Local theatre community gears up for its 2013

The South African theatre community is gearing up for the much anticipated 'Take a child to the theatre today' 2013 campaign which encourages South Africa's youngest citizens to become audiences for theatre.
The World Day for Theatre for Children and Young People is celebrated annually by ASSITEJ centres from across the globe on 20 March. This international association of theatre for children and young people (active in almost 90 countries) and its partners are working together to unite theatres across the world in conveying one message: “Take a child to the theatre today”.

Michael Morpurgo will be writing this year’s World Day Message to inspire all to join the campaign. Morpurgo is the third Children’s Laureate, and writer of numerous children’s books, including War Horse which has been powerfully translated to the stage, in a visionary collaboration with South African Handspring Puppet Company.

In South Africa the campaign is particularly vital given that the majority of children in our country do not have access to theatre. “Giving children an opportunity to dream, to imagine other possibilities for their lives, to engage with and empathise with people and situations from very different walks of life to their own, is an important gift every child deserves to receive. Clem Sunter has described one of the ten most fundamental aspects of the 21st century as being that we have moved from the Age of Knowledge to the Age of Intelligence. This means teaching children not knowledge but cognitive skills, and one of the most powerful ways of doing this is through theatre," says Yvette Hardie,Online shopping for luggage tag from a great selection of Clothing. director of ASSITEJ SA and president of ASSITEJ International.

“The ‘Take a child to the theatre today’ campaign goes to the heart of what ASSITEJ is all about, working to ensure that all children and young people have access to the arts wherever they happen to live. We ask emerging and established theatres and theatre companies across the country to join hands and reach out to new audiences in community halls, schools, professional theatres and site specific venues. Last year our work in deprived communities such as Bodibe village (North West province), Sterkspruit (Eastern Cape), the Hillbrow inner city (Gauteng) and Vrygrond (Western Cape), to give just a few examples, has shown us just how desperately children need the arts as a transformative impulse. We want young people everywhere to experience the liberating power of the imagination,Where you can create a custom lanyard from our wide selection of styles and materials.” says Hardie.

Among the theatre houses that have come out in support of the 2013 campaign are Artscape Theatre, Joburg Theatre, Catalina Theatre, Tshwane Youth Theatre, Klein Libertas Teater, St. Anne’s College Theatre KKNK Festival, Rhumbelow Theatre,Laser engraving and laser laser cutting machine for materials like metal, Dorpo Straat Teater, Hilbrow Theatre Project, Pierneef Teater, Theatre on the Bay, National Children’s Theatre, Masque Theatre, Old Mutual Theatre on the Square and Breytenbach Teater among others. The press launch on Tuesday, 19 February will give more information about the strategies that these theatres are using to engage with young audiences on and around World Theatre Day.

“We are calling on corporate sponsors, the public sector, the general public ,as well as the arts industry, across the country to join the campaign, so that we’re able to reach as many children as possible to ensure that we continuously encourage sustainability and growth of the arts sector,” said Hardie.

2012 saw the participation of eleven major theatre houses and companies in the campaign: Artscape, Joburg Theatre, Market Theatre, People’s Theatre, Sibikwa Arts Centre, Catalina Theatre, Hilton College Theatre, Kalk Bay Theatre, Baxter Theatre Centre, National Children’s Theatre, The Entertainers and Hillbrow Theatre Project made sure that young audiences in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Pietermaritzburg had access to the arts. Special offers for families, interactive events, free theatre for children and young people, as well as a marketing and advocacy campaign all played a role.

Over 7500 children attended theatrical events in honour of the day, an inspiring start for the three-year-long global campaign initiated by ASSITEJ to advocate for the value of theatre in the lives of children and young people. Numerous high profile volunteers gave of their time to bring attention to the message.

All South Africans can make a small but important contribution of R10 by texting 'Theatre4Youth' to 38490 from their mobile phones, thereby sponsoring children and youth to visit the theatre on and around World Theatre Day.

Along with the campaign this year, ASSITEJ South Africa in partnership with Theatre Arts Admin Collective (TAAC) and Lunchbox Theatre will be launching the annual Family Season Festival of performances in Cape Town and for the first time, in Plettenberg Bay to provide opportunities for children and young people from lower to middle income families to see high quality theatre. The festival also support local theatre practitioners and theatre companies to create more high quality theatre for our children, ensuring that theatre becomes an inspiring part of their cultural and family life,Comprehensive Wi-Fi and RFID tag by Aeroscout to accurately locate and track any asset or person. as well as their education.

