text:
import React, {Component} from 'react';
import Typography from '@material-ui/core/Typography';
import TextField from '@material-ui/core/TextField';
import CardActions from '@material-ui/core/CardActions';
import Button from '@material-ui/core/Button';
import PropTypes from 'prop-types';
import CreateAccountComponent from './CreateAccountComponent';
import {resendVerificationCode} from '../../APICalls/APICalls'
import LinearProgress from '@material-ui/core/LinearProgress';
import {eventEmitter} from '../../App';
import { updateGAPageView } from "../../analytics/ga";

export default class ValidateEmailComponent extends Component {
	static propTypes = {
		backToSignin: PropTypes.func,
		email: PropTypes.string
	}
	constructor(props){
	    super(props);
	    this.state = {
				email: props.email,
				loadVerifyCode:false,
        loading: false,
			}
		this.next = this.next.bind(this);
		updateGAPageView();
	}
	next(){
		this.setState({loading:true})
		resendVerificationCode(this.state.email).then((response) =>{
			if(response.data.status === 200){
			this.setState({loading:false, loadVerifyCode:true})
			}
			else{
				this.setState({loading:false, loadVerifyCode:false})
				eventEmitter.emit("errorOccured", response.data.response);
			}
		});
	}

	render(){
		const { backToSignin } = this.props;
		const properties = this.props
		const { email } = this.state;
		const loadVerifyCode = this.state.loadVerifyCode;
		const handleChange = name => event => {
		    this.setState({
		      [name]: event.target.value,
		    });
		};

		if(loadVerifyCode){
			return(
				<CreateAccountComponent {...properties} loadVerifyCode = {this.state.loadVerifyCode} email = {this.state.email} ></CreateAccountComponent>
			);
		}
		else{
			return (
				<div className="enter-from-right slide-in">
					{this.state.loading && <LinearProgress></LinearProgress>}
					<Typography style={{fontSize: "1.6em", marginBottom: "0.4em"}}>
						Find your OneDataShare Account
					</Typography>
					<TextField
						id="Email"
						label="Enter Your Email"
						value={email}
						style={{width: '100%', marginBottom: '50px', borderRadius: '25px'}}
						onChange={ handleChange('email') }
					/>

					<CardActions style={{ justifyContent: 'space-between'}}>
						<Button size="small" variant="outlined" color="primary" onClick={backToSignin}>
							Back to Sign in Page
						</Button>
						<Button size="large" variant="contained" color="primary" onClick={() => this.next()} style={{marginLeft: '4vw'}}>
							Next
						</Button>
					</CardActions>
				</div>
			);
		}
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


It looks like Jaromir Jagr's amazing NHL career has quietly come to a dead end as the 46-year-old forward currently recovers from a serious knee injury. Jagr became an unrestricted free agent on July 1st after spending the 2017/18 campaign with the Calgary Flames. He managed just one goal and six assists in 22 outings with his last game coming on New Year's Eve. Just four weeks later he was placed on the club's injured reserved list and placed on waivers. There were no takers and Jagr ended up back at home in the Czech Republic with Ryitiri Kladno, a franchise which he just happens to be the majority owner of.
Jagr told the media back in April that he hoped to play in the NHL for a 25th season in 2018/19, but it now appears those hopes are a longshot. He recently stated that his main concern right now is getting 100 per cent healthy and he aims at doing that by working out and playing with Kladno. If Jagr's NHL career is over, the league will be losing it's second-highest scorer in history as he currently has 766 goals and 1,155 assists for 1,921 points in 1,733 regular season games. The only players to score more goals were Wayne Gretzky with 894 and Gordie Howe at 801 while Gretzky's 2,857 points are the most ever accumulated.
In addition, Jagr's number of games played are third all-time behind Mark Messier's 1,756 and Howe's record of 1,767. Jagr holds the mark for the most game-winning goals in history though with 135 and he hoisted the Stanley Cup twice with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1990/91 and 1991/92 seasons. Individually, he took home the Hart Trophy as the league's most valuable player in 1999, led the league in scoring five times and won the Masterton Trophy in 2016 for his perseverance and dedication to hockey.
Jagr signed a one-year deal for a million dollars with Calgary last season and it's still possible he gets a similar type of offer from an NHL club for 2018/19. However, it likely wouldn't come until September or October if and when he gets himself into playing shape with kladno. Jagr admits he didn't play well with the Flames last year, but still believes he can play until he's 50 years old and would definitely prefer to finish his career somewhere in the NHL.


My fish store sells plenty of Fish Rub. If you're a cook, the label may look familiar. The product is made by the producer of one of the best kinds of paprika.
Guess what's inside the box? Mostly paprika. You could make your own Fish Rub at home in seconds if you had, say, some salt and maybe a little pepper.
But if the box said Paprika, the Fish Rub customers wouldn't nibble, never mind bite. Why? Because they have a worldview that says that they know how to heat things up, not how to cook. Paprika is a cooking word. Fish Rub is a heating things up word.


"Exhibition Drill for the Military Drill Team, Vol. II"
An essential manual for drillers' and instructors' libraries!
John Marshall, "The DrillMaster," introduces the first visual/written language that describles armed or unarmed drillers' movements. Learn how to teach drill, create routines, do rifle maintenance and modification, interpret movement, and post the Colors. Included are lesson plans for every aspect of drill, including unarmed standing manual, rifle movements, Colors, and all four captions (divisions) of the visual judge. This is an essential manual for drillers' and instructors' libraries. Paperback. 143 pages.
"WDA Adjudication Manual and Rule Book"
"Continuing Education for the WDA Visual Adjudicator"
"Exhibition Drill for the Military Drill Team"


Shoulder to Shoulder, an interfaith group supporting Muslim neighbors in the La Crosse area and UWL students are organizing a rally in support of Muslims and immigrants in our area who are under political attack.
The rally will be at Cameron Park (corner of Fifth and King) in La Crosse, at 4:30 pm Friday, February 3.
The message of the rally is that La Crosse stands shoulder to shoulder with our Muslim and immigrant neighbors. Immigrant rights are human rights.
Residents of the La Crosse area will come together Friday to speak out and affirm our shared values in the wake of President Trump's executive order on immigration. Groups represented at the event will include the La Crosse Interfaith Shoulder to Shoulder Network and La Crosse Area SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice). This is a peaceful gathering to stand with our Muslim, immigrant, and refugee neighbors in solidarity. In the spirit of inclusion and non-discrimination, the rally will celebrate the contributions of Muslims and immigrants in the community and affirm that immigrant rights are human rights.
Great letters, Nick & Peter!
Reminder - Sunday rally at 1:30 BE THERE!
SAVE HEALTH CARE RALLY - JAN 15 - UPDATE!


