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Facilitation Multi-stakeholder Dialogues
Natural Resources Policy and Conflict Transformation
Climate Change Sustainability
A multi-cultural team of associate facilitators, policy advisors and environmental governance experts based in South America, Africa and the UK
Based in Cambridge, UK, Talking Transformation is a professional facilitation and specialist advisory company created by Pippa Heylings when she moved to the UK in 2013. Our multi-cultural team is made up of associate facilitators, policy advisors and environmental governance experts based in South America, Africa and the UK.
Pippa Heylings
Over 25 years of international experience in the field of biodiversity conservation and climate compatible development policy in Africa, Eurasia and South America. Highly experienced facilitator of multi-stakeholder dialogue for policy change at national and international level – working across frontiers between governments, businesses and civil society. Expert in participatory governance of natural resources and protected areas with specialization in coastal/marine and watershed management. Pippa also specializes in community resource management and social and environmental conflict management. Author of multiple articles and manuals on these issues.
Proven ability to bring people together, breaking down barriers and facilitating productive dialogue on complex, challenging issues, especially in places rich in biodiversity and vulnerable to climate change. Pippa has facilitated a series of international inter-governmental workshops focussed on scaling-up financing for biodiversity, innovative governance mechanisms for protected area management and mainstreaming climate change into national development plans. This is the primary focus of Talking Transformation Ltd., the company that she created on her return to the UK in 2014. Through Talking Transformation, Pippa has acted as Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean for the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) – a network of NGOs, private corporations, international and multilateral agencies, universities and think-tanks, responsible for overseeing the commissioning of approx. 3 million UK pounds a year of UK-Dutch government funding to support government decision-makers in 35 countries to move towards climate compatible development. Talking Transformation then played a global role for CDKN providing strategic advice on transformational climate policy across the Latin American and Caribbean, Africa and Asia programmes.
Her passion for theatre has led her to direct amateur productions wherever she lives, and perhaps this is what has helped develop her excellent public speaking and writing skills. She loves mountaineering and scuba diving and has made underwater education films in Zanzibar and Galapagos.
Dr. Robert Bensted-Smith
Lead, Conservation and Development Strategy
Robert works in biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. He has wide-ranging experience and a track record of strategic analysis to develop new policies and programmes, whether to tackle existing problems of unsustainability or to respond to the growing global threats of climate change, pandemics, invasive species and more. Areas of expertise include the science-policy interface, development of environmental institutions, participatory governance and practical conservation programmes, both terrestrial and marine.
He has a particular passion for marine management at the seascape scale, incorporating small-scale fisheries, and for conservation and sustainable development of islands. He has held leadership positions in the Latin American and Caribbean region for two international NGOs, first Conservation International, covering the Andean region and Eastern Tropical Pacific, then Fauna & Flora International, focused mainly on Central America and the Eastern Caribbean. He has also served as an advisor to governmental organisations, notably in Kenya, Zanzibar and Belize. His six years as Director of the Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galapagos Islands combined almost all of these elements, as the work involved leading a big team of staff and volunteers, overseeing applied research for ecosystem management and restoration, and developing new conservation and sustainable development strategies through a combination of scientific evidence and stakeholder participation. He served as advisor to the governing body of the Galapagos Islands and was heavily involved in the establishment of a new legal and institutional framework for the archipelago, including creation of the Galapagos Marine Reserve under a participatory governance regime.
Before his 15 years based in South America, Robert spent 10 years in eastern Africa, including extended periods as Policy and Planning Advisor to the Kenya Wildlife Service and as Chief Advisor to the Department of Environment. He also undertook a variety of consultancies, both in Africa and further afield, including Cuba and the Seychelles.
Robert is a member of the Global Leadership Academy Community, a pool of leaders and innovators in diverse fields of sustainable development, participating primarily on sustainable oceans. In the UK Honours list of 2003, he was awarded the OBE for services to environmental conservation.
Carolina Proaño Castro
Lead on Climate and Development
Carolina is an Ecuadorean biologist (BSc) and sustainability professional (MA) with expertise in biodiversity conservation (MPhil), climate change, sustainable development and scientific research. She recently finished her Conservation Leadership studies at the University of Cambridge (UK) where she gained skills in the management and economic side of conservation, and she established a high-profile network of professionals, academics and aspiring conservation leaders. During her time at the University of Cambridge, she has reinforced her interest for collaborating with the private sector, NGOs and governments in innovative strategies to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Her greatest strengths lie in conveying complex technical concepts to broad audiences, developing and implementing effective project-based strategic plans, and building consensus among a diverse range of stakeholders in multicultural and multisectoral settings. She has strong qualitative and quantitative analysis knowledge, excellent communication and facilitation skills as well as proven ability and experience in project management, governance, inter-culturality, gender, facilitation, conflict resolution and climate change diplomacy.
With over 12 years of professional experience, Carolina believes she have a holistic, inclusive and current understanding of what conservation is both in theory and practice, as well as where future developments may lead. She envisions conservation solutions that are well articulated with other sectors, other disciplines so that the whole impact of conservation is more than the sum of parts.
Patricia Leon Woolfson
Associate, Ecuador
Patricia Leon holds a Master's in International Development Policy from Duke University and a BA in Economics from Emmanuel College. Patricia has more than 12 years of experience with projects related to sustainable development, building consensus over socio environmental objectives and the implementation of planning and evaluation methodologies related to conservation. She served as advisor to the Governor of Galapagos Islands, were she led the design of policy related to sustainable transport, energy and urban planning in the context of fragile ecosystems.
She began her career at Fundacion Futuro Latinomaericano, coordinating a three-year project, which promoted youth participation in local policy making. She later served as Director for Organizational Development, where she worked along with Project Officers for project planning, fundraising and M&E. She has served as a consultant for the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation and World Wildlife Fund.
Enrique Piedra Cueva Marchesano
Associate, Uruguay
Enrique is uruguayan with a degree in Sociology from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. He is a specialist in team development, leadership and organizational change management. He has specific certified training in Third Sector Management, Corporate Social Responsibility, Management Skills, Persuasive Communication and High Performance Teams. He is a post- graduate professor at the Catholic University of Uruguay; and at various academic programs in other universities in the region. His career in organizational change and institutional sustainability is focused on the socio-cultural, behavioural and human system of organizations.
With over 25 years of professional experience in the region and a clear option for humanist values, Enrique develops an autonomous practice, selecting those projects that have a better potential to create change. He provides consulting and training services to private companies (multinational, national and SMEs); Cooperatives; non-governmental organizations; cooperation in international organizations and public and government agencies. He has participated directly in about 100 consultancy projects and management trainings related to leadership for sustainability and organizational change. He has identified and accompanied leaders in more than 120 projects aiming to achieve sustainable development in Latin America. He works as an independent consultant.
Patricio A. Cabrera
Profesional en Ecología y Turismo (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador) con una Maestría en Ecoeficiencia y Gestión Empresarial del Ambiente (Instituto de Investigaciones Ecológicas de Málaga – España) y una especialización en manejo de Conflictos de la Universidad George Mason (Washington, USA). Adicionalmente, tiene formación en planificación y gestión de proyectos, manejo y transformación de conflictos socio-ambientales, facilitación, mediación y gobernanza de recursos naturales. Su trabajo se vincula al desarrollo de proyectos ambientales sostenibles desde el año 2000. Ha facilitado procesos de diálogo multisectorial y fortalecimiento de capacidades sobre temas relacionados a la gestión de cuencas hídricas, áreas naturales protegidas, gobernanza territorial, paz y seguridad humana, cambio climático, infraestructura y energía.
Tiene amplia experiencia en proyectos de desarrollo apoyados por agencias multilaterales, cooperación internacional y organizaciones no gubernamentales, consolidando su experiencia de trabajo y capacitación sobre diálogo, transformación de conflictos, gobernanza y política pública con diferentes grupos de interés en varios países de Latinoamérica, entre estos: Ecuador, Colombia, Perú, Bolivia, Brasil, El Salvador, Uruguay, Panamá, Honduras, Costa Rica y Argentina.
Talking Transformation works locally and internationally to facilitate change towards sustainable development, biodiversity conservation and a zero carbon, climate-resilient world.
EMAIL: pippa.heylings@talkingtransformation.org
13, Burrough Field, Impington
Cambridge CB24 9NW
©2022 Talking Transformation | Privacy Policy | Website by Open


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Songs We Love: Aaron Lee Tasjan, 'E.N.S.A.A.T.' (East Nashville Song About A Train)
By Ann Powers
Published August 14, 2015 at 8:42 AM MDT
Stacie Huckeba
Aaron Lee Tasjan will release his new album, In The Blazes, on October 8.
/ Courtesy of the Artist
Aaron Lee Tasjan, In the Blazes
Like Brooklyn and Northeast Los Angeles, East Nashville is a bohemian stronghold with an army of newcomers threatening its foundation. I'm one of those newbies, and every day I marvel at the creativity and plain love shared by the musicians who live here. But I also understand that gentrification is pushing out both longtime residents and impoverished younger talents, and that a perfectly prepared smoked-beet salad served in a bistro by an indie-rock guitarist-turned-waiter with a waxed moustache is no substitute for the time and creative space that affordable living makes possible. That's why I laughed with a catch in my throat when I heard Aaron Lee Tasjan sing this ballad recently at East Nashville club The Basement East. "Move out to East Nashville, and write a song about a train," he sang to himself and the other hopefuls in the room, his lyrics mixing jokes and coal smoke.
