While only one percent of Americans are diagnosed with Celiac, ninety-five percent are unknowingly living with the symptoms and remain undiagnosed due to lack of awareness and education. The percentage of Americans with Celiac has increased fourfold in the past half century. This remarkable increase has stirred a movement that works toward greater awareness and more gluten-free options, such as Sweet Freedom Bakery. Sweet Freedom Bakery is the first bakery in Philadelphia that offers baked goods that are not only gluten-free, but also are vegan, dairy-free, egg-free, corn-free, peanut-free, soy-free, casein-free, and free of refined sugars.

Sweet Freedom Bakery is one of the 200 plus bakeries and restaurants whose employees have been trained by the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness. The NFCA is a nonprofit organization that offers training and resources for food services and healthcare professionals. Gluten-Free Resource Education and Awareness Training (GREAT) provides a system to deliver safe and tasty gluten-free food to the public, as well as comprehensive resources needed for healthcare professionals to identify the ninety-five percent of undiagnosed Celiac sufferers. GREAT’s services are available in person, online, or via webinar, which is a seminar that is conducted online.

Sweet Freedom Bakery, located on South Street between Broad and 15th Street, is a small bakery with meter parking and a lot conveniently located next door. The cost to park in the lot is $8 but it is poorly monitored, so for a quick visit parking there would not be a problem. Once inside, the guest is greeted by one of the friendly and knowledgeable employees behind the counter. The bakery is modestly decorated in blue, pink, and brown colors, with a cushioned window seat and a few barstools if you wish to enjoy your sweets in the shop. At 4:30pm on a recent Saturday (Sweet Freedom closes at 7pm everyday except Sunday, when it closes at 4pm), the shop was empty and the display cases were almost bare. New treats are continually baked throughout the day, a sign that the bakery is very popular and busy, so try to get there early in the day! Saturday’s specialties include Banana Chocolate Chop Cupcakes, Brownies, and Macaroons. Each day, the bakery serves special items, but they advise you to call ahead if you are looking for something particular.

The banana chocolate chip cupcakes, my new favorite, combined the flavors of banana and chocolate in perfect ratio. The cupcake’s texture was moist and indistinguishable from a gluten-laden cupcake. The apple oat crumble is the perfect substitute for any apple pie lover. Rich caramel and a hint of cinnamon complimented the taste of the fresh apples. The icing on the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Sandwich is very sweet and sugary. The consistency of the cookie was soft, not cardboard-like as some gluten-free products are. I thought that the Cinnamon Sugar Loaf’s cinnamon flavor was overbearing and the texture was too powdery.

Sweet Freedom Bakery raises the awareness of the need for a gluten-free-friendlier community and provides delicious treats at the same time.

Carolynn McCormack is a junior at Drexel University majoring in English. She is also working toward the Certificate in Publishing and Writing.

Three Percent, launched in 2007 by the University of Rochester’s translation program and Open Letter Books, is a self-proclaimed “place for students to present their translations and reviews, as well as a place to cultivate the next generation of literary enthusiasts.” According to the site, only about 3% of all books published in the United States are works in translation – hence the origin of their name. However, that 3% figure includes all books in translation – in terms of literary fiction and poetry, the number is actually closer to 0.7%. The University offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in literary translation studies.

The longlist, available here, was narrowed down on Tuesday, February 16^th, to a shortlist, containing the top ten fiction books in translation published this past year. Also on that day, Three Percent announced the ten titles in poetry nominated for the 2010 Best Translated Book Award in poetry. The ten fiction finalists can be found here, and the ten poetry finalists here. On Wednesday, March 10^th, 2010, the winning books in each of the two categories will be announced. Last year’s winners were the fiction novel Tranquility by Attila Bartis, translated from the Hungarian, and the book of poetry For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut by Takashi Hiraide, translated from the Japanese. The books were respectively published by Archipelago Books and New Directions.

Look at the list and you will notice that most of the titles included have been published by independent and, relatively small book publishers. Coincidence? Well, the simple answer may be that the care and interest that fuels the publishing of translated foreign language books is motivated by the desire to introduce great literature of the world to the English-speaking-and-reading public. This is a goal that does not often coincide with the interests of the big publishing houses, whose money-hungry habits are perpetuated by the necessity to see big returns on their investments. The big publishers have little interest in introducing readers to new writers; they want only to release books that will sell in massive quantities. However, the independent publishing houses that are putting out translated works in America are doing so with an enthusiasm that is hard to find from any of the big houses.

Accordingly, it should be no surprise that most of the publishers of books included in the list are either not-for-profit organizations or presses managed by universities. It is not by coincidence that many of the publishers found on Three Percent’s list are continual contributors of titles included on each previous annual Best Translated Book Award list, as well as many other award lists, such as NPR’s and The Independent’s. Though few, the independent book presses that publish translated fiction remain strong and dedicated. Among the presses most commonly found on the list are Dalkey Archive, Archipelago, Open Letter, New Directions, Melville House, and various university presses, such as Northwestern and Columbia.

