http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . Diversity ruled among the first American settlers. Within a relatively short time span, at least two groups of people trekked across a land bridge from Asia to Alaska and then went their separate ways, one down the Pacific Coast and the other into the heart of North America, a new genetic study suggests.
A team led by geneticist Antonio Torroni of the University of Pavia in Italy estimates that these separate migrations into the New World occurred between 17,000 and 15,000 years ago. http://LOUIS2J2SHEEHAN.US
Even more populations with distinct genetic signatures and languages may have crossed a now-submerged strip of land, known as Beringia, that connected northeastern Asia to North America within that relatively narrow window of time, the scientists also contend in a paper published online January 8 and in the Jan. 13 Current Biology.
“Whereas some recent investigators had thought that a single major population expansion explained all mitochondrial DNA variation among Native Americans, this new report revives earlier ideas about multiple expansions into the New World,” comments molecular anthropologist Theodore Schurr of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Torroni’s team analyzed entire genomic sequences of mitochondrial DNA, the genetic material in cells’ energy-generating units that gets passed from mothers to children. Genetic data came from Native American groups in North, Central and South America that had already provided blood samples for study. The researchers focused on the disparate geographic distributions of two rare mitochondrial DNA haplogroups — which are characterized by a distinctive DNA sequence derived from a common maternal ancestor — that still appear in Native Americans.
“Our study presents a novel scenario of two almost concomitant paths of migration, both from Beringia about 15,000 to 17,000 years ago, that led to the dispersal of the first Americans,” Torroni says.
If that hypothesis holds up, he adds, it suggests that separate groups of New World migrants founded prehistoric Native American tool traditions independently in eastern and western North America. http://LOUIS2J2SHEEHAN.US The new findings also raise the possibility that the first Americans spoke languages from more than one language family, in Torroni’s view. Linguists have debated for decades whether late–Stone Age migrants to the Americas spoke tongues from a single language family that would have provided a foundation for many later Native American languages.
Despite the new evidence, scientific consensus on how and when the New World was settled remains elusive. http://LOUIS2J2SHEEHAN.US
“Peopling of the Americas is a hard problem,” remarks geneticist Jody Hey of Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J. “My guess is that it will be a couple more years before we have a good picture of what happened.”
Hey takes a skeptical view of the new study. Different present-day Native American populations display signature mitochondrial DNA patterns, so it’s not surprising that rare haplogroups would be unique to separate regions, he says. But Torroni’s analysis doesn’t explicitly address whether their genetic data more closely reflect a single migration, a pair of simultaneous migrations or some other pattern of population movements, in Hey’s view.
Some climate reconstructions suggest that an ice-free corridor from Alaska into North America wasn’t passable until around 12,000 years ago, Schurr says. If so, that creates a major roadblock for Torroni’s scenario of an inland migration at least 15,000 years ago.
Investigators also differ on how best to study ancient population movements using genetic data.
Two approaches currently dominate DNA-based attempts to explain the population movements and evolution of people and other animals, Hey notes. Some researchers track today’s geographic distribution of different haplogroups and generate tree diagrams that portray patterns of ancestry, as Torroni’s group did. Other investigators, such as Hey, use statistical methods to test whether genetic data fit simple models of how populations might have been structured.
In 2005, Hey took the model-based approach to examine mitochondrial DNA from northeastern Asians and Native Americans. He concluded that a single group of New World settlers, consisting of perhaps 70 fertile adults, crossed Beringia no more than 14,000 years ago (SN: 5/28/05, p. 339).
In this study, Torroni and his colleagues got different results by searching a large genetic database for mitochondrial DNA. The team found 55 unrelated individuals who displayed either of two rare Native American haplogroups, called D4h3 and X2a, identifying 44 instances of haplogroup D4h3 and 11 instances of haplogroup X2a.
Further analyses indicated that the D4h3 haplogroup spread into the Americas along the Pacific Coast, rapidly reaching the southern tip of South America. Estimated ages of D4h3 sequences from ChiIe are nearly as old as the estimated time of the Beringia crossing.
In contrast, haplogroup X2a crossed Beringia and spread through an ice-free corridor in what’s now western Canada, eventually clustering in the Great Lakes area, the new study suggests.
Examination of an additional 276 mitochondrial DNA sequences, all from unrelated people, representing the six haplogroups common in Native Americans indicated that those genetic types entered the Americas at about the same time as the two rare haplogroups did.
“Within a rather short period of time, there may have been several entries into the Americas from a dynamically changing Beringian source,” Torroni says.
Extensive mitochondrial DNA data have yet to be obtained for many Native American populations, Schurr cautions. Hence, precise age estimates don’t exist yet for the major New World haplogroups and their sub-branches. Such estimates are needed to check the veracity of competing scenarios of ancient migration to the Americas, including Torroni’s.
Such scenarios also include recent mitochondrial DNA studies that argued for a single founding group of New World migrants. One research team concluded that northeastern Asians reached Beringia as early as 40,000 years ago but had to wait for ice sheets to melt before entering the Americas at least 20,000 years later (SN: 2/16/08, p. 102).
A separate investigation, published online September 17 in PLoS ONE, concluded that migrants from northeastern Asia stayed in Beringia only a few thousand years before crossing into the New World about 16,000 years ago.
“The more we learn about this story, the more we realize that there is much more to understand about this segment of human history and migration,” Schurr says. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
blass 4.bla.0 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . IN early December 1999, the mood in the Bill Blass showroom at 550 Seventh Avenue was as gray as the film of dust on a potted plant that sat in the corner and always seemed to be dying. http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-jmbPCHg9dLPh1gHoZxLG.GpS
Blass, arguably the most famous of all the American designers, had shown his farewell collection that September and sold the company a few weeks later. He had been ill for some time, living with throat cancer for years — he was then 77 — and he didn’t seem much inclined to argue with the new owners about who would fill his oversize shoes. They wanted a name. So the future of Blass’s longtime assistants was far from certain. Laura Montalban, one of two top designers, left to work for Oscar de la Renta; Blass called the other, Craig Natiello, who had been with him for a decade, into his office.http://web.mac.com/lousheehan
“You’re not going to like the people who bought the company,” Blass said. He made a phone call, then told Mr. Natiello, who recalled the conversation in a recent interview, that there was a job waiting for him at Halston. “Here is your out. Do you want it?”
