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Communication on the practical implementation of directives on health and safety at work

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Communication on the practical implementation of directives on health and safety at work

This report examines how the Framework directive of 1989 and five of its individual directives have been transposed and are applied within the Member States. It also draws conclusions on their impact on European health and safety legislation and how they affect the economy and society.

Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions on the practical implementation of the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Directives 89/391 (Framework), 89/654 (Workplaces), 89/655 (Work Equipment), 89/656 (Personal Protective Equipment), 90/269 (Manual Handling of Loads) and 90/270 (Display Screen Equipment) [COM(2004) 62 - Not published in the Official Journal].

Directive 89/391/EEC changed the practical perspective of the protection of the health and safety of workers by introducing an integrated preventive approach and by making ongoing improvement of health and safety conditions at work a requirement. This new approach is based on the fundamental principles which the framework Directive 89/391/EEC introduced, namely, employer responsibility, prevention, information, training, consultation and participation of workers. Directive 89/391/EEC and Directives 89/654/EEC, 89/655/EEC, 89/656/EEC, 90/269/EEC and 90/270/EEC led to the rationalisation and simplification of the National legislative corpora. Transposal of the directives obliged the Member States to switch from legislation often based on remedial principles to a preventive approach based on individual behaviour and organisational structures.

Analysis of the transposal of the framework directive has made it possible to highlight shortcomings in nearly all the Member States, particularly as regards scope, employer responsibility, the principles of prevention, the extent of the obligation to evaluate risks to the health and safety of workers, protection and prevention services, the obligation to keep records of risk assessment in all types of companies and, lastly, information, consultation, participation and training of workers.

As far as individual directives are concerned, the situation as regards transposal is more positive and most of the shortcomings observed have been rectified without the need for infringement proceedings, which have, however, been necessary in certain cases.

Substantial heterogeneousness continues to exist in the practical implementation of the various directives, depending on the countries, the different sectors of activity and the size of company. Nevertheless, the primary aims of guaranteeing common minimum standards of protection through harmonisation of the recommendations on safety and health, reducing the number of accidents at work and the number of cases of occupational diseases, have been attained.

Publicity and supporting measures

Although National (action plans and awareness-raising campaigns) and European (role of the European Agency for Health and Safety at Work) measures have contributed greatly to better understanding of the new legislation and better awareness by employers and workers alike of their rights and obligations, the impact of these measures varies depending on the economic players to whom they apply. While things run smoothly from this point of view in the bigger companies, this is not the case in the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), where a big effort is needed.

Awareness raising

Despite the huge volume of information available, the level of information among employers and workers, particularly in the SMEs, is insufficient. Employers point to problems in understanding the legislation. This stems from the nature of the provisions, which involve establishing a general objective, and from the fact that there is no information at National level to help employers establish prevention plans tailored to the risks detected in the risk assessment.

Risk assessment, documentation and supervision

The points to be improved concerning the practical implementation of the provisions related to the risk assessment are:

  • superficial, schematic procedures place tend to focus on obvious risks, while long-term effects (e.g. psychological and psycho-social factors) as well as the more insidious risks, e.g. those caused by chemical substances, are neglected;
  • as a result, there is no overall or integrated approach to risks and measures are taken in isolation;
  • risk assessment is often considered as a one-off obligation and lacks continuity;
  • the effectiveness of steps taken is not sufficiently monitored by employers.

Protective and preventive services

Not all companies comply with their obligation to set up departments to protect against and prevent occupational risks, either by designating a worker to carry out such activities or, if this is not possible, by calling in an external service. This is particularly the case of the SMEs.

The introduction of such services is held up by the lack of qualified personnel, the low quality of the services delivered (unilateral importance attached to the technical aspects, few multi-disciplinary services) and by the tendency for employers to use the cheapest possible services.

Information, consultation, participation and training

Few data are available on information flow but it is clear that the practical implementation of the obligation to inform workers leaves a lot to be desired by comparison with the other obligations which employers have to comply with. This is the case of nearly all the industrial sectors in all the Member Stakes irrespective of size of company. The problem is particularly manifest among temporary workers. Nor is the participation of workers organised satisfactorily despite the range of options proposed by the directives.

Organisation and management of health and safety at work

The growing complexity of work processes, trends in working conditions and changes in the types of risks encountered as a result, call for a transparent and systematic approach to health and safety at work. Yet, with the exception of the bigger companies, safety and health are seldom an integral part of companies' overall management process.

Enforcement of health and safety at work legislation is primarily a matter for the labour inspectorates, often working in conjunction with other specialised monitoring agencies in certain sectors of activity. The progress made with implementation by the Member States is generally measured taking the ratio between the number of labour inspectors in each Member State and the number of inspections performed every year. 1 400 000 inspections are carried out every year in the European Union by approximately 12 000 inspectors.

The entry into force of the new EU health and safety legislation and does not appear to have boosted the number of inspections. In their reports, the Member States point to a chronic lack of resources in their labour inspectorates to cover all aspects of the new legislation, particularly in the SMEs.

The analysis carried out shows that the action of the EU labour inspectorates actively contributes to bringing down the rate of absenteeism due to occupational accidents and diseases and also to changing the approaches of those involved in prevention at workplace level. Further progress is needed in order to improve checks in the SMEs and the high-risk sectors and in order to make warnings and sanctions more dissuasive.

