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Women Firefighters: The Gender Boondoggle

The fresh-looking rookie firefighters, decked out in black hats, pants and shirts, pose by a hook-and-ladder truck, smiling broadly at a crowd of graduation-day guests. Firefighters pass out Cokes and nachos, and young girls rush giggling past the drill tower — a six-story concrete replica of an apartment building — to check out the sweatshirts for sale by the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Orly Olivier

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Orly Olivier

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Hose envy: Hoisting heavy equipment gets the best of some trainees.

Orly Olivier

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Wall of men: Three women hoped to graduate this day; all washed out.

With the national anthem booming, the celebration at Drill Academy 40 on Terminal Island takes on a circus quality. The huge fire-station door yawns open, revealing the rookies — now orderly and marching forth — trailed by theatrical "smoke." Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is a no-show, and so is Fire Chief Douglas Barry — off at a conference in Salt Lake City — so the grads are welcomed by Battalion Chief Emile Mack, who tells them the Los Angeles firefighter is an "American icon."

It is impossible not to notice that every one of the 42 rookies graduating on December 7 is male.

Three women were supposed to graduate. One was a 48-year-old grandmother — an emergency medical technician and former airport baggage handler who failed key physical tests just weeks into the fire-academy training. Another, a young former soccer player for Notre Dame, nearly made it through, but failed on drills to raise heavy wooden ladders against a building — as firefighters must do during a fire. The third was a tough former Air Force intelligence officer, terminated from the academy because she couldn't maintain the grueling pace.

Also read Christine Pelisek'sLawsuit Sweepstakes at LAFD.

What remains is a wall of men that typifies City Hall's two-decade effort, launched by long-departed city Fire Commissioner Ann Reiss Lane, and council members like Jackie Goldberg, who espoused the popular but untested view that fire departments should be 20 percent female. Women, it was widely held, were discriminatorily kept off the fire lines.

That sounded right. Women had been kept out of police work and were finally, in the 1990s, flooding into jobs as cops. Wasn't firefighting the same problem, with the same solution?

To prove its point, Los Angeles City Hall — just like Seattle, Miami, San Francisco, San Diego and other major cities, together with state governments — spent millions to recruit, train and house women. Los Angeles outfitted most of its 106 fire stations with costly women's lockers and women's showers, while politicians as well as fire chiefs Donald Manning and William Bamattre engaged in years of lip service, conjuring up an image of a new, professional class of woman firefighters.

Women came to figure prominently in the praise party on the LAFD's Web site, www.LAFD.org, where the Hero of the Month, for six months running — in a department of mostly men — has been Tamara Chick, a woman so key to the department's goals that she is now in charge of female recruitment.

There's just one problem, and it's a problem no fire chief, mayor or recruiter wants to admit. In a department of 3,940 people, the second largest municipal firefighting force in the U.S., the Weekly has learned that the women who work on the fire line could squeeze inside a Hummer limo.

Just 27 women are actually fighting Los Angeles fires.

The number is staggering in its shock value. In the 2006-2007 fiscal year, the department lured just four women — three of whom didn't make it. In this fiscal year, the Fire Department has managed to recruit eight women, two of whom have already washed out. Few of the eight will end up wearing the yellow helmet and jacket of a firefighter.

One of those who didn't make it was Angela Vesey, 33, a mother of two. As an Air Force intelligence officer, she worked with teams of all-male pilots in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — and is not accustomed to failing around men. "I have no doubt in my mind," she says. "I am going to be a firefighter."

But not anytime soon. She was terminated by her trainers halfway through the 17-week academy and looks upon the LAFD's requirements as "much more difficult" than her military training.

Another casualty was "Mary" — an extremely fit runner who washed out long before her graduation day. Like many fire trainees, she suffered an injury that healed slowly and decided not to repeat the arduous training.

Mary agreed to talk to L.A. Weekly after much soul-searching, because she still hopes to land some kind of city job — and this highly competitive woman is still too embarrassed about what happened to her to go public.

What these two women saw — and experienced — is not what you might think.

Nobody tried to make either of them fail. No "old boys" got in their way. Mary was admired by her male boss and encouraged at each step to be a firefighter. "I was just too slow," she says. Firefighting equipment, like the one-man ladders, started "getting heavier," and she began to realize she wasn't strong enough to repeatedly lift it — a necessary skill. Eight weeks into the training — which causes plenty of men to wash out — Mary was stunned to realize that her body had begun "breaking down."

Vesey's story is much the same. She was contacted by the department after applying online and joined the training academy in August. She was unprepared for how tough it was. "I would fail on the hose-lay and only have a couple of hours on the ladder," she recalls. "Then I would fail the ladder."

But of the captains who trained her along with 45 men, Vesey says, "I respected them. I wanted to be on their crew. The people at the tower were phenomenal. They really wanted you to learn."

It's not easy for anyone. According to a fire-department official who refused to be named, 35 percent of the men since the summer of 2006 have failed to finish their training. During the same time period, however, all of the women have failed to do so. Along with many men, two women are retrying.

Today, Los Angeles boasts a dozen newly built locker rooms for women citywide. Most days, they sit eerily empty, and men sometimes use the space to study. The abandoned lockers are a testament to a social-engineering experiment gone bad, a failed dream unfolding from New York to San Francisco to Oakland — to Los Angeles.

Orly Olivier

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Of two minds: D'Lisa Davies is both a top department spokeswoman and one of the women the Weekly has learned is making a claim against the department.

Orly Olivier

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The abandoned women’s lockers citywide are a testament to a social-engineering experiment gone bad.

No firefighting women died during the attacks on the World Trade Center, because New York City has just 31 women out of 11,600 firefighters. Women represent only 2.5 percent of the nearly 300,000 professional firefighters nationwide. At the Los Angeles County Fire Department, a sprawling agency that protects many small cities not covered by the LAFD, women make up less than 1 percent. In Long Beach, 2.8 percent. By those paltry standards, the LAFD is slightly ahead.

Yet politicians in L.A. appear clueless about what is actually unfolding at fire academies and fire stations, repeating the 1990s view that women are being kept off the fire lines by bias and prejudice.

"We need more women because they add a depth and diversity," says City Councilman Richard Alarcon. "This old-boy network needs to get onboard with today's reality and stop sticking its head in the sand. I am hopeful the [new] chief will accomplish this."

In truth, there's little evidence that Alarcon is right — and former chief William Bamattre tells the Weekly that the effort inside City Hall to continue portraying the force or its brass as impeding women "is wrong." "The reality is these are brutal jobs and most women don't want it," says a captain who refused to be named because he fears a political backlash. "It is not the romantic career portrayed 20 years ago."

The captain dismisses with scorn the social engineers who dominated City Hall when it embarked on this pursuit, saying, "[Jackie] Goldberg was the beginning of our nightmare. We have been plagued by people who think like her. ...With their mission to bring women into the fire service, they have thrown every rule out for hiring and recruitment."

Since the summer of 2006, the LAFD has hired some 200 new members a year to replace retiring firefighters, signing up just 12 women along with 402 men. Those 12 began as a crowd of several hundred women who showed up at recruiting events, signed up online or attended pancake breakfasts hosted by firefighters.

But those hundreds vanished after the first physical hurdle — the Candidate Physical Ability Test, which involves wearing 75 pounds of protective clothing and gear while climbing and running. Just 12 hardy women attempted to make it through the months of training, but few survived. Five are struggling to endure rigorous, 17-week academies now in progress. Two are on city-paid injury leave. Five resigned or were terminated. None has become a full-fledged department employee — and if history is any guide, few of them will ever fight fires.

Mary was among them. She seemed a natural. She needed just eight minutes in 2006 to breeze through the Candidate Physical Ability Test — a test that stops most men right at the start. Yet Mary was shocked when real training began. "The first five minutes of work, we did 75 pushups, climbed up an aerial ladder, jumped off a sixth-floor roof, and then did more pushups." Alongside men also struggling, she pressed on. One guy was too fat, and failed. She was in top condition, yet "getting to the point I was endangering myself." She ended up near the bottom of her class, ahead of seven or eight men.

She can lift 80 pounds above her head. But she didn't realize she couldn't lift "80 pounds over and over again." The way she sees it, she simply was not big enough or muscular enough. The other two women in Mary's class also washed out. One couldn't pass the ladder-hauling tests. The third left because of an illness in her family.

Firefighters pull heavy lengths of hose, climb stairs while wielding giant power tools like chain saws, and lift 180-pound, 35-foot wooden ladders — akin to carrying a concrete lamppost. Firefighters' physicians say that a human expected to pull the heaviest hose lines must weigh at least 143 pounds. And that's just for starters. "Less than 10 percent body fat was not enough," says Mary, who purposely gained 15 pounds of muscle to achieve the bulk she needed.

She's had it with firefighting, but Vesey has not. The former Air Force officer plans to rejoin the training academy — and that will cost her, and taxpayers, a lot. "I know now if I go to the tower [department jargon for the 17-week training], I should be prepared" for the unfamiliar equipment that stymied her the first time. She's strengthening her hand grip, which failed her several times, and is readying for the Los Angeles Marathon.

Recruiting has become a pricey endeavor, with taxpayers ponying up $82,692 to send a single recruit through the drill-tower academy — and spending another $82,692 each time a failed recruit is encouraged to try again.

"We have spent a lot of money on them," says Bruce Whidden, a public-information officer with the city's personnel department. "We don't want to throw them away. Our process for hiring is very expensive to the taxpayer. [The trainee has] been poked and prodded. We have spent a lot of hours on [them] — and money."

Pile onto those costs the pay for injured trainees who reap firefighter injury pay even if they have not made it to a real job. In a vast department with just 99 women — and that's counting a lot of desk jobs — there are many injuries. Currently, 16 women are on disability with work-related injuries.

