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What Does the World Dream?

“The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those that ask mercy, not often to the arrogant.”

In his twilight days, man dreams of his death. A lonely figure upon the cliff top gazing out over a black stormy sea under an iron sky. Beneath the stone, the volcanic consciousness pulses. The eyes beyond the flaming walls of the world blink open. The annihilating force of the myth of human superiority has never been more starkly visible. No poet understood this myth better than Robinson Jeffers. He stands side by side with us at the precipice of the void. Jeffers is truly the poet of our groaning, clamoring age. He utterly rejected the notion that human life is more important or valuable than the life of other creatures, or the existence of a pebble, a grain of sand, or a speck of dust. He saw human history as an inexorable march towards oblivion but he also perceived the consciousness of the universe, the spirit of all things, and thus, he saw that humanity as a child of the universe must be imbued with a spark of that consciousness as well, no matter how deeply it is buried beneath aeons of vanity.

As a quick housekeeping note, I have chosen not to discuss Jeffers’ long, narrative poems in the essay that follows, although they contain perhaps his most articulate version of his philosophy and his most stylish verse. I have instead focused on presenting a wide range of Jeffers’ work from various points in his career, with the intention of giving the inexperienced reader of Jeffers a broader exposure of his ideas.

As the child of a Presbyterian minister and professor of Old Testament literature, Jeffers’ earliest influences were the Classics and the Bible. But while Christ was the “lord and captain” of his father’s life, as Jeffers wrote in the poem “To His Father,” he “followed other guides… through years nailed up like dripping panther hides for trophies on a savage temple wall.” Among these “other guides” were the works of Freud and Jung on the mysterious shadowy landscape of the unconscious, as well as James Frazer’s seminal work on magic, myth, and ritual. Beneath all of this lay the deeply held conviction that humanity was doomed and that history was destined to end in ruin, decadence, and decay. Jeffers himself acknowledges that much of his early poetry was simply “imitating Shelley and Milton,” though without their originality. Part of this archaic style was an attempt to separate himself from contemporaries such as Pound and Eliot, who were committed to innovation in poetic forms. As Jeffers writes in his introduction to the 1935 Modern Library reissue of Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems, he could not become “a modern.” Jeffers rejection of modernism as a literary aesthetic or style, of course, reflects his deeper rejection of modernity as an experience of life and history. The world-shaping utopian projects of the Enlightenment and its inheritors likewise appeared to Jeffers as twisted, poisonous, and pernicious.

The promises of the revolutionary 18th and 19th centuries, promises and visions of a worldly paradise where suffering and struggle would vanish like mist before the blazing sun led inexorably to the horrors of the 20th century and beyond. The fantasy of progress, that history was moving towards the perfection of humanity and human society obliterated the last bonds that tied our species to the cosmos. Jeffers saw this more clearly than anyone. The world wars, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the domination of techno-industrial society were merely the culmination of a process begun long before.

Perhaps the greatest influence on Jeffers’ work was the landscape and character of the central Californian coastline. Jeffers and his wife Una moved to Carmel, California in 1914. They had intended to settle in Europe but the war changed their plans. Along those rocky cliffs, Jeffers discovered a deep and powerful connection to place. He and Una lived in Carmel for the rest of their lives. While building a stone cottage for his wife and twin boys, Jeffers also found his love for masonry and stone work. This would become one of the major themes of his poetry.

The stone gives us the impression of permanence, the strength and ancient age of the natural world. Those who work with stone may feel that they have the power to manipulate primordial substances, the bones of the world. At the same time, to know the essence of stones, one must also know how limited our capacity is to truly impose ourselves on the world. Because as titanic as they are to us, the stones themselves will dissolve into nothingness over time. But humans seem to have this impulse to carve our faces into the sides of mountains so we can delude ourselves with fantasies of immortality. Humanity is caught as it were between these two poles, transience and the illusion of permanence. Robinson Jeffers’ poetry reflects the tension between these poles, as well as the attendant conditions of hope and despair.

Jeffers consistently emphasizes both the absurdity and maliciousness of the human race and the unconquerable power of the world. Geological symbols are frequently invoked by Jeffers to dramatize the smallness of the human world and the vastness of nature. In “To the Stone-Cutters” he characterizes humanity as the “foredefeated / Challengers of oblivion.” All the products of human labor constitute a challenge to the indifference of the universe, what appears to the limited human intellect as “oblivion.” According to Jeffers, we build and dream and fight to prove ourselves, to prove that we have some significance and further, to prove that the universe has some kind of substance that we can understand, some structure, some meaning. Rather than the swirling storms of chaos and violence that we secretly fear. Truly, however, our best efforts are doomed before we begin. Jeffers continues, “the poet as well / builds his monument mockingly; / for man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the / brave sun / die blind and blacken to the heart.” Humanity’s challenge is ironic, somewhere deep within us. We know ultimately that our existence is contingent and temporary, as individuals and as a species, for we also know that the earth, the sun, and the universe itself has a finite lifespan. As we die, as our works are forgotten, so to will earth die, and the sun itself. Permanence is madly sought but cannot be found in this world. Why is such a simple truth so difficult for humanity to grasp? Despite the overwhelming knowledge that all things will pass into nothingness, why do we continue to create? Jeffers concludes his poem thus “stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained / thoughts found / the honey of peace in old poems.” In other words, it is true that stones, earth, and sun will die but the life of a human being is so much more fragile and fleeting that we cannot help but be impressed by power of stones and old poems. While a thousand years may be insignificant in terms of cosmic time, it represents a near eternity to the mind of a human creature. Jeffers always seeks to understand the place of humanity in the cosmos and in this sense it is natural for us to long for whatever taste of immortality we may achieve, as delusion as it ultimately is. This is something that appears to make us what we are.

Rocks and stones populate Jeffers’ poetry as reminders of our place in the universe but also as a source of power. As humanity was born from the world, there must be something of the world within us. In “Continent’s End” we can see a vision of humanity that is small and weak but forged of the same materials as the cosmos. Staring at the sea during a storm, Jeffers reflects on the line that divides humanity from the world, “you have forgotten us, mother. / You were much younger when we crawled out of the / womb and lay in the sun’s eye on the tideline. / It was long and long ago; we have grown proud since / then and you have grown bitter.” ‘Mother Earth’ here is characterized as a absent parent, one who no longer has the energy or patience to care for an impulsive child. For Jeffers, humanity is not necessarily alienated from the natural world. The division has been the consequence of our history. And humanity alone is not to blame. The world, in Jeffers’ eyes, is indifferent and cold. Our pride and hubris has not been met with kindness and understanding. Our mother is stern and punishes us with a world we can never hope to fully control, with forces that make us scatter frightened and humbled.

But once, before the rift occurred, humanity lived alongside its mother. And still “the tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life / is your child, but there is in me / older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye / that watched before there was an ocean.” As vast as the world is and as small as we are, the world is inside of us. The oceans and the stars. Its true that our mother, the earth, gave us life but we are not only the products of life. The oceans, the stars, and the stones do not have life but still were born. These things do not owe their existence to the world but to the womb of the universe itself. As Jeffers says, there is a part of us that comes from that source as well. The earth is our mother but we have a greater one too. When the earth itself was born the primordial universe was ancient beyond counting. That substance flows through us as well. Jeffers repeats this concept in the poem’s final stanza: “mother, though my song’s measure is like your surf / beat’s ancient rhythm I never learned it of you. / before there was any water there were tides of fire, both / our tones flow from the older fountain.” The older fountain is this celestial origin, that gave life to the earth itself and us. It is true that most of what we are comes from the earth but standing at the edge of the ocean and seeing the waves pound the granite shores, Jeffers reminds himself that there is something inside of humanity that is older and even more powerful than the earth, our mother. In this universe, there is always something older than we think. And we are all linked to the most ancient source.

Jeffers is preoccupied with time and history, which occurs on many different registers in his poetry. There is the history of the cosmos, the history of the earth, and the history of humanity. As Jeffers tries to broaden his perspective beyond the limits of a flawed and fragile human being, these three histories are juxtaposed, layered on top of each other. He understands that the events of human history are miniscule compared to the dramas and tragedies of the world beyond us. Nevertheless, while he tries to see reality from a non-human perspective, Jeffers knows that he will always be bound by his nature. We can see this conflict play out in “Tor House,” a poem about the stone tower which he built for himself on the Carmel coast. Here Jeffers tries to cast his imagination forward into the future and asks himself what will remain of his home, his life, and even the ground on which he has build this life. “if you should look for this place after a handful of lifetimes: / perhaps of my planted forest a few / may stand yet.” So after a couple hundred years, Jeffers imagines, some trees he planted may remain. “Look for foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers / had the art to make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.” Of Tor House itself there may even be some evidence. The foundations of the house, made from elemental stones. Whatever remains will not persevere due to human ingenuity or industriousness, but because ultimately it was made from substances beyond the power of humanity. Jeffers’ skill here is merely that of being able to coax the power of stones together.

