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Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC)
Q2 2009 Earnings Call
July 16, 2009; 11:00 am ET
Carol Yancey - Senior Vice President of Finance & Corporate Secretary
Tom Gallagher - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer
Jerry Nix - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer
John Murphy - Merrill Lynch
Keith Hughes - SunTrust
Ryan Brinkman - JP Morgan
Brian Sponheimer - Gabelli & Company
Good morning. My name is Morris and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the second quarter 2009 earnings release conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions)
Thank you. Ms. Carol Yancey, you may now begin your conference.
Carol Yancey
Thank you and good morning and thank you for joining us today for the Genuine Parts Company second quarter conference call to discuss our earnings results and our outlook for the remainder of the year.
Before we begin this morning, please be advised that this call may involve forward-looking statements such as projections of revenue, earnings, capital structure and other financial items, statements on the plans and objectives of the company or its management, statements of future economic performance and assumptions underlying these statements regarding the company and its business.
The company's actual results could differ materially from any forward-looking statements made due to several important factors described in the company's latest SEC filings. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during this call.
We will begin this morning with remarks from Tom Gallagher, our Chairman, President and CEO. Tom.
Tom Gallagher
Thank you, Carol and I would like to add my welcome to each of you on the call today and to say that we appreciate you taking the time to be us this morning. As we customarily do, Jerry Nix, our Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer and I will split the duties on this call and once we have concluded our remarks, we will look forward to answering any questions that you may have.
Now earlier this morning we released our second quarter 2009 results and hopefully you've had an opportunity to review them, but for those who may not have seen the numbers as yet, a quick recap shows sales for the quarter were $2,535,000,000 which was down 12%. Net income was $103.6 million, which was down 22% and earnings per share were $0.65 this year, compared to $0.81 in the second quarter of 2008 and the EPS decrease was 20%.
In looking at the individual results by business segment, our automotive revenues were down 5%. This follows a 7% decrease in the first quarter, so while we still have a good bit of work to do within our automotive operations, we were encouraged to be able to show some improvement over the first quarter results.
Additionally, unfavorable currency exchange accounted for 3% of the second quarter decrease as well as 3% of our year-to-date decrease. Interestingly, our automotive performance improved on a monthly basis as the quarter progressed, which we were pleased to see and we feel that this is a result of some of the initiatives implemented earlier in the quarter.
Examples of actions that were taken in the quarter will be in the areas of pricing where adjustments were made to certain product categories where needed to meet market pricing, a heightened emphasis on the sale of specific product categories, friction, undercar and parts for imports would be examples and an increased focus on Napa Autocare and major accounts as well as all of our priority accounts with improved service and inventory availability.
We had positive results in each of these areas during the second quarter and we think that we will see residual benefit from these efforts over the remainder of the year. In our company-owned store group, our cash or retail business continued to outperform our wholesale or commercial business in the quarter as was the case in the first quarter.
However, we were pleased with the improved results in most segments of our wholesale business, primarily as a result of the initiatives mentioned a moment ago. The one segment of our wholesale business that continues to struggle is the fleet category. This would include customers ranging from contractor and landscape companies, all the way to large trucking companies.
As we pointed out in our last call, the fleet segment is an important part of our wholesale business, representing 20% to 25% and we were down low double-digits once again in the quarter. This category of customer has been especially hard hit by the economic slowdown but we do expect a bit of improvement over the next several quarters.
Our two largest wholesale programs of NAPA Autocare a major accounts and each of these important customer segments showed nice improvement during the quarter and we look to build upon this over the remainder of the year. So summarizing our comments on automotive, we're not pleased with where we find ourselves at mid year which is down 6%.
However, we feel that we did make some progress during the second quarter in a number of areas and as we said in our last call, our expectation is to see a gradual and steady improvement in the results from our automotive operations in the quarters ahead. Moving on to industrial, it was another difficult quarter for these operations. After experiencing a challenging first quarter when we were down 16%, we saw a continued decline in customer demand and we ended the second quarter down 22% and we are now down 19% year-to-date.
The effects of the recession on the manufacturing segment of the economy, our customer base are widespread as evidenced in the industrial production and capacity utilization indices. The impact can be seen in our sales results by product category as well as customer segments. 11 of our 12 major product categories are down year-to-date and some substantially.
Most customer segments are down as well with automotive, iron and steel, equipment and machinery, and the housing and construction related segment all experiencing the steepest declines. We did see growth in food processing, beverage and some energy related segments, however.
Similar comments can be made about our electrical division, which is also directly tied to the manufacturing segment of the economy. After being down 25% in the first quarter, our electrical business also experienced a further drop off in demand and ended the quarter down 34%.
As with our industrial operations, the declines are spread across the breadth of product and customer categories. One observation on the industrial and electrical operations is that despite the steep declines, we did see a bit more stability in their sales per day in the second quarter than we experienced in the first quarter.
After dropping sequentially for four consecutive months, sales per day in May and June held fairly steady with the April numbers. The declines are in the low 20s for industrial and mid 30s for electrical. Clearly, these are dramatic decreases, but hopefully our experience over the past few months indicates that we are at or near the bottom in these two businesses, but until the economy shows signs of strengthening, we remain cautious in our outlook for these two segments of our Company.
Finally, a few comments about office products. After being down 7% in the first quarter, we ended the second quarter down 6% and we're down 6% year-to-date. So we're steady to modestly improving picture here and in view the continued declining trend in office employment numbers, our feeling is that this is probably a reasonable performance in the current office products industry environment.
Looking a little deeper into the numbers, although still running decreases, we did see some slight improvement in both the independent and mega dealer customer categories. The independents were down 3% in the quarter and are down 4% year-to-date, while the [megas] were down 10% in the quarter and down 15% year-to-date.
From a product category standpoint, our core office supplies and cleaning and break room supplies are generating positive results while technology products an furniture continue to have decreases.
As mentioned earlier, one of the key demand drivers for office products is service sector job growth. After many years of expansion, we have seen this number contract for six consecutive quarters now and in 2009 we have lost 1.7 million service sector jobs through June. This will continue to be a headwind for our office products business as we work our way through the second half of the year, but our office products management team remains focused on initiatives that will help to position them and their customers for solid growth as the economy starts to recover.
So that's a quick overview of the sales results and Jerry will now discuss the financial performance. Jerry.
Jerry Nix
Thank you, Tom. Good morning. We appreciate you joining us on the call today. We'll first review the income statement and segment information, then touch on a few key balance sheet and other financial items. Tom will comeback on for a brief recap and then we'll open the call up to your questions.
I'll view of the income statement shows the following. Total sales for the second quarter in 2009 were down approximately 12% to $2.5 billion. This quarter sales reflect a slight sequential improvement for automotive and office products offset by further declines in industrial and electrical.
Gross profit in the quarter was down approximately 30 basis points at 29.4% of sales, compared to 29.7% in the second quarter last year. Our gross margin year-to-date of 29.7% is down slightly from last year. These decreases are primarily driven by reduced volume incentives earned, which was caused by lower levels of purchases.
Reduced incentives account for $20 million and $40 million in lost gross profit dollars for the quarter and the six months respectively. Offsetting the negative impact of incentives are the ongoing benefits of last year's product inflation and results of some of the margin initiatives we put in place. For the year through June, our cumulative pricing which represents supplier increases to us were down 1.5% in automotive, plus 2.10% in industrial, plus 3.0% in office products, and plus 2.1% in the electrical segment.
Now let's look at SG&A. For the second quarter, SG&A expenses were $579 million, compared to $637 million last year a decrease of $58 million. For the six months in 2009, SG&A stands at $1.2 billion, down approximately $98 million from $1.3 billion in 2008.
Improvements in SG&A expenses are driven by the initiatives we've been implementing to reduce our cost structure. These initiatives include a reduction in headcount as well as other cost reduction efforts related to personnel, which was mentioned in our last call, such as facility rationalization, salaried pay freezes, the deferral of additional stock option grants, travel limitations and reduced retirement benefits.
During the quarter, we reduced our headcount by another 200 employees, for a total workforce reduction of approximately 1400 employees, or 4% of our headcount thus far in 2009. Combined with our workforce reduction efforts in '08, our total employment has been reduced by over 9% from the beginning of 2008.
In addition, we continue to see some savings from improved fleet management and a decrease in fuel and energy costs due to both lower consumption and lower cost. We estimate that in total, high cost reduction efforts have resulted in savings of approximately $24 million and $35 million for the second quarter and six months respectively.
We'll remain diligent in managing our expenses and believe that we're now on track to achieve cost savings of $55 million to $65 million for the full year, which is up slightly from our previous estimates. Additionally, we recognize one time cost savings of approximately $9 million in the second quarter, due to the curtailment of the company pension plan.
The workforce reduction has resulted in a corresponding reduction in retirement benefits for 2009. We expect to recognize an additional curtailment benefit of approximately $10 million over second half of the year and this is on top of the estimated annual expense reduction of $55 million to $65 million mentioned earlier.
As a percent of sales, SG&A increased 68 basis points to 22.8%, versus 22.1% in the second quarter of '08 and for the six month period SG&A is up 90 basis points to 23.4% compared to 22.5% last year. Increase for the quarter and year-to-date is due the loss of expense leverage on lower sales, which remains a challenge for us, despite our continued progress in reducing our cost structure.
