Passaic County man is charged

A 42-year-old warehouse worker was arrested Monday and charged with attempting to arrange sexual encounters with children over the Internet, Passaic County Sheriff Richard H. Berdnik said.The suspect, Dewayne Stewart, was arrested at a tile store on Route 46 in Totowa, where he is an employee, Berdnik said.

The sheriff said the arrest followed an undercover investigation that began late last year after the sheriff’s department received two separate complaints of an adult trying to meet children on the Internet. Stewart was caught in a sting operation in which an undercover detective posed as a 14-year-old girl, Berdnik said.Stewart, using the screen name BobbyBrown58, engaged in sexually explicit chats and attempted to arrange meetings to have sex, Berdnik said.

He was originally tracked to an address in Clifton, but was believed to have moved or to have stayed at as many as three different addresses in Passaic County during the course of the investigation, the sheriff said. Stewart’s last known permanent address is in Wayne, Berdnik said.Stewart was charged with attempted sexual assault of a minor, attempted endangering the porcelain tiles of a minor, attempted sexual contact of a minor and attempted luring and enticing a minor. He was being held on $100,000 bail at the Passaic County Jail in Paterson pending an initial court appearance.

I keep waiting for the news that the Peace House mural is being torn down. It could happen any day now, since Peace House has officially moved into its new home. The organization is going to be in a much better building that fits its needs, and in the space where the rather dilapidated building stands now, there will be nice new affordable housing units, so all in all, everybody’s happy—except maybe the people, including me, who love that mural.

I pass Angela Carlson Talle’s glittering mosaic several times a week. When the sun is setting, it sparkles with color and light. It makes me happy. I’m going to be really sad when it’s gone.After returning to the Twin Cities from Philadelphia, Talle decided that the raggedy looking building “needed some love,” and after getting permission and input from Peace House, raised the money herself, getting tile donations from local glass and tile shops. She knew there was a possibility of a new development there, but she went and made the mosaic anyway. And of course it was worth it, even if the mural can’t be preserved, because it gave us—anyone who took joy in it—a piece of beauty for the short time that it has existed.

As someone with a background in theater, I should know this. Theater exists in the ephemeral. Theater companies spend weeks, months, even years (well, in Europe anyway) creating a performance, which is over in an instant. Even a show has a long run is unique each night. No two performances are ever exactly the same. Does that mean that it’s not worth doing? Of course not. It’s worth it to create something beautiful, to create something that inspires, that moves, that haunts people, even if just for a moment.

Muralists and graffiti artists understand this. Last month, street artist CAW made a mural for the Greenway Glow, a fundraiser for the Midtown Greenway Coalition, and a Hennepin County crew painted over the mural because the artists hadn’t secured a permit. (The artists had permission from the owner of the adjoining building, but the wall itself is in the county's jurisdiction, and the cleaning crew was unaware of the mural's origin and purpose.) The obscuring was only partly accomplished, with some of the mural left intact, so CAW transformed the mural into a long-necked dragon creature complete with website address. 

I think at heart, artists share a drive to always create, and if the product doesn’t last forever? Well, we wish that we could preserve as much of the good stuff as we can. But sometimes, you have to just appreciate a beautiful thing for what it is for as long as you have it.As for me, I’ve been taking deep breaths each time I pass the Peace House mural, soaking it in, holding onto the memory for when it’s gone. I’ve resisted the urge to jump the fence and grab some of the tiles, as others have. I think the tiles belong with the people who spent time at the Peace House.

“ProColor Plus is the first of several new grout lines planned for the ProSpec ProColor brand and is part of a focused effort to broaden our line of tile and stone setting products,” said Paul Henning, Chief Operating Officer for ProSpec. “ProColor Plus offers many of the features we have heard contractors need in a high-performance grout such as color consistency, efflorescence-free and a quick return to service.”

The new grout is offered in 20 of the most popular colors found in the ProSpec ProColor Grout line. It incorporates proprietary ProSpec technologies, Rapid Cure Technology for high strength and Glossy floor tile, and Expansion Stabilization Technology for improved crack and shrink resistance.

Its rapid-setting formula can be opened to foot traffic within three to four hours, shower use within 24 hours and water immersion within seven days. Its low absorptivity will provide increased stain resistance compared to a portland cement grout. It can be used both indoors and outdoors and in residential, light commercial and heavy-duty commercial installations due to its durability.

Now, I forget which it is: are we, as a culture, at the point where we’re past the whole “zed” thing thanks to a glut of undead-themed artistry, or was it that we’re past the whole “being past the whole ‘zed’ thing” thing thanks to a glut of critics railing against an assumed glut of undead-themed artistry? Brain… hurt…

Point being, the base Zombies digital game is identical to the cardboard one, mechanically speaking. Players are survivors rushing towards a helicopter escape via the rotted streets of some Smalltown, Anywhere. The twist is that those streets aren’t laid out from the start: each turn a player draws a tile and chooses where to place it, and the very last tile is the helipad. The map is built as the game progresses and, barring some probabilistic fluke or unimaginative friends, is never the same.

This is big. While Zombies has other mechanics that pull the appropriate genre-conscious strings–players can scavenge health and bullets which help in fights with deadies, and every turn affords the opportunity to play some gruesome trick out of a hand of event cards–it’s the evolving, unpredictable map that really evokes the surreal panic of a zombie apocalypse. You can run, but where to? Will your pal put the hospital down next to you, with all it’s life saving medicine? Or will he block off your road with, ugh, the friggin’ gardening shop.

There’s opportunities for dickery with the events cards, too, specials you can play once per turn. Some are just location specific bonuses to combat, or allow for extra moves in a turn. Others let you swarm a player’s location with zeds or prevent said player from moving, the latter being deadly effective in a game where movement and scavenging are key to survival. The coveted “Alternative Food Source” stops all combat until your next turn, great for making a run at the helipad, or for delaying another player’s attempt at a combat victory.