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Photograph by Felipe Buitrago
Informal Gathering: Service at Vintage Faith in Santa Cruz. This is what it looks like when cool people go to church.
Jesus: Unplugged
South Bay converts are flocking to a Santa Cruz church that's muscling in on the Christian evangelical movement by accepting MTV, flip-flops and intellectual curiosity into their hearts. Is it just attitude, or is this hip movement really a new kind of Christianity?
By Najeeb Hasan
THEY DRIVE over the hill in pursuit of God.
Cheryl Isaacson comes from Willow Glen every weekend, Shannon Marie from west side San Jose. Isaacson, a middle-aged graphic designer, was always a Christian, but couldn't find spiritual fulfillment in one of the South Bay's big box churches. Marie, a 21-year-old student photographer, wasn't brought up in a religious household. Her grandmother was a Jehovah's Witness; her father was disinterested in religion. She dated a Muslim for a while and grew interested in Islam—but when the relationship went south, so did her interest.
Then she found herself accepting Jesus Christ as her personal savior at a new church in Santa Cruz.
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It's called Vintage Faith Church, and it's part of what's become known as an "emerging" church movement in evangelical circles. The "vintage" refers to a reach back into Christianity's earliest traditions, and a fast-growing body of converts is responding. In this era of the Religious Right and the Spiritual Left, Vintage Faith is at the forefront of an intriguing trend in America's evangelical landscape: it is a church with deeply conservative roots that nevertheless preaches a theme of introspection and constant self-examination so often missing in the finger-pointing sermons of modern evangelicalism. Here, the unbelieving world isn't the devil; the battleground is within.
"What you'll find in the emerging church is people who had a crisis of faith," says Isaacson. "People woke up, and said, 'What am I doing? I've been Christian my whole life and feel like I'm a machine, following something that's man-made.' For some people, it becomes a de-conversion; for people like me, it becomes like a stripping. You have to take your faith and make it raw. You have to ask what is it in our religion that is part of this culture, and what is it that is part of this ancient religion that I'm passionate about."
Where Preaching Meets Puma
Church is in session, and the pastor is outfitted in a snazzy red Puma tennis shirt. The church band is a bluegrass-influenced quartet featuring a tall standup bassist and backup guitarist sporting a low-cut, black Mohawk. The chatty, ebullient church staffer making the announcements has come to the 7pm evening service after spending a day at the beach, attired in jeans rolled up four inches at the hems and flip-flops. The congregation—about 250 mostly young worshippers, some of whom drape their bare feet nonchalantly over the pew in front of them—look much the same. Low-cut jeans, tank tops and tattoos far outnumber traditional Sunday-bests.
It is Santa Cruz and it would be easy enough to write the scene off as a direct consequence of just that. But American evangelicals—and make no bones about it, this is an evangelical church—have long been known to play loose with the formats governing worship in order to attract believers, which is why Pastor Rick Warren, the leader of Orange County's Saddleback Church, which along with Willow Creek in Chicago is one of America's most influential megachurches, can wear colorful Hawaiian shirts at the pulpit without any qualms about violating sacred space. And, only three weeks ago, Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, the largest evangelical seminary in the United States, underlined, in an address to an ecumenical gathering in downtown San Jose's Fairmont Hotel, the idea that American evangelicals have been historically flexible. "Our infrastructure fits the postmodern structure a lot better [than other churches]," said Mouw, in town to deliver a keynote for the National Workshop on Christian Unity. "We've been the great deconstructionists of the last 30 years [regarding] the structure, or patterns, of church. Would you call this a worship service? Would you call this a hymn? We must be all things to all human beings."
It's a movement—or conversation, as its leaders like to call it—that's known as post-evangelical, or post-conservative, or Emergent Christianity. And, it could perhaps be described as a version of evangelicalism that still holds fast to many of the emotional absolutes of the faith—that Jesus did die for humanity's sins, that he was resurrected, that miracles were part of Christ's life—and to the tenants of evangelicalism—including its emphasis on the personal experience of Jesus and its regard of the Bible as the supreme authority, as well as its mission-centric focus. But in addition to these conservative characteristics, it is also sprinkled with a healthy dose of a Jim Wallis-type of social consciousness, where moral issues may very well include questions about sexual orientation but are also extended to questions about economic injustice and war and the collective—as opposed to the personal—good, and a healthy curiosity about Christianity's rich liturgical past. Ritualistic foot-washing, or emulating Jesus washing the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper, is making a comeback, even in Protestant denominations, as is the ancient Christian ritual of the "holy" kiss. Saints, pushed out for so long by Reformists, are now more intriguing. "I think," Brian McLaren, a pastor and a leading writer in the Emergent conversation, told Christian Today in 2004, "the real story is both evangelicals and the mainline learning from the Catholics."
And, if traditional evangelicals look toward the global south, in Africa or South America, as their mission fields, these new evangelicals see the mission fields being right here in the United States, in places like Santa Cruz, where one local pastor asserts that about 90 percent of the population has no relationship with a church.