The Ohio-born Tasjan himself migrated to East Nasty a few years ago, after a run in New York winning guitar contests and playing with glam bands like Semi Precious Weapons and the recent incarnation of the New York Dolls. Covering all the boho bases, he recorded "E.N.S.A.A.T." (off his debut album, In the Blazes) at Elliott Smith's old favorite Echo Park studio. At 27, Tasjan's a hot guitar player who's honed his storytelling chops: in this song, his critique of the Americana music biz is woven within a truly poignant first-person account of the working artist's daily struggle. "You can't turn away from your own two feet, or give away what's not yours to keep," Tasjan croons in his broken tenor, over a slowly steamrolling guitar line. That's some eternal truth to drop on a changing Nashville landscape.
In the Blazes is out Oct. 8 on First of Three Records.
Ann Powers
Ann Powers is NPR Music's critic and correspondent. She writes for NPR's music news blog, The Record, and she can be heard on NPR's newsmagazines and music programs.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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June 12, 2019 01:21:09 | Rabiya Bashir
Resumption of cross-LoC trade unlikely as admin yet to clear decks
Govt fails to complete construction of Lawaypora trauma hospital
In 7 years, close to 15 thousand teachers recruited in govt. educational institutions
Anantnag forest department employees allege favoritism in promotions
The cross-LoC trade would continue to remain suspended as authorities haven't yet completed the process of setting up a mechanism to check the flow of banned items through the route.
On April 19, Ministry for Home Affairs (MHA) suspended trade along the Line of Control via Salamabad Uri and Chakan-da-Bagh in Poonch stating that the routes were used for "inflow of weapons, narcotics and foreign currency".
The Ministry of Home Affairs had said the cross-LoC trade will only be resumed after it puts in place stricter measures, full proof mechanism and systems.
But three months have passed since trade was suspended; there seems no headway in the process, with people associated with yet to recover the money that is in transit.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had doled out a series of reasons as to why the cross LoC trade has been suspended on all routes stating that infiltration of third party goods, channeling funds and arms for militancy and the pumping of fake currencies were major reasons for stopping the trade. "LoC trade across Chakkan-Da-Bagh and Salamabad was intended to be a confidence-building measure for the population living in remote areas of Jammu and Kashmir and living across LoC in PoJK and J-K. However, third parties manipulated the trade and misused the facility for trading goods being produced from outside Jammu and Kashmir," local newsgathering agency KNO had reported.
Deputy Commissioner Baramulla, Ghulam Nabi Itoo told Rising Kashmir that the full proof mechanism for the LoC trade will be completed by September this year.
"The installation work is going on. One agency is already doing a work to put in place a full proof mechanism. Once, it will be completed by September month this year, after that the trade will be resumed," he said.
However, traders from Poonch and Uri told Rising Kashmir that they are facing loses due to the continuous ban on the LoC trade.
They appealed the Home ministry and Governor to resume the trade for at least a month, so that the traders will clear their balances.
Vice president, Cross-LoC Traders Association, Sami-ullah Bhat said that the money from both the sides are in transit. "There are around 200 traders and the balance is yet to be cleared from both the sides. There is a balance in lakhs and crores and the traders are not able to clear it due to the continuous ban."
"All the traders and people associated with the trade are suffering. We had written letters to the Home Ministry, but there was no response. In fact, recently we tried to approach the Governor but to no avail," he said.
Bhat said that there is a loss of crores of rupees till now. "We are requesting the government of India to solve the issue as soon as possible. People who are associated with the trade are facing a problem," he said.
"If the government wants to put in place a mechanism like body scanners, re-verification, truck scanners. If they want to change the system, they should do it quickly, so that the traders should not suffer," Chairman of Cross-LoC Traders Association Hilal Turkei told Rising Kashmir.
He said that the labourers who were associated with the trade are not able to meet their daily needs. "They are literally begging. There are already unemployment problems in the state. We hope the government will not let people suffer like this," he said.
He said that the LoC traders association will again approach the Home Ministry and Governor regarding the trade.
"Traders have already invested for the items. If the full proof mechanism is taking time, then, we request the government to resume trade so that the balance will be cleared from both sides," he added.


Oh, shoot! Japanese Oriental Restaurant is temporarily not accepting orders.
To add this item to your cart for a future order, please schedule the order delivery time to be between 12:32 PM to 12:32 PM.
Stir fried rice cake with vegetables in a hot sauce.
Seafood cooked in an egg and flour batter.
1 pork egg roll, 3 fried dumplings, 2 veggie egg roll, 2 crab Rangoon, 2 shrimp tempura and 3 veggie tempura.
Half an avocado topped with shrimp, crab stick, squid, octopus, masago, and radish sprout, mixed with Japanese mayo.
2 pieces each of tuna, salmon and white fish sashimi.
Tuna, salmon, shrimp, crab and white fish.
Bulgogi, spinach, carrot, daikon radish, crab stick and tamago (10 pieces).
Tempura AppetizersToggle visibility of menu section "Tempura Appetizers"
Ginseng chicken stew. Fresh whole chicken stuffed with ginseng, jujube, and chestnut in a chicken broth.
Ramen noodles, pork slices, egg, fish cake, corn, bean sprouts, and green onion in a broth.
Seafood, pork, egg, and silken tofu in a hot and spicy stew.
Udon noodles and vegetables with deep fried shrimp and crab.
Your choice of noodles or rice with stir fried vegetables in a hot and spicy broth.
Kimchi, tofu, and pork in a spicy stew.
Your choice of soba or udon noodles with 2 pieces of deep fried jumbo shrimp in a broth.
Seafood, vegetables, and egg in a broth over noodles.
Your choice of soba or udon noodles in a broth topped with mountain vegetables.
Curry soup with carrots, onions, and udon noodles.
Shredded beef and green onions in a hot and spicy broth.
Your choice of fried chicken or pork cutlets. Served with an oriental tangy sauce and side of rice.
Your choice of fried chicken or pork cutlets with egg and vegetable over rice.
Stir fried calamari and vegetables in a hot sauce. Served with a side of rice.
Marinated shredded beef with tofu rice, noodles, onions, zucchini and mushrooms. Served with side of rice.
Your choice of fried chicken or pork cutlets with rice and curry sauce.
Japanese noodles topped with stir fried seafood and vegetables.
Japanese noodles topped with stir fried vegetable.
Cold soba noodles served with iced tempura sauce.
Grilled mackerel with soy sauce and minced radish. Served with side of rice.
Ramen noodles with fish and rice cake in a spicy sauce.
Chicken, onion, mushroom and side broccoli in a teriyaki sauce. Served with side of rice.
Salmon, onions, mushrooms and side broccoli in a teriyaki sauce. Served with side of rice.
Shrimp, scallops, calamari, red snapper, green mussels, onions, mushrooms and side broccoli in a teriyaki sauce. Served with side of rice.
Your choice of sweet and spicy beef, spicy chicken, spicy pork marinated in a Korean style sauce. Served with side of rice.
Your choice of vegetables, pork, chicken or beef with pan fried tofu and vegetable in a spicy sauce. Served with side of rice.
Marinated short ribs, chestnuts, carrots, dates, and egg served in a hot stone pot. Served with side of rice.
Half order of beef bulgogi served with rice.
Served with side of rice.
Your choice of sweet or spicy marinated chicken and vegetables served in a hot stone pot. Served with side of rice.
Your choice of udon or soba noodles, with oriental vegetables.
Your choice of udon or soba noodles, with chicken.
Your choice of udon or soba noodles, with beef.
Your choice of udon or soba noodles, with pork.
Your choice of udon or soba noodles, with shrimp.
Sweet potato noodles with beef and vegetables. Served with a side of rice.
Rice noodles, bean sprout, green onion, and cilantro topped with peanuts and special sauce with your choice of protein.
Deep fried shrimp or chicken with garlic, red snapper and scallions. Served with rice.
Noodles topped with a shrimp and pork bean paste sauce.
Carrots, onion, cucumbers, green pepper, green onion with a sweet and sour sauce. Served with rice.
Seasoned beef and vegetables over rice served with a side of spicy sauce. Served with rice.
Tofu and seasoned vegetables over rice served with a side of spicy sauce.
Seasoned beef and vegetables over rice served in a hot stone pot. Served with a side of spicy sauce and served with rice.
Tofu and seasoned vegetables over rice served in a hot stone pot with a side of spicy sauce.
Kimchi and pork belly with spicy vegetables served in a hot stone pot.
Spicy seafood and vegetables in a hot stone pot.
Your choice of spicy or teriyaki with vegetables in a hot stone pot.
All spicy rolls include spicy mayo. Masago: (capelin roe) fish egg.
Smoked salmon, avocado and masago.
Crab stick, shrimp, masago, and cucumber with Japanese mayo.
Thin sliced beef marinated in bulgogi sauce with avocado.
Tuna roll with tempura batter on the outside.
Fresh cucumber with seaweed outside.
Yellowtail and scallions with seaweed outside.
Pickled daikon radish with seaweed outside.
Baked salmon skin and cucumber.
Shrimp tempura, masago, avocado and cucumber.
Spicy crawfish mix and cucumber.
Salmon, cucumber and tempura crumbs.
Fresh salmon, masago and cucumber.
Fresh tuna, masago, scallions and cucumber.
Teriyaki salmon, masago and avocado.
Pickled radish, cucumber, avocado and spinach.
Spicy tuna roll topped with tuna, tempura crumbs, and masago topped with eel sauce and spicy mayo.