text:
How to Write a Mystery
Tags: how to, Mysteries
I've finally got my how-to-write-a-mystery book out. It's a Mystery To Me It's on Amazon Kindle right now, but soon --- the world!
Tags: Words or phrases to catagorize this post for the tags section
The headline on the back page of the Chronicle's Datebook section reads:"Documentary Sheds light on Bipolar Disorder." I think it should say, "Documentary Sheds light on Bipolar Disorder -- Wait -- No it Doesn't."
CVJ
Tags: Chester Anderson, poet, beatnick
I would like to take this occasion to commemorate my remarkable although still defunct good friend and erstwhile writing partner Chester (CVJ) Anderson; poet, novelist, musician, beatnick, iconoclast and deconstructionist. His modern spiritual, "I spent the Night in a Motel With Jesus," has a wonderful and deeply moving first verse. The second verse, he insisted, was even better, but he never would sing it aloud. The World, he said, wouldn't understand. Read More
Ten Years to Doomsday was a great book, and the character in The Unicorn Girl was the sort of personality that makes you check your assumptions at the door. For safety.
I wondered if Castamere Parr in Perchance was cut from the same mold.
I think Castamere Parr is my version of a hero - the Competent Man, unflappable, wise, yet ready to listen to others and take advice, and always aware that we're all in this together.
- Michael Kurland
Oct 15, 2012 12:11 PM EDT
Did you ever have an idea of doing more books in the [u]Perchance[/u] universe, or any sort of Paratime universe?
I have started one. About 40 pages into it. But I've had to put it aside for now. Sometime soon I hope to get back to it. Thanks for your interest.
I just bought and read Perchance for the first time, rather belatedly, and liked it. I was reminded in a vague, general way of Keith Laumer's Worlds of the Imperium, although the style is different and your characters more likeable. I was also reminded somewhat of The Unicorn Girl, which I picked up a few years ago.
A very interesting reversal of words is in process. A "gauntlet" is the double-line of people that a supplicant for, say, knighthood had to run through while being hit and poked by sticks or whatever. a "gantlet" was a glove, usually of the iron sort worn with a suit of armor.
So one would throw down the gantlet to challenge someone to a duel. But now throwing down the gauntlet has become the more common expression. An understandable confusion, and one that is come to be acceptable to most dictionaries. But today I ran across someone who was running the gauntlet of criticism for something, and a reader corrected him to "gantlet." And so the words are changing places. Read More
About a decade ago, maybe more, a factory burned down somewhere in New England. It took a year to rebuild. For that whole year the owner of the factory kept paying his employees their full salaries until the plant reopened. I remember hearing an interview with the owner - I don't remember his name,or what the factory made, but I remember that the interviewer asked the owner why he kept paying out these salaries. The owner shrugged. "How many suits can I wear?" he replied.
Wouldn't it be nice if just one CEO would turn down his $25 million salary and say, "Just give me five million, and use the rest to put 350 people back to work." He'd be a hero -- and he'd still have five million dollars. Read More
The play's the thing
A couple of weeks ago a play version of The Infernal Device was performed at the Moreau Center for the Arts. Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame University. I'll let you know how it went when I find out. I'd also like to get a copy of the script -- written by the director of the program -- to see what parts of the book he considered important and which he thought he could drop. Read More

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Dior's SS16 Paris Fashion Week show was held inside a flower-covered cave outside the Cour Carrée of the Louvres. There was one stand-out tulip amongst the makeshift field of blue delphiniums: Rihanna in a baby pink tulip Dior cape. 'The goddess has arrived!' exclaimed fans on Instagram.
As for the Dior princess, it seems that next season, she will covet sheer white and scalloped edges, on everything from shorts and tops to knitwear. Model Sofia Mechetner carried the look beautifully in panelled shorts and a scooped-neck crop top buttoned at the side, see below.


past the Gates: remaining summer, GQ published a chronicle asking even if Portugal changed into the new Iceland—the new hip holiday chapter. It's no coincidence; the informal weather, pleasing seashores, sparkling architecture, and major seafood are only just a few pieces of the puzzle. however then most effective just a few months after that story ran, NOS Alive introduced its lineup for his or her 2018 edition, brimming with the constellation of stars that rock lovers can handiest dream of.
The properly few traces of the competition are aesthetic damn unbelievable—Arctic Monkeys, 9 h Nails, Khalid, Sampha, Wolf Alice, and extra—except you know that these are the headliners on the primary day by myself. NOS Alive is the kind of festival that's unafraid to bash you over the head with a deep bench of international headlining acts, only to then pepper your ears with the thrilling sounds of the vibrant local scenes and past.
Over the path of three days, across three main tiers, attendees had Agen sbobet been handled to a grasp classification, from indie to grunge, punk to synthrock, and far and wide in between. This 12 months's version of NOS Alive thumped and roared, the beating coronary heart of rock's latest colliding with legends culled from the ultimate few many years. The entire "new Iceland" element is a wierd conversation, however NOS Alive is a certain rationale to make Portugal a need to-discuss with each summer season.
superior Bites: while getting a taste of different track scenes is a very good point of touring for festivals, it's a real treat to spin via a mini food festival in the midst of all that face-melting-shrill-shrieking rock out. There's no sweeter break between sets than one that includes boundless Bola de Berlim a fluffy doughnut oozing with eggy custard, some salty tremoços lupini beans, or Portuguese-style scorching canines topped with french fries or potato chips. however for a country with the sort of essential cafe subculture, it's going to come as no surprise that the lines for a cup of coffee had been the longest on the festival, attendees searching for out the buzz they'd need to last long into the night.
Chained to the Rhythm: whereas nearly all of the pageant slanted heavily to the guitar solo and the rock anthem, there became an impressive subset of groove-intimate artists able to ignite and retain the celebration going. cordial Fires made their bid for set of the weekend, nonetheless early on their batch of dates back together after a long time off the highway. The English dance punks even pulled out new cloth, though hits like "Skeleton Boy" retained their glory. hot on the release of their outstanding third album, Scottish synthpop three-piece CHVRCHES rewarded people who stayed up late with a triumphant set break up graceful evenly between Love Is useless highlights and classics taken from all over their impactful catalog. Between his SBTRKT cowl and all-time jam "nobody is aware of Me like the Piano", Sampha kept the toes and coronary heart stirring but with a decidedly greater chilled air—ultimate for the solar atmosphere on the seaside park.
Don't believe the Hype: whereas rock heroes like Alice in Chains and nine h Nails held down their conclusion of the pageant and extra current and record-leaning stars like Marmozets and perfume Genius pulled their weight, there turned into a form of temporal gray enviornment of bands that didn't rather in shape that intensity. MGMT, for one, will all the time get by way of on their Oracular remarkable singles, but their glow faded rapidly—one music in, quickly. Their niche pastiche matches Nos Alive to a Portuguese tee, but it surely appears they've been rotating their hits so often they seem to be exhausted. There become nothing unforgivably flat in different units—or, truly, right through the pageant—but when you have peaks as excessive as this weekend, even slight dips in power stand out.
The best of the Tiny Fonts: Stealing the spotlight from the headliners at NOS Alive became a big project, but Portuguese outfit Throes + the Shine certainly had adequate light on their own facet to get the job executed. The wildly lively Mob fronted the trio, clad in a furry white jacket and shorts, white sun shades, and white scarf. His buoyant strikes and furious move led the manner, but Igor Domingues and Marco Castro's effervescent percussion, synths, and bass pulsed with an never-ending existence. When the set began, best a few scattered onlookers stopped by using the smaller NOS Clubbing stage. but with the aid of the third music, the ebullient jams drew people in like moths to a flame. Supported via an oracle like statue of an inquisitive lion, gold flags, and palm timber, the neighborhood's without end catchy tunes fused Afro-Caribbean, South American, and Portugeuse patterns into a sublime stew of dance-rap goodness.