Mr. Natiello was reminded of this moment the other day when he bumped into Adolfo Sardina, the famous Adolfo, at a deli near his apartment on the Upper East Side. In 1962, Blass had given Adolfo the $10,000 he needed to start his own millinery collection, so they both remembered what he did for them and for fashion; and they, like the remnants of a generation of society women, couldn’t quite believe the Bill Blass legacy was ending in such an ignoble way. On Friday, the last sewers, patternmakers and assistants were laid off without severance as the company, after years of turmoil and a revolving door of designers, began to dismantle. NexCen Brands, its parent company, was discontinuing the collection, even as it was still trying to sell the brand.
“I want to go in there and throttle their necks!” Mr. Natiello said.
Much as Chanel and Dior and YSL carried on as luxury concerns well after the deaths of their namesakes, no American label seemed better poised to persevere in the absence of its founder than Bill Blass did. Blass, when he bought out his former partners in Maurice Rentner in 1970 to form Bill Blass Ltd., changed things for designers on Seventh Avenue, who used to toil in the relative obscurity of its backrooms. By the sheer force of his talent and wit — upon his death in 2002, he was remembered as the Noël Coward of fashion — he brought glamour to the job. He dressed and drank and dined with Nan Kempner, Pat Buckley and Brooke Astor, and, by the 1990s, he was so famous that his company had more than 40 licenses with annual sales of $500 million of Bill Blass products.
There is no shortage of explanations for the label’s demise. There was an aging clientele, a management that seemed to take a freewheeling approach to the brand and its failure to find a successor who could match the Blass persona. That the problems were endemic became evident last spring, when NexCen said it faced a severe cash shortage. Peter Som, the latest designer, left in October and was not replaced, while the company told retailers it would not be taking orders for a spring collection. Ultimately, NexCen blamed the economic climate.
“It is the passing of a brand that held a lot of meaning for not only me but for many people in the fashion industry,” Mr. Som said last week in an e-mail message. “We have truly lost a legacy.”
THE REAL TROUBLE at Bill Blass started the moment Blass himself walked out the door without an heir apparent.
“It was an enormous question mark that hung over all of us,” said John Lindsey, who was the director of sales at Bill Blass for 12 years.
That fall, Blass had retreated to his home near New Preston, Conn., but he kept a sly eye on what was happening at the company. The new owners, who acquired the business through a bond deal that placed a premium on the future value of the trademark, were Michael Groveman, who had been the chief financial officer at Bill Blass for 10 years, and Haresh T. Tharani, who ran its largest licensee.
They began to look for a successor, interviewing designers like Randolph Duke, James Purcell and Steven Slowik. There was huge interest in the position, and Mr. Groveman seemed to recognize the leverage he had when negotiating with designers.
“For three hours, he said, ‘I’m going to make you the designer here,’ ” Mr. Purcell recalled. “I said, ‘I’m not doing anything unless I have a contract.’ He said, ‘Do you want to be famous or don’t you?’ ”
In February 2000, Mr. Slowik, who had worked for Ferragamo and was living in Paris, took the job — without a contract.
Handsome, unassuming, tasteful, Midwestern (from Detroit), he had good credentials. Blass, a Hoosier, liked him right away.
“The first thing he asked me was my sign,” Mr. Slowik said. Like Blass (and his “dear friends” Nancy Reagan and Lynn Wyatt), he is a Cancer. That September, Mr. Slowik had his first big show. The pressure, he said, was tremendous. The clothes were less structured, more sparkly, less Blass. And the reviews were scathing. One critic called it the “My Little Pony” collection, a reference to a finale dress that had a cartoonish rainbow ribbon splashed across one side, as if it were magic.
“That was an absolute disaster,” Mr. Lindsey said. “All I remember was standing there, watching the whole front row — our clientele — with their hands over their ears as Madonna blasted on the speakers, and then they chose to go out a different door to avoid saying anything to me, because they couldn’t think of anything nice to say. That was the longest 11 minutes of my career.”
Sales were dismal, he said. In one season, the collection business, which had sold $25 million in a good year, dropped to about $5 million. Mr. Slowik carried on and designed a fall collection, but in January 2001, just weeks before he was to show it, he was dismissed. Lars Nilsson, his assistant, became the head designer.
“It certainly wasn’t fun,” Mr. Slowik said. “One of the things I learned from this situation: if people aren’t willing to give you a contract, there’s a problem.”
Mr. Groveman, who left the company in July, would not discuss hiring decisions. He said he never had a contract when he worked for Blass, either.
“I don’t have any regrets about what happened,” he said. “It’s never easy replacing the namesake designer.”
THE NIGHT OF FEB. 10, 2003, Mr. Nilsson, a designer from Sweden who had trained at Dior and Lacroix, was preparing the fall collection, his fifth at the house. Mr. Nilsson had the enthusiastic endorsement of the editors of Vogue, but his clothes weren’t selling. André Leon Talley, the magazine’s editor at large, was in the showroom to offer guidance. Tensions had been building between Mr. Nilsson and management, with reports of screaming matches over creative control. Mr. Nilsson knew his job was on the line.
What he did not know was that seven floors below, another collection was being designed simultaneously in the Blass executive offices by Yvonne Miller, who had been a fit model and the public relations director for Blass. She knew the Blass designs better than anyone and always thought she should have been asked to replace him.
Describing the events last week, Ms. Miller said Mr. Groveman had asked her to have a ghost collection ready for the stores in the event Mr. Nilsson’s line failed.
“I didn’t want to get fired,” she said. “And I’m the only one who can design Blass.”
Mr. Nilsson showed his collection on Feb. 11. Its Scandinavian influences were sometimes absolutely beautiful, like a white-on-white embroidered anorak that was breathtaking. But sometimes they were not. On Feb. 12, as the reviews came in, mostly negative, and he and his assistant were about to leave for Paris to buy fabrics for the next season, Mr. Groveman fired him.
