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After their granddaughter, Hannah Sue, was born with Down’s syndrome, Janice and Cleayton Mills were inspired to provide therapeutic horsemanship and equine-assisted therapies. In 2002 they founded Hannah’s Horseshoes of Hope, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, in Bonham, Texas to assist both children and adults with physical, mental, and emotional needs.

Originally therapeutic riding, also known as equine assisted activity or adaptive riding, was designed to treat orthopedic dysfunctions like scoliosis. Today the same riding skills are used to treat a variety of cognitive, physical, and emotional conditions including: Down’s syndrome, autism, traumatic brain injury, ADD, and depression.

Benefits of therapeutic riding include:
• Physical: The rhythm of the horse improves motor skills, balance, muscle control, posture, flexibility, coordination, and has cardiovascular benefits for the rider.
• Mental: A student focuses on their ability to concentrate, articulate emotions, and their sense of spatial awareness.
• Emotional: While in the saddle students bond with the horse, instructors, and volunteers. Client’s establish trust with others and self-confidence within themselves.
• Social: Riders acquire a certain amount of independence while working with a team of people.

“The best parts of the job are seeing how quickly our program participants start to benefit from their interaction with the horses and horse riding,” said Lisbeth Echeandia, Director of HHOH. “Plus working with our wonderful volunteers who invest so much time, emotion and energy in ensuring that everyone who participates in our programs has a great experience.”

HOHH relies entirely on fundraisers, grants, donations, and volunteers.

“Our primary goal is to make it even easier for everyone who would benefit from our services to take advantage of them,” Echeandia said. “In terms of big goals for our center, we would very much like a covered arena. Right now we’re totally weather dependent, which limits our ability to serve the community. We would also love to be able to work year round, and offer more day camps and special clinics. A covered arena would give us that ability.”

To learn more and contribute to HHOH visit www.hannahshorseshoesofhope.org. And to learn more about therapeutic riding visit www.pathintl.org.

designed by L. Stafford

]]> http://staffstuff.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/logo-a-go-go/feed/ 1 staffstuff UBE logo Petro Grupo logo http://staffstuff.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/technology-arts-media-portal/ http://staffstuff.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/technology-arts-media-portal/#comments Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:21:03 +0000 L. Stafford http://staffstuff.wordpress.com/?p=175 ]]> A little late, but better than never.  The culmination of my Dreamweaver skills yielded here.

Here’s a little sneak peak at my work in progress: Digital Media Portfolio.

Enjoy!

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, renewable energy accounted for eight percent of the total U.S. energy consumption in 2009.  In a press release on September 17, HOMER Energy, a local Boulder business, announced its intent to partner with the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute at the University of Colorado to explore new energy scenarios over the next year. Boulder’s strong political will to integrate clean energy resources, the latest in smart grid capabilities and the existing electric grid makes it an ideal case study to explore new energy scenarios.

“Multiple factors are causing policy makers to focus on alternatives to traditional centralized electricity systems,” said Dr. Paul Komor, a Lecturer in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Colorado Boulder.  “Those factors include the falling costs of renewable technologies such as wind and solar, rapid advances in electricity storage and plug-in vehicles, and the integration of information technology with the power system.”

The Boulder City Council voted August 3 against renewing their previous 20-year franchise with Xcel Energy, and decided to place a five-year utility occupation tax on the ballot instead.  The current franchise with Xcel expires at the end of the year.  Therefore Xcel will stop collecting the three percent franchise fee it was originally remitting to the city’s General Fund.  Annually this revenue averages $4.1 million and finances police and fire services, public works, parks and recreation, the library and human service programs.  To offset this loss, voters approved the utility occupation tax to allow the city more time to explore alternatives needed to meet the community’s clean energy goals.

“We are now working to define scenarios in our research project, but have not yet defined specific scenarios nor defined the timeline to implement them,” Dr Komor said.

In the summer of 2009, Boulder applauded Xcel Energy for deciding to make it the first fully integrated Smart Grid City in the US.  The project, however, was significantly over budget and behind schedule.  As a result of the cost overruns, Xcel is now asking Colorado ratepayers to pick up a $44.5 million tab that it was not expecting. The Public Utilities Commission is set to rule on the case as to who should foot the bill by mid-December, according to the Denver Post,

“The idea that every cost is just passed through to consumers is something we have trouble with,” Bill Levis, director of the Office of Consumer Council, said.

But just how effective are these new resources?  One issue with renewable energy is the lack of existing infrastructure to support it.  How do we get the energy generated by these renewable sources into households in every neighborhood?  We also have to worry about the consistency of renewable energy sources.  The wind doesn’t always blow at sufficient speeds; the sun doesn’t shine every day; there isn’t always an abundant source of flowing water to generate hydroelectric power, and geothermal energy is only shallow enough to exploit in a relatively few areas of the country.  Even in areas where these renewable energy resources are available, it still doesn’t necessarily make them more environmentally or economically appealing.

In 2007, the US used 27 percent of the country’s corn crop to generate biofuel (ethanol) as a way to reduce dependence on foreign oil.  This compared to only 20 percent of the corn crop being used for the same purpose during the previous year.  The substantially increased demand caused the price of corn to skyrocket, and consequently challenged farmers’ ability to meet food demands.  The increase also affected the consumer, making common household staples, like corn-based breakfast cereals, considerably more expensive.