Family Seasons are small, locally-based festivals, in areas which generally do not have access to theatre. They rely on the involvement of a network of local funders who are all deeply invested in the future of the children within that particular community. The festivals run partially over the school term and partially over holidays, drawing on school and family audiences. Performances will include the Musho award-winning production, Fishy Flippers,Did you know that custom keychain chains can be used for more than just business. Jon Keevy’s Get Kracken (which was developed through an ASSITEJ programme), Jori Snell’s Standard Bank Ovation award-winning Kitchen Fables in a Cookie Jar, Lunchbox Theatre’s The Whale Show and From Addo to Adventure and Laway Arts' Red Earth.

Ariz woman charged in lover's slaying testifies

A woman charged in the savage stabbing and shooting death of her lover told jurors Monday how she endured an abusive childhood at the hands of her parents and planned to commit suicide after she killed her on-again, off-again boyfriend.

Jodi Arias' testimony was a surprise move by defense attorneys in a sensational murder trial in Phoenix that has become a daily fixture on cable news with its lurid stories of sex,The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. lies, religion, betrayal and violence.Laser engraving and laser laser cutting machine for materials like metal, Arias, 32, could become just the fourth woman on Arizona's death row if convicted.

Arias' testimony aimed to portray her as a childhood abuse victim and naive teenager who stayed with boyfriends even after they cheated on her and became violent at times.

Defense attorneys claim it was a similar scenario throughout her relationship with Travis Alexander, a successful businessman and motivational speaker, who Arias killed in June 2008, she says, in self-defense.

She is charged with killing the 30-year-old man in what prosecutors describe as a fit of jealous rage after she found out he'd planned to take a trip to Mexico with another woman. Authorities say she stabbed and slashed him 27 times, slit his throat from ear to ear and shot him in the forehead, leaving his bloody body in the bathroom of his suburban Phoenix home to be found five days later by friends.

Arias claims it was self-defense as Alexander attacked her after inviting her to his home for sex on the day of the killing.

Her trial began in early January with a series of salacious details about a torrid romance between Arias and Alexander after they met at a Las Vegas conference in late 2006. She claims they dated for about five months, then broke up but continued to see each other for sex up until the day of his death. She initially told police she knew nothing of the killing, then later blamed it on masked intruders. She finally admitted her involvement, but claimed self-defense _ kill or be killed by the enraged man.

She testified Monday that she lied early in the investigation about not being at the scene of the crime because she planned to commit suicide so there would never be a trial.

"At the time, I had plans to commit suicide. So I was extremely confident that no jury would convict me because I didn't expect any of you to be here," Arias told jurors. "I planned to be dead."

In a soft-spoken voice, Arias calmly described how an idyllic childhood in California turned abusive when she was about 7 years old. She said her parents beat her with belts and wooden spoons, and the abuse later escalated into shoving her into furniture and slapping her in the face for misdeeds such as sneaking out of the house.

Her mother sat in the front row of the courtroom and showed no emotion as Arias described her childhood.

Arias then went on to recount other stories from her youth that sometimes turned bizarre. She described meeting a high school boyfriend at a carnival when she was 15 and he was 18. Arias said the two dated for a while, but she broke it off because "he had all kinds of wild ideas."

"He entertained the belief in vampires," she said, adding that he wanted the pair to move to San Francisco to hunt them.

She said a few months after she broke up with the boy, she learned he was so distraught over the relationship's demise that he had slit both his wrists and tried to kill himself.

Arias said she reconnected with him about "19 months" later after a man she met in her father's restaurant had told her that the "second coming" of Jesus Christ would occur in late 1997.

"I was really naive and I kind of believed him," Arias testified. She wanted to warn her former boyfriend,Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet? she said.

But she said it wasn't long until the relationship turned stormy. She discovered he had been exchanging romantic emails with another woman, but she continued to date him.

Later, she said he tried to strangle her and told her "how he would kill each member of my family."

Throughout the trial,Come January 9 and chip card driving licence would be available at the click of the mouse in Uttar Pradesh. defense attorneys have tried to depict Alexander as a liar and cheat who told Arias and other girlfriends he was a devout Mormon saving sex for marriage, while in reality he was having sex with multiple women, cheating on some with others.Wear a whimsical Disney ear cap straight from the Disney Theme Parks! Prosecutors have portrayed Arias as a jealous ex-girlfriend who couldn't let go of Alexander and stalked him for months after their breakup until finally snapping and killing him.

Authorities say they found her hair and bloody palm print at the scene of the killing, along with time-stamped photographs on a camera discovered inside Alexander's washing machine that place Arias there on the day he died. The photos included one of Arias nude on his bed, one of Alexander alive in the shower, then one of his body on the bathroom floor.

Defense attorneys have yet to explain why Arias apparently attempted to clean the scene and what happened to the weapons.

