The Allied Construction Employers Association, a federation of 10 individual groups and associations each representing different segments of the union construction industry in southeast Wisconsin, has announced its officers and directors for 2020:

OFFICERS

PresidentMike Henke, EVPConstruction Supply & Erection Inc.

Vice PresidentSteve Beres, VPJohn Beres Builders

Secretary/TreasurerJim Macejkovic, EVP/CIO/Safety DirectorBuilding Service Inc.

Immediate Past PresidentPeter Sprinkmann, VPSprinkmann & Sons

DIRECTORS

Acoustical Contractors AssociationJim Macejkovic, EVP/CIO/Safety DirectorBuilding Service Inc.

Eastern Wisconsin Erectors AssociationMike Henke, EVPConstruction Supply & Erection Inc.

Floor Coverers Association of SE WisconsinLes Lippert, PresidentLippert Tile Co.

Mason Contractors Association of MilwaukeeTom DuFour, Vice PresidentJ.H. Hassinger

Master Builders Association of WisconsinJoel Dahlman, VPDahlman Construction

Residential Carpenter Contractors AssociationSteve Beres, VPJohn Beres Builders

SE Wisconsin Drywall & Plasterers AssociationKeith McNamee, Chief EstimatorCommon Links Construction

Wisconsin Insulation Contractors AssociationPeter Sprinkmann, VPSprinkmann & Sons

Wisconsin Painting Contractors AssociationKevin Chmielewski, PresidentState Painting Co.

Wisconsin Transportation Employers CouncilMatt Grove, Director of ConstructionWisconsin Transportation Builders Association

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ACEA names officers, directors The Daily Reporter WI Construction News & Bids - Daily Reporter

For commuters like Brady Yurkiewick who drive daily beyond Allentown the reopening of the Route 222 on and off ramps in Wyomissing is a godsend.

Yurkiewick, 22, of Mohnton drives more than an hour each way to work at the Dundore & Heister butcher shop in Easton, on Routes 222 and 22 and Interstate 78. He typically stops at the Wyomissing branch of the butcher store on the way home.

Its been taking me out of my way for 10 or 15 minutes every day, Yurkiewick said. Youre sitting in traffic on the detours around the Berkshire Mall. It seems like its been closed for a long time.

Yurkiewick was elated Tuesday to hear that the ramps are reopening Wednesday night.

Yurkiewick is one of more than 30,036 motorists driving daily on Route 222 south and 31,087 driving daily on Route 222 north in that area, according to PennDOT.

The $2.2 million PennDOT upgrade of the Route 222 bridge over Business Route 422 and a Norfolk Southern line includes structural steel repairs, concrete deck repairs, paving and painting. Kinsley Construction Inc. of York is the contractor.

The work began in spring 2019 with posted detours taking motorists on Route 724 and State Hill Road.

During the spring, contractors will return to perform additional paving work when the temperature is consistently warmer, said Ron L. Young, spokesman for the Allentown office of PennDOT.

He said the work will be performed at night and will not interfere with traffic.

Alan D. Piper, Berks County transportation planner, said the project planning began in May 2018.

He said the ramps are typically traveled by locals.

Having the ramps closed is an annoyance if you are the one who is using it regularly, he said.

Lisa Banco, 55, of Wyomissing said she uses the Route 222 ramps on a regular basis for shopping, errands, travel and work.

Its been aggravating, Banco said. It was also frustrating not knowing when the end was in sight. Many people will be happy to hear that its opening.

Not everyone was fazed by the ramp opening.

Stephanie Stricker, 34, of West Lawn said the detours do not bother her daily commute to work at Reading Hospital.

I drive on the back roads, Stricker said.

Read the rest here:
Route 222 ramps in Wyomissing set to open Wednesday night - Reading Eagle

Posted: Jan. 14, 2020 2:31 pm

HANNIBAL | A Hannibal husband and wife team has helped preserve the legacy of Laura Hawkins Frazer Samuel Clemens' childhood sweetheart and the inspiration for his literary character, Becky Thatcher through more than a decade of research and restoration work at the two-story home at 210 North Fifth Street which was her final residence.

By the time Nora Creason and Don Metcalf began restoration efforts in 2008, the home's entire interior had been gutted; water, termites and other neglect also took their toll. But the husband and wife team spent more than a decade researching the architecture and stories surrounding the home built in 1895, bringing together Victorian artwork, fixtures, historic reproductions like hand-pressed wallpaper and restoring details to bring the home as close as possible to its state when Frazier lived there. Throughout the process, the couple discovered rare insights into Frazer's life and a friendship with Clemens that endured for decades.

