Week Eight Fall 4. Nov. 09

Sections

A. Inside the BubbleB. Outside of the BubbleC. Op-EdD. EventsG. Arts & Literature

News in Brief with Sasha Paris

Jake Wartell recieved the Nobel Prize in Storybook Read-Aloud for his fireside rendition of Pumpkin Hill.

Spontaneous Thriller performances have become epidemic on campus.

TAB served a “big honking broccoli salad” on Thursday, greatly amusing at least one diner.

There was much emotion expressed at the ACM regarding the decision to rehire Nishi Rajakaruna as our botany professor, rather that just going through with an entire botany search, and I have some thoughts I would like to share.” A2

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luka Negoita aNd grace cherubiNo exhibit at blum gallery

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Teatime with Memory, Space, and Ecology c3

You should probably submit to this incredibly awesome and SUPER publication. Because all the cool kids are do-ing it. Send your art, poetry, short stories, opinion pieces, editorials, and midnight rants to offthewall@coa.edu

Dan

ce Party

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InsIde the BuBBleA1

COA Battery Recycling Policy Proposal (please read and email any comments or revisions to CCS)Campus Committee for Sustainability

Preamble:Whereas, College of the Atlantic is committed to reducing waste in Article II of the Campus Environmental Initia-tive, and is committed similarly in Article II Section 6 of the Earth Charter.Recognizing, that batteries contain toxic chemicals and need to be disposed of properly because of their potential environmental harm.Recognizing, that battery recycling reduces the risk of soil contamination and water pollution by keeping them out of municipal waste. Acknowledging the lack of and need for an established system to ensure safe battery disposal as well as to educate the campus community on the effects and benefits of battery recycling. Be it resolved that College of the Atlantic is committed to the recycling of batteries as specified in Article 5 or the battery recycling policy.Article 1: College of the Atlantic shall acquire, maintain, and operate a battery recycling system in compliance with federal and state guidelines for waste handling. i. Batteries will be collected in a safe receptacle outpost and then shipped to a recycling facility once it be comes full. Article 2: Responsibility2a. Buildings and Grounds is responsible for i. Ensuring the safe and timely storage and shipment of batteries and compliance with article 1 of this policy. ii. Ensuring compliance with State and Federal guidelines/laws regarding battery recycling iii. Financing the following aspects of the battery recycling program : Shipment of used batteries to the designated location, Initial procurement of a battery recycling outpost, and terminal end tape, Initial and continued procurement of appropriate collection and/or shipping containers, Procure-ment of any other items that the Campus Planning and Building Committee (CPBC), the Campus Committee for Sustainability (CCS), and the Director of Buildings & Grounds concurrently deem necessary for the purpose of bat-tery recycling2b. The Campus Committee for Sustainability is responsible for i. Providing the COA Community with information regarding the safe and proper method(s) for battery recycling. ii. Providing new members of the COA Community with pertinent information regarding the method(s) for battery recycling on campus. iii. Providing and maintaining site-specific informational graphics to promote proper recycling. iv. Notifying the COA Community of any significant changes to the recycling system. v. Collecting certificates of recycling from the designated company, archiving those certificates, and transmit ting a copy to Buildings and Grounds. vi. Monitoring the implementation and effectiveness of the Battery Recycling Problem.2c. Joint Responsibilities of CCS and the Director of Buildings & Grounds i. Determining which company will handle battery recycling ii. Determining the types of receptacles used for battery recyclingArticle 3: Location i. Battery collection will be centralized, located on campus, and positioned in a central location. ii. The initial location for collection will be in the basement of Kaelber Hall. iii. The location may be changed at the combined discretion of CPBC and CCS iv. Tape will be provided on site of the battery collection.Article 4: Use i. The outpost will be available for use by students, staff and faculty at College of the Atlantic ii. All recycled batteries will have their terminal ends covered with tape.Article 5: Definitions i. Batteries in this proposal are defined as only: Household Batteries (Alkaline/Non-Alkaline): C, D, AAA, AA and 9-volt (the rechargeable or non-rechargeable type.), Lithium: all types, Button Cell: These are used in watches, headlamps, etc., Rechargeable: battery packs used in cordless electronics such as cell phones, cameras, laptops, power tools, etc. Article 6: Amendments i. The proposal may be amended by the ACM under rules provided by the Steering Committee.Notes: All batteries collected can be stored together because the recycling facility will sort them. The battery outpost will be emptied by and stored in their designated location until shipped to the recycling facility. All recycled batteries will have their terminal ends covered with tape to prevent contact with other batteries which can result in enough heat generation to cause a fire. As a preventative measure, tape will be provided on site of the battery outpost along with exact instructions to properly recycle batteries.

