Delayed Jellyfish Lead

Some perfect beach days aren’t meant to last. 

One such doomed summer day occurred Wednesday, when the day’s festivities at Wallis Sands Beach were interrupted by a surprise visitor: a very large, very dead jellyfish washed up on the beach.

Hurricane Irene Piece - 9/12/11

Hurricane Increases Work, Anxiety for UNH RA’s During Opening Weekend

by Ella Nilsen

            Nervous freshmen.  Returning students.  Anxious parents.  Carloads of dorm room furniture.  A campus-wide traffic jam.  What any person would classify as mayhem is routine for UNH Resident Assistants (RA’s) on the university’s opening weekend.  Something out of the ordinary?  A hurricane arriving at the same time.

            “It was really stressful,” says RA Katie Lemay.  For Lemay, who lives in UNH Residence Hall SERC A, a dorm that has both upperclassmen and freshmen residents, the normal pressures of opening weekend were heightened by the oncoming storm and the extra security measures the university took to prepare for it. 

            Due to the storm, Lemay and other RA’s were given instructions on how to respond if hurricane conditions made campus unsafe.  “ResLife immediately began to prepare us,” said RA Jenny Wu, of Christensen Hall.  “Our hall director informed us on new information as it was obtained.” 

Safety measures included putting RA’s on weather watches, preparing to tape windows, and keeping residents away from windows as much as possible.  “My original plans were to stay up all night and knock on residents doors once it got bad,” said Lemay.  “Housing was expecting some of the windows to break in…we were told to wear clothes that were appropriate to jump out of bed quickly.”  RA’s were to keep their residents in the hallways if weather conditions became too threatening.  “Some of the residents asked me if they could sleep in the hallway,” Lemay said.  Such safety precautions did not end up being necessary.

Even though the storm did not ultimately affect Durham or the Seacoast area as much as was predicted, anxiety ran high for new students.  Said Wu, “We had to inform residents about hurricane procedures during our first floor meeting, which usually sets the tone for the whole year…therefore, some students were even more nervous for college.” 

Some parents who had dropped off their new freshmen decided to pick them up and bring them home until the storm passed.  Many called the residence halls, asking hall directors and RA’s if they could come pick up their children.  “It was hard for us to get back to people,” said Lemay.  “‘Should I come pick up my son or daughter?’…that’s a minor question during move-in.”

"UNH Achieves Gold Rating in Sustainability" - 9/19/11

“University of New Hampshire Achieves Gold Rating in Sustainability”

by Ella Nilsen

9/19/11

            The University of New Hampshire will be starting out the academic year with the completion of an important milestone.  As of August, UNH became one of twenty-four colleges and universities to achieve a gold rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s (AASHE) STARS program. 

            STARS is a program that ranks colleges and universities according to their sustainability.  It is a highly regarded and widely used program that has set the standard for sustainability in higher education.  286 campuses have registered for STARS, which ranks a school’s sustainability in four categories: bronze, silver, gold, and platinum.  Out of those 286, only twenty-four have made it to the gold category.  None so far have made platinum.

            “Sustainability is part of our DNA at UNH, so it will always be a defining feature of our identity,” wrote university president Mark Huddleston in a letter to AASHE executive director.  Huddleston was referring to the school’s distinguished record of sustainability in a wide range of areas, including education and curriculum, research, and university operations and development.

            “We did really well,” said Sara Cleaves, Associate Director of the UNH Sustainability Academy.  “We have an endowed sustainability program with 5-6 fulltime people…most campuses don’t have that.”  Cleaves said that areas of UNH sustainability rated highest by STARS included the growing curriculum and educational programs that UNH offers its students as well as its sustainability administration and planning. 

            Areas where the university needs to improve?  “Operations was actually our worst area,” Cleaves said.  “We need to up our recycling numbers, and our waste minimization and we need to up the number of people doing transit.  We need to keep upping the ante, because all that is going to take more than what we’re doing.”  UNH plans to keep working on the areas that need help, all with the goal of making it the first STARS platinum school in the nation.  

NYTimes Log - Thursday 9/22

I think that the Times profile on Mahmoud Abbas is interesting and drives home the point that one of the potentially most crucial moments in Palestine’s history is being brought about by an unlikely leader.  The first two paragraphs of the profile “Man in the News – Mahmoud Abbas,” make it clear that the current leader of Palestine does not have the personality of an instigator, yet is stirring controversy by the virtue of his country.  Abbas himself is quoted saying about his pursuit of a seat at the United Nations, “Confrontational step?  How?  I am not confronting anybody.  I am talking openly to everybody that I want peace.”

