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By Amy Kaufman
Los Angeles Times (MCT)

LOS ANGELES — The "Star Trek" movie series has lived long at the box office. But is it time for Capt. Kirk and Spock to really prosper?

"Star Trek Into Darkness," the second J.J. Abrams-directed installment in the science-fiction franchise, debuted in a handful of theaters late Wednesday and has since collected $3.3 million, according to an estimate from distributor Paramount Pictures. The movie launched at 8 p.m. in 336 Imax locations, because 30 minutes of the film were shot on Imax cameras.

The picture was expected to rake in about $20 million by the end of Thursday. By Sunday, those who have seen pre-release audience surveys say, "Into Darkness" is likely to have grossed a healthy sum of about $100 million.

That means that after two weeks at No. 1, "Iron Man 3" will drop to the runner-up position. No other new films are hitting multiplexes, though "The Great Gatsby" is likely to have legs during its second weekend of release. Fortunately for Paramount, "Into Darkness" is attracting the most interest among older male moviegoers — not the most popular demographic for "Gatsby."

It will prove difficult to compare the opening of "Into Darkness" with the launch of Abrams' 2009 "Star Trek," because the latter debuted at 7 p.m. on a Thursday. By weekend's end — including those additional evening showings Thursday — the movie had sold $79.2 million worth of tickets. If projections are correct, the sequel will make slightly more than that during the same time period.

But Paramount has more at stake with "Into Darkness." The studio and co-financier Skydance Productions spent $190 million to make the new film, which is at least $40 million more than was spent on the last one. The movie's budget was so much higher because unlike the 2009 film, "Into Darkness" was converted to 3-D in post-production.

Because the original made only 33 percent of its $385.7 million global gross overseas, Paramount is also paying more to promote "Into Darkness" abroad. The studio has said it increased the sequel's international marketing budget 35 percent from the first film, and rolled out the red carpet for the movie in seven countries.

Early international returns indicate that those efforts may be paying off. Last weekend, Paramount opened its latest "Trek" in seven foreign markets, including Britain, Mexico and Germany. In those countries, the sequel made about 70 percent more than the previous version did four years ago.

As of Wednesday, the current movie's international gross stood at $40 million. This weekend, the film will debut in an additional 33 new markets — the biggest being Russia.

"Into Darkness" has Chris Pine reprising his role as Kirk, who has lost command of the Enterprise after disobeying orders yet again. Along with Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana), he tries to prevent an invincible soldier (Benedict Cumberbatch) from helping start an intergalactic war.

Abrams' first "Trek" received almost unanimously positive response from critics, notching a 95 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The sequel has also been well received, but on Thursday lagged behind the first, with an 87 percent score.

(c)2013 Los Angeles Times
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From Wikipedia:
Lisa Fonssagrives (May 17, 1911 – February 4, 1992), born Lisa Birgitta Bernstone was a Swedish fashion model widely credited as the first supermodel.

Fonssagrives was born in Sweden (variously reported as Gothenburg or Uddevalla) and raised in Uddevalla. As a child, she took up painting, sculpting and dancing. She went to Mary Wigman's school in Berlin and studied art and dance. After returning to Sweden, she opened a dance school. She moved from Sweden to Paris to train for ballet (after participating with choreographer Astrid Malmborg in an international competition) and worked as a private dance teacher with Fernand Fonssagrives, which then led to a modeling career, and she would say that modeling was "still dancing".

Learn more about Lisa Fonssagrives, free from Vogue.com.
While in Paris in 1936, photographer Willy Maywald discovered her in an elevator and asked her to model hats for him. The photographs were then sent to Vogue, and Vogue photographer Horst took some test photographs of her.

Before Fonssagrives came to the United States in 1939, she was already a top model. Her image appeared on the cover of many magazines during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, including Town & Country, Life, Time, Vogue, and the original Vanity Fair. She was reported as "the highest paid, highest praised, high fashion model in the business".Fonssagrives once described herself as a "good clothes hanger".

She worked with fashion photographers including George Hoyningen-Huene, Man Ray, Horst, Erwin Blumenfeld, George Platt Lynes, Richard Avedon, and Edgar de Evia. She married Parisian photographer Fernand Fonssagrives in 1935; they divorced and she later married another photographer, Irving Penn, in 1950. She went on to become a sculptor in the 1960s and was represented by the Marlborough Gallery in Manhattan.

Fonssagrives died, aged 80, in New York, survived by her second husband, Irving Penn and her two children: her daughter Mia Fonssagrives-Solow, a costume designer, and her son, Tom Penn, a designer.