Creason remembered the beginning of the restoration when 20 fellow members from Friends of Historic Hannibal came out for a barn raising to remove the asbestos tile that covered the exterior walls. ShecommendedBobYapp for getting everyone together for the project, and Metcalf said members of the Marion County Historical Society and local contractors helped to expose the original exterior during the barn-raising.

Creason and Metcalf searched for photographs of the home, but few existed to guide their way. But they did have a video account of the interior's contents from 1999 by local auctioneer Dale DeLa-Porte, and Metcalf found several architectural clueslike paint lines and a thin strip of tin atop a square area originally thought to be a window. During her travels to antique shows across the country, Creason found a tin facade the right size with an opening for an oval stained glass window.

Creason and Metcalf recalled the condition of the home before the years of restoration work brought the first floor and exterior back to a period-correct appearance.

Everything was stripped off out of this house, Creason said.

There were big holes in the hallway, and the mantles were gone, Metcalf said. We had to do a lot.

Metcalffoundstampings in the gutter pipes and the last name Garner behind intricately-designed wallpaper Larry Garner installed Metcalf marveled at the pride in craftsmanship the names exhibited, and Creason said it reflected the generations of Hannibal residents who lived and worked in the historic home.

As the physical restoration of the home progressed, Creason and Metcalf discovered plenty of stories through photographs, letters and postcards shared by Frazer'sdescendant, Boxwell Hawkins. She reached out to Hawkins, who provided copies of historic artifacts that weren't seen anywhere else.He even gave me a copy of his years' work of genealogy and family archives, which was very, very helpful, Creason said. In the family archives, several family members have letters between Laura and (Samuel) in their own personal possessions. They were copied for posterity in the family archives, and he gave me a copy of all of that.

In 1902, Clemens accepted an invitation by Mrs. John Garth to speak at Garth Mansion. He later spoke at Rockcliffe (Cruikshank) Mansion,and Frazer was in attendance at both events.

Rhonda Hall remembered a story told to her by her grandmother, Daisy Myrtle Lankford Brown, about Clemens meeting Joe Douglas following the event at Rockcliffe Mansion. But Clemens' portrayal of Douglas as the villian Injun Joe had caused some local residents to believe the fictitious details painting him in a negative light. She said Douglas started the bustling African-American neighborhood known as Douglasville, by purchasing tracts of land near his home behind Rockcliffe Mansion with his earnings.

On his way from home from his engagement at Rockcliffe Mansion, he stopped and he spoke with Injun Joe. They chitchatted and they talked for a while and they visited with each other, Hall said. And (Douglas) asked (Clemens), 'why have you done this to me?' And he jokingly and half-heartedly asked the question why. And (Clemens) said, 'I'm so sorry, but you made for a good story.' Douglas told Clemens that some people in town thought he was like his character, pointing out look how much I've accomplished. Hall said after their discussion, Clemens stopped using Injun Joe's name in many of his writings.

After those speeches in Hannibal, Clemens ties to Hannibal and to Frazier remained strong, evidenced in one of the letters in Hawkins' genealogy.

He gave her a list of nameschildhood friends and some schoolmasters and asked her if she would cross out the names of those who were no longer living, Creason said. Because what he was planning, he wanted a reunion of all of his old friends, Laura and the people who were composite characters in his books. And unfortunately, he died in 1910, and that didn't happen.

Frazer served as Matron at the Home of the Friendless a local orphanage for 28 years, before the former Helm mansion was demolished. W.B. Pettibone commissioned the home in memory of his wife, Laura Jones Pettibone. But for reasons that are not entirely clear today, Frazer was not retained as matron after the orphanage was relocated to North Levering Avenue.

She died the day after Christmas in 1928, and she was buried with her husband, James Frazier. The inscription on her gravestone reads Becky Thatcher under Laura H.

As Metcalf and Creason move forward with restoration work upstairs, they are enthusiastic for the chance to open the home for events and share it as both a museum about Frazier's life and artwork from the Victorian era. The couple plans to have the home fully restored this year.

Read the original here:
Becky Thatcher home preserved - Hannibal.net

Boys and Girls Clubs of Dane County staff and contractors are added the finishing touches to the Mackenzie Family Boys and Girls Club facility located in Sun Prairie ahead of tomorrows Grand Opening event.