Back at Vintage Faith, the pastor in the Puma shirt, Robert Namba, begins his sermon. He stands below the stage, at a level that's more intimate with his congregation. The lights are dimmed and a large painting that depicts a tree with a scroll wrapped around it dominates the background—"It softens up the room," says a member of the church's Sacred Space team, which is responsible for creating the atmosphere of the sanctuary. Two smaller paintings are in the foreground; one of them was painted during the previous week's service.
The sermon is about a theme that repeats itself in the Bible, that of an "aroma pleasing to God." Namba passes around a bag of fresh Kona coffee for his congregation to smell and goes through a number of verses which feature a version of that phrase. Then, near the end of his sermon, he asks his congregation, "What is our aroma? What is our smell?"
Namba answers his own question by reminding his congregation about some of the answers volunteers from Vintage Faith received when they surveyed unbelievers locally about their thoughts about Christians. "They should all be shot," was one of the answers; Namba's audience laughs. "I saw a bumper sticker once; it read, 'Jesus, save me from your followers.' The aroma is not good, folks," Namba concludes. "The thing that called me to Jesus is to see people who represent Jesus. Are you flexible when things don't go your way? Are you someone who [has] regard for the stranger and the outcast? Do you seek the needs of others before your own?"
House of Worship Meets House of Style: Pastor Dan Kimball leads a service at Vintage Faith.
Our Lady of the Culture Vulture
Why is this newest trend in churches so popular? According to Robert Webber, who has written a number of books centered on the theme of reaching back to ancient Christian spiritual practices and is regarded as one of the leading thinkers taking part in the Emergent conversation, the rise of the Emergent church represents a third wave of deconstructionist reform in America's evangelical history. First, says Webber, the fundamentalist evangelicalism that had been prevalent in pre-1950s America gave way to Billy Graham-type neoevangelicals, which then led to the megachurches of the "church-growth" phenomenon in the 1980s, and now to the Emergent church.
"There's a sense where evangelicals are culture chasers," says Webber. "As cultures begin to change, evangelicals begin to change with that culture. The megachurch became rooted in a sort of broadcast, communication, television [culture] and began to create show-type churches. I hope the megachurches will catch on to some of the aspects of this movement. There's no reason why they can't pick up on it."
Vintage Faith, in many ways, is perched on the divide between the church-growth movement and the Emergent movement that Webber describes. It's the difference between method and content. For a church-growth pastor, the Emergent movement may very well reflect just another strategy to bring people to Christ that can be packaged and sold, just as new forms of music are packaged and sold to churches to attract contemporary worshippers. For McLaren, an antiwar activist, emerging churches represent exactly what the title of his book says—A New Kind of Christian.
"A change in method is not a change in substance," says Webber. "Dan [Kimball, Vintage Faith's lead pastor and author of The Emerging Church] once said to me, 'What is the danger of what I'm doing?' I said, 'Dan, the real problem here is if what you're doing in going back to the ancient church is just a new gimmick, you're not going to last. You have got to have a substance that stands behind the shift into an ancient church model.' I would say Dan Kimball is processing out of a megachurch tradition and represents the emerging church. However, he has not processed as far as what the emerging church will become; therefore, he still has a foot, or maybe even a toe, left in the contemporary megachurch tradition. And there's a consumerist aspect to evangelical Christianity in general."
Indeed, Kimball's Vintage Faith Church was born in Santa Cruz Bible Church, a massive church with a sprawling (by Santa Cruz standards) campus that is based on a conservative, church-growth model. Kimball was a youth minister and, in an experiment designed to attract more young people to church, created Vintage Faith. Santa Cruz Bible has two claims to fame: one was its previous pastor, Chip Ingram, a charismatic preacher popular on the circuit tour who has since left for Atlanta; the other was a national-headline grabbing incident in 2004 involving a lesbian couple who had gotten married in San Francisco. Two days after their marriage, they entered a newlywed contest in Santa Cruz Bible in which couples married for less than three years were asked to stand. The lesbian couple ended up winning the contest because their marriage was the most recent, but the pastor rebuked the couple in front of the congregation for their gay marriage.
Just last month, Vintage Faith moved from Santa Cruz Bible to First Presbyterian Church, a beautiful, red-brick building near downtown Santa Cruz on Mission Street. Lee Purkey, the pastor at First Presbyterian, found himself with a dwindling congregation, which, once 900 strong, had fallen to about 175 faithful. The empty pews were so disconcerting that Purkey once stood up at an elders meeting and asked his church's leaders to give him a good reason why he shouldn't send his own children to Santa Cruz Bible. But Purkey had a vision. He believed that with the right approach, his church, with its proximity to downtown and the UC-Santa Cruz campus, could reach Santa Cruz's unbelievers. When Kimball came calling, looking for a space to plant Vintage Space, Purkey laid his ideas about a partnership out before the Vintage elders. "They just sat there, with their jaws on the table," he recalls. "And I said, 'Are you the people that God has called to come over here?'" Eight months later, it appeared they were, and now First Presbyterian has a traditional Presbyterian service at 9am, a combined Vintage Faith and Presbyterian service at 11am, and a Vintage Faith Service at 7pm, with the goal of the two churches becoming one in the future.
