porsches last recall came in December, 2004 when the company asked owners of 18,150 of the 911 Carrera cabriolets to return their cars to check the roof mechanisms. The recall cost Porsche $12.1 million.
Porsche 911 S and 911 4S Recalled...


Grand Cayman has some 27 beaches.
cool down after a walk through the area's landscaped courtyards and walkways.
shade under the palm trees and soothing breezes wafting off the North Sound.
opening times and further information, call 947-3558.
times and admission price, call 946-5800.
opening times and admission prices, call 949-3894.
Many of Cayman's beaches are ideal for an outing with your young child.