Monday, September 26, 2011

Recent Clips












Selection of Multimedia

The Last Smokestack

























Singles

Brett Wheeler types out a grocery list on his brailler at the Louise Braille School Wednesday. On the list were calamatta olives, garlic, and chick peas.

Stonewall Jackson head coach Loren Jackson celebrates the teams' 13-2 win against Hylton Friday. The win marked the first time the Raiders had beaten Hylton since 1996.

Wakefield School fourth-grader Axel Ohrstrom, 10, turns around during a traditional Thanksgiving celebration his class was participating in on their last day of school before Thanksgiving break

Needing a screw to repair his glasses, a pastor on his way to a wedding stops by a local hunting and fishing store in Callicoon, NY and decides to check out a new shotgun after fixing his glasses.

Hanh Nguyen, a resident of Bay St. Louis, Miss., sits dazed in the Second Street School in Bay St. Louis, Miss. 6 days after Hurricane Katrina leveled much of the Gulf Coast town.

Fauquier High School freshman Ryan Hunsberger said he plans on winning four Virginia state titles in the next four years in the 103 pound weight class. The 14-year-old, who was a standout club wrestler throughout middle school, ended up finishing seventh in Virginia this year.

For the second day in a row, a gray whale beached itself south of Harborview Park Friday morning in Everett.

Michelle Miranda, 11, (in red) and Alex Reyano, 9, (in grey) listen to speakers at an immigration rights rally September 2, 2007, in Woodbridge, Va. The rally organized by the organization Mexicanos Sin Fronteras urged the Prince William County Board of Supervisors to rescind a July 10, resolution directing county officials to determine which government services can be withheld from county residents identified as being in the country illegally.

Marlise Dole pauses outside of Comcast Arena following graduation to talk with her mother, Karen Smaalders (left) and step-sister, Mina Gibbs Thursday night.

Dave Zerbst and his daughter Katie reach out to a gray whale that beached for the second time south of Harborview Park Friday morning. The family has been what they call their "neighborhood whale" for the past weeks as it swam back and forth between Mukilteo and Everett.

Mona Robles pauses to listen at her front door to see if anyone is at home when returning home from school Tuesday.

Don Bryant, of Grotto, waits for a friend to ski down the mountain during opening day at Stevens Pass.

Chris Yeakel, a senior at Kamiak High School, recently enlisted in the Marines. After graduation this year, Yeakel will start boot camp and then enter infantry school.

The 16 to 18-year-old team of the Seattle Synchronized Swimming Club practice Wednesday at Juanita High School in Kirkland, Wash.

A trio of skateboarders on their way home from the skate park in Edmonds pause behind a line of firefighters saluting the family and remains of Art DeLisle at a memorial service for the Edmonds paramedic and firefighter at the Edmonds Center for the Arts.

Amy Thein-Durning puts her arms around her partner Sherry McGregor, of Seattle, as they listen to Approve Ref. 71 Campaign Chairwoman Anne Levinson announce results from Tuesday's vote to either approve or disapprove Ref. 71. Citizens celebrate at a party celebrating the approval of Ref. 71 at Pravda Studio in downtown Seattle Tuesday night.

Pressed against her new front door, 4-year-old Malena Nealon watches as her father, Chief Warrant Officer David Nealon, pays the movers who brought the family's furniture to their new home in Maylor Point on the NAS Whidbey base in Oak Harbor, Wash Friday morning. Nealon, with his wife Ivette and daughter Malena, moved to the brand new house from farther north on Whidbey Island.

Fred Saling, 92, of Edmonds, watches as Honor Guard members Machinist Mate Third Class Bryan Schneider, left, and Information Systems Second Class Benjamin Brown, right, present him with an American flag at his Edmonds home Friday afternoon.

Getchell Fire Chief Travis Hots, 33, calls for extra aid at an accident scene on Highway 92 near Crooked Mile Road west of Granite Falls, Wash, Tuesday afternoon.

Gene Flynn throws the hammer during competition at the Virginia Scottish Games and Festival Saturday at Sky Meadows State Park in Delaplane, Va. The Outerbanks, NC native has been throwing the hammer off and on since 1994, he said. This throw travelled 101 feet.

"I don't care what happens. All that matters is that we have fun, " said 11-year-old Hayley Bell, pictured kissing her 4-month-old calf Cupcake. Deven Evans stands to the right watch, show-stick in hand. The two were participating in the beef cattle fit and show.

Snohomish County Dairy Ambassador Melissa Cook, 17, of Snohomish lifts the hem of her dress off the floor of the Dairy Barn Saturday at the Evergreen State Fair. The incoming Snohomish High School senior stopped by the barn on her way to the fair parade in Monroe. A crowd of booted boys surrounds her.