Purkey, conservative theologically, finds himself on the opposite side of the method and content divide that Webber stands on—and sees Kimball as being closer to him in perspective. "With some emergent churches, there is a change in the method," says Purkey, who does not agree with everything McLaren writes in his books. "There are churches that I have some big cautionary flags about. That's not Dan. Dan has been pretty consistent in terms of message. The vehicle has changed, but the message is timeless."
OK, So There's a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, Buddhist and a Witch ...
Kimball himself is 45 and was born and raised in New Jersey. He has a distinctive blond pompadour and is a fan of rockabilly music. He, in fact, played in a rockabilly band at Colorado State University and traveled with his band mates to England, where he lived for a year and met an 83-year-old Oxford graduate and former pastor who became a sort of spiritual mentor. "I don't trust people's emotions and feelings," he says. "I respected him. For me, even though I know you can't prove [faith], the intellectual reasons for believing are important. This guy was really smart and was able to answer questions and dialogue on a level that I appreciated."
He then went off to Israel and the Occupied Territories for four months, where he studied the Bible on his own and experienced for himself the sacred geography of the Bible. After the Middle East, it was on to Santa Cruz, where he found Santa Cruz Bible in the phone book.
"I'm still personally conservative," says Kimball. "But conservative is relative. I've been saying that I'm a fundamentalist without being seen as a fundamentalist. I had a girl once tell me—she asked me some questions, and I told her I had no idea how to answer them—and she told me, 'Because you're telling me that, it makes me trust you even more.' I didn't even think about that when I was talking to her. Christian leaders thought they had a lot more answers than they really did. The emerging church is recognizing that we don't have all the answers. We don't say it's a weakness to say I don't know. At the same time, I also need to have an answer if people ask me if I believe Jesus was raised supernaturally from the grave. I better not say I don't know to that one."
Kimball experienced what he describes in his book as an "odd" experience one afternoon after he agreed to join an interfaith panel at UC-Santa Cruz. When he arrived for the panel discussion, he found himself seated next a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Wiccan, a practitioner of witchcraft. As students began chiming in with their questions, Kimball had an unsettling realization.
"We live in a culture so religiously diverse," he later wrote, "that an evangelical Christian can sit beside a witch on a Q&A panel, both considered representatives of equally viable religious alternatives, and it can feel like 'business as usual.'"
It's this realization, perhaps, that is nudging Kimball and other emerging Christian leaders to dull some of the sharper edges of classical evangelicalism. It's doubtful that many of the young worshippers who attend Kimball's church could carry on a conversation about postmodernism, but they love the fact that Kimball carries himself more like a musician than a preacher.
"He has really cool hair," gushes one recent convert.
Glorious Noise: Josh Fox rocks for the Lord at Vintage Faith.
Christ Unplugged
As a church-growth critique, Kimball's core assertion is striking. More and more young Americans, what he calls the postmodern generation, have no experience with church, he points out. Whereas megachurches employed the "seeker-sensitive" model—a strategy designed to attract Christians disillusioned with church by removing the impediments of church (liturgy, overt displays of religious symbolism, traditional rituals, long-running worship sessions)—to grow their congregations at exponential rates, Kimball contends that the model, written about so frequently in recent years as a way to understand the emerging political influence of the religious right, is rapidly becoming irrelevant, even while being perfected more and more by megachurches everyday. In A New Kind of Christian, McLaren presents an effective metaphor for this paradox by pointing out that, in 1910, that despite the recent invention of the automobile, a person would be more likely to purchase a horse-drawn carriage to satisfy the need for transportation because, at the time, horse-drawn carriages were at their peak. "Of course," he writes, "they would be scrapped in the years to come." Similarly, Kimball and others contend, the seeker-sensitive model may be at its peak, but the coming postmodern era could very well cause the model to be thrown into the scrap heap of church history.
Seeker-sensitive models are designed for "modern" individuals, who were disappointed in the church they were raised in; today, Kimball goes on to say, church leaders have to minister to "postmodern" individuals with no experience whatsoever with church, individuals who live in an environment where the message of a Wiccan witch is given equal footing with the message of a Christian pastor—Santa Cruz, where Wiccan bookstores can be found just as easily as Christian bookstores and, in many ways, the hub of America's alternative spirituality scene, is only the canary in the coal mine, not the exception.
The solution for Kimball came, almost predictably, when he was watching MTV. In The Emerging Church, he writes:
"Late one night, I happened upon the band the Cranberries playing an Unplugged concert on MTV. It was an all-acoustic performance. The state was draped with a dark, rich fabric and lit by candelabras. It looked more like a grandmother's attic than a rock-concert venue, and I was struck by the simplicity of it. No fancy light shows or drumset risers. I also noticed how close the audience was seated to the musicians. There wasn't a giant separation between the two groups. Rather, they were all sort of together in a 'community.' I immediately felt that there was something very interesting to this 'unplugged' approach."
Soon after, Kimball transformed a Wednesday night youth service he had been leading by using the seeker-sensitive model at Santa Cruz Bible into an "unplugged" service. Gone were the high-tech videos, the electric band, the bright lights; introduced were candles, funky furniture, acoustic music and a simple intimacy.
