Brooklyn, a German shepherd from Michigan, will be featured on Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl. (Photo: Keith Barraclough/Animal Planet)


She lives in Pontiac, was discovered in Clarkston, got her TV break in New York City and is named Brooklyn.

Meet the German shepherd rescue dog who's representing Michigan in the 2016 "Puppy Bowl XII" from Animal Planet.

The adorable Brooklyn was found by the cable network through Canine Companions Rescue Center in Clarkston, an all-volunteer, foster-based group that rescues dogs from the state's animal shelters and works to place them in loving homes.

It was one of 44 animal shelters and rescue organizations that connected Animal Planet with players for this year's Team Ruff and Team Fluff.

Austin Reed learned to write as a juvenile prisoner. His handwritten manuscript runs 304 pages. (Robert Reed, The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict, Yale Collection of American Literature / Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library /Yale University.)


In the fall of 2009, an unusual package arrived at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, at Yale University. Inside was a leather-bound journal and two packets of loose-leaf paper, some bearing the stamp of the same Berkshire mill that once produced Herman Melville’s favorite writing stock.

Joined together under the title The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict, the documents told the story of an African-American boy named “Rob Reed,” who grew up in Rochester, New York, and had been convicted, in 1833, while still a child, of arson. Reed spent nearly six years in the House of Refuge, a juvenile home in Manhattan; he was released in 1839, but, accused of theft, he was soon behind bars again, this time at New York’s Auburn State Prison.

Reed never denied his guilt. But he was appalled by the conditions at the House of Refuge and especially at Auburn, an early example of the so-called “silent” detention model, which would become the basis for the modern prison system—inmates labored by day and spent their nights cooped up, often alone, in a small cell. In Reed’s day, the slightest infraction was grounds for a lashing or a trip to the “showering bath” (an early take on waterboarding). “The high and noble mind which God had given to me [was] destroyed by hard usage and a heavy club,” Reed laments. His account ends in 1858, with his discharge from Auburn.

When President Harry S. Truman moved his family into the White House in 1945, he was annoyed by the draftiness, creaking floors and mysterious sounds which seemed to permeate the old building.

Soon, people noticed chandeliers swaying without any apparent cause and floors visibly moving when stepped on.

Structural investigations revealed that the White House, which had been burned down in the War of 1812 and rebuilt, expanded and retrofitted in a haphazard manner over the decades, was only standing, in the words of the Public Buildings Administration commissioner, “by force of habit.”

Examiners concluded that the second floor was a fire hazard and in imminent danger of collapse. Foundations were sinking, walls were peeling away and disused water and gas pipes added unsustainable weight to the building.



May 17, 1950
Bulldozers move earth around inside the gutted shell of the White House.
Image: National Archives




Feb. 10, 1950
Workers dismantle a bathtub.
Image: National Archives




Feb. 14, 1950
Workers gut a lower corridor.
Image: National Archives




March 9, 1950
Men stand in the second floor Oval Study above the Blue Room.
Image: National Archives




Nov. 6, 1950
Workers lay concrete ceilings for basement rooms below the northeast corner of the White House.
Image: National Archives

The doorknob rattled. Two of the men occupying a federal biologist's office in a stand-off over land rights hopped from their chairs and swung rifles toward the locked door.

There was no knock - the established procedure for gaining entry to the nerve center of the siege mounted by brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy at this eastern Oregon nature center.

The Bundys’ body guard stood in silent alert but heard no voices from the snowy darkness outside.

"Should we approach the door or not?" Ryan asked, creeping toward a window.

Ammon, armed with only a cell phone, remained seated and shook off the tension, saying dryly, "Oh, it's fun to live this way."

<snip>

Stepping into most any nursing home, it’s hard to ignore the sense of isolation one feels on behalf of the residents living there, and even harder to reconcile that with the fact that old age will inevitably come for us all. In our fast-paced, youth-obsessed culture, we don't want to be reminded of our own mortality. It’s easier to look away.

When I heard about the Mount and its Intergenerational Learning Center, I was struck by the simple perfection of the concept. I was further intrigued by the idea that with neither past nor future in common, the relationships between the children and the residents exist entirely in the present. Despite the difference in their years, their entire sense of time seems more closely aligned. As busy, frazzled, perpetually multi-tasking adults, we are always admonished to live ‘in the moment’. But what does that mean? And with the endless distractions provided by our smart phones and numerous other devices, how can we? I was curious to observe these two groups, occupying opposite ends of the life spectrum, to see firsthand what it meant for them to simply be present with each other.

Shooting this film and embedding myself in the nursing home environment also allowed me to see with new eyes just how generationally segregated we’ve become as a society. And getting to know so many of the amazing residents of the Mount really highlighted the tremendous loss this is- for us all. Over the course of the months I was filming at the Mount, I observed many incredible exchanges between residents and kids. Some were sweet, some awkward, some funny- all of them poignant and heartbreakingly real. One experience in particular occurred during a morning visit between the toddler classroom and several residents who had gathered to sing songs together. Everyone had just finished a rendition of “You Are My Sunshine” when one of the residents began to share a memory he had of singing that very same song late at night on a bus full of soldiers while serving overseas during World War II.

The clarity with which this gentleman recalled this era of his life so many years ago was breathtaking- the memory seeming to appear before his eyes as he spoke. And though the kids were too young to understand his words, the fact that their presence provided a catalyst for his recollection just seemed to fit in a ‘circle of life’ kind of way. I’ve reflected on that moment many times since- it was beautiful and profound, and I was grateful to have been there to witness it. Those small, quiet moments are often the ones that contain the most meaning, and sadly are also the ones that most of us are too busy and distracted in our day-to-day lives to notice.

This is a film about the very young and the very old, yes. But it’s also about something bigger, something harder to pin down, but so essential in every way. In the words of Susan Bosak, founder of the Legacy Project, “It’s the experience of life in a multigenerational, interdependent, richly complex community that, more than anything else, teaches us how to be human.”

Go to your local butcher, and you're more likely to find "dead cow" than "seasonal farro." But over in Minneapolis, Minnesota, two vegan chefs are hoping to reinvent the traditional American palette.

Aubry and Kale Walch started a Kickstarter over a year ago, hoping to open their very own local vegan butcher shop, "The Herbivorous Butcher." The two had spent years perfecting their very own meat-free meats. When the store opens on Jan. 23, the two plan to offer 35 vegan meats, cheeses, and butters.

While many in the carnivore community might pooh-pooh the idea of vegan meats, the Walches stand behind their concept.

"We even sampled our products at the Minnesota State Fair, which isn't heralded for their vegan selection with a focus on deep-fried food, so we expected a lot of opposition and skepticism, but the pattern remained the same. People that never tried a vegan meat or cheese before saw that a more ethical diet was more than possible — indeed, quite delicious," Kale told Mashable.

A member of the group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters, talks to visiting news organizations Monday, Jan. 4, 2016, near Burns, Ore. The group calls itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom and has sent a "demand for redress" to local, state and federal officials. Photo by Mark Graves, The Oregonian/OregonLive.com