The new facility, over 20,000 square feet, will offer residents access to licensed after-school programming that includes transportation, and a full-time day care facility. The building features a new gym, performance spaces, playrooms, classrooms, a technology zone, art room, several preschool classrooms, additional offices for staff and areas for students to learn about the trades.

We want this club to be known as a country club for kids, said Michael Johnson, CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dane County.

The organization began construction on the facility on the 2.69 acre site, formerly a church, about a year ago. The organization partnered with Operation Fresh Start for the demolition.

At 10:00 am Wednesday, the McKenzie Family Boys & Girls Club in Sun Prairie will open its doors to the public for the first time.

Well give a couple of keys to key donors that were very instrumental in pulling this off, Johnson said.

One of those key donors is the McKenzie family, who gave $1 million in support of the new facility and its operations. Boys and Girls Club named the facility after the for their generous contribution. Visitors to the new facility will see a painting of the family, known for their development of multi-family homes, above a plaque dedicated in their honor in the main hall in addition to other pieces of artwork created by local students throughout the building.

After remarks from stakeholders and local community leaders, residents will have an opportunity to tour the new facility and enter some of the play areas and preschool classroom.

This is ten years in the making that the city of Sun Prairie has been asking for us to build a facility, and now its coming to fruition, Johnson said.

He also said the organization has raised over $2 million dollars in about a year for this $3 million dollar project. The McKenzie Family Boys & Girls Club will have the capacity to serve up to 200 kids in Sun Prairie.

We still are looking for donors to sponsor rooms so the building will be completely debt free, Johnson said.

The process has been quite an exciting adventure for the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County. Johnson said the organization held town hall meetings and individual tours, as pastors, businesses and community leaders offered their support toward the project.

It will be the largest dedicated space for after school programming and preschool programming for kids in Sun Prairie, he said.

The McKenzie Family Boys & Girls Club in Sun Prairie will serve as a licensed preschool facility with certified teachers to work with kids. Children who participate in programming will also receive tutoring and other academic resources in addition to full course meals each day.

We want kids to come in here. We want it to be bright. We want it to be clean. We want them to take care of it. We want them to know that this community cares about them and loves them. Thats why weve invested so many resources into the facility, Johnson said.

The community will also have access to use the space on certain days and throughout the weekend. Johnson said the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County will continue to serve as a model for community involvement.

I think we do it better than anybody. We have the largest public/ private partnership in the school district in Madison and in Verona. We put over a thousand kids in college. We have over 40 tutors that we pay thats in the classroom helping low-income kids graduate and go to college. Were the only organization that has staff at Madison College, Edgewood College and UW-Madison helping kids persist and go through high school, he said.

Johnson said the organization plans to build a strong board at the Mackenzie family facility and increase access to these programs in Sun Prairie. Community members will be able to begin enrolling their children in programs that will start Feb. 1.

Original post:
McKenzie Family Boys and Girls Club Set to Open Wednesday - madison365.com

Health

Many parts of Oregon remain at risk of high radon an odorless, tasteless and invisible gas. It is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that comes up from the ground and is drawn into buildings, where it can build up to dangerous levels.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that radon is responsible for more than 20,000 lung cancer deaths per year in the United States. Radon is the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S. after cigarette smoking, and the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers.

"Every homeowner should test their home for radon every two to five years," says Curtis Cude, Radon Awareness Program manager at the Oregon Health Authority. "The best time to test is during the heating season, when the windows and doors are closed up tight."

Many test kits are priced between $15 and $25 and can be found in most hardware stores. Radon problems can be fixed by qualified contractors for a cost similar to that of common home repairs, such as painting or having a new water heater installed.

The Radon Awareness Program collects radon test data from test kit manufacturers in an effort to understand which areas of the state have the potential for high radon levels and to identify areas where educational outreach efforts need to be focused. The program is offering a free radon test kit to residents whose homes are inZIP codeswith fewer than 20 radon test results. Residents can send an email toradon.program@dhsoha.state.or.usto receive instructions on how to get a free test kit, which will be provided while supplies last.

There will be an opportunity to attend a free educational event to learn about radon, areas of concern, health effects and community resources. For details about the eventvisit the Northwest Radon Coalition website.

For more information on which areas of the state are at moderate to high risk of having elevated radon levels, radon testing and mitigation, or to order a test kit online, contact the Radon Awareness Program at radon.program@dhsoha.state.or.usor visithttp://www.healthoregon.org/radon.