Dalkey Archive Press, founded in Chicago in 1984, began by publishing reprints of lost masterpieces and little-known translations by writers who were overlooked by the mainstream critical establishment. Soon after, they began releasing original works that had not before been published. In December 2006, Dalkey Archive relocated to the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana to be part of the university’s commitment to global projects that complement the Press’s commitment to translations.

At the start of this year, Dalkey Archive released 2010 Best European Fiction, the inaugural issue of an annual anthology of short stories from across Europe. Bosnian novelist and MacArthur “Genius-Award” winner Aleksandar Hemon edited the first book in the series, which includes 35 writers from 30 countries. According to Hemon, “American literature is crippled by the shortage of available translations.” Dalkey archive published about three to four books of fiction, poetry, and essays each month, a great majority of which are translated works from all over the world.

Archipelago Books is a not-for-profit press devoted to publishing translations of classic and contemporary world literature. Archipelago’s release of Tranquility by Attila Bartis, translated from the Hungarian by Imre Goldstein, was selected by Three Percent as the winner of the 2009 Best Translated Book Award.

Open Letter Books is the literary publishing house operated by the University of Rochester, where students and faculty in the Literary Translations program work to connect readers with international works of literature. Both Open Letter and Archipelago annually publish twelve books, most of which are novels or short story collections.

New Directions Publishing is, along with Dalkey Archive, one of the United States’ most prolific publishers of translated fiction. Founded in 1936 by a 22-year-old Harvard sophomore, New Directions has earned its reputation as one of the most well respected independent book publishers in the country. Today they publish about 30 books each year of work by both foreign authors and English authors alike, including such writers as Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borge, W. G. Sebald, and Roberto Bolaño.

Now that you know a little more about the small publishers behind some of the country’s best translated fiction, visit the Three Percent website to take a look at the books nominated for the 2010 Best Translated Book Award and support literary translation.

Michael Filippone is a senior at Drexel University. He is studying Music Industry.

James Allen, director of instruction at the 7,600-student school, said that school officials immediately chose to pull the book from classrooms. The particular version being used was The Diary of a Young Girl: the Definitive Edition, which was published on the 50th anniversary of Frank’s death in a Nazi concentration camp. This version includes passages previously excluded from the widely-read original edition, first published in Dutch in 1947.

Allen decided to replace the version of the diary with a different, older publication, which did not contain the controversial passages. The older version of the diary was arranged by Anne Frank’s father, the only member of her immediate family who survived the Holocaust, who had removed sections which had revealed Anne’s emerging sexual desires and descriptions of her sometimes stormy relationship with her mother.

As Allen explained, Culpeper’s policy on “public complaints about learning resources” requires complaints to be submitted in writing and for a review committee to research the materials and deliberate. In this case, the policy was not followed. Allen said the parent registered the complaint orally, no review committee was created and a decision was made quickly by at least one school administrator.

How did James Allen feel about the decision being made hastily and without convening a committee? He said he is uncertain about the details of the case because he was out of town. “The person came in, and the decision was made that day . . . and that’s fine. We would like to have had it in writing. It just did not happen.” Allen also said that a copy of the more recent version of the text will be held in the school library while the earlier version will be used in classes.

There is no excuse for the swift decision made by the mysterious party responsible for the removal of the diary from classrooms. While a majority agreement would not necessarily have led to the best decision about what to teach or not to teach, it at least would have been a step in the direction of honest education. One unsatisfied parent was able to have the curriculum immediately altered according to his own concerns. Requiring a committee to make these decisions, one would think, is intended in part to prevent any one parent from dictating content to an entire school.

But there was no committee convened. There was no investigation into what students have to gain or to lose by replacing the book, and there was no discussion about whether the book being used would offer value and educational enrichment not available from its replacement. There was no exploration of whether the content of the book indeed violates or offends decency or morals or the students’ best interests. There were no conclusions reached about anything, because there was no discussion.

It seems that in society today, when faced with a controversial topic, the simplest, and therefore preferred, plan of action is usually to avoid the issue altogether. This is especially apparent in this recent act of censorship. Both James Allen and the Culpeper teaching faculty may have made their jobs a little easier by sidestepping the difficult and challenging material in the historic diary, but it was hardly the action they should have taken. The person who banned the book from classes made a self-serving decision to avoid having to deal with the controversy. The simplest solution might often be to dodge the difficult confrontations, but it is not the honest one. As President John F. Kennedy once said, “The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.”

Michael Filippone is a senior at Drexel University. He is studying Music Industry.

Except when it doesn’t.

On November 3, 2009 — with the World Series over, and no longer having to worry about the additional bad publicity a work stoppage during a major event would have caused — SEPTA finally decided to go on strike. Without warning. At 3 in the morning. Perhaps the inconvenience should have been expected from an organization with such a thoroughly negative image — ask any Philadelphian; they’ll be happy to tell you how consistently rude and unhelpful the typical SEPTA worker is.

And that was before the strike.