Kimball likes to use charts to describe his philosophy. In one, he describes the modern era as marked with monotheism, rationalism, individualism and religion. Then, at the turn of the millennium, comes the post-Christian era, which is pluralistic as opposed to monotheistic, experiential as opposed to rational, mystical as opposed to religious, and communal or tribal as opposed to individualistic. "The later people are born," he writes, "the more they will know only a postmodern world."
And so, to survive, evangelical Christianity must adapt to reach to the postmodern unbeliever. The question, of course, is whether the adaptation will be a new marketing gimmick that evangelicals will use to convert the unconverted, an extension, perhaps, of the seeker-sensitive philosophy, or whether the adaptation will be something more genuine and authentic, rooted in the substance of the Christian tradition.
In A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future, a document which will appear publicly for the first time this September in Christianity Today, Emergent thinkers call for what would amount to a theological—not just methodological—revolution in American evangelicalism. The Call argues that evangelicals have reduced theology to "mere propositions," which is made compatible to culture and emptied of meaning; instead, evangelical theology needs to treat the Bible as the world's story, or a master narrative. The shift from the modern to the postmodern—from propositions to narratives—is evident here, and not just in the way a concert at the HP Pavilion is different from an MTV Unplugged concert.
Back at Vintage Faith, the church's Sacred Space team had lined the sanctuary's walls with hundreds of 3-by-5 index cards. Earlier, they had asked their congregants to each complete a sentence, the beginning of which they provided and which read, "I want a church that ..." Many of the answers on the index cards were predictable. Vintage Faith's faithful wanted a church that was tolerant, that was accepting, that cared about the downtrodden; many participants filled their entire index card to describe their ideal church.
One index card, though, stuck out.
"I want a church that is authentic," it read.
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Byron York takes up the story of President Obama's deep desire to subvert Thanksgiving on behalf of Obamacare:
On Wednesday afternoon, just hours before Thanksgiving, President Obama's Twitter account — which has more than 40 million followers — sent out this message: "Make sure everyone who sits down with you for #Thanksgivukkah dinner is covered." ("Thanksgivukkah" refers to this year's rare overlap of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah.)
The president's tweet linked to a photo of a young man sitting at a table with a turkey and a menorah. The accompanying text: "Celebrating Thanksgiving. Lighting the Hanukkah candles. Talking about health insurance. Gotta love dinners like these."
And that's not all. Byron adds:
The administration knows many people will be unfamiliar with the etiquette of discussing national health care at Thanksgiving. So Organizing for Action, the president's political committee, has created a strategy sheet and suggested talking points.
"Take advantage of downtime after meals or between holiday activities to start your talk," OFA advises. It's especially important, the tip sheet says, to use special circumstances that might arise during a family celebration to press the case for health care. For example, one OFA tweet showed pictures of a young man wielding a big knife to carve a turkey. That was followed by a picture of the man with a bandage on his hand. "Food-related injuries happen a lot this time of year," the message said. "It's a good time to talk about getting coverage."
After taking care of a food-related injury, OFA recommends, it's time for the sales pitch. "Offer to walk them through it: 'Would you like to take some time with me to sign up right now?'"
"Start by asking, 'Have you thought about signing up for health insurance on the new marketplace?'" OFA suggests. Then, after going through the steps involved, a more direct question: "'When do you plan on signing up?'" Knowing that this might not be what many Americans — giving thanks, eating turkey, and watching football — want to do on Thanksgiving, OFA advises its health care advocates to "be persistent, but keep it positive."
Byron thoughtfully compares and contrasts the mindset that would harbor these thoughts with what he found on display during a recent visit to the Stasi headquarters in Berlin, now (let us give thanks) turned into a museum. He refrains from passing judgment on what Obama and his acolytes are up to, but it is so telling. I don't think one can be harsh enough about what it says.

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Hundreds of Baltimore residents voiced strong opposition to a preliminary plan to add more parking spaces and an access road to Patterson Park during a community meeting there Monday night — at times shouting down city officials trying to explain it.
The meeting, held at the park's Virginia S. Baker Recreation Center, was the first of four planned by City Councilman James Kraft and city officials after Kraft told residents about the plan last month and thousands of them began organizing against it.
"We've seen the park go from being lovely to pretty sketchy to being lovely again," said Dorothea Stamathis, a 59-year resident of Linwood Avenue. "To pave it would be a disgrace."
The plan, which is not final, is based in part on the city health department's desire to transfer activities at the John Booth Senior Center in Highlandtown to the park's 119-year-old Casino building, which housed a senior day care facility until recently. The extra parking and access road were designed to facilitate seniors' access to the building, officials said.
The plan is also intended to provide better access to the park for people who can't necessarily walk to it, and to better control vehicles that already have access the park, officials said.
More than 5,200 people have signed a petition against the plan on the website Change.org. Many at the meeting Monday held signs denouncing more parking as a loss of precious little green space left in the city.
"One of the reasons we chose our property was the park, just the ability to walk and enjoy the park," said Olga Ferguson, who with her husband, Paul, moved to the neighborhood from New York City in 2005. "We don't want to have to be cautious about cars coming by or coming in. We do enough of that anyway downtown."
Others, namely seniors who participate in activities at the Booth center, said they feel caught in the middle of the debate — even though they would need just a dozen or so parking spaces, not the 96 indicated in the plan that was made public.
