text:
 DOF chief: SMC subsidiary ‘incapable’ to build P735.6B Bulacan ‘aerotropolis’ | Inquirer Business
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
  • share this

DOF chief: SMC subsidiary ‘incapable’ to build P735.6B Bulacan ‘aerotropolis’

By: - Reporter / @bendeveraINQ
/ 04:16 PM September 10, 2018

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III MALACANANG FILE PHOTO

The head of the Duterte administration’s economic team on Monday expressed reservations on the proposed P735.6-billion “aerotropolis” project in Bulacan province by San Miguel Corp. (SMC).

This, as the project was seen to be not only potentially in conflict with the government’s development of another airport hub at the Clark Freeport Zone in Pampanga but also might prove to be unviable as its proponent was deemed financially “incapable” to build it.

During a joint public hearing of the Senate public services and economic affairs committees on the operations and management of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport’s (Naia), Department of Finance (DOF) Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III responded to allegations raised during the previous hearing that the DOF was supposedly hampering or delaying other airport projects, including the SMC-led airport project in Bulakan town.

“We take this opportunity to categorically say we have not caused the delay in the Bulacan airport,” Dominguez said during the hearing led by Senator Grace Poe.

“As a matter of fact, we are even providing assistance to accelerate the approval and implementation of the project.”

“One of the helpful suggestions we made to the Department of Transportation (DOTr) was to require the execution of a joint and several liability agreement, which would make San Miguel Corp., the parent company, stand behind San Miguel Holdings Corp., the private proponent, which is financially at this point incapable of undertaking a P700-billion project,” Dominguez added.

The DOF chief noted that in 2016, San Miguel Holdings had only P60 billion in total equity, citing a DOTr report.

“Considering the usual financing mix of 70-percent debt and 30-percent equity in a public-private partnership (PPP) project, the construction of the Bulacan airport will require San Miguel Holdings to infuse around P200 billion inequity, which we are not sure is going to happen,” Dominguez said.

Also, Dominguez disclosed that the DOF during a National Economic and Development Authority-Investment Coordination Committee (Neda-ICC) meeting last January raised its concern that the Bulacan airport may affect the development of the Clark International Airport and the freeport as a whole.

At the start of the Duterte administration, it began the rehabilitation of the Clark International Airport “to partially address the Naia capacity problem,” Dominguez noted.

“All airport projects are real estate projects. The real estate value of the New Clark City is currently $14 billion and government has committed an additional P12 billion. We wanted to know how the Bulacan airport, which is just 65 kilometers away from Clark, will affect the value of the New Clark City, which is by the way, the property of the Filipino people,” Dominguez said.

Also, Dominguez wanted to know how the aerotropolis would impact on the traffic situation.

“Do we need additional lanes in the North Luzon Expressway to be constructed? Do we need to change the alignment of the proposed rail system to Clark?” he said.

In April, when the project was eventually approved by the Neda Board chaired by President Rodrigo Duterte, the DOF just “compiled the issues discussed at the Neda-ICC and Board meetings,” as it will be a conflict of interest for the DOF to comment, citing that the Build-Operate Transfer Law provided that the agency was mandated to review the draft contract upon completion of negotiations between the implementing agency and the project proponent.

In this case, DOTr is the implementing agency, while San Miguel Holdings is the proponent.

“Contrary to statements made in the last hearing, we guarantee that there were no new comments added that were not already discussed before the Neda Board approval,” Dominguez said.

At present, negotiations are ongoing between the DOTr and San Miguel Holdings for the final terms of the concession agreement, before it is subjected to Swiss challenge.

Under a Swiss challenge, other companies can bid for the project, after which the original proponent that submitted the unsolicited proposal will be allowed to match or submit a better bid before the project is awarded.

The proposed new international aerotropolis, or a metropolis revolving around an airport, would involve a massive complex to be built at a 2,500-hectare location along Manila Bay in Bulakan town.

The airport project, which had been awarded an original proponent status by the DOTr, would have an initial capacity of 100 million passengers or over three times that of the Naia, the country’s gateway to Manila.

Under the project, SMC would also build an 8.4-kilometer toll road that would link the airport to the North Luzon Expressway.

SMC had said that it plans to complete the project within six years.  /kga

Read Next
Don't miss out on the latest news and information.
View comments

Subscribe to INQUIRER PLUS to get access to The Philippine Daily Inquirer & other 70+ titles, share up to 5 gadgets, listen to the news, download as early as 4am & share articles on social media. Call 896 6000.

TAGS: aerotropolis, Airport, Business, business news, Carlos Domiguez, DoF, DOTr, Infrastructure, local news, nation, national news, News, Philippine news updates, San Miguel, San Miguel Holdings, SMC, transportation
For feedback, complaints, or inquiries, contact us.

© Copyright 1997-2018 INQUIRER.net | All Rights Reserved

We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. By continuing, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. To find out more, please click this link.


Content-Type: application/http; msgtype=response

WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: text/html

WARC-Type: response

text:
Perdido Key Florida Community
Questions? Call us at 1.800.328.0107

Flora-Bama Yacht Club

  • Pet-Friendly
  • Pubs/Bars
  • Fresh Seafood
  • Casual Dining
17350 Perdido Key Drive
Pensacola, FL 32507
(850) 525-4460
11:00 AM - til Monday - Sunday
  • About

    Open air waterfront dining experience on Ole River across from the world famous Flora-Bama. Live music on the weekends, hand crafted cocktails, and excellent menu choices. Casual dining with a chef to

warcinfo:
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2018-47
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for November 2018
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-232-159-122.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.15 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 0.11-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/


text:
Show simple item record

dc.contributor.advisorMaleczka, Robert E., Jr.
dc.contributor.authorToskey, Elli A.
dc.description.abstractA method has been devised to cross couple acid chlorides using tributyltin fluoride (BU3SnF) and polymethylhydrosiloxane (PMHS) in Stille coupling. This method employs Bu3SnF and PMHS as an in situ tin hydride source while performing the experiment in one pot. These techniques avoid the toxic tin intermediates commonly associated with Stille couplings.en
dc.relation.ispartofseriesSenior Individualized Projects. Chemistry.en
dc.rightsU.S. copyright laws protect this material. Commercial use or distribution of this material is not permitted without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
dc.titleOne-pot hydrostannation/Stille couplings of acid chlorides using tributyltin flouride and polymethylhydrosiloxane as an in situ tin hydride sourceen

Files in this item

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

  • Chemistry Senior Individualized Projects [827]
    This collection includes Senior Individualized Projects (SIP's) completed in the Chemistry Department. Abstracts are generally available to the public, but PDF files are available only to current Kalamazoo College students, faculty, and staff.

Show simple item record


text:
Payday Loans Calder

Payday loans Calder are very helpful to many people in Calder Saskatchewan Canada. This is because these turbo personal loan enable people with financial emergencies in Calder solve their issues as they wait for their salaries in Calder SK. This means that in case a person gets a Calder financial emergency such as a medical bill in periods such as mid month when salary is usually due, then such a person can get cash advances loan to settle the bill. A Calder cash money loans can be provided online in Calder SK Canada where there are various Calder websites that provide these cash funding services. However, some of these websites provide these short term funding in a more convenient manner than others in Calder. Therefore it is important to consider various factors so as to get bad credit funding from a suitable Calder website.