But Jeffers looks further ahead. He wonders “if you should look in your idleness after ten thousand years.” Surely, the trees he planted are long gone. As well as anything left of his home and the proud stones that lent their strength to his enterprise. What would be left of the place? How could it be identified? “You will know it by the wild sea / fragrance of the wind / though the ocean may have climbed or retired a little; / you will know it by the valley inland.” Particular features may no longer exist but the geology of the place may still persist. The ocean will still smell like the ocean, regardless of where the shore now lies.

Finally, Jeffers wonders about himself. What of the self would remain after ten thousand years? “My ghost you needn’t look for; it is probably / here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not dancing on wind / with the mad wings and the day moon.” Some trace of humanity may linger as well. But not one that may be perceived in the world above. Not an easily discern presence but a subterranean one, a geological one. The closest thing to immortality that humanity can hope for is to be written into the rocks beneath the earth.

 From the beginning of his career as a mature poet, Jeffers consistently engaged with the natural world in a way that separates him apart. It is not merely Jeffers’ portrayal of the beauty of nature that is important but what that beauty means for him. Jeffers nature is not the anthropomorphized nature we are so accustomed to reading and thinking. It is not benign, it is not pure, it is not peaceful, it is utterly indifferent to humanity, and its power is beyond our comprehension. Nevertheless, as Tim Hunt remarks in his introduction to the Stanford University Press Selected Poems of Robinson Jeffers, in Jeffers poetry we find an image of nature that is “intentionally nonironic” and “redemptively beautiful” (6). The natural world can provide us with the only truth that exists. Human society is nothing more than a pack of lies. Our salvation, such as it is, depends on our ability to abandon ourselves to the power, flux, and beauty of nature.

In his preface to the 1924 edition of Tamar and Other Poems Jeffers writes that while we are inclined to think of poetry as a form of “refuge” from the world or a dream designed to sooth our pain and assuage our misery, we would do better to think of it as an “intensification” of the world that brings us closer to what actually is. Poetry is “not an ornament but essential, not a diversion but an incitement”(707). If nature is the only way to truth, poetry can illuminate the way for us. To do so “poetry must be rhythmic, and must deal with permanent things”(707). In this way poetry can draw the consciousness of the lost, weak, and neurotic modern back to what is real. What is real? What is permanent? As we look around we are confronted with a vast number of things that are real and just as many that are unreal, that exist merely as smoke or mist that rises from the icy water of a mountain pool. There one minute but gone the next. Jeffers defines the permanent as follows: “a railroad, for example, is not real as a mountain is; it is actual, in its fantastic way, for a century or two; but it is not real; in most of the human past and most of the human future it is not existent”(708). We are surrounded with ephemeral things and these are the things we largely engage with. Is it any surprise then that we think as beings of smoke, dissipating and flying apart with every breath. What is essential, permanent is forgotten by modern humanity: “here is what makes the life of modern cities barren of poetry; it is not a lasting life; and it is lived among unrealities”(708). Jeffers’ insistence upon the rhythmic properties of poetry reiterates this articulation of the essential and the permanent.

Poetic rhythm for Jeffers is not a matter of conventional understandings of cadence, meter, or verse. It is a geological phenomenon, the vibrating, resonating force of the living world in all its cyclicality and duration. The movement of the ocean tides, the march of the sun and moon, the endless recurrence of life and death. Rhythm is what makes poetry: “prose belongs rather to that indoor world where lamplight abolishes the returns of day and night, and we forget the seasons”(709). Poetry, for Jeffers, is what reminds us of our connection to flux and return; this is why “his work continues to speak to readers who sense that our technological environment places us in a false relationship to space, time, and the physical world.”

In his 2001 essay, Tim Hunt draws our attention to “Salmon Fishing” as a prime example of Jeffers’ conception of humanity and its relation to the world:

The days shorten, the south blows wide for showers now,

The south wind shouts to the rivers,

The rivers open their mouths and the salt salmon

Race up into the freshet.

In Christmas month against the smoulder and menace

Of a long angry sundown,

Red ash of the dark solstice, you see the anglers,

Pitiful, cruel, primeval,

Like the priests of the people that built Stonehenge,

Dark silent forms, performing

Remote solemnities in the red shallows

Of the river’s mouth at the year’s turn,

Drawing landward their live bullion, the bloody mouths

And scales full of the sunset

Twitch on the rocks, no more to wander at will

The wild Pacific pasture nor wanton and spawning

Race up into fresh water.

We may be inclined to think of the fishermen as alien figures that interrupt the beauty, serenity, and peace of the river. They are “pitiful, cruel,”and as a matter of fact in earlier drafts of the poem Jeffers writes of the anglers “torturing” the fish. But the violence that they bring is itself a reflection of the world itself and thus humanity is a part of the world no matter how brutal and bloodstained. The sun itself here is menacing and “angry.” As Tim Hunt writes “Jeffers projects a world where salmon and anglers are both enmeshed in a sacrificial landscape of fire and blood.” The anglers, linked to the priests of Stonehenge, are part of ancient human heritage of violence and Jeffers is quick to emphasize that the sacrifice of a human life is no more weighty a thing than the sacrifice of a salmon. We are all bound up in the same rituals of blood.

Yet even in this vision of slaughter and cruel, macabre rites, Jeffers asserts the beauty and meaning of the world. In the end it is not the anglers that are the source of pain, it is the flux of the world, the “constant alternation of death and renewal.” Properly understood, humanity plays a role in this regard. Humanity is connected to the world through its blood-soaked rituals and massacres. Jeffers’ challenge to the reader, Hunt argues, “is to see and identify with the whole” and to avoid the temptation to merely observe “nature’s flux rather than identifying with it and recognizing one’s final and inevitable participation in it.” This is Jeffers’ visionary power; he understands humanity’s place in the cosmos and is willing to accept the frightening and awe-inspiring consequences.

Of the earth yet fatally unable to grasp the vastness of the forces that determine our lives. Humanity has within itself access to something immeasurable, the atoms of stars, the spirit of creation, the breath of god. And yet, and Jeffers is quick to remind us, we abandon this power in favor of illusions sprung from our disordered minds. So much of human existence is spent, for instance, in the pursuit of happiness, a theme Jeffers addresses in his 1924 poem “Joy”:

Though joy is better than sorrow joy is not great;

Peace is great, strength is great.

Not for joy the stars burn, not for joy the vulture

Spreads her gray sails on the air

Over the mountain; not for joy the worn mountain

Stands, while years like water

Trench his long sides. “I am neither mountain nor bird

Nor star; and I seek joy.”

The weakness of your breed: yet at length quietness

Will cover those wistful eyes.

Jeffers’ vision of the world is not one without value, it posits a value that supersedes the value of the human world. There is greatness in strength and peace, though we must understand that the latter does not imply an absence of violence or bloodshed. There is strength in the mountain, there is peace in the grace of the bird that soars through the clouds above us. The frozen radiant heart of the star. The notion of joy, however, is alien to the world. It is a concept that exists only among humans in society. A concept of the most limited truth. As Jeffers writes, our desire for joy is a hereditary flaw and will find no foundation in the world beyond us. However, again, we always come back to our source and eventually we will be released from our mad search for things that do not exist by the very fact of our existence in the world that we shun. “Death,” as Jeffers writes elsewhere, “is no evil.” Who shall seek a thing called joy? Only the strange thing that we are. Neither and nor.

In autumn the leaves fall and the sky grows dark and cold. We are in the forest now, wandering and lost. Dry branches scrape against our soft skin and jagged thorns rip. A wind rises up and shakes the twisted trees, its whisper calms us in our terror. “No matter / What happens to men … the world’s well made though.” We shall dissolve into the universe. What does the world dream?

Who does the earth think it is?

Think, think, think. Nothing is more human and yet nothing more abhorrent to life. For Jeffers, as we have seen, the truth of humanity’s link to the cosmos lies in our capacity to perceive the rhythms and the beauty of the world. It is not a beauty that easily conforms to what humanity creates in the mind. What we see is only a beauty of fragments, which have been violently put asunder and scattered. We seek reason. But what could we possibly find that lies outside of the world, which is ourselves as well? We know that love obeys no master reason. Nor does beauty and the infinite world. In “Apology for Bad Dreams” Jeffers writes:

I have seen the ways of God: I know of no reason

For fire and change and torture and the old returnings.

He being sufficient might be still. I think they admit no reason; they are

the ways of my love.

Unmeasured power, incredible passion, enormous craft; no thought

Apparent but burns darkly

Smothered with its own smoke in the human brain-vault: no thought

The ways of the world shall always be impenetrable as long as we choke ourselves on the smoke of thoughts that have no mirror in the stream or the darkening woods. In the meadows, the rushing clouds, there is no thought. Desperately and full of anger we ask in the language of reason and therefore we receive nothing but dust and shadow. Fire. Why does the world burn? Change. Why must all be as it is? Torture. Why must we fear? And after all, there is only flux and return. There is love in things we perceive as horror when we look upon them with eyes misty with reason. But what force awaits us when we walk on the path of love? Power beyond imagining and passion that can shake the pillars of time.