Playing with the toy gun he bought earlier that day at the Evergreen State Fair, 12-year-old Isaac Nelson of Everett, Wa walks past Zircron the Rooster in the poultry barn.


Nine-year-old Megan Darby jumps through the sprinkler her father, Craig Darby, just laid down for his daughters to play in at the family's home in Everett Monday afternoon. Craig arrived home last Wednesday after his second tour of Iraq with the Washington National Guard 81st Brigade Combat Team.

Loren Kraetz, 72, of Arlington works on his century-old farm in Arlington Monday morning. Kraetz lives in a farmhouse on the property that was built in 1905.

Lenna Ledfors walks into the arms of her daughter, Jennie Telford, as firefighters exstinguish a Wednesday afternoon blaze that destroyed her Lake Stevens home. No people were injured in the fire, but several of the family pets, including several dogs, kittens and a rabbit, did not make it out of the house.

Bill and Kathy Colberg, who just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last month, sit out a dance at the Hayloft in Lynnwood during the Whirleybird Squaredance Club's Thursday night dance. The couple started dancing in 1981 and has been coming to the Hayloft since the Whirleybird's moved to the site.

Carnival workers carry stacks of tubes that will become bumper boats across the fairgrounds Wednesday morning, June 20, 2008, the day before the Evergreen State Fair begins.

CJ Sutphin

Five-year-old C.J. Sutphin suffers from the genetic disease neurofibromatosis, a condition that causes the development of tumors along both nervous and non-nervous tissues of the body.

C.J. inherited the disease from his mother, Kathy, whose father, Arthur, also lives with neurofibromatosis. Both Kathy and Arthur display the most common signs of the disease, non-cancerous tumors covering their skin.

C.J.'s symptoms are different. His tumors are inside his brain. One grows behind each eye, one on the brain stem and four in the mid-brain.

Almost every Thursday for three years, C.J. has travelled with his grandfather and mother from the family's home in Culpeper, Va. to Washington, D.C. for chemotherapy treatments. The family has witnessed C.J. take a nearly endless stream of "last resort" drugs as each new treatment fails to shrink the tumors.

The family continues to press on though, always in the face of both medical and financial troubles, bolstered by C.J.'s infectious positive attitude and Kathy's mantra of taking things "one day at a time."

Kathy Sutphin shows signs of fatigue as she stands beside her son, C.J., while he sleeps at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. last week. During a recent trip, C.J. underwent an MRI to determine the effects of a new drug on the tumors on his brain. Unfortunately the Tarceva eventually proved ineffective as the tumors grew, and now C.J. is currently on another drug.

Kathy and Charles Sutphin kiss in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day. The pair rarely see each other because of Charle's hectic work schedule. After a quick bite with the family, Charles was once again off to work at the gas station after a night stocking at the grocery store.

CJ has a great deal of trouble walking, but still finds a way to move about the house either bracing himself on objects or simply crawling. Often he holds plastic wrapped objects, anything from syringes to gum to the occasional pack of cigarettes - anything that makes that particular sound and texture of the plastic wrap.

Doctors believe that the tumor's in C.J.'s brain are slowly making him go blind. Doctors also believe that they have developmentally delayed the five-year-old to the level of approximately 18-months.

Kathy Sutphin administers the chemotherapy drug Tarceva to her son C.J. through his Mickey Button for the first time in their Culpeper, Va. townhome. Neurofibromatosis is a hereditary, genetic disorder, and C.J. received the disease from his mother, Kathy. Her father, Arthur, passed it to her. Neurofibromatosis is most often associated with the tumors that develop on sufferers' skin as is evident on Kathy's. C.J.'s tumors happen to be inside his brain instead.

C.J. and Kathy Sutphin laugh at the IHOP in Gainesville, Va. where the family stops every Thursday on their way home from the hospital. Wherever C.J. goes during the Thursday routine, the family finds itself on a first name basis with everyone. Much of that comes from "the C.J. look," the name for C.J.'s well known smile coined by hospital nurses and now expected by everyone from the IHOP waiters to hospital staff that see him every Thursday.

Kathy Sutphin shows what $4000 worth of her son C.J.'s pills is comprised of. It is the first day Kathy will grind up a tablet of Tarceva and administer it to C.J. Kathy was overjoyed to find out that FAMIS approved their use of the drug. Pictured is a one month supply, administered a pill a day. Kathy and her husband, Charles, both work to support their family of 5. Kathy running a daycare center from their townhome, and Charles working during the day at a gas station, and overnight stocking shelves at a local grocery store. Neither of his jobs qualify the family for health insurance.