The Elton John photography collection auction held by Christie's on October 15, 2004 sold a 1950 Irving Penn photograph of his wife, Lisa Fonssagrives, for $57,360.]]> In Quotes xml-rss2.php?itemid=8934 Fri, 17 May 2013 08:43:30 -0700 xml-rss2.php?itemid=8932
By Rick Montgomery
The Kansas City Star (MCT)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A University of Kansas freshman took a break from shooting hoops with friends outside his dormitory to talk about what some students call "study pills."

As final exams approached last semester, he took a couple doses of a prescribed stimulant called Adderall. "But all they did was make me feel nervous," said the chemical engineering major. "I'm off of it now."

He still has a vial of leftover pills he used for his attention issues in high school. And that's why he asked that his name not appear in this article: He didn't want to be pressed by dormmates to supply them with an illegal focus boost for upcoming finals.
The controlled stimulants that many college students seek, if only for a momentary edge, carry familiar brand names such as Adderall, Vyvanse, Focalin and Ritalin. They're all standard drugs for treating attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, often successfully.

Their misuse, however, is thought to be on the rise at campuses nationwide _ creating a potentially serious health hazard and trips to the emergency room for students not diagnosed for ADHD.

The extent of the problem is anyone's guess. Because of what experts consider a lack of reliable research, illicit dealing of ADHD drugs either is infrequent on campus or something so commonplace as to be the college crowd's best-kept secret.
"The only people who don't know about it are the parents," said University of Kentucky communications professor Alan D. DeSantis. "I'm sure the majority of my students will be using Adderall at some time during finals week. It's really built into the climate and culture of today's college life."

DeSantis has analyzed several years' worth of surveys of Kentucky undergraduates to conclude that at least one-third of the student body has taken ADHD medication without prescriptions. Another 8 percent use the drugs legally under a doctor's supervision, he said, and half of them provide pills to other students.

The incidence of use appears to be higher among Kentucky seniors and juniors than for younger students, DeSantis added.

Assessing a variety of surveys, a 2008 study published in the Journal of American Child Adolescent Psychiatry offered a not-so-precise range of 5 percent to 35 percent of college-aged people taking attention-deficit stimulants not prescribed for them.

A University of Missouri survey found a usage rate in between.

About 12 percent in a sample of Mizzou students admitted to using controlled stimulants or painkillers, prescribed or illegally, said Kim Dude, director of the University of Missouri's Wellness Resource Center. "Eighty-five percent of the students don't use any of that."

But she does agree with the KU freshman don't let on if you've got attention-deficit pills.

"We urge students and their parents from the start: Don't tell anybody," Dude said. "They'll run into peer pressure to sell it or give it away" to other students.

This month, data-miners at Brigham Young University issued a study that tracked Twitter references to study pills.

Searching keywords such as "Adderall," "college" and "cramming" over a six-month period, lead researcher Carl Hanson allowed, "We don't have all the answers" on the frequency of legal use or abuse. But the study did conclude that tweets about the drug were heaviest among students in the U.S. Northeast and South, and lightest among students in the Plains and Southwestern states (including California).

Also, the report summary stated, "Tweets about Adderall peak sharply during final exam periods."

Said Hanson: "I'm concerned about the social norm-ing thing. If students perceive (taking stimulant medication) as normal because it's talked about and tweeted a lot, they'll take the risk."

Katharine Beach became addicted when she was a KU student.

"It's sad how many doctors would fill prescriptions for me," said Beach, 26 and now clean.

Diagnosed with attention deficit disorder when she was 18, the medication at first helped her focus and stay awake to study. But after she started drinking heavily, Beach chose to give up booze and find a new fix.

"It's called cross-addiction," said Beach, who graduated last year with a degree in applied behavioral science.

Student health services at KU required her to jump through too many hoops before filling prescriptions. ("They're onto students who want something quick," she said.) So relying upon private medical clinics in Lawrence, Kansas City and her psychiatrist in Colorado, Beach procured five times the recommended dosage of Adderall to keep her buzzing.

"Everyone around me knew I didn't drink anymore ... but (that) something else was going on," she said. "I'm positive I would've switched to cocaine or maybe meth down the road."

Her health insurance carrier got wise and stopped funding her prescriptions. Her parents caught on after Beach maxed out their credit card. She entered treatment and works today at a University of Colorado rehabilitation center, helping addicts.

Millions of Americans have taken prescribed ADHD medication — often intermittently — without experiencing negative side effects. But an under-30 generation raised on the practice might not be aware of the dangers of taking even modest dosages without a thorough diagnosis, said psychiatrist Tahir Rahman of the MU School of Medicine.

"If you're depressive or have bipolar disorder, taking a drug such as Adderall could be throwing gasoline on a fire," Rahman said.

Nationwide, the number of emergency room visits related to abuse of ADHD drugs rose to 31,224 in 2010 –– more than double the number recorded five years earlier, according to a federal report released in January.

Such ER visits by people ages 18 to 25 nearly quadrupled in that time, the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Association reported.

It is not known how many of those patients were college students.