Female firefighters are also lining up in record numbers to file lawsuits and claims, and getting big settlements and jury awards. Less than 3 percent of city firefighters, fire paramedics, fire administrators and fire investigators are women. Yet according to an audit by the city's personnel department in 2006, that tiny group accounted for 56 percent of the often multimillion-dollar lawsuits against the LAFD between 1996 and 2005.

Taxpayers stand to pay up to $10 million in recently decided and pending lawsuits and claims, including the $6.2 million awarded to black lesbian firefighter Brenda Lee, who said she was harassed and retaliated against. Lee's captain, Lewis Bressler, won $1.73 million after he claimed he was retaliated against for sticking up for her. In 2006, a female firefighter won a $320,000 settlement after she claimed that a captain grabbed her groin area. Another got $100,000 after she was injured trying to hoist the so-called "killer ladder." One of the most common threads in these claims is that the alleged maltreatment involves back-and-forth finger-pointing between women and men. And now, two more suits are on the horizon. (See "He Said, She Said.")

The feds — in a secretive investigation that some critics suggest has problems of its own — recently concluded that the Fire Department mistreated women and African-Americans. Captain Alicia Mathis — along with two other women — is pursuing a federal complaint, pushed by the Fire Department's new courtroom nemesis, attorney Genie Harrison, who represented Lee, Bressler, and Tennie Pierce, a firefighter infamous for being fed dog food during a prank.

Los Angeles Councilman Dennis Zine sees the suits as indicators of a poisoned department. "When people want to file a claim, they find some cause or issue and they fabricate," he says. "It is all about character [and] the attorneys who try to get settlements to fit their client."

Efforts to lure women started with great hope when the first L.A. woman firefighter was sworn in, in 1983. By the early '90s, women made up 5.4 percent of the department — although many were employed as paramedics, not firefighters actually working the fire line.

Then came a notorious video dubbed the "Female Follies" by the media. In it, a handful of women, including a perfume saleswoman from Macy's and an 18-year-old babysitter, were seen awkwardly struggling to climb over a 5-foot wall. The video was reportedly leaked to the media by a furious female captain and resulted in intense criticism of the male instructors who made it.

But almost nobody — including the media — asked whether the women could actually perform the drills. The Weekly has learned that the 25 women who were in training at the time of the "Female Follies" were given special pay for months by the city — unlike the men in that same class — to undergo extra preparation before facing the academy.

The extra training failed miserably — and the video, it turns out, did not exaggerate the women's problems. "The women were brought onboard and paid 65 percent of a firefighter's salary and paid to work out," says Captain Kevin Kearns, who taught at the academy. Yet in the end, "it was a complete failure."

The political flap over the imagery of flailing women — although it was an accurate representation — led to the forced retirement in 1995 of Fire Chief Manning. City Councilwoman Goldberg rode the controversy to full effect, claiming that the department was a "paramilitary" organization full of sexist white men. But there was virtually no discussion of whether women could handle, or even wanted, the work. In 1996, Bamattre was hired as chief by Mayor Richard Riordan, to try again. Bamattre hired far more minorities, but built the count of women to only about 83 — a number that included many paramedics who did not fight fires.

"The feminist movement made a heyday out of it," says Riordan about the post–"Female Follies" years. "That [videotape] is the type of thing that people love to find about their enemies, because it made the fire department look stupid."

Goldberg called for a force that was 15-20 percent female — a level that existed in no major cities — and was quick to blame "deputy chiefs" for keeping women out.

"That was the only time we had made progress," says Goldberg. "Somebody with power has to stay on top of it. If they don't, it will always revert back." She charges that Bamattre "did a little at the beginning, but at the end he didn't want to fight the deputy chiefs around him."

In fact, some firefighters say Bamattre quietly rolled back strict physical requirements, just like Manning, implementing a secret "no fail" policy to pass women who plainly could not heft chain saws up ladders or run with heavy hoses, or who had other physical deficiencies. In the almost entirely male yet multiracial force, firefighters were furious that academy rejects were getting through, and many questioned whether Bamattre was jeopardizing firefighters and the public.

Bamattre says that charge is just plain untrue, telling the Weekly: "The physical standards have never been lowered to bring in women." He says the standards in fact were and are being raised, and that creating a double standard "is not something I ever would have stood for." (LAFD Battalion Chief Richard Rideout refused to discuss whether there was a no-fail policy for women, adding cryptically, "It doesn't happen anymore. Everything was revamped" when Chief Barry took over.)

But for years, nobody questioned the underlying assumptions pushed by the City Council and the city Fire Commission: that women wanted to be firefighters, that women were kept out, and that women had special skills needed on fire lines, just as female cops brought special skills to their jobs. If Bamattre was jettisoning standards and practicing the equivalent of grade inflation in order to slip women into fire stations, the thinking was that the ends justified the means.

"It is a political-correctness issue, more than one [that asks] whether it makes good sense or not," says Riordan, chatting by phone during a ski trip to Whistler Mountain in British Columbia. "But that is a fact of life."

Then, in 2005, City Controller Laura Chick alleged in an audit that Bamattre was engaged in a rollback of physical requirements. In the audit, motivated in part by the Pierce dog-food debacle and a hazing incident in 2003 known as Ratgate, Chick found that Bamattre had overruled the drillmaster's recommendations in nine of 30 cases of female recruits who failed one or more tests. Only two of the nine women in Chick's audit, despite tremendous investment by the LAFD and by the women themselves, got through their probationary year.

But Bamattre, a calm and almost laid-back guy, lashes out at Chick and her controversial audit findings, saying he in fact toughened the standards for everyone — and that Chick, as former chairwoman of the Los Angeles City Council's Public Safety Committee, was more than aware of this fact but used her audit to publicly attack him anyway. Recalls Bamattre: "I went to Laura and said, 'This is a terrible audit, objectively and statistically.'"

Bamattre did, however, order that an extra pulley be added to the 35-foot ladders, to make it easier to extend a ladder against a building to gain access to roofs or upper floors. "It gives a huge mechanical advantage, so you are pulling less than half of what the ladder weighs," says Captain Frank Lima. But the pulley, widely perceived as a special assist for women, left the men bugged about all the excess rope that "people can trip over." Bamattre acknowledges the controversy but says he told critics inside the department, "Isn't it easier for men to pull the pulley [too]?"

Then last May, a former drillmaster at the Frank Hotchkins Memorial Training Center testified in Superior Court that he had been ordered by two high-ranking chiefs to pass women, and had stood up to their double standard. "I recommended termination on 95 percent of the women that could not throw that ladder," testified Captain Scott Campos, now at Fire Station 5. "And in all cases, it was overlooked — and they were sent to the field."

Bamattre's alleged lowering of standards "put people out in the field that weren't qualified," says Lima, who won a $3.75 million judgment after he claimed his superiors retaliated against him — for making life as tough for women firefighters as he did for the men.

Lima requested a Board of Rights hearing to clear his name after being charged with jeopardizing the safety of Melissa Kelley, who claimed she was refused help when she dropped a ladder on herself. After the Kelley dustup, then Deputy Chief Andrew Fox ordered an increase from two to three in the number of firefighters who carry the 35-foot wooden ladder at fires. When Lima struck back in a lawsuit of his own, the bitterness roiling the department turned against Kelley — herself a former instructor — who was now accused of being the bully.

"She called all of us 'fuckers' and 'pieces of shit'!" alleged one recruit, according to court papers. "I feel firefighter Kelley singled me out and degraded me in front of others," claimed another. Lima told the Weekly, "It is hard to go in a fire with someone when you know from drilling she can't lift the ladder... If you can't do it in a perfect environment in a drill tower or academy, there is no way you can do it in a life-threatening situation."

Lima and other firefighters are still livid, saying requiring three people to lift a ladder wastes manpower during fires — in order to help very few women. "It basically took a third member, handcuffed them, and delayed other vital operations on the ground, like forcible entry, shutting off utilities and shutting off gas," says Lima. "They are kind of little things, but they are big things. Why go out and drill with this 35 [-foot ladder]? It is a valuable tool, but no one wants the [internal] repercussions if someone can't do it."

One captain who didn't want to be identified tells the Weekly that most of the men ignore the order from Fox, who was later demoted in the brouhaha over Pierce and the dog-food prank. Two men, not three, are raising the ladders — but that modest act of defiance eats away at the once-famed authority of department brass, left to muddle through a political mess they can't seem to quell.

The human costs are embodied in Mary, who applied online after she heard from a family member, who is a firefighter, that the department was hiring women.

She thought she'd be a perfect candidate. The 34-year-old mother of three was physically fit, didn't want a 9-to-5 job — and considered herself a tomboy who always got along with men. After easily passing the Candidate Physical Ability Test, she trained full time, pumping weights and jogging, bulking up to 145 pounds on her 5-foot-5-inch frame.

She was hired within the year, and a month or so later she started the 17-week drill-tower academy along with two other, equally rare women who passed the Candidate Physical Ability Test.

That's when Mary hit the wall. Four times, she failed a life-preserving test that required her to put on her breathing gear in less than 60 seconds — crucial to both her safety and that of others during a smoke-filled fire. "I was surprised I wasn't doing well," she recalls. "This isn't rocket science."

Like so many women — as well as men — she eventually got hurt and took paid injury leave (officially, trainees are part of the department and are paid to complete the training). "The drillmaster said, 'I admire you, but I see your body breaking down,'" she recalls.

Vesey, whose experiences mirror Mary's, had chosen a career in the Fire Department because she wanted to help people "at their worst." Taking the written test, she was one of just two women among about 100 men — and was certain she would do fine.