Imagine yourself, if you will, in this scenario: You are a bright young student. You may be losing your hair a bit in the back and may even be a bit heavy in the love handles (when viewed from certain angles), but you are smart and sharp and gosh darn it, you are the next CEO of GlaxoSmithKline. You are certain of this because you have an interview with GlaxoSmithKline at 8 a.m. on November 4th. So you wake up at 6:30, giving yourself plenty of time to shower and groom and q-tip your ears, and now here you come striding confidently along Market Street toward the nearest entry point into the subway.

And you find the entryway barred off.

Confused, but not to be deterred, you walk another three or four blocks to the next staircase, only to be met again with the indifferent gaze of the metal bars blocking your path to success in life. You could always take a taxi, but for that, you need money, and given that you had sufficient SEPTA fare in your pocket, you left your credit cards at home — you really are trying to get rid of those love handles and you don’t need to make your usual stop-off at 7-11 for a cruller.

So now you power walk all the way back to your apartment, get your credit card, go to 7-11 (and you get the cruller, 2 crullers actually, because you feel the need to offset how stressed and hot and angry and sweaty you are), and storm to the corner to hail a taxi, because love handles or not, you are not walking from 43^rd Street to 16^th Street, especially not in your crisp lovely interview clothes.

You hop into the taxi and twiddle your thumbs to pass the time — which to your consternation there’s a whole lot of. Just like you, thousands of other dismayed residents who woke up to the strike have now been forced into cars and taxis, effectively turning the whole of Philadelphia into a snail race. You miss your interview, go home in abject misery, develop alcoholism, and die at 32.

Okay, maybe I’m extrapolating a bit. But with or without the colorful scenario, heavy traffic, inconvenience, and the danger of walking through unfamiliar sections of the city were all consequences of the 2009 SEPTA strike. Not to mention the literal cost. I know I’ll be seeing about three quarters of my usual paycheck next week, no small thanks to traffic hold-ups on the way to work at 13th and Chestnut Street in Center City.

Fortunately, after nearly a week of toying with an angry but passive city, SEPTA employees graciously ended their strike on November 9th, once their demands were met. Something about percentages. More money for less work. The City of Brotherly Love is running smoothly once again.

Thanks for the outstanding service, SEPTA.

Emily Homrok is a junior studying Film & Video Production. She interns for the Drexel Publishing Group and writes for the Philadelphia Examiner. She is Poetry Editor of FirstStep Press’ Stepping Stones Magazine, and her poetry is forthcoming in Gargoyle Magazine.

As part of the Great Works Symposium, co-hosted by Drexel Green, Drexel Business Services, and the Magnificent Minds lecture series, Philip Freelon, founder of Freelon Group, presented a lecture on sustainability on October 1, 2009. The Freelon Group specializes in architectural designs for science and technology as well as designs for higher education. Recently, it was selected to design the new Smithsonian Museum of African-American History and Culture based in Washington D.C.

Several Drexel University classes were relocated or delayed for this event, and all architecture students were urged to attend. By the end of the night’s lecture and the Q&A session with a student panel, the audience learned a few things about the current sustainability movement in Philadelphia, including the proposal to revamp the city’s entire water collection and drainage system.

A plan 12 years in the making was finally announced this past September that would decrease the amount of storm water runoff that the city generates. Philadelphia would be the first major city to renovate its water system based only on a need for sustainability. Jon Capacasa, regional director of water protection with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that “[t]his is the most significant use of green infrastructure I’ve seen in the country, the largest scale I’ve seen. We commend Philadelphia for breaking the ice.”

As of now, water drains in Philadelphia lead directly to the city sewage system, causing massive overflow of raw sewage into the main water supply whenever there is a major rainfall. The plan to reduce the flow of runoff into the storm water system includes selecting a large number of impermeable surfaces in the city, a major contributor to runoff pollution, and replacing them with permeable pavers, miniature wetlands, rain gardens, or instead removing them completely to expose the natural absorbent soil surfaces underneath. The project is estimated to generate an 80% reduction in storm water runoff.

Despite the benefits, some are concerned about the projected increase in the continuous noise from construction work, and the traffic caused by detours off the major arteries of the city. The lengthy project, if started as soon as possible, is expected to span 20 years.

Another concern is that Philadelphia’s sustainability effort is painting the town a very expensive shade of green. There is a tremendous amount of money going into the restructuring and separation of the city sewer/water supply system. It would cost more than $1.5 billion.

After Freelon finished speaking, there was a question and answer presentation with a student panel composed of several members of Drexel student organizations dedicated to sustainability. One of the speakers, from the Sierra Club, captured the audience’s attention. The Sierra Club dedicates a great deal of its meeting time to camping trips, hikes, and rock climbs to allow members to enjoy the environment they’re protecting. Based on media coverage, one might think that most major environmental groups are more occupied with the concept of “Green” and environmental policy than the actual environment they are protecting. The audience was pleased to discover that the oldest environmental group in the country is still an active part of the communities and natural habitats that surround them.

The event ended with resounding applause that reflected the crowd’s support for the sustainability efforts that will soon be ongoing in the greater Philadelphia area.

Kathryn Gardner is a Sophomore at Drexel University in an Architecture/General Studies dual major.