"I hear students talk about it all the time," said Kate Baxendale, a junior studying journalism at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She and another student wrote about the problem in the university newspaper after agreeing to not identify stimulant users by name.

Baxendale has never taken Adderall, she said, but others in her dorm have sold it. "At a time like this (finals week), they can sell for $20 a pill," she said. The sellers ration their prescribed medication because they need some for themselves.

The university's health services do not have medical doctors to prescribe controlled stimulants, so students taking them must get the drugs elsewhere.

Colleges around the country are tightening their procedures to limit student access to stimulant medicine.

"Some campuses have outright stopped prescribing stimulants," said Stacy Andes of the American College Health Association. Others, including KU, require students to present copies of at least two diagnostic tests given by doctors or mental-health professionals.

The drugs easily can be obtained off campus in most college towns, said DeSantis of the University of Kentucky. A clinic or family practitioner may ask patients to fill out a questionnaire that asks if they have trouble focusing or completing assignments.

"For the most part, students (seeking medication) know how to answer those questions," DeSantis said.

Downing Adderall to perform better on tests raises questions beyond medical ones: Is it the educational equivalent of using steroids to cheat in sports? Are students who choose not to use stimulants, or those who can't afford them, chasing degrees at an unfair disadvantage?

Psychiatrists debate whether the drugs do much at all to help people not diagnosed with ADHD, other than to keep them awake so they can cram for tests.
Girding up for finals in a library study room at UMKC, Govinda Koirala wrinkled his nose when asked if he would ever consider a pharmaceutical boost.

"I drink coffee," said the junior studying mechanical engineering. "And the latest I stay up studying is 11:30" p.m.

His secret to academic success? "Just relax. Sleep well. Do what's good for your mind."

Must work. Koirala is pulling a 3.91 grade-point average.

(c)2013 The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Mo.)
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By Mikael Wood
Los Angeles Times (MCT)

LOS ANGELES — Wednesday night in New York, will.i.am — the founder and frontman of Black Eyed Peas — received an honorary Clio Award in recognition of "the work and talent of those who push the boundaries of creativity in advertising and beyond," according to a release from the ad-business group that presents the awards.

The prize certainly says something about his expansive skill set and his impressive trajectory. Over the last two decades the 38-year-old polymath born William Adams has transitioned from the West Coast hip-hop underground to a kind of global omnipresence rarely seen in music. His manager, Adam Leber, calls will.i.am "an industry," and he's not overstating it by much.

Will.i.am has voiced characters in the animated films "Rio" and "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa." He serves as a judge on the British edition of "The Voice." And he's involved in a number of disparate political, philanthropic and high-tech initiatives.

Then there's his music: relentlessly upbeat Black Eyed Peas megahits such as "I Gotta Feeling," solo albums like the just-released "#willpower" and tracks he's written and produced for artists such as Usher and Britney Spears. Insistently melodic and big of beat, his sound is universal, literally. When NASA wanted a song to mark its Curiosity rover's Mars landing last summer, the agency enlisted will.i.am, whose "Reach for the Stars" was beamed back to Earth from the Red Planet.

"I just always wanna be working on something, whether it's a car, a song, a concept for a company, a video, glasses, a freakin' hat that turns on your appliances when you go in your house," will.i.am said last week at a West Hollywood studio, where he was hunkered down behind a mixing console while several of his handlers made arrangements regarding a charter jet. "I wanna be down with the people that know how to do that stuff and contribute to bringing it to life."

He laughed. "'We bring good things to life.' Remember that commercial?"
"Advertising," "industry," "commercial" — all are words cool-obsessed pop stars once avoided the way listeners seem to be avoiding "#willpower."

This month the album debuted at No. 9 with sales of just 29,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, well behind blockbusters by Michael Buble and Justin Timberlake, not to mention seemingly smaller-scale projects from Phoenix and Rob Zombie. And though the Britney Spears-equipped single "Scream & Shout" is undeniably big at radio — the reason, no doubt, will.i.am performed Saturday at L.A. Top 40 station KIIS-FM's Wango Tango concert — the song took an unusually long time to become a hit.

The disc's follow-up single, "#thatPOWER" featuring Justin Bieber, sits at No. 19 on the Hot 100, down two spots from the week before.

Interscope Records President John Janick said he isn't worried by the relatively soft numbers, insisting that the label's marketing plan resembles a "marathon," with "a bunch of hit singles" it'll roll out over the next 18 months. ("#willpower" contains further collaborations with Miley Cyrus, Afrojack and Chris Brown, among others.)

Yet the muted response suggests that will.i.am is no longer seen as a musician first but as, well, what exactly? A cultural ambassador? A brand synergist? A "maker," the term he uses to describe himself? Whatever the case, four years after the Black Eyed Peas' world-conquering "The E.N.D.," will.i.am's multi-platforming seems to be overshadowing his primary occupation.