Calder Payday Loan Conditions

The terms and conditions in Calder set by a particular website providing Calder fast cash loans are amongst the most important things in Calder Saskatchewan that one should consider. This is because the terms and conditions in Calder set the requirements which are required to be met while taking and repaying the high-speed personal loan. A borrower who does not meet these Calder terms and conditions will be penalized or other measures will be taken in Calder against him or her. The right website should have in Calder simple and flexible terms and conditions which can be met by the Calder borrowers. Because of the importance of terms and conditions in Calder SK it is always advisable to read them carefully prior to taking personal loan.

Calder Payday Loans Factors

Another import factor in Calder that one should consider is the interest rate of the cash advances. Various websites that give these unsecure loan in Canada usually charge varying interest rates on the short term funds. The ideal website should be charging reasonable interest rates. One can determine the unsecure loan website providing the most suitable interest rate in Calder through comparing various websites that provide these short term funds services.

Payday Loan Calder Considerations

The time it takes before the short term funding is approved is also an important factor in Calder that should be considered while looking for the right short term loans website. This is important because most of the people who apply for unsecure cash loan usually require the money within the shortest time possible in Calder Saskatchewan. Therefore, the website with the fastest approval time in Calder should be given priority while choosing the right turbo personal loan website to take short term funding from.

Happily Served Customers

Get Calder cash today!


text:
sleepout volunteers

Sleepout Raises over £11,000!

Sleepout survivors

The Big Cambridge-Calais Sleepout, held on homeless Sunday, 28 January, has raised over £11,000 for CamCRAG and Cambridge homeless charity Wintercomfort.

The volunteers who slept out in the grounds of St Giles’ Church didn’t get much sleep, but knew they were safer and warmer than many who sleep rough on the streets of Cambridge, and displaced people in and around Calais.

Earlier in the evening many gathered to hear speeches, including a visit from Cambridge’s MP, Daniel Zeichner, and Mayor George Pippas.

All the volunteers made it through to Monday morning, delighted the event was so well attended and has helped highlight homelessness in Cambridge and abroad.

Thank you everyone involved who made it happen, and for your fantastic support.

The fundraiser is open until the end of February – you can donate online here.


text:
News Releases

Application Filed in Peru to Renounce Remaining Red Beds Claims

July 11, 2018

Camino Minerals Corporation (“Camino” or the “Company”) (COR: TSX-V) wishes to report that it has filed an application with the Peruvian Mines and Energy Ministry and INGEMMET to renounce the title for remaining claims that formed part of the Red Beds Property located in the Department of Cuzco, Peru.

The Red Beds Property was a sediment hosted copper project which the Company first acquired in January 2015.  Over the life of the project, there had been no surface disturbance on the Red Beds 2 claim, and no substantive work done on the property as a whole since June, 2016.  The project was placed on a care and maintenance status, as reported on January 10, 2017.

Early this year, Camino initiated talks with regional and national authorities in an attempt donate or transfer the claims back to the government.  After consultation with the Mines and Energy Ministry, INGEMMET, and the Environmental Ministry (MINAM), it was recommended that Camino renounce the title of the claims which would clear the path for the government to have the area declared an Area of Non-Admission of Petitioners for mineral claims.  Camino has recently filed those applications and expects the title for the claims to be canceled in the near future.

Kenneth McNaughton, President and CEO, said, “When we first got involved with the Red Beds project, we were excited by the exploration potential and its remote location, which at the time meant there was very little tourism.  Tourism increased dramatically over the next couple of years, to the point that the Company decided to withdraw from the project.  While we would have preferred to explore the property and test its resource potential, given the changes, we felt it was best to focus our efforts at our Chapitos and Villa Hermosa projects.”

At Chapitos in the Department of Arequipa, the regional soil sampling program is proceeding with over 4,500 samples collected and analyzed from approximately 125 kilometers of survey line.  As expected, anomalous trends are being defined along several geologic contacts and structural trends.  This work is ongoing and results will be reported when the program has been completed.  Diamond drilling has already outlined significant copper mineralization in several zones at or near surface, and the objective of the soil survey is to identify potential blind targets elsewhere on the 16,000 hectare property.

At Villa Hermosa in the Department of La Libertad in central Peru, the property vendor has opened up more workings on the property subsequent to the Company’s initial due diligence sampling five years ago.  All of the accessible workings have now been systematically sampled and sent to the lab for analysis.  The target at Villa Hermosa is high-grade gold in quartz veins nested within in a 40-meter wide quartz stockwork zone. The Company expects to complete follow-up sampling and data compilation prior to recommending drilling. Two privately-owned high-grade gold mines operate in the vicinity in similar geologic settings.

About Camino Minerals Corporation

Camino is a discovery-oriented mineral exploration company. The Company is focused on the acquisition and development of high-grade copper and precious metal projects. For more information, please refer to Camino’s website at

For further information and investor inquiries, contact:

Ken McNaughton
President and Chief Executive Officer
Phone (604) 566-8778

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements and Information

This News Release contains “forward-looking information” and “forward looking statements” within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation. Statements contained herein that are not based on historical or current fact, including without limitation statements containing the words “anticipates,” “believes,” “may,” “continues,” “estimates,” “expects,” and “will” and words of similar import, constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Forward-looking information may include, but is not limited to, information with respect to our planned exploration activities, the adequacy of our financial resources, the estimation of mineral reserves and resources, the results of future exploration and drilling.  Wherever possible, words such as “plans”, “expects”, “projects”, “assumes”, “budget”, “strategy”, “scheduled”, “estimates”, “forecasts”, “anticipates”, “believes”, “intends”, “targets” and similar expressions or statements that certain actions, events or results “may”, “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative forms of any of these terms and similar expressions, have been used to identify forward-looking statements and information.

Forward-looking information is subject to a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information, including, without limitation, those risks identified in the Company’s annual disclosure materials, filed with the securities regulatory authorities in Canada and available at  Readers are encouraged to read these materials.  Prospective investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

© 2018 Camino Minerals Corp.
All rights reserved.

Subscribe to our Email List


text:
“It’s all just pretend…” #predatorypublishing

If you have been keeping up with my blog posts of late, you will know that the issue of predatory publishing has been on my radar (see this and this). What is predatory publishing? Jeffrey Beall, founder and archivist at Scholarly Open Access defines it as:

“…[A]n exploitative open-access publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without providing the editorial and publishing services associated with legitimate journals (open access or not).”

The number of predatory publishers and journals has grown significantly over the past few years. A favorite journalist of mine, Tom Spears, has investigated this trend and the issue of predatory publishing extensively (and creatively, I might add) – often by carrying out elaborate ‘sting’ operations.  His latest ‘sting’ is recorded in this article he published in the Ottawa Citizen entitled:

This ‘predatory’ science journal published our ludicrous editorial mocking its practices

I won’t dig into tragically-comedic details of Spears’ latest story. Spears can tell it much better that I can. So, I encourage you to read the article. (Also, check out this clever post by Retraction Watch that summarizes Spears ‘social experiment’ and its results.) What I will do is recap the high-level key messages and pull some illuminating excerpts from the article:

  1. Scholars publish in these journals
  2. By default, scholars often end up on editorial boards of these journals (either knowingly or unknowingly)
  3. ‘Publish or perish’ pressures can misdirect young scholars into predatory publishing spaces
  4. …and, yes, there are predatory conferences, too.