Analysis of two specific cases: SMEs and the public sector

The analysis shows that there are major shortcomings in complying with essential elements of EU health and safety legislation in SMEs, in particular as regards risk assessment, workers' participation and training, and in the traditionally high-risk sectors of agriculture and construction. These shortcomings stem primarily from:

  • the lack of information and specific (targeted information distributed locally) and comprehensible guidelines;
  • poor capacity and skills in terms of health and safety;
  • lack of resources to ensure appropriate basic training of workforce and managers;
  • poor access to effective, specific and specialised technical assistance.

The public sector

The inclusion of the public sector within the scope of the health and safety legislation is a groundbreaking development in most Member States.

Despite problems in certain countries (particularly in the military sector), the transposal of European legislation in the public sector can all in all be considered to be satisfactory. The degree to which it is implemented nonetheless poses certain problems because:

  • it is widely held in public administration that the risk levels are negligible by comparison with the private sector;
  • it is not generally for labour inspectorates to intervene in public administration or the in-house departments responsible for this function do not have enough hierarchical autonomy;
  • the budgets allocated are often limited.

The National reports show that the majority of Member States consider that it is as yet too early to make a proper and full evaluation of effectiveness. Although nearly all Member States believe there has been a positive impact, they do not have the data or statistical results available yet to substantiate that impact. Nevertheless, the evaluation that the legislation has contributed to making the workplace safer is supported by general statistical data on occupational health and safety.

Effects on accidents at work and occupational diseases

The most up-to-date statistics (for the year 2000) show that the accident rate per 100 000 workers had fallen from 4513 to 4016 since 1994. Also by comparison with 1994, there was a marked improvement in the rate of fatal accidents in Europe, which fell back from 6423 to 5237 in 2000.

The 1999 labour force survey and those conducted by the European Foundation for Living and Working Conditions, for their part, show that the active population feels that working conditions have not improved overall. A great deal remains to be done with regard to monitoring and organising work in order to head off intensive working patterns, problems stemming from working on screen, repetitive movements and psychological damage.

Costs and benefits in the enterprises

Member States have indicated in their National reports that due to the lack of indicators they consider that it is not possible to make a full evaluation, but acknowledge that a reduction in accidents at work and worker absenteeism brings about a clear reduction in business costs, which should in turn boost productivity.

General economic effects

In the European Union the costs for accidents at work and work-related illnesses are estimated between 2.6 and 3.8% of the gross National product (GNP). 158 million days of work were lost in the Union in 2000. Around 350 000 workers were obliged to change their job as a result of an accident. Nearly 350 000 workers have various degrees of permanent disability and 15 000 have been forced out of the labour market. However, the fall in the number of accidents at work since the entry into force of Community legislation is estimated to have generated savings of 25 million days of work.

So, while the implementation of this legislation may not be totally satisfactory, it has definitely produced economic benefits.

Effects on employment and competitiveness

The beneficial effects of investment in health and safety at work take some time to filter through. This makes it very difficult for the time being to draw conclusions on the impact of the legislation in question on the competitiveness of the business sector. Cost/benefit analyses will have to be carried out in order to evaluate the short and longer term effects. As an overall conclusion, Member States in their National reports generally indicate that health and safety at work measures contribute towards improved working conditions, boosting productivity, employment and competitiveness.

Positive effects, problems with implementation and suggestions for improving the various Directives

-This downward trend in the number of accidents at work and the aforementioned increase in employers' awareness are considered by the Member States to be the great achievement of Directive 89/391/EEC. The following positive points were also mentioned:

  • emphasis on a prevention philosophy;
  • broadness of scope;
  • obligation for the employers to perform risk assessments and provide documentation;
  • obligation for the employer to inform and train workers;
  • rights and obligations of the workers;
  • the opportunity to consolidate, rationalise and simplify the National regulations in force.

The main problems pointed to by the Member States arose in the SME context and concerned the administrative obligations and formalities, the financial burden and at the time needed to prepare appropriate measures. Other difficulties were:

  • the lack of participation by the workers in the operational processes;
  • the absence of evaluation criteria for National labour inspectorates;
  • the lack of harmonised European statistical information system on occupational accidents and diseases;
  • problems in implementing certain provisions in the SMEs.

- If the degree of implementation of the directive is to be improved then there is a need to:

  • increase the level of application of the Directives in SMEs;
  • ensure the availability of comprehensive and harmonised statistics on occupational accidents;
  • provide easy access to information and assistance for employers and workers to make them aware of their rights and obligations;
  • step up action and allocate the resources necessary to guarantee uniform, effective and equivalent implementation;
  • identify any provisions of the Directives that have been outdated by technological development and need to be reviewed;
  • focus greater attention on the specific situation of temporary workers.

- The positive aspects:

  • regulation of various situations which would not have received the required attention had they not been dealt with by the European Directive, e.g. windows, translucent partitions, doors or gates opening upwards, emergency routes and exits, etc.;
  • reinforcing regulations on the employers' obligations relating to workplaces used for the first time, and workplaces already in use.

Implementation difficulties:

  • excessive detail concerning certain aspects, this being detrimental to the proper transposal of the directive ;
  • unclear distinction made by the Directive between workplaces used for the first time and those already in use ;
  • the investment required to adopt the new provisions in SMEs.