That's too bad, because "#willpower" reflects an appetite for variety and experimentation more robust than many stars'. "Scream & Shout" is a lean club jam with hard-edged synths and an imperious vocal by Spears, who for some appealing reason adopts a fake English accent. "Hello" marries a sing-song melody to a whooshing stadium-rave beat.

And "Freshy," a duet with the Memphis MC Juicy J, demonstrates will.i.am's enduring flair for the kind of gritty street rap he's widely thought to have left behind.

"The guy's mind is just turned on," said Dr. Luke, the serial hitmaker who worked with will.i.am on "Fall Down," a sleek pop tune featuring Cyrus. "I don't think there's a polka song on there, but even that wouldn't surprise me."
(END OPTIONAL TRIM)

Of the album's breadth, will.i.am said, "I have to have songs for everywhere my tentacles reach." That means that in addition to the dance cuts, "#willpower" features several quieter, more introspective songs he said he wrote with the idea that they might impress the man he referred to as his hero, Quincy Jones.

For one of them, a delicate acoustic number called "Smile Mona Lisa," will.i.am requested (and received) special after-hours access to the Louvre, where he recorded a live guitarist next to Da Vinci's painting. "I figured if I can do (the guitar part) on my laptop and make it sound the same, I (should) make it worth my while to go record a human somewhere," he said.

The idea, as elaborate and ambitious as it is likely to go unnoticed, reflects the dedication with which will.i.am pursues his various interests. If it's true that he's doing too much right now — that he's at risk of venturing off-message, as one of his marketing cohorts might put it — at least he can't be accused of going halfway.

He may not even mind the decreasing interest in his music. Asked what he admires about Jones, will.i.am didn't single out a song or an album. "It's the fact that when you think of Quincy Jones, you go, 'Wow, so-and-so wouldn't have happened without him,'" he said. "When I'm 80, that's what I want people to say about me."

(c)2013 Los Angeles Times
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From Wikipedia:
Edward Twitchell Hall, Jr. (May 16, 1914 – July 20, 2009) was an American anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher. He is remembered for developing the concept of Proxemics, a description of how people behave and react in different types of culturally defined personal space. Hall was an influential colleague of Marshall McLuhan and Buckminster Fuller.

Born in Webster Groves, Missouri, Hall taught at the University of Denver, Colorado, Bennington College in Vermont, Harvard Business School, Illinois Institute of Technology, Northwestern University in Illinois and others. The foundation for his lifelong research on cultural perceptions of space was laid during World War II, when he served in the U.S. Army in Europe and the Philippines.

Read a review of Edward T. Hall's The Silent Language, free from the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
From 1933 through 1937, Hall lived and worked with the Navajo and the Hopi on native American reservations in northwestern Arizona, the subject of his autobiographical West of the Thirties. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1942 and continued with field work and direct experience throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. During the 1950s he worked for the United States State Department, at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), teaching inter-cultural communications skills to foreign service personnel, developed the concept of "High context culture" and "low context culture", and wrote several popular practical books on dealing with cross-cultural issues. He is considered a founding father of intercultural communication as an academic area of study.

Throughout his career, Hall introduced a number of new concepts, including proxemics, polychronic and monochronic time, and high and low context culture. In his second book, The Hidden Dimension, he describes the culturally specific temporal and spatial dimensions that surround each of us, such as the physical distances people maintain in different contexts.

In The Silent Language (1959), Hall coined the term polychronic to describe the ability to attend to multiple events simultaneously, as opposed to "monochronic" individuals and cultures who tend to handle events sequentially.

In 1976, he released his third book, Beyond Culture, which is notable for having developed the idea of extension transference; that is, that humanity's rate of evolution has and does increase as a consequence of its creations, that we evolve as much through our "extensions" as through our biology. However, with extensions such as the wheel, cultural values, and warfare being technology based, they are capable of much faster adaptation than genetics.

He died at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico on July 20, 2009.

Influence
According to Nina Brown, the work of Hall was so groundbreaking that it created a multitude of other areas for research. One of the most widely sought after topics of anthropology is an idea that was first introduced by Edward Hall; Anthropology of Space. Brown goes on to mention that Anthropology of Space has essentially opened the door to dozens of new topics.

Along with influencing the Anthropology of Space, Hall also did substantial research on intercultural communication. For example, Hall based a large amount of his research on the Chilean culture and how they interact in a High context culture as opposed to a Low context culture used in the United States.