In the end, the world is not for us, though a flower that blooms from the stars aches within our hearts. We need only to linger among the ruins to understand. Throughout Jeffers poetry we are reminded that humanity is a passing thing. One day we were here and another day we will be gone. The bones of the earth will not have noticed. Even now, when we are faced with the reality of all the horror that humanity has wrought upon the world, Jeffers stands to gently point to forest that reclaims abandoned farms and the saplings that push through the rubble.

In “Love-Children” Jeffers tells the story of a young couple in love, who made their life together in a small hut by the side of the ocean. They sought to live purely, alongside the fox and the squirrel. Crouching, naked, like wild things themselves. Their passions, their struggles, the flame they brought would all perish in time. And the paths they carved along the cliffs became overgrown and time swallowed their every trace: “I’m never sorry to think that here’s a planet / Will go on like this glen, perfectly whole and content, after mankind is / scummed from the kettle.” Ultimately whether or not humanity returns to the way like these wild, loving, light eyed children does not matter, for in time we will be washed away from these shores and bathe in “the fountains of the boiling stars” and the world will remain until the sun itself withers into death.

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In a now-legendary 12-hour interview with Francois Truffaut, Alfred Hitchcock explained the pivotal difference between surprising your audience and keeping them in suspense. "We are now having a very innocent chat," said Hitchcock. "Let us suppose that there is a bomb underneath the table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, 'Boom!' There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene of no special consequence."

"Now, let us take a suspense situation," Hitchcock continued. "The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware that the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions this innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: 'You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There's a bomb beneath you and it's about to explode!'"

"In the first case we have given the public 15 seconds of of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with 15 minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the audience must be informed."

Breaking Bad's final run of episodes, which began with last summer's "Live Free or Die," have been a demonstration of Hitchcock's principle writ large. Watching the climax of tonight's "To'Hajiilee," we know something that none of the characters in the scene know: Walter White has to survive. He has to get away because he has to grow a beard and have his solitary 52nd birthday at a Denny's. He has to buy a massive gun and drive it back to his empty, ripped-up house, where he he has to retrieve the ricin he stashed away in an electrical outlet.

Imagine, hypothetically, how differently the final scenes of "To'Hajiilee" would play if we didn't have that information. Director Michelle MacLaren draws the scene leading up to the episode's inevitable conclusion to agonizing lengths. Hank relishes every second of Walt's arrest — cuffing him, reading him his Miranda rights, putting him in the back of the SUV, calling Marie to celebrate. If we didn't know where this story was going, the scene would be agonizing because it might mean the end of Walter White — who is, for all his faults, our protagonist, and someone it's enormously surreal to see defeated.

But because we know Walt can't be arrested here, the scene is agonizing for an entirely different reason. Walt has to get away, and that almost certainly means the death of someone, if not everyone, around him.

This is a philosophy that sets Breaking Bad apart from every other major prestige drama on television. Game of Thrones derives much of its power from surprise — the knowledge that none of its characters are safe, which fueled water-cooler moments like the death of Ned Stark or last season's Red Wedding. Mad Men showrunner Matt Weiner guards against spoilers so zealously that not even critics are allowed to see episodes before they air. But Breaking Bad went out of its way to spoil the climax to its story at the outset of the fifth season, at least 12 episodes before the story caught up with it. That's suspense.

It's also, in retrospect, the storytelling device that marked Breaking Bad's evolution from a tragic story to a tragedy in the most classic sense of the word. The last time Breaking Bad used extensive cold opens was in its second season — but while the device was the same, the effect was completely different. The black-and-white shots of the teddy bear in the pool offered a mystery that was virtually impossible to solve; we didn't know that Jane's father was a flight controller, or that there was a plane crash, until the final episode of the season. Breaking Bad even used the flash-forwards to misdirect the audience from what was really happening; the mysterious covered bodies in the White family's driveway, which drew so much feverish speculation at the time, turned out to be two faceless and nameless plane crash victims wholly unconnected with the events of the series proper.

But if the cold opens in Breaking Bad's second season were designed to obscure the eventual ending, the cold opens in Breaking Bad's fifth season were designed to reveal it. The power of tragedy, like the power of suspense, comes with the knowledge of the inevitable ending — a knowledge that the story's characters don't share.

Of course, we're still not quite at that ending yet. The cat-and-mouse game between Walt and Hank, with each man simultaneously playing "cat" and "mouse," has come to an end with Hank on top (with a major assists from Jesse). Just as Walt defeated Gus by recognizing that his opponent's key weakness was his hatred for Tio Salamanca, Hank and Jesse defeated Walt by recognizing that his key weakness was his money. Unfortunately, Walt had an extra wild card: Todd's Uncle Jack and the rest of his Nazi buddies, who show up and start firing on Hank and Steve Gomez.

The episode ends before anyone has dropped, but it's safe to say that will change before anyone puts down their arms in next week's episode. If I had to predict — though my predictions have certainly been wrong before — I'd wager that Gomez will definitely be killed and Hank will probably be killed. Walt and Jesse, who are clearly the answer to Lydia's branding problem, will be spared to serve as the top-tier meth cooks her European contacts have been demanding. Their reward, presumably, will be not getting killed and buried in an unmarked grave in the desert by the Nazi gang.

"The apprehension of the bomb is more powerful than the feelings of sympathy or dislike for the characters involved," Hitchcock explained. But Breaking Bad has gone one step further by making Walter the "ticking time bomb" in this story (as Mike once aptly and memorably described him). With just three episodes left, we're still waiting to see him go all the way off — but we know where he'll end up when he does.

Read more Breaking Bad recaps:

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92% of Business Calls Being Driven By Digital

Digital is now driving more calls to businesses than ever before. In 2015 digital channels drove 92% of these calls, up from 84% in 2014. The Center for Media Research reported on the following results from the 2016 Call Intelligence Index published by Invoca. The report finds more customer calls come from mobile search than from any other channel.

The annual index analyzed more than 58 million calls across 40 industries, finding that search and social features, like Google call-only ads and convenient click-to-call buttons, are further blurring lines between channels, making it easier for customers to call businesses on mobile.

Kyle Christensen, VP of marketing, Invoca, says “… marketers speculated… the rise of digital would kill more traditional channels like the phone call… but… as people use their phones to interface with the world around them… they’re calling businesses more… the marketers who will thrive in this environment… those who optimize for calls as an integrated part of their omnichannel strategies…”

The report shows that 79% of people switch devices during an activity, and that 63% of people complete a purchase offline after searching online. Key findings from Invoca’s 2016 Call Intelligence Index include:

The Rise of Digital Increases Calls

  • Calls are supplementing digital interactions as customers move between mobile search, web, social, display, email and apps. Online channels, including desktop search and display advertising, drove 38% of phone calls in 2015, representing a 23% rise from 2014 from 30% of all calls. Offline channels, including TV, radio and newspaper ads, drove half as many calls in 2015 (8%) as in 2014 (16%). Mobile search is the biggest driver of phone calls to businesses, responsible for 48% of call volume in 2015. Desktop search was the second biggest driver, nearly doubling in 2015 (17%) from 2014 (9%)

When and Where Consumers are Calling Matters

  • The lunch hour is the most popular time for calling, and on weekdays, people call businesses most often in their respective time zones between 11-11:59 a.m. On the weekend, most calls occur from 12-12:59 p.m.People tend to call businesses most on Mondays, which receive 55% more calls than Sundays, the lowest volume day
  • Call duration is a key indicator of a call’s quality. Calls driven by newspapers (6 minutes, 10 seconds), online review sites (5 minutes, 54 seconds) and online display ads (5 minutes, 23 seconds) resulted in the longest average conversation times. Across industries and drivers, the average call duration is 4 minutes, 52 seconds, an 18% increase from 2014
Top 10 Marketing Channels Driving Phone Calls
Channel % Call Volume 2016
Mobile search

Desktop search

Desktop display

Content/review sites

Mobile display

Source: Invoca, June 2016

Omnichannel Mix Varies by Industry

  • The research shows that phone calls are increasing across industries, and particularly for industries characterized by high-value purchases and/or customers who need personalized assistance. Phone calls remain a critical point of contact for customers who need additional information or are ready to make a purchase
  • Home Services, as an industry, decreased its investment in offline channels in 2015. In 2014, offline channels, such as radio, TV and newspapers, drove 32% of calls. In 2015, only 6% of calls were the result of offline drivers. By contrast, calls driven by mobile sources increased from 53% to 62% in 2015, and those from other online sources doubled from 16% to 32%
  • Automotive is undergoing a massive shift from offline to online and mobile sources; the industry saw a 119% increase in digital sources driving calls in 2015, compared to 2014. Financial Services migrated in 2015 from offline to digital spend. In 2014, the industry drove 44% of its calls from offline channels, and only 29% from online channels. In 2015, the trend flipped: only 26% came from offline channels, and 48% came from digital

For more charts and access to the complete report, please visit here.

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10 Things You Should Know Before Studying Abroad

Apart from all the brochures and advisors about the various options you have across the globe, you may still want to consider the following points before you actually hit off for an international study adventure.