Now let's discuss the results by segment. Automotive had revenue in the quarter of $1,000,000,360.0 million, representing 53% of the total and that's down 5%. Had operating profit of $117.8 million, that's up 2% so we had nice margin expansion there from 8.1% to 8.7% of sales. The industrial group had revenue the quarter of $701.2 million, representing 28% of the total down 22%, operating profit 31.4% and operating profit decrease of 59%, so we had margin degradation, 4.5% of sales.
Office products had revenue in the quarter, $406.1 million, representing 16% of the total down 6%. They had operating profit, $33.7 million, down 10%, so slight margin deterioration there but still very strong at 8.3% to sales. The electrical group revenue in the quarter of $80.6 million representing 3% of the total down 34% and operating profit $5.1 million down 48%, margin still strong for that segment but down from 8.1% to 6.3%.
The six month information on the segments revenue and operating profit was in the press release that we sent out so we're not going to cover that at this time, but if you have any questions on it, we'll be happy to address that during the Q-and-A session. So in summary, our consolidated operating margin for the second quarter fell approximately 90 basis points to 7.4% from 8.3% in the second quarter of '08.
For the six months our 7.1% operating margin is down 100 basis points from last year. Decrease in operating margin is primarily the results of the deleveraging of SG&A expenses, particularly in our industrial and electrical businesses. We had net interest expense of $6.8 million in the quarter and $13.8 for the six months, which is down slightly from the same periods in '08.
We continue to expect that net interest expense to be in the range of $25 million to $30 million for the full year. The other category which includes corporate expense, amortization of intangibles and minority interest was $15.2 million in the second quarter, and $29.4 million through June. These costs are down from their respective periods last year due primarily to the positive impact of our cost reduction the efforts.
This line also reflects a favorable $3 million retirement plan valuation adjustment recorded in the second quarter, which basically reverses $3 million charge required for expand in the first quarter. This gain however would roughly offset by certain costs associated with termination of our construction and lease agreements, which we will discuss in a moment.
Through mid year, we continue to project a total other category to be in the $50 million to $60 million range for '09, which is improved from last year. For the quarter our tax rate was approximately 37.6% which is down from last year's second quarter and the rate in the first quarter of 2009. This is due to favorable tax treatment on a $3 million retirement valuation adjustment noted above.
For the six months our tax rate's approximately 38.0 which is up from last year, due the favorable tax impact on the sale of Johnson Industries during the first quarter in '08. We expect our tax rate for the full year '09 to be in the range of 38.0% to 38.3%. Net income for the quarter, $103.6 million, is down 22%. Earnings per share $0.65 compared to $0.81 last year was down 20%. For the year, net income, $192.8 million, is down 25%, EPS of $1.21 compared to $1.56 last year is down 22%.
Now let's move on to discuss our balance sheet which remains very strong. We've been conservative in managing our cash thus far in 2009 and cash at June 30 increased to $239 million compared to $136 million in June last year and $68 million at December 31, '08. Our cash position remains strong and has allowed us ample funding for ongoing acquisitions, dividends and capital expenditures, as well as the company required pension contribution of $53 million made in the first quarter of this year.
With consistently strong cash generation even in this declining sales environment, we expect our cash position to remain sound over the balance of the year, although it could vary based on the timing of the investment opportunities that may arise. Accounts receivable decreased 8% from last year on a 12% decrease in sales for the quarter. Although we see room to show more improvement in receivables over the remainder of the year, we continue to feel good about the level and the quality of our receivables.
We also remain diligent in monitoring the financial condition of our customers and their abilities to pay. For 2009, our goal at GPC remains for our change in receivables to be favorable to our change in revenue, thus improving day sales outstanding. Inventory, 6/30/09 was $2.2 billion, that's down 4% or approximately $100 million from the second quarter last year and down the same amount from December 31, '08.
We've shown steady improvement in our inventory levels for several consecutive years. We'll continue to manage this tightly and expect to show more improvement on this line as the year progresses. Accounts payable was relatively unchanged from June last year and is up $54 million or 5% from December 31, '08. All days in tables was improved 55 days from 47 days last year.
Although the purchases are down in accordance with our lower sales and inventory levels, our ongoing negotiations to improve our payment terms with certain suppliers as well as the expansion of our procurement card program is proving successful and should enable us to maintain our days in payables for the full year. We'll continue to make progress managing our working capital which was $2.5 billion at June 30, up approximately 1% from June 30 last year and down 3% from December 31, '08.
Increase from the second quarter last year reflects accounting for $250 million in debt as current liabilities at June 30, '08. As this debt agreement expired and was renewed at favorable rates last November, the $250 million was reclassified to long term debt in the fourth quarter so on a comparable basis, working capital June 30, '09 is down 8% from June of '08. So as you can see, our balance sheet remains in excellent condition. We continue to generate solid cash flows in our strong cash position provides us with financial flexibility to explore many opportunities.
After very good second quarter from a cash perspective, we currently expect our cash from operations to reach over $600 million in 2009, which is a significant increase from '08. After deducting capital expenditures and dividends, free cash flow should exceed $200 million, which would also be improved from our 2008 cash flow, even with a decline in sales that we've been experiencing.
Priorities for the cash remain first the dividend which we've increased for 53 consecutive years, represents a strong track record of consistent growth and dependability of an above average dividend yield which is currently 4.5% to 5%. The continued strength of our cash flow provides us utmost confidence in our ability to sustain our dividend record. Other priorities for cash include the ongoing reinvestment in each of the businesses, share repurchases and where appropriate strategic types of acquisitions in each of our business segment.
Capital expenditures for the second quarter excluding the purchase of assets under our construction lease agreement in June were consistent with last year's second quarter at $22.1 million. For the six months of '09 CapEx of $37.0 million compared to $44.3 in '08. Related depreciation and amortization was $22.4 million in the quarter, $44.9 million for six months.
For the full year, we continue to expect our CapEx spending, before the construction lease transaction, to be in the range of $65 million to $70 million and we expect our D&A to remain relatively steady with '08 in $85 million to $95 million range. On June 26 of this year, the company's construction and lease agreement expired and the lesser was notified of our intent to purchase the properties in this agreement for approximately $73 million.
At June 30, this purchase is accounted for on the balance sheet in net property plant and equipment and other current liabilities, as the amount due on the back was paid in cash in July after quarter end. Due to the non-cash nature of this transaction as of June 30, the purchase is not accounted for on a six month cash flow statement, but will be included in vesting activities next quarter. Strategic acquisitions also an ongoing and important use of cash and are integral to our growth plans for the company.
We closed on one heavy duty automotive acquisition in the first quarter and additional four bolt on type acquisitions this quarter. With two each in our automotive and industrial businesses, we expect these new operations to be accretive to our earnings, although any accretion would be minimal in 2009. We intend to follow a similar pattern with strategic acquisitions over the second half of the year. We remain disciplined in our approach to this growth strategy and we look forward to more success in this area.
Another priority for us, dating back to 1994, has been opportunistic share repurchases and although we've not made any share repurchases thus far in '09 we invested $273 million to purchase approximately 6.8 million shares of our company stock during 2008.
Today, we continue to have approximately 18.5 million shares authorized for repurchase. We have no set pattern for the repurchasing, but we expect to remain active in the program as we continue to believe that an investment in GPC stock along with a dividend provides the best return to our shareholders.
It's probably important to point out here that thus far in 2009 we've been more focused on cash conservation as well as acquisition opportunities. With the economic uncertainties and historically low business valuation levels, we feel this is best way to manage our cash at this time. Balance in these considerations against share repurchases is an ongoing process we absolute believe that our stock is an attractive investment.
Total debt remains unchanged, $500 million although as mentioned earlier, the $250 million of current debt in the second quarter of '08 which expired in November of last year was renewed on favorable terms another five years and reclassified as long term debt during the fourth quarter of '08. Our $500 million in long term debt at June 30, '09 includes $250 million which matures in November of 2011 and $250 million maturing in 2013.
Total debt to total capitalization June 30, '09, 17.1% and we're comfortable with our capital structure at this time.
Our balance sheet is strong and provides us the ability to take advantage of growth opportunities even in the midst of the current economic climate. Since our last report to you, we've remained intensely focused on the proper execution of our short and long term growth plans so that we can most effectively perform through this difficult economic cycle.
Although our overall results for the second quarter reflect the realities of cyclical industrial and electrical marketplace, we were able to show slight sequential improvement in our Automotive and Office Products businesses, and realize a sizable reduction in our expenses.
Going forward, we remain focused on those areas of our businesses that we have control of. We'll support our cost reduction and growth initiative with a strong and healthy balance sheet and sound cash flows, further maximizing our return to shareholders. We're absolutely confident in the positive fundamentals of all of our businesses and believe we will be a stronger company when the economy begins to turn. We want to express our appreciation to all our GPC associates for their efforts and to our customers and suppliers for they continued support.
Tom, back to you.
Tom Gallagher
Thank you, Jerry. So that recaps our second quarter and first half results. We said back in our February conference call, that we expected the first half of the year to be challenging and with sales down 11% year-to-date and earnings per share down 22% that is certainly proven to be the case.
As far as the remainder of the year is concerned, we anticipate that our automotive revenues will improve somewhat over the final two quarters of the year and we look for automotive to get back into positive territory in the second half. As mentioned earlier, we're encouraged by the early results from some of the initiatives implemented in the second quarter and there are several more actions being taken in the third quarter that will help the automotive results.
Additionally, as most of you probably know, we've just named Paul Donohue he was the new President of the Automotive Parts Group. Paul is an extremely talented Executive who has capably handled increasing responsibilities since joining GPC in 2003, and he will keep the focus clear and the energy level high within our automotive operations. We're pleased to have him in his new position. Now, as far as office products is concerned, we feel that their results will remain about the same as they have been through mid-year for the next few quarters. However, our expectations for industrial and electrical are a bit more cautious.