Robert Shuter, a well-known intercultural and cross-cultural communication researcher, commented: "Edward Hall's research reflects the regimen and passion of an anthropologist: a deep regard for culture explored principally by descriptive, qualitative methods.... The challenge for intercultural communication... is to develop a research direction and teaching agenda that returns culture to preeminence and reflects the roots of the field as represented in Edward Hall's early research."]]> In Quotes xml-rss2.php?itemid=8928 Thu, 16 May 2013 08:57:19 -0700 xml-rss2.php?itemid=8926
ACTIVITIES
The Logan Health Center presents, The Health Fair! Swing by Colt Court May 23rd during both lunches for music, games and prizes all for free.

Logan Drama presents: 24th Annual Festival of One-act Plays. Six student directed shows, all presented with ASL interpretation. Saturday, May 18, 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. in the Little Theater. Tickets are $5 and $7.

CLASS (Seniors, Juniors, Sophomores, Freshman)
SENIORS if you have not finished paying for grad night and still wish to go, see Ms. Walton ASAP for further details.

Seniors: If you have won a scholarship other than one from the New Haven Schools Foundation, please let Mrs. Hart in the Career Center or Ms. Dutra in House 1 now by filling out the red “WOO-HOO” form by May 15th. 90% of the time students receive scholarships and awards from outside sources the school is not notified, so the only way we find out is by your sharing. These are good and happy things to celebrate and we very much want to include ALL your accomplishments in this year's Honors Convocation on June 6th. So please don't be shy about sharing!

Senior Picnic tickets are being sold everyday at lunch in the Main Office. Tickets are $20. All seniors going must have a permission slip on file. If you purchased the Senior Package you still must go to the window to get the slip and ticket.

Attention freshmen through juniors, Class Election packets are available in room 67 if you are interested in being a Class Officer next year. Elections will begin next week. Act fast!


MISCELLANEOUS
Still interested in Grad Night or want to sell your already reserved spot, please see Ms. Walton for further information.

Summer school applications are available in House Offices. If you have failed a class or need to make up credit, take this opportunity to get back on track! Completed forms must be turned into counselors by May 10th, but don't wait until the last minute.

From now on, Yearbooks will be sold in Room 67 after school only. Yearbooks are $85 w/ASB and $95 w/out ASB.

Need Driver’s Ed? There will be two sessions this summer at the Adult School. The first session is June 17, 18 & 19. The second session is July 29, 30 & 31. Cost is $125. Applications are now available in your house office, or see Mr. Caruso in Room 77 for an application or details.

Reminder that JUNE 1st is the LAST SAT test this school year. Juniors who have not taken the SAT- register for the June test. To help you prepare, take the FREE SAT/ACT Combo Test at the Union City Library for Sat. 5/18. Students will receive their results by 5/22.To enroll, go to www.kaptest.com/enroll/SAT/94501/events or www.aclibrary.org/branches/ucy/ or call 745-1464.

Yearbooks are still on sale. Prices are $85 w/ASB and $95 w/out ASB. You can still purchase books online as well until June 1st. Books will arrive the end of May. If book is purchased after they arrive, they will be $100. No checks will be accepted on campus for payments. Must be cash or money order only.

Powder Puff rally and game is this Friday. Rally will be at lunch in the Pavilion and the game is Friday night at 7pm. Tailgate party starts at 5. Cost of the game is $5. Who will win?]]> Daily Bulletin xml-rss2.php?itemid=8926 Wed, 15 May 2013 11:33:01 -0700 xml-rss2.php?itemid=8925
By David L. Ulin
Los Angeles Times (MCT)

When researchers from England's University of Reading recently announced they had discovered 23 "ultraconserved" words — words, that is, which appear to have come down from an ancestral language 15,000 years old — I couldn't help thinking of John D'Agata and his 2010 book "About a Mountain."

There, D'Agata writes of the difficulty in establishing an adequate warning system for Nevada's Yucca Mountain, where nuclear waste will be stored (theoretically, anyway) for 10,000 years. Who knows, he wonders, what language then will sound like? Will there be any common markers, any way to talk to each other over such a span of time?

Language, after all, is in a constant state of evolution: Words and usage change, dialects go extinct. In a landscape this conditional, D'Agata argues, the only thing we know is that we know nothing; past and future are a void across which communication is fleeting when it is possible at all.

The Reading findings point to another conclusion, which is that certain core words, core concepts, have always been with us, that they are the building blocks of not just language but also society. In that sense, the 23 words are instructive, both for how simple they are and also how resonant: blunt, unadorned words, concrete, descriptive but able to encompass more abstract relationships as well.

Here is the list: thou, I, not, that, we, to give, who, this, what, man/male, ye, old, mother, to hear, hand, fire, to pull, black, to flow, bark, ashes, to spit, worm. What's interesting is that so many of these words have to do with direct engagement — I, thou, we, ye — the language of a back-and-forth. This suggests that, even 15,000 years ago, we were already using language for negotiation, as a way to bridge the differences between us, to think about (and build?) community.