Shrimp, crab stick, masago, Japanese mayo, and mozzarella cheese deep fried and topped with spicy grilled scallops and dried tuna flakes.
Spicy tuna and cucumber on the inside topped with white tuna hot sauce and black tobiko.
Crab stick, avocado, cream cheese and masago, deep fried and topped with spicy mayo and eel sauce.
California roll covered with eel on top.
Spicy tuna roll topped with BBQ eel and spicy mayo.
Fried shrimp tempura, avocado and masago topped with salmon, avocado, eel sauce and spicy mayo.
Deep fried spicy tuna, spicy crab salad and masago topped with spicy mayo.
Salmon, masago and cucumber topped with salmon and salmon and a special sweet and spicy sauce.
California roll topped with spicy tuna and spicy sauce.
Spicy tuna roll topped with salmon and spicy mayo.
Crab stick, eel, masago covered with pecans, walnut, eel sauce and wasabi maki.
Deep fried baby shrimp, cucumber and masago topped with your choice of salmon or tuna, shrimp and crab mixture.
Tuna, eel, salmon, crab stick, cream cheese and avocado deep fried and topped with spicy sauces.
Fried sweet potato and cream cheese topped with eel wasabi mayo and red fish roe.
California roll covered with tuna, white fish and salmon (8 pieces).
BBQ eel and avocado topped with avocado and eel sauce (8 pieces).
BBQ eel, avocado and masago topped with sweet egg and eel sauce (8 pieces).
Boston roll mix, avocado, cucumber and cream cheese topped with shrimp, tobiko and mango sauce (8 pieces).
Salmon, cucumber, avocado and cream cheese. Topped with tuna, jalapeno, cilantro, lime and spicy sauce (8 pieces).
White tuna, masago, avocado and cream cheese deep fried and topped with a special cream sauce and seaweed powder (8 pieces).
Spicy tuna roll topped with grilled salmon, spicy mayo, eel sauce, a no tempura flakes (8 pieces).
2 pieces of jumbo shrimp tempura, cream cheese, avocado, cucumber and masago in a soy bean wrap (8 pieces).
Salmon, masago, cream cheese and avocado lightly fried and topped with wild berry sauce (8 pieces).
Deep fried sweet potato with steamed broccoli and mango sauce outside (8 pieces).
Tuna, salmon, yellowtail, red snapper and masago in a soy bean and veggie toro tashima wrap (6 pieces).
2 pieces of fried jumbo shrimp and mango topped with shrimp, crab stick, mango, miso sauce, and shredded seaweed (8 pieces).
Smoked salmon, cucumber, avocado and cream cheese topped with mango (8 pieces).
Fried shrimp tempura, spicy crab mix, avocado, cucumber and cream cheese topped with tuna, eel sauce, tempura crumbs and spicy mayo (6 pieces).
Sushi DishesToggle visibility of menu section "Sushi Dishes"
5 pieces of nigiri sushi, 9 pieces of sashimi and a California roll.
10 pieces of nigiri sushi, 4 pieces of a California roll and a tuna roll.
18 pieces of fresh variety sashimi.
4 pieces of nigiri sushi and 4 pieces of a California roll with curry udon soup, nabeyaki udon, Japanese miso ramen, san sai soup, shrimp tempura soup, zaru soba.
4 pieces of nigiri sushi and 4 pieces of a California roll with jam bong, seafood noodle soup.
Your choice of soba noodles or rice with sashimi and vegetables over rice served with a side of spicy sauce.
Chef's choice of 20 pieces of nigiri sushi, a tuna roll and a California roll.
Nigiri or SashimiToggle visibility of menu section "Nigiri or Sashimi"
Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Root Beer, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper.
Choose from chicken or pork cutlets.
Choose from chicken or pork cutlets over rice.
Marinated beef bulgoki with a side of rice.
Choose from soba or udon noodles with oriental vegetables.
From the Sushi BarToggle visibility of menu section "From the Sushi Bar"
Sashimi and vegetables over rice with a side of sweet and spicy sauce.
California roll, tuna and salmon with fish and shrimp.
California roll, tuna roll and a salmon hand roll.
Your choice of soba or udon noodles with deep fried jumbo shrimp.
Your choice of soba or udon noodles with mountain vegetables.


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Construction of the house of the future kicks off at Loyola
Deep Performance Dwelling is Canada's sole entry to the 2018 Solar Decathlon China, an international competition that challenges student teams to design and build full-size, solar-powered houses
Members of TeamMTL, a collaboration between McGill and Concordia, will spend part of the summer building a net-zero energy Deep Performance Dwelling.
McGill and Concordia students and faculty teaming up to build Canadian entry to Solar Decathlon China competition in 2018
It's officially underway.
As of June 12, the test assembly of the net-zero energy Deep Performance Dwelling began on Concordia University's Loyola Campus. Designed and realized by TeamMTL, the house is Canada's sole entry to the 2018 Solar Decathlon China, an international competition that challenges student teams to design and build full-size, solar-powered houses.
TeamMTL is a collaborative effort between students and faculty from McGill and Concordia universities. Reaching the test assembly stage is a major milestone in the long journey to the competition which will be held in July 2018 in Dezhou, Shandong Province, China. The team is composed of 40 students working on all aspects of the project, including architecture design, engineering, finance and communications.
"We are extremely grateful to the dozens of dedicated people who have come together to make the test assembly of the Deep Performance Dwelling possible," says Michael Jemtrud, Faculty Lead and McGill School of Architecture Professor.
A profound hands-on experience
The house is being assembled at the Terrebonne Parking lot beside the Oscar Peterson Concert Hall at the Loyola Campus of Concordia University. The prototype will remain onsite throughout the summer, giving visitors a hands-on vision of the future of housing.
"We're very pleased to host this stage of the research project at Concordia," said Justin Powlowski, Concordia's Interim Vice-President of Research and Graduate Studies. "The Deep Performance Dwelling is an exciting collaboration between our two universities. It's a great opportunity for Concordia and McGill students to apply their technical skills at this crucial step. I look forward to seeing them in action this summer!"
At the worksite, an ensemble of students who participated in a summer construction course offered through McGill and who received health and safety training from the Commission de la santé et de la securité du travail (CSST) are anxious to get their hands dirty.
"It's very exciting to see the team's efforts finally materialize, I can't wait for construction to begin. I've been talking about this amazing project for the past year and I'm eager to share the final product." said Alex Gareau, a civil engineering undergrad at Concordia and one of the project managers. "The way I see it, my mandate as project manager is to help the project progress smoothly, from handling site logistics, to coordinating and harmonizing the efforts of the team's various crews."
Likewise, Mark Melnichuk, a second-year McGill undergraduate architecture student has been working on the team since its inception. "The Solar Decathlon has been the most ambitious and challenging academic project I have been involved in. To see the project grow from a concept on paper into a fully realized building has been an extremely gratifying process. Not only am I proud of the quality of the project the team has put together but also the potential sustainable implications of the project in the future."
'Educating the best and brightest young thinkers and doers'
After the base and exterior structure of the home are complete, the team will focus on refining the interior including full furnishing and integration of the interactive media. Tours will be offered to the public beginning in mid-July to demonstrate TeamMTL's vision of sustainable urban living and high-performance construction techniques.
Inspired by Montreal row houses, the dwelling is designed to be adaptable and flexible for the contemporary urban family. The ambitious design addresses the pressing global need for affordable, low-impact, urban housing. It integrates interactive media into the home to inform residents of consumption patterns and their environmental impacts.
"It is a complex, extraordinary project for the students and faculty involved," says Jemtrud. "We're continuing to bring together numerous public and private sector partners who have a shared concern for building a sustainable world, while simultaneously educating the best and brightest young thinkers and doers from our community."
Information on upcoming tours, events and the team's progress can be found online and you can follow on social media @teammontreal for real time updates and behind-the-scenes footage.
Feds pledge $50K for student-designed net-zero energy housing
Sustainable Sparks: Katia Forgues on leading youth activism in...
Support for research in carbon-free energy storage and conversion
CoolHealth: Mobile solar refrigerator improves healthcare access in Sub-Saharan...


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Joan B. Kessler JD PhD
Website: www.jamsadr.com/kessler
Recognized to California Chapter for Mediation & Arbitration Other ADR Services: ADR Training/CME, Discovery Referee, Fact Finding, Insurance Umpire, Med-Arb, Mini-Trial Judge, Special Master
Book an Appointment with Joan Kessler's office
If you'd like a list of available dates for Joan Kessler, please submit a request below.
You will hear back directly from Joan's assistant, Geri Yulo.
Joan B. Kessler, Esq., Ph.D. joined JAMS in 2017 with more than 10 years' experience as an ADR professional and a Ph.D. in communications. Dr. Kessler has mediated and arbitrated hundreds of diverse matters, including individual and class action employment; real property; business/commercial, including partnership and shareholder disputes; estate/probate/trust; insurance; and entertainment cases. With a law career spanning more than 30 years, she has the legal experience and knowledge to quickly understand complex legal issues. Dr. Kessler's 10-plus years of experience as a jury researcher and consultant affords her the ability to provide key insights into jury dynamics.
Dr. Kessler is a uniquely qualified mediator and arbitrator whose training and education allow her to communicate effectively with attorneys and all parties involved in her matters. Her background in communications helps her to develop a rapport with even the most challenging, combative and high-profile personalities. She possesses a keen ability to bring parties together to reach resolution on even the most contentious of matters. Dr. Kessler uses her ability to speak Spanish and her understanding of inter-cultural uniqueness in Korean, Persian, Israeli, Armenian, and other cultures to help resolve disputes through mediation.