"We don't want to see big paved roads and big parking lots. The seniors just want to have their place," said Charlotte Jankowiak, who grew up playing in the park. "They have a place for the dogs and a place for the children to play. Can't the seniors have a place?"
Ray Lubinski, president of the Booth center's advisory board, wrote a letter circulated at the meeting that said the park would be a great location for the new center, and that the senior center's patrons have been unfairly targeted in the debate.
"Why are we being USED by everyone to muddy the waters about FUTURE parking lots???" Lubinski wrote.
Kraft, whose district includes the park and who lives just steps away from it, recently wrote in a community letter urging attendance at the meetings that any attempt to paint the debate as one between seniors and Patterson Park community members would be "a ruse and an attempt to divide our community, pit neighbor against neighbor and portray us as parochial obstructionists."
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has said Kraft "poisoned the well for discussion" about the plans for the park by suggesting they were finalized when they are not.
At times Monday night, the meeting seemed like a political rally. When Kraft said one more car in the park would be one too many, the crowd cheered wildly. Acting parks director Bill Vondrase, who said officials were there to take input from the public, was booed multiple times, particularly when he raised the possibility that not everyone who would like to use the park is able to walk there.
Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the city's health commissioner, had fewer comments yelled at her as she spoke to the value of senior centers and the importance of giving seniors a place of their own without having to compete for resources in the renovated recreation center that is also part of the larger plan for the park.
Three more meetings are scheduled: Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to noon at Hampstead Hill Academy, 500 S. Linwood Avenue; next Tuesday from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at St. Andrew's Church, 2028 E. Lombard Street; and Oct. 11 from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Breath of God Lutheran Church, 141 S. Clinton Street.


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Here's your chance to share a photo of your favorite tractor.
Written by Larry Gay
Larry Gay is the author of four tractor books published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, including Guide to Oliver Tractors and Guide to Ford Tractors. These books may be obtained from ASABE at 800-695-2723 or asabe.org, click publications and then click book catalog.
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Linda Niccolai, PhD
Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases); Director, Development Core at Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS; Director, HPV Working Group at Yale; Co-Director, CT Emerging Infections Program at Yale
Departments & Organizations
School of Public Health: Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS | Connecticut Emerging Infections Program | Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases | HPV Working Group (Niccolai Lab) | YSPH Global Health Concentration
Yale Cancer Center: Cancer Prevention and Control
Yale Institute for Global Health
Office of Cooperative Research
Linda Niccolai is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. She currently serves as Co-Director of the Connecticut Emerging Infections Program and Director of the Development Core for the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS.
Her research is primarily focused on sexually transmitted infections (STI), including HIV. Her current research projects include a special focus on human papillomavirus. Specifically, her research is designed to understand uptake and impact of HPV vaccines with an emphasis on addressing health disparities. Her current HIV work is focused on understanding structural and social determinants of risk including mass incarceration, housing instability, and subsidized housing policies. Her research methods include surveillance, behavioral epidemiology, and qualitative approaches. Her current projects are funded by National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Linda Niccolai received her Sc.M. at Harvard School of Public Health and her Ph.D. at Tulane University. She is currently on the editorial board for Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and has served as an adviser and reviewer for National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conferences and grant programs. In 2004, she was the recipient of the Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Education & Training
|Tulane University (2000)
|Harvard School of Public Health, Epidemiology (1995)
Honors & Recognition
Award for Excellence in Teaching, Yale School of Public Health (2004)
Professional Service
See CV
See CV
- (2013 - 2013)
HIV/AIDS, Russia Russia (2010)
Potential for HIV Transmission in Relationships of Drug-Using Women in Russia
HIV/AIDS, Russia Saint Petersburg, Russia (2010)
The Context of HIV Testing for Detection of Early HIV Infection in St. Petersburg
International Training Russia (2010)
Co-Investigator, AIDS International Training and Research Program in Russia
AIDS International Training and Research Program (AITRP) China; India; Russia; South Africa (2009)
Training researchers from the Russian Federation, China, India, and South Africa in HIV prevention research.


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Pollution Fight
Read the original story. Click the "LISTEN" button at the bottom of the page to hear the story. When you are done, click the "NEXT" button.
The city of Lodi says it needs to raise money from companies that are contributing to groundwater pollution without putting those firms out of business. That's why city attorneys say they are researching insurance coverage for several local merchants searching for a source of money.
The plan is drawing complaints from several businesses including the local newspaper, The Lodi News-Sentinel. A paper executive tells News 10 he's worried an inadvertent admission of liability could devastate the small business.
Total costs for the groundwater clean-up project could reach $100,000,000. The city of Lodi says it has already reached a settlement with one insurance company for about $1,000,000.


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Technology Help is a service provided by South Hurstville Library to help people looking for assistance with basic technology enquiries.
Bookings are required
Bring your own device or get help on a library computer.
Please note that the Technology Help service is for basic enquiries only. This service is not able to provide assistance with technical enquiries, commercial enquiries, structured training, computer repair or design services.