Some words seem obvious and elemental: fire, hand, give, mother, man. Others are more surprising on the surface. "Spit" is one of those great words that can express an action or an emotion; we spit to get rid of a bitter taste. And "worm," which is in actuality the most universal — it is the common fate of every one of us to be eaten by the creatures it represents.

I don't know whether that's what our linguistic ancestors had in mind, but looking at this list, I feel a kind of kinship, at the level of our shared humanity. 15,000 years is a long time — far longer than both the 10,000-year communication gap at Yucca Mountain and also what was previously thought to be the lifespan of a language (9,000 years or so) — but not long enough, apparently, to sever us from the core connection, the words that give shape to who we are.

(c)2013 Los Angeles Times
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By Sohabe Mojaddidy, Courier Staff Writer
The affinity between religious tradition and the educational sector in the United States, for the most part, has been determined by the teachings of Judea Christian philosophy. For years, and even in our contemporary age, religious ideology has played a significant role in constructing our national teaching agenda. When this agenda has been threatened, perverse consequences have surfaced. For instance in 1844, massive protests were staged throughout the nation centering on a growing level of anti catholic sentiment.

As thousands of Irish Catholics emmigrated to the united states due to the potato famine, Protestant Americans feared the catholic bible would replace the traditional bible in the public schools. As a result not only was the stability of our country threatened but hundreds of people were killed over such matters. Clearly, history has shown us the profound effect religion has played in shaping the social fabric of the United States. Through much of the Midwest, the bible along with creationism, which asserts all humans as being created by a God, is still consistently taught. Students are led to believe human existence is a product of divine creation. Thus, physics and the natural laws of science are not being taught as rigorously to a considerable amount of American school children. But in an age where one third of Americans under the air of 30 do not associate themselves with a particular brand of faith, the role of religion is being reexamined.

Initially, religion was adamantly taught in the public school system because it was seen as a way to develop a child's moral system and values. In fact these values have crept their way into our law making process. Without effective legislation to address complex social issues such as gay marriage, abortion, and a host of others, we as American citizens are privy to the value systems religion embodies. Nevertheless, here at James Logan high school, we are blessed to be a part of an atmosphere that embraces a plethora of different faith systems. They include Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and even Atheism. These proverbial religions expressed by a multitude of students, has made it infeasible to enforce one monolithic faith system as the epicenter of our curriculum. However although religion does not seemingly appear in the public atmosphere it still holds an indelible impact on the private lives of many students. Ravneet Kapoor, senior here at JLHS explains, “Religion serves as a source of motivation in times of despair.” John Wong, also a senior at JLHS states, "Although I respect the efficacy of religious tradition, it doesn’t play a crucial role in my life.” Elijah Stevenson, junior at JLHS, expressed a sense of optimism about a more secularized educational setting. He states “The lack of a single religious ideology pervading over others, has engendered an environment where toleration is prioritized over religious division.”
Nonetheless, the decreasing influence of religion in our school system and nation as a whole carries a favorable possibility of distorting America’s moral psyche. As our culture becomes one based on consumerism, how will these unprecedented influences shape the intracacies of our ethical dimensions? But the underlying causes behind the loss of religious participation vary. Neil postman, Pulitzer prize winning author argues that he rise of television, popular media, and access to unlimited amounts of information through the internet, has psychologically crippled our ability to rely on more sophisticated forms of consciousness, yet alone one predicated on spirituality. Dr. Tommie Lindsey Jr., award winning forensics coach, explains how our youth no longer feel morally culpable for their actions. This process of eschatological degeneration has lessened the fear of god and his hegemony. But as students participating in a liberal atmosphere, it's imperative to remember an imminent burden lies ahead of us. In a world where sectarian violence and religious strife has become the norm, our coexisting religious environment should serve as a microcosm for a much greater global goal. As an international community we still have to make significant strides insofar as religious toleration. The skills we've gained here at our respective educational institution are indicative of the common destiny we all share. Regardless of what divine epithet we give credence to, the recognition of other valid belief systems is a greater accomplishment.

The zenith of Abrahamic philosophy lies in the golden rule: "Treat others the way you want to be treated, or “love thy neighbor like thyself.” This simple expression of love is something we as students ought to replicate. This pedagogic method should be used in addressing the freighting rates of mental depression in the United States. Spiritual solace and comfort can aid us as a nation in overcoming the daunting internal trauma we all face. Whether that spirituality requires affirming religious creed or simply recognizing the common humanity and intrinsic bonds we all share, it mustn’t be ignored.

If we choose to secularize our educational system, we can at least take heed to the general principles of empathy, kindness, and love. In doing so, hopefully our respective religious traditions can flourish in a seemingly celestial and prosperous setting.
]]> Opinion xml-rss2.php?itemid=8924 Wed, 15 May 2013 11:14:21 -0700 xml-rss2.php?itemid=8922

From Wikipedia:
Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 – September 18, 1980) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist. Her 1962 novel Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel in America that year, but her short stories received much more critical acclaim. She is known for her penetrating insight; her work deals with dark themes such as betrayal, death and the origin of human evil. In 1990, Recorded Texas Historic Landmark number 2905 was placed in Brown County, Texas to honor the life and career of Porter.