Community / Community Billboard

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Winter is the best time to test homes for radon gas - KTVZ

Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 19912011: A significant exhibition at Museum of Modern Arts contemporary arts center By Clare Hurley 13 January 2020

Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 19912011: An exhibition at MoMA PS1, in Queens, New York, November 3, 2019March 1, 2020

A major exhibition at MoMA PS1, the Museum of Modern Arts contemporary art center in Queens, New York, examines more than 20 years of US military operations in the Middle East. Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 19912011 shows the potential of artists to deepen our understanding of significant events through their work.

Important aspects of the onslaught against Iraq are addressed: that the war was launched on the basis of lies about weapons of mass destruction resulting in the death, injury and displacement of millions of Iraqis, as well as tens of thousands of US troops and the decimation of the country as part of American imperialisms drive to establish control of the oil-rich region.

Organized by MoMA PS1s chief curator Peter Eleey, and curator Ruba Katrib, the large-scale group exhibition of 250 works by over 80 artists/collectives fills MoMA PS1, a nearly 125,000-square-foot facility.

The show features many works by Iraqi artists who are less well-known to audiences outside of the region, as well as by Kuwaiti artists, Iraqi-American and artists of Iraqi descent living in various countries, American and other internationally recognized artists who responded to the Gulf Wars in their work at the time or in the years since. Much of the work, particularly by the Iraqi artists, is of interest and represents an advance in terms of a serious artistic approach to world historical events.

However, the exhibition overall demonstrates the still limited ability of artists, despite their sincere intentions, to respond to events such as the Gulf Wars in a way that deepens our understanding in an affecting and aesthetically compelling manner. This weakness derives from several interrelated causes, not least of which has been the art worlds decades-long lack of support for artists seeking to address issues other than their personal identities in their work.

No less important is an underdeveloped historical and political consciousness, not unique to artists, that has hindered them from understanding the reasons behind the reasons for the eruption of American imperialism in the Middle East that began in 1990. Coupled with the prevailing practices of conceptual art, the result is too often superficial or one-sided artwork that is not up to the challenge of a topic of such magnitude.

There is a wide variety of media included: paintings, works on paper, handmade books, sculpture, photography, video and multimedia installations. They touch on many aspects of the Gulf Wars in both direct and indirect ways. The apocalyptic images of the burning Kuwaiti oil fields are among the more immediately recognizable. Set on fire in August 1991 by the retreating Iraqi military in the face of advancing US coalition forces, the 10 month-long firestorm caused enormous economic and environmental damage.

The firestorms appear in several pieces. The video Behind the Sun by Monira Al Qadiris (Kuwaiti, born 1983) projects them at a huge scale on a gallery wall; Susan Criles (American, born 1942) Field of Fire (1991) is a semi-abstract work of thickly applied black and orange paint-stick on paper; while Tarek Al-Ghousseins (Kuwaiti and Palestinian, born 1962) GW series includes multiple images of the flame geysers in the distinctive, small square format of Polaroids.

Saddam Husseins invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 came in response to the Gulf emirates sabotage of the oil-dependent Iraqi economy in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88 with a likely green light from the US. But one learns relatively little of the significance of the oil fields set on fire by the retreating Baathist forces from the work. Whatever the immediate circumstances, the source of the destruction and mayhem in the Middle East is Western imperialism, led by the United States.

President George H.W. Bushs administrations launched Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. In the course of six weeks the savage aerial bombardment virtually destroyed Iraqs military, killing or wounding hundreds of thousands of soldiers, as well as laying waste to the countrys infrastructure. Al Qadiris video footage, on the other hand, is overlaid with a soundtrack of Arabic religious poetry that describes scenes from nature sourced from old television programs.

Other aspects of the conflict are dealt with obliquely. The Embargo sculptures by Nuha Al-Radi (Iraqi, 19412004) at first just seem whimsical, made from painted rocks, bits of wood and rusted metal canisters fashioned to resemble people. However, they reflect the impact of the decade of UN Security Councils sanctions under the Clinton administration that further crippled the Iraqi economy, restricting access to the most commonplace materials, even pencils. More importantly, the sanctions resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, many of them children, due to malnutrition, lack of medical supplies and diseases from lack of clean water.

So too, the many instances of Dafatir (artist notebooks) reflect the embargo in that without access to art supplies, many artists chronicled their experiences in pen/ink on paper or cardboard. Dia al-Azzawis (Iraqi-British, born 1939) War Diary No. 1. (1991) and Rafa Nasiris (Iraqi, 19402013) War Diary (No 2, Its a Dirty War, 1991) and Seven Days in Baghdad (2007) are haunting, the latter in particular with red and black handprints urgently demanding our attention.

