Breaking News
A 15-year-old boy was briefly swallowed by a whale last Sunday while kayaking with his father near Catalina Island. Greg Greenfield, son of 52-year-old George Greenfield, was not harmed during the incident.
The pair, who live in Irvine, were kayaking when a humpback whale breached underneath Greg and swallowed him. He was inside the whale for 10 seconds before it spat him out. Greenfield was about 10 yards away at the time, recording a video of his son. Greenfield can be heard repeating, “Stay calm” in his video after Greg was spat out.
The Coast Guard picked up the two shortly after the incident, and Greenfield took Greg to an urgent care clinic in Irvine later that day.
“I thought I was dead,” Greg told Coast Guard Sgt. John Grecko. Gred added, “I was really scared but there was nothing I could do.” Greenfield noted that “It happened so fast, I had no time to react until Greg was already spit out.”
Greenfield’s video went viral online. Many of the online viewers were impressed with the father’s reassurance of his son.
“It was scary, but I didn’t want Greg to panic,” Greenfield said regarding his actions at the time. “I wouldn’t have believed it,” Grecko said, “if I didn’t see the video.”
Catalina Island sits 22 miles off the Southern California coast and is a popular tourist spot for snorkeling and scuba diving. Whale attacks on humans are extremely rare in California, but collision-caused deaths on cargo ships have increased in recent years.
Mini Profile
Grady Londagin thinks that every song has an important takeaway. “It empowers me, it improves my entire day,” Londagin said. “When a new album releases from my favorite artist, I’m on cloud nine.”
The way he speaks about music, people might expect him to be studying a music-related field, but Londagin is a first-year journalism major at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder. He hopes to become a photojournalist in the future, and chose CU Boulder for its sports journalism opportunities. Despite his love for sports journalism, he still wishes to pursue his interests as a music photojournalist.
Some of Londagin’s favorite genres are indie rock, pop R&B, classic rock, jazz and since moving to Boulder, house. He said, “Music is so vast, you can do anything with it,” and that’s a reason why he loves it so much.
His love for music started in high school, where he “struggled with finding…acceptance from other people.” It was during this time that Londagin dived into the world of music because he “found [himself] depressed a lot,” and because music wouldn’t add to that burden, but instead take away from it.
He might be a journalism major, but he’s always looking to “expose [his] ears to new sounds and new music.” He continues to blend his passion for photojournalism and music throughout his educational journey.
Speech
Note: Speech was given in Spanish and translated to English for the article.
Shantytowns are often more environmentally sustainable than residential housing, according to University of Colorado Boulder Environmental Design professor Jota Samper in his talk, “Informal Settlements and Marginalized Communities in Medellín, Colombia.” Shantytowns are improvised and unauthorized settlements that are condensed.
Samper gave the talk on Feb. 25 at 2:30 p.m., and it was hosted by CU Boulder’s Spanish and Portuguese Department in the McKenna Languages building. Samper spoke on informal settlements, or shantytowns, in Medellín, Colombia, where he was born. Samper focused on the environmental aspects of these settlements.
According to Samper, the best neighborhoods are walkable, compact, mixed-use, have good public services and have good public space. Shantytowns, or informal settlements, have many of these different traits. He believes that a walkable neighborhood is a better neighborhood because “they adopt solutions that are more sustainable.”
He noted the everyday change that many of these communities go through. Materials from dismantled buildings are either reused or biodegrade. “All the waste is used in the surrounding constructions,” said Samper. Despite the conditions that create informal settlements, they are more sustainable than formal housing, according to Samper.
Samper explained that these settlements are created when underprivileged groups come together to form a community on open land, and construction is very fast. Sometimes, police and private security force them out, but this stops when new settlements are built in different places because of the repeating cycle.
Abigail Kaminsky-Ortiz is a third-year CU Boulder student with family in Puerto Rico who shared that, “a lot of people live in [informal settlements] in San Juan.” “American companies have forced a lot of Puerto Ricans into [urban] areas.” According to Kaminsky-Ortiz, this is caused by the need for work and not enough housing, so people must build their own. Kaminsky-Ortiz was excited to attend the talk because of its focus on Latin America. She believes that these topics aren’t discussed as much as they should be in academic circles.
Samper’s research is focused on informal settlements, specifically in Latin America. He has a bachelor’s in architecture from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (National University of Colombia), a master’s in City Planning and a doctorate in Urban and Regional Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Samper believes that “people who live in informal settlements, because of the type of life they are forced to lead, can save the planet.”
Profile
Two car bombs shook the Boulder community in 1974 during the tumultuous Chicano Movement, killing six community activists, including Florencio “Freddy” Granado. Florencio Granado, who was named after his father, was born after the bombing that killed his dad. Today, Granado wishes to carry on the legacy of the six who were killed by continuing community work.
“He’s my dad, I believe what they fought for, and I still see it today, and that it’s never-ending,” said Granado. His father was a member of United Mexican American Students (UMAS) at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder, which led the on-campus Chicano Movement to fight discrimination against Chicanx/Latine students.
While Granado doesn’t attend CU Boulder, he is still involved with UMAS through the Aquetza Summer Program started by UMAS in 2012.
The program aims to educate underprivileged Chicanx/Latine high school students, who spend one week during summer living on the CU Boulder campus.
Granado is a counselor for Aquetza, where he helps support students. He believes that, because of his older age, he represents a unique figure for the students, who see him as an uncle or dad. “When they [the students] see me playing the Mayan ball game, they were like, ‘you’re like…my uncle jumping in,’” said Granado.
Nydia Strohm-Salazar is one of three co-directors of the program. Aquetza acts as a “bridge for youth to have access to campus, learn some history and just be in community,” said Strohm-Salazar.
Other counselors in the Aquetza program also appreciate his involvement. “He just carries so many memories and a lot of love. Not only for his community, but for his family, and I loved that,” said Scarlett Villacorta, an Aquetza counselor.
Despite his efforts now, Granado was not always involved in community organizing. While growing up in Denver, he became involved with gangs and heavy drug use. “It took a toll on my body and my mind,” Granado said. “I’m glad that I’m able to be back, part of the community, trying to be accepted, but I know it’s hard because of my past.”
Granado got back into community organizing during the planning of the 50-year commemoration of the car bombings. He recalled being asked by Chicano Movement elders who knew his father if he wanted to help with previous commemorations, but he never did.
It was during the planning of the 50 year commemoration when he met current UMAS members, and they invited him to be a part of Aquetza. He didn’t think he would be a good fit for the space, but it ended up changing his life.
Granado said that watching the youth and seeing what they were doing in the program moved him to join community organizing spaces. Recently, he’s been looking through his dad’s newspaper, El Escritor del Pueblo.
“I’ve been reading through them, and it’s like reading about what’s going on right now,” Granado said. For a long time, he thought the Chicano Movement had been successful in creating social change, but now he believes the world is worse than it was in the 1960s and 70s.
This is part of what has inspired him to come back to community organizing spaces, and especially Aquetza. Granado said he notices how informed the youth in the program are about current world affairs, and it brings him hope.
“I have my own kids, and you see stuff in them, but when you see it in other kids…you hopefully made a difference,” Granado said. “It just moved me in that way, and also because of my family history involved, it even has a little more meaning to me.”
El Diario de la Gente 