  • It is always more economical to open a local bank account- paying transaction fees on your credit cards and bank fees for withdrawing money foreign ATMs are unnecessary expenses.
  • A semester may not be enough to learn a new language. So make sure you’ve taken classes beforehand, done some practicing, so that when you land into the new country, you don’t really have to start form the scratch, but instead work on becoming fluent.
  • Make sure you register your semester with the home government, so that in case of any emergency they will be able to get in touch with your contacts. Also make sure you know how to contact the police, the fire department, the hospitals, and other emergency services in the host country. Also make sure you know where you could find the closest embassy in case of any trouble or security concern.
  • While it is exciting to try the local food, it is equally important for you to have information about the food safety hazards pertaining to the food and drinks to avoid any allergies.
  • Get a travel insurance, just to avoid chaos during ill-health or non-medical emergencies. If you already have a health insurance, check if it covers for oversea medical costs. It is always advised to get a full-body health check before you leave. If you are taking prescription medications already, make sure the medicines are available at your destination as well. Just in case, if you ever have to visit the hospital, make sure you carry along with you, your passport as well as your insurance card.
  • Keep some extra SD cards or additional memory backups. After all, the first few weeks you would be having your camera in hand, travelling and discovering the place.
  • Purchase you plane tickets at least 3 months in advance. That is when the prices are typically the lowest.
  • Make sure your passport and travel documents are in order and handy. Make copies of the documents and the university acceptance letter. You should in fact even email them to yourself, so that you have them all the time. When you are boding your flight, carry a pen because you may have to fill some paperwork before and after you land.
  • You don’t have to stock your toiletries along. If you have to use the Pantene hair gel, you may even find it at a cheaper price abroad!
  • The last thing to keep in mind is that you would seem to look different, people may have stereotypes, you will face problems with the language and the food, you will miss your mom, you may end up getting too excited in a frat party, but it is all going to be fine. It is a new experience, and what matters the most is that you enjoy it and learn new things on your foreign journey.
READ ALSO:  How to Budget for the New Year
About the author

Hello! My name is Mark and I'm the one responsible for this website. I'm just a person with enough knowledge about finance-related stuffs. You can know more about me by liking my Facebook Page, following me on Twitter or by adding me in one of your circles on Google+.

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done and next

Another visit to the pain management doctor. Another handful of prescriptions, after another diagnostic scan that showed nothing. Nothing. I received a detailed MRI, called an arthrogram, of the entire underside of my scapula and surrounding tissues, and it revealed precisely zero structural abnormalities in the muscles, ligaments, bursa, or scapula itself. As in, nothing to explain my pain. Not one single thing.

I should have been crushed.

But I wasn’t. I am so used to suppressing tears in doctors’ offices that I automatically searched for them, but there were none. I wasn’t even upset. It felt predictable. I might even go so far as to say it felt normal. You did a scan and it didn’t find anything? What else is new? But my response was anything but. I actually, strangely, felt as though somehow, somewhere, a door had cracked open through which I could just barely perceive a thin needle of light.

The doctor has decided to pin the tail on the labral tear, proposing that referred pain from that injury, likely brought on by the swimming, could very well explain my symptoms as well as suggest an explanation for why the cortisone injections and anti-inflammatories improved my range of motion but didn’t stop the pain. He gave me a couple of new prescriptions to try and a note for the university’s health department for me to submit for my medical parking pass. I walked out of there in a better mood than when I walked in.

I feel as though I am slowly waking up from a nightmare and discovering, to my relief, that the world around me isn’t so bad as that nightmare had led me to believe. I have a diagnosis which is plausible, if not provable, and I’m going with it.

I’m done. Done with the searching. We’ve done all the searching we can do. I don’t have to keep looking. It’s over. We can stop. I can stop. I can stop.

The scavenger hunt is being officially suspended. Night is falling, and it’s gotten too dark out here in these woods to be able to find anything useful – if we find anything else at all. There’s no point in continuing to bark up tree after tree only to keep finding them empty. It’s time to call off the dogs and send everyone home. Including me. Especially me.

The alarms have stopped clanging. I still have pain, but I’m so used to it at this point that its occasional decrease is more noticeable than the pain itself. I also have a motley crew of side effects that have now attained the distinction of being more troublesome than the pain itself. I said as much to my doctor as I sat in his office yesterday, pressing myself upright in a straight-backed chair with a lumbar support behind me. “So, about the tramadol…it really only takes the edge off…”

“So you want to stop taking it.” He doesn’t play around, this guy.

“Can I? Can I stop right now?” I was surprised by how eagerly I agreed. I did want to stop taking it. But until this moment, I hadn’t realized how much.

Unfortunately, I can’t go off of it cold turkey, because my current dosage is so high. But with the addition of an anti-depressant that also reduces pain, I can start stepping down, if I want to.

And I do want to. I really, really, really want to. I don’t care about the pain any more. I do care that I have been stuck in this displaced state of being not-quite-in-touch with the world around me, flaky and forgetful, disconnected not just from other people but sometimes even the thoughts in my own head, for ten months and counting. I do care that I can’t just eat what I want. I do care that my skin is a mess and my mouth is so dry that I have to chew gum all day long. And there are other side effects, too, not the least of which are the effects on my GI tract (that I will spare the general public from) which have been extremely unpleasant.

If I’m to have pain, then fine, I’ll have pain. It’s a small price to pay for getting my brain and body back. I want to get back to my life, or any life, at this point. Whatever I can get is fine with me. I’ll complain about it later, but at least I’ll have one to complain about.

There’s a subtle difference between giving up and moving on. I’d been afraid of giving up too soon, and it’s still possible that I am. But in order to do the latter one must first do the former. They’re two adjacent steps in this (more or less) linear progression that I’ve littered with leavings and tears. And I have a sudden clarity about the one thing I’ve been simultaneously hoping for and fighting against for so long.

As long as I kept searching for a solution, a diagnosis, and/or a treatment, I could not get to where I am now, which is – dare I say – something like acceptance. But with this last MRI, another dead end and turn around the cul-de-sac, I finally feel like I can give myself permission to let it all go. I and my accumulated medical practitioners have looked everywhere and tried everything.  There’s nowhere else to go.  There’s nerve pain, but nerve ablations fix that, and with no physical cause found to explain it, further diagnostics seem pointless. I’d rather just take stock of my existing treatment options, pick what works best for me as best as I can tell from the inside of this body (whose treachery I am finally beginning to forgive) and discard the rest.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been on paved road. Last October I swung off into a ditch and have been struggling through tangles of weeds and unkempt trees ever since. But I can see pavement ahead. I caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye in that doctor’s office when he told me the MRI arthrogram was normal.  Now, with new resolve, I’m making my way towards it.

I don’t know where it goes and I don’t know whose it is. I’m tentative to call any road “mine” any more, since I’ve not had much luck in sticking to one. But I have a direction again. I have a goal. I’m going to make some sort of life out of all of this, knowing what I know, what I feel, what I can and cannot do. I’m going to use my recent education, both the B.S. degree and the life lessons so rudely thrust upon me at this relatively young age, and start laying a new foundation to replace the house I lost so many months ago.

I’m sure this brief period of clarity will soon be replaced my usual resentment and frustration at the world and at fate for doing this to me. But for now, I’m fixated on that piece of asphalt I caught sight of and I’m working my way towards it. For the first time, I don’t care if I’ve left some piece of this wilderness unexplored. I’m done with being thwarted and teased at every turn, with being heedlessly pulled through the uncaring wilds with no idea where I’m being pulled to and wondering if there’s even any purpose for it at all. I’ve slipped the harness and I am getting the hell out of here, for good or for ill, the sooner the better.

And who knows what will happen next.

About SeeMorrigan

I'm a woman in her early forties who was beset in October of 2013 with a nerve entrapment due to an abnormal conformation of my shoulder blades. I was in constant, unrelieved pain for fifteen months, until, after countless misdiagnoses and mistreatments, a surgeon correctly diagnosed the issue and performed two surgeries to remove pieces of my shoulder blades. Along the way, I also discovered I am high-functioning autistic. I started this blog in March of 2014 as a way to try to process what was happening to me. It is my hope that by sharing it with you, we can both gain something, or at least learn something, from my experience.
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New Poll Shows Rep. Hunter Maintaining Lead Amid Federal Indictment

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Rep. Duncan Hunter arrives at the federal courthouse in downtown San Diego. Photo by Chris Stone

A new poll of likely voters in the 50th Congressional district shows Rep. Duncan Hunter maintaining his lead in the largely rural, Republican district.

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The poll, conducted for 10 News and the San Diego Union-Tribune, shows Hunter with 47 percent to Democratic challenger Ammar Campa-Najjar‘s 39 percent.

Voters were called Aug. 22-26, the time during which news broke about the indictment of Hunter and his wife Margaret for alleged personal use of campaign funds.

“In some respects, voters in Hunter’s district greet news of the indictment with a yawn,” noted SurveyUSA, which conducted the poll.

However, the poll results show that younger and urban voters in the sprawling East County district back Campa-Najjar.

Hunter has represented the district in Congress since 2009, following in the footsteps of his father, Duncan Lee Hunter, who had represented the district since 1981.

The younger Hunter was among the first House members to publicly endorse Donald Trump in his election campaign.