- Suggestions for improvement:

  • the need for a co-ordinated approach to the problems regarding environmental conditions, e.g. by exchange of relevant experience among Member States;
  • the establishment of guidelines and recommendations (with up-to-date data, charts and figures) in order to clarify certain aspects (ventilation, lighting, temperature, dimensions of the workplace, etc.);
  • examining the provisions which are applicable to teleworking.
  • Directive 89/655/EEC on the use of work equipment by workers at work

-The positive points:

  • minimum safety level for work equipment defined;
  • National regulations unified and harmonised, which has contributed towards simplification;
  • scope extended to a greater number of items of work equipment;
  • standards generally clearer and more specific;
  • employer awareness raised with regard to the safety level of work equipment;
  • adaptation, official approval and modernisation of work equipment in use;
  • more active prevention of risks associated with the use of work equipment;
  • better analysis of factors to be taken into account when acquiring new equipment.

- Implementation difficulties:

  • excessive cost for SMEs which do not have the necessary financial resources;
  • the need for long-term investment to adapt work equipment;
  • the practical distinction between the Directive on safety in the use of work equipment and the machinery Directive has not been made sufficiently clear;
  • the definition of various safety levels for a machine already in use and for a new machine makes it difficult to adapt it to the requirements of the Directive.

-Suggestions for improvement:

  • clarification of the various safety levels for a machine in use and for a new machine;
  • support measures to smooth over the implementation of the directive, particularly for the SMEs: financial aid, loans, etc;
  • publication of guidelines on the practical part of the provisions.
  • Directive 89/656/EEC on the use by workers of personal protective equipment

- The positive points:

  • National legislation has been standardised, simplified and co-ordinated;
  • extension of the regulations to new sectors and new equipment ;
  • obligation on the employer to assess risks before selecting individual protection equipment and a widespread increase in awareness as regards the conditions to be met by this equipment;
  • greater detail in the regulations, which entail, for instance, knowing the exact type of activities in which certain individual protection equipment is mandatory.

- Implementation difficulties:

  • lack of assistance for SMEs, which have difficulty in selecting suitable protection equipment by themselves;
  • cost of new equipment for small companies;
  • workers insufficiently familiar with the use of personal protective equipment.

- Suggestions for improvement:

  • the Commission should publish specific guidelines and codes of good practice, which would include selection criteria for personal protective equipment;
  • supplement the annexes to the directive in order to make it easier for companies to choose equipment;
  • synchronisation and simplification of implementation reports.
  • Directive 90/269/EEC on the manual handling of loads

- The positive points:

  • support for existing regulations on manual handling of loads in some Member States;
  • regulations which are clear and have been generally applied without problems;
  • improvements in the level of awareness of employers (taking on board the ergonomics aspects in risk assesment);
  • these obligations have been put into practice in nearly all sectors of industry.

- Implementation difficulties:

  • job losses could result from a high level of mechanisation and costs;
  • some aspects of the Directive are considered too detailed (although this is considered a positive aspect in some Member States);
  • the possibility that a series of workplaces may cease to be considered as suitable for women;
  • the absence of standards other than those of load weight and distance, regarding rest periods and rest intervals.

- Suggestions for improvement:

  • several Member States are of the opinion that limit values should be set, since the margin for interpretation allowed as regards manual handling of loads is excessive;
  • the Commission should give details concerning evaluation models and guidelines;
  • the application of ergonomics principles to the handling of materials should be given closer attention.

Directive 90/270/EEC on work with visual display equipment

- The positive points:

  • further support for control and improvement of the ergonomics aspects of workstations using visual display equipment;
  • introduction of rest periods and the workers' right to better health surveillance, in particular eye tests;
  • these obligations have been put into practice in nearly all sectors of the industry.

- Implementation difficulties

  • a number of problems are difficult to solve (use of natural light, the ergonomics aspects of seating, the inability to neutralise certain electromagnetic fields);
  • confusion as to who is authorised to or should carry out eye tests;
  • problems stemming from teleworking and supervision of working conditions within that framework.

- Suggestions for improvement:

  • it would be advisable to specify the provisions on changes of activity or rest periods, as well as the persons to whom they should apply;
  • the problems caused by electromagnetic radiation from terminals, lasers and magnetic fields should be examined;
  • various Member States consider a review of the Directive to be appropriate, in order to adapt it to technological development.

The analysis concerns the transposition and application of the framework directive 89/391 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work as well as of the first five individual directives, addressing particular workplace environments or risks. The individual directives concern in particular:

This report is the Commission's response to the call made in the framework directive and in the five individual directives to "submit a report on the implementation of the various directives at regular intervals to the European Parliament, the Council and the Economic and Social Committee"

A major input to this Communication are the National reports provided by the Member States in accordance with the directives which state that "Member States shall report to the Commission every five years (every four years for Directives 90/269 and 90/270) on the practical implementation of the provisions of this Directive, indicating the points of view of employers and workers". It is also based on a report by independent experts.

Key figures of the act (for the year 2000)

  • Number of accidents (having resulted in absence from work of over three days): for 100.000 workers, 4016 cases (4539 in 1994);
  • Fatal accident rate:  5237 cases (643 in 1994);
  • Cost of accidents at work and of occupational diseases: between 2.6 and 3.8% of GDP
  • Days of work lost as a result of accidents at work: 158 million;
  • 7% of accident victims are forced to change jobs;
  • 4% of accident victims have to reduce their working hours or suffer varying degrees of permanent disability;
  • 15.000 workers were forced out of the employment market for good following an accident at work;
  • 14% of workers have more than one accident per year.