In our prior full year guidance of revenues, we said we would be down 5% to 8% and we had anticipated a bit of improvement in industrial and electrical as we approached the latter part of the year, but at this point, we think that it may take a little longer for these two businesses to start to rebound and with this in mind we feel that a full year revenue expectation of down 7% to down 10% would be more realistic at the time and as a result of this revenue revision, we would also want to narrow the range on the earnings side from prior guidance of $2.25 to $2.75, to $2.25 to $2.50, which is more in line with how we see things right now.
So that concludes our comments and at this point we'd like to take your questions and we'll turn the call back over to Morris. Morris?
Question-and-Answer Session
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from John Murphy - Merrill Lynch.
John Murphy - Merrill Lynch
The auto operating margins were obviously a lot better than we were expecting and pretty impressive in the quarter given that the weakness. I was just wondering if you could break out, I mean actually, I look back and they haven't been this good since the second quarter of 2004.
If you could sort of just breakout how much of this is cost cutting, how much of it is pricing and how much of it may be sort of a reemphasis your relationships with accounts and maybe product positioning. If you could just kind of bucket the magnitude between those three factors. I just really trying to understand if this is a sustainable level going forward.
Jerry Nix
John, this is Jerry. I'll take that. The Automotive Group's got started cutting their expenses earlier than the other businesses because their revenue was slowing prior to the slowdown in the industrial and the electrical side. So some of that is they had taken some severance and all that earlier than the others.
Another part of that is we sold our rotating electrical business last year in the second half of the year and that was a lower margin business, benefits thus the reason for getting out of it and so it's a combination of those factors, but we have always been in the automotive sector, been able to operate much more efficiently there and slowdown revenue and I think this is just a reflection of that.
John Murphy - Merrill Lynch
When we think as the pricing adjustments that are being made in that segment, where is that? I remember in the last call, you were seeing some pricing pressure from competition in some larger items like rotors and stuff like that. Is that the still the case? The pricing adjustment that you've made, have you seen any type of competitive response there?
Tom Gallagher
I'll try to answer that one John. Rotors was one example, ride control is another where we made some adjustments. Chassis products is another, some chemical product as well as some temperature control and what we've seen in terms of the results is that our unit sales on these product categories are now starting to really pickup and to get up to some pretty impressive levels.
We implemented ride control at the end of April and our June unit sales were up in the mid teens. We did chassis at the end of May and we saw impressive results in our June unit sales for chassis and the same can be said for the other two, the temp control and the chemical.
We've got a few more to do. We've got a couple of other actions that are slated for the third quarter. So, we always see competitive prices in the marketplace, but when we started to look at this, we found that we were a little too far out of line and we needed to do something about it and I think we're on the right track.
John Murphy - Merrill Lynch
Just lastly, maybe just staying on pricing throughout all segments, what is the pricing environment that you're seeing going forward? Are you seeing in the other segments more pricing competition and what are you seeing from sort of the supply side of the equation? Are you seeing prices ease as the environment remains tough and you're able to sort of take advantage of that spread? What's really going on with sort of your pricing versus your retail pricing?
Tom Gallagher
Well, in the non-automotive businesses, I wouldn't suggest that the pricing pressures are any more intense than what they are in automotive. I think automotive is very, very intense, but I would also say that we see more pricing pressure in those businesses today than we might have seen at certain times in the past and I think that's reflective of declining marketplaces in those other businesses and everybody's trying to do what they can to capture some market share.
As far as what we're seeing from our vendors, it varies by vendor. In some cases, we're able to work with vendors and find ways to lower the cost to handle the account and exchange that for some additional discounts. In other cases, we have to do it on our own until we can find a way to bring our purchase prices down, but it's pretty competitive in all four of the businesses.
John Murphy - Merrill Lynch
This is actually the last question. When we look at the cost savings that you're putting in place right now, assuming that the environment improves going forward in 2010 and 2011. How much of these cost saves, do you think you'll be able to capture in the next year or two or will there be some rehiring going on as demand hopefully really across the board for all your products starts to pickup?
Tom Gallagher
There will have to be some additions back to the headcount as volumes pickup for sure, but we think that will be lag somewhat the revenue improvement and then other things that we've done on the cost side or things like facility rationalizations, and transportation optimization and some other things along those lines that will in fact stay with us over the long term. So, we're mighty proud of the job that our folks have done, quite honestly. They reacted to this thing quite well and I think they've done in automobile job on the cost side with a few more things to come yet.
Your next question comes from Marc Andre - Goldman Sachs.
Marc Andre - Goldman Sachs
This is actually Marc Andre filling in for Matt. I just had a quick question. Is it possible for you to disaggregate the drivers of automotive, more specifically giving the detail behind the fleet pricing, Canada, Mexico, currency, selling versus sell-through in terms of contribution to the growth rate?
Jerry Nix
What are you looking for us? I didn't understand the question. Will you repeat that for us?
Marc Andre - Goldman Sachs
Yes, basically asking for the contribution to the automotive decline rate by segment, in terms of fleet, pricing, Canada…
Jerry Nix
We got it now.
Tom Gallagher
I got it now we apologize for not clearly grasping the question, but we mentioned earlier that currency accounted for 3% of the difference. The fleet side is between 2% and 3% impact on the revenue. Pricing is a point to a point and-a-half, so they would be the major contributors.
Marc Andre - Goldman Sachs
What the underlying international growth was, do you have an idea in terms of Canada, Mexico, ex currency?
Tom Gallagher
No, I don't have that in front of me.
Jerry Nix
They're doing a little bit better in Canada and about the same in Mexico in local currency, but we don't have the opportunity to report that local currency.
Your next question comes from Scott Ciccarelli - RBC Capital Markets.
Ivan – RBC Capital Markets
Hey, good morning guys. This is actually Ivan sitting in for Scott. I just kind of wanted to touch on NAPA first off, if you don't mind. Could you tell us beyond the comments you've already made what change changes would we expect to see from the management changes you made there. Just we saw that you had, as you mentioned putted a new President. Are there any other details we should be aware of, just from that perspective on NAPA?
Tom Gallagher
Well, the impact of Paul Donohue's naming to the President's position, we think will be very positive. As I mentioned, Paul is a highly energetic, highly focused individual and he will bring those same qualities to the team on the NAPA side.
You may know that in the interim, I have actually been working more closely with the NAPA side of the business and there are some other things that I've got responsibility for as well, so I've not been able to give 100% of my attention to the NAPA side. With Paul on the job now, he will be focused 100% and that we'll see the benefit of that as the next two quarters unfold.
Ivan – RBC Capital Markets
Just a next question, if you don't mind just a quick follow up. With regards to motion, have you seen any kind of stabilization in that particular business segment? Could you give a bit more color kind of on your outlook for the rest of the year?
Tom Gallagher
Sure, what we said in our comments is that after dropping on a monthly basis for four consecutive months, we saw the May and June results come in somewhat similar to the April results and that's the first time we've seen that stability in quite some time.
Admittedly, these are at a very steep declines, we've seen low-20s for industrial and mid-30s for electrical, but our hope is that that's indicative that we're at or near the bottom and that we won't drop significantly in the months ahead and we'll look forward to hopefully having a chance as we get deeper into the year to maybe reduce the level of decrease.
We don't see any significant change in the end markets in either case. Demand seems to be a bit more stable, but we don't see yet any pickup in demand in industrial or in the electrical side.
Ivan – RBC Capital Markets
Understood, stabilization just kind of in summary stabilization perhaps at lower levels and somewhat slower growth going forward.
Tom Gallagher
That's our sense right now and we'll just have to see how the third quarter plays out.
Jerry Nix
Keep in mind; they were down 16% in the first quarter and down 22% in the second and there's still so much uncertainty out there right now, you have to do just as Tom said. We think maybe 22, hopefully is the bottom.
Your next question is from Keith Hughes - SunTrust.
Keith Hughes - SunTrust
A question on the acquisitions you referred to earlier like about $100 million you spent on those, could you just give a little more detail on the revenue and what kind of businesses they were?
Jerry Nix
Keith, this is Jerry. Looking at the cash flow, where it shows $100 million, in that number, we have a company that we've owned for quite some time, above as repackage, and the other Napa member on the portion of that so we had minority interest. If you look, we had a much larger minority interest on your balance sheet in the past. We purchased their minority interest in June and that's about $60 million of that number and the remainder would be for the acquisitions.
Keith Hughes - SunTrust
Okay. What kind of businesses were they?
Jerry Nix
We have one of them in the both automotive, are groups of stores and in the industrial side, in the industrial supply side of the business, so two industrial, two automotive.
Keith Hughes - SunTrust
Okay and the minority interest you purchased for $60 million, it's a repackage or is that what you said?
Jerry Nix
Yes, it's a company. We've owned that company and over the years all the other NAPA members owned it as well and we bought it from each one as we bought them, but they are still and NAPA member out there that we don't know and they had a minority ownership and Balkamp. They decided, they wanted to sell it and we purchased it. That's an accretive deal for us.
Keith Hughes - SunTrust
Final question, automotive you're talking about business perhaps turning backup in the second half of the year. Would margins, I assume raise from this level that we've seen in the last six months with a little bit of increased volume. Is there anything there that would detract from that?