Entertainment Sector
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, CA - J.D. 1986; Chief Articles Editor, Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Journal
University of Michigan, Ph.D. Speech Communication, 1973
University of California, Los Angeles, M.A. Speech Communication, 1969
University of Michigan, A.B. English, 1967
Admitted to the State Bar of California (1987). AV rating, Martindale-Hubbell.
Admitted to the U.S. Tax Court.
Admitted to the U.S. District Court, Central District of California.
Member, American, Los Angeles County and Beverly Hills Bar Associations.
Member, Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles.
Member, Organization of Women Executives, 1996-Present.
Member, Southern California Mediation Association, 2006-Present.
Southern California Super Lawyer.
Daily Journal's 2006 Top Women Litigators.
Los Angeles Superior Court Awardee in Mediation - 2008.
Associate Editor, Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (CAALA) "Advocate" Magazine 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.
Please call JAMS Office for details


2.2 How can we make Wikipedia better?
Here are some of the photos I took for Wiki Loves Monuments, a photo contest organized to add pictures of historic landmarks on Wikipedia. Most of my pictures so far are from Marin County, California, where I live.
These are just sample photos from my multimedia collections. For more WLM pictures, check out this special page with all my photos for Wiki Loves Monuments.
Enjoy these first pictures contributed as a volunteer. More to come!
What you see on this page was copied from https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin.


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Desperate Housewives are an American television series created by Marc Cherry and produced by ABC studios. The series pilot episode on October 3rd 2004 and been on for eight seasons now. It focuses on a group of suburban housewives and their stories told through the eyes of their deceased neighbor, Mary Alice.
It gets aired on ABC, Channel 4, Channel 5, and Seven Networks. It features a cast of Teri Thatcher (as Susan Meyer), Marcia Cross(as Bree Van De Camp), Eva Longoria (as Gabrielle Solis), Felicity Huffman (Linnet Scavo) and Brenda Strong(as Mary Alice). The series shows the lives of these women as they go through domestic struggles and relationships. Lying and conspiracy is common with all the residents of Wisteria Lane, and it is the deep friendships characterized in this film, that binds housewives together. The cast is predominantly made of women.
The most prevalent themes of the films are gender and culture, thus the reason why I chose to analyze the film and the messages it passes on to the society. The title" Desperate Housewives" is symbolically used to mean that the women cast in the film fit the hegemonic traditional role of a woman staying at home while the husband works to support the family. However, this is not applicable throughout the play as the women's role keep changing. For example, Lynette goes back to work ad Tom her husband stays home to watch the kids, Bree Van de Kamp opens her own catering business after years of being a housewife and Susan Myer gets a teaching job to help boost the family income. However, the hegemonic norm does not guarantee that the men will share equally in the house work since the society still expected women to perform their wifely duties after a day's work. Desperate housewives, thus, is a film that aims to reinorce and challenge the norms of working women and housewives.
The movie is a series because it portrays an organization of time and events where the film gets aired every day at the same time. The film also demonstrates the growth of characters overtime as the narrative shifts from one story to another. In addition to this, film shows continuity where the resolution of the film is in the future. Finally, the film is a combination of integrated individual stories all integrated into one story. The film has many cliffhangers that create suspense in the audience as well as a series of temporary resolutions that get made within the storyline. The narrative also constantly makes reference to the past occurrences in order to update new viewers.
. Thus the narrative is bound using ideologies, myths and histories that are biased and the ending always seems unstable as it does not contain a final meaning. Hermeneutics combines with ethnographic work to help the viewers understand the hidden message in the film. (MacCabe 2006) There are various journal articles written with reference to this film. One example of such a journal is the 'Journal of media and cultural studies' which featured an article titled, 'Mobilizing post feminism: Young Australian women discuss Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives'. The article aims to reveal the connection between women's' lives and popular culture.
In addition, the article discusses feminism in the film desperate housewives where women get empowered giving them the freedom to have careers, make their own decisions and live independently away from all the restricting traditions that limit women to being housewives. Moreover, the article discuses post feminism and the role it plays in shaping the media and the audieence. (Ballantine, 2011) The show is immensely popular, and it ranked in the top 100 most watched films worldwide. This is because the show helps in the construction of the role of gender in the society. The film impacts women positively as it empowers them to rise against the traditions that limit women at home.
The film further urges women to pursue their careers irrespective of what others may say. For example, Bree Van de Kamp's first husband dismissed her desire to write a cook book as nonsense, however, after his death, she became a key figure in the catering business, and she even wrote volumes of cook books. (MacCabe 2006)Critics claim that the film creates a fantasy for women and the lifestyles of women in the film are just acting. However, what these critics should realize is that the women attained these positions through hard work and sacrifice. For example, Bree Van de Kamp got a fortune from publishing her recipes.
Gabrielle Solis was a model before she got married, and she had to fore go her career to cater for her family. Susan Myer, had to take a job to add to the family income, and Lynette worked tirelessly to provide for the family even when Tom went back to school. All this proves that the women in the film did not just get where they were by luck, rather they had to work hard. In addition, they claim that the film is purely fiction where families are rich and happy. However, although the women in the film are acting, they represent the day to day issues that face women, marriages and life in general.
For example, Susan Myer gets sick and needs a kidney transplant, Bree Van de Kamp foes through two divorces, Lynette and Tom are always fighting and Gabrielle Solis cheats on Carlos. All these are events that occur in society.
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The Fight for the Future of Philadelphia's Newspapers
September 26, 2015 Lawrence Christopher Skufca, J.D. Leave a comment
Two years after they teamed up to buy the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, power players George Norcross and Lewis Katz are at each other's throats amidst firings, broken agreements, accusations of meddling and a protracted court fight. The inside story of a deal gone bad—and a feud that once again puts Philadelphia's newspapers in peril
BY STEVE VOLK | JANUARY 30, 2014
The meeting is lore, now: a story about a table for two that likely caused all South Jersey to wobble, ever so slightly, on its axis. The setting: Lamberti's, aflutter with white tablecloths, occupied by the swellegant, an Italian seafood restaurant that serves as something of a home field for one of the men at the table, George Norcross III.
His name means different things to different people. Norcross earned millions in the insurance business, as executive chairman of Conner Strong & Buckelew. He earned a scary reputation as the grinding stone of the Democratic Party in South Jersey, choosing who ran for what political office till he accumulated so much wealth and power that he became downright kingly.
Critics plaster Norcross with uncomplimentary terms, like "the Jersey Devil." Admirers cite his more recent run of philanthropy, thanking him for building a better South Jersey. Friends and enemies often see his avalanche of thick white hair at Lamberti's, in Cherry Hill, but the 57-year-old Norcross added this March 2012 stop to his calendar upon request, and reluctantly. He would maybe order a bowl of linguine or something.
Across from him sat Lewis Katz. His name also means different things to different people: An entrepreneur of many trades, Katz has worked, successfully, as an attorney, a political power broker to governors Jim Florio and Ed Rendell, a shareholder in the New York Yankees and New Jersey Nets and Devils. But he made his biggest bundles of loot in comparatively schlubby businesses like parking lots and billboards. Tall and trim, with thinning hair he combs over a wide bald spot, Katz was the one who called and asked for this meeting.
Critics plaster Katz with invective, too, citing his vanity, his operatic ego, his success at leveraging political connections into cash. Admirers cite his philanthropy, including a recent $25 million gift to Temple University, and say that at 72, he is doing it right at the end, ladling wealth on good causes.
In what is likely the most accurate rendering of this encounter, Katz spoke first: "George," he said, "I am not sure you're comfortable with this deal. And I want you to be comfortable, George."
Katz and Norcross were deep into their run at buying this city's largest media organization: the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com. Norcross took in Katz's opening salvo, the reason he had been called here to eat linguine for which he was not particularly hungry, and responded, "I'm comfortable. I'm moving ahead with this deal. But I think you're uncomfortable. … "
Was Katz trying to avoid the embarrassment of queering the deal by getting Norcross to bail first?
"George," Katz told Norcross, "I just want to be sure you keep the passion I've seen in you throughout this deal. I don't want to be that heavily involved, and I just want to be sure you'll make it work."
"I'll make it work," replied Norcross.
Less than two years later, the business pairing of Lewis Katz and George Norcross looms as a master class in how things fall apart. Neither man recognized that this moment at Lamberti's forecast worrisome levels of indecision and mistrust. And so this is a story about how one brief dinner foreshadowed a dessert of legal briefs and lawyers' fees.
The two men bought into a business deal for very different reasons: Katz for romance, nostalgia, love; Norcross for money, power, challenge. The different perspectives meant each man had a different view of the path ahead. And the result is Philadelphia's highest-profile feud in years, featuring two men who can't abide losing in a battle for a prize that relinquishes a little more luster with every lawsuit.
"None of this makes sense anymore," says a local businessman who has known both men for decades. "Because it isn't about business. It isn't about money. It's all ego now. It's face."
"DARLING,' THE EMAIL BEGINS.The sender, Nancy Phillips; the recipient, Lewis Katz; the date, March 17, 2012, as Phillips goes on to elucidate a comprehensive strategy to turn around the Inquirer.
"Company needs a new publisher," she writes.
"Paper needs a new editor.
"Philly.com needs a new leader.
