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"I love having artists in the house," Pat said, looking up at her homemade decorations an owl on the bookshelf, a Scarlet Tanager on the mantle and other various birds peering out from pieces of furniture around the living room. After its year in the museum, Lyndsey's oriole will also be displayed in the house.
Pat said she's especially proud of her daughter for breaking into the male-dominated hobby. Lyndsey is proud of herself, as well.
"Carving is really a guy thing, there's not too many women carvers," she said. "So when you're a girl and you're young and you're in a museum it's like Whoa!,'" she said.
She said she's usually the only female in Stenger's carving class. He is yet another person who is ecstatic about Lyndsey's win.
When it was announced, "[Lyndsey] was probably two or three inches off the floor walking on air," he said. "Her dad was probably five or six. I was probably seven or eight."
"I can see a distinct improvement in her neatness in the painting of the birds" since she started taking painting lessons, Stenger said. Lyndsey takes lessons with Rebecca Pearl at her Emmitsburg gallery. "She's a perfectionist," Stenger added.
He thinks she can win even more prestigious awards if she continues carving. She has two more years in the youth category at the competition before she can move on to the adult levels, he said.
"I definitely want to keep art in my life," she said. She also wants to keep animals of the non-wooden variety in her life, by studying animal science or something similar when she gets to college, she added.
E-mail Courtney Pomeroy at cpomeroy@gazette.net.
In recognition of Warrior Care Month and National Family Caregivers Month, Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC) will launch a new podcast for family caregivers of service members and veterans with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) today.
The podcast, called "The TBI Family," will focus on providing information about TBI, sharing resources for caregivers and telling caregiver stories.
"We know family caregivers don't have a lot of free time, but do need access to information," said Col. (Dr.) Geoffrey Grammer, DVBIC director. "Podcasts are a great way to get our message to caregivers in a way that works for their schedules."
According to a recent study by Rand Corp., there are 5.5 million military family caregivers in the United States and 29 percent of them are helping someone who experienced a TBI. The study found that the term "family caregiver" can be misleading as well. Nearly a quarter of military caregivers are friends and neighbors...
"We really hope this podcast helps caregivers overcome the challenges they face every day," said Grammer, "but the only way we can really be sure is feedback from the caregivers themselves. We hope they'll let us know what they'd like to hear and whether we're providing that."
DVBIC is planning a 10-episode first season.
DVBIC serves active-duty military, their beneficiaries, and veterans with traumatic brain injury through state-of-the-science clinical care, innovative clinical research initiatives and educational programs, and support for force health protection services. Please visit the DVBIC website for more information.
© Copyright 2019 Defense Centers of Excellence. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — After going through its worst drought in 50 years, Ethiopia is again seeing rain. In fact, in some places, it’s falling too hard and has set off floods.
So while the number of people requiring food aid has dropped slightly from 10.2 million in January to 9.7 million, according to the latest figures, there is a new threat of disease in a population weakened by drought.
Measles, meningitis, malaria and scabies are on the rise. And most seriously, there has been an outbreak of something mysteriously called “AWD,” according to the Humanitarian Requirements Document, issued by the government and humanitarian agencies on Aug. 13.
“There is a high risk that AWD can spread to all regions with high speed as there is a frequent population movement between Addis Ababa and other regions,” it warned.
The letters stand for acute watery diarrhea. It is a potentially fatal condition caused by water infected with the vibrio cholera bacterium. Everywhere else in the world it is simply called cholera.
But not in Ethiopia, where international humanitarian organizations privately admit that they are only allowed to call it AWD and are not permitted to publish the number of people affected.
The government is apparently concerned about the international impact if news of a significant cholera outbreak were to get out, even though the disease is not unusual in East Africa.
This means that, hypothetically, when refugees from South Sudan with cholera flee across the border into Ethiopia, they suddenly have AWD instead.
In a similar manner, exactly one year ago, when aid organizations started sounding the alarm bells over the failed rains, government officials were divided over whether they would call it a drought and appeal for international aid.
