Yep, this is about what we deserve internet.
As first reported by BuzzFeed (because of course it was), a 16 year old girls viral tweet of a series of images of clouds over Miami this past weekend has taken over the internet.
Yep. This is a real cloud:
The sky in Miami is breathtaking pic.twitter.com/9yrGHy6DWZ
— S (@sammeaz) July 10, 2016
The girl in question is Samantha Meazaros. She was in the car driving with her mom this past Saturday when she spotted the cloud.
“I went to tell my mom something, but then I looked over her shoulder and said, ‘What is that?!’ and then she said that she was about to ask the exact same thing,” Meazaros told BuzzFeed. “We were just like, ‘How in the world did this happen?’”
Meazaros wasn’t the only one to see the phallic phenomenon:
I love Miami sunsets pic.twitter.com/rG9M3ZvrKH
— Krista Leon (@krista_leonn) July 10, 2016
A local student even saw the penis cloud at Florida International University:
@sammeaz @nohoesdee saw that boy at FIU LMAOO pic.twitter.com/iCH8FrsXE1
— lil akatsuki hoe (@ohdamnabby_) July 11, 2016
According to BuzzFeed, the cloud is actually a formation known as a towering cumulus.
Sigh.
Thanks Miami. Never stop. Please never stop.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us.
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Did This Miami Entrepreneur Just Create The Next Tofu?
What’s New With This Story:
-Miami entrepreneur Taylor Cohen invented a new food product that is spreading fast throughout the Magic City.
-The product is a lentil based alternative to tofu called Adashah.
-Cohen and her brother Brandon started a business around the product in 2015. They now make over 600 pounds of it a week and distribute to over 15 South Florida restaurants.
-della test kitchen in Wynwood swears by the product, and it is a huge hit with customers.
Taylor Cohen was just your typical food justice warrior and outdoor educator a few years back.
Yeah, exactly.
Nothing typical about her.
Now Cohen, a native of Surfside, has taken her passion for making change to the business world.
Along with her brother Brandon, Taylor is poised to change the way South Florida looks at meat alternatives.
Her product is called Adashah and it is a unique lentil based food that is most similar to tofu.
She invented the product in the years following her diagnosis of Colitis.
Taylor Cohen is the creator of Adashah.
Doctors gave her a strict nutritional regime but few of those foods spoke to her.
“I started eating more of a plant-based diet and eliminating animal proteins from my diet,” Cohen told RISE NEWS. “I was focusing on the vegan meat alternatives that are on the market right now. But what I saw was that pretty much everything either had soy or gluten or I read the ingredients and they were full of chemicals that I didn’t understand.”
Cohen said that she wanted to create something similar to tofu in how it picks up flavors, but also something that would taste great on its own.
She seems to have made just that.
In just over two years, Cohen has scaled up to servicing over 15 restaurants from Boca Raton to Doral.
She said that she creates over 600 pounds of the stuff each week.
The product is a trade secret but Cohen said that it is 100 percent organic and preservative free.
Luis Garcia, the manager of della test kitchen in Wynwood loves Adashah.
He told RISE NEWS that his customers can’t get enough of the stuff and that he likes it much more than tofu.
To learn more about how to get Adashah, visit their website: https://adashah.com
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Watch More: Welcome to the Italian Mecca Of South Florida
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Small Florida Town Comes Together To Clean Up Inactive Black Cemetery
Hobe Sound, FL is a sleepy town in Martin County where people work, play, and enjoy a quiet life.
But for over twenty years, the people of Hobe Sound lived alongside an important piece of history that they little about: an inactive cemetery hosting over twenty graves.
Down Kingsley Road, what’s informally known as Gomez Cemetery rests quietly alongside a small neighborhood.
The cemetery was part of the Allen Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church, and resided in Hobe Sound in 1910 and closed in 1991.
Captain Lloyd Jones, a retired captain of the Martin County Sheriff’s Department, has a personal connection with the cemetery.
“My father, Isiah Jones, is interred in the cemetery, and as a boy, I grew up in the same church where he attended and my mother attended,” Jones said in an interview with RISE NEWS.
The church resided in Hobe Sound until it burned down in 1992, according to a Palm Beach Post article from that time.
