Quarter 2 Post 4

Heath and Deborah Campbell tried to order a cake from a supermarket in new jersey and the store refused to put their 3 year old son's full name on the cake. They named their son Adolf Hitler Campbell. Heath wanted to name his kid that because he is german and because nobody else in the world would have that name. The supermarket says they have the right not to put stuff on a cake that they deem innapropriate and that in the past the couple had requested cakes with their sons name on it and one time they even asked for a swastika. Heath also wears a pair of black boots that were a german soldiers in world war II. He says that he would never raise his son to do what hitler did and that he was raised to think that people of other races are perfectly fine but not to mix with them socially or romantically and that he is going to raise his children better. They ended up getting the cake at a walmart and had 12 children for hitler's birthday and some of them were of other races. he says that if hes racist why would he have them in his home. all of his children have wierd names, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell turns 2 in a few months and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell will be 1 in April.


http://wcco.com/watercooler/Adolf.Hitler.Campbell.2.889356.html

Quarter 2 post 3

http://wcco.com/watercooler/australian.rower.rescue.2.886771.html

there was this guy from italy and he rows boats so he went to peru and tried to row all the way to Australia. he took 10 months rowing 9500 nautical miles across the pacific. when he was 65 nautical miles away from the coast of Laurieton, Australia. He lived off of dried foods and dessalinated ocean water. He had a small cooker to fry fish and boil water for pasta. He's not thef irst person to cross the pacific ocean in a rowboat by themselves. He also crossed the Meditarranean and atlantic. He was reallly close to australia when the weather started getting really bad. he used all of his energy fighting winds for a few days and then called his wife form his satellite phone telling her that he wasn't going to finish and he was done. She called the coast guard who went and got him. t hey towed him in to Newcastle where he reunited with his wife. He's not sure if his trip is the longest solo journey. He doesn't plan on going anywhere again soon. Right now he plans on going back home and relaxing.

quarter 2 post 2

Transworld Snowboarding
Interview with Zac Marben

Hyland Hills. Not the place you think of when you go to look for the next big snowboarder. But lately it seems like more and more you can show up at Hyland and see that guy from Transworld, right there in the park! Zac Marben grew up in Eden Prarie riding ice at hyland, now he's one of 12 riders featured in Transworld Snowboarding's Interview Issue. The 12 riders referred to as "a flood of fresh talent" and "a cross-section of that new blood and raw energy". It's nice to know that becoming a pro snowboarder isn't just something that happens to rich kids in the mountains anymore. Zac gets to travel all around the world, snowboarding year round. He doesn't like to ride at contests, so he films. To him his job is rarely a job. Occasionally he has to do some crazy trick or go somewhere he doesn't want to to get the right shot for the next video or photo. Zac not only gets paid for doing what he loves, he also learns a lot of life lessons. He says snowboardings taught him how to be patient, deal with dumb people, treat his friends, live his life. Stuff like that must be hard not to learn when your job depends on perfect weather, living with friends in close quarters for extended periods of time, and I'm sure there have been lots of cops that get mad at him for riding where he's not sposed to. Zac loves what he does because its an adventure and he never knows what's coming next.


Ashbury Introduces Zac Marben from Ashbury Eyewear on Vimeo.