"Daily News has to be seriously evaluated with a view toward possible elimination or curtailment as in a move to the website with pared down staff and a paper product one day a week if at all."
At the time, Phillips worked in the newsroom of the Inquirer as a reporter. And in roughly two weeks, George Norcross III would close a deal with her boyfriend, Lewis Katz, to acquire the desk, the chair, the whole shebang that was her workplace. In this sense, Phillips's letter was business advice, a "honey do" list, and the fantasy of any working stiff made manifest.
In 10 paragraphs, Phillips advised Katz to fire or demote and replace six people: her boss, editor Stan Wischnowski; publisher Greg Osberg; Philly.com chief Wendy Warren; and the COO, the CFO, and the head of the advertising department. She also alerted Katz to Mark Block, "the lovely PR guy," because she'd just noticed he held a VP title and probably made too much dough. "Maybe he plays a larger role that I don't understand," she wrote.
Of all the people in this story, Phillips, 50, might be the most complicated. For years she has swept into the newsroom each Monday, a big bunch of fresh-cut flowers clutched before her. She speaks in stately, almost Victorian cadences, coming off like Mary Poppins. As her colleagues faced a never-ending stream of furloughs, buyouts, layoffs and pay cuts, her Twitter stream read like an ongoing accounting of relative wealth and privilege. ("Am I the only one who finds creme fraiche evocative of caviar? Even in the absence of that glorious pairing, it reminds me + transports me.")
But for all her blue-blooded posturing, Phillips has logged 30 years of blue-collar effort, slogging across the grittiest terrain, tugging at the most tangled secrets, to get the story. She obtained a hit man's confession in the infamous murder of rabbi Fred Neulander's wife. She wrote the first story accusing venerable Daily News sports columnist Bill Conlin of child molestation. And today, in her role as city editor, she is equally well-regarded as both skillful and a good boss.
But she happened to have that rich, politically connected boyfriend. For years, the relationship between Katz and Phillips, who met in the early '80s, was the Inquirer newsroom's open secret. Katz never divorced his wife, Margie, for years appearing beside her at family functions. (Margie Katz passed away in late December.) But many years ago, he and Phillips moved into a condominium overlooking Rittenhouse Square.
Katz wouldn't be interviewed for this story. (Through his spokesman, Jay Devine, he denies the specific accounting of his dinner at Lamberti's with Norcross but doesn't provide any details.) However, a few dozen interviews and a torrent of emails leaked to media all over town tell the story well enough. Katz entered the newspaper bidding in early 2012 after receiving a call from Ed Rendell, who knew that the company—which had been bought out of bankruptcy by several hedge funds and banks in 2010—was again for sale. For years, Rendell and Katz enjoyed a close partnership: Katz helped fund Rendell's political runs while making a mint off those parking garages and billboards.
Katz expressed interest in the papers and looked around for partners. Meanwhile, Rendell looped in cable mogul H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest. The other investors, including Liberty Property Trust CEO Bill Hankowsky, insurance executive Joe Buckelew and tech
CEO Kris Singh, all arrived via George Norcross—who had started exploring a bid to buy the company a few months earlier, after talking to Greg Osberg and John Angelo of Angelo, Gordon, one of the hedge funds that owned the papers.
There were questions, before the deal was even finalized, about men with such deep political connections running the region's largest, most powerful media organization. In press coverage at the time, the new owners declared that they bought the company out of a sense of civic duty. But people close to the process say the owners talked, a lot, about making money. The papers and website had dropped in price from more than $515 million when former adman Brian Tierney bought them in 2006 to a little more than $55 million when Katz and Norcross allied to buy them.
But there are public reasons and private ones, and Katz likely had many motivations.
A Camden native, he was raised by his mother after his father died. He graduated first in his class from Dickinson School of Law, and spent time interning for Drew Pearson, the syndicated newspaper columnist and NBC radio personality. The relationship meant a lot to Katz, who asked Pearson to serve as the best man at his wedding and later named his only son after the newsman. Owning the Inquirer, in this context, likely appealed to a sense of nostalgia.
Of course, Katz must also have been motivated by Phillips, and people who know him say this personal tie certainly "added value" to the transaction. Even as Katz told Norcross he didn't want to be involved in day-to-day operations, he started a major move without his new partner's knowledge, and with Phillips by his side.
AT FIRST GLANCE, if there is a hero in this story, it would seem to be Bill Marimow.
The 66-year-old Marimow is a legend in modern American journalism, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes as a young reporter at the Inquirer and a symbol of the paper's greatest days in the '80s and '90s. He left for the Baltimore Sun (where he eventually became editor), then became vice president for news at NPR. But in 2006 he returned for his dream job, serving as editor in chief of the Inquirer under the doomed ownership of Tierney. Marimow led the paper for four years, till the hedge funds took over. Then the new publisher, Greg Osberg, citing Marimow's lack of expertise—and perhaps interest—in digital journalism, demoted him back to investigative reporting.
The ending hurt. But Marimow moved on, engaging in his second-best love, teaching, at Arizona State University. It was in Arizona, in early February of 2012, that he received a visit from Lewis Katz, who wanted to talk about the newspaper industry. The two men were friendly acquaintances, having dined together on couples' dates with Phillips and Marimow's wife. At the time of the Arizona visit, Katz seemed like a businessman prospecting a new venture. More discussions followed. And then, maybe six weeks after Katz's initial visit, Phillips and Marimow started working out, by email, the terms of a deal for Marimow to return, including salary, autonomy, and the ability to hire two or three key editors.
For Phillips, the conversation must have been filled with promise. When Marimow became New Jersey editor in the late '80s, he inherited Phillips, who'd been a correspondent in the bureau since 1985. He had mentored her, saw to it, through legendary editor Gene Roberts, that she was hired on full-time. Now she sat in a position to bring him back so he could end his career the right way, in the city where he was born.
What Marimow means to Philadelphia is difficult to quantify. But longtime political operative Tom Massaro tells a story that gives a sense of his importance: In the early '80s, Massaro arrived to run the housing department for then-mayor Bill Green and conferred with some of the city's leading African-Americans.
"I need to know how a young white guy can gain the support of the people in the neighborhoods, who are mostly black," Massaro said. "If I'm going to do any good, I'm going to need their help and their trust."
"Talk to Bill Marimow," they told him.
Massaro, new to town, could only ask: "Who's Bill Marimow?"
Congressman William Gray answered: "Every day," he said, "Bill Marimow is the guy who keeps hundreds of black boots out of thousands of black asses."
Marimow, himself a young white guy, had gained the trust of dozens and dozens of neighborhood sources by exposing a litany of civil rights abuses by the city police, from beatings to dogs loosed on innocent citizens. He shook the city's bones, dropped a dose of justice into its DNA, and delivered a master class on doing journalism in the process. "Bill would call his sources back," says longtime Marimow colleague Vernon Loeb, now with the Houston Chronicle, "including the people we might consider his 'targets,' and say, 'This is what I am planning to write,' point by point, and give them another chance to respond."
Marimow was tenacious about getting the truth out. "Sometimes," says Loeb, "if he didn't have all the sourcing or information, he would encourage sources to come forward or just make his point by writing a story in which he articulated the remaining questions."
Writing about the 1985 MOVE tragedy, in which then-mayor Wilson Goode ordered a bomb dropped on a house occupied by black activists, Marimow questioned the official story that five of the 11 victims actually emerged from the fiery house only to retreat back inside, of their own accord, to die.
"If [the officers] are accurate in saying that either four or five people escaped from the MOVE house," wrote Marimow, "their accounts raise questions about exactly what transpired in the back alley. … Did [Conrad Africa] choose to retreat into the flaming garage, where he died in the fire? If not, how did his body end up back in the house?"
The reputation Marimow forged, for toughness and integrity, gave him a unique allure in later years, particularly to owners with entrenched political and business interests. His old boss, Brian Tierney, saw him that way, even after leaving the papers. "Bringing [Marimow] on board will immediately and powerfully answer the concerns of editorial independence and integrity," he wrote to new owners in an email later leaked to the media. "It makes the issue go away."
Katz, too, felt that Marimow's innate ability to quell people's suspicions just by being there was a primary part of his value. Hiring Marimow, he'd later say in court testimony, meant landing an editor who'd "remove the stigma" from his ownership group. For a guy who earned his reputation asking questions, being known as the man who eliminates them is an odd niche to occupy. But as the deal moved closer, Katz and Phillips arranged for Norcross to meet with them and Marimow at Rembrandt's restaurant in Fairmount.
Norcross's spokesman claims Norcross didn't know that Katz was engaged in a search for a new editor in chief for the Inquirer—or that he was involved romantically in a long-term relationship with an Inquirer reporter—until a couple weeks before closing the deal. Katz's spokesman says Norcross knew "of the search for an editor long before" the meeting at Rembrandt's.
The stress of being responsible for managing the deal wore on Norcross: six partners, $55 million in play, hedge funds to be satisfied. Because the media already questioned the group's fitness to own a media company, they were working on a pledge to assure their non-interference in editorial "either directly or indirectly." They also needed to define their own corporate governance.
In the end, the new company, Interstate General Media, included in its decision-
making process a six-man board consisting of all of its investors. But major business decisions would require the approval of both participants in a two-member management committee: Katz and Norcross.
All of these pieces were still coming together as the foursome sat down at Rembrandt's. Katz left after the introductions. But Norcross went ahead and stuck around for about an hour.