Other work such as that by Himat M. Ali (Iraqi, born 1960) addresses the destruction of Baghdads famed book-market, Al Mutanabbi Street (2003). Al-Azzawi s Book of Shame: Destruction of the Iraq Museum (2003) reflects the despoiling of what was once the most advanced cultural centers in the Middle East.

Another compelling piece is a wall-sized array of small portraits by Hanaa Malallah (Iraqi and British, born 1958) She/He Has No Picture (2019). The haunting faces of mostly women and children initially appear to be painted, but on closer inspection turn out to be collaged out of burnt canvas. They commemorate the victims of the Al Amiriyah bombing on February 13, 1991, in which 408 civilians were killed by a US precision smart bomb strike on a shelter. The title refers to the brass plaques that stand in for those victims who remained unidentified.

These are among the more successful works in the exhibition. However, they hardly come close, or even attempt to encompass the full scope of the Gulf Wars. Objectively, making art about any war is a challengedoes the artist depict wars brutality by showing the intensity of human suffering or the magnitude of physical destruction? Does one focus on the callousness, criminality or stupidity of those responsible for launching the war or show the everyday life of those subjected to occupation? What of the troops tasked with carrying out these missions, some of whom do so with sadistic impunity while others are economic conscripts who may have little ideological commitment to the mission? And then there are aspects particular to these wars, which were sold to the public by an unprecedented level of propaganda disseminated through a relentless media blitz by the imperialist powers.

Unfortunately, most of the work in the Theater of Operations exhibition takes up one or the other of these topics, but without adding much scope or insight. The media campaign was the subject of several artworks. Thomas Hirschhorns (Swiss, born 1957) Necklace CNN (2002) is an oversized bling sculpture of the CNN logo hung on a wall, telling us nothing beyond the obvious.

Several of the videos merely perpetuate the mind-numbing effect that they purport to critique. Dara Birnbaums (US, born 1946) Transmission Tower: Sentinel (1992) and Michel Auders (US, born France 1945) Gulf War TV War, 1991 (edited 2017) crosscut news footage of politicians and news anchors explaining events in such a way as to make them even less comprehensible than the original barrage of propaganda.

Deep Dish TVs Shocking and Awful: A Grassroots Response to War and Occupation (2004) includes a lot of valuable video footage, particularly of day-to-day interactions between US troops and ordinary Iraqis under the occupation, and of the international mass demonstrations before the war which were the largest anti-war protests in history. But the videos are displayed on 12 continuously playing monitors, again making them nearly impossible to absorb.

And while informational overkill is the subject of Rachel Khedooris (Australian, Iraqi-Jewish, born 1964) Untitled (Iraq Book Project, 2008-2010), an installation of 70 volumes reproducing every article that included the words Iraq, Iraqi or Baghdad in any news source from 2003 to 2009in order to suggest the indigestible magnitude of information about the war, raising questions about the representation of violencewhat comes across is that the artists themselves cannot make sense of what they perceive, so they merely reproduce it uncut, unedited, raw.

The pieces by artists experiencing the war at a distancewhether American, European or Iraqis in exiletended to be less interesting. These artists fall into two groups. One includes artists like British-American printmaker Sue Coe (born 1951), whose work has always taken the form of cartoons protesting an assortment of progressive causes: cruelty to animals, industrial food production, apartheid, AIDS and numerous others. Included in this show, her prints lampoon Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George W Bush, as well as point to the connection of the war to the oil and gas industry in MOBILize/the Gulf and Shells Exxon (both 1990). Although Coes work is often compared to the prints of Kthe Kollwitz (1867-1945) who created searing images of the impact of World War I, particularly on women and children, Coes work is far less profound in both form and content.

Other well-established artists like the American minimalist sculptor Richard Serra (American, born 1938) and Fernando Botero (Colombian, born 1932) registered their outrage, shared by many around the world, at the exposure of the torture at Abu Ghraib. Luc Tuymans (Belgian, born 1958) painted a close-up of Condoleezza Rice emphasizing her mouth, and by implication, her lies to justify the invasion of Iraq on the assertion that Hussein had acquired nuclear weapons. As Secretary of State, Rice declared famously that we dont want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. These artists, not necessarily considered political, responded to particular events each in his own distinctive style.

The situation of these artists, who did not witness the Gulf Wars or events in the region first-hand, has by necessity meant that they drew on news images for their sources. Often these have become recognizable images in their own right, such as the hooded prisoner at Abu Ghraib; many have appeared in ways to manipulate public perceptions.