Quarter 2 Post 1

13 Reasons Why
Jay Asher

This week I read 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher. It's about a boy named Clay Jensen. One day Clay came home from school and found a mysterious box on his doorstep. He opened it up and found a series of tapes. Recorded on the tapes was Hannah Baker's story. Each tape tells stories about why Hannah committed suicide. Once you get the tapes you have to pass them on to the next person talked about on the tape. Clay listens to each story, following a map that was also included in the package. He goes to each different place as Hannah talks about it. He goes through a variety of emotions, sadness, anger, guilt, and hate. Each story is one of Hannah's deepest secrets, something she never told anybody else about. They talk about her first kiss, a list of hot girls and not girls, her ex-bestfriend and her first party. As Clay listens he keeps feeling sicker and sicker, trying to think of what he did wrong. All he can think of is a party where he started to make out with Hannah, but she freaked out at him. When it finally gets to his tape, his story, he finds out he did nothing wrong. Hannah had included him to apologize. She wanted him to know why she killed herself, that it wasn't in any way his fault. Even after hearing this Clay still feels like he could have done something to help her. Even though he already heard his story he keeps listening, until he gets to their english teacher/social worker's tape. Hannah went to talk to him the day before she killed herself and talks about him as her last hope. As she went in she started recording so that the conversation would be saved. She tells him she's been thinking about committing suicide and he doesn't really do much about it. He talks about how that would be a bad idea, but when Hannah leaves he doesn't do anything. The next day Hannah didn't go to school. He found out she committed suicide and didn't show up to school for a couple weeks.

I really liked this boook. It's really suspensful. A lot of the stuff that Hannah talks about is stuff that happens to a lot of teenagers every day. It makes you think about the little things that you do. Hannah talks about her ex friend Courtney. About how she used her for a ride to a party where she was going to drink. Hannah then talks about how she should have seen it coming, Courtney always said hi to everybody and was always nice but she never said bye. As if some people weren't good enough for a good bye even though Courtney seemed to treat them like they were great friends. It helped me realize that a lot of the little things you don't really think about can have a major affect on somebody else's life.

Post 6

Caution, teens: Efforts to raise driving age ahead
http://www.startribune.com/local/28036944.html?elr=KArksUUUU

Lately there has been talk of raising the driving age to 17 or 18 years old. I think that this would be great. I am a teenager and I have talked to other teenagers that agree that 16 is too young to be getting a license. Right now most of my friends are either in the process of getting their license or have already gotten it and that’s scary. I don’t trust most of my friends driving a car. There are so many kids my age that aren’t mature enough to have the responsibility of having a drivers license and there’s even more that are just dumb and you know they will do stupid dangerous things. I think a lot of teens sort of have mixed feelings about getting their license at 16. It seems like the number of teens getting killed in car crashes is always increasing. I’m pretty sure that every one of my friends knows somebody that’s been killed in a car crash. At church last year Kelly Phillips died in a car crash. Everybody knew who she was because she was involved in so many different activities. I remember a conversation some of us had one night at hi-league right after Kelly died. We’d all already started drivers ed and we talked about how scared we were that we’d all be driving in about a year. The human brain isn’t anywhere near being fully developed at 16, there’s at least 4 more years til it is, and I think that putting adolescents in cars going 60 mph right next to other cars also going 60 mph is just dumb.

Post 5

Museum returns painting found to be Nazi loot
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27453827/

In 1961 the Minneapolis Institute of Art bought a painting called “Smoke Over Rooftops” painted in 1911 by Fernand Ledger. In 1977 the museum got a letter claiming that the painting really belonged to Alphonse Kann a Parisian art collector that died in 1948. The museum had to go through many files to find out if the painting had really once belonged to him. Investigators found out that after Kann fled to Paris after the war the Nazis took away most of his collection. They took so much that their inventory of it was 60 typed pages long. After the Nazis took it Galerie Leiris, a Paris art dealer, bought the painting at an auction in 1942 and then sold it to Buchholz Gallery. In 1951 Putnam Dana McMillan bought the painting in New York and gave it to the Art Institute in 1961. Once the museum found out the now 2.8 million dollar painting for sure belonged to Kann the returned it to Paris. Stuff like this has happened a lot between 1998 and 2006. The Association of Art Museum Directors says the 22 pieces have been identified as stolen by the Nazis and each one has either been returned or the owner and the museum have reached an agreement.

Post 4

Mille Lacs Band fraud claims multiply
Star Tribune- Twin Cities + West
November 2, 2008

The Chief Executive, Melanie Benjamin, of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe has been accused of using tribal funds for herself. The tribe had set aside money for school construction and was surprised to find that $1600 of it was spent on a french replica toilet and $800 on a waterfall faucet. Both fixtures had been installed in Melanie Benjamin's home. She denies that she did anything wrong saying that the money was from a $35000 home improvement loan from the Community Development Department. She has also been accused of taking more than $50000 in illegal casino comping privileges like concert tickets and dinners. The casino had issued her a Diamond Club Card which is meant for people with a "very high level of play". Melanie should have only recieved $600 in services.