Jerry Nix
I don't see it detracting. One of the things that, I should have mentioned when the question came up from John Murphy earlier about the improvement in the automotive margin. We had a pickup of about $9 million in the second quarter from this pension curtailment and we pushed that back to the individual operations and about half of that goes back to automotive. So, that's one reason for the significant improvement.
Certainly as revenue comes back, they will be able to expand their margins, but as Tom mentioned earlier, as revenue comes back we may have to start back adding some headcount, with part timers and so forth to service the customers and so I can't tell you that it's going to jump up. It's certainly not going to jump up because that's not the nature of the company, but we should see some improvement.
Your next question comes from Ryan Brinkman - JP Morgan.
Ryan Brinkman - JP Morgan
This is Ryan Brinkman for Himanshu. Could you please talk a little bit about what your sense is with regard to automotive segment market share trending? This seems to be an area of strong management focus coming out of the last quarter.
Also with regard to the naming of the new automotive division leader, should we take this as a sign of intensifying focus on automotive market share and if so, are there any specific strategies that you're ready to share that are being pursued or any kind of directional guidance you can give us in terms of how the think about your competitive position in the automotive business going forward?
Tom Gallagher
If we look back over several quarters, we would acknowledge that we have probably lost a little bit of share over the last three or four quarters. Prior to that, we were performing as well as or maybe better than some of our peer group companies, but the last couple of quarters we would say that we did lose a little bit of share.
I think that the second quarter results would indicate to us that we're moving in the right direction, but we still have a further way to go. We need to continue to push some of the initiatives that we put in place in the second quarter and to launch some of the ones that I referenced will come in the third quarter.
As far as naming Paul Donohue to the President's position, yes it is recognition of the significance and importance of the automotive business to Genuine Parts Company, it's 53% of our total company revenue.
Paul as I said, he's one of our very best executives and fortunately he's had a chance to work around the automotive business for the last two years and we've taken the best we have and put him in charge of the automotive parts group in expectation that we will continue to make the progress that we think we started to make in the second quarter. As far as specific strategies, I don't think we would want to get into the detail of those on this call.
Ryan Brinkman - JP Morgan
Just secondly, if you could talk just very briefly about the potential impact if any that you see of a government scrapping incentive program for new light vehicles on the automotive business going forward. Generally, we've tended to think that any impact would be seemingly negligible, given that the decrease in age of the vehicle parts would be potentially in [Inaudible] context of 250 million cars parked out there on the road. Are we directionally correct thinking about that? Is that how you guys are approaching this?
Tom Gallagher
Absolutely, any study that we've seen shows that it will be very, very small in terms of impact, because of the size of the fleet, as you referenced, 251 million vehicles. It's also interesting to see that while it has had some impact in the short term in Europe. It has not had the effect longer term that the European governments were hoping for. So, this will be very, very minor in terms of impact in our opinion.
Your next question comes from Brian Sponheimer - Gabelli & Company.
Brian Sponheimer - Gabelli & Company
Can you give us a breakdown of what you experienced regionally in automotive, Northeast, Southeast, West, Southwest.
Tom Gallagher
Sure, the strongest areas for us would be the Northeast, the Midwest, the mountain states; the Northwest and the ones that continue to have the most difficult time would be the Southeastern area and out into California, Arizona, Nevada and those areas there. We see a little bit of slowdown in the Southwest, we think mostly driven by the decline in energy prices, but the biggest impact would be in the Southeast and California.
Brian Sponheimer - Gabelli & Company
Are you seeing any pricing pressure from competitors there that would exacerbate any weakness?
Tom Gallagher
No, none beyond what we see in most places.
Brian Sponheimer - Gabelli & Company
Okay. Moving along just what opportunity exists on picking up parts distribution to dealers either becoming used car dealers or service shops, basically stranded dealers from GM or Chrysler. Have you seen any stranded dealers looking to Napa to source parts?
Tom Gallagher
The opportunity we think is real and many of these dealers have decided that they're going to stay in the used car business and that they're going to run a full-fledged multi-brand service facility and yes, we have seen a number of these dealers have an interest in aligning themselves with Napa and we also see some of the existing vehicle dealers that have expressed an interest in owning some Napa stores, so we think this is a net positive for us.
Brian Sponheimer - Gabelli & Company
Okay and one last question, on the office and industrial side are you getting any sense that inventory adjustments are complete with your customers and like auto production, there maybe a sequential pickup, however small just simply on right-sizing inventory?
Tom Gallagher
We do think that the inventories are pretty lean as we go out the supply chain and we do think that with an increase in demand, there should be a very, very near term pickup in outbound sales for us.
Carol Yancey
This is all the time that we have questions for. We appreciate all of you joining us today. We will look forward to talking to you in the future and we appreciate your ongoing and continued support of Genuine Parts Company.
And this does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.
Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of Seeking Alpha. However, we view them as an important resource for bloggers and journalists, and are excited to contribute to the democratization of financial information on the Internet. (Until now investors have had to pay thousands of dollars in subscription fees for transcripts.) So our reproduction policy is as follows: You may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to Seeking Alpha and either link to the original transcript or to www.SeekingAlpha.com. All other use is prohibited.
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text:
|Todd Parrott Suspended
|Tweet Topic Started: Oct 17 2013, 05:46 PM (11,110 Views)
|Deleted User
|Oct 19 2013, 06:42 PM Post #81
Deleted User
you can't get it over the counter here to my knowledge , which to me means it's on the shelves
I use cough drops or tussin.......rarely.......
I'd think if you were a driver or someone that deals with the public transportation , it wouldn't matter , you'd be in trouble......
|Oct 19 2013, 06:44 PM Post #82
Lug Nut
Considering how NASCAR has handed out season-long probations for drunk driving infractions on drivers for being crocked--even if it wasn't on NASCAR's time--I can see it happening, especially if Todd drank just before a test. It would help that, it if was alcohol, how much out of spec he was as to what happened. But with most if not all drug stuff, either you're legal or not as far as NASCAR's concerned here.
And even if it's a legit medicine being used on a legit prescription, there's reasons why such substances are still restricted--how many commercial ads say that you shouldn't drive or operate machinery until you know how certain medications can effect you? That could also be the case here.
Policy seems to be that if you're on something legit and you're open about it with NASCAR and provide proof of a legit prescription, NASCAR might give a bye, but it's still up to their discretion on if they'll let you race or not until you're off the medication. And if a substance abuse problem is suspected, they have the right to deny that person the right and privilege to participate until they get help and get straightened out.
This is one instance where a NASCAR policy has to protect drivers, team members, and even NASCAR and their officials from themselves.
Edited by Chernaudi, Oct 19 2013, 06:50 PM.
|Oct 19 2013, 06:58 PM Post #83
Danica's future ex-husband
And he'd still be in violation of NASCAR's substance abuse policy.
|Oct 19 2013, 07:01 PM Post #84
Director General
Why would they care if a crew chief got high???
|Oct 19 2013, 07:06 PM Post #85
Danica's future ex-husband
|It doesn't matter why they care.... :cheers
|Oct 19 2013, 07:19 PM Post #86
Deacon Of Disaster
he could make a bad decision or omission that could cause a failure and hurt someone...
personally I'd put odds of that at about a zillion to 1, but I am biased... and experienced...
|Oct 19 2013, 07:42 PM Post #87
Director General
They don't have to be high to do that....
rolls eyes
|Oct 19 2013, 07:51 PM Post #88
Deacon Of Disaster
^true that
it's part of concepts people have because "Reefer Madness" mis-informed the public horribly...
|Deleted User
|Oct 19 2013, 07:57 PM Post #89
Deleted User
when's the last Time Todd drove :laugh
|Oct 19 2013, 08:00 PM Post #90
Deacon Of Disaster
|I expect to hear comments from Rusty tomorrow.... they used to be close friends, dunno about now, though... Todd was Rusty's tire specialist his championship year...
|Oct 19 2013, 08:33 PM Post #91
Danica's future ex-husband
But if they are high and NASCAR basically "allows" it by not having these policies, NASCAR's culpability is magnified.
|Snuff Movie Star
|Oct 19 2013, 09:18 PM Post #92
frightening proposition
Well I could always use the term juvenile irresponsible jackass. Dopes are dopes. Risking unemployment and public shame because one thinks it's ok to drink like a fish, smoke weed, snort coke or bang junk with no negative effects is mighty stupid.
Also I like using the term drug addict because it has the most negative stereotypes attached to it. Dumb enough to do it, you friggin deserve to be ashamed of yourself. Not ashamed, you're dumber than hell.
I'll bet Todd Parrot is pretty ashamed of himself right about now.
|Oct 19 2013, 09:35 PM Post #93
Asshole Numero Uno
damn, you beat my record of 45 days.
|Oct 19 2013, 09:36 PM Post #94
Asshole Numero Uno
Your horse needs to be drug tested, because it is obviously high.
|Oct 19 2013, 09:56 PM Post #95
Lug Nut
I'm not weighing in on either side of the discussion. I'm just recognizing Dzufast's superb rejoinder.
|Oct 19 2013, 10:11 PM Post #96
Deacon Of Disaster
probably just improved testing...
|Oct 20 2013, 06:04 AM Post #97
Leading Suspect
wait...... you went 89 days without a toke?
|Oct 20 2013, 09:05 AM Post #98
Deacon Of Disaster
actually almost 2 years... 89 to get clean...
legal system and job search took priority, LOL...
|Oct 20 2013, 11:07 AM Post #99
Lug Nut
Rule applies equally to mechanics, other team members, or NASCAR officials. Last things that teams need is a mechanic or crew chief who's high, crocked, or otherwise off his rocker at the shop or track, even if it's a legitimate medication, and the same for NASCAR's officials.