"I was running in the morning and lifting weights at night," she says. Although she saw big, brawny men failing because they lacked endurance, "I thought with my brute strength I could get through it." Instead, Vesey quickly fell behind.

Persistent allegations from politicians like Alarcon and Goldberg that women recruits are being repressed, kept out and treated unfairly by a bunch of knuckle-draggers leave her cold. Vesey says, "I felt it was totally fair. The last thing I wanted was for someone to give me a freebie because I am a woman."

Similarly, Mary says, "Everyone was treated the same" at the training academy. "I thought they were extraordinarily fair. If I was watching me, I would have rolled my eyes. It was Private Benjamin-like antics. They never lost their professionalism... I was disappointed I couldn't do it."

Today, a small core of women thrive in the nearly all-male department, echoing the stories told by Mary and Vesey. Captain Linda Hughes, who joined in 1997, still remembers the "great camaraderie" she experienced training alongside male recruits. "I was the only girl in the class," she says. "It was probably the most physically challenging thing I had ever done."

Fire Department brass are so desperate to keep City Hall off their backs that they tend to place the few women they do have squarely in the public eye — for example, as a semipermanent Hero of the Month, a recruiter of other women or a key spokeswoman to the media. This has led the department again and again to publicly peddle individual women who are, at the same time, going after the department or its management in claims and lawsuits.

Tamara Chick, who now holds a key job as the lead recruiter of female firefighters, in 2005, as a newly promoted captain, alleged unprofessional conduct by her superior captain after he implied she could be transferred to an unpopular job and also made fun of her difficulty using a computer. Chick has been listed as Hero of the Month on the LAFD Web site for several months now. A firehouse rumor has persisted that she is the niece of City Controller Laura Chick, a vocal critic of the department. In fact, the two women are not related. Meanwhile, the department continues to tout Tamara Chick month after month as its top employee — while a sea of thousands of worthy firemen get no such honor.

Equally curious is the department's strained relationship with d'Lisa Davies, a black firefighter who, the Weekly has learned, filed a federal discrimination complaint against the LAFD and is seeking an undisclosed settlement sum from the city. Yet Davies is one of the most visible public personas of the department, chosen by department brass as a lead spokesperson and regularly quoted in the local and national media with regard to fires that break out in L.A.

Moreover, two of the six women the department touts on its Web site as shining examples of City Hall's push to bring in women have actually filed gender-discrimination grievances against the LAFD. Captain Alicia Mathis and firefighter Elena Mattox wax poetic about their dedication to the department — yet Mathis is a particularly harsh critic of her employer. In 2006, she stood outside City Hall and told reporters that she had complained to the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleging gender discrimination, a hostile work environment, harassment and retaliation.

Mathis' wide-ranging claims typify the "he said, she said" daytime-TV feel of many of these disputes. She says she was pulled off the female-recruitment project, and retaliated against, after she testified about maltreatment to the mayor's political appointees on the Fire Commission, and was kissed against her will by a firefighter — whom she will not name.

She now works at a station near LAX. Handling her claim is attorney Harrison, who also represented Pierce, Lee and Bressler.

Recently, Harrison told the L.A.Times that she planned instead to file a federal-employment-commission claim on behalf of Mathis.

Another of Harrison's female clients is Mattox, an 18-year veteran firefighter who holds — once again — a key job in recruitment and helps to train firefighter candidates. Mattox and department spokeswoman Davies filed discrimination claims with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which then accused the department of violating civil rights laws by subjecting African-American and female firefighters to a "pattern and practice" of discrimination, harassment and retaliation.

That's a major allegation, and one that carries the weight of the feds.

But when the Weekly contacted an accused captain and two of the eyewitnesses to Mattox's alleged discrimination, it learned that the eyewitnesses and the captain were not contacted by EEOC investigators. As it turned out, the Los Angeles office of the EEOC, overseen by regional attorney Anna Park, had attacked the Fire Department without doing routine, investigative legwork.

Mattox claims that the captain ordered her to drill so hard that she had to get a hysterectomy. "The excessive drilling caused significant internal injuries for me," she alleged in her claim. According to her complaint, a captain at Fire Station 12, John Cappon, told a male rookie that he "got rid of another one today."

But one eyewitness, former firefighter Mark Wilhite, tells the Weekly that Cappon "overdrilled" the entire crew — not just Mattox — and that this was not unusual for Cappon. "It was an abuse of authority," says Wilhite. "[It was] excessive and it was downright inhumane" — but not as bad as Cappon's harsh drilling of the entire bunch a few days before, at which Mattox was not present.

Yet federal investigators did not interview Wilhite. They did, however, contact Captain Jerry Thomas — who tells the Weekly he wasn't even working that day and did not see what transpired. Thomas, now retired, is a vocal critic of the LAFD who stood up for Pierce when he sought $2.7 million from the city and claimed falsely that it was an all-white crew of firefighters that tricked him into eating dog food (the crew was multiracial, and a Latino pulled the prank).

The department tried to defuse the Mattox controversy by transferring Cappon. Furious, he sued, claiming he was punished as a result of trumped-up allegations by Mattox. An internal LAFD investigation failed to find that Cappon mistreated Mattox or singled her out as a woman.

Despite the grossly incomplete EEOC investigation, a lot is now at stake. If Villaraigosa and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo refuse to settle with Mattox and Fire Department spokeswoman d'Lisa Davies, the EEOC could refer the case to the Department of Justice, which could sue or force the Fire Department into yet another "consent decree" — federal oversight in which city hiring and other practices are run, at least in part, by the feds.

"They recruit them, and then they beat them up," claims attorney Thomas Hoegh, who is handling at least two lawsuits against the Fire Department. "They encourage the women to join the department, then look what happens to them. They are all getting hurt badly."

Most of the injuries, he says, "are occurring during training activities. One wonders what is going on here. There is a double standard. They are encouraging them to join, then they do everything in their power to try to get rid of them."

But firefighter Julie Wolf — one of the rare women working on the fire line at a fire station in Los Angeles — has a different theory about what is causing the endless cycle of female hirings, washouts, injuries and lawsuits.

"Some of the women can't do the basics because of strength," says Wolf, a tough-talking engineer at Station 63. "Captains document it, and all of a sudden it is a 'hostile working environment' against the captain... I have never seen a woman overdrilled, and it has never happened to me."

Wolf is growing tired of the recriminations — from women. "That is what we do. That is our job. All of a sudden it is humiliating and hostile for a member to perform their job? I don't understand that."

As a result, she says, "I think they are a bunch of crybabies. When I come to work, I am a firefighter first and a female second. I come to work and do my job."

To "dispel misconceptions" among women and demonstrate that anyone can become a firefighter — a stance that the department brass must by now realize is untrue — the Fire Department last March teamed up with the Cal State Northridge Department of Kinesiology to attract dozens of young women to apply for firefighter jobs.

It was a fine weekend day, and the Fire Department spent $50,000 attracting women. And they indeed showed up in force, hundreds of them, eager to hoist ladders, carry a 60-pound pack up a steep hill and drag a 160-pound human dummy across a parking lot.

Of those hundreds, the numbers quickly dwindled: 122 contacted the department later to ask questions or start the process of joining up. Of those 122, just two were enrolled in the drill-tower training academy that started last December.

It's not that City Hall doesn't try. In August, women recruiters went to the Women in the Fire Service convention in Oakland in an attempt to woo female firefighters from other cities. They came back empty-handed.

In 2006, the department identified 1,700 potential female candidates, but just 2 percent applied. Those few were rushed through the application and written exam in half the time men face — the men get stuck in a holding pattern of 22 to 29 months.

And now, a new Web site is targeting such ongoing double standards. The site, lafdnonselected.org, is collecting stories of men — many of them highly qualified candidates or experienced firefighters from other cities — who have been rejected for unclear reasons.

"If you are a woman and you pass the CPAT [Candidate Physical Ability Test], you will blow through the system as fast as they can get you out the end," says LAFD Captain Kevin Kearns, who teaches at the Oxnard Fire Academy, and who launched the site this month. "The number-one ticket right now is a woman."

At December's Los Angeles City Fire Commission meeting, held at City Hall East downtown, Fire Commissioner Genethia Hudley-Hayes, a political appointee of Villaraigosa's and a former Los Angeles Unified School Board member, asked why, after a $500,000 recruitment campaign in 2007, the department hired only eight women.

"Someone in City Council is going to ask, 'Why do we only have eight women?'" Hayes said to a red-faced Deputy Chief Fox. "The bottom line is, these numbers aren't good." Added Fire Commissioner Jill Furillo, "I don't think any of us are happy with the numbers we see."

To these political types, the only problem is the numbers, not the gender boondoggle unfolding without any apparent understanding by Villaraigosa or the Los Angeles City Council.

Can this be fixed, on any level?

In late 2006, council members and City Controller Chick called for — and got — the resignation of Bamattre over the Pierce case. Bamattre was blamed for miserably failing to change the culture of the department. But as Bamattre notes, when he left, the LAFD had "more women than many large departments. We did that without a consent decree [or] mandatory hiring." Chief Douglas Barry was chosen by Villaraigosa to diversify the department — and, yes, to recruit more women.

On that last count, Barry will almost certainly fail.

His initial response has been to actually toughen up the training. He developed a professional-standards division with civilian oversight, and set up an automated complaint and disciplinary system. The City Council recently approved funds to hire an inspector general who will be charged with making sure discipline is doled out properly.

Meanwhile, Laura Chick plans to audit the department — again. Her 2006 audit raised eyebrows with troubling stats purporting to show that 80 percent of women in the Fire Department felt they had been sexually harassed or knew of someone who had been. The media ran with that story. But nobody knew if it was accurate, since only a tiny percentage of all firefighters had bothered to respond — and Bamattre strongly implies that Chick surveyed a lopsided number of disgruntled workers, charging that "it was hypocritical for her to take the position that she took."