Last updated: 15.02.2007


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Ventricular septal defect - Diagnosis, Treatment - Causes,Symptoms,Diagnosis,Treatment,Analysis,disease

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Neurology, Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Oncology, Obesity, Endocrinology, Vascular surgery - Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, description of the disease.

Saturday, 25.02.2017, 19:28
Main » Cardiology » Ventricular septal defect - Diagnosis, Treatment
Ventricular septal defect - Diagnosis, Treatment

Ventricular septal defect - Diagnosis, Treatment

This heart defect detected in 10-30% of children with congenital heart disease. This is one of the most common defects. For every thousand births born two children with ventricular septal defect. Interventricular septum, respectively, shares the name of the left and right ventricles of the heart. Normally, the holes in it does not happen.

Ventricular septal defect - is the presence of holes in the barrier through which the blood from the left ventricle may fall into the right and vice versa. Because the left ventricle is more powerful right, initially cleared the blood from the left ventricle to the right, from the systemic circulation in the small. When an overload of pulmonary circulation is pulmonary vasospasm, they sclerotherapy, compressed, the pressure increases in a small circle and when it exceeds the pressure in the systemic circulation, develops the reverse process - the blood is cleared from the right ventricle to the left. The patient appears cyanosis (blue nasolabial triangle, the nail plate).

Quite often possible spontaneous closure of ventricular septal defect. In the first month of life rose about 80% of the holes, but perhaps self-closing and opening at a later date. Closure is mainly due to the muscular layer of interventricular septum.

Ventricular septal defects are divided by location. Under the aorta, in the middle layer and lower - the muscle that often spontaneously close.

The size:

larger defects are holes with a diameter equal to or greater than the diameter of the aorta, the pressure of such defects in both parts of the heart is almost the same

Medium when the hole size is smaller than the pressure in the aorta and right ventricle is 50% of left ventricular pressure

small, the volume of blood in the pulmonary circulation increases by 25%. Usually children are well developed physically. No complaints. In the heart of the chest may bulge. A so-called "heart bump."

When the feeling of her chest revealed tremor during systole (contraction of the heart). When listening to is determined by a rough systolic murmur. An electrocardiogram may be normal. The primary method for diagnosing echocardiography. Echocardiography revealed blood flow between the ventricles. In doubtful cases, the sensing is carried out of the cavities of the heart.

If your child has a large ventricular septal defect, and there are signs of heart failure, surgery is performed in the first three months of life. At six months the need for surgery is determined by the pressure in the pulmonary circulation (pulmonary arteries). If it is low and the child's condition is good, delaying surgery until 12 months, as during this time the defect may close itself. In some children, surgery may be delayed up to 5 years. Under the conditions of extracorporeal circulation is closure of the hole or plastic patch. Usually surgery is performed through the right atrium is the most gentle method. When the impossibility of this approach through the left atrium, aorta and pulmonary artery.

Mortality in the surgical treatment does not exceed 3%. In 2-7% of cases for various reasons, there is a need for reoperation. Long-term results are good for more than 80% of operated patients. After 2-3 years, children can lead a normal life.

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Saturday, October 24, 2015

The Audio Locke & Key Is Potent Stuff, Worth Reopening a Blog For

 Free until Nov. 4!

American audio drama has been very slowly rebuilding itself ever since the massacre that was the coming of television, and over the past few years a critical mass has started to form. Locke & Key is an ambitious epic, a thirteen-hour-plus adaptation of Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez’s graphic novel featuring a massive cast and co-produced for Audible by Audio Comics and Final Rune productions. I haven’t actually read the graphic novel, so I’m forced to judge this entirely on its own merits. It can best be described as an adult take on a YA fantasy concept, using magic and the supernatural to tell the story of a family haunted by bad decisions made in the past and by the ones they keep making. Parts of it are whimsical, other parts are very sad, and the overall effect is very powerful indeed.


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The Beat

POSTED BY slaperre ON Jun 29, 2009

Erin Andrews Hosts NCAA Football 10’s “Road to Glory”

June 29, 2009 - Television sports reporter Erin Andrews will be featured as the host of Road to Glory, a new mode in NCAA Football 10 for Xbox 360 and PS3.  Road to Glory is a broadcast-style video presentation in which Andrews and Kirk Herbstreit chronicle your career as a college student athlete.

The new Road to Glory mode allows you to choose a position, embark on a college career and then reflect on your greatest moments through video presentations presented by Andrews.  For the first time ever, your actual in-game highlights will be featured in these broadcast-style presentations.  Plus, an all-new, completely redesigned 3-D dorm room prominently displays triumphant moments through photos, trophies, NCAA Football news and more.  New online leaderboards allow you to compare your legend versus every other legend across the nation.  The comparison of each position can be sorted by everyone who is playing that particular position with the same team, the same conference or can be compared across all NCAA teams.

In addition to hosting Road to Glory, Andrews is also featured as a sideline reporter in NCAA Football 10.  Andrews is the newest addition to the NCAA Football 10 broadcast team, joining Kirk Herbstreit, Brad Nessler and Lee Corso in a game that envelopes the excitement and pageantry of college football at its best.  Including Andrews as part of the NCAA Football 10 broadcast team complements the franchise commitment to offer the most authentic college football experience available on any gaming platform.  Andrews has served as a sideline reporter for ESPN's College Football Saturdays since 2004.