It's not just drivers who've been sat down for this--it's mostly been crew members, and I think even a couple of officials may've gotten nailed, too.
NASCAR's stance is that if you work for a team or us, lay off the sauce and drugs, and if you're on meds, clear it with us, knowing that we may sit you down for something legit until you can get off the meds because of how they may effect you.
|Deleted User
|Oct 20 2013, 11:53 AM Post #100
Deleted User
who got suspended for this :confused ?
|Oct 20 2013, 12:22 PM Post #101
Lug Nut
|Probation is different from suspension. Allmendinger, and Annett were put on probation for the rest of the 2010 and 2011 seasons when they got pinged for drunk driving, as did Scott Wimmer in '04. No other penalties were enacted by NASCAR, aside from them insisting that the pinged drivers perform community service on NASCAR's behalf equal to what the state criminal courts sentenced them to. However, NASCAR did say that other penalties, including suspensions, could be enacted if they did violate their probation before the end of those seasons.
|Oct 20 2013, 12:33 PM Post #102
Have brush will travel
|I personally know two people who have run afoul of the NASCAR drug rules. One was a crew chief at the time, and did much of the fab work on the underfunded team he was with. I felt it was a justifiable suspension as he could be a liability. The other is a bodyman whose job of track for the team is body and paint, and at the track he creates wheelwell clearances in case of a fender bender... nothing that is life threatening, so in my opinion, his one year suspension was a bit overkill.
|Oct 20 2013, 12:47 PM Post #103
Lug Nut
Problem is that anyone who touches these cars can be potential liabilities. Even if Todd was taking something that was restricted under the policy, especially if he didn't try to clear it with NASCAR first, it doesn't matter if he has a legit prescription, NASCAR does have the right to suspend him for not being open with NASCAR about it. And in either case, for not being open or even if he was, it being a medication that has potential adverse side effects, they can temporarily bar him from the track until he's off meds or it becomes clear how the meds would effect him.
That's why Jon Wood no longer races in NASCAR--he was on a med that NASCAR was concerned could impair his judgement, and asked him not to race until he could get off that medication or switch to something with lesser effects. I also don't think that NASCAR would willingly allow a driver on blood thinners to race, which is why Vickers is out until the end of the season on the advice of both his and NASCAR's doctors.
Edited by Chernaudi, Oct 20 2013, 12:48 PM.
|Deleted User
|Oct 20 2013, 12:48 PM Post #104
Deleted User
point taken....see....answers don't need to take a 1000 words :laugh :laugh :laugh
|Oct 20 2013, 12:52 PM Post #105
Lug Nut
In short: probation--we caught you, you're reprimanded, don't do this again, at least until you're off probation.
Suspension--action taken to bar someone from participating as immediate punishment for an offense, or violating probation.
Big reason why the drunk driving probably didn't get any of those guys suspended was because it wasn't on NASCAR's time, and probation is very easy to enforce by both NASCAR and the driver's team. Annett was routinely breathalyzed by NASCAR and team owner Rusty Wallace, who had Annett on probation for a season in a half himself.
Edited by Chernaudi, Oct 20 2013, 12:53 PM.
|Oct 21 2013, 10:36 PM Post #106
Lug Nut
|I was recently called for a random test under my companies policy (required by most of our clients). This is a new service for us, but they have been in the business for a long time. The surprise for me was they did not prepare a split sample. I didn't ask, but I get the sense that retests are so rarely needed and have such a very low history of overturning the result of the first test, that they just don't bother anymore. More shocking to me is the new alcohol policy. If you are over 0.04% you are busted and immediately denied access to any client sites. You then must enter a "program". If you are under 0.02% you go back to work with no problem. If you are in between 0.02% and 0.04%, you are allowed to sit in the waiting area and be retested every half hour until you test under 0.02% and then, that's right, you go back to work. Having a beer with lunch is back in play, if you dare.
|Oct 22 2013, 09:52 AM Post #107
Director General
Last time I was checked I went to the men's room and peed, took the cup back to the front desk, and the results were already displayed...
|Oct 22 2013, 03:51 PM Post #108
Leaf Spring
|RPM released Todd, Forget his name, but the car chief will be on the box for the rest of the year.
|Oct 22 2013, 04:04 PM Post #109
Danica's future ex-husband
|OMG! NASCAR like totally ruined his life!
|Oct 22 2013, 07:20 PM Post #110
Lug Nut
Sporting News
|Deleted User
|Oct 22 2013, 07:51 PM Post #111
Deleted User
|his first step should be admitting what he took
|Oct 22 2013, 08:46 PM Post #112
Danica's future ex-husband
|He was snortin blow off a naked hooker's ass. Satisfied?
|aunty dive
|Oct 22 2013, 08:50 PM Post #113
S.A.P. Danica Fanboy's Club
She was wearing a hat.
This kind of inaccurate posting causes nothing but trouble.
|Oct 22 2013, 09:27 PM Post #114
Leading Suspect
|what happened to "innocent until proven guilty" or does that only apply to beating up a woman?
|Oct 22 2013, 09:31 PM Post #115
Director General
|Correct me if I am wrong but I have not seen any mention of the NASCAR road to recovery program. Did I miss something?
|Oct 22 2013, 09:40 PM Post #116
Speed Princess
Richard Petty has a zero tolerance policy so he got fired.
|aunty dive
|Oct 22 2013, 10:05 PM Post #117
S.A.P. Danica Fanboy's Club
He'll have to deal with the program before he can go to work for any other team.
|Oct 22 2013, 10:09 PM Post #118
Director General
Well that was my point. Parrott does not seem to be headed to the program...
|Deleted User
|Oct 22 2013, 10:13 PM Post #119
Deleted User
apples and oranges
he admitted he screwed up , not what drug he did
|Oct 22 2013, 10:15 PM Post #120
Danica's future ex-husband
A hot drug test pretty much proves guilt.
|1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
|Go to Next Page
|« Previous Topic · The Richard Petty Lounge · Next Topic »

subset: commoncrawl


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11-06-2012 12:48
11-06-2012 12:48
ahoj peto pod na pokec a mi napis co si pisal na skype lebo neviem to precitat
11-06-2012 16:17
11-06-2012 16:17
i cannot get the Sound, pictures (mine and the other party), working.
12-07-2012 23:15
12-07-2012 23:15
echo sound test is offline. I want to do a test to make sure everything is working
28-07-2012 01:37 - edited 28-07-2012 01:41
28-07-2012 01:37 - edited 28-07-2012 01:41
HTC Trophy (Verizon) with latest updates. I'm a professional programmer, so here's my view/guess at things. When tapping to make the call, I believe the Skype app itself generates that "twiddle" tone, so it is not audio data being sent from the Skype network. The "ring" that follows I think is also a pre-canned audio built into the application and not audio from the network. So these first two auditory feedbacks are entirely different from hearing network audio.
Once the call connects, the lady saying "please record your message" is the first audio data acdtually coming from the network. The Skype app has to handle this data differently from the "twiddle" and "ring", and supply it to the audio drivers in a different manner. The "twiddle" and "ring" always seem to work, but you don't hear the lady so it's the network audio data where things fail.
By watching the call timing, it appears that the app thinks it is handling the call correctly. It gives every impression of thinking that it is sending the audio data to the speaker, but apparently the speaker isn't actually playing the data.
Tapping the "speakerphone" app button is a "reasonably" reliable way to get the network audio to start playing over the speaker. The trick for reliability is to wait to turn on the speakerphone until after the "ring" finishes playing. This is the point where the app has switched over from playing canned audio built into the app to playing network audio. If you turn on the speakerphone too early, the app isn't into playing network audio yet so the action of turning on the speakerphone doesn't always have the desired effect of jabbing the network audio handling to get it moving.
Unfortunately turning off the speakerphone doesn't cause the speaker to continue working as a normal earpiece. The audio simply disappears. This is disappointing. There was a decent chance that having jabbed the network audio in the rear end by turning on the speakerphone would cause it to continue working when switched back to a normal earpiece. (I've seen things like this circumvent software bugs in the past.)
What does appear to be working reliably is Bluetooth when using the Skype app. Pretty amusing since Bluetooth requires a little more complexity. However it is not an unreasonable expection. Sending audio to Bluetooth takes a different path through the operating system and audio drivers than sending audio to the speaker.
Since some people say that the Skype app is working fine on other HTC WinPhones, I got to wondering if the difference is the HTC Sound Enhancer on the Trophy. I don't know if that is on the other HTC WinPhones. It is certainly sitting in the audio path and could be a reason why Skype doesn't work well on the Trophy but does work well on other WinPhones.
10-08-2012 17:57
10-08-2012 17:57
Is there a step by step procedure to foloow that tells me that my audio is working.My ech test has no sound. It does not ring and I do not hear any message, just the timer shows the length of time elapsed? Very frustrated.
10-08-2012 18:45
10-08-2012 18:45
Are you using the HTC Trophy on Verizon? Just checking because that's what this thread is about.
Assuming you are... my experience is fairly consistent when calling the Echo Test. I always hear the initial Skype twiddle sound immediately after saying to dial the Echo Test number. I also always hear the ringing whether using the earpiece as a normal handset earpiece, as a speakerphone, or through my Bluetooth headset.
Once the Echo Test number answers, there is the lady's voice that guides you through the Echo Test. I have NEVER heard that lady's voice when using the earpiece as a normal handset. I can "very often" manage to start hearing the lady's voice if I tell the Skype app to switch to speakerphone mode. However the success of that varies somewhat by precisely when I tell the app to switch to speakerphone.