In response to the new poll, Campa-Najjar spokesman Nick Singer said in a statement: “Polling has consistently found this to be a close and competitive race and we are gaining ground every day as voters learn more about Hunter’s corruption and egregious behavior.”

Widgets Magazine

Updated at 3:15 p.m. Aug. 27, 2018

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4 Besan Face Packs for glowing skin for all skin types

Besan face packs for glowing skin

Besan or gram flour is used in Indian kitchen for preparing so many delicacies. But not that, besan can be used in numerous ways to beautify the skin in various ways. We suffer from acne, dark spots, dullness and blemishes. Lack of glow on the skin makes it lifeless and dry. But do you know this simple ingredient can be used in preparing face packs that can give you the glow you wanted for ever. Yes, that is true. Besan can be used for facial cleansing and other beauty uses. We will share besan face pack for glowing skin so that you can get the radiant skin with no extra cost. Forget the cost with no additional chemicals or preservatives like we see in the creams for glowing skin/face.

Homemade Besan face Packs for glowing skin

Here are the recipes to prepare the face packs with besan at home to get the benefits of glow on your skin.

1. Dry skin glow with besan face pack

You have to collect 3 products or this facial pack, banana, some besan and milk. Take a little piece of banana and mash it well. Add 1 teaspoonful of besan in it. Use some milk and make a paste which should be of medium consistency. This is the glow pack with besan suitable for dry skin types. Apply this on the face and neck and leave for 20 minutes. Wash after that.

Benefits: It adds a glow and shine on the face.  Banana will take away the dryness and besan will exfoliate the face adding a gentle smoothness on your dry face.

2. Besan face pack for oily skin

Take 1 teaspoonful of besan and add tomato juice in it. You should add the tomato juice in a quantity that should be enough to get a smooth medium paste. Use this to spread on the entire face and let it dry for 20 minutes. Wash with tepid water and pat dry your skin. It will take off the oils and leaves the fair and glowing skin.

How to do face clean up at home

3. Milk cream with besan face pack

Take besan and milk in equal amount in a small bowl. Mix Both of them with fingers and apply this glowing skin pack on the face. Let it dry for 15-20 minutes. Then rinse the face. Try this everyday to maintain the glow o the dry face.

Benefits: This besan pack is meant for dry skin only as it has milk cream which will nourish the face with the fatty acids. Besan will further helps to glow your face naturally.

4. Besan face pack for scrubbing

Exfoliation also adds a fantastic glow on your face as when the dull dead skin layer is removed and you get a smoother glowing face. To prepare a besan glow scrub you will need besan and some rice flour. Mix rice flour and besan in equal amount then mix some milk to make paste. Use this on the face and let it dry for 5 minutes. After that take this pack from your face using your finger,. Scrub the face and wash with clear water.

So, these were the besan face packs to give you glowing skin. Try these as per your skin type and get the benefits.

  1. M having very sensitive and dry skin…and face get red during more heat and warm temperature…plz suggest which suncream should I use…

  2. ma’m can men apply honey with mixing of gramflour on their face and beard and doesn’t honey make men’s beard white

  3. ma’m actually my face looks white but recently I went to Hyderabad and iam staying there now.After from that my face gets into dark I don’t know the exact reason y it was happening and Iam not going outside tooo iam applying besan with tomato for that but I didn’t observed any change. I thought it was because of water using for bathing etc.how to overcome that ma’m please suggest me any solution for this ma’m

  4. Hi,

    If that is due to the bath water then I am not aware about any remedy but you can still try applying a mixture of honey and lemon juice on the face daily. Then wash after 20 minutes.

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“Most Wired” designation shows TMC continues leading the way in information technology

MostWired2017_smlIncreasingly, technology is helping patients become more engaged in their own wellness and more active in their care.

For the sixth year running, Tucson Medical Center has secured a place among America’s “Most Wired” hospitals. The distinction recognizes hospitals that leverage information technology to provide stronger care for patients, to improve quality, to reduce costs and to streamline operations.

TMC was the only Tucson-area hospital to achieve recognition in HealthCare’s Most Wired® survey, released by the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) Health Forum.

“We know that data-driven decisions help us to better serve our patients, our employees and our community,” said TMC’s Chief Information Officer Frank Marini. “This designation recognizes that it’s not just about having the technology in place: It’s about using it effectively as we continue to strive for clinical excellence.”

“We also know that today’s patients are increasingly comfortable in a digital environment so it’s critical to provide mobile tools to increase convenience, access and engagement.”

Survey respondents demonstrate technology usage throughout the hospital industry is creating a new dynamic in patient interactions, although there is continued room for growth.

“The Most Wired hospitals are using every available technology option to create more ways to reach their patients in order to provide access to care,” said AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack. “They are transforming care delivery, investing in new delivery models in order to improve quality, provide access and control costs.”

Detailed results of the survey and study can be found in the July issue of H&HN. For a full list of winners, visit www.hhnmag.com.

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Tucson Medical Center | 5301 E. Grant Road | Tucson, Arizona 85712 | (520) 327-5461
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Custom Built High Performance Servers Built By The Liquid Web Team

When it comes to high performance web hosting, we went to the best in the market for the latest technology and had our servers custom built by a leader in the market.

3 New State Of The Art Data Centers

Redundant Systems to Support Your Hosting Infrastructure. Everything from the design and security of our buildings to the network, power and cooling infrastructure we utilize was carefully planned with full redundancy in mind, providing our customers the highest quality experience possible.

Temperature Controlled Facility

Multiple Liebert 20, 22, 30 and 45 Ton upflow and downflow AC Units... Stand alone HVAC systems that will not allow for large scale failures.

State Of The Art Equipment

Servers And Equipment Constantly Upgraded for VPS, Cloud And Dedicated Servers. Block Storage, Load Balancer available.

Full Time Staff Of Specialists

World class Heroic support is available 27/7 365.

Commercial Financing Training Programs
Are Included With All New Accouts


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The Torrot and GasGas international training project has already given a great start to more than 2,500 children

A year and a half since its creation, Torrot's 'Kids School' and the GasGas 'School of Champions', currently have 30 partner schools in Europe and America.

More than 2,500 children from 8 countries in Europe and America have been trained on the "Kids" models of electric bikes for children at the Torrot "Kids School" and the GasGas "School of Champions". In just over a year and a half of activity, 30 motorcycle schools located in Spain, Germany, Andorra, England, Lithuania, Romania, Colombia and Mexico have joined the training project and have helped more than 4,000 mums and dads see their children's dreams come true.

The Torrot and GasGas "School" project started in April 2017. It has become the benchmark for training and encouraging future riders and fans of Enduro, Trial and Motocross. The main objective is to provide children from 3 to 9 years of age with the opportunity to practise these off-road specialties on an electric motorcycle in a safe, educational, responsible and fun way.

Torrot’s 'Kids School' and the GasGas 'School of Champions'
The Torrot 'Kids School' are schools in urban and rural centres focused on offering the youngest children a first contact with the Torrot Kids electric motorcycles. While the GasGas 'School of Champions' is based on the initiation of 'kids' to the world of off-road riding in motorcycle schools, motorcycle clubs, circuits and centres run by ex-riders from the world of Trial, Enduro and Motocross. All this is possible due to the technical advances brought about by the new children's models of electric GasGas "Kids" motorcycles.

Major accomplishments have been achieved since its creation, such as the celebration of the first 100% electric motorcycle championship with the Catalan Motorcycle Federation, the GasGas electric PromoVelocitat Cup. And also the outstanding saving of more than 5,500 kg of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere thanks to the use of the 200 Kids model electric motorbikes in the schools.

The "School" has become a new sustainable way of bringing motorcycling to urban centres using sports infrastructures, parks, squares and children's leisure centres. Thanks to the work together with local councils, associations, federations, dealers, importers and private initiatives, the project has done nothing but grow and grow since its creation, both in large cities and in rural areas.

Growth and consolidation of the training project
The goal for next year for Torrot's 'Kids School' and the GasGas 'School of Champions' is to continue growing, both in Spain and internationally. To grow both in terms of numbers and quality of schools, consolidating the project as the number one benchmark in the training of youngsters in electric off-road riding and also to create the "Challenge School of Champions", with several social get-togethers among the schools associated with the project.

Torrot and GasGas will shortly announce the date for the first 'School of Champions Day'. This will bring together all the schools and children with their own Kids bikes in one of the centres associated and of some of our official riders will be there too.
If you want to form part of the project and join the Torrot Kids School or the GasGas School of Champions send us an email to and we will get in touch with you.


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Friedlander Group’s United Restaurants Workers’ Comp Safety Group Post Decades Of 50% Plus Savings

Friedlander Group

For three generations, The Friedlander Group has been serving the insurance needs of the New York business community. Since 1926, the company’s vision has been guided by the Friedlander family. The company is a leading provider of workers’ compensation insurance in New York State, serving the restaurant, retail, wholesale, and hotel businesses, as well as oil dealers, social service providers, and residential health facilities.