It was a scandal that consumed the fashion industry and enraged the Vogue editors. Mr. Talley complained at the time that Mr. Nilsson “couldn’t even do an embroidery unless it was approved.” But Ms. Miller and other Blass executives said Mr. Nilsson had been unreasonable and had refused to rein in his spending on lavish fabrics, causing the company to lose money.
“Management took it on the chin, kind of unfairly,” Mr. Lindsey said. “It looked very heavy-handed, but they didn’t want to turn him loose again.”
The problem was how it was handled, said Michael Vollbracht, who replaced Mr. Nilsson the next month: “When they fired Lars Nilsson, they fired Anna Wintour. And that you do not do.”
MR. VOLLBRACHT, who worked with Blass on a retrospective book that was published in 2002, speaks in the same gravel tone tinged with grouchiness as the late designer. He had been on Seventh Avenue for decades before taking a 15-year hiatus to work as an artist. But no matter how much the critics begged him to design something modern, he was determined to revisit the Blass of old. He brought back Karen Bjornson, Halston’s house model in the 1980s, as his muse.
“Quite honestly, I got the formula of Bill Blass,” he said. “It wasn’t revolutionary design.”
Over the next four years, the press dried up, but the clients came back. Sales of the collection climbed to about $12 million, and new licenses were signed for shoes, fur and a home collection. But the collection was still losing money, about $2 million a year, because of the production costs and runway shows. In December 2006, Mr. Groveman and Mr. Tharani sold the Bill Blass corporation to NexCen, a conglomerate that also owned the Athlete’s Foot and mall stores like Great American Cookies, for $54.6 million, but Mr. Groveman retained the collection business.
Things seemed to calm down. There was even a sense of nostalgic elegance in the collections, with Pat Cleveland vamping on Mr. Vollbracht’s runway. Then, in May 2007, he quit. NexCen, he said, wanted him to serve as a mentor to the younger designers he had hired, which made him feel a bit like Margo Channing.
“I was going to be the coach of this young, effervescent design team that’s going to win back Vogue magazine,” Mr. Vollbracht said. “I had put in place a staff that was becoming more powerful than I was, and I learned long ago to leave before they ask you to leave.”
IN JULY 2007, Mr. Som became the fourth designer to take over the collection. As a design student, he had interned with Blass, and his signature collections were often remarked upon as Blass-like. He was Vogue-approved.
His first collection, shown in February of this year, looked, well, about the same. The big stores were encouraged.
But in a matter of months, everything fell apart. Without warning, NexCen announced in May that there was “substantial doubt” that it would remain in business and that its accounting was in question. At Blass, fabric bills went unpaid, and in July Mr. Groveman told NexCen he would rather shutter the line than sink any more money into it. NexCen, hoping to sell the label, bought the Groveman stake for about $425,000 in net liabilities and persuaded Mr. Som to stay on to entice a buyer. Now, five months later, with no deal in place, NexCen has pulled the plug.
“To see it go down so quickly, I’m saddened,” Mr. Groveman said. “It’s the end of a great American brand.”
For the Bill Blass collection to fail in such an ugly way strikes many of those involved in the company as an especially cruel fate for a designer who made the profession seem so dazzling. If Blass were around to see what has become of his house today, he might think it was the 1950s, when, as Charles Gandee, a onetime editor at Vogue and Talk, wrote, designers “were regarded as slightly tedious, slightly embarrassing necessities.”
When anyone asked Blass what he did, he’d simply say, “I’m in advertising.” Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire.
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . IN early December 1999, the mood in the Bill Blass showroom at 550 Seventh Avenue was as gray as the film of dust on a potted plant that sat in the corner and always seemed to be dying. http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-jmbPCHg9dLPh1gHoZxLG.GpS
Blass, arguably the most famous of all the American designers, had shown his farewell collection that September and sold the company a few weeks later. He had been ill for some time, living with throat cancer for years — he was then 77 — and he didn’t seem much inclined to argue with the new owners about who would fill his oversize shoes. They wanted a name. So the future of Blass’s longtime assistants was far from certain. Laura Montalban, one of two top designers, left to work for Oscar de la Renta; Blass called the other, Craig Natiello, who had been with him for a decade, into his office.http://web.mac.com/lousheehan
“You’re not going to like the people who bought the company,” Blass said. He made a phone call, then told Mr. Natiello, who recalled the conversation in a recent interview, that there was a job waiting for him at Halston. “Here is your out. Do you want it?”
Mr. Natiello was reminded of this moment the other day when he bumped into Adolfo Sardina, the famous Adolfo, at a deli near his apartment on the Upper East Side. In 1962, Blass had given Adolfo the $10,000 he needed to start his own millinery collection, so they both remembered what he did for them and for fashion; and they, like the remnants of a generation of society women, couldn’t quite believe the Bill Blass legacy was ending in such an ignoble way. On Friday, the last sewers, patternmakers and assistants were laid off without severance as the company, after years of turmoil and a revolving door of designers, began to dismantle. NexCen Brands, its parent company, was discontinuing the collection, even as it was still trying to sell the brand.
“I want to go in there and throttle their necks!” Mr. Natiello said.
Much as Chanel and Dior and YSL carried on as luxury concerns well after the deaths of their namesakes, no American label seemed better poised to persevere in the absence of its founder than Bill Blass did. Blass, when he bought out his former partners in Maurice Rentner in 1970 to form Bill Blass Ltd., changed things for designers on Seventh Avenue, who used to toil in the relative obscurity of its backrooms. By the sheer force of his talent and wit — upon his death in 2002, he was remembered as the Noël Coward of fashion — he brought glamour to the job. He dressed and drank and dined with Nan Kempner, Pat Buckley and Brooke Astor, and, by the 1990s, he was so famous that his company had more than 40 licenses with annual sales of $500 million of Bill Blass products.