I've had the most success when trying to do it IMMEDIATELY after the ringing stops. If I do start hearing the lady's voice over speakerphone, then I can complete the entire Echo Test success using speakerphone. I continue to hear the lady's voice, I can record a test message, and I can hear the test message played back.
I have the most consistent success using my Bluetooth headset. I have never encountered a problem with the Echo Test when I've had my Bluetooth headset on. I have also made successful test calls out from Skype to my wife's cell phone using my Bluetooth headset.
However my testing has been limited to a dozen or so experimental test calls. My only personal need for Skype is to use it on a trip to the UK which is still coming up. So far I've only been doing testing to try and get any bugs out while I'm still in the US.
12-11-2012 13:14
12-11-2012 13:14
when i boot up skype,i get a loud hissing noise.I have gone through all of the sound settings without success.
Please help Eic Causey
08-03-2013 07:34
08-03-2013 07:34
Hello..I can't sign in nor try the echo test call. I used Skype 2 or 3 yrs ago with MacBook Pro; still using the same laptop. Created a new account; am I doing something worng? Please help.
10-04-2013 21:40
10-04-2013 21:40
echo/soun test do not send my voice bach
11-12-2014 22:37
11-12-2014 22:37
thank you


text:
The House Jurisprudence Committee will hear the two knife rights bills first. HB936 was filed by Rep. Dutton (D) and HB1299 by Rep. Stickland (R). On this basis, it seems more likely that HB936 will be treated more favorably by the chair, who is a Democrat. Personally, I think Dutton's bill is more urgent than Stickland's, though both are important. We have to begin to decriminalize knives in Texas now, and HB936 does that. HB1299 just means that cities can't make laws more crazy than the State laws already are, which doesn't help anyone on Sept. 1, 2013 if HB936 is not enacted into law.
My recommendation: Everyone please call or write the Chair and Vice-Chair and start talking to them about these bills. Remind the Chair that the author is Rep. Dutton, a Democrat. Remind the Vice-Chair that the bill advances the cause of our Second Amendment Rights, that the Second applies to any "arms", that would include knives.
If you are represented by the one of the other members of the committee, please call them to discuss these bills.
Contact info for House members is here. Thank you so much for your help! - Peter Wang
The House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee
Chair - Rep. Abel Herrero (D), Corpus Christi
Vice Chair - Rep. Stefani Carter (R), Dallas. She is the first African-American Republican to serve in the Texas House, and apparently a rising star
Rep. Lon Burnam
Rep. Terry Canales
Rep. Bryan Hughes
Rep. Jeff Leach
Rep. Joe Moody
Rep. Matt Schaefer
Rep. Steve Toth


text:
E3's leaving me a bit cold this year. The fact I'm not covering it for a gaming website is actually a blessed relief, as it means I don't have to stay up until ass o' clock in the morning watching cringeworthy live performances from executives who should know better. But I'm not even feeling particularly inspired to seek out the big news from it myself — nothing's grabbing me as hugely exciting. The most interesting thing to me is probably Nintendo's new console, which does some genuinely innovative and cool things — but we'll have to wait and see on pricing.
E3's not necessarily about people like me though. It's first and foremost about the suits and the money, secondly about the press and the actual gaming public comes in a distant third somewhere. It is, in essence, a huge PR circus whereby lots of companies can make outlandish promises about their new products and hope no-one remembers by the time the product in question actually comes out. (See: anything Peter Molyneux or Microsoft have ever said, anything regarding motion control, anything regarding Vitality Sensors.) It's an important time for publishers to show off their big new titles to keep their shareholders happy, and for the press to help keep the buzz flowing.
I've never been to an E3, so I can't speak for what the experience of actually being there is like. I'm sure smaller developers and publishers are there, too, but I feel a bit sorry for them. As is always the case, the big news is always about what Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Ubisoft and EA are up to — and probably something Call of Duty-related from Activision, too. Smaller companies are there to get their products noticed, too, but it must regularly seem like an uphill battle to them when all the big sites want to cover is Halo 4, Call of Duty 300 and other Games With Guns In.
There have been a few surprises, of course. Ubisoft's Watch_Dogs is looking cool — at least it did until the dude pulled a gun out — and David Cage's latest project is sure to be just as interesting and divisive as his previous work. I'm not yet convinced by The Last of Us (ugh, zombies) and I want to know more about pricing before I get too excited about Wii U.
Herein lies the rub, though. I couldn't give a crap about the "big games". I know that plenty of people do, otherwise we wouldn't be on our sixth Halo game, our fifth Assassin's Creed game (not counting spinoff titles) and our four hundred and seventy-sixth Mario title. And the big sites certainly cover the big games with aplomb. But where is the discussion about more niche titles like Larian Studios' upcoming new Divinity game and the batshit-crazy looking Dragon Commander? Where's the love for independent developers? Where can I find what I'll be putting in my shopping cart without question next time there's a Steam sale?
This information is out there, I'm sure, but it's hard to find. It's easy to be cynical about E3 because of the information that gets the highest priority. "Biggest budget" seems to equate to "most important" in the eyes of a lot of press and public alike, and that's a bit of a shame. For me, the most important titles should be the ones that move the genre forward, the ones that do genuinely interesting things, the ones that I'd want to discuss on the Squadron of Shame SquadCast. But I guess they call things like that "niche" for a reason.
Also, fuck E3 memes. If one more person makes a "my body is ready" joke I will punch them. Hard.


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Kick things off with La Festa delle Marie. Festivities begin on Friday afternoon with a masked procession that begins in St. Mark's Square at 4 p.m.
Don't miss Giovedi Grasso (second Thursday) or Martedi Grasso (Tuesday, the last night) in St. Mark's Square. There's live music, dancing and a visual spectacle of masks as well as the Notte de la Taranta event and fireworks.
Watch for spontaneous water parades.
Make sure to take a gondola ride or two.
Ride along with the candlelight gondola procession on Shrove Tuesday. It's stunning, romantic and a fitting end to the festivities.
Venice may be sinking, but Venice Carnival is elevating in its latest incarnation. It's amazing that this festival full of nostalgia is just a few decades renewed after going dark for two centuries. Both this city and this celebration are about getting lost and wandering. The meandering maze of alleyways is a metaphor for one's mind, soul and identity. Wearing a mask allows both reflection and fantasy to arise. In this modern day of cyber-avatars, Venice Carnival is much more real, rich and resonant than any video game. While some may see it as just a set of aristocratic, fancy masquerade balls, I see it as more mysterious and full of serendipity. Fate lurks behind that mask in front of you or down some barely-lit, winding lane. This Carnival is made for visually-minded introverts, and it doesn't have to be expensive. The grand masquerade balls might cost a fortune, but all you need is a mask and your wild imagination and you can wander the mist-shrouded alleys for days marveling at the mystery of our many ghoulish identities.


text:
View Rule
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|Printer-Friendly Version Download RIN Data in XML
|Publication ID: Spring 2014
|Title: Human Subject Protection; Acceptance of Data From Clinical Studies for Medical Devices
|Abstract: This rule will amend FDA's regulations on acceptance of data from clinical studies for medical devices to require that clinical studies conducted outside the United States in support of a premarket approval application, humanitarian device exemption application, an investigational device exemption application, or a premarket notification submission be conducted in accordance with good clinical practice.
|Agency: Department of Health and Human Services(HHS)
|Priority: Other Significant
|RIN Status: Previously published in the Unified Agenda
|Agenda Stage of Rulemaking: Final Rule Stage
|Major: No
|Unfunded Mandates: No
|CFR Citation: 21 CFR 807 21 CFR 812 21 CFR 814
|Legal Authority: 21 USC 321 21 USC 331 21 USC 351 21 USC 352 21 USC 360 21 USC 360c 21 USC 360e 21 USC 360i 21 USC 360j 21 USC 371 21 USC 374 21 USC 381 21 USC 393 42 USC 264 42 USC 271 ...
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|Regulatory Flexibility Analysis Required: Yes
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|International Impacts: This regulatory action will be likely to have international trade and investment effects, or otherwise be of international interest.
|RIN Data Printed in the FR: Yes
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text:
what is your favorite r kelly song
Yeupp " PIIIIISSSS" BR000 !
And urmm probably " I wish "
I hate R. Kelly...
But Bump N' Grind is cool.
Trapped in the Closet
Burn it up
but he's a better feature artist. Like in Hotel-Cassidy ft R Kelly
Originally Posted by Chibiusa
Trapped in the Closet
Ha ha ! Reminded me of Justin Baber .
lol I like every R kelly song but mainly "I wish", "hand of time", "the worlds greatest", and "be careful"....classic songs
Originally Posted by kcmsean
im weak!!!
Yes lmfao definitely my favorite
Forum Rules


text:
Viewers of the popular BBC sitcom Mrs Brown's Boys have complained about a joke in the Christmas Day episode of the programme.
One complainant said the BBC in its response had failed to address his point about racism.
The episode showed characters playing a quiz game devised by a dyslexic character, Buster.
Mrs Brown, played by actor Brendan O'Carroll, points out a spelling mistake in a question about the name of "a film and book about a great white shark?" The answer she reads out is "Jews" instead of "Jaws".
The viewer from Finchley, north-west London, was one of three who complained. He described the joke as "at worst unequivocally racist" and a "horrible jibe".
In response, the BBC's complaints department wrote to him, referring to the issue of "bad language" rather than racism.