However, seeing something with ones own eyes does not in and of itself lead to an unbiased or valuable interpretation. This is particularly evident in the work of painter Steve Mumford (American, born 1960). A master of realistic oil painting, as well as watercolor, Mumfords monumentally scaled Dying Soldier (2009), shows a team of medics working valiantly to save an oversized soldier on the operating table who looks dead. The unmistakable message is that the US military occupation is, most likely, a lost cause.

Mumford is one of the few American artists to have consistently made the Iraq War a central subject of his work. While claiming to be neutral, Mumford continues to solidarize himself with the occupiers more than the occupiedit is noticeable that he rarely depicts Iraqis other than as abject, humiliated prisoners. Mumford says, I wanted to distill something essential about the drama of war, beyond right and wrong. These arent anti-war paintings. They arent political. Im not trying to address the morality of the war or George Bushs foreign policy agenda. I went to Iraq because I wanted to know what being in a war zone was like, and paint about it from my own subjective experience.

We have previously reviewed Mumfords work, and have little to add. US soldiers have been fighting wars for decades in the Middle East and Central Asia in the interests of the oil companies, defense contractors and Wall Street financial institutions. The vast number of American troops who have been killed, wounded or left suffering with PTSD or other disabilities, with incalculable effects on their families and communities, are also victims of imperialisms insatiable greed and ruthlessness.

But Mumfords non-political approach only encourages those who claim that support for Americas heroes does not mean support for Americas wars. In fact, the two go hand in hand. The US military has been carrying out a criminal, murderous occupation of Iraq, or attempting to, since March 2003. It is responsible for massive war crimes, including the barbarism in Abu Ghraib and the decimation of Fallujah and other centers of opposition. American operations in Iraq, as the WSWS has noted, amount to sociocidethe deliberate and systematic murder of an entire society.

The photographs by Judith Jay Ross (American, born 1946), on the other hand, communicate the impact of the war on the soldiers without serving as an apology for US imperialism. Taken in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the 1990s, these modest, informal portraits reflect the increasing enlistment of working class families in the military, as well as another series taken of the variety of people who took part in anti-war protests in 2003.

Although the work in Theater of Operations often falls short of the greatest artwork about warsuch as Francisco de Goyas etchings Disasters of War (1810-20); Eugne Delacroixs Massacre at Chios (1824); Kthe Kollwitzs many prints like The Widow II (1922); Otto Dixs 1932 triptych The War; and Pablo Picassos Guernica (1937)it is a step forward. Events are impelling the artists toward treating the neo-colonial Gulf Wars with the complexity and emotional immediacy that art can offer, while suggesting the need for a political perspective to put an end to war altogether.

2019 has been a year of mass social upheaval. We need you to help the WSWS and ICFI make 2020 the year of international socialist revival. We must expand our work and our influence in the international working class. If you agree, donate today. Thank you.

Link:
Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 19912011: A significant exhibition at Museum of Modern Art's contemporary arts center - World Socialist Web Site

In an era defined by online shopping and falling real incomes, the high street can seem like a morass of zombie companies, hauling their carcasses from one sales season to the next until someone puts them out of their misery. One honourable exception is Games Workshop, a company that makes its money by selling zombies instead, alongside wizards, space orcs and all other accessories for the dedicated fantasy gamer.

Had you invested 1,000 in the firms shares at the end of 2009, you would now be sitting on a pot of more than 25,000. The company is the best performing FTSE250 retailer of the past decade and second best performer overall. So whats going on in those dungeons? What lessons can this impressive operator teach the rest of the high street?

Founded in London in the mid-1970s by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson who would later became famous for co-authoring the Fighting Fantasy choose-your-own-adventure books Games Workshop evolved quickly in its first few years of existence. It went from manufacturing and distributing traditional board games to focusing on fantasy fare, above all Dungeons & Dragons, the cult role-playing game from America that would define the whole genre.

The company soon launched the White Dwarf magazine, which became a bible for fantasy gamers, and moved into manufacturing miniatures for wargaming under its Citadel Miniatures brand. It soon began to build its business around these miniatures and, to a lesser extent, the Warhammer tabletop fantasy game, which launched in 1983. By the mid-1980s, White Dwarf had stopped covering Dungeons & Dragons and other peoples games to solely concentrate on the Games Workshop universe.

This narrow focus has essentially continued up to the present day. It is key to understanding the business. To investors and retail staff alike, the company has long referred to its strategy as total global domination. It barely acknowledges the existence of competing games or miniatures, perhaps with good reason; it has no real competitors who can match its vertical integration in the marketplace.