Spears’ interviewed Jim Germida, executive editor-in-chief of Canadian Science Publishing (a legit science publisher, by the way) and vice-provost of faculty relations at the University of Saskatchewan (my alma mater happyface2). Spears quotes Germida:

“In overseeing appointments at [the University of Saskatchewan], …We have actually discovered people who have published in predatory journals or are sitting on an editorial board of one of these journals. And it can get them into big trouble for associating with an organization that is substandard or worse…”

“The other problem is there is the pressure of ‘publish or perish.’ It still exists,” and this pushes young academics to look for publishers, sometimes in the wrong places. Academics often argue they’re smart enough not to fall for predatory journals. Germida warns: “It is something all universities should be more aware of … I have seen cases of people being taken in,” and sometimes of people knowingly working with predatory journals.”

predatory pub germida2.png

You might think: Look, I’m not a scientist. I don’t work at a university. Who cares? I don’t have a dog in this fight.

Well, you might be surprised to know that you are affected by predatory publishing. Maybe not directly, but there are downstream implications for consumers when the science’s integrity is weakened in this way. Predatory publishers not only trick scholars that conduct sound research, they provide the channel for poorly conducted studies. Steven Salzberg articulates this well in his Forbes article dated January 3, 2017:

“On the surface, these publications look and act just like real scientific journals, but it’s all just pretend. The publishers of these journals presumably care more about their bottom line than about scientific integrity….[they] will create a never-ending demand for fake breakthroughs and science-y sounding studies that are built on a house of cards.”

Kevin Carey wrote a nice piece for The New York Times that exposes this weird world of “fakedemia” [my term]: “…within the halls of respectable academia, the difference between legitimate and fake publications and conferences is far blurrier than scholars would like to admit.”

As I stated in a previous blog post: “Scientific integrity is at risk. As scholars, we need to distinguish the good journals from those ‘other ones’. As consumers, we need to think critically about how science is represented in the media.”

Unfortunately, there continues to be a lack of awareness about this problem of predatory publishing across the board, from lab scientists (public and private sector) to downstream end users and consumers.  We need to spread the word. Sting operations, like the ones that Spears has commandeered, bring the problem to light through relatable narratives.

Beall, Jeffrey. (2016). Scholarly Open Access: Available online at: https://scholarlyoa.com/ [SOA website is down as of January 2017; service is no longer available]

Burdick, Alan. (2017). “Paging Dr. Fraud”: The Fake Publishers that are Ruining Science. The New Yorker. March 22.

Carey, Kevin. (2016). “A Peek Inside the Strange World of Fake Academia.” The New York Times. December 29th. Available online at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/upshot/fake-academe-looking-much-like-the-real-thing.html?_r=0

Giddings, Val. (2013) Peer Review – where you thought it ended? That’s just the beginning! Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Available online at: https://itif.org/publications/2013/07/12/peer-review-%E2%80%93-where-you-thought-it-ended-that%E2%80%99s-just-beginning

Rennie, D. (2010). “Integrity in Scientific Publishing.” Health Services Research. June. 45(3). Available online at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2875766/

Rennie D., Yank V., Emanuel L. (1997). “When authorship fails. A proposal to make contributors accountable.” The Journal of the American Medical Association. Aug 20;278(7):579-85

Retraction Watch. Available online at: http://retractionwatch.com/

Ryan, Camille and John Vicini. (2016). “Why You Should Avoid Predatory Journals, Welcome Rigorous Review”. Forbes. Available online at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gmoanswers/2016/06/30/predatory-journals/#410a888a5558

Salzberg, Steven. (2017). “Fake Medical Journals Are Spreading, And They Are Filled With Bad Science.” Forbes. Available online: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2017/01/03/fake-medical-journals-are-spreading-and-they-are-filled-with-bad-science/#7d7b04ff68cb

Spears, Tom. (2016). “This ‘predatory’ science journal published our ludicrous editorial mocking its practices.” Ottawa Citizen. Available online at: http://ottawacitizen.com/storyline/this-predatory-science-journal-published-our-ludicrous-editorial-mocking-its-practices

In her shoes: the role of empathy in our conversations

I just picked up Paul Bloom’s latest book “Against Empathy: the case for rational compassion”… I’m about halfway through (and enjoying it) and it reminded me of this blog post that I wrote last year: “In Her Shoes: the role of empathy in our conversations”…

The slippery world of predatory publishing and what it means for scientific integrity

I clearly recall the first time I saw an article that I co-wrote in print in an academic journal. It was exhilarating. While I knew that the ‘real world’ (friends and family) would likely never read it, for me it was a visible, tangible record of my accomplishment and a signal to my peers that this young scholar had “arrived” in the academic world.

I’ve Been Published! For an academic, research is the daily work and publications coming out of that research are a public record of that research. Only when an article is published can others truly examine the research, critique the results and attempt to replicate it. Replication of research is the one of the main principles of the scientific method.

In a way, peer-reviewed publications are a form of currency and trade in academic circles. How often and what kind of journals you publish in becomes a gauge of your proficiency or ‘brand’ as an academic. It can play a huge role in one’s career advancement.

The quality of a publication is measured through citations and impact. How often an article is cited can be indicative of the substance of the work that one does or serve as evidence of follow-on or related research arguments or observations. The impact factor of a journal, itself, is a proxy for the relative importance of a journal in each field of work. The higher the impact factor, the more scholarly cachet an article published in that journal has (for more info, check out “Peer Review in 3 Minutes“).

The overarching objective for a scholar (say, a social scientist like me) is to impact policy in some meaningful way. In many cases, the work that scientists produce leads to important innovations that serve public good more broadly (think seatbelts, GPS, flu shots, or solar cells). Publishing such works is not only meant to be a record of public dollar investment in important research, it is also an important part of the value chain that brings new innovations to people that need them.

The Problem with Publishing 1.0 While academic journals are a very important part of the knowledge and innovation value chain, many have not (necessarily) been readily accessible for most people. They are often hidden behind user pay-walls. So, even if my dad or my sister wanted to read one of my journal articles, they probably couldn’t access it – even if I gave them a bread crumb trail (a URL, for example).

The promise of “open access” (OA) was hoped to remedy all of that with the assurance of accessibility for everyone. It certainly raised expectations for those of us that valued the whole notion of openness.

The Problem with Publishing 2.0 Yet this promising new world of easy online access and share-ability also cultivated a new and unsavory market for less trustworthy model known as “predatory publishing”. These publishers have questionable business models that spam scientists with emails enticing them to publish in journals that guarantee quick turn around in terms of the peer review process in exchange for a “fee” (see this).  Make no mistake, these publishers are in it for the money. (And with that money, predatory publishers are starting to buy up legitimate journals).

Two things come out of this:

  1. Predatory publishers attract authors with politically-driven agendas who understand the space and take advantage of peer-review shortcomings, and;
  2. They also trick good scholars into submitting good scientific works into spaces that ultimately de-value that work.