text:
UN Agencies in Viet NamThe UN Viet Nam Country Team FAO IFAD ILO IOM UNAIDS UNDP UNESCO UNFPA UNHCR UNICEF UNIDO UN WOMEN UNODC UNV WHO UN-HABITAT
JFMSELECT English Tiếng Việt
About Viet Nam
The UN in Viet Nam
Making a Difference Stories
Joint Programming Groups
Joint Programme on Green Production and Trade
Joint Programme on Integrated Nutrition and Food Security
Joint Programme on Gender Equality
Joint Programme on HIV
The Joint Programme on Kon Tum
Joint Programme on Avian Influenza
Cross-cutting Themes: Gender
Gender in Viet Nam
National Structures for Gender Equality
Gender Links & Resources
"Empowering women – Empowering humanity" Campaign
Cross-cutting Themes: Human Rights
Cross-cutting Themes: Human Trafficking
The One UN Initiative
One Plan
One Set of Management Practices
One Budget & One Plan Fund
Green One UN House
One Leader
Other Reform Initiatives
One UN Communications
Emergency Situation Report
One UN Initiative Documents
UN Viet Nam Joint Publications
UN Publications by Agency
UN in the News
Home News Centre UN in the News
A visit to Auschwitz
This year's observance of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of The Holocaust , on 27 January-- the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp -- falls at a time when there are reminders all around us of the dangers of forgetting. This year marks two decades since the genocide in Rwanda. Conflicts in Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic have taken on dangerous communal dimensions. Bigotry still courses through our societies and our politics. The world can and must do more to eliminate the poison that led to the camps.
600.000 officials in asset-declaration list is vast
As published in Lao Động News on 18 January 2014
"If Vietnam would like to effectively manage the asset declaration of public officials, the important thing is to clarify which income and what sources the declaration aims at. If it is only their salaries, I would say that many of them are living far beyond their formal income" - Jairo Acuna – Alfaro, UNDP Policy Advisor said to Lao Động.
Middle-class jobs put Viet Nam on the road to economic recovery
By Phu Huynh, Labour Economist, International Labour Organization, Regional Office for Asia and the PacificAs published in http://vnexpress.net on 12 December 2013
While Vietnamese people still feel uncertain about the country's economic outlook, they can hope that the rising middle-class workforce may play a role in reinvigorating their vibrant economy.
Real men do not oppress women
As published in Viet Nam Net on Sunday 20 October 2013
Although widely revered as home-makers and care givers, women still face many barriers that prevent them from realizing their potential as equal partners in both private and public life.
The perceived lower value of women and girls is demonstrated in the imbalance of sex ratio at birth. Due to pre-natal selection, 112 boys are now born for every 100 girls. If this trend continues, by 2035 there will be 10% more men than women, increasing the risk of sex trafficking and gender-based violence.
"The future we want" in focus at the UN General Assembly
As published in dtinews on Friday, 27/09/2013 12:00 (GMT+7)
I always look forward to this time of the year when world leaders come together on an equal footing at the UN General Assembly in New York.
For several days, in a series of high level meetings, they deliberate on how to make this world a better place free of want, free of fear and free of prejudice. For that reason September is a month that brings hope.
Young migrants: in search of a better life, but at a cost!
Viet Nam makes efforts in promoting and protecting human rights
Reaching the Millennium Development Goals – picking up the pace
Delivering as One: 2012-2016 Results Report
The One Strategic Plan 2017-2021
Annual Results Report 2015
The One Plan 2012 - 2016
WORLD AIDS DAY MESSAGE 2017
Michel Sidibé
Executive Director of UNAIDS
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations
This World AIDS Day, we are highlighting the importance of the right to health and the challenges that people living with and affected by HIV face in fulfilling that right.
Community spaces design contest for an exciting hanoi
Ha Noi, October 17/10/2017 - Aiming at improving the living environment and bringing culture and art to the community towards a better urban future, United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) successfully developed the project "Promote participatory, community-based and youth-led approach in safe, greening public spaces in Hoan Kiem district toward a pro-poor, inclusive and sustainable urban development" (hereinafter called Public Spaces project) under the Block by Block program with Mojang, the makers of the videogame Minecraft.
Deadline for round 1: From 17/10/2017 to 04/11/2017 Extended to 9 November 2017
Harsh punishment for child offenders doesn't prevent further criminality
The age at which a child, can be held criminally liable is a controversial issue around the world. Within Viet Nam, this issue is currently being grappled with in the Penal Code amendments. Some argue that a "get tough on crime" approach is necessary to punish children to prevent further criminality.
However, international research shows that because of their developmental stages, labelling and treating children as criminals at an early age can have serious negative impacts on their development and successful rehabilitation.
New Year Greetings from the United Nations Resident Coordinator a.i. in Viet Nam
On the occasion of New Year 2017, on behalf of the United Nations family in Viet Nam I wish to reiterate our appreciation and express our warmest wishes to our partners and friends throughout the country. We wish our partners and their families in Viet Nam peace, prosperity, good health and happiness in the coming year.
As we enter the second year of the Sustainable Development Goals era, we look forward to continuing our close cooperation for the sake of Viet Nam's future development; one which is inclusive, equitable and sustainable, with no one left behind.
Youssouf Abdel-Jelil
United Nations Resident Coordinator a.i. in Viet Nam
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's message for World AIDS Day, observed on 1 December
Thirty-five years since the emergence of AIDS, the international community can look back with some pride. But we must also look ahead with resolve and commitment to reach our goal of ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030.
There has been real progress in tackling the disease. More people than ever are on treatment. Since 2010, the number of children infected through mother to child transmission has dropped by half. Fewer people die of AIDS related causes each year. And people living with HIV are living longer lives.
The number of people with access to life-saving medicines has doubled over the past five years, now topping 18 million. With the right investments, the world can get on the fast-track to achieve our target of 30 million people on treatment by 2030. Access to HIV medicines to prevent mother to child transmission is now available to more than 75 per cent of those in need.
Guidelines for the Promotion and Implementation of Gender Responsive Budgeting in the Programme 135
Towards a comprehenstive national policy for an ageing in Viet Nam
The Guidelines on Gender Responsive Budgeting for the People's Council in Ho Chi Minh city
The Success Story of the Business Registration Reform
2018 ONE UN RESULTS REPORT
NEWS CENTRE SECTIONS
RSS Email Subscription
© 2006–2019 UN in VietNam.
Information Disclosure Policy


Chris Rowland has led Pet Supplies Plus and its team members to record growth since his appointment to Chief Executive Officer in October, 2014, and his strategy is a simple one: deliver a dazzling experience, outstanding value and incredible convenience to every neighbor who walks into our stores.
Chris is a seasoned pet industry veteran, having pawed his way up the corporate ladder at PetSmart from 1996 to 2011 and making a name for himself in retail operation. Starting as a store manager in Toronto, he worked his way up to Vice President, US Operations and ultimately President of PetSmart Canada, where he and his turnaround team transformed the struggling retail chain into the largest and most profitable pet specialty retailer in Canada.
Dan Boose joined Pet Supplies Plus in September, 2013, as Chief Financial Officer. He and his team set the financial direction and allocation of resources that support our goal to make it easier for our neighbors to get better products for their pets. Dan leads all accounting, reporting, planning, analysis, tax, risk, and audit functions in support of PSP's long-term, sustained growth.
Previously, Dan was the senior vice president of finance and accounting for The Sports Authority, having held a variety of progressive assignments leading to his position on their senior team. He also served as Director, Corporate Finance for Brinker International, the multi-concept restaurant company including Chili's and Maggiano's.
Dan attended Kansas State University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in accounting. He received his master's in business administration from Indiana University. He also is a CPA. Dan is pet parent to a ninety pound schnoodle named Gus.
Pet Supplies Plus is dedicated to making it easier for our neighbors to get better products for their pets. As senior vice president of merchandising and marketing, Derek Panfil leads the development of the company's overall assortment strategy, oversees the creation and production of private label hardgoods and consumable products, and leads all brand marketing efforts in pursuit of this mission.
Before joining Pet Supplies Plus in September, 2010, Derek was formerly the director of strategy for PFCB (P.F. Chang's) and, prior to that, the director of services and business development, DDM of Cat, and senior director of merchandising operations at PetSmart.
Derek earned his bachelor's in business administration from Southern Methodist University. He and his wife are passionate supporters of rescue and have opened their home and lives to dogs in need: Ozzie, a Chihuahua; Nellie, a Chihuahua/Dachshund mix; Kaylee, a cattle dog/terrier mix and Nukka, a husky/shepherd mix.
Miles Tedder joined Pet Supplies Plus in May of 2013 as Senior Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer. Since then, he's also taken on responsibility for information technology, franchising, real estate, construction and legal as our Chief Operating Officer.
Before joining PSP, Miles was Senior Vice President, IT and Supply Chain for Anna's Linens, a home textile and décor specialty retailer, where he led the transformation of the organization's supply chain. He also worked at Party City Corp, The Sports Authority, Staples, Lowes and Family Dollar Stores during periods of rapid growth with responsibility for business process re-engineering, change management activities, and business systems implementations.
Miles earned his bachelor's degree in business administration and management from Limestone College in Gaffney, South Carolina, and his master's in business administration from Mercer University, Stetson School of Business and Economics, in Atlanta, Georgia. Miles and his wife have three human children and a border terrier fur baby named Pepper.
As Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Heidi Char leads her team in all recruiting, training, benefits, payroll and people management functions. Together they create the infrastructure that supports and fuels the operation of 200+ corporate stores, motivating 3,600 team members country-wide to make it easier for their neighbors to get better products for their pets.
Heidi joined Pet Supplies in 2011. Previously, she held positions at Westinghouse Electric, Comerica and The Pepsi Beverage Company, where she served as Human Resource Director for Michigan's bottling and distribution operations.
Heidi earned her bachelor's degree in business at Michigan State University and a master of business administration from the University of Pittsburgh. She and her husband have two sons, a Shih-Tzu Darby, and two pet turtles.
Jeff Suttle joined Pet Supplies Plus in September, 2011 as our Vice President of Strategy, and has since moved into the role of Senior Vice President, Supply Chain. Jeff oversees all aspects of the planning, allocation and distribution of goods for our PSP stores and wholesale business, subtracting distribution "hassle" for our team members and franchise owners on the front line.
Before joining the PSP pack, Jeff worked for Sears as the Vice President of Pricing. Prior to that, he was the vice president of merchandising services for PetSmart. He also worked for Stop & Shop as vice president of pricing and for Shaw's as vice president of buying strategy.
Jeff earned his bachelor's degree in business administration from Fairmont State University in Fairmont, West Virginia. He and his wife are the proud parents of two daughters and three mixed breed dogs, Tank, Lady, and Petey.