There is no shortage of explanations for the label’s demise. There was an aging clientele, a management that seemed to take a freewheeling approach to the brand and its failure to find a successor who could match the Blass persona. That the problems were endemic became evident last spring, when NexCen said it faced a severe cash shortage. Peter Som, the latest designer, left in October and was not replaced, while the company told retailers it would not be taking orders for a spring collection. Ultimately, NexCen blamed the economic climate.
“It is the passing of a brand that held a lot of meaning for not only me but for many people in the fashion industry,” Mr. Som said last week in an e-mail message. “We have truly lost a legacy.”
THE REAL TROUBLE at Bill Blass started the moment Blass himself walked out the door without an heir apparent.
“It was an enormous question mark that hung over all of us,” said John Lindsey, who was the director of sales at Bill Blass for 12 years.
That fall, Blass had retreated to his home near New Preston, Conn., but he kept a sly eye on what was happening at the company. The new owners, who acquired the business through a bond deal that placed a premium on the future value of the trademark, were Michael Groveman, who had been the chief financial officer at Bill Blass for 10 years, and Haresh T. Tharani, who ran its largest licensee.
They began to look for a successor, interviewing designers like Randolph Duke, James Purcell and Steven Slowik. There was huge interest in the position, and Mr. Groveman seemed to recognize the leverage he had when negotiating with designers.
“For three hours, he said, ‘I’m going to make you the designer here,’ ” Mr. Purcell recalled. “I said, ‘I’m not doing anything unless I have a contract.’ He said, ‘Do you want to be famous or don’t you?’ ”
In February 2000, Mr. Slowik, who had worked for Ferragamo and was living in Paris, took the job — without a contract.
Handsome, unassuming, tasteful, Midwestern (from Detroit), he had good credentials. Blass, a Hoosier, liked him right away.
“The first thing he asked me was my sign,” Mr. Slowik said. Like Blass (and his “dear friends” Nancy Reagan and Lynn Wyatt), he is a Cancer. That September, Mr. Slowik had his first big show. The pressure, he said, was tremendous. The clothes were less structured, more sparkly, less Blass. And the reviews were scathing. One critic called it the “My Little Pony” collection, a reference to a finale dress that had a cartoonish rainbow ribbon splashed across one side, as if it were magic.
“That was an absolute disaster,” Mr. Lindsey said. “All I remember was standing there, watching the whole front row — our clientele — with their hands over their ears as Madonna blasted on the speakers, and then they chose to go out a different door to avoid saying anything to me, because they couldn’t think of anything nice to say. That was the longest 11 minutes of my career.”
Sales were dismal, he said. In one season, the collection business, which had sold $25 million in a good year, dropped to about $5 million. Mr. Slowik carried on and designed a fall collection, but in January 2001, just weeks before he was to show it, he was dismissed. Lars Nilsson, his assistant, became the head designer.
“It certainly wasn’t fun,” Mr. Slowik said. “One of the things I learned from this situation: if people aren’t willing to give you a contract, there’s a problem.”
Mr. Groveman, who left the company in July, would not discuss hiring decisions. He said he never had a contract when he worked for Blass, either.
“I don’t have any regrets about what happened,” he said. “It’s never easy replacing the namesake designer.”
THE NIGHT OF FEB. 10, 2003, Mr. Nilsson, a designer from Sweden who had trained at Dior and Lacroix, was preparing the fall collection, his fifth at the house. Mr. Nilsson had the enthusiastic endorsement of the editors of Vogue, but his clothes weren’t selling. André Leon Talley, the magazine’s editor at large, was in the showroom to offer guidance. Tensions had been building between Mr. Nilsson and management, with reports of screaming matches over creative control. Mr. Nilsson knew his job was on the line.
What he did not know was that seven floors below, another collection was being designed simultaneously in the Blass executive offices by Yvonne Miller, who had been a fit model and the public relations director for Blass. She knew the Blass designs better than anyone and always thought she should have been asked to replace him.
Describing the events last week, Ms. Miller said Mr. Groveman had asked her to have a ghost collection ready for the stores in the event Mr. Nilsson’s line failed.
“I didn’t want to get fired,” she said. “And I’m the only one who can design Blass.”
Mr. Nilsson showed his collection on Feb. 11. Its Scandinavian influences were sometimes absolutely beautiful, like a white-on-white embroidered anorak that was breathtaking. But sometimes they were not. On Feb. 12, as the reviews came in, mostly negative, and he and his assistant were about to leave for Paris to buy fabrics for the next season, Mr. Groveman fired him.
It was a scandal that consumed the fashion industry and enraged the Vogue editors. Mr. Talley complained at the time that Mr. Nilsson “couldn’t even do an embroidery unless it was approved.” But Ms. Miller and other Blass executives said Mr. Nilsson had been unreasonable and had refused to rein in his spending on lavish fabrics, causing the company to lose money.
“Management took it on the chin, kind of unfairly,” Mr. Lindsey said. “It looked very heavy-handed, but they didn’t want to turn him loose again.”
The problem was how it was handled, said Michael Vollbracht, who replaced Mr. Nilsson the next month: “When they fired Lars Nilsson, they fired Anna Wintour. And that you do not do.”
MR. VOLLBRACHT, who worked with Blass on a retrospective book that was published in 2002, speaks in the same gravel tone tinged with grouchiness as the late designer. He had been on Seventh Avenue for decades before taking a 15-year hiatus to work as an artist. But no matter how much the critics begged him to design something modern, he was determined to revisit the Blass of old. He brought back Karen Bjornson, Halston’s house model in the 1980s, as his muse.
“Quite honestly, I got the formula of Bill Blass,” he said. “It wasn’t revolutionary design.”
Over the next four years, the press dried up, but the clients came back. Sales of the collection climbed to about $12 million, and new licenses were signed for shoes, fur and a home collection. But the collection was still losing money, about $2 million a year, because of the production costs and runway shows. In December 2006, Mr. Groveman and Mr. Tharani sold the Bill Blass corporation to NexCen, a conglomerate that also owned the Athlete’s Foot and mall stores like Great American Cookies, for $54.6 million, but Mr. Groveman retained the collection business.