Read an interview with Katherine Anne Porter.Katherine Anne Porter, born as Callie Russell Porter in Indian Creek, Texas, was the fourth of five children of Harrison Boone Porter and Alice (Jones) Porter. Her family tree can be traced back to American frontiersman Daniel Boone, and O. Henry was her father's second cousin.

Porter's childhood home in Kyle was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

In 1892, when Porter was two years old, Porter's mother died two months after giving birth to her last child. Porter's father took his four surviving children (an older brother had died in infancy) to live with his mother, Catherine Ann Porter, in Kyle, Texas. The depth of her grandmother's influence can be inferred from Porter's later adoption of her name. Her grandmother died while taking eleven-year-old Callie to visit relatives in Marfa, Texas.

After her grandmother's death, the family lived in several towns in Texas and Louisiana, staying with relatives or living in rented rooms. She was enrolled in free schools wherever the family was living, and for a year in 1904 she attended the Thomas School, a private Methodist school in San Antonio, Texas. This was her only formal education beyond grammar school.

In 1906, at age sixteen, Porter left home and married John Henry Koontz, in Lufkin, Texas the son of a wealthy Texas ranching family, and subsequently converted to Koontz's religion, Roman Catholicism. Koontz was physically abusive; once while drunk, he threw her down the stairs, breaking her ankle. They divorced officially in 1915.

In 1914 she escaped to Chicago, where she worked briefly as an extra in movies. She then returned to Texas and worked the small town circuit as an actress and singer. In 1915, she asked that her name be changed to Katherine Anne Porter as part of her divorce decree.

Also in 1915, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent the following two years in sanatoria, where she decided to become a writer. It was discovered during that time, however, that she had bronchitis, not TB. In 1917, she began writing for the Fort Worth Critic, critiquing dramas, and writing society gossip. In 1918, she wrote for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado. In the same year, Katherine almost died in Denver during the 1918 flu pandemic. When she was discharged from the hospital months later, she was frail and completely bald. When her hair finally grew back, it was white, and remained that color for the rest of her life. Her experiences during treatment provided the background for her long story Pale Horse, Pale Rider.

In 1919, Porter moved to Greenwich Village in New York City and made her living ghost writing, writing children's stories and doing publicity work for a motion picture company. The year in New York City had a politically radicalizing effect on her, and in 1920, she went to work for a magazine publisher in Mexico, where she became acquainted with members of the Mexican leftist movement, including Diego Rivera. Eventually, however, Porter became disillusioned with the revolutionary movement and its leaders. But in the 1920s she also became intensely critical of religion and remained so until the last decade of her life when she again embraced the Roman Catholic Church.

Between 1920 and 1930, Porter traveled back and forth between Mexico and New York City and began publishing short stories and essays. Her first published story was "Maria Concepcion" in The Century Magazine. In his novel "Providence Island" Calder Willingham has the character Jim fantasize a perfect lover and he calls her Maria Concepcion Diaz. In 1930, she published her first short story collection, Flowering Judas and Other Stories. An expanded edition of this collection was published in 1935 and received such critical acclaim that it alone virtually assured her place in American literature.

In 1926, Porter married Ernest Stock and lived briefly in Connecticut before divorcing him in 1927. Some suggest that Porter suffered several miscarriages, at least one stillbirth between 1910 and 1926, and an abortion, and after contracting gonorrhea from Stock, that she had a hysterectomy in 1927, ending her hopes of ever having a child. Yet Porter's letters to her lovers suggest that she still intimated her menstruation after this supposed hysterectomy in 1927. As she once confided to a friend, "I have lost children in all the ways one can."

During the 1930s, 1940's, and 1950's, Porter enjoyed a high critical reputation as one of America's most distinguished writers but her limited output and equally limited sales had her living on grants and advances for most of the era.

During the 1930s, Porter spent several years in Europe during which she continued to publish short stories. In 1930, she married Eugene Pressley, a writer thirteen years her junior. In 1938, upon returning from Europe, she divorced Pressley and married Albert Russel Erskine, Jr., a graduate student who was twenty years younger. He reportedly divorced her in 1942 after discovering her real age. She told F. Armstrong Green (a brief amanuensis) that she married Hart Crane, who promptly committed suicide (Brewster Ghiselin wrote a poem called "The Ring" that is an allusion to the marriage-suicide) and that she had been married more times than anyone knew.

Between 1948 and 1958, Porter taught at Stanford University, the University of Michigan, Washington and Lee University, and the University of Texas, where her unconventional manner of teaching made her popular with students.