The church itself relocated to Jacksonville afterwards, but the cemetery stayed.
“I think at that point in time, when the church services ceased, I think that began the time when the deterioration of the cemetery began,” Jones said.
A grave at Gomez Cemetery in Hobe Sound, FL. Photo Credit: Kevin Boldenow
Black cemeteries have been historically subject to both the ravages of time and people, and Gomez Cemetery is no exception.
Photos dating back to 2007 show the graveyard surrounded by weeds and brambles, and registers display the various states of damage that some of the headstones and graves are in.
“There’s people out there,” Boldenow said. “You just don’t want to see them not have their proper respects.”
“It’s a really sad thing if you’re hearing this about other cemeteries around the country and around the state as well, but I don’t know if any of them have been in this type of disrepair,” Kevin Boldenow, a photographer who concentrates on disappearing Florida landmarks.
A local showed Boldenow Gomez Cemetery, and he took some pictures of the cemetery before an initial cleanup and posted them on social media to encourage people to become involved in Gomez Cemetery’s restoration.
Photo Credit: Allyn Farach
“There’s people out there,” Boldenow said. “You just don’t want to see them not have their proper respects.”
Regarding attempts to preserve the cemetery, Boldenow explained, “Cemeteries, they’re walking museums, they tell stories. If we let them go, if we neglect it like we have been, those stories disappear.”
There is engagement in the restoration of the cemetery.
Pastor James Gibbons of the AME South Conference has also been involved in the cemetery’s renovation.
“There [is] other work that we also handle as conference trustees, entrusted by the Church to assert that all properties of the AME church is safeguarded and taken care of as much as possible,” Gibbons said in a phone interview.
Gomez Cemetery falls under the jurisdiction of the 11th District African Methodist Episcopal South Conference, which extends from Fort Pierce to Key West.
As a member of the Conference, Gibbons volunteered to be the coordinator of Gomez Cemetery’s cleanup.
Photo Credit: Kevin Boldenow
In Gibbons’ case, this involves working with local organizations like Keep Martin Beautiful and organizing the cleanup.
For the folks who have worked hard to cleanup the long forgotten cemetery, they do it out of duty as Rev. Patricia Wallace, vice chair of the Board of Trustees of the AME South Conference explained in a phone interview.
“We are happy to be working with Martin County and its other partners as we do the cleanup and restoration of the Gomez Cemetery property,” Wallace said. “We take pride in the work that we do on behalf of the AME church. It is our responsibility, it’s given to protect and take care of our properties, as entrusted into the hands of others on behalf of the AME church.”
Jones, the retired captain from the Martin County Sheriff’s Department vast connections around Martin County enabled him to help in the cemetery’s restoration.
There are ways that other people can help.
Call 782-781-1222 or email [email protected] to find out how to help with the cleanup of Gomez Cemetery.
Cover Photo Credit: Kevin Boldenow
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The Top Things To Avoid Your First Year On Alabama’s Campus
By Michael Smith
Going into my first week at the University of Alabama, I was nervous, excited, and ready for a fresh start after high school.
I not only wanted to meet as many new people as possible, but I wanted to join as many friend groups as possible to expand my horizons.
The first year of college, especially at the University of Alabama, was a time for me and countless other current students to grab independent life by the horns.
While I classify my first year as a success, there are a few things I wish someone told me beforehand.
So, going into my sophomore year, I thought I would share with the incoming class a few warnings about life on Alabama’s campus.
This is not an advice column, but rather an (incomplete) list of things to avoid.
1) Don’t Label People Immediately
This is the single biggest trap I and many other new-to-college students fell into our first week being on campus.
In college, especially at one as large and tightly knit as Alabama, the first few weeks of freshman year are filled to the brim with new names and faces.
The only comparable situation is being a high school student who moved to a new school, having to restart with a whole new group of peers.
Typically, the new student is labeled quickly as “the girl from California” or “the quiet boy.” Now imagine this scenario, but everyone is the new kid.
Photo Credit: University of Alabama/ Facebook
Naturally, with so many people and so much information to process, the good-ole brain likes to just assign people one or two characteristics by whatever the first impression of them was.
Don’t let this stick.
