Cruise Ship with 300 Million Aboard Rammed by Iceland

LONDON, United Kingdom (The Daily Gordian) — The United States Coast Guard has identified the ship that ran aground near Reykjavik on Saturday as the USS Columbia, the world’s largest cruise ship. According to Coast Guard Admiral Amanda Burkhardt-Klein, the Columbia had been drifting aimlessly for years and was finally hit head-on by the country of Iceland in 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) of water.

Only two of the 300 million passengers chose to abandon ship despite a severe tilt to starboard and calm North Atlantic seas. “The main bulkheads and decks under the casinos are still tight,” said Adm. Burkhardt-Klein. “So far, there has been no trickle down to the lower compartments.” She did reveal that bickering among first-class passengers is hampering retrieval operations. “Factions have formed and are arguing over control of the ship once it is unstuck. Apparently, the captain retired from the bridge three years ago and began issuing eloquent proclamations stuffed into empty gin bottles. Yesterday, as soon as he realized the ship was in trouble he took one of two operable lifeboats—a jet-powered craft provided to him by the board of Capital Cruise Line LLC—and disappeared.”

What Casey Krohn doesn't have:  a gallery, a swanky studio, a lengthy list of publications and photo credits, or a van full of expensive photography gear. 
What Casey Krohn does have:  a good eye, a growing portfolio, and truckloads of commitment.

At the Magpie, we think that's enough to get her into some big places.  So here it is, the professional debut of Casey Krohn, photographer...

6 more photos from Casey Krohn...

Maybe you're like me and you don't mine the horizons, waiting for swells of the newest technology.  Maybe you just bought your first smartphone, and you don't understand 80% of what you've got there.

That's fine, and bless your indulgences for keeping one foot in the past, because somewhere behind that foot is a patch of open space that gives way to a forest, and deep in that forest hides a gulch of wilderness.  You like the idea of wilderness, don't you?

Well, me too.  That's a small part of the reason that I like this new techonology, because in a way it encourages the wilderness we like so much.  Bear with me...

From the outside, the Emerson Center for the Arts and Culture seems to be fine. Drums are drumming, artists are making art and little girls in tutus spin like dervishes. But last week, when the tenants of the Emerson opened their studios to find notices of rent increases slipped under the doors—some as much as 125-percent—they felt that something had gone awry.

Since several long-term tenants hadn’t seen a rent increase in ten years, they were jolted, to say the least.
“It was a shock. There was a lot of talk of people leaving the Emerson,” says Loretta Domaszewski, an artist and tenant at the Emerson for over four years, “If we didn’t have the Emerson, what would this community be like?”

Last night, the temperature ducked under freezing, but now it is forty-two degrees with a pale mist. It’ll be my first time swinging ice tools in the rain.

Ice climbing usually conjures images of snowy mountains, sheer cliffs, rugged terrain, from locales like Hyalite, the South Fork, or maybe somewhere along the Icefields Parkway. But a perfect storm swept me from those pristine places and I was deposited along the banks of the Erie Canal.

I walk alone on well-worn path by the water, past Lock 17, to a frosty cliff that I spotted on yesterday’s run. The frozen dribbles I seek are laughable in comparison to one of the aforementioned offerings, but I am in no position to be choosey.

Behind me are not desolate peaks or choked valleys, but an old city birthed in a time of Tories and Patriots. Its population is one-third of its peak a century ago, and cobbled streets lace a line of hollowed factories that once produced woolen and cotton textiles, paper, cornstarch and cheese, bicycles, hammers, shoes, mattresses, bookcases, and GE radios. The buildings are wrapped in impressive but crumbling masonry with shattered windows and smokestacks that discharged their final puff decades ago—it could be any number of the defunct manufacturing towns across America.

In Tuesday’s State of the Union, President Obama highlighted manufacturing

It’s another school night and the routine questions pepper around our dinner table. Between how-was-your-day and do-you-have-any-homework, I do the backwards math to warm weather. I tell the kids how in just six months time, we’ll be eating from the garden and they’ll be basking in the joy of a long summer vacation.

Against these long, cold winter nights, the idea of mentioning to their brightened faces the possibility of summer vacation being cut short or nixed completely seems cruel. Yet, this is a possibility. Meeting since October, the Bozeman School Calendar Task Force is poring through all viable alternatives to the current school calendar.

The huge, 45-member committee