HID Global®, a worldwide leader in secure identity solutions, today introduced new Brick Tag Ceramic UHF transponders and SlimFlex™ HF OM tags that are designed and architected to withstand environments requiring metal applications, while complying with evolving industry standards. The new tags demonstrate the company's continued commitment to the rapid expansion of RFID solutions for industrial, Internet of Things (IoT) and near field communications (NFC) applications.
The RFID technology is experiencing substantial growth in various applications: Garment tags for the apparel industry, NFC tags, RFID ski tickets, public transportation and event tickets - all of them can be produced on Mühlbauer systems. One crucial competitive advantage the Group has to offer is its turnkey solution, covering the complete RFID Smart Label production: Antenna Production, Inlay Assembly, Converting and Personalization.
The Schreiner LogiData Competence Center has developed an NFC-Nameplate which enables smartphone users to read or write on tags and automatically access defined websites. Producers use the new tag for easier maintenance, targeted e-marketing and compiling inventories.
The Cartes 2015 specialist trade fair takes place from 17 to 19 November in Paris. At this global event for payment, identification and mobility, Schreiner PrinTrust will be presenting two of its highlights: the "Best Product" NFC-Sticker and a groundbreaking new development in the field of vehicle identification – the ((rfid))-Windshield Global Secure label. Both solutions allow consumers to experience mobile, contactless payment in its simplest form. The NFC-Sticker fits perfectly into the portfolio of card producers who wish to follow the NFC payment trend as early as possible. The behind-glass label is one of the first on the market to offer dynamic encryption, which identifies vehicles in the UHF range with great reliability. This makes parking tickets a thing of the past.
Schreiner PrinTrust's next-generation EMV-compliant NFC-Sticker is now available as an OEM version of Austria Card. The NFC-Sticker for contactless payment is based on Infineon's SLE 77 chip and is supplied with ACOS, Austria Card's operating system. The advanced product complies with even higher security standards than its predecessors. The new NFC-Stickers have been available since the beginning of the year and have already been successful in early projects.
RFID technology leader SMARTRAC has announced a new version of its popular NFC BullsEye tag featuring Sony's FeliCa Lite-S chip. This Sony-based SMARTRAC BullsEye tag provides 224 bytes of user memory, and an enhanced security feature that enables mutual authentication by message authentication code (MAC), making it ideally suited for all typical non-payment NFC applications.
NFC in Fashion Retail: The combination of NFC smartphones and RFID data has definite potential.
Using NFC to develop ways of improving the shopping experience is not a new idea. What's new is making the RFID-generated data available for customers with NFC-enabled smartphones. Alexander Gauby, from Sys-Pro, sees the potential to combine these two technologies and bring customers who are currently shopping online back into the stores. "We want to combine online and store shopping and help companies to take the opportunity to increase their market share." This new approach is reinforced by the experience of other sustainable RFID roll-outs.


UNL Extension Plant Pathologist Tamra Jackson-Ziems will present a webinar on Foliar Disease Management in Corn this Thursday, June 27 from noon to 1 p.m.
Blight, rust, leaf spot, anthracnose and other diseases will be covered. The focus will be on disease diagnosis, field management strategies, and fungicide application timing. The webinar will be facilitated by Bruce Erickson, agronomic education manager of the American Society of Agronomy.
It is the second of six webinars in the Growing Season Webinar Series, sponsored by DuPont Pioneer, and hosted by the American Society of Agronomy. It is free to members or $25 to nonmembers. The series covers timely topics that reflect the unique conditions and situations growers are facing during the current production season.