One day in January, Mary sent an e-mail to the Weekly. She was worried that this article was going to "criticize the Fire Department." She wanted it made clear that she had a "fantastic time" in the training academy. "It was challenging, exhausting, exhilarating, and fun. I lament that my body was not strong enough to successfully complete the training and that I doubt it ever will be. The staff at the training academy was very professional and I never felt a sexual bias whatsoever."

Despite the cries of social engineers like Goldberg, Hudley-Hayes, Alarcon and Villaraigosa, there's no avoiding the fact that few women ultimately pursue these really tough jobs. Maybe the answer lies in those who have thrived, and those who have the heart to keep on trying.

Vesey, the former Air Force intelligence officer who fell too far behind but is upbeat about her chances next time, says that no firefighter "wants somebody who didn't meet the standards to be helping them out of a house... The [firefighters] you are with have to trust you."

Captain Debbie Brown, in the department's medical-liaison unit, adds, "The successful females are strong, and get along with people in general. I know there are those [women] who have issues — and there are others that seem to do just fine."

Whomever the 15-member City Council and Villaraigosa decide to blame next, the fact is that Los Angeles is not unique. Cities trying and failing to turn women into firefighters range from New York, with its less than 1 percent female crews, to San Francisco, with its 13.8 percent — a stat that seems impressive, but which is generously padded with paramedics who do not fight fires or live at firehouses.

Jon McDuffie, first vice president of the L.A. firefighters' union, says, "You can throw millions of dollars into this," but departments all over the country are struggling to recruit women. "We can't all be wrong."

Christine Pelisek can be reached at cpelisek@laweekly.com

More from LA Weekly on the Los Angeles Fire Department:

WORSE AND WORSER, July 3, 2007

PAYOUT FOR DOG FOOD PRANK?, September 10, 2007

TENNIE PIERCE GETS $1.43 MILLION, September 21, 2007

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Saturday, 5 December 2015

Minister Urges Media to Ensure Accurate, Patriotic Reportage of War Against Terror in Nigeria

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has urged the media to ensure accurate and patriotic reportage of the military’s fight against terrorism in the country. Mohammed gave the advice at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja on Friday.

He said that though the military had done extremely well in executing the war in the North East, the civilian components of the war, namely: advocacy, accurate and patriotic reporting as well as the de-radicalisation of the area, had been missing.
``I think they (military troop) need all our support, they need our encomium and clearly they have turned the tide in the way they have been executing the war.

``They need more support from us, but we have seen what has been missing from the war has been the civilian component.

``You see, nobody has ever been able to completely fight insurgency without the civilian component of the war and only us can do it.

``These civilian components of the war also include advocacy, de-radicalisation of the area.

``It also includes accurate and patriotic reporting of the efforts of the gallant soldiers.

We are not saying (you should) shut out the bad news and there are ways you can manage the adverse news.’’

The minister, who said the military had totally neutralised and decapitated the terrorists in the North East, urged media organizations to help win the war against terror.

``What is clear is that today, the insurgency has been totally neutralised. They have been decapitated.

``They don’t have the structure that enables them to mount spectacular attack like in the past but like any insurgency, they will also still continue to attack soft targets.

``That is why we also have a duty here to mount campaigns; that is why I was very happy with what I saw in the multi media.

``We must mount campaigns that will one Nigerians with the imminent deaths of the insurgency.

``They are going to concentrate on vulnerable areas like motor parks, like hotels, anywhere that are big congregation and that Nigerian should avoid such places as much as possible.

``And just like that your video on Our Neighbours; I think you need to improve on it and say all our people should be more vigilant.

``We should report strange movements. If we see a strange package, we should make report to the police.’’

According to him, the beauty about policing is that everybody knows who is neighbour is, that is why community policing is the most effective method of policing.

Mohammed urged media to develop jingle and create a platform to advise Nigerians on the need to upgrade the security during the festival period

``December is coming and I know that all over the world the insurgents will want to unleash a lot of casualty because they know that they are on their way out.

``And they know that in December like this, there will be gathering in villages, in churches and mosques. I think we should also upgrade the quality of security in all our public areas.

``It is better to be inconvenient than to have unfortunate situation that happened in Mali recently but by and large, our soldiers are extremely doing very well and we need to encourage them.’’

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History of Research
The Siberian Traps - Introduction

The Siberian Traps are the remnants of widepread volcanic activity that occurred in northern Pangea, about 250 m.y. ago. The most common rock type is basalt, which usually erupts effusively rather than explosively, but the eruptions can be prolonged, lasting for years or even decades, and producing vast flows. From comparisons with the much younger Columbia River Basalts (erupted 15 m.y. ago), single flow events ('flow fields') may have exceeded 2000 cubic km - hence the term 'flood basalts'. Flow fields in the larger provinces, such as the Deccan and Siberian Traps, may have been much larger.

Other rock types include the more coarsely crystalline equivalents of basalt (dolerite and gabbro) emplaced as intrusive sheets and stocks; and, beneath the West Siberian Basin, rare rhyolites. Unusual alkaline picrites, maymechites, occur in the Maymecha-Kotuy region NE of Noril'sk. Abundant basaltic pyroclastic rocks in the lower parts of the succession in Nizhnyaya-Tunguska indicate explosive, phreatic eruptions.

The Siberian Traps have attracted considerable study, not least around the region of the Noril'sk Ni sulfide deposit, the largest in the world, where the Traps gain their maximum known thickness. Data from other regions in Siberia are sparse, because of the difficult terrain, and because the Traps are buried beneath thick piles of sediments (e.g., beneath the West Siberian Basin).

Figure Caption: Photograph of the Pu'u 'O' fissure eruption, Hawai'i, in July 1986. This illustrates the type of eruption event that may have produced the Siberian flood basalts. However, the eruption volumes and rates would have been substantially greater in Siberia. Note the substantial gas clouds (containing sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and water vapour) issuing from the vent. (Photo copyright USGS.)

Over the last two decades, interest has increased because of the possible link between the Traps and the end-Permian mass extinction. Similar 'coincidences' exist between the Deccan Traps and the end-Cretaceous extinction (at 65 Ma), and the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province and the end-Triassic extinction (at 200 Ma). To fully evaluate these links - causal or not - we need to know the full extent of the Traps and their duration, and then determine the enviromental impact of the volcanism.
A statistic: An individual basalt flow with a volume of 1500 km3 would bury the whole of the UK beneath about 6 metres of lava, or Greater London beneath about 1 km. Assuming a total volume of 3 million km3 for the Siberian Traps, this could bury the whole of western Europe beneath more than 1 km of basalt, or the whole of the UK beneath about 12 km.


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Learn more about homes in Hubertus, WI

Hubertus Home inventory breakdown by property type

Of the 1 homes for sale in Hubertus, the breakdown of property types is as follows:
100% Single Family.

100% Single Family

Area details, home facts and figures

Homes for sale 1
Average Home Size 2,338 ft² / 217 m²
Price Range ($575,000 - $575,000)

Weather in Hubertus

The average high temperatures in Hubertus range from 26 in January to 82 in July

Average home income in Hubertus

The average household income of a Hubertus resident is $107,682 with an average home value of $283,445

Population of Hubertus

Hubertus has 4,638 residents.

Home ownership in Hubertus

The average level of home ownership in Hubertus is 95%.

Education breakdown of Hubertus

Education levels of residents of Hubertus include: highschool 30%, associate 10%, bachelor 20%, graduate 10%.

Households in Hubertus

Hubertus has 1,784 homes, built on average 44 years ago.

Information from in and around Hubertus...

You are Viewing 1 to 1 of 1 homes for sale in Hubertus. These homes are comprised of Single Family. The average list price of these property results is 575,000. Prices are displayed as US Dollar. For more information on these homes for sale in Hubertus please contact our member brokerages to schedule a showing or view an open house.

The 1 homes for sale in Hubertus, WI are represented by 1 member brokerages serving the Hubertus area. Member brokerages representing the 1 homes include First Weber, Inc..


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Blog Ramblings

Run – Don’t Walk! – to Get an Editor

April 19, 2017 | by Courtney Wachob

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

(Or, as Blaise Pascal would have said: Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.)

You write every day for work. Or, if you don’t, someone who works for you is writing. Or you’re outsourcing your writing.

Basically: there should be some sort of writing going on in your business; if you read our stuff, you know how strongly we believe in blogs, social media, and other types of content marketing – and you know we have the data that backs up the validity of our beliefs.

If you’re engaging in content marketing – and you should be – you need an editor.

editing, red pen, correction, proofreading.jpegWhy? Because editors make a difference. They bring consistency to your voice. They catch grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors before you publish them. They have extensive vocabularies full of big words and they can write really long, fancy sentences that make them look smart because they’re perfectly punctuated – but they know better than to use them.

And arguably the most important reason you need an editor: they make things readable.

It’s an unfortunate fact that people don’t read as much of your content as you’d like them to – only about 20% of it, in case you were curious. (Although you need to read 100% of this content!) They find your page, they skim your content, then POOF, they’re gone, just as quickly as they came.

This means you need content that’s easy to read but still says something.

James Michener, a famous author who wrote huge books that would have been huger had he not known the value of editing, agreed: “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.”

Consider the following example. The client wrote the paragraph on the left, whereas the paragraph on the right is what happened after we unleashed our editor on it.

One of our social media outlets sent an email indicating that one of their subscribers had a need for an interim or part-time Controller. The subscriber was a wholesale distributor of shoes whose product was widely accepted and had an over 30-year operating history. The Company was backed by a private-equity firm but in recent years, the Company’s management had made a series of supply-chain missteps that had threatened the Company’s survival. Most of the management team had been terminated, but now the CFO and the Controller had quit within six months of each other, leaving senior management without a financial executive.