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One moment it's a receiver-hitch cargo carrier. The next, it's a heavy-duty ATV or lawn and garden trailer, no tools required. It's called the Transformer Trailer, new from Swisher. Features include heavy steel construction, powder-coat paint, high ground clearance for rough terrain and ample attachment points to secure bungee cords, rope or netting. The trailer, which has a 500-lb. capacity, fits 2-in. receiver hitches. A ball hitch coupler is included.
The suggested retail price is $349. Contact Swisher, Dept. FIN, Box 67, Warrensburg, MO 64093, 800/222-8183, or visit www.swisherinc.com.


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Get the biggest deals delivered to your inbox! Click here to sign up for the DEALBOSS newsletter.
BUY IT NOW: $120 Off 12" Laptop + Free Shipping
Are you ready for the single best laptop deal of the back-to-school season? If you are shopping for a student, a home office or looking for one of the most lightweight fully-powered laptops you can buy, get ready to save more than $100.
As part of a special back to school promotion that just dropped, you have the opportunity to buy a Windows 10, Intel, ultra-thin and fully loaded laptop complete with fingerprint reader and a spectacular HD display at a great price.
Not only did the display hold its own against a laptop costing three times more but I put today's laptop deal to the test against a MacBook and you'll be amazed to see the results!
Click the play button to see how today's $380 laptop deal held its own against a $1,300 Macbook.
Perfect for people of all ages, the display is so large (yet thin and compact), this laptop is ideal for streaming, movie night and an essential for any dorm room. Movies, TV shows and content come to life on one of the best displays we've ever seen under $1,000.
Features and specs include:
- Spectacular Quad HD Display (held its own against an Apple Retina display)
- Ultra thin, slim and extremely light laptop
- Fingerprint ID
- Intel chip and 8-hour battery life
- Fast solid state drive with USB C hub expandable up to 512 GB
- 1080p full HD webcam for video chats and better facial recognition
- Includes USB C hub with HDMI port
$120 Off 12" Laptop + Free Shipping
Was: $499.99
Now: $379.99
- The smartest health scale is under $40 today
- A $30 deal you and your garden will love
- How to get a portable indoor/outdoor cooling fan for $99 today
- This $20 hammock holds 250 pounds
- How to score Bluetooth wireless headphones for $25 today
- A $70 action cam that holds its own against a GoPro
- 3 incredible deals under $30
Matt Granite is a freelance consumer reporter who produces stories and video for this Station, Amazon and others. He is not compensated by the brands featured here. This Station and its parent company may receive a share of the revenue from the site that sells the product if you purchase one of these products using the link on this page.


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For these dishcloths, I used this pattern by Deb of Homespun Living. It was a fun pattern to knit, nothing complicated. I love the texture created by the knits and purls, and I am very proud of my stripes.
Around the same time I was knitting, I was re-reading Little Women. (Beth died. Again! sigh.) One passage in particular struck me this time as I read it. It's just before Meg's wedding, and all the sisters are working to get Meg's new house ready for the married couple. Amy drapes the curtains, Jo stocks the pantry, and Beth makes a stack of dishcloths, among other things.
"People who hire all these things done for them never know what they lose, for the homeliest tasks get beautified if loving hands do them, and Meg found so many proofs of this that everything in her small nest, from the kitchen roller to the silver vase on her parlor table, was eloquent of home love and tender forethought."
I like that very much. That's why I make things. These dishcloths, humble and wonky though they may be, are indeed eloquent of home love.


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Webb-Ehrlich Great Organ of Alumni Hall named
Indiana University President Michael A. McRobbie presented the University Medal to IU President Emeritus Thomas Ehrlich at the June 7 rededication of the renovated Alumni Hall. The ceremony also served as the formal naming of the C. B. Fisk organ recently installed in the historic hall in the Indiana Memorial Union, now known as the Webb-Ehrlich Great Organ of Alumni Hall. Ehrlich shares the naming honor with Charles H. Webb, dean emeritus of the Jacobs School of Music. A dedicatory recital celebration for the organ is planned for Sept. 15-18, 2013.
Trombonist Wayne Wallace appointed to Jacobs School of Music jazz faculty
The Jacobs School of Music is pleased to announce that jazz trombonist Wayne Wallace will join its faculty as professor of practice in jazz this fall. A five-time Grammy nominee, Wallace is one of the most respected exponents of African American-Latin music in the world today.
Jacobs School appoints Walter Huff to full-time choral faculty
The Jacobs School is pleased to announce that renowned opera chorus master Walter Huff will join its faculty associate professor of music this fall. The appointment follows a year in which Huff taught at the Jacobs School as an adjunct faculty member and directed IU Opera Theater choruses.
Jacobs alumna Jamie Barton is BBC Cardiff's Singer of the World
Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, an alumna of the Jacobs School, is the winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition. In addition to winning the main prize, which includes an award of approximately $23,000, she received the competition's Song Prize, an award of approximately $7,600.
Summer Music Chamber and Recital Series showcases wide range of contemporary works, including premieres
The chamber music leg of the 2013 Summer Music series begins this Thursday, June 27, in Auer Hall with the Rubens Quartet performing Stravinsky's Three Pieces for String Quartet, Dutilleux's "Ainsi la nuit" and Bartók's String Quartet No. 4. Numerous other 20th- and 21st-century works will be featured during the series.