text:
Analysis Bootcamp for IB English
Welcome, LitLearner!
Read this first: How to use this course
Potential obstacles
Fundamentals of Analysis
What is analysis?
Fundamentals of the commentary
Essential literary techniques
Tone, atmosphere and mood (6:07)
Language and voice
Structure (for prose and poems)
Structure (for poems only)
Irony, contrast, etc
Grammatical techniques
Characterisation
Flashcards: Literary Techniques
Language and Literature Specifics
Formal and stylistic choices
Visual techniques
Commentary exemplar
Structuring your Commentary
Analysis: Before writing
How to deconstruct a text
How to deconstruct a visual text (Language & Literature)
How to write a strong thesis
How to organise your points
Analysis: Writing essentials
How to structure a point
How to introduce quotes
How to write complete analysis
Analysis example: Muffins
Analysis example: Rain
Analysis: Advanced Skills
Analysing multiple techniques
Flowing analysis
Getting deeper analysis
Making the writer active
Analysing writer's style
Writing with clarity
Advanced analysis example: Muffins
Advanced analysis example: Rain
Analysis: Other Important Stuff
Cracking the criteria
How to write effective introductions
Avoid these common mistakes in analysis
Follow these language conventions
Exam time management and word count
After the course: What next?
Poem: Departure
Literal meaning (4:12)
Detailed annotation (25:02)
Writing (11:29)
Exercises and Assignment
Speech: Obama on the Oregon mass shooting (Lang Lit only)
Annotations 1 (15:49)
Prose: Eveline
Detailed annotation 1 (21:30)
Writing pt 2 (7:13)
Poem: Dulce et Decorum est
Comparing different structures (14:14)
Detailed plan 1 (10:01)
Detailed plan 2 (9:32)
Writing a conclusion (15:51)
Prose: The Black Cat
Summarising sections (3:21)
Plan (26:25)
Annotations (32:52)
Tone, atmosphere and mood
1. Tone
Why is tone so important?
So tone means attitude. Great. But why are we even talking about tone in the first place? How is tone even relevant to analysis?
Tone is important for two reasons.
1. Tone is a technique
The tone of a text is never accidental. The writer consciously chooses how the text should sound, and because it's a choice, tone is therefore a technique summoned by the writer at will to achieve a specific purpose. And because tone is a technique, it therefore must to be analysed in all commentaries and at least once in every point.
But wait, there's a catch: Tone isn't like your average technique (e.g. metaphor and simile). Tone is what I call a "meta-technique": Tone is actually created from one or more 'normal' techniques. If normal techniques like metaphor and simile are the ingredients in a soup, then the tone is the taste of that soup, the overall flavour of the mixture; tone is the overall result of mixing together normal techniques like diction, imagery, irony, etc.
In our first Kanye example, the hopeless tone didn't pop out of nowhere; it was born from Kanye West's sophisticated use of ellipses—a grammatical construct that is indeed a literary technique that we'll encounter very soon.
2. Tone is the most useful interpretive tool
Here's a text.
It has lots of words—in fact, too many words. (Don't actually read the words. It's a random extract for this conceptual demonstration.) There are so many words that our puny brains can't possibly digest it all at once. But wait! What if we figured out the tone for each section (these are hypothetical tones, by the way)?
Voila. Immediately, we can get to the core, the heart of what the writer is trying to tell us. We can grasp the main idea much more easily by figuring out the tone, or multiple tones, in a passage. We will cover this in more depth when we learn about deconstruction.
How is tone related to atmosphere and mood?
Tone directly creates mood. Whenever we analyse tone, the end goal is always, always, always to explain how the tone creates a certain emotion in the reader. Of course, you have to talk about the meaning and purpose of tone since it is a technique, but the most direct relationship that I can think of in analysis is this inseparability between tone and mood.
Tone can contribute to the atmosphere. This happens when another character's tone in the scene imposes a feeling on us. For example, the stern tone of a principal reprimanding a student in his school office can create a suffocating atmosphere for the reader. Mood and atmosphere sometimes the same thing and sometimes not. Here, we are lucky to see an example of a very, very distinct difference between mood and atmosphere: You can't describe the mood / emotion of the reader as "suffocating". A "suffocating mood" doesn't make sense because "suffocating" is not an emotion. However, "suffocating" is indeed a more general feeling, which is why the response here is atmospheric; it's not an emotion, but instead a psychological 'sensation' of being restricted. I'm getting ahead of myself here, but it's a good discussion that we will continue in the next section on atmosphere.
Here's a diagram connecting tone, mood and atmosphere together. We will refer back to this diagram.
Notice how the techniques are at the start of the analysis 'pipeline' or process; the tone and atmosphere are the intermediate 'feelings' and 'sounds' that we get from these techniques; and then the ultimate end goal is the mood of the reader--how they feel as a result of the techniques, as explained via the intermediaries of tone and atmosphere.
Terrific words to describe 'tone'
How to use: Just add one of these words before "tone" and voila, you will sound really smart.
When you're really 'into' someone: Admiring, affectionate, loving
Being nice: Gentle, kind, amiable, friendly, enthusiastic
The class clown: Humorous, ironic, sarcastic
"I'm so much better than you": Disdainful, contemptuous, condescending
brb crying: Melancholy, despondent, distressed, brooding
Chef Gordon Ramsay in Hell's Kitchen: Accusatory, bitter, cynical, hostile, resentful, critical, harsh
Gordon Ramsay version 2.0?: Arrogant, commanding, aggressive, abusive
Nelson from The Simpsons: Mocking, ridiculing
Jumping off a cliff: fearful, nervous
"Ugh...umm": awkward, stilted, stiff
Neutral or 'in the middle'
Chill and honest, like Ryan Gosling: Conversational, candid, casual, sincere
I'm always correct: Factual, matter-of-fact, certain
Bro, who cares?: Apathetic, nonchalant
2. Atmosphere
Now, let's talk about "atmosphere", but before I do that, I want to show you a list of the top unanswered questions to ever exist.
What is the meaning of life? Yep, that's a big one.
How did the universe begin? That's another big one.
Do aliens exist? This is a particularly puzzling one, because there are so many planets in the universe that it's almost certain, statistically, that intelligent life exists elsewhere—but the conundrum is: We've never met an alien before. At least, everyone outside of Area 51.
All of these are big, mysterious, unanswered questions have plagued the human mind for a long time. 'Imma let you finish', but these questions are nothing, zero, zilch, compared to the most puzzling, unanswered question of all-time:
What does the "atmosphere" of a text mean?
No one actually knows the answer to this question, at least according to Google. If you search "atmosphere in literature", you'll find lots of different definitions. Some say atmosphere is tone, some say atmosphere is mood, and so on.
But the thing is: I never found it difficult at all. It's actually straightforward and I'll explain why.
Inspiration from real life
First, how do we normally use the word "atmosphere" in everyday life? Well, we usually say something like:
"There was an awkward atmosphere in the room", or
"Times Square has a bustling atmosphere", or
"The haunted house has an eerie atmosphere."
And so atmosphere is almost always used to describe the feeling or vibe—the awkwardness, the creepiness, the bursting energy—that is imposed upon us in a physical environment, situation or space ("room", "Times Square", "haunted house"). So clearly, the setting (environment) of a text is what establishes the atmosphere. Settings are usually constructed via the description of objects in the setting (e.g. a creaking floorboard in the haunted house), and so we can define atmosphere simply as this:
Atmosphere is the (not necessarily emotional) feeling of an environment, as constructed by a writer's description of the environment and objects within that setting.
Time for an example. See what I did there? Time... Times Square...
(Note my apologetic tone here. It is clearly dramatic and creates a humorous atmosphere. Describing the humour as an atmosphere makes sense here because the humour is external, shared between you and me, and not just experienced internally in either one of us. This brings up an important point about the distinction between mood and atmosphere that we'll see at the end of the lesson.)
Example 1: NYC
Techniques: Honking cars in New York City, the bright bill boards, and the sea of people (these aren't actually techniques; they're examples of imagery, and we'll talk about that very soon in the course)
Atmosphere: bustling, dynamic, energetic
Mood: awe, excitement
Both atmosphere and mood refer to feelings, but there's a small difference. The atmosphere is an external feeling coming from the physical environment. The mood is the internal feeling of the reader. The external feeling induces the excitement in the reader. In other words, the atmosphere in a text influences the mood.
Example 2: Haunted house
Techniques: Creaking floor boards, flapping curtains, cold winds (again, not really techniques. We'll introduce formal names for them very soon.)
Atmosphere: eerie
Mood: fear
The external feeling is again the atmosphere: the creepy, uncomfortable sounds and the cold wind. This is an eerie atmosphere. The mood, aka emotion, that the external atmosphere creates inside the reader is fear.
Pit stop--Grab some atmosphere vocabulary
eerie, suspenseful, mysterious
bustling, energetic, dynamic
awkward, stilted, uncomfortable
warm, welcoming, inviting
Relax on the definitions--it ain't science
Often it's hard to decide whether something is best described as tone or atmosphere, and as atmosphere or mood.
In these cases, any choice will work because they are so similar that you can't go drastically wrong even if you tried to sabotage yourself. Tone, mood and atmosphere is that type of alleyway in literary analysis that is sometimes well-lit and clear and clean to walk through, but on occasion the streetlights are off and when you try to walk through the darkness, you stumble over garbage bags and you get hurt and really confused. So while these concise definitions I've given you are great for 80% of the time, they don't help you in the other 20% of the time because the tone, mood and atmosphere just overflow their definitional boundaries and overlap and mix. Such is the nature of English literature--a fundamentally subjective subject. In such cases, it's safe to bask in the confusion and use it to your advantage: Just pull out any one of those 3 things and link it however you like--reasonably, of course! The point is: Tone, mood and atmosphere is the singular area of literary analysis that requires a flexible, open mind and a blurry interpretation of the definitions, because the concepts themselves are highly ambiguous.
Relationship between mood and atmosphere
Example from the Principal's office. I rudely interrupted our deep discussion about the boy and the principal in the tone section of this lesson. Let's resume the discourse.
The restricting atmosphere that we experience vicariously (meaning "through another person", in this case, the boy) can create different moods depending on the context.
One possible mood is pity: The oppressive atmosphere makes us, perhaps, feel sorry for the little dude because he was simply speaking up for himself in response to a rude teacher, and he got in trouble for no reason. Here the oppressive atmosphere is viewed negatively by the reader as a result of the surrounding context.
On the other hand, if the kid is a little mischievous brat and he clogged up all the toilet pipes with toilet rolls for no reason, then the oppressive atmosphere doesn't make us feel sorry for him (i.e. it's not a sympathetic mood); instead, the reader's mood would be happy or relieved or satisfied because the trouble maker has been caught. In this latter case, the oppressive atmosphere and its associated strictness are viewed positively.
Examples: How to distinguish atmosphere and tone
There is almost always a mood created by a piece of writing, unless you're analysing a boring textbook. The question is: How is the mood created? Is it created by the tone or the atmosphere? (Recall the diagram from the end of the Tone section of this lesson.)
The mood can be created:
entirely from the tone
entirely from the atmosphere
from a mixture of tone and atmosphere
Entirely tonal
"This city is so disgusting and infested. Ugh! I would never go there!"
Entirely atmospheric
"The silent air of the city had a dusty, stagnant feel to it, as if the pulsing river of life that had once coursed through its archways and corridors were now impeded, blocked, by the mounds of dusty rubble."
Lifeless atmosphere—focus is on the physical setting
Combination of both tone and atmosphere
"The silent city was a dilapidated, defiled mess, a collection of infested rubble that seemed to be screaming helplessly into the heavy, dusty air for the return of human life."
Disgusted tone and lifeless atmosphere
This set of 3 examples hopefully makes it the distinction between tone and atmosphere clearer in your mind.
Choice: When to analyse tone or atmosphere?
Tone: Analyse tone when the voice shows a subjective attitude towards something—a character, a theme or an object. In such cases, the voice isn't neutral and is instead filled with emotion. One exception is a factual tone, but a factual tone still indicates the narrator's serious attitude towards that something.
Atmosphere: Atmosphere is appropriate when the voice has a neutral attitude and yet we feel an emotion as the reader. For example, when we have a third person omniscient narrator or speaker whose voice simply describes the events.
Here's another example emphasising the difference between a tonal and an atmospheric passage.
"It was the most frightening hour of my life! I crept slowly along the wall, making sure he—or whoever or whatever he or it was—couldn't hear me. I was so certain he, or it, was right there that my heart beat like a thumping elephant…half-expecting something to jump out at me from the bushes."
You can hear the fear in the voice of the narrator.
The voice clearly has a biased, emotional attitude towards something—in this case a mysterious thing in the garden. Thus tone is the appropriate meta-technique to analyse for this extract.
What makes this extract more tonal than atmospheric is that it's written in first person voice. The voice is personal and so the narrator's attitude is evident.
Specifically, the fearful tone is constructed from: the high modality language in "most frightening" and "so certain"; the confusion evident in "or whoever, or whatever"; and the hyperbolic simile in "like a thumping elephant." All of these techniques build the frightened tone of the narrator.
"The night was cold. A silver sliver of moonlight pierced the clouds here and there so that the garden was completely shrouded in darkness in some places and yet naked and exposed in others. Luke kept close to the wall as he crept slowly, slowly, towards what he thought was the thing. Suddenly, he stopped. He stared intently at the bushes and braced himself for the worst, as if expecting some unworldly monster to run out from under those dense leaves and bite him."
This extract describes the same scenario as before, but it's more atmospheric and less tonal.
First, the voice is a third-person narrator. The language used by the writer is more neutral compared to the first-person perspective. Third person narration also creates more distance with the protagonist.
However, as the readers, we still feel a suspenseful mood despite the lack in tonality. Instead, the suspense is created by an eerie atmosphere.
This tense atmosphere is created by a focus on the external surroundings: the coldness, the darkness, the thin rays of moonlight, the description of Luke being afraid, and his paranoia at the end of the extract. So instead of delving into Luke's internal emotions and attitude to create tone, the writer focusses on the external scene in a spooky way to create an eerie atmosphere.
Internal vs external
In simple terms, atmosphere is what's happening on the outside in the external environment or scene. Tone is what's happening in the mind--the internal attitude.
Internal versus external is the easiest way to decide when it is appropriate to analyse the tone or the atmosphere. With that said, in many texts, both tone and atmosphere are used together to create mood.
The goal of this lesson was to give you an intuitive understanding of tone and atmosphere, and their direct relationships with mood.
Tone is how the voice of a character or narrator sounds, which impacts the reader. On the other hand, atmosphere is how the external situation or environment feels. Both tone and atmosphere influence mood, but in slightly different ways.
Tone and atmosphere are important techniques as well as tools for deconstructing a text.
Tone and/or atmosphere should be analysed to some extent in all texts, whether it's a Paper 1, a Paper 2, assignments, or anything else in English analysis. In the Advanced Analysis section of the course as well as in the Full Analysis videos, I will teach you the details for how to properly analyse tone, atmosphere and mood.
Magnificent words for 'mood'
Sadness, disappointment
Empathy (knowing what someone else is feeling, can be positive or negative emotion)
Sympathy (feeling sorry for someone, always a negative emotion)
Happiness, joy
Easy sentence builders
"The reader experiences a sense of _______"
"The reader feels _______"
"The language evokes / elicits / creates in the reader an emotion of _______"
Key points - tone mood atmosphere part 1.pdf
Vocabulary for tone atmosphere mood.pdf