Three of Porter's stories were adapted into radio dramas on the program NBC University Theatre. "Noon Wine" was made into an hour drama in early 1948 and two years later "Flowering Judas" and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" each were produced in half-hour dramas on an episode of the hour long program. Porter herself made two appearances on the series giving critical commentary on works by Rebecca West and Virginia Woolf. She also occasionally appeared on television in the 1950s and 1960's on programs discussing literature.

Porter published her only novel, Ship of Fools in 1962. Its success finally gave her financial security (she reportedly sold the film rights for $500,000).

Despite Porter's claim that after the publication of Ship of Fools she would not win any more prizes in America, in 1966 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the U.S. National Book Award for The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, and that year was also appointed to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In 1977, Porter published The Never-Ending Wrong, an account of the notorious trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, which she had protested fifty years earlier.

Porter died in Silver Spring, Maryland on September 18, 1980, at the age of 90, and her ashes were buried next to her mother at Indian Creek Cemetery in Texas.]]> In Quotes xml-rss2.php?itemid=8922 Wed, 15 May 2013 07:47:33 -0700 xml-rss2.php?itemid=8920
That's a lot of trash
The amount of refuse, in pounds,
collected during a September 2012
coastal cleanup by Ocean Conservancy
volunteers in select states:
Alaska: 3,575
Washington: 3,152
California: 305,504
Texas: 305,562
Mississippi: 54,680
Florida: 452,913
Georgia: 369,104
South Carolina: 19,170
North Carolina: 409,189
Source: Ocean Conservancy

By Erika Bolstad
McClatchy Washington Bureau (MCT)

WASHINGTON — It's a beach bummer. Shorelines worldwide are clogged with trash, so much so that during their annual cleanup last year, volunteers with the Ocean Conservancy picked up refuse that weighed as much as 10 Boeing 747 jumbo jets.

Cigarettes, food packaging and plastic bottles topped the list from the 2012 cleanup. Debris from the Japanese tsunami and Hurricane Sandy also marred some U.S. beaches, the Ocean Conservancy, a non-profit group that works on ocean protection, reported Monday. Volunteers turned up some weird stuff, too: mattresses, candles, toothbrushes and sports balls.
More than 550,000 people picked up in excess of 10 million pounds of trash along 17,719 miles of international coastlines in September during the Ocean Conservancy's annual cleanup. Billed as the largest ocean-related volunteer effort in the world, the event spotlights just what sort of ocean trash washes up on beaches around the world and what can be done to scale back the refuse.
Every piece of trash affects the health of the ocean and as a result the economy, the environment and animal health, said Nicholas Mallos, Ocean Conservancy's marine debris specialist and a conservation biologist. Plastic debris has two risks, he said. There's an entrapment or strangulation risk to wildlife. But the longer plastics are in the ocean, the more likely they are to absorb other toxins, too.

"Plastics leach chemicals into the environment, but plastics also absorb chemicals from the environment," he said. "And certainly when animals — fish or other marine organisms — ingest those plastics, there's some accumulation of those toxins in their systems and as they move up the food chain."

There's also a real cleanup cost to coastal communities. In tourism-dependent beachfront destinations such as Myrtle Beach, S.C., having a pristine appearance is crucial to attracting visitors. In the summer months, the city mushrooms from 27,000 year-round residents to the biggest city in South Carolina.

Upward of 14 million tourists visit each year, and they're accompanied by tons of trash, said Mark Kruea, a spokesman for the city. Myrtle Beach spends about $1.1 million annually on trash pickup, which includes raking the beach for trash every morning.

"Because we welcome a lot of people, we want to make sure that we look good," he said. "As a result, we pick up a lot of trash."

There's also been a greater demand for recycling facilities in recent years, Kruea said. The city has had visitors from out of state say they've taken their crushed cans and cardboard home with them, because recycling isn't readily accessible at some vacation rentals. Recently, the city has been testing the use of recycling bins along a seven-block stretch of the beach.

Beaches in places like Alaska, with more than 44,000 miles of coastline, and much of it remote, face a separate challenge. Currents and winter storms bring significant debris to the state each year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There, the problem is more likely to be abandoned fishing equipment.

It's not enough just to pick up the trash, Mallos said. The Ocean Conservancy would like people to focus next on producing less waste before it even makes its way into the oceans. That means taking simple steps such as avoiding single-use products and embracing reusable water bottles, coffee mugs and grocery bags.

"By getting out there and removing everyday forms of trash from our beaches, and really systematically re-evaluating our daily lives and the choices we make," Mallos said, "we can keep trash from the beaches and ensure that in the face of future natural disasters, we have a more resilient ocean ecosystem."


(c)2013 McClatchy Washington Bureau
Visit the McClatchy Washington Bureau at www.mcclatchydc.com
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