Jacobs Percussion Ensemble wins prestigious international competition
The Jacobs School of Music's Percussion Ensemble, directed by faculty members John Tafoya and Kevin Bobo, recently won the Percussive Arts Society's International Percussion Competition and will perform at the upcoming national convention in November.
Steve Zegree Vocal Jazz Camp begins new life at IU
Another chapter in Steve Zegree's activities at IU begins this summer with the first annual Steve Zegree Vocal Jazz Camp. Offered to high school and college students, teachers and professionals, the 2013 camp has welcomed more than 40 participants this week from 16 states around the U.S., as well as Switzerland and Sweden.
'Roundabout Opera for Kids' recipient of IU Women's Philanthropy Council grant
The Indiana University Women's Philanthropy Council recently awarded grants totaling $124,730 to 12 schools or organizations affiliated with four IU campuses. Roundabout Opera for Kids, a service-learning project led by Jacobs faculty member Kimberly Carballo, was a recipient.
String Academy Virtuosi perform in Argentina and Brazil
Members of the Jacobs School String Academy, directed by Professor Mimi Zweig, engaged in a performance tour of Argentina and Brazil, in early June. Read about their life-changing experiences in their travel blog.
Additional Upcoming Events
The 2013 Summer Music series is in full swing! Don't miss the opening Summer Band concert tonight at 7pm on the MAC lawn (Rain Location: Musical Arts Center auditorium) followed by Steve Zegree Vocal Camp Solo Performances at 8pm at Serendipity. The Rubens Quartet opens the Chamber Music series tomorrow night, with more great performances—and a lecture—throughout the weekend. For a complete event listing, click here.
Faculty, Student, and Alumni News Updates
The most recent updates include Distinguished Professors David Baker receiving the James B. Calvert Outstanding Music Educator Award and Violette Verdy returning to teach at the Paris Opera Ballet, Professor Emeritus Lawrence Hurst receiving the Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Society of Bassists, and much more!


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Cloud storage services are incredibly popular and this can be at least partly attributed to the increased popularity of smartphones that are able to connect to the internet from almost anywhere. One of the most successful cloud storage services is Dropbox and its desktop software makes it easy to synchronise files between the cloud and all of the computers you use. The Dropbox app for Android is a little disappointing, however, and this is where Dropsync can help.
The app allows for full two-way syncing between your Android and your Dropbox account. Just pop in an SD card, select a folder you would like to synchronise and you're good to go. You can choose between synchronising files only over a wifi connection to avoid incurring data charges and you can also customise synchronisation based on the charge level of your battery.
You can also place limits on the size of documents that should be included in the sync and indicate how frequently synchronisation should be performed - or you can opt to perform only manual syncs. The app works just like the desktop version of the Dropbox software, and this is something to applaud.
By opting to upgrade to the Pro version of the app brings a number of new features as well as wiping out the advertisements found in the free version. But the Pro features go beyond this, affording you greater control over the frequency of synchronisation and also allows for the synchronisation of multiple Dropbox folders.
Dropsync brings the power of the Dropbox desktop app to Android and this is a worthwhile install for anyone who makes use of the online storage service.


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24 May 2011
Flight test engineer Ina Niewind is currently working with the A400M transport aircraft. "Since the A400M hasn't been delivered yet we have to use its predecessor, the C-160 Transall, as a test subject instead," she explains. To do so, Ina went out testing the characteristics of Germany's soil for the first time. The transport aircraft must be able to land on grass, so a suitable grass landing strip was needed; initial trials with the C-160 Transall were favourable and tests with the A400M are now being planned.
For Ina Niewind, a small dream was fulfilled in March 2011 when she was allowed to join the pilot during flight tests of an F-4F Phantom II. "That is something very different from sitting in a transport aircraft. The clouds looked almost close enough to touch," says Niewind. For part of the flight, she flew the plane herself, including loops and steeply banked turns. In the process, she experienced gravitational acceleration several times.
Flight test engineer Ina Niewind at work with Peter Rieg, the Transall loadmaster.
By Lena Fuhrmann
While pilots at the controls of an F-4F Phantom II or Eurofighter conduct test flights at altitudes of several thousand metres, their 'client' stands on the ground below; extremely concentrated, Ina Niewind scrutinises the display screens and flight charts, speaks with the pilots and checks altitude, speed and other data. The events taking place in the sky would not be possible without her. At 30 years of age, Ina works in a profession where women are still all underrepresented. As a flight test engineer at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), Niewind ensures that aircraft will be able to operate even more safely in the future. She prepares flight tests, defines the test plans, reviews the responses of the aircraft and the reactions of the pilot, and, afterwards, carefully evaluates the results.