Developed in Orlando, Florida by EA Tiburon, NCAA Football 10 will be available in stores on July 14th for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system, the PlayStation2 and PLAYSTATION3 computer entertainment systems and the PSP (PlayStationPortable).  NCAA Football 10 has been rated "E" for everyone by the ESRB.

For more information, please visit the official NCAA Football 10 game site.

  • NCAA Football 10 NCAA Football 10

    Visit the official NCAA Football 10 website to learn more about the game.


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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody.

So I must admit I am sucker for Glee. I just watched the Christmas special and must say I was touched. Regardless of what people think of the show, I think it spreads a good message (sometimes). But to step back for a second, I think it's great the way the show started. It probably made hundreds of peoples' dream come true-- from the writers, directors, to the very actors and singers we see on TV. It's a great thing to see something go from a thought, a show about glee club, into a full blown reality, that involves shows, movies, DVD's, CD's, karaoke even!

I wanted to touch a little more on the Christmas special. The end they show that it's about giving and sharing love, time, and money-- not just to those who WE love but to those who need it too. I hope everyone can remember that there are people less fortunate than us and that by giving just a little, we could easily make another person's dream come true.

This post sort of serves as a call to the community, that we are doing this not for money or pride, but that we want to invest in something that's greater than each us individually. I want to thank the team that has come together to help me so far because I think we can do something great together. I want to thank Shelby, Nigel, Rachel, Evan, and Julie for their support and help in bringing this to where it is and I know it can only grow from here.

I hope we can really spread the word that there are people out there that want to help make dreams come true. Not just our own, but for those who need the extra care and love. Because of this, one of the first places we are reaching out too is the Make a Wish Foundation, along with other charities and church organizations. We hope that we can use them as a beacon for hope and to have these people they reach share their dreams also.

Together, we can all make dreams come true.

Christmas Tree from Athaneum at Cal Tech.

Overcome the Fear of Doing Something Different

    Hey there fellow dreamers!

    Here's an interesting as well as funny comic I found online today that simplifies the idea of why doing something new can be really hard sometimes. Everyone has the potential to do great things, but sometimes the anxiety of doing something new and unknown prevents us from ever trying.
    As young children, we are all granted the gift of infinite imagination. We think we can do anything. "Mommy! I want to be an astronaut when I grow up!" "Daddy, I wanna be a famous singer like we saw on tv!" Unfortunately there will always be people who try to discourage us by saying that not everyone can be like that. You just can't let people bring you down. If you truly want to do something, that determination alone should be enough to get you through to where you want to be. It will obviously take focus and effort, but if you are doing it from the the motivation that comes from within yourself, its actually not so hard at all.

    Now here's an interesting way to get past discouragement; confront it the way you would if you were playing a game. If you think about it, all games have obstacles that will try and stop you, whether it be a villain, a tetris piece that doesn't quite fit, objectives that need to be met to advance to the next level. In fact, a game would not be a game at all if it were not for those things! What do we do in games? We think of ways around those obstacles, because we know there's always a solution. When you think back after beating a game, its almost as though finding ways around the obstacles was more fun than reaching the end of the game itself! That's how it always is. Life's just a bigger game, and that rewarding feeling by getting past your opponents or the things that try to stop you is just the same.

    So if you're sitting there today with a great idea in mind, I hope maybe this will inspire you to get past those mental blocks and help you to confront your fears. If you really believe in it, do it with all your heart, you'll find nothing is so hard after all. :)

My dream

Hello dreamers,
I'm Shelby one of the first to ever submit my dreams (see here) way back in 2008 and now I'm on board with Brian in hopes of making this community a success. Which leads me to this dream I want to share with you because I think joining this project is going to make this dream of mine come true

I'm really excited to embark on this journey with Brian and the others!
We're working to update the site and GET THE WORD OUT!!!
So help us spread the word! and submit your dreams to our email!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Hoping to be on kickstarter

Hopefully there will be new life to this blog. I am trying to start a project on kickstarter to get this book off the ground again! See you soon..

Sunday, May 18, 2008


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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The first volumes of two books from Viz's Shojo Beat line

Kamisama Kiss Vol. 1 by Julietta Suzuki: I was initially tempted to view this as something akin to a shojo version of Rumiko Takashi’s super-successful shonen series Inu-Yasha, as both star young, dark-haired high school girls who meet and then embark on love/hate relationship with hunky supernatural boys with canine ears, constantly crossing paths with folkloric spirits during their adventures.

That’s a pretty gross oversimplification of both series, however, and they diverge pretty quickly and pretty drastically, despite some pretty obvious superficial similarities. Kamisama Kiss stars set-upon Nanami, nicknamed “Broke-Nami” by her classmates because she lives on the edge of poverty, thanks to her gambling-addicted father. When he ups and leaves her the day before they were set to be evicted from her apartment, she finds her self suddenly homeless in a park.

There she chances upon a mysterious young man who offers her a place to stay. When she arrives at the appointed place, however, she finds a run-down temple, occupied by only two near-identical little spirits in masks and a handsome if cold fox-spirit (That's him on the cover with the ears). She can live at the temple, but she has to work to earn her room and board, and that work involves becoming the local god of the temple, with all that entails, particularly healing and answering prayers.