The narrative for Ethiopia in 2015 was a successful nation with double-digit growth, and the government did not want to bring back memories of the 1980s drought that killed hundreds of thousands and left the country forever associated with famine.
“We don’t use the f-word,” explained an aid worker to me back in September, referring to famine.
Like many of its neighbors in the region, Ethiopia has some issues with freedom of expression and is very keen about how it is perceived abroad. While the country has many developmental successes to celebrate, its current sensitivity suggests it will be some time before this close U.S. ally resembles the democracy it h...
Ultimately, the government recognized there was a drought and made an international appeal for aid. The systems put into place over the years prevented the drought from turning into a humanitarian catastrophe — for which the country has earned praise from its international partners.
In the same manner, even though it doesn’t call it cholera, the government is still waging a vigorous campaign to educate people on how to avoid AWD, by boiling water and washing their hands.
Yet this sensitivity to bad news extends to the economic realm as well. Critics have often criticized Ethiopia’s decade of reported strong growth as being the product of cooked numbers. The government does seem to produce rosier figures than international institutions.
After the drought, the International Monetary Fund predicted in April that growth would drop from 10.2 percent in 2015 to just 4.5 percent in 2016.
Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, maintained, however, that growth would be a robust 8.5 percent, despite the falling agriculture productivity and decreased export earnings.
In the political realm, news of unrest and protests is suppressed. During a weekend of demonstrations on Aug. 6 and 7, the Internet was cut, making it difficult to find out what happened.
Human rights organizations, opposition parties and media tried to piece together the toll from the deadly demonstrations, which according to Amnesty International may have been up to 100.
The United Nations has called for international observers to carry out an investigation in the affected regions, which the government has strongly rejected even as it has dismissed estimates of casualties without providing any of its own.
Local journalists are heavily constrained, and as Felix Horne of Human Rights Watch points out, Ethiopia is one of the biggest jailers of journalists on the continent.
“Limitations on independent media, jamming of television and radio signals, and recent blocking of social media all point to a government afraid to allow its citizens access to independent information,” he said.
Foreign journalists do not fare much better, especially if they attempt to venture out of the capital to do their reporting.
In March, the New York Times and Bloomberg correspondents were detained by police while trying to report on the disturbances in the Oromo Region.
They were sent back to Addis Ababa and held overnight in a local prison before being interrogated and released.
In a similar fashion, a television crew with American Public Broadcasting Service was detained on Aug. 8 south of the capital trying to do a story on the drought conditions.
They and their Ethiopian fixer — an accredited journalist in her own right — were released after 24 hours, and they were told not to do any reporting outside of Addis.
In both cases the journalists were all accredited by the Government Communication Affairs Office, with credentials that are supposed to extend the breadth of the country but in practice are widely ignored by local officials.
The government spokesman, Getachew Reda, has dismissed the allegations about the information crackdown in the country and in recent appearances on the Al Jazeera network he maintained that there are no obstacles to information in Ethiopia.
“This country is open for business, it’s open for the international community, people have every right to collect whatever information they want,” he said.
An oil boom made it the most expensive city in the world. Now it’s in crisis.
It’s our last weekend transfer gossip and there seems no shortage of players linked with deadline day moves tomorrow. Though it involves a lot of familiar names at this stage.
With only a little more than 24 hours left in the transfer window, it’s squeaky bum time for players, managers and agents as clubs look to finalise their squad until at least January.
Gareth Bale has had plenty of time to brush up on his Spanish and is expected to sign on the dotted line tomorrow, though this has caused a little more work for workers at the Bernabeu. The Sunday Express say that part of the hold-up is that Daniel Levy is looking for an additional £10 million should Bale be sold to a ...
David Moyes is expected to make at least one signing tomorrow after being linked to a whole host of players. A £21 million bid for Athletic Bilbao midfielder Ander Herrera was rejected with a second bid expected (Mail on Sunday), while Daniele de Rossi could join him at Old Trafford. The Daily Star suggests a loan deal...
Could Shay be on the move to Merseyside?