POLL: Have you powered on your Phantom with the gimbal lock attached?
The 500m limit is locked into the hardware, is what I remember reading, not firmware or software. It's also specified in my P3P manual, although 'locked into the hardware' is not mentioned.
Why would it be wrong to have taken this photo?
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER again over water!!! UPDATE!!!
Where is the doggone zoom?


text:
Home » News » Video / DVD
Muddy Waters Available for Download on Wolfgang's Vault
Wolfgang's Vault, the ultimate live music archive of concert recordings of rock, jazz, country, blues, indie with free streaming has just released a series of Muddy Waters shows for download.
To hear those shows got to
Muddy Waters at Wolfgang's Vault
Available Muddy Waters concerts include:
Three shows at The Fillmore 1966
The Muddy Waters Blues Band at The Bottom Line, NY 1978
From the concert summary:
"One of the most impressive and influential steps that Bill Graham took early in his career was to invite blues and rock & roll pioneers - such as Muddy Waters, James Cotton and Chuck Berry - to perform alongside up and coming, widely popular rock groups. The bold move helped not only to rejuvenate the careers of these landmark (and often unacknowledged) artists, but also exposed younger audiences and artists to their musical forbears often to profound effects.
The week prior to this run, Graham had promoted his first run ever at the new, larger Winterland venue with a bill featuring Jefferson Airplane, Paul Butterfield Blues Band and for the first time, Muddy Waters. This experimental decision was so well received that he booked the same lineup for another three-day run, beginning on this night, September 30, 1966.
About Wolfgang's Vault:
Wolfgang's Vault is the exclusive destination online for live music from a dozen different archives, including The Bill Graham Archives, the King Biscuit Flower Hour, and the Record Plant. Within the Concert Vault you will find thousands of carefully restored, legendary concert recordings of both the past and present to stream for free, with hundreds available for download. Concert Vault is also available as a free app on iPhone.
Not only a place to hear live music, we encourage you to peruse Wolfgang's Vault to view and purchase the greatest collection of concert posters, rock photography, vintage t-shirts, retro t-shirts, and a treasure trove of extraordinary concert related memorabilia.
About Muddy Waters
Video / DVD Muddy Waters All About Jazz Publicity Michael Ricci United States California san francisco
Jazz Near San Francisco
Events Guide | Venue Guide | Get App | More...
Michael Joseph Harris


POTENTIAL buyers are reported to be lining up bids for MBNA, one of Britain's largest credit card issuers.
According to Sky News, owners the Bank of America has activated plans for an auction of MBNA, which has a loan book of about £7bn – is equivalent to about 11% of the UK credit card market.
The potential sale follows a previous attempted sale by BoA which attracted an unsuccessful offer from private equity firm Apollo Management, part of Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs.