Authorities say Alexander was shot in the head with a .25 caliber gun, the same caliber Arias' grandparents reported stolen from their Northern California home about a week before the killing.

How Americans perceive same-sex marriage in a changing world

When Matt Friday’s mother heard that her son was dating a man, Bruce Carlson, his mother forbade them from holding hands in her home. Friday, unable to accept his mother’s adversity, countered with an ultimatum: “You can either have us holding hands, or not have us at all.”

It was this strength evident in Friday’s interaction with his mother that guided and fueled his and Carlson’s love. The two men met at a gay bar in Monterey, Calif. on Feb. 15, 1986 while out to dinner with friends. After Friday gushed about Carlson’s “beautiful eyes,” they had their first kiss. Twenty-six years later, they find themselves living in Eugene, Ore. with a past rich with love, acceptance and strength. Yet,Come January 9 and chip card driving licence would be available at the click of the mouse in Uttar Pradesh. there is something Friday and Carlson wish they could do, something they believe will solidify their union even more.

And, now, more than ever before,Wear a whimsical Disney ear cap straight from the Disney Theme Parks! this seems possible. On November 6, 2012 three states — Maine, Maryland and Washington — became the first to approve same-sex marriage according to the popular vote; while in Minnesota, a state where marriage between gay men and lesbian women has not been legalized, voters rejected an amendment that would ban same-sex marriage. Prior to this date, same-sex marriage had been legalized in six states in our country: Connecticut, New York, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia.

It’s likely that Oregon, in the next few years, will be added to this list. Despite the fact that local gay rights activists made the decision to not add same-sex marriage to the Oregon ballot on election day, many Oregonians are hopeful for the future. And rightfully so — it is possible that a ballot measure for same-sex marriage will be implemented in Oregon as soon as 2014. With an accelerated momentum brought on by the successes in Maine, Maryland and Washington, the legalization of same-sex marriage in other American states appears even more plausible.

“What’s happening is the shifting of attitudes,” Carlson said. “People who have been brutalized, compromised, denied rights, are starting to say, ‘Yeah, I want to be part of that group, I want to be over here where we have a right to get married.’”

This shifting of attitudes is largely due to the younger American population, a generation more comfortable with gay marriage than ever before. In Maryland, for instance, 70 percent of voters 18-29 years old voted to legalize same-sex marriage, while only 36 percent of voters over 65 did — creating a 34-percent age gap. In Maine, 68 percent of voters between the ages of 18-29 voted to legalize gay marriage, while only 44 percent of voters over 65 did.The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product.

The age gap dividing voters applies not only to same-sex marriage legalization, but also to the presidential election. This year, 60 percent of voters between 18-29 years of age voted for President Obama, while only 44 percent of voters over 65 did.

This divide among American voters, Friday suggests, means society is edging away from an autocratic government. “People are realizing that you do not get to go in as an authoritarian and say, ‘We’re making the decisions here about what’s happening in your private life,’” he said. “The fact that we have turned everything into this fight about sexuality really completely misses the boat, in my opinion, about what it means to be human.”

With a total of nine states allowing marriage for same-sex couples, and the replacement of a traditional elderly generation with a progressive youth, the spread of legalization of gay marriage seems inevitable.Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet? The more liberal people become, the further our ideals and morals change along with it.

Today, it’s hard to believe there was a time in which women couldn’t vote for their own president. It’s difficult to imagine a society in which black and white people had to drink from separate water fountains. It’s puzzling to think that at one time black people and white people couldn’t get married.

One day it may also seem just as strange, to our grandchildren, to our great-grandchildren, to our great-great-grandchildren, that America was once a country in which two people in a committed, loving relationship could be denied the right to get married because of their gender. It may seem silly to future generations that two men that have been together for over twenty years, like Matt Friday and Bruce Carlson, aren’t free to prove their love to society, their country, to themselves — through the sanctity of marriage.

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ce19f802-6c5e-11e2-b774-00144feab49a.html#ixzz2JzAbnK1W

Others, however, argue that such rhetoric is overdone. They suggest that the links between different franchises are often tenuous, if they exist at all, and many of the groups have emerged from principally regional struggles, sharing a similar extremist ideology and using the al-Qaeda label to galvanise their message.

Officials are comforted by the fact that over the past year a series of big events – such as the London Olympics – have taken place in western capitals without incident. But they still fear the potential and growth of al-Qaeda franchises, and their ability to contain them.

In the Middle East, popular uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia have shown how marginal jihadis were in their societies. But they have also produced new governments with a limited ability to assert control over their territory. In Libya, for example, the fall of the Gaddafi regime has left the country in the hands of competing militias. In Tunisia and Egypt, jihadists who had been released from prison could attempt to regroup.