The image is compelling: George Norcross, one of the most investigated men in the region, sitting across from Bill Marimow, the legendary investigator. Norcross has done a lot to change his image in recent years, plowing time and effort into Camden, opening a new charter school and guiding an ongoing expansion of Cooper Hospital. But he remains the all-powerful political boss of South Jersey. And anyone who does business with Norcross would be advised to listen to the Palmyra tapes, a series of 13-year-old recordings, captured by law enforcement, in which he can be heard seeking political retribution on all who dare oppose him and popping off angry fucks like gunshots. Norcross faced no legal trouble from the investigation, but the tapes comprise an unalloyed look into his thinking at the time. They also suggest not just a willingness to fight, and hurt, but a thirst. And the most memorable part of Norcross's conversation with Marimow that day at Rembrandt's suggests he never lost the taste.
"Don't try to be friends with me," Norcross cautioned Marimow. "I don't become friends with the people that I work with. The white hat isn't me. I'm the black hat."
THE NEW GROUP, already mired in complex relationships, got off to a difficult start. Marimow's new tenure began that May. But beforehand, the then-editor, Stan Wischnowski, had to oversee coverage of the paper's new owners. He planned to disclose Katz's relationship with Phillips.
Citing fears that Katz's wife was "frail," Phillips wrote to Norcross in a March 31st email: "I can't tell you how much I worry about the potential consequences of such a story. … I have tried to dissuade Stan from this, and I might yet succeed. But maybe not. If not, that may be too high a cost. Part of me wants to kill the whole deal over this. … "
That line, suggesting that a reporter at the Inquirer had the power to kill his deal, must have been a knee-meets-groin moment for the usually all-powerful Norcross. But Phillips's attempts to dissuade Wischnowski are even more interesting, journalistically.
In journalism, reporters are taught to reveal any potential conflicts of interest. Considering that Phillips's role at the paper might ultimately influence Katz's business decisions, and the degree to which her relationship with Katz might raise questions about the paper's coverage, there really wasn't any other choice for Wischnowski but to disclose. Furthermore, the new owners were taking a pledge not to do exactly what Phillips was doing—interfere in editorial. But she was undeterred.
"[T]he relationship poses no conflict for the newspaper," she wrote to Norcross in another email that same day. "I have always stayed out of stories involving Lewis. Also argued that there was really no relevance to this, beyond gossip appeal." But Wischnowski pressed on. "Katz and his wife, Marjorie, have two children," read a disclosure in an April 3rd Inquirer story. "The couple have lived apart for many years. Katz is in a long-term relationship with Nancy Phillips, an award-winning Inquirer investigative reporter."
The passage is strikingly restrained, even French, in its attitude toward what remains, technically, a long affair. But it was accurate.
The same could not be said for the announcement, that same week, that Marimow was returning to his editor's post.
"Who shall I say hired me?" the new-again editor had asked Phillips when they were closing the deal.
She helped craft what she later called "the official version"—that Osberg happily hired Marimow back.
In reality, Greg Osberg demoted Bill Marimow in 2010 and recommended against rehiring him in 2013. So did then-chief operating officer Bob Hall, who told the new ownership group that Marimow had "problems" with women and minorities. Nonetheless, Osberg signed and sent Marimow a letter of employment. Osberg also issued quotes for a press release about how glad he was to have Marimow back in charge, just 18 months after he'd demoted him.
For anyone who even remotely followed happenings at the local paper, the official version was an unbelievable fiction. And Marimow waved in the general direction of the facts: "I think the local owners might have suggested it'd be great if I returned," he said.
The official version served as a white lie, not unlike allowing fired employees to declare they resigned. Yet the tale remains unsavory: The new, politically connected ownership group, fresh from its vow not to interfere, brings in a peerlessly ethical editor to buff up its image, while fobbing off an at-best-incomplete story of how it all came to pass to the public, and even its own reporters.
As one person close to the formation of the ownership group told me: "The pledge always struck me as Lemon Pledge. Something to clean up the surface."
RIGHT OUT OF the gate, the new ownership group divided. Norcross, a data hound, presented a thick stack of findings from a survey of current and former readers to advocate for major change. Katz, backing Marimow, argued for what amounted to a comparative status quo.
Norcross's was the more clear-eyed, modern vision: Working with Hall (who replaced Osberg as publisher in mid-2012), he advocated a significant redesign of the print product; a complete overhaul of the company's Web strategy; a reduction in editorial op-ed pages from two to one; and a renewed focus on local news by eliminating the jobs of five editors and replacing them with seven reporters.
The list isn't perfect: Do readers really reject "op-ed columns" as a concept, or just the version the Inquirer had been producing? Will mere data-crunching ever deliver something truly innovative or visionary?
Still, the list, particularly in terms of a redesign, more local news, and an awareness of the digital product as preeminent, comports with the newspaper industry's current direction. And the initiatives triggered a proxy war: Norcross pressed for change behind Bob Hall; Katz pushed back wherever Marimow (and presumably Phillips) required assistance.
Hall submitted a list of editors to be demoted or fired. But Marimow resisted, with Katz acting as his benefactor. In one email to Hall, Katz wrote that he was invoking his blocking rights to prevent the changes.
"Bob," Marimow would say, "we need evolution, not revolution."
As slogans go, an appeal to Darwinism is a bit of a drag. But Marimow contends he only used the "evolution" line to slow the redesign and avoid alienating subscribers with an unrecognizable paper. Of course, keeping readers at all is a tricky business. After decades of crushing losses in readership, the Inquirer has spiraled a further 25 percent in recent years, its subscriber base dropping from 350,000 in 2007 to roughly 258,000 now. But in whatever context Marimow meant the words, they seem to capture something of the man.
In person, Marimow is anachronistic, as slow-talking, literal and polite as 1955. But he can also be intimidating. "He's got the Pulitzers," says one staffer, a fan. "And if he hears you're stuck on a story, it's kind of like a software program has kicked in, and the computer is whirring to life, and some of what he says will be so basic. It's stuff like, 'I would get a notebook, and a pen' and then somewhere in there will be some incredible nugget of good advice. But some people won't think of the basic stuff as, you know, just some quirk of Bill's. They'll take it personally."
Marimow isn't, as Hall seemed to imply, racist or sexist. Lots of phone calls to staffers who worked with Marimow over the decades confirm that. He is merely, well, Bill Marimow—with a sense of his own accomplishments. And in some fundamental way, that sense of self-possession leaches into the staff around him—as if they all won Pulitzers, too. The paper isn't selling? Advertisers are departing? Well, it can't be the fault of the editorial department. "What we do is rock- solid," one staff writer told me. "The problem is how we're marketed and sold."
The Inquirer staff is still big enough, at around 250 people, that generalizing about it is unwise. Still, as I called around the newsroom for this story, numerous staffers expressed the same idea: The Inquirer's revenue problem is purely a function of the business side. And their self-satisfaction is only compounded by their fear of the man pushing change.
Take, for example, this: George Norcross III and the board gathered data that the Inquirer's ownsubscribers are rarely able to recall the name of a single columnist.
Pffft! goes the response. So what? Norcross is a political hack. The same firm that does his political polling gathered reader data. Never mind that the same company also conducts polling for the Los Angeles Times. The subject shifts from any kind of meaningful self-reflection on how the Inquirer might be better to Norcross: Is he secretly eager to cut editorial pages and columns only because he nurses a grudge against the sections of the paper that, traditionally, dole out the most severe beatings to guys like him?
Norcross's history and his outside pursuits demand we ask this sort of question. And so the largest media organization in town, its revenues so low it was thought to be losing $50,000 per day, immediately fell into a damaging stasis. The guy pushing for meaningful change, George Norcross, enjoyed no one's trust. And the guy everyone trusted, Bill Marimow, presided over a newsroom that saw no need for change.
THE DAILY NEWSreadied a redesign of its print product in about six weeks. The evolutionists at the Inquirer took nine months.
By February 2013, Norcross, and Hall, grew increasingly frustrated with Marimow. And meetings among the new company's owners got bizarre. Norcross kicked into boardroom-brawl mode: "Lewis," he said at one point, "why do I even talk to you? Shouldn't I just talk to Nancy?"
That talk incensed Katz. But on most occasions, he seemed bent on calming Norcross's growing fury. "Hey," Katz said once, standing up from the meeting table and spreading his arms wide. "C'mon. Hug me. Let's be friends again."
By last March, the entire ownership group discussed a complete overhaul of the management team. By July, still locked in a stalemate, Hall told the board he wanted to fire Marimow.
"You can't," Katz warned Hall, telling him he would invoke his blocking rights.
The operating agreement they'd formed, in which Norcross and Katz had to agree on all major business decisions, had come to serve as a tar pit, trapping the company. The pair had failed to create a tiebreaker system, believing a total sharing of power would force them to resolve conflicts. In hindsight, it's hard to imagine teenagers agreeing to run their fantasy football team by such unworkable rules. But Katz and Norcross succumbed to some tyranny of ego: "These are men who are used to getting their own way," says one highly placed executive in town.
As time passed, the entire battle became hugely personal.
Hall even added Nancy Phillips to the list of staff members he wanted to fire. And Norcross's daughter, Lexie, then a 25-year-old with no journalism experience, took on a supervisory role at Philly.com, where her greenness shows up like a grass stain. In May 2013, when the site launched a regular column by Governor Tom Corbett, she responded to criticism by knocking the newspapers across the hall: "Considering that the Inquirer and Daily News slam him every day," she said, "I think it's actually equal, giving him a chance to speak."