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OutsIde the BuBBle

Some Thoughts On Week 7 ACM—Luka Negoita

There was much emotion expressed at the ACM regard-ing the decision to directly rehire Nishi Rajakaruna as our botany professor, rather than just going through with an entire botany search, and I have some thoughts I would like to share.

There were many students, faculty, and staff at the meet-ing. Minutes regarding the proposal were presented, and the minutes were challenged. This resulted in a profound exchange of opinions within the forty minutes that fol-lowed.

I want to offer my thoughts regardless of the intention that each spoken person had. First I would like to acknowl-edge how hard it must have been for those faculty mem-bers to stand and challenge the minutes. They must have known what they were going against, yet they stood their ground and beliefs. I appreciate this because it opened the discussion so that everyone’s voice could be heard. I soon also realized how this became an important learning

experience for me. In most other colleges, students never get wind of what occurs behind office doors. Yet here we were part of an administrative decision. I’d consider this experience an excellent application of experiential Hu-man Ecology.

Some of us have a great love for Nishi and what he has to offer us. I know I have been extremely fortunate to take classes with him, however there are many professors at COA who have also changed students’ lives in the best possible ways. I want to recognize that.

For the students that were at this last ACM, please don’t bear hard feelings towards those who spoke. There are many things we as students still don’t know regarding the opinions shared at ACM. Appreciate that we are at a school where we might hear more than we should, but value all your professors as the great teachers they are.

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Student Account of Marine Mammals Conference—Michelle Klein

Sean Todd’s Marine Mammal Biology class, as well as many members of Allied Whale attended the 2009 SMM Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mam-mals was held on October 12-16, 2009 in Québec City, Canada. The Society for Marine Mammalogy, founded in 1981, is responsible for evaluating and promoting the educational, scientific and managerial advancement of marine mammal science, gather and disseminating to members of the Society, the public and public and private institutions, scientific, technical and management infor-mation through publications and meetings, and provid-ing scientific information, as required, on matters related to the conservation and management of marine mammal resources.

Kathryn Scurci, Ginger Brooks and Jackie Bort presented some of their research as posters. Laura Howes ‘09 and Dominique Walk ‘09 presented work derived from their senior projects and drew much attention from federal and state managers attending the conference. Overall, 20 pre-sentations with COA affiliation were made at the meet-ing, a very strong presence indeed. Of special note, Sherri Eldridge, a Hancock County student who has been at-

tending several COA classes, received honorable mention at the “most innovative study” award for her work propos-ing morphological ties between mysticete and pachyderm (elephant) sensory perception. Her work is based on a fi-nal project she completed for the Marine Mammals and Sound class here at COA in Fall 2008. Dave Matilla also gave a plenary discussion on the Yonah project (COA), and Splash project (SW Fisheries) giving resounding praise to all of the COA crew involved. Specifically COA was mentioned several times and our logo made it to the big screen for all to see.

Op-edC1

Indian Summer—Gina Sabatini

Between the eerie chill of Halloween and the cinnamon nip of early winter, College of the Atlantic was blessed with sunny skies and warm breezes—the epitome of an Indian Summer.