Above all the number of ungoverned spaces – in Mali, Yemen, Somalia and the Pakistani tribal areas – has expanded. Security experts argue that while the threat from Bin Laden’s core group in Pakistan may have dwindled,Laser engraving and laser laser cutting machine for materials like metal, western intelligence agencies are under pressure to keep up with this changing kaleidoscope of regional franchises.

“When al-Qaeda was largely holed up in the badlands of Pakistan and the tribal areas, the US had the capability to deal with them in a much more focused way through drone attacks,” says Nigel Inkster, a former UK intelligence official now at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. “But now we have a far more disaggregated threat that no one country has the capability to tackle. It makes dealing with these jihadist groups – and knowing when and how to intervene – a great deal more difficult.”

Hail Columbia

The Washington, D.C., region has long been considered recession-proof, thanks to the remorseless expansion of the federal government in good times and bad.A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose solar lantern by Gordon. Yet it’s only now—as D.C. positively booms while most of the country remains in economic doldrums—that the scale of Washington’s prosperity is becoming clear.Don't make another silicone mold without these invaluable Mold Making supplies and accessories! Over the past decade, the D.C. area has made stunning economic and demographic progress.Compare prices and buy all brands of solar panel for home power systems and by the pallet. Meanwhile, America’s current and former Second Cities, population-wise—Los Angeles and Chicago—are battered and fading in significance. Though Washington still isn’t their match in terms of population, it’s gaining on them in terms of economic power and national importance.

In fact, we’re witnessing the start of Washington’s emergence as America’s new Second City. Whether that’s a good thing for America is another question.

Washington is an artificial capital, a city conjured into existence shortly after the Revolutionary War. Its location was the result of political horse-trading. Virginia congressmen agreed to let the federal government assume the states’ war debts, even though Virginia itself was already paid up; in exchange, the new capital would be located in the South.

The city’s early boosters hoped that its location on the Potomac River would help it grow into a commercial as well as a political capital, but that didn’t happen. While other cities got state backing for their business endeavors—a good example is the Erie Canal, built by New York State, which benefited New York City enormously—Washington was run by a Congress more interested in national affairs than in local ones. The city stagnated at first. Its growth finally picked up during the Civil War, but it wasn’t until the Great Depression and World War II, with their expansion of the role of the government in American life, that Washington grew prosperous. During the war, average family income there was higher than in New York or Los Angeles.

It was also a heavily black city—by 1957, the country’s first major city with a black majority. But back in the 1870s, Congress, motivated by racist fears of black votes, had replaced the city’s elected mayors with a board of commissioners appointed by the U.S. president. That change, coming just a few years after black males had won the right to vote in Washington local elections, hobbled the city’s ambitions and set the stage for its troubled legacy in race relations. It wasn’t until 1973, when the civil rights movement had made the disenfranchisement of the city’s blacks untenable, that D.C. regained local control. Unfortunately, a number of factors—including the 1968 riots after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination and a series of disastrous urban policies enacted by the federal government—set the stage for the emergence of political opportunists, including the infamous Mayor Marion Barry. During his tenure in the 1980s, unchecked corruption, ineptly delivered city services, soaring crime, horrendous public schools, financial chaos, and racial tensions made the city a byword for dysfunction nationally. So did the 1990 video that caught Barry smoking crack in a hotel room.

Nevertheless, the metropolitan area surrounding Washington continued to grow and thrive.Nitrogen Controller and Digital dry cabinet with good quality. And when the 2000s arrived, the expansion of the federal government not only catapulted the region into a new league of success but also transformed the troubled city at its center.

During the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Washington metropolitan area overachieved on a variety of measurements versus its peer metro areas—that is, the rest of the ten largest metros in the country, plus the San Francisco Bay Area (which federal classifications divide into two, neither of which would make the Top Ten on its own). Among these regions, Washington ranked fourth in population growth from 2000 to 2010, trailing only the three Sunbelt boomtowns of Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston (see “The Texas Growth Machine”). Washington is currently the seventh most populous metropolitan area in America.

The region has performed even more impressively on the jobs front. Since 2001, Washington has enjoyed the lowest unemployment rate of its peer group. Over the course of the entire decade, it ranked second in job growth, trailing only Houston. That wasn’t just because of the federal agencies and gigantic contractors of Washington stereotype. The region has also been a hotbed of entrepreneurship—much of it, to be sure, dependent on federal dollars. During the 2000s, it had 385 firms named to the Inc. 500 lists of fastest-growing companies in America, according to Kauffman Foundation research—by far the most of any metro area. From 2000 through 2011, according to rankings developed by Praxis Strategy Group, Washington’s low-profile but powerful tech sector had the country’s second-highest job growth, after Seattle’s. The region is also one of America’s top life-sciences centers.

