The James Logan Courier

From Wikipedia:

Captain James Buchanan Eads (May 23, 1820 – March 8, 1887) was a world-renowned American civil engineer and inventor, holding more than 50 patents.

Eads was born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and named for his mother's cousin, then Congressman and subsequent President of the United States James Buchanan. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri.

James Eads was largely self-educated; at the age of 13, he left school to take up work to help support the family. One of his first jobs was at the Williams & Duhring dry-goods store run by Barrett Williams. Williams allowed the young Eads to spend time in his library, located above the store. In Eads's spare time, he read books on physical science, mechanics, machinery, and civil engineering.

Read more about James Eads, free from PBS.

By Rick LaPlante, New Haven Schools Director of Parent and Community Relations

The Board of Education on Tuesday night received a report on Gov. Brown’s revised state budget for 2013-14 and its impact on funding for California schools.

Chief Business Officer Akur Varadarajan told the Board that the governor maintained his January budget proposal that retains the new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which will bring additional revenue to school districts such as New Haven. Also, from increased revenue of $4.5 billion for the current year, the governor proposes allocating $1 billion for implementation of Common Core State Standards. On the downside, 2013-14 state revenue estimates have been reduced, which will have an effect on the state's ability to meet its LCFF funding goals in the future.

By Yara Mukaled, Courier Staff Writer

In her book, A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan presents a jumble of various personal narratives that vaguely surround the “main” characters, Sasha and Bennie. Egan does this masterfully, amazingly keeping readers hooked and interested while switching back and forth introducing new narrator after the other.

Any attempt to summarize the plot of A Visit From the Goon Squad would be insufficient and inappropriate as I am not even sure that it is a novel - rather than a compilation of narratives and stories about different people that are, at times, distantly related to one another.

Instead of being confusing with all the different characters, I thought that it was a genius idea. There is no central problem, no solution. Egan seems to have been playing a game of how many people she could possibly connect in the vast mesh and web of what is A Visit From the Goon Squad. The book jumps not only from character to character, but to different time periods and places. While each character and chapter does relate to either Bennie or Sasha, having another, new character tell the story gave the feeling that the book was about them – until the next chapter when a completely different character is introduced.

I admire the way Egan succeeds in connecting the characters seamlessly when all the while adding on to the pile of information the reader learns about Sasha and Bennie. Some chapters subtly hint at previous or upcoming ones while still maintaining their own sense of independence.

From Wikipedia:
Vance Packard (May 22, 1914 – December 12, 1996) was an American journalist, social critic, and author.

He was born in Granville Summit, Pennsylvania to parents Philip J. Packard and Mabel Case Packard. Between 1920-32 he attended local public schools in State College, Pennsylvania where his father managed a farm owned by the Pennsylvania State College (later Penn State University). In 1932 he entered Penn State, majoring in English. He graduated in 1936, and worked briefly for the local newspaper, the Centre Daily Times. He earned his master's degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1937. That year, he joined the Boston Daily Record as a staff reporter and a year later, he married Virginia Matthews.

Visit VancePackard.com.

SPORTS
Any young man interested in playing Boys Basketball next year, please come and see Coach Fortenberry in Room 501 for paperwork.

Congratulations to Nahpsee Valle and RaeAnn Garza as the winners' of the full ride Ohlone Promise Scholarship! Nice job ladies and Logan's best wishes go with you.

ACTIVITIES
The Logan Health Center presents, The Health Fair! Swing by Colt Court tomorrow during both lunches for 106.1 KMEL, games, bike tune-ups and ipad shuffle raffles all for free.

From Wikipedia:
Mary Anning (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) was a British fossil collector, dealer, and paleontologist who became known around the world for a number of important finds she made in the Jurassic marine fossil beds at Lyme Regis in Dorset, where she lived. Her work contributed to fundamental changes that occurred during her lifetime in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth.

Anning searched for fossils in the area's Blue Lias cliffs, particularly during the winter months when landslides exposed new fossils that had to be collected quickly before they were lost to the sea. It was dangerous work, and she nearly lost her life in 1833 during a landslide that killed her dog, Tray. Her discoveries included the first ichthyosaur skeleton to be correctly identified, which she and her brother Joseph found when she was just twelve years old; the first two plesiosaur skeletons ever found; the first pterosaur skeleton located outside Germany; and some important fish fossils. Her observations played a key role in the discovery that coprolites, known as bezoar stones at the time, were fossilised faeces. She also discovered that belemnite fossils contained fossilised ink sacs like those of modern cephalopods. When geologist Henry De la Beche painted Duria Antiquior, the first widely circulated pictorial representation of a scene from prehistoric life derived from fossil reconstructions, he based it largely on fossils Anning had found, and sold prints of it for her benefit.

Learn more about Mary Anning, free from Princeton University.

From Wikipedia:
Simon Fraser (20 May 1776 – 18 August 1862) was a fur trader and an explorer who charted much of what is now the Canadian province of British Columbia. Fraser was employed by the Montreal-based North West Company. By 1805, he had been put in charge of all the company's operations west of the Rocky Mountains. He was responsible for building that area's first trading posts, and, in 1808, he explored what is now known as the Fraser River, which bears his name. Simon Fraser's exploratory efforts were partly responsible for Canada's boundary later being established at the 49th parallel (after the War of 1812), since he as a British subject was the first European to establish permanent settlements in the area. According to historian Alexander Begg, Fraser "was offered a knighthood but declined the title due to his limited wealth"


Read more about Simon Fraser, free from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.

From Wikipedia:
Nancy Witcher Langhorne, Viscountess Astor, CH (May 19, 1879 — May 2, 1964) was the first woman to sit as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the British House of Commons. She was the wife of Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor.

Nancy was born Nancy Witcher Langhorne in Danville, Virginia, in the United States to Chiswell Dabney Langhorne and Nancy Witcher Keene. Chiswell's earlier business venture had depended at least in part upon slave labour, and the outcome of the American Civil War caused the family to live in near-poverty for several years before Nancy was born. After her birth her father began working to regain the family wealth, first with a job as an auctioneer and later with a job that he obtained with the railroad by using old contacts from his work as a contractor. By the time she was thirteen years old, the Langhornes were again a rich family with a sizable home. Chiswell Langhorne later moved the family to their estate, known as Mirador, in Albemarle County, Virginia.

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From Wikipedia:
Mathew B. Brady (ca. 1822 – January 15, 1896) was one of the most celebrated 19th century American photographers, best known for his portraits of celebrities and his documentation of the American Civil War. He is credited with being the father of photojournalism.

Brady was born in Warren County, New York, the youngest of three children of Irish immigrant parents, Andrew and Julia Brady. At age 16 he moved to Saratoga, New York, where he met famed portrait painter William Page. Brady became Page's student. In 1839 the two traveled to Albany, New York, and then to New York City, where Brady continued to study painting with Page, and also with Page's former teacher, Samuel F. B. Morse. Morse had met Louis Jacques Daguerre in France in 1839, and returned to the US to enthusiastically push the new daguerrotype invention of capturing images.

See Mathew Brady's portraits, free from the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.