As this is a relationship shrine, where people go to pray for help in their relationships, manga-ka Suzuki gets the opportunity to get pretty girly in the contents, with Nanami acting as a supernaturally-sponsored matchmaker, and even giving a local catsfish spirit a makeover in order to help her go on a date with a human boy.

It’s quite steeped in Japanese folklore, with the majority of the characters encountered being yokai of some sorts, and it’s got a couple of grabby hooks, including he contentious relationship between Nanami and fox spirit Tomoe, and Nanami'sstruggles to become a successful god, even if she is only a human girl.

It took me a while to warm to it, but by the conclusion, as Nanami embarked on her first attempt at matchmaking, I was excited to see what happens next.

Library Wars: Love and War Vol. 1 by Kiiro Yumi: This is actually a manga adaptation of a series of prose “light novels” from Japan by Hiro Arikawa (with light novel being the equivalent of a Young Adult novel stateside). I was attracted to this by the title, given the fact that I’ve worked in libraries off and on in order to buy enough food to stay alive while trying to be a freelance writer and incredibly infrequent comics creator, but the premise is pretty neat: At some point in near-future Japan, the federal governent has set up some sort of Media Betterment Committee, which purges books they find objectionable from society, confiscating them and keeping them out of the hands of readers. The local governments support armed forces to oppose the MBC, a sort of military force dedicated to defending books, bookstores and libraries...with force, if necessary.

Our heroine Iku Kasahara is training with the Library Defense Force, and is eventually selected as part of a special task force that combines the skills and duties of being a librarian with those being a member of the combat forces. I didn’t quite understand the exact parameters of the political conflict, as it seems like an extremely specific sort of almost-civil war in which the populace in general sits it out...or they don’t really have any stakes or passions and thus don’t take any sides. (I don’t know that this is necessarily a weakness of the manga, though; this is could have simply have been a symptom of the manga being specifically geared to those who have already read the books, as a sort of supplement).

Like Kamisama Kiss, Library Wars has two major conflicts of the same nature: Kasahara has an aspirational conflict of being an excellent member of the library task force, as well as a romantic one, with her immediate superior and mentor Dojo, with whom she seesaws between constantly bickering and seeing something special within.

In her case, the two conflicts may be related, as she became interested in joining the library forces after a chance, childhood encounter with a heroic man who saved her and a book from sinister government confiscators, and became her “prince" in her eyes. Naturally she can’t remember his name, or even face, so there’s a good chance it’s actually Dojo, who, now that she's an adult and now that she knows him for something other than a single heroic act, doesn’t live up to the ideal she formed around that mystery man long ago (That's my guess anyway, based on years of reading manga. Maybe Dojo and "the prince" are two entirely different people).

My own personal background makes the fantasy aspect of the book—librarians who go through army movie-style basic training—and I think there's something here that should (or at least could) appeal to most bibliophiles, but I didn't see a whole lot in the work to make me too curious about seeing what happens in volume 2. It's decent work to be sure, but there's nothing to it that really differentiates it from the deluge of available translated manga, so I'd be more likely to pick up something with a sharper hook, more unique characters and situations or more stylized and individualistic art the next time I reach for something from the manga shelf at my local library. Where no one wears a uniform or carries a gun. But that would be kinda cool if they did.

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He had met her at the park overlooking the river, and she had a bottle with her, he didn’t ask why, and while they passed the bottle back and forth the conversation fell to stories with surprise endings, scary, not-quite-believable urban myths from their childhoods. She told the one about the prank where a glove was filled with water and tied to the string that turned on the light in an unpopular girl's dorm room, and how when the unpopular girl reached to turn on the light she felt the hand and she went insane and her hair turned completely white. They laughed at how the wording of the last line was always exactly the same: her hair turned completely white.  He told the story about a boy and a girl on a date, and how he ran out of gas and went to get some more, and told her not to leave the car, and how she heard a strange scraping sound from the roof of the car while the boy was gone. He never got to the ending of the story because she kissed him, a playful kiss that quickly turned into something more serious.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” she said, her fingers curling around his neck like jungle vines.

And he didn’t know or much care what the surprise would be, sex toys or good drugs or an open-minded roommate, he just tumbled into the taxi with her and finished off the bottle as they tangled and moaned in the back seat. The cab left them off at her brownstone and she opened the door and he saw all the glowing eyes studying him from the darkness.

“Cats,” she said. “I have fourteen.”

“Your surprise is that you have fourteen cats?” he asked.

“I didn’t say it was a good surprise,” she said, laughing, and he started to ask her where they had all come from, but the question was forgotten as they fell on the bed and the cats were mostly forgotten as well, except for the occasional whiff of urine, the hungry meow from the across the room in counterpoint to their drunken fumbling. She arched her back, scratched his neck, purred in his ear til the moon went down. Like making love in a fever dream. Only after the glow had faded did reality intrude and he begin to feel uncomfortable, all the eyes watching him, the flicking of tails against his skin, and the smell, oh Jesus, the smell, it seemed to have gotten much worse during the night. He considered getting dressed and sneaking out, but the bed was so comfortable, and she was so warm, next to him.

He fell asleep finally, dreaming of tall grass and struggling, wounded birds.
When he awoke he felt more comfortable with his surroundings. He reached out to her, and her eyelids fluttered as she gave him a sleepy kiss before rolling out of bed and into the kitchen. He stretched languidly, scratching absently behind his collar, then followed her in, padding expectantly toward her as she turned to offer him a saucer of milk.