Then there’s economic output. During the 2000s, per-capita GDP grew faster in Washington than in any of its peer regions except the Bay Area. Today, Washington’s per-capita GDP is the country’s second-highest—again, after the Bay Area. Unlike Washington, however, the Bay Area hemorrhaged jobs over the course of the decade. Related to Washington’s impressive output is its astonishing median household income, the highest of any metro area with more than 1 million people. A remarkable seven of the ten highest-income counties in America are in metro Washington. And during the 2000s, per-capita income rose in Washington faster than in any of its peer metros.

Finally, Washington’s population is the best-educated in America. Almost half of all adults in the Washington region have college degrees, the highest proportion of any metro area with more than 1 million people. The same is true of graduate degrees: almost 23 percent of Washingtonians hold them.

The region’s success relates to two larger points. The first involves the fact that prosperous urban regions in America are increasingly divided into two kinds.Ein innovativer und moderner Werkzeugbau Formenbau. Some, like the Bay Area, embrace a “vertical” model of success, generating increases in economic output and per-capita income with stagnant or declining population and jobs. Others, like Dallas, are “horizontal,” featuring growth in population and jobs but stagnant or declining output and income. But Washington is an exception: it is the only metropolitan area with a population of at least 1 million that achieves the best of both worlds, combining Dallas-style population and job growth with the fabulous output and wealth of a San Francisco. In that respect, it is a city without peer in America.

The second point to emphasize is the sheer scale of Washington’s performance. If you consider the claim that it’s becoming America’s new Second City an exaggeration, note that its huge recent growth has brought its economic size much closer to Chicago’s—not just in per-capita terms but in absolute ones, too. Back in 2001, Chicago’s economy was 52 percent bigger than Washington’s; by the end of the decade, the gap had shrunk to 24 percent. Similarly, in 2000, total personal income was 62 percent greater in Chicago than in Washington—a difference that had dwindled to 31 percent by the end of 2010. Chicago has just 16 percent more people with college degrees than Washington does. And Washington has more people with graduate degrees than Chicago does and is closing in on Los Angeles.

None of these measurements, by the way, includes nearby Baltimore. The combined Washington-Baltimore area is now the fourth-largest in the country, with about a million fewer people than Chicago. In roughly 15 years, if current growth rates hold, Washington-Baltimore will pass the 10-million-person threshold necessary to be counted as a megacity.

Leather pushes decorative envelope

Leather is charging into home decor, going beyond couches, chairs and table tops. It's upholstering walls and covering floors, and manufactured materials made from recycled leather are broadening the design possibilities even further.

Imagine a door covered in faux crocodile, a bathroom vanity with a cowhide insert or a closet with leather-wrapped shelves.

Leather produces a sophisticated look suitable for contemporary, rustic or club-like settings, "but not your traditional Colonial home," said Christian Nadeau, president of EcoDomo, a Quebec manufacturer of leather surfacing materials. He said he often sees leather flooring used in media rooms to give a feel of richness and intimacy, but some types can be tough enough for a kitchen or a well-traveled staircase.

Nadeau said leather surfaces have become more popular as interest in natural materials has grown.

"Leather is just one more product that goes in that direction to put nature back in homes," he said.

Leather on surfaces is hardly mainstream, and genuine leather is a home-decorating luxury. But technology is bringing prices down and making this high-end look accessible to customers with bigger design aspirations than budgets.

That's true even with real leather, an option that until now has been prohibitively pricey for most consumers. Kaleen Leathers in Westchester, Ill., for example, is developing genuine-leather panels that manager Frank Mullen said will reduce the cost of leather walls and floors by making them easier and cheaper to install.

The die-cut panels are applied to a rubber backing and then adhered to a wall or floor with a releasable adhesive, much like carpet squares,A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose solar lantern by Gordon. Mullen said. The backing and the precise die cuts simplify installation, he said, and the low-tack adhesive means you can even take the panels with you if you move.

A 12-by-12-inch panel in an average-range leather might cost $25 to $30, he said - not exactly bargain-basement stuff, but reasonable in comparison to leather-tile prices that can approach or even exceed $100 a square foot.

Finer leathers would cost considerably more, he said. So would larger panels, because they produce less yield from a hide.

Where design inroads really are being made, though, is in surfacing products using recycled or bonded leather, a manufactured product made from leather scraps. Remnants from the manufacture of leather goods are pulverized, and the resulting fibers are mixed with other materials and pressed into sheets that are colored and textured to look like genuine leather. A coating protects the product.