Things seemed to calm down. There was even a sense of nostalgic elegance in the collections, with Pat Cleveland vamping on Mr. Vollbracht’s runway. Then, in May 2007, he quit. NexCen, he said, wanted him to serve as a mentor to the younger designers he had hired, which made him feel a bit like Margo Channing.
“I was going to be the coach of this young, effervescent design team that’s going to win back Vogue magazine,” Mr. Vollbracht said. “I had put in place a staff that was becoming more powerful than I was, and I learned long ago to leave before they ask you to leave.”
IN JULY 2007, Mr. Som became the fourth designer to take over the collection. As a design student, he had interned with Blass, and his signature collections were often remarked upon as Blass-like. He was Vogue-approved.
His first collection, shown in February of this year, looked, well, about the same. The big stores were encouraged.
But in a matter of months, everything fell apart. Without warning, NexCen announced in May that there was “substantial doubt” that it would remain in business and that its accounting was in question. At Blass, fabric bills went unpaid, and in July Mr. Groveman told NexCen he would rather shutter the line than sink any more money into it. NexCen, hoping to sell the label, bought the Groveman stake for about $425,000 in net liabilities and persuaded Mr. Som to stay on to entice a buyer. Now, five months later, with no deal in place, NexCen has pulled the plug.
“To see it go down so quickly, I’m saddened,” Mr. Groveman said. “It’s the end of a great American brand.”
For the Bill Blass collection to fail in such an ugly way strikes many of those involved in the company as an especially cruel fate for a designer who made the profession seem so dazzling. If Blass were around to see what has become of his house today, he might think it was the 1950s, when, as Charles Gandee, a onetime editor at Vogue and Talk, wrote, designers “were regarded as slightly tedious, slightly embarrassing necessities.”
When anyone asked Blass what he did, he’d simply say, “I’m in advertising.” Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
snoring 5.sno.1003 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) occur with an intriguing frequency in children who snore throughout much of the night, a new study finds.http://34819louis0j0sheehan0esquire.wordpress.com
Problems with hyperactivity and inattention also occur excessively in boys and girls up to age 14 who are regularly sleepy during the day, report neurologist Ronald D. Chervin of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and his coworkers.http://34819louis0j0sheehan0esquire.wordpress.com
These findings, published in the March Pediatrics, don't show that snoring and sleep problems cause ADHD. In fact, hyperactivity may preclude a good night's sleep and lead to increased daytime sleepiness. However, Chervin's group suspects that frequent snoring paves the way to ADHD for at least some kids.
Chervin and his colleagues surveyed the parents of 469 boys and 397 girls, ages 2 to 14, treated at either of two local pediatric clinics. The data indicate that among boys age 8 and younger, 30 percent of those who snored most of the time while asleep exhibited hyperactivity and attention problems, compared with 9 percent of those who snored a little or not at all. This contrast held regardless of whether the boys were sleepy during the day.http://34819louis0j0sheehan0esquire.wordpress.com
Overall in the group, hyperactivity and inattention characterized 22 percent of heavy snorers and 12 percent of the rest. Frequent snoring was reported for 16 percent of the children and for comparable proportions of boys and girls.
Symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) occur with an intriguing frequency in children who snore throughout much of the night, a new study finds.http://34819louis0j0sheehan0esquire.wordpress.com
Problems with hyperactivity and inattention also occur excessively in boys and girls up to age 14 who are regularly sleepy during the day, report neurologist Ronald D. Chervin of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and his coworkers.http://34819louis0j0sheehan0esquire.wordpress.com
These findings, published in the March Pediatrics, don't show that snoring and sleep problems cause ADHD. In fact, hyperactivity may preclude a good night's sleep and lead to increased daytime sleepiness. However, Chervin's group suspects that frequent snoring paves the way to ADHD for at least some kids.
Chervin and his colleagues surveyed the parents of 469 boys and 397 girls, ages 2 to 14, treated at either of two local pediatric clinics. The data indicate that among boys age 8 and younger, 30 percent of those who snored most of the time while asleep exhibited hyperactivity and attention problems, compared with 9 percent of those who snored a little or not at all. This contrast held regardless of whether the boys were sleepy during the day.http://34819louis0j0sheehan0esquire.wordpress.com
Overall in the group, hyperactivity and inattention characterized 22 percent of heavy snorers and 12 percent of the rest. Frequent snoring was reported for 16 percent of the children and for comparable proportions of boys and girls.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
evolution 5.evo.9929 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
The battle that has raged over creationism and evolution in the United States is likely to spread to the Islamic world, a scholar of science and religion argues in a new essay. But author Salman Hameed writes that the opening of a new front in the battle gives scientists an opportunity to reframe the debate. Better education, the spread of Internet access and news about U.S. controversies over evolution are provoking some Muslims worldwide to start to ask whether Islam is compatible with evolutionary theory, Hameed said. “Now is the time that these ideas are going to be solidified. We can shape it. There are positive ways to shape these ideas in which we can avert a mass rejection of evolution,” Hameed said [LiveScience].
The most fundamentalist form of creationism in the United States is based on a literal reading of the Bible, which implies that the earth and all its creatures were created by God in their present form over the course of six days; creationists say this narrative is in direct conflict with the idea that organisms slowly evolved over billions of years. However, Hameed notes that the Koran may be more compatible with evolutionary theory. One of the big evolution problems from the US creationist perspective is the age of the Earth. Logically speaking, if you believe in a 6000 or 10,000 year-old Earth, then you have to reject evolution. In the Muslim countries, young Earth creationism is nonexistent. The Koran is very vague about creation stories, specifically regarding the creation of the universe. If you accept an old Earth, then it makes it relatively easier to accept evolution [New Scientist].