Indian Summer is a term used to describe the unusual warmth that falls over the northeast some time between mid-October and early November. A true Indian Sum-mer is one that follows a frost that kills off the last crops of summer. Although we did not experience such a frost, the stretch of chilly, rainswept days was enough to constitute the deliciously warm afternoons as Indian Summer. Some people hiked up mountains while others basked in the yellow rays amongst the complaining calls of the crows. Still others enjoyed the dry crackle of the fallen maple leaves and oak needles, rolling down gentle hills only to be cushioned by the gifts of autumn at the bottom. It’s a very inspiring time, and even one that can move a soul to experiment with some good home cooking.

Although Indian summer does not specifically refer to any Native American group, it does however incorporate the bounty of the harvest into its definition. Below is a delicious recipe for Nokake, a bread made traditionally by the Algonquian tribe to use up the last of their dill reserve before winter. It was baked by being set next to the fire and rotated occasionally. Of course, we have the ease of modern ovens, making this bread even simpler to make. Best of all, it is a taste of Indian Summer.

Nokake

2 cups water

2 cups cornmeal

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

- Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

- Bring water to boil in a saucepan. Stir in cornmeal, salt, butter and dill. Place in a buttered 8-inch square pan and bake for 25 minutes.

- Cut into squares and serve.

Weather You Like It Or Not—Casey Yanos

It seems like since the day I moved in here I haven’t dressed properly for the weather one single day. Even with my window open, if the wind isn’t blowing I don’t feel the cold so I assume it is warm and walk out in just a t-shirt and shorts to be viciously greeted by the piercing cold and dreary cloud cover.

At one point I even resorted to starting up my computer each morning to check what the forecast held, but stopped one day when it was down pouring and according to my Google homepage it was just overcast. In the end, I real-ized I had to guess and deal with the crazy weather.

Up until Halloween, I wasn’t a big fan of the unpredict-ability of the weather here. But, early on the morning of the 31st, I met up with a few friends to go hiking. The forecast had been calling for rain for the past week, but we reluctantly set off anyways. About two minutes into the hike it started misting; we looked at each other with dis-appointed faces and had a quick conference. We decided to keep going.

As we walked through the mist, the wind began blow-ing violently, lifting up huge piles of leaves, twisting and spinning them into tight spirals directly ahead of us and even encircling us at times with swirls of browns and reds. After being slapped in the face by a few leaves, we gave in and started laughing and dancing in the mist. What could have been a miserable trudge through the wind and rain turned out to be an extremely enjoyable walk on a beautiful fall day.

I’ve come to terms with the weather here and have learned to embrace whatever the climate throws my way because any type of weather can be fun; you just have to see the beauty of each day as it is presented and the power and grace of the weather. So bring it on Bar Harbor, whatever the forecasts hold, I’ll be waiting with a smile on my face and a spring in my step.

C2Simple Garlic Sauteed Spinach (or Kale)—Donna Gold

OTW’s Poll ResultsHow Do You Feel About Michelle Obama’s Hula Hooping Skills?

36.11%

25%

38.89%

Way Cool

Totally Lame

I can rock thehoop betterthan Mrs. O

What-ever

How do you feel about Michelle Obama'shula-hooping skills?

Way Cool

Totally Lame

I Can Rock The Hoop Better Than Mrs. OWhat-ever

“I’d challenge her to a hoop-off any day”“She can hula-hoop?! (I’m obviously out of the hoop-loop)”

Ok, so spinach is not all that Popeye cracked it up to be – it won’t pump up your biceps to the size of a tin can. But it does offer more than 100% of your needs for vitamins K and A and as does kale. And this dish is super simple.

Serves 2Time: c. 10 minutes start to finish

Olive oilGarlic cloves – about 3 large dicedWalnuts – about 5, crumbledFennel seeds – about 1.5 teaspoons (optional, but it’s delicious!)Tumeric – ½ teaspoon (optional, but for those of us over, say, 30, it’s sup-posed to help prevent Alzheimer’s) Spinach 2 large handfuls per person (it cooks down). Washed and dried a bit, and chopped into finger-sized portions. Try not to crush it, though.