C.J.'s mother Kathy Sutphin looks over papers outlining a new, experimental chemotherapy drug doctors would like to start C.J. on while C.J.'s grandfather, Arthur Sutphin waits. Because of the spiraling, intertwining nature of C.J.'s tumors, they are entirely inoperable. C.J. has been on several different chemotherapy drugs over the years, and while some have slowed the tumors' growth, none have ever shrunk them. This new drug, Tarceva, would allow Kathy to administer the drug to C.J. at home. Every drug seems to be the last resort, Kathy says.

Dr. Packard, a Children's Hospital Neurologist, examines C.J.'s reflexes and eyesight with a sock puppet during a September hospital visit. Dr. Packard originally diagnosed C.J.'s brain tumors on Christmas Eve 2004 in Charlottesville, Va. where the Sutphin family had taken C.J. for a second opinion about what appeared to be a lazy eye. Dr. Packard identified a large tumor growing behind C.J.'s eye. The tumor turned out to be just one of seven.

C.J. Sutphin plays in his pre-Kindergarten class at A.G. Richardson Elementary School. Sutphin attends the Special Education pre-Kindergarten class just Monday through Wednesday.

Kathy and one of her daycare kids, Elizabeth, talk to C.J. after he receives his medicine. C.J. receives most of his nourishment and medicines through the stomach port, including a nightly feeding while he sleeps. The great advantage of the new chemotherapy drug, is that after almost three years of weekly trips to Washington, D.C., Kathy can now administer the treatment herself at home.

AUDS

An entire generation of Sudanese youth have grown up as refugees in Cairo after leaving their war-torn home country. Marginalized by Egyptian culture and not fully accepted in the tribal society of their elders, many Sudenese youth find it impossible to find jobs or further their education beyond basic instruction.

Zechariah James Machar, known as Zee, started the African United Dreams Society, AUDS, to provide an alternative to the gang culture in which his peers were becoming involved. AUDS is a hip hop music and dance crew that performs at parties and cultural gatherings. AUDS's brand of hip hop speaks to the challenges refugees face, the wars that plague the African continent, and feature a primarily inspiration, Christian tone.

Zee gathers the members of AUDS around him for a prayer before a rehearsal. Zee, 19, moved to Cairo with his mother, brother and sister 13-years-ago from southern Sudan.

Sudanese youth can not go to Egyptian public school, instead they rely on refugee schools that are largely understaffed and underfunded. The main problem though exists at graduation from high school, as the schools are not accredited by the Egyptian nor the Sudanese governments, leaving graduates with few options to further their education.

Zee dribbles a basketball through a public square in Cairo.

Zee's role in AUDS is primarily as a manager, counselor and songwriter. Rapping duties fall primarily on Lil' Zissou,left and John, right, Zee's younger brother.

Members of the VIP hip hop crew wait outside of the Sudanese embassy in downtown Cairo to meet an American who has plans to record several hip hop groups who rap about social issues facing refugees in Cairo.

Zee navigates through a market in his Cairo neighborhood. Ten-years-ago, when Zee arrived in Cairo as a child with his family, relations between black Africans and Egyptians were extremely rough. Zee recounts the beatings he would receive growing up from gangs of Egyptian youth. Relations have improved since, but there is still unease on both sides.

Members of AUDS practice in the apartment Zee shares with his mother, brother and sister. The group performs Christian Hip Hop, expressing their belief and hope in the love of Jesus Christ, but set to beats they borrow from artists like R Kelly and 50 Cent.

Lil' Zissou pauses with the unplugged microphone the group practices with during rehearsal in Zee's home.

Zee, left, and Lil' Zissou talk outside on the balcony of Zee's home during a rehearsal.

Zee pleas to God for help and support in the continuing conflict in Sudan and in the lives of refugees around the world during a group prayer session in Cairo. Zee organizes the prayers every one to two months and holds them in a volunteers home. Zee's faith is his primary guiding principle and governs every aspect of his life.

Relatives come into the main room to pray with AUDS as Zee's prayers turn to Sudan.

In addition to singing, AUDS also has a football team. The members play on a borrowed sport court at a missionary school in Maadi, Cairo. Space to play sports is often hard to find, and Zee goes to great lengths to find AUDS members a space to play.

Zee walks down a street in Ain Shams, Cairo, a region known as "California," playing on the East Coast - West Coast split many Sudanese youth imagine in the city between the two gangs based on their listening to US Hip Hop. Zee began AUDS to help his fellow Sudanese, but he is unsure of what will happen in the coming year. He is currently cleaning houses to help lighten the load on his uncle, but he desperately wants to continue his education.