“Good kitty,” she said, reaching down to pet him.

Jeff Wood  Jeff Wood's website is a writer living in Pueblo, Colorado with his wife, two daughters, and many cats. He’s had 20 short stories published in print anthologies and online publications such as Camas: The Nature of the West, Fiction at Work, Six Sentences, The Greyrock Review, Ark, Boston Phoenix, New York Press, Java Journal, and Clifton. He also has a children’s play included in the anthology CHILDSPLAY.

Other works by Jeff Wood


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Everyone knows about their Holocaust and their failures in Russia and that Hitler was an idiot, but no one notices that:

- Their propaganda continually spouted stuff about self-determinism and "willpower toward the future," which the people ate up.

- At the same time, those people were locked into a totalitarian society in which there was very little opportunity for true self-determinism, and and the people had sacrificed their free will to the will of their government.

It took centuries and a brain-stopping chain of falsehoods to bring a whole people to the state of Hitler-worship. Modern German culture, including its Nazi climax, is the result of a complex development in the history of philosophy, involving dozens of figures stretching back to the beginnings of Western thought. The same figures helped to shape every Western nation; but in other countries, to varying extents, the results were mixed, because there was also an opposite influence or antidote at work. In Germany, by the turn of our century, the cultural atmosphere was unmixed; the traces of the antidote had long since disappeared, and the intellectual establishment was monolithic.

If we view the West's philosophical development in terms of essentials, three fateful turning points stand out, three major philosophers who, above all others, are responsible for generating the disease of collectivism and transmitting it to the dictators of our century.

The three are: Plato-Kant-Hegel. (The antidote to them is: Aristotle.)

No weird cultural aberration produced Nazism. No intellectual lunatic fringe miraculously overwhelmed a civilized country. It is modern philosophy--not some peripheral aspect of it, but the most central of its mainstreams--which turned the Germans into a nation of killers.

The land of poets and philosophers was brought down by its poets and philosophers.

Twice in our century Germans fought to rule and impose its culture on the rest of the world. It lost both wars. But on a deeper level it is achieving its goal nevertheless. It is on the verge of winning the philosophical war against the West, with everything this implies.

Leonard Peikoff

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"Artcore" is a term that was coined by The Weekly Standard's David Skinner. In his mind artcore is:
An 'Artcore' movie may be hard to define, but you'll know one when you see it at the local art house. Unbearably ponderous, these movies can mope along on almost nothing. For action, they show long-faced characters silently brushing their teeth. For repartee, they have chain-smoking lovers volleying the most banal of truisms. For a climax, they have, well, climaxes, which are often and numerous, with characters shagging like convicts on furlough.

It's porn for poseurs, and a hallmark of this new genre is French director Catherine Breillat's seedy 1998 "Romance."

I guess by this definition, artcore could be described as a foreign, independent film, with graphic sexual content. The difference mainly between artcore and American independent film being Europe's open sexuality.

Although, I think the term could probably be better defined as an independent (or arty) movie were sex overwhelms the movie and puts any kind of narrative in the background. Sort of the middle ground between mainstream cinema and porn.

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Madonna endorses Wesley Clark for president

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Madonna: Carlo Allegri/Getty Images/NewsCom

”I know that people seem to pay attention to everything I do,” wrote noted children’s book author Madonna, in a posting Wednesday on her website. ”So I am hoping they pay attention to this: I am supporting General Wesley Clark for President.”

”I’ve looked at all the Democratic candidates,” she wrote. ”I respect them all for their dedication and patriotism. But I’m supporting Wes Clark because in him I see the qualifications, character and vision we so desperately need.” Of those qualifications, she wrote: ”He is a decorated soldier and a respected diplomatic leader, who has already given 34 years to his country. He is smart and he is good. He has worked hard to get where he is and he is a national hero. A perfect example of the American Dream.”

Madonna wrote that she had never endorsed a presidential candidate at this stage of the game before. Of course, her opposition to President Bush has been apparent since she shelved her ”American Life” video last winter, an antiwar clip in which a Bush lookalike had a cigarette lighter shaped like a hand grenade tossed at him.

According to MTV News, Madonna was introduced to Clark two months ago by ”Bowling for Columbine” filmmaker Michael Moore. The candidate dined at the singer’s Los Angeles home, and she pledged to host a fundraiser for him there later this year. It’s not clear whether the endorsement of a performer who lives in England full-time and sold barely 600,000 copies of her last album will carry any weight, but the Clark campaign was pleased to have her support. Said campaign spokesman Bill Buck on Thursday: ”We’re happy to have such a big-name superstar supporting our four-star.”


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Rebecca De Mornay joins 'Hatfields & McCoys' pilot

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NBC’s Hatfields & McCoys pilot just cast the other matriarch.

Rebecca De Mornay (John from Cincinnati) will play Mary Hatfield in the contemporary spin on the feud between the wealthy Hatfields and the working-class McCoys. Nick Westrate (Mildred Pierce) also was cast to play her husband Randall. Other castmembers include Virginia Madsen (Eloise McCoy), Jesse Lee Soffer (Patrick McCoy) and Patrick John Flueger (Jack McCoy).

The pilot is from writer John Glenn and executive producers Charlize Theron, Dawn Olmstead and Beau Flynn. Here is the official logline for NBC’s version of Hatfields & McCoys: “Set in present day Pittsburgh, a startling death re-ignites the feud between these two legendary families. Unleashing decades of resentment, the blue collar McCoys will put the Hatfields’ wealth and power at risk as they go to war for control of the city.”