Pour olive oil into a large frying pan to generously coat and turn on the stove to medium high. When the oil gets hot, in about one minute, toss in the garlic cloves, sauté for about a half a minute, then add the walnuts, fennel and tumeric. Sometimes the fennel pops a bit. When the garlic begins to brown, add the spinach. Depending on how much spinach you use, it will fill the pan, but it will soon wilt down. (and if its still wet, it will cause the oil to splatter…). Keep stirring until it’s evenly coated, and wilted. You might need to add more olive oil. Then shut off the flame, put the pan on a cool burner and serve.

Alternatives:You can use the same recipe for kale or string beans, steaming them first. (Then save the steamed water in a jar to use in making soup or any meat or vegetable recipe calling for water.)Kale: about 3-4 stalks per person, washed, cut to finger sized pieces. Steam for about 6 minutes, until bright green.String beans: wash, cut off ends and steam until bright green, 6 minutes or so.

“History is a series of timeless moments.”

Time begins. Tiny knees sweep across the worn landing; grains of grit make cubic impressions in soft infantile skin, adding streaks into the wood etched over years of use. Thin blue eyes feed on the physical landscape ahead: a wicker basket, a tall desk which acts as a canopy, tan-gled grey strands of wire (which lead to an unidentified telephone and lamp), and scattered pet dander. Solid in-tent keeps the tiny body moving in fragments towards the white wall, an ever-expanding bound-ary made into a momentary goal.

“Robin, here.” The call triggers an image, not words, a visual representation of wide-brimmed glasses and wavy sorrel hair, an aura of comfort, of a word which she does not yet know. She turns, seeing feet and ankles and knows the creator, sure of their connection, their identity. Arms appear from no-where, limbs of the sky which somehow attach to this body in front of her. She loses focus, lifted from sight...

Time passes. The morning is pressed through star-holes, open and sparkling in the pre-dawn aurora, a silence wait-ing to be broken. The front door opens, gaping, as father and child stumble into the dark space between what can be seen and blindly sensed in the caliginous air. Cicadas rest their wings in ripples around ragged footsteps, a trav-eling halo cupping all movement and speech. Pajamas rus-tling and tennis shoes crunching across crumbling gravel fade beneath father’s vocal chords in dim aurora. The liv-ing hum of stories and words sail through the fog and land lightly just ahead; they lead the way to this morning’s dawn, unique to the pattern of feet and the order of spo-ken vowels and silence. Father’s tone lies in the bed of past and future, melting stories which have been long frozen in night skies. They drip through wet grasses and sandstone, refracting in the child’s softly awakening ears. This daily walk always revives; fading stars attenuate slowly from brightening skies with the red overcast of a single street-light at the bottom of the hill, gliding through their liquid voices into daybreak. Both follow Orion the whole way home, evaporating before the first rays of morning pierce the layers of pine and persimmon to reach their doorstep.

Time slows. His palms exude rhythm. Leopard fingers glide across a dichromatic timeline; the keys, a landscape of black hills and white water, wait for the weight of danc-ing fingers to induce waves of rooted rumbling, rollick-ing interaction between solitary notes. Light followed by sound creeps up the open banister and through the short hallway, reflecting off smooth floorboards underneath the door crack and across two still feet. The velvet tickle of peeling paint brushes cheek and body, warming the cool wall with a resonating quiver. Improvised vibrations bring toes softly to motion, 88 voices lifting household

diaphragms, phalanges and dust. Feet move, gently at first, urging knees to lift the rest of the body while con-tinuously leaning against the wall, feeling the pulsating structure fill with an acoustic autoschediasm. The signifi-cance of duration slips quietly beneath the floorboards; we move and sing with the flickering windows, outdoor insects swaying out of beat with my gestures. All waves

of sound and experience collide in this edifice; some raise and expand together, others fall out of range and into dis-tance. Daniel’s voice ties so clearly to this house, mov-ing restrictions aside to enliven its collated inhabitants. The heat holds us all together, dynamic for those fleeting (yet seemingly everlasting) moments, bonding us within an invisible synchronized electricity. It is our movement which brings that house to life, mobility which defines what we see once the aubade fades from existence...