Bonded leather can go wherever wood can - even below grade, in some instances. It's not recommended for wet environments such as full bathrooms.

Ontario flooring company Torlys uses a proprietary protective coating that gives its bonded leather floors a life span of 25 to 30 years with normal wear, said E.C. "Bill" Dearing, its national manager of market development. Torlys' flooring is made from a thin layer of bonded leather applied to high-density fiberboard and backed by cork, so Dearing said it's comfortable underfoot but not spongy. It's a feel much like walking on a wood floor, he said.

EcoDomo's floors have a 25-year residential warranty,Ein innovativer und moderner Werkzeugbau Formenbau. and Nadeau said the company has put them in kitchens, on staircases, in hotel lobbies and in other high-traffic areas.

Maintenance is the same as a wood floor - vacuum without a beater bar to remove dust and damp mop using a floor cleaner, Dearing said.

"But people don't buy it for its wear, honestly," he said. More often, consumers fall in love first with the look,Don't make another silicone mold without these invaluable Mold Making supplies and accessories! he said, and then durability becomes the deciding factor.

Torlys' bonded leather flooring sells for $10 to $13 a square foot; EcoDomo's, for about $12 to $14. Those prices don't include installation.

EcoDomo also makes 4-by-8-foot sheets of bonded leather for the wood industry, for applications such as a veneer on kitchen cabinets, Nadeau said.

One of his favorite uses for bonded leather is in stitched walls, custom fitted to a room. Leather panels are cut to fit around doors,We offers custom Injection Mold parts in as fast as 1 day. switches and other features, and panels are top-stitched for a finished look.

"It looks like your wall was sewn in place," he said.

EcoDomo also makes floor tiles from genuine leather - from the tough leather from the necks of cattle in order to stand up to foot traffic. The process produces a lot of waste, so the product is expensive - around $80 a square foot, he said.

Nadeau sees almost limitless possibilities for leather in the home. He's seen leather-wrapped chandeliers and leather-covered bathroom vanities,Nitrogen Controller and Digital dry cabinet with good quality. and his company has even wrapped toilet seats in leather for yachts and hotels.

Oreck Corp adds products, revamps marketing strategy

You’ve seen the infomercials. For years, often late at night, David Oreck sold you hard on his lightweight Oreck upright vacuums.

The CEO and pitchman’s appearances helped create an iconic brand that more than 70 percent of consumers recognize despite having only a 5 percent share of the upright vacuum market 10 years ago, according to the company.

But there was a problem: Oreck vacuums had a bag. And in 2002, British engineer James Dyson introduced his sleekly designed, bagless vacuums to the U.S., put them in larger retail outlets and gobbled up customers, forever altering the way vacuums are designed and marketed.Don't make another silicone mold without these invaluable Mold Making supplies and accessories! A decade later, about 80 percent of upright vacuums sold are bagless.

Now, Oreck Corp. is in a different city (the company moved its headquarters from New Orleans to Nashville in 2008), has a different CEO and an almost entirely different staff. And it is in the process of recreating itself after years of transition and sluggish sales of its trademark vacuums.

“We feel like a 50-year-old startup,” said Doug Cahill, who became Oreck’s CEO in 2010 after stints as chief executive of Mars Petcare and president of Winchester Ammunition.

With $2.We offers custom Injection Mold parts in as fast as 1 day.3 billion in sales in 2012, upright vacuums are a sizable market, one in which Oreck’s share has slipped to 4 percent. About 70 percent of its revenue comes from selling and repairing vacuums, mostly through direct sales and its 325 specialty stores.

As the company looks to transfer some of that brand recognition to sales, it’s invested heavily in consumer research, product development and marketing, and has made a host of changes.

For starters, Oreck has extended its TV advertising beyond infomercials and has purchased spots during popular shows, including “General Hospital” and “Law and Order.”

“We know we have 92 percent of the insomniac market,” Cahill said. “Why don’t we sell vacuums to people who sleep at night?”

During a recent interview at the Oreck office, Cahill displayed exceptional enthusiasm for a conversation about vacuum cleaners. A few dozen floor care products, mostly vacuums, lined the walls, and as he discussed the company’s plans, he repeatedly jumped up from his chair to demonstrate them.

Oreck is in the midst of introducing several new products, including its first bagless vacuum, an air purifier and an item Cahill was especially proud of: a lightweight, bagless vacuum/steam mop hybrid. “The industry’s never seen that,” he said.

The company also is shifting from its traditional emphasis on direct sales and specialty stores — together, they account for more than 80 percent of sales — by signing on with more major retailers, including Wal-Mart.

“We’re designing products that are relevant to her,” Cahill said, “and we’re going to put them where she wants to buy them.”