Even if the U.S. used the entire corn crop to produce biofuels it would only offset 15 percent of the country’s gasoline use.  The same result could also be achieved by increasing fuel efficiency standards 3.5-miles-per-gallon, but this would inevitably make buying a new car more expensive.

In time, the cost of generating alternative energy sources will come down, however, many of the current projects will not break even for many years, if at all.  Take for example, wind farms.  Wind energy is currently the most competitive renewable energy option, but that still doesn’t make it cheap.  It costs approximately $65 million to fund a 50-megawatt (MW) wind farm, which would have approximately 50-65 turbines.  A farm of this size would generate 150 million kWh and gross $6 million annually and would take at least 10-11 years to turn a profit, but even these calculations don’t account for interest in financing such a project.

By comparison oil and gas wells cost from $1 million to drill a shallow well to more than $100 million to drill an offshore well in deepwater. These investments, however, usually generate a profit in less than five years.  Currently, generating energy from conventional sources is more efficient source in terms of cost.

Despite the financial efficiency of the oil and gas industry, it can’t seem to shake its crude reputation. On April 20, the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in the largest oil spill in U.S. history.  The explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and spilled more than 4 million barrels of oil before it was contained on July 15.

To put these figures in perspective, one barrel of oil is equal to 42 gallons, which means the blowout spilled approximately 168 million gallons of crude oil.  If that was gasoline, you and 279,999 other drivers could drive 12,000 miles each on that amount of fuel if everyone got 20 miles-per-gallon.

In response to the spill, the Obama administration ordered a six-month moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Although the moratorium was lifted on October 12, it appears that the administration intends to maintain a de facto moratorium that could continue to prevent, or at least significantly slow down, future domestic offshore energy exploration.

Consequently the moratorium causes offshore drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico to move to other countries where rigs are in demand. Offshore drilling rigs, which require long-term contracts, tend to stay in the area they are working in for long periods of time.  The US, therefore, will be producing less oil and gas from the Gulf of Mexico in coming years.

The Gulf of Mexico is one of the most prolific sources of domestic oil and gas, accounting for almost a third of U.S. production.  What we can’t produce ourselves we must rely on from foreign sources.  The more we have to rely on outsourcing the more vulnerable we are to an oil embargo like the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) implemented in the 1970s.  If OPEC decided to impose another oil embargo, the cost of gasoline would skyrocket as it did in the 1970s.

As of Monday, the national average price of a gallon of gasoline hit $2.951 according to AAA, Wright Express and the Oil Price Information Service.  Stephen Schork, energy analyst and publisher of The Schork Report, expects retail gasoline prices to waver between $2.90 and $3 a gallon. If the cost of oil exceeds more than $100 a barrel consumers can expect gas prices to be $3.30 a gallon or higher by January 2011.

With trends like these there’s no doubt that an alternative needs to be developed.  But as Kermit the Frog said, “It’s not easy being green.”

Rejecting the mainstream and striving for something a little more antiquated may seem rebellious within the context of today’s newer, bigger, better, faster society, but it’s hardly revolutionary.

And yes, even though a true hipster is one that would never admit it, a large portion of my peers, including myself, tend to embody at least one of these characteristics.

Typically born between the early 1980’s and the first half of the 1990’s, our generation is known as Generation Y or the Millennials.  Separating ourselves from Generation X, our upbringing was influenced by the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), the O.J. Simpson trial (1995), the death of Princess Diana (1997), the Monica Lewinsky scandal (1998), the Columbine High School shooting (1999), Y2K (2000) and September 11 (2001).  We were the first to be heavily immersed in a digital world, are characterized as cynics, skeptics and pessimists, and have been deemed the most medicated generation in history.  Yet we are more financially savvy than our predecessors and the most racially and culturally tolerant generation.

In a world dominated by images, sound bytes and all the information we could ever need at our fingertips, we are forced to put the past into context.  Certain aspects of the counterculture movements of the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s have become integrated into our upbringing.  Thus the alternative hipster identity becomes our own version of counterculture, rejecting the mainstream to claim our own authenticity.

A recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research, however, found the hipster icon has become a “trivializing label for indie consumption practices.”  Zeynep Arsel of Concordia University and Craig J. Thompson of the University of Wisconsin write:

“This iconic category has evolved from its countercultural roots, originally aligned with beat sensibilities, to a trend-seeking über-consumer of the 2000s.”

Dismissed by critics as merely another consumerist scheme, the hipster identity has been manufactured and branded by advertisers, then aimed directly at the twenty-somethings with lots of disposable income.  But does this mean we’ve been doomed to a capitalistic end since it started?  Or does it mean consumerism has assimilated our counterculture into part of the mainstream culture in itself?

Even our counterculture predecessors eventually sold out.  The hippies got jobs, the punks traded their mohawks for a tamer hairstyle and the rest of Western civilization embraced consumerist excess.  Despite their original, altruistic motives for social change, even some of the strongest-willed rebels eventually gave in.

In the end it boils down to counterculture being part mindset and part trend.  It makes sense that members of our generation, socially conditioned by the events of our upbringing, would opt out of embracing what we’re fed by the mainstream media.  Consequently, as much as we strive for authenticity, we’re still just as much a part of the current capitalist society everyone else lives in.  Every social phenomenon has its own cultural, fashion and music preferences.  It just so happens that our preferences got picked up and branded by a number of companies looking to make a profit.