The letter said that "bad language" was sometimes used in programmes to reflect "plausibly the way people actually speak".
It added: "It is inevitable that programmes which are acceptable to some will occasionally strike others as distasteful".
The BBC "would never deliberately set out to cause offence".
The viewer said he had called the BBC pointing out its failure to answer his accusation of racism, and was awaiting a further response.


text:
By Henna Kathiya
The holidays have been very kind to Rihanna as she settles into her newly purchased $12 million dollar mansion in Pacific Palisades. She was also gifted a Porsche 911 Turbo by Roc Nation for all her hard work this year, which must look pretty in the driveway of her new beachside house in L.A.
After saying that her old Beverly Hills home was full of water leaks, the "Diamonds" star sold it for $5 million last year. Her new pad is an 11,000 square foot house with 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, a dining room with a 14-foot ceiling, an outdoor BBQ and bar, a swimming pool, a sun deck, and a 6,000 sq. ft. backyard according to TMZ.
"I literally wake up every morning at 530 ish and stare at my pool til the sun comes up! Just waiting! #isthismylife," she tweeted.
RiRi is also pretty thankful for her new $160,000 ride. "Ain't nobody phuckin wit my clique!! Thank you to my Roc brothers! I love you guys, y'all are crazy for getting me this bad ass ho," she tweeted.
After yet another hit album and a crazy seven day tour, not much can stop the pop princess. In March, Rihanna will kick off her Diamonds World Tour featuring A$AP Rocky.


text:
©1969 John Fowles;
"Paul Shelley's subtle presentation does full justice to Fowles' artful, mysterious tale....Never once does he lose the listener as the author moves between the past and present, commenting on Victorian customs, politics, and morays. And never once does he give away the novel's surprise ending. Enthusiastically recommended." (AudioFile)
"Perfect Narrator"
Yes, just to listen to Paul Shelley's beautiful reading - perfect timbre, mellifluous voice, good grasp of character and accent. For me, he is the best audiobook reader there is.
Difficult to match John Fowles' mix of good story and high themes - perhaps Penelope Lively (Moon Tiger comes to mind) or A S Byatt when she remembers to be entertaining as well as erudite (Posession?).
When Charles comes across the sleeping Sarah when he is out walking, although nothing beats the description of his first sight of her on the Cobb.
No, too long and I wanted to savour the reading.
"Superb literature"
This book is a work of genius. Thought provoking in its 'inbuilt ' philosophy of life. I couldn't get enough of it and I went through it quickly. The narrator is perfect for the story too. It just took me a wee while to get used to it.
"Great drama, great reader."
There was a big-time film version of this novel, with fine stars. I saw it but can't remember it. This presentation is one I will never forget. If you liked the film, which I dimly recall presents a romance between two cast members as well as the one in the film itself, I think you will like this much better. It is the most enjoyable and unusual writing about Victorian times I know of and the narration by Paul Shelley is perfection. Just be warned. This is not light reading and the ending may stun a sensitive soul. Like me.
"Writes with a sharp elegance that is breathtaking"
The reason I am drawn to literature, to art, to books considered to be classics, is to watch some middle-aged, bearded man put on a pair of (excuse the flamboyant analogy) skates and suddenly pitch himself into the center of the ring and pull off a triple Salchow. I love risk-taking, experimental literature. With 'The French Lieutenant's Woman', Fowles is boldly moving in a lot of directions at once (pushing down fourth walls [Chapter 13], jumping forward and backward in time, throwing himself into the path of the protagonist Charles) and manages to control it all with a sharp elegance that is breathtaking.
He (re)creates a Victorian period novel and then deconstructs, dissects and parodies it while we watch. He bends into it elements of Darwinian and Marxist thought (two revolutionary Men who lived during this period, but are never displayed in the works of the Brontës, Hardy, Gaskell, Dickens or Trollope. Doing so, he subverts both the age and the novel. 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' is a work of genius and a book that teased and challenged me on almost every page as I read it.
"Very fine writing and reading"
This is my first review of an audible book. Had to recommend it. Amazing story, remarkable insight into both the Victorian, and mid-20th century cultures. Best of all: this is truly an OUTSTANDING reader -- believable (accurate) accents, great pace and tone. The skills of both the author and the reader add up to sophisticated story telling at its very best. This is a book to return to again and again.
"Clever, excellent listening"
This is a must for fans of 19th century literature, and as far as I know (I hope that I'm worng), a unique novel. It's as though Fowles was channelling by turns Hardy, Eliot and Trollope with a controlled authentic sounding Victorian voice, interspersed with a postmodern wink and a nod to the "death of the author." It's a novel that I will pick up in print to catch some of the voice play.
The narration was excellent, too and suited the text so well. The narrator was one of those rare male readers who can "do" female voices - that is, distinguish among all the characters - without a silly falsetto or similar affectation.
I saw the movie back in the early 80s, but didn't really get it. Now I think I will watch it again and better understand what the screenwrtier was trying to do.
This should be a required close study for anyone who attempts historical ficition (esp. 19th century) - Perhaps then there might be better stuff passed off as "historical fiction."
"A Stunning Novel"
I have been listening to two Audible books per month for two years now. This is not only the finest book I have ever listened to, it is probably also the finest I have ever read. The story is compelling and the asides addressing the foibles of the Victorian era are genius. The narration is simply superb. I have tried reading the book several times over the years, and the intricacy of it on the written page always dissuaded me. Thank goodness I did not miss out on it any longer. A sensational listen.
"Victorian culture from 20th Century Viewpoint"
As an audible listener for a number of years I have found that books of this length (over 17 hours) have the great potential of becoming tedious. This is NOT one of them. As other reviewers have mentioned this is a book that will keep you interested throughout, both because of the story itself, but also because of the narration. And the author's tendency to let the reader into his own mind and to understand the choices he makes in telling the story are quite engaging. One of the best aspects is not being able to quite predict what will happen next, even up to the very end.
I had seen the movie which was okay, but the book has so many more layers. The entwining of the story, some history of social attitudes during the victorian era, and even some gentle humour make the whole experience a delicious feast that infuses with the sights and aromas of victorian rural England
If you have even the least interest in the victorian era, read this book. The narration is great too. Overall I award this book the the ultimate prize ...... 3 chocolate fish.
"Metafiction meets realis"
Fowles' novel is spectacular and the reading does it justice. It is metafiction in the guise of realism. The narrator's entries into the text and the fascinating ending contrast and play with the "truth-telling" function of traditional realism.
I'm a regular audible listener, listening to books during walks, and I extended my walks to get some extra listening time on this one.
"Poor me...poor me :( Excruciatingly boring!"
Exceedingly slow and tedious. I hung on long enough to find out why the poor women is so haunted, 7 excruciating hours. With 10 and a half hours more to go...I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! The writing itself is good! But this one goes back to Audible.
"fowles is the man"
wish I could have verbigeration with Fowles. His reasoning and coordination of language is amazing.
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text:
To download this product, you'll need Garmin Express.
Go wide and arrive with nüvi 650. This widescreen personal travel assistant is packed with preloaded maps, GPS navigation capabilities and handy travel features including MP3 player, currency converter and more. Like the rest of the wide nüvi 600-series, its large touchscreen display puts the world at your fingertips.
With nüvi 650's widescreen display, you'll always get the big picture. View map detail, driving directions, photos and more in bright, brilliant color. Its sunlight-readable, 4.3-inch display is easy to read — from any direction.
nüvi 650 comes ready to go right out of the box with preloaded City Navigator® NT street maps, including a hefty points of interest (POIs) database with hotels, restaurants, fuel, ATMs and more. Simply touch the color screen to enter a destination, and nüvi takes you there with 2-D or 3-D maps and turn-by-turn voice directions. It even announces the name of exits and streets so you never have to take your eyes off the road. In addition, nüvi 650 accepts custom points of interest, such as school zones and safety cameras and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs. The European version even includes a preloaded safety camera database containing locations of safety cameras for parts of Europe.
Like the rest of the nüvi series, nüvi 650 sports a sleek, slim design and slips comfortably in your pocket or purse. Its rechargeable lithium-ion battery makes it convenient for navigation by car or foot.
Navigation is just the beginning. nüvi 650 includes many "must have" entertainment and travel tools including MP3 player, audio book player (subscription to Audible.com required), JPEG picture viewer, currency converters and more. It's compatible with optional FM traffic alerts and it also comes with Garmin Lock™, an anti-theft feature. Enhance your travel experience with optional plug-in SD cards.
This USB mass storage device is compatible with Windows®
XP or newer and Mac® OS X 10.4 or later.
Package contents may vary per version. See your local dealer for more information.
Need maps for other regions? See all maps that are compatible with this device.
Update the maps that came with your device for the best navigation experience.
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text:
Edel Coffey reviews 'Wake' the debut novel by Anna Hope which is Published by Doubleday.
on Thursday's show, with Jim Lockhart....films reviews include Anton Corbijn's "Life", coping with the loss of a parent in "Mia Madre" and Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore in the drama "Miss You Already", poet and novelist Karl Parkinson and Bollywood comes to Ireland in the 6th Indian Film Festival
Donal Ryan reads from his novel 'The Thing About December' which is Published by Doubleday and Lilliput Press.
Eithne Shortall reviews the book 'Longbourn: Pride and Prejudice the Servants' Story by Jo Baker is published by Doubleday.
Declan Burke reviews Dan Brown's latest book 'Inferno' with Evelyn O'Rourke. The Publishers are Doubleday.