Unable to conceal her political genes, Lexie tweeted a link to an article in which her dad backed Cory Booker's Senate run, with the message: "Go @corybooker go!"
The general tenor of Philly.com's original content also did her no favors, pushing the site further into vapid, celebrity-driven click bait. But whatever Lexie Norcross's current merits and future potential, the two sides now had every reason to dig in for a corporate cage match. Katz sought to protect the interests of his girlfriend and the editor she idolized. Norcross needed to look out for the long-term interests of his daughter, who seemed to have found the career she wanted to pursue. Two of the region's most powerful and politically connected residents didn't have just money and ego at stake, but also skin, blood and love.
ON JANUARY 11, 2013, Chris Brennan of the Daily News filed a story titled, "8th and Market enters running as potential casino location."
About midway through the story, Brennan wrote: "The Goldenberg Group owns 60 percent of that land. Lewis Katz, a managing partner of the company that owns the Daily News, the Inquirer, and Philly.com, is a limited partner in Goldenberg but is not involved in the casino application."
This is the sort of disclosure news organizations make so readers can know any conflicts of interest that might exist.
The Inquirer and Daily News have since published more than 20 stories that include the possibility of a casino being erected at the Goldenberg site. But Katz's involvement was never mentioned again until columnist Karen Heller finally noted it in January 2014.
Were the papers seeking to tuck Katz out of sight? There is some evidence to suggest Katz might prefer it that way. In 2006, during a separate, earlier casino application process, Katz's daughter, Melissa Silver, appeared on a casino license application. After questions were raised about Katz's involvement in the project, he finally came forward—in 2010, four years into the process—as an applicant.
With the current casino project, publisher Bob Hall sent a group email to Katz and the other owners, asking them to divulge any ties they or their families had to possible casino groups or locations so the paper could disclose any potential conflicts of interest.
"I have no relationships," Katz wrote back, "nor am I involved."
Was this an oversight on Katz's part? Katz's spokesman, Jay Devine, provided the following statement: "[Lewis Katz] does not have any interest in the Goldenberg casino entity or the 8th & Market land. The land is owned by a trust for the benefit of Lewis Katz's grandchildren, which is not controlled by Lewis Katz."
Is Katz related to his grandkids?
In December, more questions were raised when Temple University decided to drop seven student athletic programs. The Inquirer's first story, on December 7th, mentioned and quoted Katz, identifying him as "a member of the Temple board of trustees and chair of the board's athletic committee," and "a co-owner of the Inquirer" who "recently pledged to donate $25 million to the school."
Katz chairs the committee that put forward the restructuring plan for the school's athletics department, so he is integral to the story. As coverage evolved, however, he wasn't mentioned by the Inquirer again—either in the sports section or in a follow-up piece that appeared in the local section.
There were complaints from some staffers, not on Team Marimow, that Katz sat in on a 10 a.m. news meeting. An obituary writer also complained when a funeral director sent over an obit and claimed that Katz had said it would be published. (The funeral director provided Katz's cell-phone number as evidence of the owner's involvement.) Katz, through his spokesman, Devine, "categorically denies any involvement in any editorial decision by an editor or journalist," calling this story "absolutely false."
True, Phillips had long recused herself from writing about any issues that might relate to her boyfriend. In 2013, when she was named city editor, she never edited stories that involved Katz. And when Temple shut down the sports, Phillips recused herself from edit meetings on the subject.
But reporters and editors in the Inquirer newsroom don't seem to much care about these sorts of issues. Because they have the ownership group they have. And given Katz's desire to please Phillips, and Phillips's respect for Marimow, they'll take that trio, gladly. As multiple staff members told me: "Just look at the alternative."
IN JANUARY OF 2013, Norcross held a lunch meeting with Bill Marimow at the downtown Marriott. There, Norcross pushed the data about columns and editorial opinion pages across the table. The stats, which pollsters had presented three months earlier, suggested readers didn't particularly like or follow the Inquirer's op-eds or columnists.
For old Inquirer hands, whispering like POWs behind barbed wire, the meeting is evidence that Norcross, a political bully, sought to intimidate Marimow into making editorial changes, in violation of the pledge he took when he purchased the papers. (Norcross says he "doesn't remember" ever handing Marimow the data.)
I also obtained an email from Bob Cauthorn, an Internet consultant, that was sent to Marimow. The consultant lists "directives" Cauthorn says he received from Norcross, who hired him, including one to oversee the redesign of the Inquirer's website.
Norcross says he saw Cauthorn's role as organizational and aesthetic, "overseeing design." But editors typically oversee the work of art directors and Web designers—not the other way around.
The Big Fear is that Norcross will somehow leverage his Inquirer ownership to serve his political and business interests. Again, there is a small evidence trail to follow. I obtained a document from January 2013 involving Philly.com in which management sought and received a legal opinion exploring whether giving columns to Cory Booker and Governor Chris Christie would violate any "equal time" requirements (no, the lawyers said) or political contribution laws (likely yes).
Booker and Christie never got columns. But Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett did.
Norcross told me he never spoke to Corbett about the column. The Governor's former spokesman, Kevin Harley, says Norcross approached Corbett about joining the New Voices program at Philly.com when the pair met, for the first time, in January 2013 at the Academy of Music's annual ball.
Harley says he subsequently met on behalf of the Governor with Lexie Norcross before any agreement was struck, and that no quid pro quo was ever raised or resulted.
Suspicions are likely to remain high, however, as long as Norcross is involved. Bill Graham, of the Graham Company insurance brokerage, says he is "rooting for Katz." Graham says Norcross has tried to buy out his entire company in the past, and he "can only speculate that George, given his political interests, is not interested in investigative journalism, and that the paper, for him, is a way to help those political interests along."
There is a sense here, of course, that Norcross can never win. His status as political strongman guarantees him constant scrutiny and conspiracy mongering. And in this way, his ownership of the paper guarantees that the Inquirer can never win—that to many in the region, if not the newsroom itself, its every edition will seem somehow suspect.
As I worked on this story, I was urged by multiple staff members at the Inquirer to look into specific allegations they raised about Norcross's supposed bad behavior.
In March 2013, for example, Bob Hall complained to Bill Marimow about a story involving a possible conflict of interest for Judge Seamus McCaffery. Hall questioned whether the story should be played on page one. (In fact, the piece, by veteran reporter Craig McCoy, sparked an FBI investigation.)
Hall calls any claim that Norcross put him up to it "complete bullshit." But the rumors are triggered by circumstance: McCaffery is a major figure in Philadelphia's Democratic Party, and Norcross is the boss of South Jersey's Democratic Party; the beleaguered Inquirer staff needs no more evidence than this to start talking.
I also looked into a contract Norcross's insurance agency, Conner Strong & Buckelew, got with the Pennsylvania Turnpike. To those on Team Marimow, the Turnpike deal catches Shady George in action, leveraging his new presence in Pennsylvania, his ownership of the Inquirer and Tom Corbett's new column into a government contract. But none of the timing supports this theory. The contract was awarded in July 2012, six months before Corbett and Norcross ever met and 10 months before the Governor started his column. Besides that, Turnpike contracts are subject to a strong level of scrutiny.
Is Norcross seeking to undermine the paper's investigative reporting, or divest it of the opinion pages that sometimes sway voters? The better question might be this: Would he even need to?
I started receiving tips from Inquirer staff members precisely because they weren't going to pursue stories about Norcross themselves. All of the new owners took a pledge not to interfere. But they interfered the day they bought the company. What staffer is going to walk into the Inquirer newsroom and say, "Hey: Let's investigate our owners!"?
George Norcross III now owns an empire that spans the insurance industry, hospitals, politics and publishing. And the lesson here is that he doesn't actually have to intimidate anyone to be intimidating.
ON OCTOBER 7TH, Bob Hall's secretary sent an email to Bill Marimow. Subject: "Catch Up With Bob."
When Marimow arrived, Hall soon brought him up to speed—with a show-stopping sentence: "I'm terminating your employment," he said.
"Have you talked to all the owners?" Marimow asked. "Did Lewis Katz support this?"
Hall, by this time, had a legal opinion declaring he could fire Marimow without the management committee's approval. But Marimow knew about the operating agreement, left Hall's office, and called Katz.
A TRIBE OF reporters gathered in Courtroom 630 in City Hall over the course of four days of testimony this fall, watching as an increasingly animated Lewis Katz, a plaintiff, kvetched and rubbed incessantly at the deep worry lines of his face.
Following Marimow's firing, Katz and Gerry Lenfest brought suit against Norcross and the other owners. Katz's courtroom antics made great theater. And during a long last-ditch effort to negotiate some resolution, he and his attorneys shuttled repeatedly from the courtroom to the judge's chambers. Speaking loudly, Katz even declared, "I don't want to go back there," his wary eyes looking at the door to the judge's office.
On the other side of the room, George Norcross looked comparatively giddy, like a guest at a cocktail party.
Katz tapped Dick Sprague to lead his legal team—the attorney of choice among the city's most powerful citizens—and Sprague pursued the case on legal grounds. But Norcross's attorneys waged a political campaign. They embarrassed Nancy Phillips, grilling her on what attorney Robert Heim called the "fabrication" she helped invent for who had hired Marimow in the first place. It was for "public relations," Phillips offered.
"But this statement was a fabrication," Heim tried again, forcing Phillips to offer a concession: "This is, as I explained, yes."