text:
Florence Wambugu
Back to GMWatch Portal
"Nobody has ever claimed that GM is the answer to world hunger," Monsanto UK's director of corporate affairs, Tony Combes, told the Sunday Herald newspaper in June 2003.[1] But that same weekend Canada's National Post reported:
Genetically modified crops are the key to eradicating poverty and hunger in the Third World, says a leading African biotechnology expert.[2]
That expert is Dr Florence Wambugu and such comments are far from an embarrassment to companies like Monsanto. In fact, L. Val Giddings, a vice president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, has said, "I wish we could clone her."[3]
The industry has certainly done everything it can to help her project her unambiguous message. "In Africa GM food could almost literally weed out poverty," she told New Scientist.[4] In the journal Nature, she wrote that biotechnology was urgently needed to counter "famine, environmental degradation and poverty". Resistance to GM, she put down to a "strong anti-biotechnology lobby that actively promotes misinformation". "Africa must enthusiastically join the biotechnology revolution," she says.[5] Such a revolution, she told a Canadian newspaper in 2003, could pull "the African continent out of decades of economic and social despair".[6]
Dominic Glover of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex sees such arguments as simplistic. They imply GM can magic away the problems facing poor farmers 'without addressing the complex and intractable issues of poverty, land rights, lack of access to credit and weak extension services.' The Director-General of the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), Jacques Diouf, has added to the list, saying irrigation and road-building are more urgent priorities in improving Africa's agriculture than encouraging the introduction of GM crops.[7]
Glover writes:
Kenyan scientist Florence Wambugu has asserted that GM crops are ideally suited to poor farmers because "the technology is in the seed".[8] In fact, however, the transgenic crops that are actually on the market all require a package of expensive inputs and special management practices, which pose special challenges and risks for poor farmers. They also tend to be crops and traits designed for industrialised, capital-intensive, temperate farming. This is primarily because they have been developed by private firms for wealthy northern markets.[9]
Whatever the limitations of her prescription for Africa's 'economic and social despair', Florence Wambugu is a rising star. As well as writing for Nature, she has written for the New York Times, and appeared on CNN as well as several American TV shows. In an issue of Forbes magazine in December 2001, she was named one of fifteen people from around the globe who will 'reinvent the future.' In 2002 she was appointed to the Science Board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative. She is also a DuPont Biotech Advisory Panelist, a two-times Monsanto Company Outstanding Performance Award winner, and author and publisher of the book Modifying Africa: How Biotechnology Can Benefit the Poor and Hungry: A Case Study from Kenya .
2 Africa Harvest
3 GM sweet potato is brainchild of three American men
4 Spin doctor's dream
5 Figures don't add up
6 Failure of GM sweet potato announced
7 Wrong virus targeted
8 Non-GM sweet potato more successful and inexpensive
Florence Wambugu began her career studying zoology and botany at the University of Nairobi. She continued her education in the United States, graduating with a master's degree at North Dakota State University before obtaining a doctorate at the University of Bath in England (1991). She was then picked and trained by Monsanto for its GM virus-resistant sweet potato project. It is around this project that Wambugu has built her reputation, capturing massive positive publicity for GM crops in the process.
Post-Monsanto Wambugu became the first Director of the AfriCentre of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA)], based in her native country, Kenya. ISAAA is a U.S.-centered, GM promotion and "technology transfer" agency funded by AgrEvo, Bayer, Cargill, Dow, Monsanto, Novartis, Pioneer, and Syngenta, in addition to foundations and Western governmental funding agencies, including the BBSRC. Its Board of Directors has contained leading biotech industry executives from both Monsanto and Novartis (now Syngenta).
The AfriCentre's focus was projects that assisted the introduction of GM into Sub-Saharan Africa. As part of their mission, Wambugu and ISAAA spun off a number of innocuously named pro-GM fronts, such as the African Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum (ABSF), of which she is the Vice Chair, and the African Biotechnology Trust.
Africa Harvest
In January, 2002, Wambugu established her own biotechnology foundation, becoming Chief Executive of Africa Harvest Biotechnology Foundation International (AHFBI), usually called Africa Harvest for short. AHBFI's Communication for Development Program is supported by CropLife International - an organisation led by companies such as BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta.
Africa Harvest's website stated about the Communication for Development Program:
Africa's underdevelopment is linked to lack of knowledge. In the agricultural sector, communication is an integral part of the Africa Harvest programs and projects design; in particular, biotech and risk communication are designed to facilitate the adoption of new crops and products, especially GM products. Africa Harvest Communication for Development Program includes an effective biotech communication and public acceptance program designed to empower people from those within national governments down to the local level to make informed decisions regarding the implementation of biotechnology crops, bio-safety policy development, and bio-safety protection.[10]
According to Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex:
Pro-biotech Western aid agencies have joined with these [front] organizations to quietly conduct one-sided conferences at up-scale venues around the continent, such as Kenya's Windsor Golf and Country Club, aimed to swing high-level officials in favor of GM. But critics charge these forums are facades for large corporations.
They also charge that these NGOs are far from being as representative as they suggest, merely consisting of a website and a few staff.[11]
The cornerstone of Florence Wambugu's career has been the GM sweet potato project. She has presented the sweet potato as a crop grown in her childhood by her mother. "The sweet potato is a woman's crop," she says.[12] Wambugu has also presented the project, which in 2001 moved out of Monsanto's labs into the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, as very much her own and essentially a Kenyan affair. Some newspaper accounts of the project have not even mentioned Monsanto.
GM sweet potato is brainchild of three American men
But the GM sweet potato project was not Wambugu's brainchild. It was that of three American men: Robert Horsch and another colleague at Monsanto in consort with Joel Cohen from USAID. It was the three Americans who recruited Wambugu, who had just completed her doctoral thesis, for their project using USAID money to pay for a three-year post-doctoral position (1991-1994) for her with Monsanto.
Robert Horsch has said his role at Monsanto is to "create goodwill and help open future markets".[13] Wambugu reinforces the point: "it [the GM sweet potato] has no commercial value to Monsanto, except as PR."[14] Over the years Wambugu has more than repaid Monsanto's PR investment, working hard to publicize the project and securing a career as an influential advocate for GM crops in the process.
To grasp the extraordinary character and scale of the media coverage Wambugu has generated in her role as biotech advocate, it is useful to do a Google search on "Wambugu 'sweet potato'". It throws up hundreds of articles, mostly in the Western press.
Spin doctor's dream
Following a visit by Wambugu to Australia, one commentator asked:
is it too cynical to suggest that having a black African as the face of a multinational chemical company is a spin doctor's dream? This seems to have lobotomised some journalists who have treated her views like the tablets from the Mount. Even the normally rigorous Jon Faine interviewed her in a way that was almost fawning.[15]
Uncritical media coverage of a lobbying trip by Wambugu to Canada also drew critical comment. Brewster Kneen wrote:
A black African woman in colourful traditional dress delivering a sermon on feeding the hungry of Africa is a real show stopper. And the right-wing press love it. They don't bother to ask about the sources of the sensational numbers she throws about, they don't ask to see the research studies to back up her claims for biotechnology or the world of African farmers that she paints in simplistic terms. They don't ask who is paying her way around the world. Perhaps they just don't want to appear impolite, even if truth is the victim.[16]
So what is the truth about the showcase project Wambugu built her career around? According to a piece in the Toronto Globe & Mail in July 2003, "Dr. Wambugu's modified sweet potato... can increase yields from four tonnes per hectare to 10 tonnes."[17]
A piece in Canada's National Post repeats the same figures:
Dr. Wambugu, who continues to act as an advisor on the project, said the modified sweet potato seeds should be able to produce 10 tonnes of vegetables per hectare compared with a natural Kenyan crop that yields four tonnes per hectare.[18]