Most other wargames manufactures are just cottage industries with no presence on the high street: the next most successful achieves less than 2% of Games Workshops 257 million turnover. The companys stores stock only its own products, though it is more than happy to sell them elsewhere: 47% of sales come from third-party retailers, while a further 19% are online.

Games Workshops share price

Staff have regularly described the company as making the best fantasy miniatures in the world. Where most big Western retailers outsource manufacturing to contractors on the other side of the world, the firm makes almost everything at its own factory in Nottingham in the English Midlands, also the place of the company headquarters.

Games Workshop now has 500 stores worldwide a fifth of them major outlets, while the rest are one-vendor operations like the one pictured below. Most of the bigger stores are in the UK, Europe and Australia, and total global domination has no room for passengers: loss-making stores are quickly reorganised to make a profit, or closed. There are also a smattering of stores in North America and Asia, though the company has never achieved critical mass in those markets like it has in the UK.

It is clear from my own research that stores function at least as much as clubhouses devoted to the hobby: collecting, painting and occasionally even gaming with the miniatures. Fans and customers obsess over both these figures and the complex fictional worlds in which the games are set.

Everything is built around two settings one fantasy and one science fiction. You could legitimately accuse them of being derivative of the pop culture over the past half-century or so. But they function as fully realised, complex worlds complete with spin-off novels, comics, card games, computer games, and even a film though Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie was hardly a classic. The logic is to give the dedicated fan so much to consume that there is no need, or indeed very much time, to bother with anything else.

One potential threat to this close relationship with customers in the past was the companys approach to defending its intellectual property. Its legal department long had a reputation for zero tolerance, attracting heavy criticism, for example, for taking action to prevent an author from selling a book about space marines. My sense is that the company has become much less litigious since Kevin Rountree took over as CEO in 2015.

Buying into the Games Workshop hobby is not cheap, it should be said. You can easily pay over 50 for just a dozen plastic figures, for instance, plus another 25 for paints and brushes. This attracts regular gripes from both fans and the press, and is presumably integral to the companys surging share price and mainly strong financial results.

Yet steep prices are only viable if the product is good enough. The company has regularly rebooted and reinvented its own games and worlds over the years, though arguably they can never be well enough tested to satisfy competitive gamers. The complexity of each game system and the need to bring out new versions to sell more models tends to mean that one strategy becomes too dominant.

The company has also innovated in other ways recently, for example, formulating revolutionary new paints and painting techniques to make it easier for the customers to get great results with their figures.

Can the success story continue? There seems every reason to assume that it can. It might even benefit from the mounting concerns around the carbon emissions from video gaming, and the need to transition to low-carbon computing.

Though Games Workshop certainly makes money from branded video games, being anchored in physical products and stores that offer a communal experience could be a good place to be in years to come. So long as you can save your prized miniature collection from extreme weather events, Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar will continue to be playable in a post-carbon economy. For a company that has done so well out of dystopian fiction, that would arguably be a fitting turn of events.

Read more:
The secret of Games Workshop's success? A little strategy they call total global domination - The Conversation UK

Families in need get free furniture from Big Sandy

Christmas came early this year for the Ewing family of Pickerington. It wasnt a sleigh, but a truck full of new furniture and appliances that pulled up to their home a few days before the holiday.

The family Masaaki and Alex Ewing, both 41, and their children Ajani, 14; Swazy, 9; Blaize, 6; and Aaliyah, 5 didnt have much in the way of old furniture that needed to be moved to make way for the new. The family had little more than a couple of chairs and a broken couch and had been sleeping on mattresses on their floor.

We would never be able to buy any of these things, said Masaaki Ewing, watching the movers bring in the goodies. We cant do much outside of keeping the lights on and the kids fed.

Santa Claus, in this case, was furniture retailer Big Sandy Superstore, which gave away a house full of furniture and appliances to 20 families in need in Kentucky, West Virginia and central and southern Ohio.

The two younger Ewing children have been diagnosed with autism, and Masaaki Ewing has stayed home to care for them since Blaize, who doesnt speak, was born, he said.

Alex Ewing works in a customer call center for a state agency, although she has recently been on health-related disability leave.

Weve been struggling just to pay bills, Masaaki Ewing said.

The children have been hard on what furniture the family had, Alex Ewing said.

We wondered what we were going to do, she said. The old couch that someone had given us had just broke.

The Ewings were nominated for the giveaway by Rhonda Howard, who had met the family as an independent care provider for the younger children through the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities.

