From mcclatchydc.com:

NABLUS, West Bank — When Palestinian teenager Aseel Abu Leil looked around her hometown of Nablus for inspiration for the world’s largest science fair, she couldn’t help but note the obvious.

“We are not known for peaceful science here,” the 14-year-old said.

Nablus, which was a flash point for violence during the first and second Palestinian uprisings, was later identified by Israel as the hub for the production of rockets and suicide bomber vests.

“I didn’t look outside, I looked home,” Aseel said. That’s where she noticed some of the logistical problems that her blind aunt faced.

Along with classmates Aseel Sha’ar and Nour El Arda, she invented an obstacle-detecting walking stick. They entered the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair alongside 6 million global contestants, and were chosen to be among 1,500 finalists to attend the world’s largest science fair next month in San Jose, Calif.  Link to article…

From ABC7News.com:

OAKLAND, CA (KGO) — An 11-year-old boy, Charles Mack, has won a prestigious honor in representing Oakland in the “America Scores Poetry Slam” contest. 

Charles is a student at Futures Elementary. 

All the contest winners are student athletes; Charles plays soccer. 

His poem is about love and says his mother is his inspiration. 

“Love is a thing that you can’t forget, and when you find love, you can’t regret. Love is here and love is there and when you don’t feel it, just know it really is there. Love is sweet, love is kind, like sugar and honey, and everything fine. Like fruity and chewy, the heart is soft. There’s all kinds of love, like love in your heart,” said Charles as he recited lines from his poem. 

Charles and the other winners will recite their poems at the New York Stock Exchange next week. 

Charles says he is not nervous at all.  Link to article with video of Charles…  

From the SF Chronicle:

That coveted toy and mode of transport for adolescents – the skateboard – has been turned into high art for a new gallery show in San Francisco.

Nearly 170 “decks,” as the boards without wheels are called, are on display at a North Beach gallery, and the contributing artists range in age from 6 to 91, with prices starting at $50 and reaching $1,000.

“We want to show that art is not limited to people who consider themselves artists, and it’s not limited to a canvas or a certain shape,” said Anna-Lisa Stardust Van der Valk, the curator and producer of “Skate This Art.” “We have decks from professional artists, from children, from the elderly, from the disabled.”  Link to  article…

Also from the SF Bay Guardian:

See a wall, paint it; It’s a common enough story in SF — until you look at one small variable; Barneclo’s wall is 600 feet long and 40 feet tall. And he intends to cover the whole thing. That’s 24,000 square feet, making Barneclo’s “Systems” the largest mural yet in a town filled with them. “That was recently pointed out to me,” he told me in a recent interview. “It’s an interesting thing because, yeah, its going to be helpful [for fundraising], people like to hear that stuff, ‘it’s the loudest, it’s the biggest.’ But it really has no… [the size] is such a byproduct.”  Link to article…

Been out of pocket for a few days fighting off a cold.  Feeling on the mend for the most part now.

Here is a great local story from the SF Bay Guardian:

“Poetry’s made a big difference in my life. It’s allowed me to express myself in ways that I never would have been able to,” says Erica McMath Sheppard, 17, one the winners of Sat/3’s Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam at the Warfield Theater.

Her victory was the culmination of many years of hard work. Erica started participating in the Youth Speaks program when she was 13, and competing in the yearly slam competition at 14 years old. On Saturday, before a sold out crowd at the Warfield, she spoke with a light borne of a difficult adolescence, one spent in the cold bureaucracy of Child Protective Services, but through which she has nonetheless thrived academically.

“You look at America in the 21st century, who is the voice? What does it look like?” Youth Speaks executive director James Kass founded the non-profit in 1996 to provide public school kids with access to arts education in a state where such programs are rapidly being downsized into nonexistence. He says that, although professional artists have emerged from Youth Speaks’ programs, what the YS assemblies, after school workshops, and guest speakers really want to accomplish is the development of teens’ creativity, and by extension, their ability to think critically about the problems of the day. “Some kids go into teaching, go into non profit work,” he says. “This is about developing leaders.”  Link to article…

From  the East Bay Express:

If the green economy really takes off, the East Bay may have a strong claim as its capital. Albany, Berkeley, Oakland, and Alameda are headquarters for a growing number of environmental consulting companies in sectors such as wind, solar, construction, and energy efficiency. Oakland alone is home to more than sixty green consulting companies that employ 500 people, according to city officials.

Here are five companies to watch.  Link to article…

The Buddha from PBS:

This documentary for PBS by award-winning filmmaker David Grubin and narrated by Richard Gere, tells the story of the Buddha’s life, a journey especially relevant to our own bewildering times of violent change and spiritual confusion. It features the work of some of the world’s greatest artists and sculptors, who across two millennia, have depicted the Buddha’s life in art rich in beauty and complexity. Hear insights into the ancient narrative by contemporary Buddhists, including Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.S. Merwin and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Join the conversation and learn more about meditation, the history of Buddhism, and how to incorporate the Buddha’s teachings on compassion and mindfulness into daily life.  Link to site…