Sure, it might be easy to write people off as the guy who is always late or that girl that made brownies.
But in reality, people in college are just as complex and dynamic as they were back in high school, if not more so.
Putting people immediately into a box is unfair and limits potential opportunities and friendships.
2) Don’t Get Involved In The Machine
This is strictly an issue at the University of Alabama.
The Machine, also known as Theta Nu Epsilon, is an underground group of fraternity and sorority members that work to control the Student Government Association, or SGA.
Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with the way The Machine is designed.
Theta Nu Epsilon had the potential to just be a political caucus meant to keep Greek issues in mind of the student government, which is actually admirable.
However, there is a BIG but.
While the structure of The Machine is perfectly legitimate, the way it operates is horrifying. The Machine uses voter intimidation, bribes, and, in some cases, death threats to accomplish its goals.
Theta Nu Epsilon works to keep black and non-Greek students out of the SGA and does whatever it takes to win.
I am not saying don’t join Greek life.
Fraternities and sororities provide invaluable bonds through brotherhood and sisterhood and give back to our community in so many ways.
However, if you are in a Machine-controlled house, don’t let someone intimidate you to voting a certain way, don’t ignore racist, sexist, or homophobic sentiment from Machine candidates, and dear god don’t go into the “basement.”
If that doesn’t apply to you, don’t fall into an even worse trap: apathy.
Photo Credit: University of Alabama/ Facebook
Sadly, many on our campus have given up on and have stopped voting entirely.
A common sentiment on campus is that SGA elections don’t matter.
Don’t fall for it.
The Machine wouldn’t spend tens of thousands of dollars, countless of hours of labor, and months of meticulous planning if the SGA didn’t matter.
3)Don’t Sit In The Back Of Class
Moving onto academics, one of the most unexpected features of my freshman year was how much my GPA changed from high school.
While applying to colleges, I barely hung onto a 3.0 GPA, which was mostly padded by good grades at the beginning of high school.
Senior year, I was lazy, barely turned in work, and played games on my iPad during class.
I knew I needed to change going into college, so I made myself to sit in the front row of every class I took.
Why?
Because sitting in the front forces you to pay attention.
The professor is right there, almost hovering over you.
You can’t play games, you can’t take a nap, and you have to turn in every assignment out of fear that your professor will scold you.
This may have not been an issue in high school, but in lecture classes of 200, you can get away with a lot hiding in the back.
Sometimes fear is a good motivator.
Now, of course, when I was tired, already knew the material, or needed to leave early, I would sit in the last row and try not to disturb those around me.
Overall, the system works.
I went from barely scrapping by in high school with a 3.0 to finishing freshman year with a 4.3 out of a possible 4.33 at Alabama.
4)Don’t Forget The Necessities
One of the dumbest mistakes I made my freshman year was believing that I would get by with some clothes, some sheets, a computer, and a printer.
I under-packed so much that I’m surprised that I even survived dorm life last year.
It is a common and simple mistake.
Little knick-knacks that are only used sparingly are easily forgettable.
I even made a conscious decision not to bring them.
However, they are quite essential when living independently.
For examples, you really can’t get away with not having a pizza cutter, or nail clippers, or oven mitts, or an umbrella.
You might think you can, but you can’t.
I know, I tried life without all of these things last year.
I failed.
Photo Credit: The University of Alabama
Now, don’t take this cautionary tale as an excuse to pack everything and the kitchen sink.
Pack what you are going to pack and buy all the little things at Tuscaloosa’s SuperTarget the first week of class.
Also, share with your roommates.
Don’t buy four pizza cutters when you only need one.
For the rest of the year, simply keep a list of things you need from the store and take Alabama’s shopping bus route on Sunday every week or two.
Then, you won’t be asking your neighbors for a printer cable constantly like I did.
In conclusion, I know that it is stressful uprooting your entire life in the matter days.
But, even when you miss your old life, always remember to take in the fact that our campus is filled with brilliant educators, kind people, and extraordinary football.
My freshman year at the University of Alabama was the best year of my life, only to be matched by the next three.
I know the incoming freshman class is going to be even better than the last.
Be excited, because you are attending the best university in the world.
Roll Tide.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in life. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: The University of Alabama/ Facebook.
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