Time quickens. The cabin is rusting from the inside out; it refuses to collapse, giving the air of rotting opulence in the heat of the gulf. She creeps quietly about in the thistle and raspberries towards the big bush which eats her morning and afternoon on the lagoon, feeding it to the sludge between eggs and blue heron feet. The dock, hidden from the cabin’s sight, has six feet stuck into the murky vesicle beneath, a standing launch-pad into a container of living extraordinaries. She carries one duti-ful net, resting across shoulders pleasantly roughened by thorn encounters and a wild sun. Toes grasp the edges of the weathered wood, peering into the mottled reflec-tion with stripes of light peeking through missing planks on the platform. Thousands of organisms move around and underneath her; hermit crabs, transparent shrimp, minnows and jellies, egg sacks and mystery worms. She picks each of them up, fingers their algal shells, contains smooth and shuddering flesh in her palms, and recog-nizes the irregularity of their patterns, salty similarities familiar to her open eyes. They glance upward only when the light has shifted in hue to a deep amber and peri-winkle, shapes becoming indistinguishable in the glare of the late afternoon sun. Slowly, she moves away from home and towards the dusk stumbling upon the water.

Time stops. The hum dissolves into aviated cupboards, a groan gone unnoticed in the sealed cabins of a prolonged flight. Hours spent suspended in the atmosphere are melting, fading together with the crinkling crosswords

C3Teatime with Memory, Space, and Ecology (A Five-Story Collaboration)—Robin Owings

The significance of duration slips quietly beneath the floorboards; we move and sing with the flickering windows, outdoor insects swaying out of beat with my gestures. All waves of sound and experience collide in this edifice; some raise and expand together, others fall out of range and into distance.”

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and soft mutter of voices, the uniformity of flickering lights and the occasional snore. The tops of heads, balded or thickly coated, are scattered across carpeted cushion tops, creating a panoramic populace; all experience the suspense and lethargy spent traveling between one world and another, waiting and wanting to be somewhere else. All remember what one collectively cannot, yet share the experience of the extended flight, the cool air-ducts and miniature pretzel bags hiding in sealed packages.

Fingers, worn from fiddling with unidentified buttons on metallic armrests, walk gingerly up the textured plane inte-rior, leaving fingerprints upon the invisible stains of a cry-ing baby, a knitting woman, a pot-bellied man with a sniffly nose. Knuckled nails reach the rounded edge of plexiglass, cold and flexible to the touch. Nose presses softly against the transparent material, feeling the rhythmic turbine un-dulations interrupted occasionally by an organic bump: an illustrative reminder of the miles air beneath her feet, the image of stability secured only by the aircraft’s speed and self-distraction. Eyelashes comb the plexiglass as they focus downward, into the space underneath a hundred feet, gravitationally centered towards the mass, her home.

Skin, worn and unpigmented, coats the land below, chapped clouds expanding along the horizon in an at-mospheric vellum. Vapor packed uniformly into cellu-lar ridges stretches across the horizon, wearing crevices into thin air. The clouds are corpuscles, forming pat-terns recognizable to the body, to the microscope. Mi-cro and macro visually unite under fluttering eyes, flashes of peeling skin or hair follicles colliding with any reality outside her window. What is this connection, continu-ously expanding downwards or upwards in the scientific eye? Dynamism moves the clouds, the people, the in-dividual hairs and puffs of pressurized air into and out of “place”; the place is only as each person determines, for the goodness or existence of that place relies solely upon the individual. This continuum of duplicating di-visions simply creates more to divide; yet the bodies, expansive and inclusive, are comforting and beautiful. Constancy of chaos holds all together; eyes closing, hum ever-present, she fades into a drowsy unconsciousness.

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D1events

Talk From Mexico On Zapatistas

—Donna Gold

The Zapatista communities of southern Mexico have been reinventing society for nearly 15 years in attempt to create democratic, equitable, sustainable communities. On Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 4:10 p.m., an educator from the region, Patricia Hernández, will be at College of the At-lantic to talk about these efforts and about the forms of education being developed among the indigenous com-munities of the region.