NBC’s decision to update the story follows on the heels of History’s enormous success with the period miniseries of the same name, which was seen by 14 million viewers last May.


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'We lost a legend': Abrams, del Toro, Rodriguez remember Harryhausen

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As news spread Tuesday that Ray Harryhausen had died at age 92 there was an especially emotional reaction from sci-fi, horror and fantasy filmmakers — a community with a deep and formative affection for the old-school effects wizard and the work he did on films such as The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Clash of the Titans (1981). EW reached out to some signature names in those circles on Tuesday to frame the legacy of Harryhausen and by phone and email they responded with praise for a departed master.

J.J. Abrams, director, producer and screenwriter (Star Trek Into Darkness, Lost): “He was, obviously, a genius, infinitely ahead of his time. He inspired us all with his skill and imagination, and will be missed.”

Guillermo del Toro, director, producer, screenwriter and author (Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim): “I lost a member of my family today. A man who was as present in my childhood as any of my relatives. No one will ever compare to Ray Harryhausen. He was a true pioneer, a man who took the mantle of stop-motion and elevated it to an art form. Like all great monster makers, he worked almost single-handed. He was designer, technician, sculptor, painter and cinematographer all at once. To my generation, and to every generation of monster lovers to come, he will stand above all. Forever. His monsters made millions of lonely children smile and hope for a better world- a world populated by Cyclops and griffons and the children of the Hydra. His knowledge, faith and dedication shaped generation after generation of filmmakers. I feel privileged to have met him and to be able to thank him personally for the incalculable amount of love and joy he brought into the world.”

Johnny Depp, actor, producer and musician (Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Ed Wood): “There isn’t anything I can say about Ray Harryhausen that hasn’t been said throughout his brilliant life, suffice to salute that Ray was a band-apart, and will be forever loved for his unique genius, and rightly so. It was an honor to have spent time with him. My thoughts are with his loved ones.”

Robert Rodriguez, director, producer and sreenwriter (Sin City, Spy Kids): “Ray is the reason I became a filmmaker. He inspired me with his hands on, do it yourself filmmaking. Filled with imagination and painstaking craftsmanship. A treasure.”

Damon Lindelof, screenwriter and producer (Prometheus, Lost): “The word ‘legend’ gets thrown around a bit too much in our industry. That said, today we lost a legend. A pioneer. A genius. And an inspiration.”

Terry Gilliam, director, animator and screenwriter (Brazil, Twelve Monkeys): Ray Harryhausen was the ultimate craftsman, a magician whose hands gave life to inanimate stuff, a god to some, and the sweetest man I ever met.

Dennis Murren, creative director, Industrial Light & Magic (eight-time Oscar winner): “I first visited with him when I was like 13 years old. He was one of the first people whose names people can identify with stop-motion animation and with puppets and it’s because they are real. You can look at them and you may not know how they are moving but you know that you could touch them. It’s the light, it’s the textures…One of the first times I understood that films were made by people was when I learned his name. He was a maker of magic, to me, and a maker of fanciful creatures and fantastic adventures in exotic, faraway exotic places. He was the only person doing that in L.A., in Hollywood, for years. Nobody could understand that there was market for those films, they didn’t know how to make them and [it wasn’t their focus] it was about the love interest or the humor — the jokes Phil Silvers was trying to make — but Ray took it very seriously and as an audience member you took it seriously also. The stories treated everyone with respect and they transported you to these places. You were seeing a giant 30-foot Cyclops and it may have moved kind of funny but it was the scariest-looking thing you had ever seen. It felt real because it was an object, you weren’t seeing something that looked like it was stuck on the film. It didn’t look fake in the way CG that is hurried can look. CG that’s hurried can look 2-D and cold but any sort of puppet thing you can sense its existence.”

Edgar Wright, director, producer and writer (Scott Pilgrim, Shaun of the Dead):”I have loved every single frame of Ray Harryhausen’s work. He quite simply was the man who made me believe in monsters. His stop frame creations are some of the most influential images in all of cinema and the painstaking process involved still wows today. Ironically, he inspired the technicians that would supersede his gargantuan efforts, but we still look in awe at Ray’s legacy while whole armies of purely CGI monsters just fade in the memory. He won’t be forgotten.”

Read more:

Ray Harryhausen, special effects pioneer, dies at 92

Ray Harryhausen lets loose on King Kong

Ray Harryhausen: 10 classic beasties

Lair of the Kraken discovered in…Nevada?


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Watch Michael Jackson's 'Immortal' Cirque du Soleil tour documentary

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In 2011, Michael Jackson was the top touring act in America. Were it a previous decade, this wouldn’t be a shock—but, as we all know, Jackson died two years before that.

So how did this seemingly miraculous feat happen? Cirque du Soleil collaborated with the Jackson estate and director Jamie King (not that Jaime King; this one has directed tours for Rihanna) to produce The Immortal World Tour, a Las Vegas show that Jay Z, Beyonce, and Cee-Lo Green attended. Like Cirque du Soleil did with their show The Beatles: LOVE, this Jackson-themed spectacular sees acrobats and dancers performing their interpretations of his best songs.

The entire Cirque du Soleil show, from inception to performance, was captured in a new documentary, Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour. To watch the full documentary, head over to Vimeo.