It is poised to be a busy day at Anfield too with £12million PSG defender Mamado Sakho expected to sign today and Victor Moses looks set to make the move on loan for the season. According to The Sunday Express, the Chelsea man has chosen the red half of Merseyside after Roberto Martinez was hoping to reunite with his f...
Joe Kinnear might have to do a day’s work in Newcastle with the latest club linked to England U-21 star Tom Ince. The Daily Mirror also says that they are trying to off-load Gabriel Obertan and bracing themselves for a £15 million bid from Arsenal for Yohan Cabaye.
Arsene Wenger may have a reputation for short hands and deep pockets, but we are yet to see if that is about to change. The Gunners are still being linked with Schalke's Julian Draxier and Real Madrid's Mesut Ozil, while they have revived their interest in axed Holland star Wesley Sneijder (The Daily Star), while The M...
Crystal Palave have made a £5million bid for Wigan winger Callum McManaman (The Sunday Mirror), Sunderland boss Paolo Di Canio wants Manchester United left-back Alex Buttner on loan (The Sunday Express) while Chelsea are negotiating to sign Ghanaian international winger Christian Atsu from Porto with the fee expected t...
There's more action from the Premier League season today, as well as La Liga, the GAA and lots more sports, so the last place we want to be is in the kitchen when we could be watching sports on the TV. Don't worry though, let the lads at Supermacs look after all the grub, they've even sorted you out a discount. Just cl...
The doll can recognise eight emotions in total, including surprise and happiness, all while running on a small battery and without doing any processing in the cloud. The total cost of putting the new chip together is just €115 – an indicator of how easy it is becoming to give devices basic AI abilities.
Recent advances in AI mean we already have algorithms that can recognise objects, lip-read, make basic decisions and more. It’s only a matter of time before these abilities make their way on to little cheap chips like this one, and then put into consumer devices.
One of the advantages of Deniz’s chip not needing the internet to function is privacy. Last year, a smart doll called My Friend Cayla attracted a lot of controversy because it couldn’t do its processing locally. To recognise what children were saying, it sent audio clips to the cloud and then worked out an appropriate ...
Children could share intimate details about their lives with their new friend only for that conversation to be recorded and sent to a data centre. Clearly, that’s not how many parents want smart toys. Privacy advocates also raised concerns over the Hello Barbie doll, which used speech recognition to interact with child...
At the moment, Deniz’s project is focused on processing data from a camera rather than a microphone, but many of the issues are the same.
Running computer vision algorithms locally is also incredibly important in many situations, says Massimiliano Versace at Boston University. A self-driving car moving at 120 kilometres per hour doesn’t have time to do all of its decision-making in the cloud because of a lack of bandwidth. So those decisions need to be m...
“Today we live in a world where devices are dumb. Tomorrow we will live in a world where devices can think,” says Versace. Moving away from dependence on the cloud is a vital step for AI, he says.
Tributes have flooded in for a 'positive and caring' borough councillor who died suddenly yesterday.
Katy Coleman served as a Ukip councillor on Swale council, representing Milton Regis, since 2015.
The 45-year-old moved to Sittingbourne from Penzance, Cornwall about eight years ago to be with husband Paul.
Katy Coleman for UKIP won her seat in Milton Regis back in 2015.
Last night, Swale Ukip posted a touching tribute on Facebook.
It read: “I am very sorry and sad to inform you that Katy Coleman, our Ukip councillor for Milton Regis ward on Swale council, died this afternoon just before 4 o’clock.
“Katy was a lovely young lady; please give her a moment or two of your thoughts at this very sad time.
It is understood Katy suffered a brain haemorrhage.
Ukip's leader on Swale council, Cllr Mike Baldock also paid respects to his "friendly and honest" colleague.
Katy Coleman died on Tuesday afternoon.
“Katy was a really positive and caring person who was really excited about standing for Ukip in 2015, even though she didn’t expect to get elected,” he said.
“When she won her seat she was immediately eager to start getting involved with her local community.
“Katy was always concerned about the impact of rule changes and service cuts on people and wanted the best for everyone around her.