Adam Friedlander is the latest member of the iconic family to bring his vision to the Purchase, NY company. In 1992, he pivoted the company to become the Workers’ Compensation leader in New York. With Adam’s carefully crafted plan, Friedlander Group now manages seven workers’ compensation safety groups, fully insured by the New York State Insurance Fund. The largest is the United Restaurants safety group, which has saved restaurants up to 52% a year since 1993.

A key to the Friedlander recipe for success is how it has successfully pooled the most safety conscious restaurants operating in New York and returns the profits on the Workers’ Compensation back to members in the form of a dividend. Members receive an upfront discount of 25%.  Although dividends are not guaranteed, dividends have averaged an additional 35% since 1993. Cumulative dividends paid to the seven safety groups is $212 million.

Having literally grown up in the insurance industry, Adam Friedlander recognizes that customer service is a priority to the members of the seven workers’ compensation safety group. So, Friedlander Group manages the workers’ compensation group and acts as the outsourced claims administrator, eliminating the need to deal with the complications and legal ramifications of mishandled claims. “Further, we provide a concierge service so that clients make only one call to Friedlander Group, not the NYS Insurance Fund and also handle NYS Disability Benefits coverage,” Adam Friedlander noted.

The Friedlander Group approach has always been to listen to the needs of its customer base and then share those findings with the industries and communities it serves. So Adam Friedlander has literally written the book, make that two books (both available on Amazon) on Workmens’ Compensation. His first book: How To Save Big on Workers’ Compensation is considered by many to be an industry standard.

Friedlander’s inaugural book stressed the importance of a “Culture of Caring.” While this requires more effort than simply placing a mat on a greasy floor, it doesn’t necessarily require a large investment of money, and can help an employer save significantly on workers’ comp. He outlined how the culture, starts at the very top, and permeates the entire organization. If employers show that they care about the safety and well-being of their workers, the employees are less likely to get injured, and will return to work more quickly after a workplace injury.

New England Food Show November 2018 728×90

Adam’s newest entry: Safety and Workers’ Compensation Strategies To Unleash Productivity and Profits has brought its readers the views of some of the nation’s top Thought Leaders. They include Paul O’Neil, former Secretary of Treasury of the United States under George W. Bush. Both books educate employers on how to save money, grow their company by optimizing productivity and creating a Culture of Caring.

Both books have been both critically acclaimed and well received by restaurant and hospitality executives looking for practical Workers’ Comp. solutions.

Friedlander has also become acutely aware of the challenges including increased minimum wages that are now facing the restaurant and foodservice operator. “We have the solution for safety conscious employers to capture savings and not pay for the claims of other restaurants that are not safety conscious,” Adam Friedlander explained. “It’s an overlooked and meaningful competitive advantage that the top restaurants are participating in.”

Operators that are seeking to put the Friedlander Group edge to work for their business can visit their website or call The Workers’ Compensation Leaders at 914-694-6000 ext. 206.


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Book Review: The Hunt for Red October Is Back in Newest Edition

Posted: Aug 21, 2018 10:45 AM
Book Review: The Hunt for Red October Is Back in Newest Edition

Content sponsored by Berkley

In 1984, New York Times bestselling author Tom Clancy introduced the world to the brilliant CIA Analyst Jack Ryan in his military thriller "The Hunt for Red October."

Published during the Cold War, the novel revolves around the search for a Soviet submarine known as the Red October. As the submarine heads across the Atlantic, American and Soviet forces race to find it. After having covert photographs of the sub placed on his desk, Jack Ryan finds himself right in the middle of a "high-stakes game of hide-and-seek" between the two superpowers.

Just six years after the book's publishing, "The Hunt for Red October" became a major motion picture. Released in theatres in March 1990, the film starred actors Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin and grossed just over $200 million at the box office.

Today, more than 30 years after its publishing, and nearly 30 years after the film's release, "The Hunt for Red October" is a classic that continues to attract readers and viewers. At the end of August, the story of Jack Ryan is undergoing another reboot.

An updated edition of the book is set to release. And actor John Krasinksi, known for his roles as Jim in the hit television series "The Office" and Jack Silva in "13 Hours," will take on the part of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan in a new web-based television series that will release on Amazon Prime Video, August 31.

The newest edition of the book can be purchased here. It's a must-read.

On October 1, 2013, Tom Clancy passed away at the age of 66.

Though Clancy is no longer with us, his work, and the hero Jack Ryan lives on.


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Sustainable infrastructure for biomedical research

The Translational Research IT (TraIT) project is developing and implementing a long-lasting IT infrastructure for translational research projects in the Netherlands that facilitates the collection, storage, analysis, and archiving of  data generated in the biomedical research projects.

TraIT enables integration and querying of information across the four major domains of translational research: clinical, imaging, biobanking and experimental (any-omics) with a particular focus on the needs of multi-center projects.

Rather than embarking on major software development projects, TraIT has a clear preference for proven technology that can be adopted or adapted to the specific needs of translational research projects.

While still extending its services, TraIT already supports over 475 research projects spanning almost 4000 individual researchers.

For an in-depth overview of the TraIT project please check the CTMM-TraIT booklet.

A poster with more information over TraIT can be downloaded here.

Also, download here a leaflet on TraIT.

15-10-2018 TraIT website and service desk available from subdomain

New website domain & service desk address

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Today, the ELSI (Ethical, Legal and Societal Issues) Servicedesk is officially launched. This ...

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21-08-2017 2017 XNAT Developer Workshop

The XNAT community is happy to announce that the 2017 XNAT Developer Workshop will take place in ...

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18-07-2017 TraIT OpenClinica Data Importer v2.0 released

In order to automate and facilitate data capture in OpenClinica as much as possible TraIT has ...

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Bio-specimen Catalogue

Direct access to the bio-specimen catalogue.

The bio-specimen catalogue contains summary data on the specimens that are available for research. It allows for discovery of suitable cohorts and samples for research, by offering an easy way to search for samples on the most common criteria, like tissue type, anatomic source, participant age, gender, etc.

The catalogue offers different levels of access based on user or group based privileges to allow access to counts or row-level data

Biospecimen data is captured and placed in the catalogue conforming to the CBM-NL information model. The catalogue is created via MOLGENIS and shares a common code base with catalogues developed for BBMRI, DNTP, BioMedBridges, BioSHARE and LifeLines.

For further questions regarding the Catalogue platform, including requests for usage, please contact the ServiceDesk at

Catalogue Screenshot


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NC Research Campus to host second groundbreaking within a month

November 18, 2013

Salisbury Post

KANNAPOLIS — DataChambers, a North Carolina information technology company, and Castle & Cooke, the developer of the N.C. Research Campus, will break ground at 11 a.m. Tuesday for a 50,000-square-foot data center.

The event will be held at North Research Campus Drive and Laureate Way, near North Main Street in downtown Kannapolis. Key speakers will be DataChambers CEO Nicholas L. Kottyan and David H. Murdock, Research Campus founder and chairman and CEO of Castle & Cooke and Dole Food Company.

Parking will be available off Laureate Way and in the Research Campus parking garage. The event is open to the public.

DataChambers announced the decision to expand into the Charlotte region in June, selecting the Research Campus for its easy access to the interstate and proximity to the Charlotte Douglas International and Concord Regional airports.

“The N.C. Research Campus gives us an ideal home base for serving Charlotte-area businesses and the growing NCRC community,” Kottyan said in a press release. “We are eager to have the project underway and have the space we need to serve our growing client base.”

DataChambers currently operates data centers in Winston-Salem and Raleigh. The Kannapolis facility is scheduled to be completed by mid-2014 and will be staffed by 20 to 30 information-technology professionals.

DataChambers plans to host client systems at the new facility and to offer a variety of outsourced information technology services, including monitoring and management solutions, data backup and business recovery services.

To meet the rigorous standards of DataChambers and its clients, the new center will be built to withstand hurricane-force winds and will feature systems for power, security, HVAC and network connectivity. It also will incorporate the latest LEED standards developed by the US Green Building Council for energy-efficient operation.

Charlotte-area businesses have been selected to support the DataChambers project. Architects at Creech & Associates will design the structure, while McCracken & Lopez will provide mechanical, electrical and fire protection designs.

Land Design is providing land planning and civil engineering.

“In an information age like the one we are living in, a company like DataChambers and what they bring to not only our campus but our region and state is invaluable to advancing research and our economy,” Murdock said in the statement.

The DataChambers groundbreaking is the second in less than a month at the life sciences hub in downtown Kannapolis. The city of Kannapolis broke ground for a long-awaited 100,000-square-foot municipal center on Oct. 29.

Together, DataChambers and the city of Kannapolis will bring more than 300 jobs to the campus.

The NCRC Medical Plaza housing Carolinas Healthcare System opened earlier this year, and the Cabarrus Health Alliance headquarters opened in 2012.

The campus has also seen the addition of N.C. State University greenhouse facilities and three speculative laboratory suites in the David H. Murdock Core Laboratory building. Recently, the UNC Charlotte Bioinformatics Research Services Division announced an expansion of its office space.

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Travelrific® Travel Journal

A blog for travel enthusiasts. Listen to our podcasts on the blogroll at Travelrific® Radio. Visit our Wanderful Places® Travel Shop for travel-inspired merchandise!