The Times certainly could not have picked a more unflattering photo of the Palestinian leader to put on the front page.  Combined with the quote, "We never thought of him as having his finger on the pulse of the Palestinian people the way Arafat did," the Times is presenting Abbas as the practical politician who, while perhaps always in the shadow of the more charismatic Arafat, still is putting forth significant changes.  However, the article questions the ability to lead a country full of people that only support the policies, rather than the man himself.  The Times calls Abbas “moody,” and “brooding,” and the photo they provide certainly reflects that sentiment as well.  

NY Times Logs for Tuesday the 20th and Wednesday the 21st

Tuesday, Sept 20:

I really liked the mix of headlines on the Times today.  Oil reserves in South American paired with gossip websites infecting small town America.

Apparently social networking has found a niche in small-town gossip.  The article seemed to point out that with Topix, older residents are engaging this type of extremely nasty gossiping about everyone in their town, which is very interesting given that bullying over the Internet has typically been monopolized by a much younger crowd.  I really appreciate that a paper like the times would publish a story like this on the front page.

Lots of profiles in this issue…or at least, I’m noticing more profiles in this issue.  I particularly like the one about Mitt Romney’s campaign strategist.  I really appreciated the Times putting in something about his political background in the South.

Fantastic article about the Pirate Party in Germany.  Social networking now taking politics by storm in Europe.  Translatable to the United States?  Doubtful.  Pretty amazing that conventional political parties are taking such a backseat to new and unconventional political parties in such a huge way.  Makes me wonder if the swing to the ultra-right in the U.S. is the same response, just in a vastly different way.

NY Times Log: Wednesday, Sept 21.

Today’s article on America’s legislature and some presidential candidate’s close relationship with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, and by extension, Israel’s interests is very good.  Relations with Israel will definitely set the tone for U.S. presence in the Middle East, and it seems like the current legislature is heavily favoring Israel. 

Featuring a ‘Marines Hit the Ground Running in Seeking Recruits at Gay Center’ on the same front page as ‘Amorous Squid Seeks Partner: Any Sex Will Do’ is funny.  Very interesting that the Marines were the most opposed to repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and are now the branch of the military doing the most recruiting.  Article was able to convey really well the struggle the military now has in recruiting members of the gay and lesbian community to commit to service.

The article on the Chinese train crash was fascinating.  Amazing the extent of corruption and complete disregard for human life surround the train system…the agency that runs the train sound more like a mob.  Very well written article.  I can’t imagine the difficulty for reporters trying to find this information in China, it must be an incredible struggle to get people (or at least, government agencies) to give information on an event that is decidedly not a glorious triumph of the republic.

ENGL 621 - Jellyfish Piece - Ella Nilsen

A summer beach day was interrupted Wednesday, as Wallace Sands Beach in Rye, NH was closed and five people taken to the hospital after a jellyfish stung more than 100 swimmers.

At two in the afternoon, emergency crews from surrounding seacoast towns responded to complaints of swimmers that they were being stung in the water.  Swimmers said that the stings felt similar to bee stings; there were no serious injuries.  The culprit?  A monstrous jellyfish. 

“It was as big as a turkey platter.  The thing was probably fifty pounds,” said beach park manager Ken Loughlin.  The jellyfish, though dead, had been stinging swimmers.  According to local aquarist Robert Royer, the barbed tentacles of such a jellyfish can continue to sting even after the jellyfish is killed.

This particular jellyfish was particularly large.  Royer, identifying the species as a Lion’s Mane jellyfish and expressed surprise at the size of the creature.  “That’s the largest we have around here,” he said. 

“I’ve never heard of them getting  50 pounds, though.”  Lion’s Mane jellyfish have tentacles that can get up to 100 feet long.

This sight was not expected by many beach-goers during the day.  Alicia Bennett and her three small children, all of Hampstead, N.H., had come to Wallis Sands to swim, but had other thoughts after seeing the jellyfish.  Bennett watched all her children run out of the water at the same time.  “They were terrified,” she said.

The beach was closed and reopened Thursday, and the park became a temporary treatment center after the sighting.  Victims were treated in the bathhouse by emergency crews from many surrounding seacoast towns.  Medical responders were initially afraid of severe allergic reactions to the stings, and five children were taken to the hospital to be treated further.  Hospital officials reported no serious injuries.

The jellyfish incident will surely be something park manager Ken Loughlin remembers for the rest of his life.  “I’ve never seen such a thing,” he said.