Why do I care? Two words: scientific integrity.

Back to my story and the first time that I saw one of my articles in print. Through appropriate peer review, my work had earned a place in reputable scholarly space that could be recognized, replicated, and further peer-reviewed. I was proud of that accomplishment. It was a mark of my research abilities and a signal to my peers as to the quality of my work.

Unfortunately, OA and its promise for accessibility has been blemished with the introduction and rapid growth of predatory publishing industry. Scientific integrity is at risk. As scholars, we need to distinguish the good journals from those ‘other ones’. As consumers, we need to think critically about how science is represented in the media.

Science is all around us. It is in architecture (in our homes and the buildings we work in), in the mechanics of our cars, and in the technology of cell phones. It is in our medicine and food and in how we produce both. If agenda-driven or poorly peer-reviewed science is making its way into downstream spaces of media and social media there are implications for society. This creates unnecessary barriers for socially and economically valuable innovations through misrepresentation of science and technologies.

When scientific integrity is at risk, so is society. We should all care.

Beall, Jeffrey. (2016). Scholarly Open Access: Available online at: https://scholarlyoa.com/

Giddings, Val. (2013) Peer Review – where you thought it ended? That’s just the beginning! Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Available online at: https://itif.org/publications/2013/07/12/peer-review-%E2%80%93-where-you-thought-it-ended-that%E2%80%99s-just-beginning

Rennie, D. (2010). “Integrity in Scientific Publishing.” Health Services Research. June. 45(3). Available online at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2875766/

Rennie D., Yank V., Emanuel L. (1997). “When authorship fails. A proposal to make contributors accountable.” The Journal of the American Medical Association. Aug 20;278(7):579-85

Ryan, Camille and John Vicini. (2016). Why You Should Avoid Predatory Journals, Welcome Rigorous Review. Forbes. Available online at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gmoanswers/2016/06/30/predatory-journals/#410a888a5558

Retraction Watch. Available online at: http://retractionwatch.com/

White, E. (2011). “The Peer Review Process: Benefit or Detriment to Quality Scholarly Journal Publication.” Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology. Volume 13, Issue 1. Available online at: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1185&context=totem

Why is a social scientist working at Monsanto?

I am often asked, “Why does a social scientist work for Monsanto?” That’s a good question. An even better question – and one I am asked even more often – is…

A social scientist is interested in relationships; relationships between people and relationships between people and the social environment (think ‘life’, ‘work’, ‘family’, etc). The social sciences cover a wide range of disciplines that including things like anthropology, economics, geography, history, political science, language studies, psychology, and sociology. (Check out my background here)

Why the social sciences matter in today’s complex food environment

It’s no secret that there have been hits and misses in Monsanto’s communications history. For the longest time, Monsanto focused its communication efforts on its customers – the farmers, in addition to its shareholders and its employees. During the past several years however, people – consumers – started having new and often heated conversations about food and food production. There is a great deal of misinformation circulating out there about modern agriculture and, more often than not, Monsanto is often the ‘lightening rod’ in some very emotionally charged dialogues.

We realized that our greatest challenge may not be in advancing the technology; rather, in helping people understand the importance of that technology. We needed to engage in these conversations.  Traditional communication models – ones that Monsanto relied on for so many years – just don’t work in our information-rich, social-media-driven world. We need to reach consumers in new and unexpected ways; we need to meet people where they are, virtually and in real life.

What does a social scientist – like me – contribute to a company like Monsanto?

My job at Monsanto is to help navigate the murky space of misinformation; to cultivate understanding as to what drives people’s perceptions and beliefs about food and food production. This means digging into the research on public perceptions, behavioral economics, human behavior, sociology of agriculture and food production and other related fields. I am also a resource for my colleagues here at Monsanto to help find new and better ways to reach out to and engage people in conversations that are meaningful.

Humans make decisions or form conclusions in interesting ways. What we think we are talking about isn’t always what we are talking about. Confused? Me too. For example, we might think that we know all about topic “A”, while not even knowing anything about the related and important items of “B” or “C”. Even still, we move on to form conclusions at point “D” – because “D” confirms our biases and “D” reflects the shared understandings of our close, personal networks. Suddenly, though, the dialogue takes a turn! It has moved way, way past “E” and, sadly, “E” may be where the important conversations should take place!

It’s pretty easy to get distracted by the low-hanging fruit of misinformation and our confirmation biases. We all do it. But food production and food security is about more than just GMOs (think ‘food waste and storage’, ‘climate change’, ‘distribution’, etc). We need to work past our biases if we are to resolve some of our most pressing food security problems.We are all consumers. We need to connect with one another in meaningful ways and, more importantly, we at Monsanto need to reach out and collaborate with multiple stakeholders. Science just isn’t enough. If we lead with the science, we quickly lose the ‘social’ so it’s hard for people to relate to us and for us to build trust. We need to broaden our conversations to include our stories; the “why” behind our science. We need to identify what’s missing in our conversations about food and food security because back-and-forth debates that polarize don’t really serve the public good.

In our society, food is so much more than sustenance. I once heard food referred to as a “universe.” There’s no doubt that food is an important part of the social fabric for all societies. It is the gathering place where we connect as human beings and where we share stories. Understanding the complex, fascinating, colorful, ever-changing “food universe” is an important part of my work as a social scientist at Monsanto.

This is why I work for Monsanto and this is why I love my job.

(For more insights into me, my work, check out my virtual chat with Katie Pinke

[this was originally posted on LinkedIn]

Food fads and grey matters

brain-storyIn his article “The Logical Failures of Food Fads” (published in Slate in April 2015), Alan Levinovitz raises an important point that often gets lost in our science communication pursuits:

“Spotting the fatal flaws requires no scientific knowledge whatsoever, just a rudimentary grasp of rhetoric and logic…”

Many of us in the science communication space have realized that traditional, patriarchal, deficit model-driven strategies often fail because of the ‘backfire effect’. Maria Popova (Brainpickings) quotes David McRaney about this phenomenon:

“Once something is added to your collection of beliefs, you protect it from harm. You do this instinctively and unconsciously when confronted with attitude-inconsistent information. Just as confirmation bias shields you when you actively seek information, the backfire effect defends you when the information seeks you, when it blindsides you. Coming or going, you stick to your beliefs instead of questioning them.”

Our lesson here? While communicating the value of science is very important (and, truly, we shouldn’t lose sight of that), how we actually carry it out matters even more.  Perhaps the end goal here is less about changing hearts and minds and more about encouraging critical thought.

Sketching out some cognitive maps through some of those more messy food myths may sometimes be the best way to help people discern between facts and fiction. The human brain is a magical, messy place. If our outreach efforts don’t include ways to help people navigate their grey matter, we will lose folks to those that tell the best, most provocative stories.

And a bit of self-reflection on our part – constantly challenging our own biases as science communicators – doesn’t hurt either.

Related: Here is a link to one of my go-to pieces, Cook and Lewandowsky’s “Debunking Handbook” (6 pages, a quick read). One of the most important points that the authors make here is that you can’t debunk a myth without providing some kind of narrative to replace that myth.