In his essay in Science [subscription required], Hameed explains that evolution is taught in high schools in many Muslim countries. http://louis5j5sheehan5esquire.wordpress.com/ Still, today, only 25 percent of adults in Turkey agree that human beings developed from earlier species of animals, whereas 40 percent of people in the United States agree with this scientific fact, Hameed writes. And Turkey is one of the most secular and educated of Muslim countries [LiveScience]. He worries that evolution is becoming increasingly linked with atheism in the Islamic world, and it also sometimes viewed as a symbol of Western ideas and imperialism. Hameed says these association may cause many people to reject evolution out of hand. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
No discussion of creationism in the Islamic world would be complete without a mention of Adnan Oktar, the wealthy Turkish autodidact who self-publishes glossy books that he claims disprove evolution, and has sent them, unsolicited, to thousands of academics and media outlets in Europe and the United States. Oktar has also feuded with Richard Dawkins, the British proponent of evolution and atheism: Oktar successfully brought a case against Mr Dawkins to a Turkish court, claiming that his website contained blasphemous and defamatory content. http://louis5j5sheehan5esquire.wordpress.com/ Internet users in Turkey can no longer access the site. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
The battle that has raged over creationism and evolution in the United States is likely to spread to the Islamic world, a scholar of science and religion argues in a new essay. But author Salman Hameed writes that the opening of a new front in the battle gives scientists an opportunity to reframe the debate. Better education, the spread of Internet access and news about U.S. controversies over evolution are provoking some Muslims worldwide to start to ask whether Islam is compatible with evolutionary theory, Hameed said. “Now is the time that these ideas are going to be solidified. We can shape it. There are positive ways to shape these ideas in which we can avert a mass rejection of evolution,” Hameed said [LiveScience].
The most fundamentalist form of creationism in the United States is based on a literal reading of the Bible, which implies that the earth and all its creatures were created by God in their present form over the course of six days; creationists say this narrative is in direct conflict with the idea that organisms slowly evolved over billions of years. However, Hameed notes that the Koran may be more compatible with evolutionary theory. One of the big evolution problems from the US creationist perspective is the age of the Earth. Logically speaking, if you believe in a 6000 or 10,000 year-old Earth, then you have to reject evolution. In the Muslim countries, young Earth creationism is nonexistent. The Koran is very vague about creation stories, specifically regarding the creation of the universe. If you accept an old Earth, then it makes it relatively easier to accept evolution [New Scientist].
In his essay in Science [subscription required], Hameed explains that evolution is taught in high schools in many Muslim countries. http://louis5j5sheehan5esquire.wordpress.com/ Still, today, only 25 percent of adults in Turkey agree that human beings developed from earlier species of animals, whereas 40 percent of people in the United States agree with this scientific fact, Hameed writes. And Turkey is one of the most secular and educated of Muslim countries [LiveScience]. He worries that evolution is becoming increasingly linked with atheism in the Islamic world, and it also sometimes viewed as a symbol of Western ideas and imperialism. Hameed says these association may cause many people to reject evolution out of hand. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
No discussion of creationism in the Islamic world would be complete without a mention of Adnan Oktar, the wealthy Turkish autodidact who self-publishes glossy books that he claims disprove evolution, and has sent them, unsolicited, to thousands of academics and media outlets in Europe and the United States. Oktar has also feuded with Richard Dawkins, the British proponent of evolution and atheism: Oktar successfully brought a case against Mr Dawkins to a Turkish court, claiming that his website contained blasphemous and defamatory content. http://louis5j5sheehan5esquire.wordpress.com/ Internet users in Turkey can no longer access the site. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Thursday, December 4, 2008
chemist 44.che.0001 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Lab and field tests hint that dairy whey, a lactose-rich by-product of the dairy industry, could be used to clean up underground water supplies tainted with the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE), an industrial degreaser.
Consuming TCE or inhaling its fumes can cause liver and kidney damage, affect heart function, and possibly cause cancer (SN: 5/29/99, p. 343: http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc99/5_29_99/fob6.htm). The chemical is in groundwater at more than half of the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund sites.
To treat the tainted groundwater, engineers often pump hydrogen-yielding substances such as sodium lactate into the ground, where they react with TCE by removing its chlorine atoms. That turns it into a relatively harmless hydrocarbon, says Elizabeth S. Semkiw, a chemist at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. http://louissheehan.bravejournal.com
Her team's tests indicate that a slurry of whey pumped into the ground may do the same trick, if sufficient numbers of bacteria are added. Whey-munching microbes generate lactate compounds as well as acetates, butyrates, and other substances that can strip chlorine atoms from TCE. http://louissheehan.bravejournal.com
In the lab, a whey-microbe mix eliminated a 10-parts-per-million concentration of the pollutant from simulated groundwater in less than 2 weeks, says Semkiw. Also, field tests showed that groundwater laced with TCE, after flowing through a subterranean curtain of whey, contained breakdown products of the chemical.
Further tests will assess whether remediation with whey is more cost-effective than the use of chemicals such as sodium lactate, says Semkiw.
Lab and field tests hint that dairy whey, a lactose-rich by-product of the dairy industry, could be used to clean up underground water supplies tainted with the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE), an industrial degreaser.
Consuming TCE or inhaling its fumes can cause liver and kidney damage, affect heart function, and possibly cause cancer (SN: 5/29/99, p. 343: http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc99/5_29_99/fob6.htm). The chemical is in groundwater at more than half of the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund sites.
To treat the tainted groundwater, engineers often pump hydrogen-yielding substances such as sodium lactate into the ground, where they react with TCE by removing its chlorine atoms. That turns it into a relatively harmless hydrocarbon, says Elizabeth S. Semkiw, a chemist at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. http://louissheehan.bravejournal.com
Her team's tests indicate that a slurry of whey pumped into the ground may do the same trick, if sufficient numbers of bacteria are added. Whey-munching microbes generate lactate compounds as well as acetates, butyrates, and other substances that can strip chlorine atoms from TCE. http://louissheehan.bravejournal.com
In the lab, a whey-microbe mix eliminated a 10-parts-per-million concentration of the pollutant from simulated groundwater in less than 2 weeks, says Semkiw. Also, field tests showed that groundwater laced with TCE, after flowing through a subterranean curtain of whey, contained breakdown products of the chemical.
Further tests will assess whether remediation with whey is more cost-effective than the use of chemicals such as sodium lactate, says Semkiw.