Hernández has worked among the Zapatista communi-ties since 2001, following a model of “autonomous edu-cation” to develop primary and secondary schools. Local leaders wanted the community’s demands for land, food, peace, justice and democracy to serve as the content for classes on history, language and mathematics.

A veteran sociologist and educator, in 1999 Hernández formed Organización Zapatista Educación para la Liber-ación de Nuestros Pueblos, known as OZELNP. Loosely translated as Education for the Liberation of our Commu-nities, OZELNP is building new educational programs within the Zapatista communities. Hernández is now also working with a community organization in the outskirts of Mexico City, seeking ways to bring the principles of autonomous education into the urban education system.

Hernández is also engaged in feminist dialogue with a diverse group of Mexican women committed to politi-cal change. She is currently touring New England with the Mexico Solidarity Network to talk about the mean-ing of “autonomous education” and her experience work-ing among the Zapatistas as well as the role of women in Mexican social movements.

A talk on “autonomous education” from Chiapas to Mexico City

Talk: Wednesday, Nov. 11 at 4:10 p.m“Grain as Commodity: The Cultural Economy of North-east Rice in China,” a by Amy Zader, COA Mphil ‘06, a PhD student in Geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Previous to her ethnographic research in China, Zader was a Peace Corps volunteer in Sichuan Province of China. Since rice has been at the center of Chinese agriculture for centuries, any changes in its production and consumption are a powerful indicators of how life is changing in rural China. College of the Atlantic McCor-mick Lecture Hall

Performance: Wednesday, Nov. 11 at 7:30 p.m.John Cooper, noted Maine composer and saxophonist will be leading College of the Atlantic musical ensembles in a concert of new jazz and classical compositions on Wednesday Nov. 11 at 7:30 p.m. The Human Ecology Concert will be held in the college’s Gates Community Center. Featured will be the COA Choir, COA Chamber Ensemble, and Cooper’s Maine Saxophone Quartet with Cooper on soprano saxophone, Patrick Bolin on alto sax-ophone, Steven Orlofsky on tenor saxophone, and Glen Sargent on baritone saxophone.

The Acadia National Park staff invite you to join in the annual effort to get the park and the carriage trails ready for winter. On Saturday, Nov. 7, you can help “Take Pride in Acadia” by raking leaves and cleaning drainage areas. Any and all hands are welcome! Contact Terry Begley directly at 288-3340 or terry@friendsofacadia.org.

Acadia National Park Clean-Up Nov. 7th

D2Blum Gallery Shows Drawings, PhotographsStudents Grace Cherubino and Luka Negoita offer two-dimensional pen and ink drawings, along with photography

Grace Cherubino, a third-year student at College of the Atlantic, presents a show called Two-Dimensional Documentary at the college’s Blum Gallery. The show, consisting of pen and ink drawings and photographs, will open Saturday, Nov. 7 from 4 to 6 p.m. It will run through Friday, Nov. 13. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

—Donna Gold

Cherubino has spent the term work-ing on an independent study with Ernie McMullin in advanced draw-ing, taking photographs of scenes and people and turning those into pen and ink drawings. The show, she says, is an exploration of the me-dium of pen and ink, and a focus on scenes she finds compelling.

Though new to the medium of pen and ink drawing, Cherubino is an accomplished photographer; she will also be exhibiting her photographs. Joining her will be Luka Negoita, also a third-year student at COA. He will be showing photographs of plants and insects taken during his internship in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri last summer.

Arts & lIterAtureG1

Dance Party—Sasha Paris

A swirl of soundA tangle of lightPeople surround me Jumping, lurching, swayingJoining and partingWordless questions and answers fly between themI am lostFriends and neighbors become strangers in the darkSpeaking a language I don’t knowI’m a diver amid bright fishTogether but separate, untouchableSo I dance aloneHungry slow dancesAngry fight-dancesWeary little dancesMusic pours off meLike surf off a rockSomeone asks: How are you?Noise crowds out a full replyOnly Good slips throughLaughter swells; I don’t glimpse the causeThe dance resumesRed lights on the wall become blue moonsAnything can happen tonight, they whisperThey’re wrong

Photo by Robin Owings