I saw a TV commercial for Big Sandys House of Hope, Howard recalled. You get this spark of an idea: They could be the perfect family to be helped.

I was so thankful just for the thought and for being nominated, Alex Ewing said.

When she learned the family was chosen for the giveaway, I was in disbelief, in shock, she said.

Our older kids are so excited, too. Their friends would come over and be like, Wheres your furniture?

For Rhonda and Big Sandy to think about our family like this, this is a true holiday gift.

Howard, who is also a realtor, said she has also been soliciting other real-estate agents and contractors to help the family with basic home repairs and painting.

I think weve got a lot of people in the community willing to help them out, Howard said. I hope it doesnt end here with the furniture delivery.

This is the first year for the holiday giveaway, said Jacob Sizemore, a spokesman for Big Sandy.

Were an employee-owned company, and this is something that our employees and our company are grateful to be in a position to do, Sizemore said.

Big Sandy accepted nominations from the public for families to be helped through the program. More than 1,700 nominations were received in the tri-state area, Sizemore said.

Big Sandy officials narrowed the nominations, then independent committees made up of representatives from businesses and charitable organizations in each community made the final decision, he said.

Were helping people who are single parents trying to raise children, people whove lost everything in house fires, and people who are just plain down on their luck, Sizemore said.

Were grateful we can give them some help and maybe provide a little hope.

Most families received living room and dining room furniture, a washer and dryer, a bedroom set for the adults and a bed and mattress for every child. In a few cases such as the Ewings, the gift included kitchen appliances.

Even after the family learned theyd be getting new furniture, until the truck pulled up to their house, they didnt realize that the package also included a stove and a refrigerator to replace their old, failing kitchen appliances, Alex Ewing said.

She said: Thats the biggest bonus stocking-stuffer ever!

sstephens@dispatch.com

@stevestephens

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Season of giving | Pickerington family among recipients of Big Sandy program to help the needy - The Columbus Dispatch

By Katie Mauch, Staff Writer kmauch@nevadaiowajournal.com

WednesdayDec25,2019at12:01AMDec25,2019at6:32AM

The new Scooters Coffee location at the intersection of Duff Avenue and Lincoln Way in Ames will be open just in time for the new year, according to owner Randy Mumm.

A soft opening of the coffee shop is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 31. Mumm said a grand opening event will be planned later, and will take place in late January or early February.

According to Mumm, the grand opening will likely include a number of incentives and rewards available on the Scooters phone app.

The new location broke ground in August. Mumm said the late December opening is about a month past the usual 90 day building plan for the contractors, but the schedule is now down to an hour by hour timeline.

Baristas for the location have already been trained, Mumm said, and most of the equipment for the inside of the shop has already been delivered and set up.

Only a few tasks are left to complete before the opening, Mumm said. While some of the exterior details like painting may have to wait for warmer weather in the spring, he said landscaping and other outdoor finishing touches will be completed this week thanks to the mild weather.

Fortunately we have this beautiful weather helping us out as much as it can, Mumm said.

The coffee shop offers a drive-thru window for quick and easy coffee runs, which is a staple of Scooters stores. When asked what benefits a Scooters Coffee can offer to the Ames community, Mumm had a simple answer.

Amazing drinks, amazing people, amazingly fast, he said.

Continue reading here:
Scooters Coffee to open New Years Eve - Ames Tribune

The Guthrie County Historical Village and Museum is closed for the winter, but that doesnt mean there isnt work to do for its Foundation, staff, and volunteers.

Village Curator Kristine Jorgensen says they are in the midst of two major renovation projects on the 1915 Pullman Observation and Cafe Car, and the 1900 Marchant House. The Village Foundation has received a couple of grants in the last year for the train car, but besides acquiring funds, Jorgensen says a difficult part of the process is finding the right contractors to do the work. Jorgensen thanks the public for their patience and support, Weve always got projects going on down here, and along with the projects we have to maintain. And so we have 10 buildings, beautiful buildings down here and they require constant upkeep, painting, a new roof, windows, a new door so any funds that we receive, even if theyre not for a specific item they go to the foundation and we use them so that we can preserve what we have too.

Jorgensen hopes to get the Pullman car renovation completed sometime in the next couple years so that it can be used as a community center for the public to rent. To hear more from Jorgensen, listen to today and tomorrows two-part Lets Talk Guthrie County program on air and at raccoonvalleyradio.com.

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Multiple Projects on the Guthrie County Historical Village's Docket this Winter - raccoonvalleyradio.com