Monday, November 24, 2008
microchips 77.mic.3 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire. Indonesia’s Papua province may be the first region in the world to force some HIV/AIDS patients to be implanted with microchip trackers. A controversial bill requiring the extreme measures already has full backing from the provincial parliament and will become law with a majority vote from the provincial legislative body. The microchips are meant to monitor “aggressive” sexual behavior in an effort to control the spread of the disease. Lawmaker John Manangsang said, “It’s a simple technology. A signal from the microchip will track their movements and this will be received by monitoring authorities” [Reuters]. http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.blog.friendster.com/
The bill does not specify who would qualify as “sexually aggressive” patients, but if the bill is passed, a committee will be formed to decide who will be implanted; the executive director of the committee will be a physician with a knowledge of epidemiology. Supporters say authorities would be in a better position to identify, track and ultimately punish those who deliberately infect others with up to six months in jail or a $5,000 fine [AP]. Meanwhile, health care workers and AIDS activists called the proposal “abhorrent” and a clear violation of human rights. “No one should be subject to unlawful or unnecessary interference of privacy,” [said Nancy Fee, the UNAIDS country coordinator], adding that while other countries have been known to be oppressive in trying to tackle AIDS, such policies don’t work. They make people afraid and push the problem further underground, she said [AP]. http://LOUIS2J2SHEEHAN.US
Indonesia has one of Asia’s fastest growing rates of HIV infection and Papua, the country’s poorest province, has nearly 20 times the national average. Health experts say the disease has been spreading rapidly from prostitutes to housewives in the past years [Reuters]. They say the best way to counter the epidemic is to increase awareness of the disease and encourage condom use.
Manangsang said the bill has to strike a delicate balance: “Do not misunderstand human rights; if we respect the rights of the people living with HIV/Aids, then we must also respect the rights of healthy people”. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire. Indonesia’s Papua province may be the first region in the world to force some HIV/AIDS patients to be implanted with microchip trackers. A controversial bill requiring the extreme measures already has full backing from the provincial parliament and will become law with a majority vote from the provincial legislative body. The microchips are meant to monitor “aggressive” sexual behavior in an effort to control the spread of the disease. Lawmaker John Manangsang said, “It’s a simple technology. A signal from the microchip will track their movements and this will be received by monitoring authorities” [Reuters]. http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.blog.friendster.com/
The bill does not specify who would qualify as “sexually aggressive” patients, but if the bill is passed, a committee will be formed to decide who will be implanted; the executive director of the committee will be a physician with a knowledge of epidemiology. Supporters say authorities would be in a better position to identify, track and ultimately punish those who deliberately infect others with up to six months in jail or a $5,000 fine [AP]. Meanwhile, health care workers and AIDS activists called the proposal “abhorrent” and a clear violation of human rights. “No one should be subject to unlawful or unnecessary interference of privacy,” [said Nancy Fee, the UNAIDS country coordinator], adding that while other countries have been known to be oppressive in trying to tackle AIDS, such policies don’t work. They make people afraid and push the problem further underground, she said [AP]. http://LOUIS2J2SHEEHAN.US
Indonesia has one of Asia’s fastest growing rates of HIV infection and Papua, the country’s poorest province, has nearly 20 times the national average. Health experts say the disease has been spreading rapidly from prostitutes to housewives in the past years [Reuters]. They say the best way to counter the epidemic is to increase awareness of the disease and encourage condom use.
Manangsang said the bill has to strike a delicate balance: “Do not misunderstand human rights; if we respect the rights of the people living with HIV/Aids, then we must also respect the rights of healthy people”. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
yoga 999.yog.22 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
BY PRASANA WILLIAM
For The Patriot-News
Think of it as the therapist's couch turned yoga mat.
At Free Spirit Yoga in Derry Twp., yoga teacher Stephanie Trump uses Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy to help her clients connect physical feeling with life issues.
A mixture of yoga postures and body-mind psychology, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy creates a consciousness-centric approach to self-exploration.
"For many, our day-to-day lives are about doing, doing, doing. Yoga gives us the opportunity to simply be ... to be present to ourselves. Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy allows us to be present to ourselves in an even more deep and profound way," Trump said.
Through a series of guided stretches and basic questions, Trump leads participants in connecting the sensations their bodies feel to their emotions and thoughts.
"Our body has been with us through everything we've gone through," Trump said, "We can talk about [our problems] all we want, but our bodies can hold onto that and cause [unease]."
Part of the purpose of Phoenix Rising is to create a greater awareness of the mental issues behind some physical unease.
Participants come for a variety of reasons -- ranging from those going through transitional periods to those searching for clarity and people dealing with health issues.
As an occupational therapist, Holly Dietz of Palmyra was well aware of the connection between physical discomfort and life issues. "I [was] aware that when I'm upset, certain muscle groups would get sore," she said, "So [yoga therapy] made sense."
Though she began with the yoga massage, Dietz soon participated in a Phoenix Rising session. Dietz, who describes herself as overweight, credits an eight-week course of sessions with "tun[ing] me into feeling my body physically and dealing with the weight issue."
A TYPICAL SESSION:
The process begins with the act of centering. Participants close their eyes and focus on breathing, then an awareness of their physical body, and finally take note of their thoughts.
The practitioner then moves the participants into various yoga stretches, periodically asking the participant what is happening with their body to keep them in the present moment.
All the assisted postures are determined by the participant's responses. "It is hard to explain what happens in a session because each session is unique and personal to the person receiving the session," Trump explained. "No session looks quite the same as another because it is all about what is happening with the [participant] in that moment."
Stretches can trigger emotional responses. Trump has seen clients begin to cry, laugh, and yawn in response to the yoga positions. "These experiences run the range of really making a deep connection to their physical body for the first time, to having a profound awareness and release of things that have been held in their body," Trump said.
To encourage clients to process their responses, Trump practices emphatic listening -- repeating their verbal responses back to them. She believes that the very presence of another person affirms the revelations clients have during their sessions. "My job as a practitioner is to provide a safe space for the client to have their own experience. I am, in essence, their witness and my presence serves as a way to validate whatever their experience is," she said.