We recently worked with a wholesale distributor of  shoes with 30+ years of success under their belt; unfortunately, recent years had seen the company’s management make a series of supply chain missteps that threatened the company’s survival. To get the problem under control, most of the management team was terminated – but then another unfortunate event occurred: the CFO and Controller quit unexpectedly within six months of each other, leaving senior management without a financial executive.

The paragraph on the left has 103 words; the edited version has 75 – and yet they say the same thing. Which one would you rather read? (It's the same answer for your prospective customers.)

Oh, and by the way – when you hand an editor a piece of content and tell them all they can do is fix grammar, punctuation, and spelling, they die a little inside.

So, to sum up – if you’re doing content marketing but don’t have an editor, you need one to get one. And if you’re not doing content marketing at all, you should be. We’d love to help!

Building a Killer Content Strategy

Courtney Wachob
Written by Courtney Wachob

Courtney writes and edits content for Leading Results and their clients. She has been described as a Grammar Nazi and enjoys crafting writing with excellent spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Blog Comments


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New Leeds exhibition celebrates the stunning Yorkshire landscape

Published : 06/12/2012 00:00

New Leeds exhibition celebrates the stunning Yorkshire landscape

The striking beauty of the Yorkshire landscape and how it is portrayed in literature is the subject of a new exhibition at Leeds Central Library.

The exhibition entitled ‘Writing Britain’ is now on show at the library off The Headrow showcasing a fascinating collection of writing, imagery and poetical film inspired by Yorkshire.

The exhibition ranges from well-known literature to new and original work. Items from the Leeds library collections are supported by works on loan from the British Library, including a first edition of Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Shirley’.

The display has been brought together by Leeds City Council’s library and information service in partnership with the British Library as an extension of their major recent London exhibition ‘Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands’.

Through ‘Writing Britain’, the British Library is working with four libraries across England to bring collection items to the regions, in a programme generously funded by The Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

As part of the Leeds element of the exhibition, a group of young people were challenged to create lyrical rhymes and a spoken word film through the Studio 12 creative workshop in the library which explores the relationship between language and the sense of place. The film is set in locations chosen by the young people themselves, and explores their dreams, beliefs and the choices they face in their lives. The finished film and their creative writing around it form part of the exhibition.

In addition the Central Library Writer’s group have also been involved and created new work and recordings which are being exhibited and can be listened to during the exhibition.

Visitors will also be able to add to the exhibition themselves by filling in postcards available in all branch libraries and in the exhibition space for anyone to send in their own poem or prose relating to Leeds or by tweeting @lettertoleeds.

Leeds City Council area development librarian Rose Gibson said:

“We are delighted to be able to put on display the ‘Writing Britain’ Leeds exhibition for people to see and enjoy in Leeds Central Library. This exhibition celebrates the great Yorkshire landscape in literature and showcases both established and new creative writers. We hope people will get involved and send us a postcard or tweet which can be added to the exhibition. There are also some great events to come along to.

“We are very grateful to The British Library and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation for  their support and generosity in creating this exhibition, and we look forward to welcoming people of all ages to see it.”

Head of Public Engagement and Learning at the British Library Roger Walshe said:

“We are very excited to share Writing Britain more widely around the country. It is fascinating to see the ideas, experiences and original perspectives that these young people bring to each individual project and their local libraries. It’s very rewarding for us to help engage young people in arts and culture – an interest which we hope will stay with them personally and professionally as they move forward.”

The ‘Writing Britain’ exhibition runs in Leeds Central Library, First floor exhibition space, until Wednesday 30 January 2013.

For further information please contact Leeds Library and Information Service
0113 2476016

Exhibition events

• Saturday 8th December 2- 4pm. Exhibition space, Central Library
Write like the Brontës in an afternoon! Create your own miniature books!

Come and join award-winning writer Char March for this fun and fast-paced writing workshop all about your secrets.  Char will help you understand how and why the Brontë sisters wrote their tiny little books in miniature writing, and will give you masses of inspiration for writing your very own little book of secrets. which you can take away afterwards. Come for the full two-hours, or just drop by for 20 min’s.  Families welcome – as well as all the adults out there dying to write in really really tiny writing! Part of the Writing Britain exhibition.

• Wednesday 12th December 6.30pm. Exhibition space, Central Library
Michael Stewart and Russ Litten author event hosted by James Nash.  Part of Writing Britain and Read Regional.
James Nash will chair this event where we will explore writing that conveys a sense of place and the differences in settings between Scream If You Want To Go Faster by Russ Litten and King Crow by Michael Stewart. (Michael's book is set in Cumbria, while Russ's is set over a couple of streets in Hull).

• Monday 17th December 2-3.30pm. Exhibition space, Central Library
An afternoon with the Brontes

Join us for 'An afternoon with the Brontes' with Ann Dinsdale from the Bronte Society.  Yorkshire tea and cakes also provided!

All events are free but please book a place by calling enquiry express on 0113 247 6016.

Notes to editors:

Writing Britain is a national project led by the British Library and generously funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. This two-year initiative will create a sustainable partnership with four city libraries: Newcastle City Library, Leeds Central Library, Norwich & Norfolk Millennium Library and Bristol Central Library. The project aims to engage young people aged 16 – 24, outside of formal education, with library and heritage collections. The project will include an exhibition in each of the venues, which will feature the collections of each region alongside British Library collection items, as well as five youth engagement projects.

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world's greatest research libraries. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. The library's collection has developed over 250 years and exceeds 150 million separate items representing every age of written civilisation and includes books, journals, manuscripts, maps, stamps, music, patents, photographs, newspapers and sound recordings in all written and spoken languages. Up to 10 million people visit the British Library website - - every year where they can view up to 4 million digitised collection items and over 40 million pages.

The Paul Hamlyn Foundation is one of the larger independent grant-making foundations in the UK. It makes grants to organisations which aim to maximise opportunities for individuals to experience a full quality of life, both now and in the future. In particular it is concerned with children and young people, and others who are disadvantaged. It prefers to support work which others may find hard to fund, perhaps because it breaks new ground or is too risky. It also takes initiatives where new thinking is required or where it believes there are important unexplored opportunities.

Studio12 is a place to be creative, experiment with new technology, realise hidden talent, reach personal goals and explore professional avenues.

Studio12 is an audio visual media project for young people aged 16-30, providing free access to a production studio, training, accredited qualifications and an Industry Panel of creative professionals working in design, music, video and media arts. Studio12 is part of Leeds Library and Information Service and the project was delivered as part of the Studio12 master class programme, which engages young people with industry professionals working in film, music, and media arts. For more information

For media enquiries please contact:
Roger Boyde,
Leeds City Council press office,
Tel 0113 247 5472


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In Memory Of

James W. Frank

Castro Valley, California

1919 - 2013

Guest Book

sarah duncan

May 08, 2013 | Portland, OR

I still have the hand carved and signed wood teddy bear that Jim made for me as a "Christmas" present over 30 years ago on one of those church youth group backpacking trips. I have many fond memories of those trips and feel fortunate to have known Jim.

lara anderson

May 07, 2013 | Atlanta, GA

I love and miss you, Grandpa.

nanci scheevel

April 23, 2013 | Castro Valley, CA

Forever my Dad, forever his baby daughter and forever my hero.

becky feola

April 22, 2013 | Scottsale, AZ

I met Jim Frank in 1994 when I first started working with his daughter, Nanci. Jim and Jane welcomed me to their home on several occasions and I always felt that I was the most special guest they ever had! Jim was a gentle man and I'm very happy to have had the chance to know him.

April 21, 2013

Jim and I were colleagues at both San Lorenzo High School and the San Lorenzo Adult School. He will be sorely missed by all who knew and worked with him.
Vaden Riggs, Highland Village, Texas

harold cartwright

April 21, 2013 | San Antonio, TX

Mr. James " The Man" Frank was a true gentleman, scholar and
most of all a true man of God who expressed it not just through his family but for PEOPLE in general. I feel like he never met a stranger. It was a great joy, the couple of Thanksgivings and Easter's we spent with Mr. Frank, his
lovely wife, Jane, their children, Nancy, John, Susie and
the other extended famlily members and I use to think
that was really something watching him leading us in

dan sullivan

April 19, 2013 | Salem, OR

Jim was one of the men of my youth. I am grateful for the time that I was able to spend around him. What I will remember mosy is is "even keeledness" whether it was working with him on session at church or facing the challenges of a backbacking trip. God bless him. My condolences to the family during this time.

James's Obituary

James W. FrankDecember 13, 1919 - April 8, 2013Resident of Castro ValleyJames W. Frank, "Jim," died at the age of 93 on April 8, 2013, in Castro Valley, CA. Jim was born Dec. 19, 1919, in Oakland to Edwin and Marion Frank. They moved to Montclair where Jim attended Montclair schools and...

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Emmitt receives two match ban

Jake Emmitt of Leigh Centurions

Jake Emmitt of Leigh Centurions

Have your say

Leigh forward Jake Emmitt will miss the games against Halifax and Wakefield.

The hard-working prop has been one of the Centurions’ stand out performers in 2015.

Emmitt has been suspended for two matches after being found guilty of using Grade C abusive language towards a match official in the win over Batley Bulldogs last month.

He pleaded not guilty when he appeared before an independent disciplinary tribunal on Wednesday and was also fined £100.


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Book review: The Good Little Devil and Other Tales by Pierre Gripari

The Good Little Devil and Other Tales by Pierre Gripari

The Good Little Devil and Other Tales by Pierre Gripari

Have your say

A demon short on devil-may-care attitude, two lovesick shoes and an over-ambitious potato that dreams of becoming a French fry…

These are just some of the wickedly eccentric fairy tales which have been winning the hearts and imaginations of French children (and their parents) for over 45 years, and are now set to work their magic on a new generation of English-speaking youngsters.