Life After Life is the latest offering from Kate Atkinson, She is the author of eight novels - four belong to a sort of crime series but the one she ...
RTÉ Gold on RTÉ Radio 1
The Weekend On One


text:
Chapter 7: Roots, Radicals, and Function Operations
Difficulty Level: At Grade Created by: CK-12
This chapter extends what we have learned about polynomials and exponents and applies those ideas to square root and cubed root functions. First, we will introduce rational exponents and simplify these expressions. We will also solve equations with radicals and rational exponents. Then, we switch gears a little and learn how to find the inverse of a function as well as how to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and compose them.
Chapter Outline
- 7.1.
Defining nth Roots
- 7.2.
Rational Exponents and Roots
- 7.3.
Applying the Laws of Exponents to Rational Exponents
- 7.4.
Graphing Square Root Functions
- 7.5.
Graphing Cubed Root Functions
- 7.6.
Extracting the Equation from a Graph
- 7.7.
Solving Simple Radical Equations
- 7.8.
Solving Radical Equations with Variables on Both Sides
- 7.9.
Solving Rational Exponent Equations
- 7.10.
Function Operations
- 7.11.
Inverse Functions
Chapter Summary
This chapter covers roots, radicals, and rational exponents. We will simplify expressions, graph, and solve equations with all of these types of operators. Lastly, we will learn how to find the composition of a function and the inverse of a function.
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text:
Contact us
General enquiries: 0845 481 5638
9:00am - 5:15pm Monday - Friday
How to help customers when they need you most
Joe is involved in an accident and has to make a claim
Just after they move into their new house Joe's injured in a car crash. It's not his fault and his new insurer sorts it out quickly.
But the driver who hit him has a history of similar crashes all across the country, so their claim will take a little longer to sort, whilst the insurer investigates.
The insurer needs to guard against fraudulent claims whilst they seek to recompense Joe as quickly as possible.


text:
Displays your archives as a compact list of years that expands when clicked.
This is something I hear a lot about in connection with the plugin, but it isn't the widget's fault. While the widget creates and hides the lists used, the colors and bullet shapes of the lists are set by your theme's stylesheet. Your theme probably doesn't have rules in its stylesheet to match the nested lists generated.
To test whether the problem is your theme, temporarily configure your blog to use another WordPress theme, such as the Twenty Ten or Twenty Eleven themes provided with WordPress. Expand and contract a few year links in the sidebar. If things don't look odd, the problem is probably with your theme.
If your WordPress theme supports widgets, you don't need to worry about the standalone function. You can stop reading now. Congratulations!
Unfortunately, some WordPress themes don't support widgets. If you are familiar with HTML though, the standalone Flexo Archives function exists to allow you to easily modify your theme to get the expanding archives list provided by the widget.
To use the standalone Flexo Archives function, install the plugin code as described in the first step of the installation instructions.
Next, enable the standalone function:
Finally, modify your theme to use the standalone function. Edit the PHP of your theme to add the following code where you want the archives list to appear:
<?php if (function_exists('flexo_standalone_archives')){flexo_standalone_archives();} ?>
The code will output the nested archive lists into the HTML at that point in the theme and automatically attach JavaScript to make the lists expand and contract.
Requires: 2.7 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.2.1
Last Updated: 5 years ago
Active Installs: 2,000+
Got something to say? Need help?


text:
Posting Policy
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse. Read more.
Trending on Liberty Alliance
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Money for Nothin'
Sharpton going to jail?
Obama Makes Announcement About Women Being Drafted
VIDEO: Trump Invites Execs and Anchors from the MSM to a Meeting. "It Was a F**King Firing Squad," One Source Said.
Trump's National Security Adviser: "Islam is a Political Ideology… Hides behind this Notion of it being a Religion"!
Clinton Aides Melt Down at Harvard Forum, Accuse Trump of Winning with White Supremacy
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Mark Wahlberg: Celebrities Should Shut Up About Politics, They Have NO IDEA How America Lives
Likely Next Leader of the Democrat Party just Praised Fidel Castro!
17 Vermont Towns Report Illegal Absentee Ballot Requests from Democratic Party


text: LAS VEGAS - They played "Credit Union Jeopardy" at the National Directors' Convention and the hilarious event pitting three CU executives in a version closely matching the popular TV show nearly brought down the house. Complete with the syncopated music and lit up toteboards, the three "contestants" appearing on stage at the Venetian Hotel/Casino included Theresa Mann, CEO of FDIC FCU in Washington; Thomas Glatt, EVP/COO of Portland Teachers CU in Oregon and Patrick Adams, EVP of St. Louis Community CU. It was a tossup who had the funniest lines but some of the questions were downright easy, like "Who is the NCUA Director whose term just ended?" or "Name the wealthy Boson businessman who founded the National Credit Union National Extension Bureau and has an institution named after him?" The answer, of course, to the first is Debbie Matz and the second Edward Filene. Some of the five categories in the NDC version were also slightly different from the TV counterpart: "CU History, In the News, Famous Names, Las Vegas and Camel." "I want to announce right now that I am not on steroids," declared Adams, who turned out the big winner after accumulating the most fake dollars during the hour-long Q&A session moderated by NDC Chairman Dennis Sullivan whose Rockville, Md. staff prepared the questions. Glatt, who at one point was closing in on Adams, countered that he was doing well now in the contest because,"I've taken steroids and still do to this day." The director audience also got into the fun egging on Adams, always a funnyman on the convention speaker circuit, to wager larger sums of his $4,000 in "winnings" for each question. Shunning the `go for it' taunts, Adams turned to the audience and replied "Look, I want you to know I don't like to gamble at the penny slots." And Glatt mocked his Cajun background saying he was ready to wager his winnings "to let the good times roll" and "like a Louisiana governor" bet sums which he did not have and were not on his toteboard. Mann, of the FDIC FCU and a July newlywed who came in third, was kidded about the whereabouts of her husband who was on a safari in Africa. Maybe the marriage "can still work out," joked Sullivan, the moderator. Mann, however, was the only one who answered the question right about which NCUA chairman proposed creating a Community Reinvestment Act for CUs. The answer: Norman D'Amours. One question that stumped all three: "Who is the Supreme Court justice who wrote the famous 1998 decision that briefly prevented credit unions from expanding." The answer: Clarence Thomas. But it was Adams who raised his arms in self cheers and high fives who got the most correct answers including under "Camel"-"What was a significant concern as Y2K got closer." Answer: "earnings." And "Delinquencies bankruptcies and investment performance all fall under this?" The answer: asset-liability quality. And when Adams answered correctly to groans from Glatt and the audience, "Who is a frequent speaker who served as the last NCUA chairman?" "Dennis Dollar," Glatt looked at Adams and fired back, "suck up" another remark that drew audience howls. The former NCUA chairman had two hours earlier given a featured speech to the 1,400 delegates in the hotel ballroom. One staffer with United Communications Group, sponsor of the directors convention, said "CU Jeopardy" was technically the most difficult to put on because of the flashing dollar signs and toteboards. "I sure hope the audience liked it," he said "because it was a lot of work." -email@example.com


text:
In Memoriam: Elizabeth Catlett Remembered
Barrington M. Salmon | 4/12/2012, 4:06 p.m.
Catlett received a Julius Rosenwald fellowship to study in Mexico in 1946, moved there and struck up a friendship with Rivera, and studied wood carving with Jose Ruiz and ceramic sculpture with Zuniga. It was there that she met her second husband, artist Francisco "Pancho" Mora, who she married in 1948. They had three boys, David, an artist; Juan, a filmmaker; and Francisco, a jazz musician.
Catlett was deeply influenced by her association with the Taller de Grafica Popular [The Peoples' Graphics Arts Workshop] whose defining principles included producing art of the highest quality, and creating art for the Mexican people. The group was dedicated to using its art to effect social change.
Catlett was an influential figure in the Black Arts and Civil Rights movements, and lived through just about every notable artistic and social movement in the last century, and she moved in some illustrious circles that included formidable artist Jacob Lawrence, black poet laureate Langston Hughes and singer, actor and civil rights icon Paul Robeson.
Catlett was never deterred by the wider society's attempts to corral her because of her sex and color.
For example, she recalled an incident in a 2003 Sculpture Magazine interview that crystallized her resistance.
"When I was teaching at Dillard University in New Orleans [1940-42], African Americans were not allowed into City Park, which was the site of the Delgado Museum. When they showed a Picasso retrospective I had seen at the Art Institute of Chicago, I wanted my students to see it. I had an art history class of about 130 students and had nothing to give them, except some old black and white slides of Greek and Roman art."
"You can imagine how it was. Suddenly with this exhibition I had an opportunity to talk to these students about what art is. An art educator at Sophie Newcomb College helped me. We went in a bus from the school. When we got out, we went into the museum on a Monday, when it was closed. Someone was waiting for us, beside Guernica. He talked to them about having an open mind and told them a little bit about Picasso, why he painted the mural, that it was Picasso's feeling about what was going on in Spain, about the Civil War. These sophomore students who'd never been in an art museum were running around, they were so excited. They were running from one room to the other and yelling, 'Come over here, see the woman in the mirror. Look at this hat.' For me, it was very emotional to see their reaction."
Catlett made a name for herself for her commitment to securing greater rights for workers, blacks and women in the United States and Mexico. Because she was arrested during a railroad workers' protest in Mexico City in 1958, the U.S. Department of State decided in 1962 to ban her from returning to the United States for nearly a decade because of her political affiliations.
Catlett secured Mexican citizenship in 1962.