The Home of Gin

By Linda Tancs

Beefeater is the world’s most awarded gin, boasting a recipe that’s virtually unchanged since the 1800s. Distilled in the heart of London, the facility is housed in an Edwardian building in Kennington that features original Victorian pot stills and a botanical room. Thanks to a custom built visitors center, you can view the original stills, watch the distilling process and learn about premium gin making spanning over 150 years. And what would a distillery tour be without a wee sample greeting you at the end. Cheers!

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text:
Dr Bronner Hemp Baby-Mild Pure Castile Soap, Organic - 1 gallon

Dr Bronner Hemp Baby-Mild Pure Castile Soap, Organic - 1 gallon

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Our unscented baby mild contains no fragrance so is great for people who have allergies or sensitive skin. Of course it is great for babies as well. All oils and essential oils are certified organic to the National Organic Standards Program. Packaged in 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottles.

Ingredients: Water, Organic Coconut Oil*, Potassium Hydroxide**, Organic Olive Oil*, Organic Hemp Oil, Organic Jojoba Oil, Citric Acid, Tocopherol

* Certified Fair Trade Ingredients ** None remains after saponifying oils into soap and glycerin

  • Concentrated: Clouds when cold. Put in warm room/water: clears at ~70F.
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  • Label content notice: The opinions expressed on the labels of the products we carry are not necessarily those of Azure Standard Management or Staff.
  • Made in U.S.A.
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text:
EXCLUSIVE: DOJ Refuses to Revoke BP’s Probation Over Safety Violations at Texas City Refinery

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has refused to pursue a probation revocation case against BP after the company was found to have violated a federal judge's March 2009 felony judgment, which required BP to fulfill the terms of a settlement agreement it entered into with government regulators five years ago to make certain safety upgrades at its Texas City refinery by September 2009, according to documents obtained by Truthout.

Instead, the DOJ will allow BP to spend two additional years to correct hundreds of safety problems that have plagued the refinery – the third-largest in the country – for a decade and have played a part in the deaths of 19 people over the past five years.

On March 23, 2005, 15 people were killed and 170 others were maimed and seriously injured in an explosion at the plant, which occurred “when a distillation [blowdown] tower flooded with hydrocarbons and was over-pressurized, causing a geyser-like release from the vent stack. The hydrocarbons found an ignition source and exploded,” according to a two-year investigation conducted by the independent US Chemical Safety Board (CSB).

John Bresland, CSB's chairman, said his agency's probe, completed in 2007, “found organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation.”

“Our investigation team turned up extensive evidence showing a catastrophe waiting to happen,” Bresland said on March 24, the fifth anniversary of the refinery explosion. “Cost-cutting had affected safety programs and critical maintenance; production pressures resulted in costly mistakes made by workers likely fatigued by working long hours; internal audits and safety studies brought problems to the attention of BP's board in London, but they were not sufficiently acted upon.”

In October 2007, BP Products North America (BPNA) and the Justice Department announced they reached a settlement, which called for BP to plead guilty to a felony Clean Air Act violation and pay a $50 million fine. But the victims of the refinery explosion successfully held up the plea agreement for 18 months after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled they were not properly consulted under the federal Crime Victims Act before the plea deal between the government and BP was hammered out behind closed doors. The victims objected to the plea deal, saying the negotiated fine was not large enough and BPNA's parent company, BP Plc, was immunized as part of the settlement when evidence showed it played a direct role in the decisions that led to the blast.

On March 12, 2009, however, US District Court Judge Lee Rosenthal accepted the plea agreement and formally placed BP on three years probation. She told the victims she could not rewrite the plea agreement. She could only accept it or reject it.

The plea deal and the terms of BP's probation, according to Judge Rosenthal's judgment order, were contingent upon BP correcting safety violations at the refinery discovered in the aftermath of the disaster as part of a separate settlement agreement BP entered into in September 2005 with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).

Moreover, if BP committed any federal environmental and/or process-safety crimes related to its Texas City refinery operations, then BP would be in breach of its plea agreement and in violation of its probation. The government could then prosecute the company for other crimes it had evidence of during the course of its investigation into the refinery blast, the plea agreement states.

But three weeks ago, Daniel Dooher, a senior trial attorney with the DOJ's Environmental Crimes Section, sent letters to Judge Rosenthal stating that the DOJ has declined to revoke BP's probation because the company paid a $50 million fine to OSHA last month to settle charges that it breached the 2005 settlement agreement with the agency by allowing “hundreds of potential hazards to continue unabated” and entered into a new agreement with OSHA to address safety concerns at the refinery.

“OSHA and BP have executed a [new agreement] resolving the allegations of non-compliance,” says Dooher's September 8 letter to Judge Rosenthal. “In summary, the [new agreement] requires: 1) extending completion of the requirements under the [2005] Settlement Agreement until March 12, 2012.

“The Department of Justice has discussed the executed agreement in detail with OSHA and BP. In addition, the Department of Justice has been in contact with the U.S. Probation Office and explained the terms of the [new agreement] to ensure that the probation officer is apprised of the current status of the case. All requirements of the original Settlement Agreement must be completed by March 12, 2012, when BP's probation currently terminates. Therefore, it is the United States' position that the conditions of the [new agreement with OSHA] are also conditions of BP's probation under the Plea Agreement. BP agrees with this position and is filing a letter with the Court to that effect. As a result, the Department of Justice is not seeking a revocation or extension of probation at this time.” [Dooher sent Rosenthal a second letter on September 10, clarifying some of the statments he had made.]

The judgment order in the case signed by Judge Rosenthal on March 13, 2009, however, does not state that BP must make the safety upgrades by the end of its probation, as Dooher claimed in his letter. The judgment order says, “As stated in the plea agreement, BP must comply fully with the Settlement Agreement … if BP Products commits any federal environmental or process-safety crime relating to its Texas City refinery operations, it will breach the plea agreement.”

BP was only given until the end of its probation to fulfill the terms of a separate settlement agreement it signed with the TCEQ over the release of toxic emissions at the refinery and corrective actions BP was instructed to take to address air-quality issues.

“In the event BP Products is unable to complete its obligation under the TCEQ order within the three-year probation term, it must inform the United States sixty days before the end of the three-year term, and BP Products and the United States must jointly move the court to extend the term of probation up to five years and will ask the court to set compliance with and completion of the TCEQ order as the only terms of the extended probation period,” states the judgment order.

David Senko was manager of construction at the refinery and supervised 11 of the employees who were killed in the explosion. During an interview, he said BP continues to “suffer extreme leniency.”

“It just makes me sick,” said Senko, who was employed by Jacobs Engineering, a BP contractor, and is now on full disability. “Their probation should have been revoked. There is no reason, no justification not to [revoke BP's probation] and prosecute them for violating the [settlement agreement]. There is plenty of evidence to support doing just that. This is just a tragedy against everybody, particularly the people [BP] has killed.”

One possible reason DOJ declined to revoke BP's probation, according to a DOJ official who has worked on criminal environmental cases for the past six years, is that a culture still exists at the agency where prosecutors are encouraged to settle corporate criminal cases as quickly as possible as opposed to devoting resources toward lengthy investigations.

“That's the directive,” said the DOJ official, who requested anonymity in order to speak openly about the issue. “It comes directly from the top [the attorney general's office] and we are under pressure to make sure its carried out.”

It's unknown who at DOJ was ultimately responsible for deciding against revoking BP's probation.

Back in May, an attorney who blogs under the name bmaz posted an article about the Texas City refinery and noted that the settlement in the case was evidence of how the DOJ “under the politicized Republican rule of [George W.] Bush and [Dick] Cheney instituted a preference for coddling corporate malfeasants like BP and Exxon with lax civil measures instead of punitive criminal prosecutions and, in the process, created a get rich windfall program for their friends to serve as 'monitors' for the civil settlements.”

Citing an April 2008 New York Times report, bmaz wrote that the policy began when Bush was sworn into office and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty made it official DOJ policy in 2006.

A former EPA official said that's a policy that clearly needs to change.

“What are [BP's] incentives to comply when we will not enforce something as overt as conditions in a criminal judgment?” the former EPA official asked. “It sends the wrong message and gives a foreign corporation more leeway than we give US citizens and corporations.”

Another former EPA official said “DOJ’s failure to vigorously prosecute this foreign oil company sends the message to company managers that it is ok to kill US citizens and violate US health, safety and environmental laws for profit—a treatment that not many human “persons” get under federal law.”

“This coddling is taking place in the wake of the worst environmental disaster in US history lying at BP’s feet,” the fomer EPA official said. “DOJ’s position is a pathetic lack of representation of the will of the American people as poll numbers obviously attest.”

BP spokesmen Daren Beaudo and Scott Dean did not return phone calls and emails seeking comment.

OSHA Probe

The path that led the government toward giving BP another shot at making good on its failed promises began in the spring of 2009.

Around the time Judge Rosenthal accepted BP's plea agreement and signed the judgment in the case, OSHA launched an investigation to determine whether the company was meeting its obligations under the 2005 settlement agreement.

By July 2009, two months before BP faced a deadline to make safety upgrades at the refinery in accordance with the terms of the settlement agreement, it became clear to OSHA that the company was not in compliance.