Funny, farcical and charmingly Gallic, they are the work of the late French-Greek author Pierre Gripari who was one of the most successful writers for children in 20th century France and is still a firm favourite among the country’s current crop of seven to 10-year-olds.

But Gripari, who died in 1990 aged 65, was not a uniquely French phenomenon with his book of fairy tales translated into 17 other languages, including Mandarin Chinese, and now English, courtesy of publishers Pushkin Press and a wonderfully sympathetic translation by Sophie Lewis.

Pushkin Press was founded in 1997 and specialises in European works including novels, essays, memoirs, children’s books and everything from well-loved classics to the strikingly contemporary.

Gripari, or Monsieur Pierre as he called himself, was a colourful character whose enchanting stories were born from weekly story-telling sessions with a group of children at a boulevard café near his Paris home.

When Monsieur Pierre ran out of the traditional stories he had grown up with, he and the children made up some brand-new ones, many of them surprisingly poetic, dramatic and bold, and starring everything from giants and witches to mermaids, barbarians, frogs and that ‘hard-boiled’ potato.

These witty, essentially gentle and reassuring stories all feature adventures entirely lacking in cruelty. Kindness to others is always the prime value which will get you out of trouble, with the good rewarded and the evil punished.

The Good Little Devil and Other Tales, which are brought to life by the playful, charismatic illustrations of Puig Rosado, are essentially absurd fairy tales… but all very sensibly told.

Take that good little devil… instead of doing bad things like playing tricks on his teachers, he keeps trying to be good. He does all his homework and, amazingly, he sometimes enjoys it! He is never rude and he even encourages sinners to say sorry.

His parents are at their wits’ end so the little devil strikes out on his own and on his quest to learn to be good, he meets all kinds of people, from priests to police and from the Pope in Rome to Little Jesus himself. But will the angels let a red devil with black horns into Heaven?

Elsewhere in this collection of thirteen stories, a naughty little pig swallows the North Star, a man battles a hairy frog, a fairy who lives in a tap hands out some venomous gifts and a headstrong prince falls madly in love with a mermaid.

The theme throughout is the clever and constructive ways in which young people overcome greedy kings, wicked witches, unlucky spells and even silly names. And, of course, there is a big dash of magic to help them on their way.

A timeless collection of fun and funky stories for children in every corner of the world…

(Pushkin Children’s Books, hardback, £14.99)


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Sunday, April 27, 2014

Egg Puffs

  • Pastry sheet -1
  • Hardboiled eggs - 4 nos
  • Sliced Onion - 2 nos
  • Ginger and garlic paste - 1 tsp
  • Slit Green chillies - 4 nos
  • Coriander powder - 1 tsp
  • Red chilly powder - 1 tsp
  • Turmeric powder - ¼ tsp
  • Fennel seed powder - ¼ tsp
  • Garam masala powder - ¼ tsp
  • Oil - 1 tbsp
  • Salt - to taste
  • Beaten egg  - 1no (for egg wash)

  • Slice each egg into 2 pieces and keep aside.
  • Heat oil in the pan.
  • Add onions, green chillies, ginger and garlic paste.
  • Fry onions till it turns translucent.
  • Add red chilly powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder, fennel seed powder, garam masala powder and salt sauté well.
  • Slow down the flame and cover the pan and let it cook for 2-3 mins.
  • Turn off the stove and let it cool.
  • Thaw the frozen puff pastry sheet (as per instructions on the pack).
  • Roll out the sheet and cut them into squares pieces.
  • Take one piece and place a spoonful of masala and place an egg slice on it.
  • Brush the four edges of the sheet with egg wash, then fold the four edges to the center and slightly press the edges  to seal .
  • Brush the puffs with egg wash for getting shiny appearance.
  • Repeat the same process for the remaining sheets.
  • Preheat the oven to 400 deg F.
  • Place the puffs in a tray with a parchment sheet placed in it (you can also use a greased tray).
  • Bake for 20-25 mins till it turns golden brown color.
Recommended Combination: Serve hot with tea / coffee.

1 comment:

  1. Reminds me of kerala bakery!!!.very naustalgic.Perfectly baked!!!


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CONCERT REPORT: Valencia, September 18 (concert suspended)

Europe and Israel (July 1 - September 24, 2009). Concert reports, set lists, photos, media coverage, multimedia links, recollections...
Posts: 2324
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 11:14 pm

Re: Valencia September 18th

Postby ladydi » Sat Sep 19, 2009 3:34 am

We will all be praying for Leonard and keeping him in our hearts. Hopefully this is not anything serious. He has kept such a strenuous committment to the can be so difficult, even on someone 20 years younger. I truly don't know how ANY of them do it.
User avatar
Posts: 2562
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:03 am
Location: Warwickshire, UK

Postby Mabeanie1 » Sat Sep 19, 2009 4:26 am

it is 3.10 am and we have just arrived back at our hotel in Barcelona. Reception are letting me use a computer there reserved for airline crew use.

The concert in Valencia started on time but Leonard did not seem on top of his game. He was missing lines & words out. We thought he must be very tired after a heavy week with lots of travelling and several concerts. Then, at the start of Bird on a Wire, he put the microphone back on its stand and went off stage. I have never seen Leonard do that before in umpteen concerts. Meanwhile the band improvised. Then in the instrumental break he took off his hat and sat down on the drum risers. I have never seen him do that before. Then - horror of horrors - he quietly crumpled to the floor. The band stopped playing immediately. Everyone rushed to him and they started to escort him from the stage but he collapsed at least once more on the way. They asked us to wait for a while and suggested that the concert would restart after a short pause. However, almost an hour later, Javier and Roscoe came out. Javier made an announcement in Spanish which I struggled to understand (I got most of the words but couldn't be sure I understood what the sentences meant). I was at the front so I yelled out in Spanish that we were English and did not understood. Roscoe either recognised me or recognised my words because he nodded and stepped up to the microphone to say - for those who did not understand Spanish - that Leonard was OK. It was nothing serious, just a digestive problem but that he could not go on with the concert and that they would try and rearrange it. I hope he is OK. To be honest we are still in a state of shock after our 4 hour drive back to Barcelona from Valencia.

Posts: 2324
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 11:14 pm

Postby ladydi » Sat Sep 19, 2009 4:43 am

Hi Wendy,

Hopefully you will be able to receive this. Word is that Leonard is okay. It was food poisoning. This is per Robert Kory. Leonard is back at his hotel....resting....and feeling much better.

But, what a scare. And how it must have been for you to be there! Not many English speaking fans and such confusion. Thank goodness Roscoe spoke to the English fans present (well, you may have been the only one!).

Whew...seems all will be well. But, I bet Leonard REALLY felt awful for awhile there!

Thanks Wendy...relax and try to get some sleep. All is well.

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Posts: 4085
Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2009 2:50 pm
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Postby sturgess66 » Sat Sep 19, 2009 6:09 am ... n-valencia

Leonard Cohen faints on stage in Valencia
By: thinkSPAIN ,
Saturday, September 19, 2009
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LEONARD Cohen has been forced to cancel his concert in Valencia on medical grounds, his organisers have informed.

The Canadian singer-songwriter was in the middle of his performance at the Lluís Puig stadium in the city last night when he fainted on stage.

He was found to be suffering from food poisoning.

Even though he insisted on carrying on with the concert, Cohen’s team overruled him and called off the rest of the performance for the sake of his health.

Anyone who purchased tickets for the aborted concert may claim a refund by calling 902 15 00 25 or by visiting

Those who bought their entries from an official point of sale should return to where they made their purchase to claim their money back.

Cohen’s illness is said to be relatively mild and is not expected to affect his concert on Monday in Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi, which will coincide with the Montréal-born rocker’s 75th birthday.

He has been touring Spain since July 31 to critical acclaim, having returned to the limelight after a 15-year self-imposed exile.
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Re: CONCERT REPORT: Valencia, September 18th (concert suspended)

Postby tomsakic » Sat Sep 19, 2009 5:27 pm

As you're probably aware, Leonard's collapse made it into all news in Europe today.

The discussion is continued here: "Leonard feels fine": viewtopic.php?f=3&t=18038 (and also, full media reports in "Valencia collapse" thread in News section: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=18033)

I will close this thread.

I presume that we don't need setlist. The show was stopped after Bob Metzger's instrumental in Bird on the Wire,it happened just when Dino started his solo. The Canadian press confirms the usual setlist: Dance Me..., The Future, Ain't No Cure For Love, Bird on the Wire [stopped]. The show was canceled by Javier Mas one hour later.

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The ACCC has released the Australian Debt Collection Industry Report (May 2015) with research findings upon how well the debt collection industry is complying with the Debt Collection Guideline for Collectors and Creditors, a joint publication of the ACCC and ASIC.

In its media release (22 May 2015), the ACCC (the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission) says that there is room for improvement in the way debt collectors treat consumers and warns:

Debt collectors that do not comply with the debt collection guideline may cause harm to disadvantaged and vulnerable consumers and become a target of ACCC action.

ACCC says that this warning extends to the creditors. Both businesses collecting their own debts and businesses engaging debt collectors do not avoid responsibility. Businesses that engage debt collectors may be held responsible for their agent’s debt collection activities even where the agent acts in a way that is contrary to their debt collection agreement.

Key Findings in the Report

The debt collection industry is growing fast, with an average annual growth rate of 8.4% pa over the last 5 years. There are 570 debt collection businesses in Australia with 4.5m open files at any one time generating 65m contact attempts pa. The estimated annual revenue of the industry is $1.2bn.