What happens when a friend asks you this?… #GMOs @AJStein_de

This is what happened when Alexander J. Stein, an economist from the EU with research interests in ag and food security, was asked this:

bullet-Leaf“Do you have any recommendations for reading about the debate on GMOs? I think there is a lot of heat, but too little light in the discussion; I trust you can send me some…”

To which he responded:

bullet-Leaf“Sure, I will look into it, select a few references and post them…”

Alexander Stein provides your one-stop shop for everything GMOs and safety and public perceptions … And if all that isn’t enough, check out these resources that I have compiled (some overlap with AS’s)

As you can tell, GMOs is not a topic that you can throw down in a one-hour google search or by surfing through your social media feed. Thanks AS for Bringing Light into the Discussion about GMOsGreat blog post!

FOIA. It’s the New Four-Letter Word.

bullet-LeafSeveral weeks ago, I was notified by my alma mater (the University of Saskatchewan) that the US Right to Know (USRTK) had submitted an Access To Information Act (ATIP) request seeking the production of documents pertaining to “…Camille (Cami) D. Ryan, formerly a professional associate in the Department of Bioresource Policy Business and Economics at the College of Agriculture”.

I was not surprised. Why? For the past year or more, I watched this Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) issue unfold. High profile academics working in agricultural research and outreach all over North America, and their home institutions, were subjected to public records requests from USRTK. I have had close working relationships with only a few of these academics. One is my former PhD supervisor, some have been co-authors on articles or chapters, others I have had the opportunity to meet/work with at conferences or other science-related events. Many I haven’t even met while others I have only connected with in passing. I know them all by reputation. These academics are credible, public sector scientists with decades of experience working in agriculture-related research. They are plant and animal geneticists, political economists, plant breeders, microbiologists, etc., who – through their work – are making significant steps forward in crop research, varietal development, and in how our food is produced and distributed in the world. While I recognize that I am just a ‘small fish’ in a ‘large pond’ of brilliant academics, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I received a request due to these connections that I have and (more likely) to my recent move to Monsanto.

What the FOIA?!

FOIA and its Canadian equivalent, ATIP, are laws enacted to allow for the full or partial disclosure of documents controlled by government organizations (including public sector universities). These laws and the ‘request mechanisms’ are intended to protect public interest by ensuring that public sector organizations and those that are employed by them are operating on the up-and-up. Quite simply, they are accountability mechanisms.

Early last year, 14 US scientists were targeted with FOIA records requests. As of now, that number has risen to well over 40 and more recent efforts have expanded into multiple rounds of searches of emails requested by not only USRTK, but other NGOs, activists, and journalists as well. All are intent on looking for “nefarious” connections linking public sector researchers with corporations and other industry organizations.

Let’s be clear. Relationships between academics and industry do exist. I have blogged about the Genome Canada model here. Few, if any, academics would apologize for these kinds of interactions. In the agriculture sector, academic-industry connections have led to important changes in the food security system, to the development of better crop varieties, and other innovations that have social and economic value.  The impetus behind this is laid out in the Morill Act  (Steve Savage talks in more detail about that here) with the stated purpose for Land Grant universities to promote research, education, and outreach in the “agricultural and industrial arts”.  Yes, outreach. The relationships between the public and private sectors are part of this mission to ensure that socially and economically valuable innovations reach the people who need them.

The tidy little package that the USRTK will receive from the U of S will consist of only 168 pages of emails sourced from my account via the university server. These emails were generated based upon a search (17 search terms identified by USRTK such as “Monsanto”, “Syngenta”, “BASF”, “Ketchum”, etc) of my email folders covering the two-year span of time from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013 (when my research contract ended with the U of S).

Yep. That’s 168. Pages. This is a mere drop in the FOIA bucket. In my case, the estimated invoice for production of these documents by the U of S for USRTK is ~$3500 CDN. But this amount doesn’t even begin to reflect the actual costs imposed on university faculty and personnel, including those that work in IT, administration, and the university’s legal department. Now, amplify these kinds of costs across 40+ FOIA respondents and their home institutions. Imagine the time, administration, and opportunity costs that have been amassed all across North America for this FOIA initiative.

The social and economic costs are considerable. This means less time spent on conducting research, training graduate students, teaching, and writing/administering grant applications.

While USRTK and others purport to uncover mass collusion in agricultural research, what they are really uncovering is the social, human animal at work. Nothing more. These are scientists – #scientistsarepeople – working in related areas, interacting with one another and exchanging ideas, collaborating on projects, and co-publishing; working to find solutions to social, economical and scientific challenges that cannot be addressed by any one person, organization or institution in isolation.

So, who the FOIA cares?

We should all care. The costs alone are problematic (see above). These email requests amount to taking a subset of raw footage and twisting it into stories that feed into an inflexible, pre-conceived narrative. While freedom of information laws are designed to serve a public good (ensure accountability), they can also be used as tools to intimidate and diminish public good – to subvert democracy.

The silver lining to this cloudy issue may be in the ‘call to action’ for those of us working in the areas of agriculture, science, and innovation. Scientists are the experts. As experts and advocates in private and public sectors, we need to continue to work (collectively) towards solving problems that make sense for societies. But we also need to communicate better about how these relationships are structured and why they matter. Now – more than ever – we need to be transparent about the work that we do and how we do it if we are to earn and maintain public trust.leaf2

radically transparent5

 “Science knows it doesn’t know everything; otherwise, it’d stop. But just because science doesn’t know everything doesn’t mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you.”

― Dara Ó Briain

Related articles:

Brown, Kristen V. (2016). “How internet trolls silenced a scientist…and why we need to rethink our entire approach to harassment online.” Fusion. February 24th.

Brown, Tracy. (2016). “It’s silly to assume all research funded by corporations is bent.” The Guardian.

Genetic Expert News Service. (2015) “Biotech researchers concerned FOIA requests could chill public outreach.” September 8.

Johnson, Nathanael. (2015). “Are Scientists that Collaborate with Industry Tainted?“. The GRIST. September 9.

Kroll, David. (2015) “What the New York Times Missed on Folta and Monsanto’s Cultivations of Academic Scientists.” September 10.

Lipton, Eric. (2015) “Food Industry Enlisted Academics in G.M.O. Lobbying War, Emails Show.” New York Times. September 5.

Parrott, Wayne. (2015). “Time to end transparency double-standard targeting biotech scientists.” Generic Literacy Project. September 15.

Ropeik, David. (2015). “What’s More Dishonest: Scientists Taking Corporate Cash or Mudslingers Attacking Them?” Big Think.

Savage, Steve. (2015). “An Important Public-Private Partnership is Under Attack.” Forbes. August 31.

Senapathy, Kavin. (2015). “Misuse of FOIA: Bullying a mother, scientist, nutrition and lactation expert.” Biology Fortified. September 10.

Van Eenennaam, Alison. (2016). “Who Should Fund University Research?” BioBeef Blog.

Van Eenennaam, Alison. (2015). “I’ve been FOIA ed.” Genetic Literacy Project. September 11.

Select References:

BioChica. (2015). “The funding of science: public & private sector collaborations.” FrankenFoodFacts.

Bruininks, Robert H. (2005). “Regional Economies in Transition: The Role of the Land Grant University in Economic Development”. Paper presented for discussion to the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC).