Cllr Lloyd Bowen (Con), who represents Teynham and Lynsted, added: “I knew Katy as a member of a number of the committees we sat on and found her to be very enthusiastic, constructive and overall just a nice pleasant person who was willing to chat, not only about council matters but other things as well.
“I will miss her in the council chamber and at the various committee meetings we shared and send my deepest condolences to her fellow councillors, constituents and, above all else, her family.
Marlee Matlin, premiering in the revival of ‘Spring Awakening’ on Broadway, explains how her bat-mitzvah experience gave her the drive to take center stage on film and in the theater.
JTA — When the rock musical “Spring Awakening” premiered on Broadway in 2006, it was the darling of the critics and financial success. It won almost every major award possible, including eight Tonys, four Drama Desk Awards and even a Grammy.
So perhaps it’s not so surprising that it’s been revived on Broadway, even if it’s only been six years since it ended its successful run. Certainly more startling, though, is that the current production of “Spring Awakening” features a cast of deaf actors signing their lines — and songs.
Even one of the show’s most high-profile stars, Marlee Matlin, who is making her Broadway debut here, concedes that people might consider the idea — deaf actors performing a musical — a bit strange.
“It’s almost ironic,” she said through her longtime interpreter, Jack Jason. At the time of this conversation, she was en route from an interview in Brooklyn to her temporary Manhattan digs rented for the duration of the revival, which runs through January.
“You’re talking about something that doesn’t happen every day,” she says. “People who haven’t seen the show have to wonder: How is this going to work?
Set in Germany in the late 19th century, the “awakening” in “Spring Awakening” is a sexual one. A group of adolescents must deal with feelings they don’t understand and which their repressed parents do not explain. The musical has a rousing score by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik that particularly comes to life when the...
Although, like Matlin, a few of the deaf actors are able to discern some sounds, “It is not about hearing the music,” she asserts. In fact, several of the actors who have minimal hearing decided — whether for aesthetic reasons or just to make a statement — not to wear hearing aids during the performance.
The counter-intuitive performance adds a moving and affecting layer to the show that it didn’t have in its original production. Matlin says people stop her after every performance to comment on how awe-inspiring this version is.
“I didn’t listen to music [when I appeared] on ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ she says. “I just used an internal metronome and went with it.” That was in 2008; she was the sixth celebrity eliminated during that season of the American dance-competition show.
“Going with it” is something she’s been doing for a long time. Matlin, 50, was born in a Chicago suburb, the only deaf person in her family. She started to lose her hearing at 18 months. “I have no idea why and probably never will,” she says.
“It started out with deaf and their hearing family members going to temple together, but it attracted a great number of hearing people” as well, she notes.
For Matlin, this experience provided not only a link to other deaf people, but to her religion.
Matlin signed the English parts of the service but learned her Torah portion phonetically and read it in Hebrew. She wasn’t the only one who did that, and concedes some of what the deaf children read was unintelligible to members of the congregation.
The experience at the temple encouraged her in other ways, she maintains: “It gave me the drive, it gave me the foundation to believe in myself, despite what other people say."
Her family was also a pillar of strength. At 7, when she said she wanted to be an actress, they enrolled her in a program at the Chicago-based International Center on Deafness and the Arts. “They loved the idea that I could dream — that I could dream big and wanted to be an actor,” she says.
There Matlin immediately pursued and landed the role of Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.” She continued to appear in the center’s productions for until she was 16.
Another Jewish actor, Henry Winkler, also provided critical encouragement. He saw one of Matlin's performances and went backstage afterward.
Her nuanced performance in the film, as a custodian at a school for the deaf who becomes romantically involved with a hearing teacher (played by William Hurt) garnered her, at age 21, both an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for best actress — along with a smattering of criticism. One prominent commentator claimed ...
They were “dead wrong,” Matlin says. And she went on to prove it. She has starred in several TV series — including “Reasonable Doubts” and “The L Word” — and had recurring roles in “The West Wing,” “Blues Clues” and “Desperate Housewives,” among others. She has also guest starred in everything from “Seinfeld” to “Law &...

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