These are the key findings:

  • Technology and scale have improved compliance, but there are still challenges for both large and small businesses – particularly the timing, frequency and appropriateness of contacts.
  • Issues with debt collection can vary by sector; different debt drives different behaviours and outcomes – there is a distinction between credit debt and business debt, which requires an industry understanding; debt quality and hardship issues should be managed before a debt is referred or sold.
  • Rising costs and the nature of supply have created a particular set of challenges for the energy sector – the amounts billed are unpredictable, they are high because the bills are issued every 3 months not monthly, and hardship needs to be managed.
  • Debt collection approaches that impose additional costs can result in detriment for consumers in financial distress – additional ‘administration’ fees are added either without a trading term supporting the fee or an exorbitant fee is charged each time a demand is made.
  • Increased regulatory oversight has led to improvement in debt collection behaviour – the Australian Consumer Law, the Australian Credit Licensing law, External Dispute Resolution Schemes / Ombudsmen and the ACCC / ASIC Debt Collection Guideline for Collectors and Creditors (see July 2014 update) have all resulted in improved compliance.
  • Despite variations in state and territory licensing regimes, the key obligations of debt collectors when dealing with consumers are made clear by the ACCC / ASIC Debt Collection Guideline – debt collection practices need to follow the Guideline.
  • Non-compliant debt collection practices result in significant detriment to vulnerable and disadvantaged consumers. Regulators are willing to take appropriate action in such cases – the protection of vulnerable and disadvantaged consumers is an ongoing priority for the ACCC.
  • Credit repair businesses often increase costs for consumers with debt problems – the issue is that these businesses charge consumers for doing what is freely available, that is, contacting the credit reporting agencies, industry ombudsmen, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and state funded financial counsellors.

Key consumer protection provisions

The Australian Consumer Law provisions which relate to debt collection are mirrored in the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001. They prohibit:

  • use of physical force
  • undue harassment and coercion
  • misleading and deceptive conduct
  • unconscionable conduct

The ACCC and ASIC will use these provisions to pursue civil penalty proceedings against businesses which don’t follow the Guideline to collect their debts.

Key market sector comments

  • Financial Services Sector – this sector is regulated by ASIC because credit regulated debt is involved. The other sectors are regulated by the ACCC. Debt collectors for credit debt must hold an Australian Credit Licence and must be a member of an External Dispute Resolution Scheme (CIO or FOS), just like the credit providers. Better systems and processes to identify potential hardship cases are recommended.
  • Energy Sector – Energy costs have risen well above inflation raising affordability and hardship issues. More effective consumer engagement and innovative assistance are recommended to manage billing issues, hardship, disconnections and referral of the debt to multiple debt collectors.
  • Telecommunications Sector – billing or contract issues predominate, along with consumer understanding of their debt. Retailers need to effectively screen the ‘can’t pay’ customers suffering hardship from the ‘can pay’ customers before sending the debts for debt collection.
  • Education Sector – Because the cost of education is a known quantity, and because student attendance gives the provider regular contact, there is less debt collection activity in this sector. Chief concerns are signing up vulnerable consumers on courses which are not suitable or denying exit from the contract if the student does not want to continue or cannot continue the course.
  • Healthcare Sector – Debt collection activity is low because Medicare or Private Health Funds cover patients, and where gap payments are applied, they tend to be paid up front.
  • Government Sector – Centrelink and the Australian Tax Office are long term users of external debt collection services. The Commonwealth Ombudsman deals with complaints, which often centre upon inappropriate use of garnishees, rejection of payment arrangements and re-raising of debt. Parking tolls, fines and other government debt is seen as an emerging area.

What’s next?

After working with the debt collection industry to improve Guideline compliance based upon the Report, the ACCC will pursue businesses which continue with non-compliant practices under the consumer protection provisions of the Australian Consumer Law.

The ACCC’s enforcement action will include issuing infringement notices and taking court action.


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Last week, the Second Circuit heard oral arguments in Berman v. Neo@Ogilvy, a case that places squarely before the Court the question of who is a “whistleblower” within the meaning of the Dodd-Frank Act Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”).

As we have discussed in our previous posts, whistleblower status under Dodd-Frank remains a hotly contested issue, with courts around the country sharply divided.

The Debate

The crux of the debate arises from the interplay between the definition of “whistleblower” in Dodd-Frank and the conduct protected in the Act’s anti-retaliation provisions.  Specifically, the Act defines “whistleblower” as “any individual who provides . . . information relating to a violation of the securities law to the [Securities and Exchange] Commission, in a manner established, by rule or regulation, by the [SEC].” 15 U.S.C.§ 78u-6(a)(6).

Dodd-Frank goes on, however, to prohibit retaliation against “whistleblowers” who participate in the following conduct:

  1. who raise complaints relating to lawful acts done by a whistleblower in providing information to the SEC;
  2. who participate or assist in any investigation of the SEC based upon such information; and
  3. who make disclosures required or protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and any other law, rule or regulation subject to the jurisdiction of the SEC.

See 15 U.S.C. § 78u-6(h)(1)(A)(i)-(iii).

One interpretation of the statute is that because subsection (iii) above does not expressly condition anti-retaliation protection on an employee having complained to the SEC, that such an external complaint is not required.  This interpretation is furthered by the clear reference to the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 (“SOX”) in the statute which arguably suggests that internal reporting protected by SOX is sufficient to qualify for Dodd-Frank’s anti-retaliation protections.  Under this reading of the statute, the protections afforded to a “whistleblower” under subsection (iii) seemingly contradict the clear statutory definition of the term, leading a number of district courts to conclude that there is sufficient ambiguity in the statute to permit deference to the SEC’s interpretation on the issue.  Not surprisingly, the SEC has argued that that an employee need not report to the SEC in order to benefit from the anti-retaliation provisions of Dodd-Frank.  Rather, participation only in a protected activity covered under SOX is sufficient. See, e.g., 17 C.F.R. § 240.21F-2(b)(1) (SEC Rule).

Not all courts agree with the this reading of the law. Many courts find that the law is not ambiguous, the statutory definition of “whistleblower” is abundantly clear, and notwithstanding the language in subsection (iii) above, the anti-retaliation provisions plainly support the conclusion that to be a whistleblower, a person must first complain to the SEC.  This line of authority is consistent with Asadi v. G.E. Energy (USA), L.L.C., 720 F. 3d 620 (5th Cir. 2013), out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit — which is the only circuit court to have conclusively addressed this issue. In Asadi, the Fifth Circuit expressly found that: “[u]nder Dodd–Frank’s plain language and structure, there is only one category of whistleblowers: individuals who provide information relating to a securities law violation to the SEC.”  Id. at 625. For a more fulsome discussion on the split in authority in court’s throughout the country, see last week’s blog on this issue here.

The Arguments Presented in Berman

The Berman case came to the Second Circuit on appeal from a decision by Judge Woods in the Southern District of New York.  Judge Woods found that to benefit from Dodd-Frank’s anti-retaliation provisions, an employee must have reported his or her concerns to the SEC. This decision created a split of authority within the Southern District.

Last Wednesday, the Second Circuit held oral argument that lasted almost one full hour.  To begin, the panel unanimously agreed that term “whistleblower” is clearly defined in Dodd-Frank.  The remainder of argument, however, seemed to indicate that at least for the judges hearing the appeal, the definition of “whistleblower” was only the beginning of the analysis.  Specifically, the judges appeared to fall into three distinct camps with respect to the remainder of the statute’s interpretation.

First, Chief Judge Jacobs raised concerns about extending the protection in subsection (iii) to individuals who had not complained to the SEC, arguing that the definition of “whistleblower” could not be clearer.  Based on his questioning, he appears to believe that there is no ambiguity in the statute. Judge Jacobs also noted that it seemed compelling that absent a complaint to the SEC, a “whistleblower” still had potential remedies under SOX. In contrast, Judge Newman focused on the policy arguments that support the SEC’s position, in particular the fact that if a complaint to the SEC is required, then only in exceedingly limited circumstances would a person be protected under subsection (iii). Accordingly, Judge Newman’s questions focused on the apparent “tension” in the statute, which he implied would be sufficient for the Court to find the statute ambiguous.  If ambiguous, he suggested deference to the SEC’s rule would be appropriate.

Judge Calabresi’s questions provided less transparency with regard to his views.  His inquiries were more focused on statutory interpretation, questioning, in light of the clear definition of “whistleblower” in the statute, whether the arguably inconsistent language in the anti-retaliation provision allows the Court to conclude the statute is ambiguous. He requested authority from counsel on both sides directly addressing this issue, but counsel were not able to cite to any specific authority supporting either position.

From the questions posed by the panel during the argument and the colloquy between counsel and the panel, it appears that the panel has differing views regarding the language of the statute and whether an ambiguity or inconsistency exists, making it difficult to predict from the argument exactly how the Court will ultimately rule.  No matter the result in Berman, it will be significant for several reasons.  First, at least for employers within the Second Circuit, the Court’s decision will resolve the issue and provide clarity.  More importantly, the Court’s decision will either fall in line with the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Asadi, bringing a second federal appellate court in line with the conclusion that the statute is not ambiguous and a “whistleblower” only includes an employee who provides information to the SEC.  On the other hand, if the Second Circuit deviates from the Fifth Circuit, a split in the appellate courts will exist, creating the opportunity for the issue to be decided once and for all by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Regardless of the outcome, the Second Circuit’s decision is certain to influence the development of case law on this issue throughout the country.

Christopher F. Robertson is Team Co-Lead of the National Whistleblower Team.  Gena B. Usenheimer is a partner in Seyfarth’s New York office.  Needy Shah is a fellow in Seyfarth’s New York office.  If you would like further information on this topic, please contact a member of the Whistleblower Team, your Seyfarth attorney, Christopher F. Robertson at, Gena B. Usenheimer at or Needy Shah at

To receive future Workplace Whistleblower Alerts, click here.


