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Several rare books from the University of Maryland’s holdings, documenting architectural history and theory, have been digitized and are now available in their entirety at the Internet Archive. Italian, English, French and German architectural standard texts of the 16th-, 18th- and 19th-Century have been selected to enhance the architectural holdings available free on the web.

This group, from the holdings of the Architecture Library include works by Wilkins, Durand, Pugin, Viollet-le-Duc, Gurlitt, and a hand-pressed 16th-Century variant to Vetruvius’ Ten Books with original woodcuts. Giovanni Antonio Rusconi (1520-1587) was an Italian architect, author, engineer, painter, architectural theorist and theoretican. His I dieci libri d’architettvra includes his own woodcut illustrations and summarizes the precepts of Marcus Pollio Vitruvius. William Wilkins (1778–1839), architect, classical scholar and archaeologist, published his research on both Classical and Gothic architecture, and became one of the leading figures in the English Greek Revival of the early 1800s. Augustus Welby North Pugin (1812-1852), an English architectural theorist, is best known for the Gothic Revival. The volumes in this collection were standard references for Gothic architecture until the mid-20th-Century. The French architect, Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand (1760-1834), was an important figure in Neoclassicism and taught at the famous École Royale P...

I saw him live in california for the shooting of his kvie video… it should come out in a few months. We actually sang haba na haba, la la salama. The sound of the 200 people in the show room singing all at perfect tone backed up by his guitar was one of the most amazing moments in my life. As i met him he just told me…. Keep going, your leadership is important! Keep teaching! No im not a teacher, but one day … you never know.

Firefighters responded to the third injury-causing cooking fire in Portland in three days Friday, the Portland Fire Bureau reported.

Firefighters responding to reports of a grease fire in the 4600 block of Northeast 95th Avenue helped a woman suffering from severe burns, said Paul Corah, a bureau spokesman.

The woman, whose identity was not provided, was taken to the burn center at Legacy Emanuel Hospital. Two other people were treated for smoke inhalation.

The incident comes two days after firefighters responded to two cooking fires in 12 hours:

A woman barbecuing in Southeast Portland poured lighter fluid onto smoldering coals without checking if the cap was firmly attached. The liquid spilled out onto her legs, causing severe burns.

And two people were hospitalized later that day after they spilled burning oil onto themselves while attempting to move a pan off a stove at a Portland State University residence hall in Southwest Portland.

Corah offered the following safety tips if a fire breaks out in the kitchen:

• Cover the pan and turn the stove off.
• Only use baking soda or an approved extinguisher on the fire; do not use flour or water.
• Do not move a pan until it has completely cooled.
• If you are unable to extinguish the fire, leave the home and call 9-1-1.

Additionally, these six courses are accredited by the American Horticultural The...

Even though he tried to take it back, Texas GOP Rep. Joe Barton's apology to BP has become what is known in politics and other pursuits as the "gift that keeps on giving," and the latest round came on Sunday's news programs where Democrats made the most of it and Republicans did their best to contain the damage.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was happy to keep the story going on ABC's "This Week" when asked if he had agreed with calls by Democrats and others to remove Barton from his post as ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

"That's for the Republicans to decide," Emanuel said. "What I think is more important, you can say it's a political gift for us, and it is. But it's dangerous for the American people, because while the ranking Republican would have oversight into the energy industry, and if the Republicans were the majority, would have actually the gavel and the chairmanship."

On Thursday, with embattled BP chief executive Tony Hayward appearing before the committee, Barton stunned even fellow Republicans when he said of BP's agreement Wednesday to Obama's demand for a gulf-cleanup escrow fund: "I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private company would be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown."

"That's not a political gaffe," Emanuel said. "Those were prepared...