Chassy, Bruce. (2015).”The USRTK FOIA: 40-plus years of public science, research and teaching under assault”. Academics Review.

GeneticsExperts.org (2015). “Freedom of information requests reveal how scientists interact with seed, chemical and organic companies”.

Giddings, V., R. D. Atkinson, and J.J. Wu. (2016). “Suppressing Growth: How GMO Opposition Hurts Developing Nations.” Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. February.

International Development Research Centre. (2014). “New public-prviate partnerships address global food security.” http://www.idrc.ca/en/regions/global/pages/ResultDetails.Aspx?ResultID=133

Kastner et al. (2015). The Future Postponed: Why Declining Investment in Basic Research Threatens the U.S. Innovation DeficitReport/Cases studies by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. April.

Kniss, Andrew. (2015). Three-part series beginning with “Who funds my weed science program?”, “I am biased and so are you”, and “On transparency, intimidation, and being called as shill”. Weed Control Freaks. August.

Novella, Steven. (2015). “FOIA Requests to Biotech Scientists.” NeurologicaBlog. http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/foia-requests-to-biotech-scientists/

Orac. (2016). “Transparency” should not equal a license to harass scientists. Respectful Insolence. http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/01/11/transparency-should-not-mean-a-license-to-harass-scientists/

Spielman, D.J. F. Hartwich, and K. von Grebmer. (?) “Public-private Partnerships and Developing-country Agriculture: Evidence from the International Agricultural Research System.” Future Agricultures. http://www.future-agricultures.org/farmerfirst/files/T2a_Spielman.pdf

The Library of Congress. (2016). “Morill Acts.” https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Morrill.html

Ready, set, shame!

Under the Influence (CBC) has been a favorite program of mine for some time. Terry O’Reilly, the host, explores the evolution of marketing from the 20th century into the 21st century…it’s really fascinating stuff. I always enjoy O’Reilly’s honey-smooth vocal intonations as he creatively grounds his observations in real-world scenarios. In this podcast from 2013 called Shame: the secret tool of modern marketing, Terry “…peels back the layers of shame in our modern world.”

To understand how marketing works today, O-Reilly says “we first need to go back in time”. Unlike today, in the early to mid 1800s we didn’t really care a great deal about how we smelled or what color our teeth were. Through an effective advertising strategy of “social shaming”, companies have been able to position their products and gain market share for the past 150 years. This approach is characterized through messages like: “Control that body odor, people are talking about you!” or “Halitosis is making you a social pariah” or “if you have whiter teeth you will attract the right partner”.

What do bad breath, yellow teeth, and body odor have to do with this blog post? Nothing really. But this whole notion of “social shaming” certainly does. By explicitly promoting the benefits (i.e. whiter teeth) of a given product, companies are implicitly communicating negative social impacts by not using the product.

Setting the “shaming” scene

CR-ShockLast fall, I attended a local community event in rural Alberta where there were a number of young moms in the room, balancing cherubic babies on their hips.  I eavesdropped in on an exchange that went something like this:

Mom #1 says proudly: “Jacob just moved up from rice cereal to baby food.”

Mom #2: “Oh, what are you feeding him?”

Mom #1: “Oh, I picked up [Name Brand] baby food at [Store Name]. We are trying that for now. We bought a selection of different vegetables and fruits to see how he likes them.”

Mom #3: “Well, I certainly hope that it’s organic!”

Mom #1: “Um… I don’t know. Well, I don’t think so…I…”

Mom #2: “I only feed Kaelynn organic baby food. In fact, I special order it in from [Specialty Baby Food Company].”

Mom #3: “I’ve heard about that! I feed my baby natural baby food with no preservatives that I get from [Local High-Priced “Natural” Grocery Store].

Mom #1: “But isn’t that expensive?”

Mom #2: “Yes, it is more money than the supermarket-bought brands but my Kaelyn is worth it.”

Mom #3: “…After all, Mom #1, the safety and health of our babies is important.”

*awkward silence*

Mom #1 looks awkwardly at her feet and shifts healthy, cherubic Jacob to the other hip.

Mom #2 and Mom #3 mentally un-invite Mom #1 from the next play date.

We humans are social animals

As Matthew Lieberman says, we are “wired to connect” (2013). Our nature is to elevate and preserve status we have within the social ‘herd’. To do so, we need to abide by the collective rules of that social network.  If necessary, humans will go to great lengths to protect a position. This is reflected in our “conforming” behaviors  (see Christakis and Fowler 2009). We pick up on social cues (behaviors) of others to know if and when we have “fallen out of favor” or crossed the boundaries of social norms. When it appears that we have broken away from “what is acceptable”, we risk being penalized by our network. Our social environment has changed a great deal over the years where platforms like Facebook and Twitter have grown into central components of our daily human-to-human interactions:

“…social media increases the ability of aggrieved individuals to rally a large group of people around their cause, or publicly expose and embarrass someone they define as a deviant…A virtual mob can be mobilized overnight to spread the word of someone’s alleged wrongdoing, flood his or her inbox with hate mail, and apply other kinds of pressure.”

– Jason Manning, Assistant Professor, West Virginia University –

Tapping into our base fears

Because we are pack animals, we rely on our personal networks for affirmation and survival. If socially ostracized, our visceral response is that our ‘survival’ is in jeopardy.  Advertisers are well-aware of these fears. It is not only companies that employ these kinds of tactics to persuade consumers to buy their products. The ‘social shaming’ strategy is effectively used by different actors in various parts of our social world to influence behavior and public opinion. Via social media, we can easily lob shame-bombs at anyone we disagree with while ducking real accountability for those actions (often shielded behind anonymous profiles).

And sadly, as the above story illustrates, we often use these same shaming tactics on our own friends, family, and community members.

Suggested things to read, see, and listen to:

The Dose Makes the Poison: 2016 edition

This table has received a ton of attention over the years. I appreciate your interest and your requests for pdfs of it. It is, however, tired and outdated and it always lacked the greater story and context around chronic toxicity.

Enter the great work of @MommyPhD and @Thoughtscapism. Together, these smart souls have re-imagined the information on acute and chronic toxicity into colourful, informative tables in high resolution format.  Check out Measures of Toxicity on the Thoughtscapism blog!

Today is a good day to (re)launch my personal blog – now titled “Camistry” – showcasing its new, snappy design. Thanks to my very talented cousin, Shawn, for his creative input and for “re-imagining” my online look.

I also took the opportunity to update the “Dose Makes the Poison” table. Since I originally posted it exactly two years ago, it has gotten tens of thousands of hits.

Here is that table. The content is the same, but it now comes with a bit of an artistic facelift. 🙂

toxicity table 2017

This table is also available in pdf format (better resolution). Send me a note if you would like me to send you the file via email.


text:
Campos Racing looking for strong start to 2017 GP3 season in Barcelona

Home / GP3 / Campos Racing looking for strong start to 2017 GP3 season in Barcelona

Falchero, Hyman and Siebert will enter round 1 of the GP3 Series in Campos Racing colors as the season starts in Spain next weekend

Campos Racing will enter another GP3 Series season and in its third year the only Spanish-based team set ambitious goals for itself. Young stalwarts Julien Falchero, Raoul Hyman and Marcos Siebert will drive Campos Racing’s Dallara GP3/16 cars at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, which hosts curtain-raiser event to 8th season of the GP3 Series.