Ina Niewind has been in charge of the DLR Institute of Flight Systems field office at Manching, near Ingolstadt in southern Germany for the past year; the Institute is responsible for supporting German Armed Forces engineers in the evaluation of aircraft. Together with a handful of colleagues, Niewind works for the branch of the Defence Engineering Services (Wehrtechnische Dienststellen; WTD) that is responsible for airworthiness testing and certification of aeronautical equipment for the German Armed Forces, known as WTD 61. The Bundeswehr Technical and Airworthiness Center for Aircraft (Wehrtechnische Dienststelle für Luftfahrzeuge – Musterprüfwesen für Luftfahrtgerät der Bundeswehr), as WTD 61 is formally called, is part of the Federal Office of Defence Technology and Procurement (Bundesamt für Wehrtechnik und Beschaffung; BWB).
Jets are not the only aircraft tested by her; at the moment, she is working on the A400M transport aircraft. "Since the A400M hasn't been delivered yet we have to use its predecessor, the C-160 Transall, as a test subject instead," Ina explains. To do so, she went out testing the characteristics of Germany's soil for the first time. The transport aircraft must be able to land on grass, so a suitable grass landing strip was needed; initial trials with the C-160 Transall were favourable, and tests with the A400M are now being planned. During flight tests with this transport aircraft, Niewind is often in the cockpit herself as there is substantially more room than in a jet. Being closer to what is happening, she can experience the effects of the tests first hand. "It is tremendously helpful to be on board the aircraft," she says.
Even when she was in school, Ina Niewind knew that she was interested in a mathematical or technical career. After obtaining her high school diploma – the German Abitur – she was sure that she would go on to study aerospace technology. A trainee placement in the flight-testing field sparked her interest in aviation. Nevertheless, Niewind's undergraduate dissertation was on the subject of unmanned aircraft, known as UAVs. "Ironically, for my doctorate, I'm doing exactly the opposite; I am investigating pilots' behaviour in aircraft," says Niewind with a laugh. On completion of her undergraduate dissertation, she first worked at the Institute of Aerospace Systems at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, but shortly after she started working for EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company. She landed at DLR through a telephone call; at that moment, her former tutor was in charge of the DLR field office in Manching and wanted her in his team. Shortly after, Niewind joined DLR as a member of its scientific staff.
Simulator flights for the A400M
"Two months later, I was already supervising the first simulator campaign for the A400M," Ina recalls. The simulator is able to identify various manoeuvres on the ground that may give rise to problems in flight. Of course, the final confirmation must be delivered by the flight tests, but a great deal can be 'flown' on the simulator with no safety risk. "Our job was to test in advance whether certain flight test techniques that had been established on highly manoeuvrable jets could be transferred to the A400M." Here, she worked with her colleagues at DLR Braunschweig, who programmed the simulator in accordance with her specifications. "The task could not be accomplished by one person alone; teamwork is very important," she says. Niewind spent three days with the test pilots from WTD 61 in Braunschweig; they flew in virtual reality with very realistic flight characteristics. She was involved in the preparatory work and subsequent evaluation for a total of three months. Ina has now become the Project Manager for DLR activities associated with the A400M trials, as well as being involved in testing the Eurofighter and the F-4F. "The Eurofighter is a manoeuvrable jet while the A400M is a heavy transporter. Even though these two aircraft are very different they share a lot of common ground," explains Niewind.
In 2009, she trained as a flight test engineer at the National Test Pilot School (NTPS) in the Californian Mojave desert. Back to school for four months, she attended lectures by experienced test pilots and former astronauts on the subject of flight test techniques. Here, budding flight test engineers learned things such as how to approach a runway correctly when landing an aircraft. Once the theory had been absorbed, the course switched to practical applications. Teamed with a test pilot, Niewind put her newly acquired knowledge into practice during flight tests. Flight test engineer jobs are highly sought after. Alongside top scores in aerospace technology and satisfied employers, a little luck is also called for. Only a few people are given the opportunity by their employers to attend this expensive training course.
Ina Niewind's day is tightly scheduled. Flying is a profession for 'early birds'; she starts working at 06:30. "The first thing I do is check my emails. Besides the various campaigns I'm involved in I must also take care of a lot of organisational work or check reports," she explains. On average, Niewind takes a seat in the cockpit of the Transall every three or four weeks. "Flying the transporter is charming in its own way - it is very much a shared group experience." In her capacity as flight engineer, she must check the many documents relating to the A400M that she receives from the Airbus headquarters in Toulouse. After a long day's work, she – naturally enough – is drawn back up into the air. Niewind has a pilot's licence for small aircraft but also enjoys simply being in the passenger seat, for example during aerobatics sessions. Once her feet are back on the ground, she engages in a great deal of sport and is enrolled in a Spanish at evening school "because it is a beautiful language that I have always wanted to learn." On top of it all, Ina is also working on her doctoral thesis.
What are her plans for the future? "I hope to have finished my doctorate within the next two years. My wish would also be to increase the size of the team at this site, which would enable us to provide support for more aircraft or helicopters. That aside, I am amazingly lucky to be working in my dream job." Another dream was fulfilled last March, when Niewind was allowed to join the pilot during the flight tests of an F-4F Phantom II. "That is something very different from sitting in a transport aircraft. The clouds looked almost close enough to touch," she says. Ina was able to fly the aircraft herself, including performing loops and steeply banked turns, for part of the flight. In the process, she experienced gravitational acceleration several times. "My muscles really ached the next day," Niewind says, laughing.
Last modified:05/07/2011 16:42:07