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The issue of forced retirement due to age raises constitutional questions of the first order specifically regarding the constitutional right to:

  • liberty;
  • dignity and property;
  • freedom of occupation; and
  • equality in general and in the workplace in particular.

Forced retirement due to age was abolished decades ago in the United States and has also been abolished in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. However, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development enables member states to enact forced retirement due to age based on legitimate concerns, such as the necessity to regenerate the market and the workplace.

Despite age being recognised as an unlawful and irrelevant criterion for employment in most anti-discrimination legislation in Israel and substantial case law, the Retirement Age Law 2004 allows employers forcibly to retire employees at the age of 67, the mandatory retirement age.

The Supreme Court recently ruled on a petition submitted by several university professors to annul the provision in the Retirement Age Law that allows employers to forcibly retire employees at the mandatory retirement age.(1)

The petitioners contended that it was inconceivable that the law should enable forced retirement due to the age of employees who were fit and still able to fulfil their duties and who wished or needed to continue working.

In a special composition of seven justices, the Supreme Court ruled that mandatory retirement due to age breaches the constitutional rights to dignity and equality which are protected under the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom. The court also criticised the sweeping language of the statutory provision that allows employers forcibly to retire employees due to age and which does not distinguish between the different economic situations of employees who reach the mandatory retirement age.

By so ruling, the Supreme Court upgraded the right not to suffer discrimination in the workplace due to age to the level of a constitutional right, even when the discrimination is expressed by forcibly requiring employees to retire at the mandatory retirement age. Thus, the petition successfully passed the first test of the constitutional examination.

The ruling is significant, because in order to justify an injury to a constitutional right, the following criteria must be met:

  • There must be contrary rights and interests of considerable magnitude;
  • There must be a necessary connection between the injury and the fulfilment of such rights and interests; and
  • The injury must not exceed what is necessary for such fulfilment.

Therefore, the court turned to the second stage of the judicial review and examined whether forced retirement at the mandatory retirement age reflects a reasonable balance between various competing legitimate interests.

In this context, considerations raised in the past to justify the constitutional violation had been removed from the constitutional debate. First, forcible retirement due to age is no longer justified by reduced performance, as age is not considered to be a predictor of performance. Second, the Supreme Court president has stated that economic considerations such as the cost of performance examinations cannot be used to justify the violation of a constitutional right.

Hence, the arguments in favour of forcible retirement due to age which were considered cogent included:

  • the inter-generational consideration (ie, the employment of older employees at the cost of younger employees);
  • the protection that the mandatory retirement age provides against ageism up to the mandatory retirement age;
  • the connection between tenure and the mandatory retirement age; and
  • the humiliation involved in performance tests.

The petitioners attempted to show that such considerations do not justify the damage caused to older employees that are forced to retire. They contended that economically, employment is not a zero-sum game. An increase in employment results in added prosperity and additional employment opportunities. The budgetary constraints that may occur in certain employment sectors are temporary and can be resolved, as they were when the retirement age was raised from 65 to 67 in 2003.

The petitioners further contended that the way to protect against ageism is not to validate it, as forced retirement due to age does, but rather to condemn and eradicate it. The connection between tenure and forced retirement due to age is theoretical and has not been empirically proven. Further, it can be argued that tenure is intended to protect employees who wish to continue working and that their interests should not be subordinated to the interests of non-performing employees. Finally, the petitioners contended that performance tests should not be legally regarded as degrading, especially when they are optional and relevant, such as those that the petitioners proposed (similar performance tests have already been adopted by the legislature in various other situations and others are used according to various collective agreements).

However, the court decided that forced retirement due to reaching the age of 67 reflects a balance between competing legitimate interests that is still in the range of reasonableness. The court, therefore, rejected the petition.

The court did not annul the statutory provision that allows employers forcibly to retire employees due to age. However, its decision conveys the need to re-examine the existing balance, which currently reflects the recommendations of a government committee from over a decade ago, as the context has changed since then.

In the court's view, the re-examination of balance – in which wide-reaching social and economic issues are involved – is due and should be undertaken by Parliament and the government. Justice Neal Hendel even stated that should a re-examination not be undertaken within a reasonable time, the parties reserve the right to re-open the issue.

The court's decision is an important step in the battle against forced retirement due to age. Previously, the issue of whether a constitutional right is compromised by forced retirement at the mandatory retirement age had not been fully resolved. However, the court's decision makes it is clear that the right to work is not a secondary right but rather a constitutional right, and that the injury caused as a result of its violation is not trifling but rather serious.

In the interim, two legislative initiatives have been undertaken. Labour MP Arel Marglit submitted a bill to abolish mandatory retirement due to age and replace it with an occupational test. The government also formed a committee to examine the possibility of raising the retirement age for women which will examine the general issue of retirement and the need to adjust the age of retirement due to increased life expectancy.

For further information on this topic please contact Shoshana Gavish at S Horowitz & Co by telephone (+972 3 567 0700) or email ( The S Horowitz & Co website can be accessed at

(1) HCJ 9134/12, Moshe Gavish v the Knesset (April 21 2016).

This article was first published by the International Law Office, a premium online legal update service for major companies and law firms worldwide. Register for a free subscription.


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Juncker I Commission – Strong performance Mimica, Andriukaitis, but doubts remain

Thursday, 2 October 2014

Between 29 September and 7 October 2014 the European Parliament is conducting interviews with the candidate Commissioners.

During the first two days of these hearings, candidate Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Neven Mimica (Croatia) and candidate Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis (Lithuania) made good impressions on LGBTI rights, although doubts remain.

Candidate Commissioner for  Development Neven Mimica

In the face of an increase in anti-LGBT legislation, the role of MimicaCommissioner-Designate for International Cooperation and Development is vital for finding an appropriate response from the EU. The portfolio of Mr Mimica includes relations between the EU and African, Caribean and Pacific (ACP), which are organised through the Cotonou Agreement.

Referring to the increased homophobia, Mimica emphasised that he favours “enhancing the human rights approach to the overall principles that would guide our cooperation and partnership with the ACP countries.”

Seb Dance MEP, Member of the LGBTI Intergroup-designate, who quizzed Mr Mimica on LGBTI rights in development, reacted: “Half of the ACP states criminalise LGBT people one way or another.”

“I am very glad the Commissioner-designate spoke about the need to enhance human rights in the Cotonou Agreement. However, we should remain vigilant to ensure LGBTI people are properly included and new sanctions are foreseen in case of severe human rights violations.”

Candidate Commissioner for Health Vytenis Andriukaitis

The portfolio of Mr Andriukaitis includes public health, in which capacity he is responsible to ensure that everyone in Europe benefits from quality health services.

AndriukaitisMr Andriukaitis made a strong statement against discrimination, underlining that especially in the field of health care, discrimination cannot be permitted.

However, responding to a question by Gesine Meissner MEP (Germany/ALDE), on trans-specific health care, he stated that “Member States are responsible for their health care systems,” although pointing out that they should do so in accordance to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Gesine Meissner MEP reacted: “Despite his human rights commitment, I find his answer overall dissatisfying. If he becomes Commissioner, I will urge him to  make sure his human rights commitments in health care will be put into practice, and encourage him to do more on transgender people’s health, for instance by working towards the full depathologisation of trans* identities.”

Posted in: Press releases, Recent news


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Home PR LG Press Release

Press Release

LG Innotek Receives Best Supplier Award from Schaeffler Automotive Group

LG Innotek came through a competition of 500 to 1 among automotive parts manufacturers and was recognized as the best company by Schaeffler Automotive Group (hereinafter Schaeffler) in Germany. The company today announced that it was selected as the best supplier in the Schaeffler Supplier Day 2016 held by Schaeffler.
Only 10 out of Schaeffler's 5,000 partner companies around the world are selected as the best supplier. A company can be selected as the best partner only when its competitiveness in the automotive components business is recognized by Schaeffler. Schaeffler rigorously evaluates its partners in all areas including quality, reliability, price, and innovativeness. Schaeffler is a global automotive components and bearing manufacturer whose headquar-ters is located in Germany. Its sales were approx. €13.2 billion last year. The automotive components that Schaeffler purchases from its suppliers amount to approx. €7.8 billion.
LG Innotek began to develop components for precision fuel control with Schaeffler in 2014. Recently, the company expanded its cooperation with Schaeffler to motors for automotive. The company was recognized for its technology in the process of carrying out projects with Schaeffler. With the selection of LG Innotek as the best partner by Schaeffler, the company's customer base has expanded still further. With this, the company secured its position as a main partner for two major German companies. The company was also selected as the best partner by Continental Automotive Group last year.
Also, LG Innotek received the 2016 GM Supplier Quality Excellence Award last July, proving its quality management capability to the level of zero quality defects. This means that the quality of the automotive components manufactured by the company was also recognized by an automotive manufacturer. The reason why LG Innotek was recognized as the best partner in global automotive com-ponents industry is that the company specialized in automotive components in all sectors of the company including R&D, production, quality assurance, and marketing. Based on this focused approach, the company has realized the quality level required by its customers. As automotive components are directly related to the safety of a driver, product quality is of utmost importance. Once the parts are determined to be supplied to the customers, you need to supply them for 10 years or more. So, the quality inspection procedure is very rigorous and fastidious in all production stages from development to shipment.
Jong-gu Keum, a vice president of LG Innotek’s automotive marketing, said, “Based on the technology and quality inspection procedure optimized for automotive, we will continue to develop core automotive components so that you can enjoy a convenient, safe and comfort-able driving.”
LG Innotek www.lginnotek.com