Following their promising performances in preseason collective testing held on different circuits on the Iberian Peninsula, Falchero, Hyman and Siebert eye a strong start on their debut in the series. Frenchman Falchero, aged 20, made a lot of progress over times from testing and is ready for the start of the season. Hyman is also a debutant but the 20-year-old rookie from South-Africa also proved the pure depth of his talent as a racing driver. Finally Siebert, aged 21, steps up to compete in the GP3 Series after his Formula 4 title last year and the Argentinean driver sets to continue the same winning ways.

Pirelli has chosen its P Zero Orange hard compound for Barcelona. For sure, the Catalan asphalt will be a good test of tire wear as Barcelona, due to its abrasive surface, is the most demanding track of the season for the tires. Characteristic warm temperatures and constant accelerations will demand extreme tire management from drivers.

Friday’s practice session will take place at 16.45 (CET). On Saturday, the single qualifying session is scheduled at 09.45 (CET) with race 1 at 17.15. Finally, on Sunday race 2 will get underway at 09.25 (CET).

Related Posts
Recent Posts


text:
The Chancellor’s Concert Series

Published on May 29, 2018

This series takes place in Cole Hall, 513 Parnassus Avenue.
Seating begins at 12:00 p.m.
The concerts are FREE and there is free food while supplies last (first come/first served).

In Celebration of UCSF Veterans
November 8, 2018 - Thursday

Ives Collective with
Robin Sutherland, piano
Elgar: Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 84
Co-sponsored by Veteran Support Services

December 20, 2018 - Thursday
Dan Carlson, violin
Dian Zhang, violin
Joy Fellows, viola
Peter Myers, cello
Mendelssohn:  String Quartet No.5 in E flat major, Opus 44, No.3

The Chancellor’s Concert Series is a professional classical music series founded in 1998 to enrich the quality of life of the UCSF Community.  Performing artists are members of the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, San Francisco State University, Stanford University, Crowden School, and their collaborators.
This series is made possible by UCSF Campus Life Services Wellness & Community, as well as audience volunteers and donors.

If you would like to make a donation to the Chancellor’s Concert Series, click here.


text:
Form of Subscription to be used in the Local Congregation

We, the undersigned, ministers of God’s Word, elders and deacons of the Canadian Reformed Church at _____ , do, by our subscription, declare sincerely and in good conscience before the Lord that we heartily believe that the whole doctrine contained in the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort fully agrees with the Word of God.

We promise, therefore, that we will diligently teach this doctrine and faithfully defend it without contradicting it publicly or privately in teaching or writing. We also declare that we reject all errors conflicting with the doctrine expressed in these confessions and promise to oppose, refute and help prevent such errors.

If at any time in the future it should happen that we would disagree with this doctrine or any part of it, we promise that we will not propose, teach, preach or publish our opinion, either publicly or privately; rather, we will first submit this to the church via her assemblies for judgment. We are willing to submit to their decision; if we refuse we will by that very fact be suspended from our office.

If at any time the consistory, classis or regional synod, upon sufficient grounds of suspicion and in order to maintain the unity and purity of the teaching, would decide to require of us a further explanation of our views, we do hereby promise that we are always willing and ready to comply under the penalty of suspension.

However, we reserve the right of appeal if we believe ourselves wronged. During the time of appeal we will acquiesce in the decision of consistory or classis or regional synod.

© 2018 Committee for the Canadian Reformed Website.


text:
Costa Rica: Montezuma and the Trip Home

I’ve been there a handful of times, and every time is just a little bit different. The first time I wound up there, I was with my buddy with whom I traveled throughout Central America and three of our friends who had come to meet us there.

We stayed at a villa on the hillside. The house was the nicest accommodations we had stayed in in months. It felt like Italy. The seaside cliffs. The views of the sea. The arid landscaping.

The second time I was there, it was low season. Town was quiet. Children were in school. There was a Saturday farmer’s market in the park. Kim and I were privy to the inaugural concert of the children’s music program; Tico kids and Ex-pat kids played songs like Frère Jacques and Heart and Soul. Within minutes of hearing the first song, Kim and I were ready to move there.

After this second trip, I was slowly forming a connection in my head: Montezuma felt like Italy. But why?

Only on this last trip, did it occur to me.

Montezuma is thronged with Italians. And I’m not talking Jersey Shore Guidos. But Italians, from Italy. Whether it is the climate, or the cheap land, or the community, or some unseen force that draws people of one culture together in lands afar, Montezuma has called to Italian expatriates.

Certainly, there are other ethnicities represented in the town. We met Americans, Germans, Kiwis, Argentines, and British to name a few.

Now, dear readers, you are probably thinking to yourselves, “Why is he writing about Italians in Costa Rica? I want to know about Montezuma.”

My point is thus: with its gelato shops, pizzerias, yoga studios, trattorias, marisquerias, boutiques, olive-skinned men and women, Montezuma has grown into a multicultural, multilingual paradise on the beach.

It is not your typical traveler’s town. Though a Central American beach town, Montezuma has the feel of a small Italian village.

There are motorcycles bobbing and whining through the streets. ATVs, occasionally with a basket on the front for a small dog, growl idly at the entrance to the supermarket. Cars, bicycles, people, buses, delivery trucks crowd the main street in town. Horns blare, Italians curse, sojourners drink beer, shoppers spend, men hock Ceviche out of coolers, and beautiful bronze bodies strut from shop to bar and back again.

Of course, we arrived on New Year’s Day. Which is one reason for town being so raucous. The low season, as I mentioned is entirely different, but that’s another story, er, post, I suppose.

Backdrop painted, I continue where I left off from my last post about Costa Rica:

Since we had experienced a monkey point blank in the first ten minutes of our time at Luna Llena, I could sleep happily.

Everyone cleaned up and we headed into town. After four days of jungle time and a day of uncomfortable travel, we were ready to treat ourselves to dinner and lounge on the beach.

Dinner must have been unremarkable because I can’t remember where we ate. However, after dinner we strolled down the beach a ways and laid in the sand chatting and watching the waves.

The infinite bliss created by crashing waves under moonlit skies is unfathomable. At that very moment, I felt like I could melt into the sand. All of this sinking into my senses plus wonderful vulnerable conversations with extraordinary people, and well, I officially remembered why I love to travel.

The next morning we had a delightful breakfast brought to us from a local woman; one of the many treats that Luna Llena offers. We lounged around sipping coffee until we all had fully caffeinated ourselves, and then set off to explore the town.

We wove in and out of shops, meandering toward the beach until we came upon the church.

Now, it’s possible I had never noticed it, and it’s possible that it was just rebuilt and it’s possible that it had been there the very first time I went to Montezuma. But for some reason, on January 2, 2013, the church really caught my eye. I insisted we go in.

The building was open and there was no one else inside of it. I took the opportunity to shoot as much as I could. While not ornate or ostentatious in any way, it was one of the most remarkable churches I can recall being in.

Maybe it is the “simplify” tattoo on my forearm, and maybe it is the “church in the woods” song I sang at camp as a boy, but something stirred inside of me when we entered that church.