In the higher-end price range where most Oreck models fall, making a purchase is often a joint decision in a household, Cahill said, “but we think the best way to design and sell a product is with and for her, because we think she knows more than he does.Ein innovativer und moderner Werkzeugbau Formenbau.”

In 2007, before Cahill’s arrival, Oreck created a stir when it closed a plant in Long Beach, Miss., citing the burden of rising insurance costs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It opened a new plant in Cookeville, Tenn.A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose solar lantern by Gordon., and a year later, relocated its corporate offices from New Orleans to Nashville.

Of its roughly 700 Gulf Coast employees, Cahill said, only 52 came to Tennessee. Oreck now has about 415 employees in the state, 315 of which are at a plant and call center in Cookeville.

As the company adjusted to its new location, bagged vacuum sales were declining and specialty store traffic began to wane. “We were getting a narrower and narrower part of the business,” Cahill said.

In search of ways to gain an edge,Nitrogen Controller and Digital dry cabinet with good quality. the company reached out to its customers. It developed a network of local consumers to regularly bring in to test products and advertising, sought feedback through online crowdsourcing and began visiting households to study consumer relationships with cleaning products.

Led by chief product officer Chris Paterson, Oreck employees logged dozens of hours hanging out in homes and observing people as they cleaned and managed their households.

Classes of Vanderbilt students have researched how to improve Oreck specialty stores and are helping the company develop air purifiers. With a class of engineering students and the help of NASA, Oreck is looking into how air flow technology developed by the space agency can be incorporated into a vacuum.

Whether these changes will significantly boost sales remains to be seen, and the company still has about two years remaining in its reinvention phase, Cahill said.

But he sees opportunity, particularly in the $199-$399 price range in large retail stores, above where less expensive models tail off and below the high-end, premium space largely occupied by Dyson.

The average sale price of vacuums rose 8 percent in 2012, “which is a good story for someone aiming at premium,” said Debra Mednick, an analyst at the research firm NPD.

Cahill declined to disclose the company’s financials. Oreck’s previous CEO, Thomas Oreck, told The New York Times in 2007 that the company had revenue of “well over $200 million.”

Following in the footsteps of a legend

Morocco's Jaafar Alj Hakim can talk the talk of any veteran ambassador: diplomacy, trade, cultural exchanges. But right now he'd rather talk about the beach.

"People obviously like the Kingdom's 3,500 km of coastline," he says, noting that the sunny sand and blue sea has a special appeal for the some 7,000 Chinese who visit every year.

"The imperial cities of Fez, Meknes, Marrakesh and Rabat show the heritage of the different dynasties that succeeded in Morocco and left a world of grandeur," he says, while coastal Agadir boasts a fine-sand bay, golf resorts, bird-watching and a leisurely escape from the workaday world.

Hakim notes that his thousand-year-old kingdom has a recorded history with China that goes back seven centuries, thanks to the legendary travels of Ibn Battuta. That Moroccan trader explored China during the 28 years he journeyed across the East, taking a scholarly interest in the Middle Kingdom. Ibn Battuta trekked more than 121,000 km, a figure unsurpassed by any individual explorer until the Steam Age made horses unnecessary 450 years later. His book has now been published in Chinese.

Twenty-one Chinese artists were invited to explore Morocco's history and culture in their work. Qiu Jun's paintings reflect the romance both peoples have with the horse. Zhao Biqin's colorful landscapes showcase "Moroccan women's love for their country and their expectations of a beautiful future".

Kong Fantao and Ma Dongqin capture street scenes in cool blues and greens, while Song Lin's oil painting depicts Ibn Battuta en route to China with "a sense of triumphalism".

The legacy of Ibn Battuta lingers today, measurable on the map. Most of the Moroccans in China today are not in Beijing or Shanghai, but in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. "We are still traders," he says with a smile.

In addition, about 250 Moroccan students study at universities around the country. When they finish their studies, Hakim says, they will enter the world economy with tremendous advantages, especially in China.

"Imagine, they come here already fluent in Arabic, in French and in English," the ambassador says. "Now they have a good education, they are trained in international business - and they speak Chinese. The opportunities are fantastic."

In Morocco, meanwhile, there are now Confucius Institutes teaching Mandarin at universities in both Rabat (since 2009) and Casablanca (2011), with a new one scheduled to open in Fez later this year, he says.

"Economic cooperation between the two countries has been growing,Laser engravers and laser engraving machine systems and supplies to start your own lasering cutting engraving marking etching business. with a trade volume that topped $3 billion in 2011," he says, a figure that makes China the third-largest supplier of Morocco and China's sixth-largest export destination in Africa. Morocco, for example, imports more green tea from China than any other nation. Telecommunications, infrastructure, mining, solar energy and fishing are important trade sectors between the two countries.