However, back in 1999 in an article in Nature, Wambugu wrote, 'the production of sweet potato [in Kenya], a staple crop, is 6 tonnes per hectare'.[19]
Figures don't add up
Whatever the correct point of comparison, Wambugu's GM crop appears a run-away success. The only problem is, none of Wambugu's figures add up.
In 2003 Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies examined all the available data for a detailed report on GM crops in Africa, entitled, "Genetically Modified Crops and Sustainable Poverty Alleviation: An Assessment of Current Evidence". He noted:
Accounts of the transgenic sweet potato have used low figures on average yields in Kenya to paint a picture of stagnation. An early article stated 6 tons per hectare - without mentioning the data source - which was then reproduced in subsequent analyses. However, FAO statistics indicate 9.7 tons, and official statistics report 10.4.[20]
In other words, Wambugu's figures on average non-GM yields appear to massively understate the reality by anywhere between 40-60%. By contrast, if, as Wambugu claimed, her GM sweet potato were producing 10 tonnes per hectare, then rather than roughly doubling normal yields, the GM sweet potato would be performing no better than the conventional crop.
This is where we come to the nub of the problem. Despite the hundreds of items referring to the success of Wambugu's project, until early 2004 there was no way of knowing the actual yields of the GM sweet potato. No peer reviewed reports or official figures were published during the three years of the trials in Kenya. Thus, despite all the claims of Wambugu and others, such as CS Prakash, about the enormous success of the project during that period, deGrassi noted in his 2003 report, 'At the farm level, there is currently no evidence about the performance of transgenic sweet potatoes.' The researchers, deGrassi wrote, simply 'refused to state how the trials, now in their third year, have performed.'
Yet the trials, with all of their unknowns, were presented by Wambugu as an agricultural revolution in Africa. To quote the Forbes article about Wambugu reinventing the future, "While the West debates the ethics of GM food, Florence Wambugu is using it to feed her country."[21] The implication was that this trial technology was already benefiting the people of Kenya.
The article reported that the results were "astonishing":
The sweet potato is sub-Saharan Africa's first genetically modified crop, and its yields so far are double that of the regular plant. Potatoes are bigger and richer in color, indicating they've retained more nutritional value.
For hungry Africa, we were told, "Wambugu's modified sweet potato offers tangible hope."[22]
Failure of GM sweet potato announced
But then at the end of January 2004 the results of the 3 year trials were quietly published in Kenya showing that none of this was true. Kenya's Daily Nation reported, "Trials to develop a virus resistance sweet potato through biotechnology have failed. US biotechnology, imported three years ago, has failed to improve Kenya's sweet potato."[23]
Instead of Wambugu's extravagant media claims of doubled yields, the results revealed that the non-GM sweet potatoes had yielded significantly more than the GM: "the report indicates that during the trials non-transgenic crops used as control yielded much more tuber compared to the trangenics." The GM crop had also been found to be susceptible to viral attack - the very thing it had been designed to avoid.[24]
New Scientist also reported the project's failure, in an article called, "Monsanto's showcase project in Africa fails" (New Scientist, Vol 181 No. 2433, 7 February 2004).[25] Even before these results were announced, deGrassi drew a contrast with a conventional breeding program in Uganda which was able 'to produce a new, high-yielding resistant variety in just a few years at a small cost that... raised yields by roughly 100%.'
The success of this project gives the lie to a standpoint attributed to Wambugu in a a Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa report that "Conventional breeding research had proved powerless to develop varieties resistant to these viruses".[26] The conventionally bred virus-resistant variety is also a popular one with farmers, unlike the variety that had been genetically engineered by Wambugu and Monsanto.
Wrong virus targeted
Other shortcomings of the Wambugu project pointed to by deGrassi may help to explain what went wrong. Wambugu's yield claims are based on the assumption that the virus her project is targeting is responsible for massive losses. "Yield losses from the virus can be as high as 80 percent," according to one KARI claim.[27] In reality, the virus that Wambugu has focused on - the sweet potato feathery mottle virus (SPFMV) - 'is not a primary constraint on sweet potato production,' says deGrassi, 'nor is it a significant cause of food insecurity, let alone famine. SPFMV is only one relatively small factor among many problems that constrain production.'
The reason the wrong virus has been targeted, deGrassi suggests, is that its selection, 'resulted from pressures by American officials and business, rather than through a participatory process by the Kenyan agricultural research and extension system designed to meet poor farmers' needs.'
Non-GM sweet potato more successful and inexpensive
DeGrassi contrasts Wambugu's project with the successful Ugandan one which has produced a new, high-yielding virus-resistant variety of sweet potato in just a few years and at a small cost. Wambugu's project, on the other hand, ran for over 12 years, involved over 19 researchers - 16 with PhDs, a rarity in Africa. So far, it has eaten up at least $6 million of funding from Monsanto, the World Bank and USAID. Once again this is the exact opposite of the claims made for the project - 'the time and money spent actually developing GM varieties are less than for conventional varieties.'
Nothing could illustrate better a point deGrassi is not alone in making, 'the excitement over certain genetic engineering procedures can divert financial, human, and intellectual resources from focusing on productive research that meets the needs of poor farmers.'
Florence Wambugu's reinvention of the future via genetic engineering exists only at the level of myth. Unfortunately, the Wambugu myth is helping to inhibit change for some of the world's poorest farmers.
↑ Rob Edwards, UK GM-free food 'is contaminated', Sunday Herald, 29 June 2003, accessed 1 July 2009
↑ Chris Lackner, GM crops touted to fight poverty: Sweet potatoes, corn, National Post, p. A22, 28 June 2003, accessed 1 July 2009
↑ Khadija Sharife, Genetic Colonialism: From Mendel to Machiavelli, afrika.no (The Norwegian Council for Africa) website, 26 December 2008, accessed 1 July 2009
↑ Feeding Africa, New Scientist, 27 May 2000, accessed 1 July 2009
↑ Florence Wambugu, Why Africa needs agricultural biotech, Nature 400, 15-16 (1 July 1999), accessed 1 July 2009, subscription req'd to read full article. Full article archived on the Monsanto website.
↑ African farmers need water, not GM crops - FAO head, Reuters, 10 Nov 2003, version placed in web archive Feb 9 2005, accessed in web archive 13 Sept 2009
↑ This assertion by Wambugu has been widely quoted in media articles. For example, see Margaret Wente, Breaking the food chains, Toronto Globe & Mail, 5 July, 2003, accessed 13 Sept 2009
↑ Dominic Glover, Biotechnology for Africa? Democratising Biotechnology: Genetically Modified Crops in Developing Countries, IDS Briefing 10, 2003, p. 1
↑ Communication for Development Program, Africa Harvest website, version placed in web archive 10 Apr 2007, accessed in web archive 14 Sept 2009
↑ Aaron deGrassi, "Genetically Modified Crops and Sustainable Poverty Alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Assessment of Current Evidence", Third World Network - Africa, June 2003, p. 55, accessed 30 June 2009
↑ Lynn J. Cook, "Millions served", Forbes, 23 December 2002, accessed June 30 2009
↑ Genetically modified seeds held by a few, Taipei Times, 13 July 2003, accessed 13 Sept 2009
↑ Fred Pearce and Florence Wambugu, Feeding Africa, New Scientist, 27 May 2000 (sub req'd to see full article)
↑ Rankin McKay, GM science can be blinding, Herald Sun, July 30, 2003
↑ Brewster Kneen, Resisting moral blackmail, The Ram's Horn, 16 Oct 2003, accessed 13 Sept 2009
↑ Margaret Wente, Breaking the food chains, Toronto Globe & Mail, 5 July 2003, accessed 12 Sept 2009
↑ Chris Lackner, GM crops touted to fight poverty, National Post, 28 June 2003, accessed 12 Sept 2009
↑ Florence Wambugu, Why Africa Needs Agricultural Biotech, Nature 400, July 1, 1999
↑ Aaron deGrassi, Genetically Modified Crops and Sustainable Poverty Alleviation: An Assessment of Current Evidence, Third World Network - Africa, June 2003, p. 15
↑ Lynn J. Cook, Millions Served: Florence Wambugu feeds her country with food others have the luxury to avoid, Forbes magazine, December 23, 2002, accessed 12 Sept 2009
↑ Gatonye Gathura, GM technology fails local potatoes, The Daily Nation, Kenya, January 29, 2004
↑ Monsanto's showcase project in Africa fails, New Scientist, Vol 181 No. 2433, 7 February 2004, accessed 13 Sept 2009
↑ Florence Wambugu, Annual Report 2002, Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa, p. 7
↑ Naftali Mungai, Transgenic sweet potato could end Kenyan famine, Environment News Service, September 15, 2000, accessed 12 Sept 2009
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