I was not moved to pray, nor to accept Jesus as my one true savior, but I certainly felt more welcomed in a church than I had in a long time.

I digress. Kim and Zack were kind enough to indulge me for some time while I ran about giddily snapping photos.

They continued up the street until we finally made it to the beach.

Once again, I was distracted by more photographic possibilities and lost sight of them.

When I finally came upon them, only Zack was on the beach. The others were delighting in the waves. I snapped some more pictures and eventually they returned and I could leave our beach tapestry to enter the water.

I played around for a bit, body surfing and jumping and getting tumbled into the sand when a curious young man caught my eye.

He was playing with something in his hand, though I couldn’t tell exactly what it was. Surreptitiously, I began watching him a little bit more closely. In has hands was a glass sphere! The young man deftly passed it back and forth between his hands, whirled it up and down his arms and created the illusion that the ball was compelled to act by his very will. Remember David Bowie in Labyrinth? Bingo.

I rushed out of the water to grab my camera, determined to ask him if I could take some pictures of him. Earlier that day Zack advised me that I should start asking people if I can take their picture. Not having yet done that, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity.

As it turns out, I got some really incredible photos of this young man playing with his acrylic globe in the waves.

The next couple of days were marked only by the waves crashing on the beach and by the moon rising directly in front of our balcony.

Our third day in town some of us decided to hike to the Montezuma waterfall. Right at the start of the trail, we were greeted by some Mantled Howler Monkeys.

Shortly thereafter I was the only one who wanted to continue all the way to the waterfall. Unabashedly, I hopped upstream (narrowly missing a dirty diaper someone had forgotten to take with them). In front of me, an American girl hopped deftly from rock to rock. Silently, we hopped like goats and smiled at one another from time to time. We almost began racing as we cruised stealthily upstream. Each of us felt a satisfaction in arriving there more quickly than the folks who were hiking the trail.

When I reached the waterfall, I didn’t even stop to take a photo. I had heard about the upper pools and decided quite rapidly that I was going to scramble up to them.

Let me tell you, don’t go up there if you are meek. The climber’s trail was steep, slippery, exposed, and really fun! Though I broke my flip-flop on the way down, it was totally worth it.

There are two pools above the main waterfall each with their own cascading falls and plenty of cliffs to jump off of. I won’t say any more than that, and I didn’t take any photos. If you want to know, you’ll have to go.

That night Kim and I had made reservations at Ylang Ylang resort to have a celebratory dinner in honor of everything that our clients had done and experienced on the trip.

Kim and I walked out to Ylang Ylang early and prepared a fire on the beach. The plan was to have the shuttle pick our clients up in town, have dinner, and then walk back along the beach, stopping at our fire pit for a closing ceremony.

Shortly after we arrived at dinner, the rain began to fall. And fall. The shuttle driver, whose name happened also to be Eric, was kind enough to take us back to town, though his shift was over.

Kim and I had already decided that we were going to hold our ceremony on the beach right in town. There would simply be no fire.

So, with cell phones as flashlights, we conducted our ceremony.

Kim had collected a number of beautiful items earlier that day. I quickly found a large leaf at the edge of the beach. We sat in a circle giving thanks for and honoring whatever we felt was necessary as we closed 2012 and opened 2013. Our final offering looked like this:

Together we walked into the dark moonlit ocean and gave our offering to Mother Ocean so she might carry it away.

The next morning, I tossed and turned in the top bunk. There was a clamoring on the roof at an ungodly hour. Even with my earplugs, I couldn’t sleep. As I lay in bed cursing the continued clamoring, it occurred to me its cause:

Excitedly, I woke up and threw on my shorts. I ran downstairs and got a cup of coffee and got my camera out.

Minute after minute, the monkeys came gallivanting across the galvanized roof. Pounding and scratching and running and plodding and being sneaky!

Bang! Monkey. Click! Photo. Bang! Another Monkey. Click! Click! More Photos.

I finally woke Kim up and she and I sat watching the monkeys for who knows how long. Our clients eventually woke up because the Capuchins were making such a ruckus.

While shooting these creatures, I lost all sense of time. I may have been watching them for two hours, or two days. I have no idea. Below is what I captured.

Eventually, we peeled ourselves away from the acrobatics of the monkeys toward the beach. Our final hours in the sun were counted in grains of sand in our suits and waves washing over our feet.

With heavy hearts we boarded our shuttle to the ferry. This ferry ride was no less remarkable than our first one but for entirely different reasons. Spectacles abounded at every turn.

A group of flamboyant fashionistas sat to our left. A seemingly cracked-out, dreadlocked partnership sat to our right. We spotted TWO killer rattails (for more on my interest in rattails I refer you to one of my Movember posts). The sunset was extraordinary.

Most importantly, a skinny dipping exhibitionist felt it was his duty to swim as near to the boat as he could. Mind you, he started swimming about one-quarter mile away from the ship, if not further. This nude dude swam all the way out to us.  He flaunted all of his pieces, floated sunny-side up in the water for minutes at a time, and dove down like a dolphin. Finally, as the ship cast off, our entertainer began his stroke toward shore.

We landed without event, found our shuttle, and made our way to Hostel Maleku in Alajuela. Our shuttle driver was unbelievably gregarious at a time when most of us wanted silence. For some reason, he insisted on telling us where the best whores are in San Jose. Weird.

We got to our hostel, ordered pizzas, and had girls’ night. Since the first night of the trip we’d planned on having a girls night and just hadn’t gotten around to it. So, with aplomb, I applied the avocado and something-or-other face mask, ate chocolate, and listened to gossip about lord knows what. It was a definitively enjoyable end to the trip.

The next morning, we got to the airport very early. While Kim and I were checking in, the information board above our ticket counter flashed, “Overbooked; Offering $800 Travel Voucher.” We looked at each other and said, “Yes, please!”

So, with a little patience, we were bumped to a flight that left further in the day, had all of our meals comped, a night (really more like five hours) in a hotel in Dallas, and $800 each in travel vouchers.

Not bad for a week’s work. Not bad at all.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Logo

You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this:


text:
C. A. Rasmussen, Inc., believes its two most valuable assets are its reputation and its employees. As a family-owned business, we encourage our employees to carry on our tradition of hard work and dedication. In turn, we invest deeply in our employees’ continued education, safety and development. We actively promote a working environment in which employees can enjoy a feeling of accomplishment and take pride in a job well done.

Many of our employees have stayed with the company for 15 years or more. As our founder, Carl Rasmussen, was known for saying, “You can simply write a check for a piece of heavy equipment, but the true key to success can only be achieved through the hard work of good, quality individuals.”

We are always on the lookout for talented, motivated individuals to join our team. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer that is signatory to the Operating Engineers, Carpenters, Cement Masons and Laborers Union agreements. We offer an excellent package including competitive compensation, subsidized health insurance, dental insurance, paid time off/paid holidays, 401k with employer match, bonuses and the opportunity to work for the most innovative and respected general contractor in Southern California.

Please send resumes via e-mail or by mail below:
C. A. Rasmussen, Inc.
28548 Livingston Avenue,
Valencia, CA 91355-4171