Katz's legal team asked for three things: the firing of Hall; the upholding of the company's operating agreement, which calls for Katz and Norcross to agree on big business decisions, like firing the editor; and, finally, the reinstatement of Marimow.
The suit split the ownership group in two, with three owners joining Norcross while Lenfest sided with Katz. And for what, exactly? Lenfest and Katz thundered from the stand that firing Marimow would do irreparable harm to the Inquirer, but what kind of culture had Marimow really built if the whole place fell apart whenever he walked out the door? Besides, Marimow's employment agreement only ran through April 2014, while Hall's contract was due up in December 2013. Were these guys really fighting, this hard, over who would be able to keep his job for a few more months?
In the end, the judge put both men back in their jobs—reasoning that Hall still had a valid contract, but that the firing of Marimow violated Katz's rights as co-manager.
The ruling set the stage for further legal proceedings: Katz has since petitioned the court to dissolve the company and make its properties available in a public auction. Norcross is arguing that the papers should be auctioned only among the current owners. Both men have vowed to bid in whatever auction occurs. And the newspapers themselves seemed strangely lost in all the tumult—stuck, without a full-time long-term publisher; lacking clarity on who will run the Inquirer newsroom; and without any will to experiment or innovate.
Still, the judge's ruling did trigger movement of a kind.
Nancy Phillips disappeared from the office after Marimow's firing. Upon his reinstatement, she arrived, as she always did on Mondays, fronted by an armful of fresh-cut flowers.
Later, the Newspaper Guild complained on behalf of a staffer, alleging that Phillips arranged her blossoms, then walked around the newsroom urging staff to stand and applaud when Marimow returned to his office. (Phillips vigorously denies this.) Given her status as a city editor and an owner's longtime girlfriend, the guild's complaint contended, this was like ordering employees to create a fake standing ovation. But the joke is that even if the applause erupted spontaneously, the scene could only represent an illusion: that Marimow could really be the answer when what the Inquirer needs, first, is an ownership group that raises fewer questions.
Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/articles/fight-for-philadelphia-newspapers/#76cm6gDjH1TFSECP.99
Norcross v. Katz
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SACBC Pastoral Plan Launch; Challenge to live our faith in action continues, by Bishop Kevin Dowling before procession
REFLECTIONS ON THE 2 PASTORAL PLANS
Our Catholic Church, the People of God, is a living faith community, called to bring the Good News of Jesus, and the Transforming Mission of Jesus, to the real context and situation of people, communities and nations in every age. Every age reveals different characteristics in terms of the developing socio-political-cultural context – and this is true for our context in Botswana, eSwatini, and South Africa. It is that total context in a particular age which challenges the Church to discern what is termed the "signs of the times", i.e. what God seems to be saying to us in our actual situation, and to define and redefine the vision, mission and ministry of our Church in relation to those particular signs of the times.
Jesus himself discerned his calling and mission in the context of his "signs of the time". His mission and ministry unfolded after that visit to the Synagogue in Nazareth, when he read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and so clear was the call to him in those words, that he could proclaim: "This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen….." As he began his ministry he was challenged continually by his own "signs of the times" – the suffering of the people, and the socio-political context of his age. This context was characterised, among other things, by widespread violence. Even before Jesus was born the socio-political landscape was peppered with protests and uprisings, often very violent, against the injustice of the Roman oppressors, Herod and his sons, and the religious and political power structure. Jesus preached and witnessed against violence; he preached the message of the Beatitudes: be peacemakers, "love your enemies".
So, too, the socio-political context of the Church, especially in South Africa, in the 1970s and 1980s. The dehumanising apartheid system, violence and massive human rights abuses, all of which seriously damaged the dignity of people who were made in God's image, challenged us as a Church – what was God saying to us through all this? The response was to engage in a long and widespread consultation in the communities and among the whole People of God.
This process of discernment and consultation led eventually to the promulgation of the 1989 Pastoral Plan, entitled "Community serving Humanity". This was a challenge to our faith community to live out in multiple ways faith in action – faith in action! It brought together two parts or facets of the single Mission of the Church……to be a faith community in all its dimensions – faith, prayer, liturgy, catechesis and so forth – but at the same time a community which would reach out in service of all people in their actual situation, with all their needs.
This first Pastoral Plan served the Church well as the Conference Departments, Commissions and Associate Bodies gave guidance and practical support to programmes on the ground in the dioceses and parishes. A great deal was learnt over the years both before and after 1989.
But then came 1994, and a new dispensation in South Africa. The years since then have revealed how we as a Church community tried to continue our mission and ministry according to the Gospel and values of Jesus, but now in a different context to that of the first Pastoral Plan. The Church could now no longer oppose an unjust and oppressive illegitimate Government, but had to discern how to develop a prophetic but constructive partnership with a legitimate Government. This response of the Church continues until today – to always examine legislation, policies and practices/programmes of the Government at national, provincial and local level in the light of the effect these policies and practices have on people, and especially on the poorest and most vulnerable members of the society. That has been our consistent approach down the years since 1994, and this approach of the Church is equally relevant to the developing situation in eSwatini and Botswana.
So, the same challenge to live our faith in action continues, but now it has to be discerned in the developing context of this age. There are new needs and challenges, e.g. a very violent society in South Africa; abuse and violence against children, girls and women; the HIV/Aids crisis which continues to confront us to this day, and so on. The Church cannot remain distant from these crucial issues, but also, significantly, a new "sign of the time" challenges us…. the tremendous damage being done to the environment and all the species on the earth, and the call to both respect, protect and preserve the creation to ensure the very future of "Mother Earth" and all in it.
This is a very important new facet for the Church's mission. The prophetic encyclical of Pope Francis Laudato Si' has made a significant contribution to the debate around the world on the issues of climate change and the protection of the environment in order to guarantee the future wellbeing of human beings and the entire creation. The "cry of the poor" now goes hand in hand with the "cry of the earth"!
And so, in the face of new challenges and needs in our local context in Southern Africa, we began a new process of discernment and consultation to examine whether there was a need for a new Pastoral Plan and how it should be formulated.
This is what we are celebrating today, my dear People of God! Our new Pastoral Plan, which we launch today at the iconic Regina Mundi church, a prophetic symbol of the struggle against the oppressive apartheid system, is entitled: "Evangelising Community serving God, humanity and all Creation".
Every word of that title is important. Yes, we are a "Community" as Church, but the Plan calls us to be an Evangelising Community – firstly, through a truly personal relationship with Jesus in our lives. We are to be rooted in the person of Jesus and the Gospel! Then, as this Evangelising Community we are called to "serve God" in faith and worship in all their forms. Then, to "serve humanity", all people and communities with their diverse cultures, and their many needs and challenges so that the Gospel can be "Good News" for them, especially the poor and marginalised. We are called to bring Jesus and the vision and values of the Gospel to the socio-political-cultural context in which we live in our 3 countries. And now we are also called to serve "all Creation" – to protect and preserve the Creation and all its species so that all of us – our children and grandchildren and the generations to come – and every creature on this earth can have a future which will continue to be life-giving in the centuries ahead of us.
This is an exciting vision! But each one of us will be needed to make this powerful vision come true at the local parish level, the diocesan level, and the country level in Botswana, eSwatini, and South Africa. Never doubt that you cannot contribute to our Pastoral Plan! Each of us has gifts, talents and time. We are all needed if this new Pastoral Plan is to make a difference to our Church, our societies, and the environment. Go for it – Jesus and the Holy Spirit is with you! Amen! Alleluia!
+Kevin Dowling C.Ss.R.
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Feast of Joachim and Anne (26th July 2021 )
Mariannhill Monastery Feast of Joachim & Anne...
24th of May 2021
This year's celebration of the 24 th...
2nd of February 2021
The First Professions and Final Vows On...
The Monastery, 1 Abbot Francis Rd, Mariannhill, Pinetown, 3610 Phone:+27 700 4251 Fax:+27 700 4251 Email:info@mariannhillmonastery.org.za
HISTORY OF THE MARIANNHILL MONASTERY
In 1882 Prior Franz Pfanner of the Reformed Cistercians (Trappists) intended establishing a Trappist Monastery and commencing the work of evangelisation among the local Africans. In 1885 he became Abbot of the new foundation which he called Mariannhill. He resigned from office in 1893 and was succeeded by Abbots Amandus Scholzig who died in 1900 and Gerard Wolpert. Abbot Franz Pfanner died on the 24 May 1909, and about the same time Rome separated the Mariannhill Abbey from the Trappist Order. Mariannhill was constituted an independent Missionary Congregation with the official title: The Congregation of Missionaries of Mariannhill (CMM).


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Artwork by Jerry Konwith
1 artwork currently available by Jerry Konwith.
Somewhat of a Sedona recluse with a talent for maintaining bountiful vegetable gardens, Jerry Konwith studied art at Arizona State University, where he specialized in printmaking, earning his BFA in 1971. Konwith's work was chosen for inclusion in both the 8th and the 9th Southwest Invitationals via the Arizona Commission on the Arts and Humanities (1973, 1974). He participated in the Four Corners' States Biennial at the Phoenix Art Museum in 1975. Konwith has received various purchase awards over two decades and in the Fall of 1998 he was named Sedona Art Center Artist of the Month. Glendale Community College and Yuma Fine Arts Museum both include Konwith's work in their permanent collections. His paintings are typically a marriage of sky and landscapes demonstrating his special affinity for cloud forms. In particular Konwith has an emotional attachment to the land in and around Verde Valley in Arizona.


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