Looking in at Iowa

Image via Wikipedia

From ABCNEWS:

Karla Brendler has been living in Vietnam since October, as she awaits approval from the State Department to bring home her 16-month-old adopted daughter Madison. Amid allegations of corruption and baby buying, the U.S. has suspended adoptions from Vietnam. …

Adoptions can cost about $20,000. But with stalled international adoptions like Brendler’s, costs can rise dramatically. With agency costs, lawyer fees, home studies, travel, extended stay in Vietnam, lost wages, Brendler estimates her bills to be about $100,000.

Brendler sometimes feels that she is being held hostage in Vietnam away from family and friends. …

PHOTO of Karla Brendler and daughter Madison

Image via Wikipedia

State Finalists and Regional Winners were posted today. More from Official Google Blog:

Starting today, you can vote for your favorite doodle. Your votes will determine the four national finalists. Just make sure to vote soon: you only have until May 18th. The national winner will be announced and the winning doodle will replace our usual logo on the Google homepage on May 22nd. …

More from Google:

Doodle 4 Google is a competition where we invite K-12 students to reinvent Google’s homepage logo. This year we asked U.S. kids to doodle around the theme “What if…?”

Well, the entries are in, and we couldn’t be more impressed. We received thousands of wonderful doodles, and choosing 40 finalists for the public vote had to be one of the most difficult but enjoyable jobs at Google in the past few weeks.

So the kids have done their part, and we’ve done ours. Now it’s your turn to help out by picking your favorite doodles. Your votes will help us select a national winner to replace our usual logo on the Google homepage on May 22, 2008. …

Google says that “you may vote for one doodle per age group.” (Perfect!)

Regional Winner under Grades 4-6, Region 6:

Exploration Space

For my “what if” question, I thought and thought and the idea that kept coming into my head was, what if we could explore all of space. I mean if you think about it, we do not know that much about the universe that we live in.

Name: Joel Weikert

School: Western Hills Elementary

State: Iowa

Regional Winner under Grades 7-9, Region 6:

Perspectives on Escher

What if M.C. Escher and his perspective of unreal possibilities became a mascot for Google. He took our understanding of the world around us and re-examined it using his own personal lens. He helps us see possibilities before we could imagine them. Isn’t that what Google does today by fostering our own ability to invent and share new ideas?

Name: Belinda Mahama

School: Ames Middle School

State: Iowa

Additional Iowa finalists:

K-3: Mara Clark, A.J. Neubaum

4-6: Noelle Johnson

7-9: Jamie Goodman III

10-12: Kyle Culp, Scott Skophammer

From HelenaIR.com, by Joan Uda:

I was a lucky child, with a great mom. The only time she held a paying job was while my father fought overseas during WWII. In those days we lived with Mom’s parents in Iowa City. She worked as a librarian at Horace Mann School, where I attended and also received the deep cut on my forehead that left a still visible scar. …

Image by Dulimaman via Flickr

From New York Daily News:

… thanks to a new schools program just announced by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

“Picturing America,” this project is called - 40 large posters, soon to be delivered to every one of New York’s 1,400 public schools, and, eventually, to every school and library in the country. American masterpieces all, vividly depicting great scenes from the nation’s storied past: Grant Wood’s “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”; Emanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware”; …

Large image of Grant Wood’s painting here.

Description at Picturing America page:

Grant Wood (American, 1892–1942), The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, 1931, Oil on Masonite; H. 30, W. 40 in. (76.2 x 101.6 cm): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Arthur Hoppock Hearn Fund, 1950 (50.117) Photograph © 1988 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art © Estate of Grant Wood / Licensed by VAGA, New York.

More information about Eastern Iowa artist Grant Wood available from Encyclopedia Britannica.