The final stage of the process is integration, where the practitioner helps the participant trace back through all the revelations they received during the entire process. Sometimes unexpected issues surface or participants are made aware of issues they did not know existed.
"You go in expecting this issue to come up because it's the biggest issue in your life, but then something else will come up," Dietz said.
Trump guides clients to an action they can take to deal with the issues revealed during the session. "I lead you through the steps so you can pull it all together and leave knowing 'This is what I need to do.'" She encourages clients to take time to digest what they have learned through journaling or reflection.
BEYOND THE YOGA SESSION:
Trump believes the Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy is an excellent compliment to psychotherapy.
"Awareness that is gained in a Phoenix Rising session can be further processed and discussed with the help of a psychotherapist," she said.
Though the concept of mind and body connection finds its roots in psychology, there is a clear distinction between yoga therapy and traditional psychotherapy. "Psychotherapists are typically not supposed to touch clients during a session in order to keep the boundary between client and therapist crystal clear," Trump explained, "Phoenix Rising at its core is a body-centered approach. It is all about moving and stretching a person's body in order to access deeper awareness so we are obviously going to be touching a person when we provide a session."
Additionally, practitioners avoid asking questions and talking about situations with participants, as a psychotherapist would, and instead focus on keeping the participant cognizant of the moment they are in.
Free Spirit Yoga also offers group sessions of Phoenix Rising as well as yoga massage, reflexology, and yoga classes.
A PRIVATE POSE
You do not have to practice yoga to participate in a Free Spirit Yoga session. The studio is a simple private affair, with relaxing dimmed lighting and large yoga mat. Only the practitioner and participant are present during a session to ensure a safe environment for disclosure. A DEEP CONNECTION
©2008 Patriot-News
© 2008 PennLive.com All Rights Reserved.
http://www.soulcast.com/Louis3J3Sheehan/
BY PRASANA WILLIAM
For The Patriot-News
Think of it as the therapist's couch turned yoga mat.
At Free Spirit Yoga in Derry Twp., yoga teacher Stephanie Trump uses Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy to help her clients connect physical feeling with life issues.
A mixture of yoga postures and body-mind psychology, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy creates a consciousness-centric approach to self-exploration.
"For many, our day-to-day lives are about doing, doing, doing. Yoga gives us the opportunity to simply be ... to be present to ourselves. Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy allows us to be present to ourselves in an even more deep and profound way," Trump said.
Through a series of guided stretches and basic questions, Trump leads participants in connecting the sensations their bodies feel to their emotions and thoughts.
"Our body has been with us through everything we've gone through," Trump said, "We can talk about [our problems] all we want, but our bodies can hold onto that and cause [unease]."
Part of the purpose of Phoenix Rising is to create a greater awareness of the mental issues behind some physical unease.
Participants come for a variety of reasons -- ranging from those going through transitional periods to those searching for clarity and people dealing with health issues.
As an occupational therapist, Holly Dietz of Palmyra was well aware of the connection between physical discomfort and life issues. "I [was] aware that when I'm upset, certain muscle groups would get sore," she said, "So [yoga therapy] made sense."
Though she began with the yoga massage, Dietz soon participated in a Phoenix Rising session. Dietz, who describes herself as overweight, credits an eight-week course of sessions with "tun[ing] me into feeling my body physically and dealing with the weight issue."
A TYPICAL SESSION:
The process begins with the act of centering. Participants close their eyes and focus on breathing, then an awareness of their physical body, and finally take note of their thoughts.
The practitioner then moves the participants into various yoga stretches, periodically asking the participant what is happening with their body to keep them in the present moment.
All the assisted postures are determined by the participant's responses. "It is hard to explain what happens in a session because each session is unique and personal to the person receiving the session," Trump explained. "No session looks quite the same as another because it is all about what is happening with the [participant] in that moment."
Stretches can trigger emotional responses. Trump has seen clients begin to cry, laugh, and yawn in response to the yoga positions. "These experiences run the range of really making a deep connection to their physical body for the first time, to having a profound awareness and release of things that have been held in their body," Trump said.
To encourage clients to process their responses, Trump practices emphatic listening -- repeating their verbal responses back to them. She believes that the very presence of another person affirms the revelations clients have during their sessions. "My job as a practitioner is to provide a safe space for the client to have their own experience. I am, in essence, their witness and my presence serves as a way to validate whatever their experience is," she said.
The final stage of the process is integration, where the practitioner helps the participant trace back through all the revelations they received during the entire process. Sometimes unexpected issues surface or participants are made aware of issues they did not know existed.
"You go in expecting this issue to come up because it's the biggest issue in your life, but then something else will come up," Dietz said.
Trump guides clients to an action they can take to deal with the issues revealed during the session. "I lead you through the steps so you can pull it all together and leave knowing 'This is what I need to do.'" She encourages clients to take time to digest what they have learned through journaling or reflection.
BEYOND THE YOGA SESSION:
Trump believes the Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy is an excellent compliment to psychotherapy.
"Awareness that is gained in a Phoenix Rising session can be further processed and discussed with the help of a psychotherapist," she said.
Though the concept of mind and body connection finds its roots in psychology, there is a clear distinction between yoga therapy and traditional psychotherapy. "Psychotherapists are typically not supposed to touch clients during a session in order to keep the boundary between client and therapist crystal clear," Trump explained, "Phoenix Rising at its core is a body-centered approach. It is all about moving and stretching a person's body in order to access deeper awareness so we are obviously going to be touching a person when we provide a session."
Additionally, practitioners avoid asking questions and talking about situations with participants, as a psychotherapist would, and instead focus on keeping the participant cognizant of the moment they are in.
Free Spirit Yoga also offers group sessions of Phoenix Rising as well as yoga massage, reflexology, and yoga classes.
A PRIVATE POSE
You do not have to practice yoga to participate in a Free Spirit Yoga session. The studio is a simple private affair, with relaxing dimmed lighting and large yoga mat. Only the practitioner and participant are present during a session to ensure a safe environment for disclosure. A DEEP CONNECTION
©2008 Patriot-News
© 2008 PennLive.com All Rights Reserved.
http://www.soulcast.com/Louis3J3Sheehan/
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