OSHA contacted the DOJ's Environmental Crimes Section and the US attorney's office in Houston to alert them that BP had breached the terms of the settlement agreement, according to Dooher's September 8 letter to Judge Rosenthal.

On August 3, 2009, Mark Briggs, who works in OSHA's Houston office, sent a letter to Keith Casey, manager of the Texas City refinery, alerting him that OSHA inspectors who visited the refinery found severe safety problems associated with the functionality of equipment at the facility, including pressure relief valves.

Furthermore, Briggs wrote, even BP “identified a large number of uncontrolled or unmitigated hazards involving instrumentation … throughout the refinery.”

“We believe that failure to correct the issues addressed in this letter … by September 23, 2009 would constitute a failure to comply with the terms of the 2005 Settlement Agreement and failure to abate,” Briggs wrote.

Thomas Wilson, an attorney with BP's Houston-based law firm Vinson & Elkins, disputed OSHA's assertions about safety hazards, and noted in an October 3, 2009, letter to Briggs that it was the company's position that it was in full compliance with the settlement agreement and believed it had more time to fulfill its commitments under the settlement agreement.

Three weeks later, on October 30, 2009, the agency announced it was imposing a $56.7 million fine against BP and issuing the company 270 citations for failing to take corrective actions as required by the settlement agreement to fix safety hazards similar to ones investigators found after when they inspected the facility shortly after the refinery explosion.

Additionally, OSHA also fined BP $30.7 million and issued 439 separate citations to BP for new, “willful” violations related to the company's “failures to follow industry-accepted controls on the pressure relief safety systems and other process safety management violations.”

BP vehemently denied OSHA's charges and vowed to mount a vigorous defense against the proposed penalties.

“We continue to believe we are in full compliance with the Settlement Agreement … we strongly disagree with OSHA's conclusions,” said Casey, the Texas City refinery manager, the day OSHA announced the penalties. “We believe our efforts at the Texas City refinery to improve process safety performance have been among the most strenuous and comprehensive that the refining industry has ever seen.”

Some of the safety violations OSHA cited BP for have resulted in four employee deaths at the refinery since the March 2005 explosion, including one where a contractor was electrocuted “on a light circuit in the [refinery's] process area” and another when an employee was killed when the top head of a pressure vessel blew off. BP received four citations from OSHA regarding continued violations over process safety management.

The Texas City refinery has also been the subject of numerous complaints made by employees over the past four years to BP's Office of the Ombudsman, and is the office's second-biggest caseload since its inception in 2006, according to a confidential report that office prepared for Congress in March that was obtained by Truthout.

“When BP signed the OSHA settlement from the March 2005 explosion, it agreed to take comprehensive action to protect employees. Instead of living up to that commitment, BP has allowed hundreds of potential hazards to continue unabated,” Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said when the record fine was announced.

Dooher said the DOJ informed BP in January that if the company failed to resolve OSHA's allegations that the company breached the settlement agreement to “OSHA's satisfaction, than the government might seek revocation and/or extension of probation,” according to his September 8 letter to Judge Rosenthal.

But, “in the interest of judicial economy, the Department of Justice did not immediately move this court to modify or revoke BP's probation, but has closely monitored the situation to determine if BP could resolve the alleged noncompliance with OSHA,” Dooher wrote.

“A Slap on the Wrist”

For attorney David Perry, who represents some of the victims of the refinery explosion, the DOJ's decision not to revoke BP's probation after OSHA determined that BP was in violation of the settlement agreement is a “terrible disappointment to my clients.”

“There is absolutely no accountability,” Perry said in an interview. “BP is literally a serial killer. It is objectively true that BP is a serial violator of federal laws and they should be subject to vigorous prosecution. But federal authorities continue to give them a slap on the wrist.”

Brent Coon, a Beaumont, Texas, attorney who also represents some of the victims of the refinery blast, including Eva Rowe, whose parents were killed in the disaster, said individual executives at the company deserve to be prosecuted and jailed.

“If you had a drunk driver that killed 15 people they would have gone to jail. If the drunk driver killed 11 people they would have gone to jail. Why does BP, who has done the same thing, get off the hook?” said Coon, whose analogy referred to the number of people killed in the Texas City refinery blast and the number of lives lost when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in April, spewing more than four million barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. “I have clients from Texas City who would still request that the DOJ finish their investigation started in 2005 and turn the info over to a grand jury to consider indictment of individuals in management at BP who contributed to the tragedy.”

Coon and Perry and two other attorneys who represent victims of the disaster spoke with Dooher three times over the past year and have also sent letters urging him to revoke BP's probation and prosecute the company for violating its probation by failing to make the safety upgrades as required under the terms of the OSHA settlement agreement and its plea deal with the government.

On July 2, Perry sent Dooher and Assistant US Attorney in Houston Mark McIntyre a letter recapping a meeting they had June 22 to discuss the case.

“On behalf of my clients who were permanently injured and whose family members were killed, I want to place in writing our request that the Department of Justice and the United States Attorney move promptly to revoke BP's probation and to institute an immediate prosecution of BP for its original criminal conduct to which is has pled guilty,” Perry wrote.

Perry also noted in his letter, however, that Dooher has “not reported that any action of any kind is being taken to revoke BP's probation …”

“BP demonstrates that it holds itself above the law and scoffs at its legal obligation without fear of repercussions,” Perry wrote. “In allowing BP to continue on probation, the Federal authorities make a mockery of our criminal justice system while failing to protect the public.

“We were offered no reason why BP is being afforded the remarkable leniency being extended to it by Federal prosecutors in the face of multiple deaths that it has caused and clear violation of probation.”

Coon said he felt the meetings with Dooher, although a legal requirement, were largely held to “placate me” and other attorneys.

“Our meetings gave me the impression that the Justice Department was extending us a courtesy and allowing us to discuss how we felt about the case,” Coon said. “They were going through the motions. I do not feel what we said one way or another was going to make a difference in what they were going to do. [Dooher] has his marching-orders.”

Coon said Dooher indicated the DOJ wanted to wait to see what would transpire over the course of the next month, when a hearing was scheduled before an OSHA review commission over the 270 citations OSHA issued to BP for breaching the settlement agreement.

“Won't Get Fooled Again”

On August 12, about a week before an OSHA review panel was scheduled to begin hearings, BP and OSHA signed a new “stipulation and agreement” that will allow the company to spend the next two years – the remainder of its probation – to address the safety issues at the Texas City refinery.

BP also agreed to pay a $50 million fine related to the 270 citations OSHA issued the company for failing to make the required safety upgrades by the September 23, 2009, deadline, as required under the original settlement agreement. The company also promised to set aside $500 million to pay for the safety improvements. BP is still contesting the 439 “willful” violations and the $30.7 million fine associated with those citations. Hearings in that matter are scheduled to begin soon.

Jordan Barab, OSHA's deputy director, said that BP has essentially admitted guilt by accepting the citations and paying the fine, even though BP disputes that characterization.

“The [new] settlement means [BP] admitted they were not in compliance with the terms of the original settlement,” Barab said in an interview.

Barab said he was not privy to any of the discussions between the DOJ and OSHA over the Texas City refinery case.

The new agreement is tougher than the previous one OSHA signed with BP in 2005, Barab said, in that it gives OSHA unprecedented oversight and access to BP executives and requires BP to hire independent monitors to ensure the company is complying with the terms of agreement and will report back to OSHA.

“We told BP we won't get fooled again,” Barab said. “We are going to have high-level BP executives meet with us to review their compliance. We'll have regular monitoring inspections. We'll be to the refinery quite a bit to make sure they do what they are saying they are doing.”

Barab said he realizes that OSHA cannot penalize BP enough to affect the company's bottom line, but he believes this new agreement “sends a message to [BP] and to the entire industry.”

“I think they are serious about addressing [safety issues] and I think they got the message,” he said.

But Perry, the lawyer for the victims, said the new agreement still has “holes you can drive a truck through.

“All of the deadlines have exceptions,” Perry said. “The only penalty for not meeting the deadline is the deadline would have to be extended. There is no hard and fast deadline and no hard and fast enforcement authority.”

Barab said if BP “fails to live up to their side of the bargain there are a number of things we can do.”

“We can cite them for failure to abate. We can go to court and force them to comply. We can unilaterally terminate the agreement, which the DOJ will hear about,” Barab said.

Two weeks after OSHA and BP signed the new agreement, Dooher met with the victims' attorneys for one last time. According to Coon, he asked them if the new settlement changed the attorneys' position on probation revocation.

“I told him it did not,” Coon said about his August 24 meeting with Dooher. “I said that I felt that the agreement to pay an additional $50 million in fines only further validated our assertions that BP was in violation of the 2005 OSHA agreement and a therefore a violation of their plea agreement.”

Dooher told Coon he would take his position back to Washington and discuss it with other DOJ officials. On September 8, Dooher informed Judge Rosenthal revoking BP's probation in light of the new agreement the company signed with OSHA was not necessary.

Perry said he has absolutely no faith BP has learned its lesson.

“I wish I believed that something would change, but it's hard to have any confidence that it will.”