I think its horrible that Melanie would ever so something like this. The funds she used for all of her spending were meant to be for schools and homeless shelters. I think that she should be arrested and put in jail but instead shes planning to run in the special election that will be held to replace her because the Chippewa Tribe's constitution that the tribe follows allows her to do so.

Post 3

Twilight
Stephenie Meyer

Last night i started to read Twilight and I got half way through it. I think that its very easy to read but not a very good book. It seems like I could predict everything that was about to happen next. Most of my friends have read it and love it. They told me a little about the book but didn't give anything away. The whole story to me is just kind of wierd and I don't really like it. Before I even started reading it I thought it seemed kind of wierd but they all said that it was just like Harry Potter. I still think Harry Potter is a pretty normal book, most of the characters are still humans they can just change into other stuff and do wierd things. It reminds me of like a comic book made into a love story and then writing 3 books about it. I think it's creepy that the whole book is about vampires and werewolves and that the main character likes a guy that wants to drink her blood. I also haven't noticed anything very charming about Edward Cullen. I was told that he was really nice and had good manners and all that kind of stuff. The only thing he's done thats very charming is opening and closing doors and paying for dinner. He also kind of ruins his charmingness since he's a vampire and wants to suck her blood and keeps calling himself dangerous and she sould stay away from him. I guess I just don't really like books about not humans.

Post 2

I just started reading the Kite Runner. The first two chapters talk about the close friendship between Amir and Hassan. They both grew up together, Hassan’s father worked for Amir’s dad. The two boys were about the same age and when Hassan’s mother left Amir’s mom started to help care for him. Hassan’s father Ali always told the boys that because they’d grown up so close to each other that they had a special bond that could never be broken. Amir is like an older brother to Hassan. Hassan never gets him in trouble and really looks up to him, his first word was Amir. I really like this book because it talks about some of the issues in the middle east. Ali is crippled, looks funny, and is Shi’a. That’s why he works for Amir’s father. Often times when Ali goes out the neighborhood kids make fun of him. They laugh at how he walks and call him Bubalu which means Boogeyman. They say things to him like “Hey, Bubalu, who did you eat today? Who did you eat, you flat-nosed Bubalu?” Ali never says anything back, he always ignores them. Part of his face is paralyzed so you can’t tell his emotions by his face, except for his eyes. Ali’s wife thought that he was ugly and couldn’t stand to look at him. Their marriage was arranged and 5 days after Hassan was born she left.

Post 1

Magazine: Snowboard- Products, Places, and Personalities
Article: Back to the Basics
Author: Stan Evans
Pages 80-87

“I rolled back to the spot and jokingly asked the girls if they’d be into it. Out of the back of the pack, the most unlikely voice chimed in. “I think I’d like to give it a shot,” Jamie said.

I think that this is a pretty significant quote in the article. The article was about instead of going on a big snowboard trip to some place that few people have been they were going to ride in the backcountry close to home and keep things simple. The trip was to prove that “sometimes the best possibilities are in your own backyard.” The group consisted of mainly pipe and park riders, Hana Beaman, Gretchen Bleiler, Jamie Anderson, Priscilla Levac, and author/ photographer Stan Evans. The only rider with notable backcountry experience was Hana, and of course she’s a girl and girls just don’t ride backcountry. The most inexperienced rider there was Jamie. She’s small, young, rides park, and is still in high school. Through out most of the trip she was tentative about trying stuff. Then all of a sudden she steps up and decides she wants to hit a giant road gap nobody else on the trip would. Stan Evans who jokingly brought up the idea was shocked; he always thought that he’d be shooting guys jumping the gap. Jamie ended up hitting the jump 6 times. She really stepped up her riding and proved that some of the best possibilities really are in your own backyard.