From Iowa Department of Public Safety Missing Person Information Clearinghouse:

Quatron Cropp [12] was reported missing to the Cedar Rapids Police Department, in Cedar Rapids on Apr 09, 2008. …

From Iowa Department of Public Safety Missing Person Information Clearinghouse:

Kelly Wyman [16] was reported missing to the Cedar Rapids Police Department, in Cedar Rapids on Apr 09, 2008. …

OPERATION QUICKFIND issued for Kelly.

Reported missing on April 7, and information still online:

Ashley Lewis [16] was reported missing to the Cedar Rapids Police Department, in Cedar Rapids on Apr 07, 2008. …

Sample caption from Reuters and Associated Press photos via Yahoo! News:

Actor Ashton Kutcher (L) jumps with actress Cameron Diaz [PHOTO] after presenting her with the Wannabe award at the 2008 Kids’ Choice Awards in Los Angeles March 29, 2008 …

Also, check out Dave Rasdal’s recent posts, Ashton and Demi in CR? and Why Ashton and Demi Visited CR

From The Chosun Ilbo (South Korea):

The adoptions of the four children were arranged by Holt Children’s Services. An official with Holt said the four children were born to different unmarried mothers.

According to Holt, Ethan, Seth and Eleanor were abandoned by their mothers as soon as they were born. Carrying their one-week-old children, the three unwed mothers visited Holt and asked that their babies be adopted overseas.

Mira was three months old when her birth mother visited Holt. “That means Mira’s birth mother must have agonized for three months about whether she should raise Mira alone or abandon her for adoption,” the Holt official said.

The children were adopted by the Sueppels in different years — Ethan in 1998, Seth in 1999, Mira in 2002, and Eleanor in 2005. …

See also KCRG story by Mark Geary, Remembering The Four Sueppel Children; Gazette obituary, Sueppel, Sheryl (Kesterson), Steve, Ethan, Seth, Mira and Eleanor; or complete Gazette coverage here.

~~

An interesting adoption-related post with valuable links and quotes here: ‘Forever Family’ six feet under.

The couple had adopted four children from South Korea; Ethan, 10, Seth, 7, Mira, 5, and Eleanor, 3 via Holt international (”…dedicated to carrying out God’s plan for every child to have a permanent, loving family”) which says it will only pass along the information to the children’s original mothers if they ask (see S Korean adoption agency saw no problem with American parents “our agency doesn’t reach out first. Only if they contact us, we will inform them what happened,” Hong said, adding that no phone calls were received so far.”) …

4/1 UPDATE: Gazette article, Deaths of Sueppel children add to adoption debate in Korea

Also, check out Gazette blogger Alicia Ebaugh’s post, A Korean view of the Sueppel murders.

From Academy of Cinema and Television (A.C.T.) release:

The Academy of Cinema and Television (A.C.T.) announced today a collaboration with Riley Smith to create an online specialized educational series for kids and teens interested in the Entertainment Industry.  …

[Riley] Smith was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and was exposed to horses at an early age due to his parents’ horse ranch…In his senior year of high school, he was discovered by a talent scout in a local mall, and went on to New York City to compete at an International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) convention.  …

Gazette archives show that Riley Smith is a 1997 graduate of Alburnett High School.

Hostess company newsletter encouraged all Hostess employees to stop work on March 6 and ‘eat a Twinkie for Twinkie.’ [PHOTO of Charlise 'Twinkie' Carlson]

From Leelanau Enterprise:

Friends and family of 2-year-old Charlise “Twinkie” Carlson of Suttons Bay [Michigan] will be eating the snack cakes as she undergoes surgery to remove a benign cyst from behind her eyes.

The girl is the daughter of Clay and Jennifer Carlson of Suttons Bay.

“Clay started it out as a way for people to keep good thoughts coming her way,” Jennifer said Tuesday from the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital in Iowa City. “And it’s really taken off.”

Charlise was diagnosed as having a dermoid cyst in November after her mother noticed a small spot near her daughter’s nose. While the cyst itself is benign, surgical removal is required since continued growth would make her susceptible to contracting meningitis, an illness involving inflammation of the tissues covering the brain and spinal cord that can be fatal. …