As ambassador,How cheaply can I build a solar power systems? he has traveled to "the four corners of China".Whilst the preparation of ceramic and porcelain tiles are similar. A sports and golf enthusiast, he enjoys exploring nature with his family, but he still has much of the continent-sized country to see.

That's helped him see tourism development between the countries as a two-way street. About 11,000 Moroccan tourists visited China in 2012. He's hoping that a direct flight, perhaps between Guangzhou and Morocco, can materialize as early as this year. Right now, getting to Morocco generally requires a stop in Paris first - not necessarily a hardship for a Francophone country.

"In Fez we have the oldest university in the world that is still operating," he says, and famous festivals include one for international religious music in February. "Morocco also has a road rally, something like the famous Dakar Rally, but just for women drivers," he says.

Visitors entering Agial Gallery nowadays may well be disturbed by the works they find on display there, an exhibition of 12 enigmatic oils by Nadia Safieddine, rather allusively entitled “Badroom.”

Safieddine’s is a palette dominated by blacks and dark reds, browns and grays. Even when juxtaposed with dabs of orange or yellow, green or blue, the effect of the artist’s brushwork is to mire these brighter hues within gloom.

One of her more unsettling works is “L’Ecorche III” (‘The Wounded Man III’), a 90x77 cm canvas whose central figure looks less a depiction of mortal injury than a skull whose skin and facial features have been ripped off completely. What remains is swaddled (or helmeted) in muddied cloth. If the term “miasma” could be given a visual representation,We specializes in rapid plastic injection mould and molding of parts for prototypes and production. this would be it.

Safieddine’s technique in portraying her figures is stunning. Layer upon muddy layer of oil paint is applied less with an eye to direct figuration than to create an organic mass from which figures can emerge. Figures and recognizable shapes seem to burst forth from the brushwork of their own accord.

The Lebanese artist divides her time between Berlin and Beirut, and her style is most evocative of the post-figurative work of expatriate Syrian artist Marwan – who happens to have been a long-term resident of Germany.

Safieddine would not be the first Lebanese artist to be influenced by Marwan’s relentless application of oil to canvas. It may be useful to contrast her work with that of Ayman Baalbaki. While Baalbaki has taken up Marwan’s explorations of post-figuration and adapted it to create works that ironically blend a decorative sensibility with a Civil War iconography, Safieddine’s subjects have no easy referent in the pop culture consciousness.

Her application of this cold, dark cacophony of color may or may not itself be disturbing, but it does leave one to wonder about the goings on in the “badroom” of the artist’s imagination.

Her 150x140 cm work “Aaah!” depicts a horrendous scene. A beefy man gazes straight at the onlooker as he appears to rip an ill-defined creature to pieces. The bottom of the canvas is dominated by shades of red, suggesting a bloody carnage is under way.

Like most of Safieddine’s figures, the face of this one is indistinct, with his wide-opened mouth being most discernable. One wonders whether the title is meant to invoke the sound of the character’s screaming, or that of the viewer while gazing at the painting.

You may also see some similarity between Safieddine’s style in this work and that of Francisco de Goya’s work “Saturn devouring his Children.”

If the title is to be believed, “Angry Me” (190x160 cm) depicts the artist herself. An odd-looking character sits, wearing what seem to be red bunny ears, holding a round item in its hands. Alongside is an unidentified black shape that (one assumes) could represent a headless torso.

Like “Aaah!” the background is rendered in horizontal strokes of color that range from pinks at the top of the canvas to black, red and dark blue at the bottom, as though these shades represent something oozing from the figure itself.

This red blotch can be seen as a leitmotif in Safieddine’s work. In “Dimitri” (160x145 cm), onlookers find a man standing, wearing a suit. The greenish vertical brushstrokes that make up the background wash suggest he’s surrounded by trees. A creature (rendered in the same tones as the background) lying at his feet has the aspect of a bear (perhaps a bearskin rug). The “floor” is, again, of a blood-red hue.

A companion piece to “Dimitri,We offers custom Injection Mold parts in as fast as 1 day.” “Naked” (180x150 cm) represents the bestial in slightly different terms. Safieddine depicts the figure’s facial feature in terms not unlike the indistinct skull found in “L’Ecorche III.”

The figure’s features and posture suggest something ape-like or perhaps a cross between animal and human. Though the figure is not clothed in any discernable way, the piece seems uninterested in rendering physical nudity or any of the form’s aesthetic charms. Rather it is preoccupied with expressing a primordial violence, hostility or lust.