Sunday, November 7, 2010

Roundup!

I keep trying to brainstorm something weekly to put up on Flip the Globe. Something that really captures the zeitgeist, that's both pop culture and fierce modern statement.

Unfortunately, Lesbians who look like Justin Bieber has already been claimed. Damn!

So instead, I decided to start with things that I already created during the week. I keep complaining about not having enough content for this blog, but really I'm putting out regular content all over the Internet. The series of tubes is full of my literally hamsters. So why not let some of those critters run around on a wheel over here for a while?

So submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society...Roundup!

* I got published in the Dominican Republic this week! La Nación Dominicana published a press release I wrote for the Pan American Development Foundation, about the organization's annual awards ceremony. This year one of the Heroes of the Hemisphere award recipients was Dominican native Amarilis Castillo, who works to improve Dominican-Haitian border relations. Warning! It's in Spanish.

* The same press release was also published in El Nuevo Diario, in the Dominican Republic. Also in Spanish.

* I got printed in Brazil, too! EPTV.com and Rural Notícias published my press release about another Heroes of the Hemisphere winner, Henrique Gelinski. Gelinski works with rural farmers to promote sustainable agriculture. He's amazing! These are in Portuguese.

I wrote two blog posts for American Rights at Work this week as well. In English! The one I'm most proud of is about how Regis Corporation, the company who controls salons like Cost Cutters and Master Cuts, has been issued a complaint by the National Labor Relations Board. Regis was forcing their employees to sign away their right to join a union. Illegal!

A lot of the pressure on Regis started in Ithaca, NY, and I learned about it when I was writing my article about the Tompkins County Workers' Center back in April and May. It's nice to know that justice has been finally been served. Or is at least in the process of being served.

The other piece I wrote was about the recent mid-term election and how the fight for workers' rights will continue. The election definitely did not go in the direction I wanted, but that doesn't mean we lost! Just means workers need to fight harder to protect their rights.

That's all she wrote! And by she, I mean me.

Tune in next week for some really cool slide shows I'm making for I'm United for Haiti!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

This tornado loves you

I saw Neko Case perform as the opening act for Rufus Wainwright during his "Release the Stars" tour a few years back. She was kind of a weird choice. Rufus Wainwright tends to be big and brassy during his performances, talking a lot and cracking jokes between songs. Neko Case just hammered threw the music. It was good, not great, although I absolutely fell in love with "Wish I was the moon tonight." I downloaded the song, but didn't listen to much else of her work.

But I recently rented a copy of Neko Case's "Middle Cyclone" album from the local library (yes, libraries are still out there! And they got cool stuff!). And I can't believe what I've been missing. The whole album is amazing. Case transforms herself into a multitude of creatures (magpies, owls, mollusks) and ties her music to the land, sea and air to describe the feelings blazing through her head and heart.

But beyond birds and invertebrates, Neko Case becomes a force of nature. In my favorite song on the album, the opener "This Tornado Loves You," Case transforms into a tornado and goes on a destructive warpath in search of her beloved.

I have waited with a glacier's patience

Smashed every transformer with every trailer
'til nothing was standing
65 miles wide
Still you are nowhere
Still you are nowhere
Nowhere in sight


It's been a while since I've felt really connected to music. Oh sure, I've found music I enjoy, stuff I can hum and dance to. But nothing that spoke to me. Nothing that whispered "this was written for you!" in the background, like a supposed satanic message in the back of a pop song.

Anyway, this is getting very cheesy and prose-y. Thanks, Neko Case, for allowing me to be introspective while sitting in a cubicle hammering out mailing lists.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

What I've done, what I'm doing, where I'm going

I can't believe that it's already Labor Day weekend. The hell?

I can't believe that classes started at Ithaca College two weeks ago, and I'm not there. In my mind, it's still summer vacation and I'm just waiting to go back to school. Am I going to feel this way when there's snow on the ground?

It's weird. My super-long winter break before Argentina was similar, because all my friends were in class and I was home. Working at my dad's office translating letters for dental patients into Spanish, and going to the gym every day because I had nothing better to do. But this time there's no classes on any continent to look forward to, and I'm not going back to Ithaca as a student again any time soon (although I am trekking up for apple fest. Nothing can ever separate me from apple fest!).

Instead, I'm working. Two weeks after graduating from Ithaca, I packed two suitcases and made my way down to Washington, D.C. for an internship with American Rights at Work. They're an amazing organization dedicated to promoting the fact that workers' rights are human rights, and that every worker has the right to join a union.

They're one of the main reasons I haven't been blogging here this summer. Because I've been blogging over there. Check it out. I've been writing quite a bit! I really love it at ARAW. I get to write about human rights every day, and I'm learning a crazy amount about labor laws and unions in the United States. My articles about the Tompkins County Workers' Center and Ithaca Coffee have really taken me far!

Next week I'm starting another internship, with the Pan American Development Foundation. They're a really large charitable organization, and I'm really super excited to be working on Latin American issues again. In Spanish! God, I've gotten so rusty with that this summer. I went to a party last night and tried to speak Spanish. Probably didn't help that I was drinking...but boy did I suck.

So this summer's been really crazy. I graduated from college, got my own place in Washington D.C., and am simultaneously trying to act like a grown-up and am waiting for the morning I need to get up at 7 a.m. to register for classes. A morning that won't come again until I decide to go to grad school. But I need a real job and not an internship for that to happen first!

Keep an eye out on the blog, now that I have my life in some kind of semblance of order I'm going to be posting regularly again. In the next few days I'm definitely going to be posting pictures of my fabulous new house and town, and some of the better blog entries I've done for American Rights at Work. Along with a review of the CELEBRITY TWEET-A-THON I helped organize! I certainly miss my old life, but my new one is really turning into an exciting adventure. Love!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Must...stop...being...productive

Sleep? What is sleep? I do not know the word.

Here's what I have done these past two weeks, instead of giving my body some rest.

-I wrote a 5,000 word feature on the Tompkins County Workers' Center for my narrative journalism, which just got picked up by The Ithacan. They printed it on the front page.

-I edited the newest issue of Buzzsaw and wrote an article about a local coffee shop's baristas forming a union.

-Someone's article in the newest issue of Buzzsaw kind of sucked, so I cut out and wrote it myself.

-I took the worst Web design test ever.

-I took a friend to the emergency room. She's OK. But we only found that out after waiting for about nine hours.

-I caught up on Glee.

-I wore a cute skirt.

-I don't remember the rest.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Thank goodness I'm Jewish...

...Because otherwise listening to The Vaseline's "Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam" while pulling the night shift in the chapel would seem pretty blasphemous.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Concert for Congo

When I was a wee, wide-eyed freshman at Ithaca, the school's chapter of Amnesty International had their first benefit concert. A Jamnesty, if you will. We managed to book the lounge above the Lost Dog Cafe (rest in piece, Lost Dog), and in that tight space managed to fit WAY over the legal limit of people for music, booze, and an awesome raffle. I won twenty-five dollars to the local guitar shop!

That night Amnesty raised over a thousand dollars for a school in Zimbabwe, although Kendra got drunk and told everyone we made ten thousand dollars. Kind of wonderful.

I just remember that line of people fighting to get in, crowding the entire stairwell and wrapping around the corner. It was such an amazing thing to see so many people show up for an event that I got to help plan. Sure, I was the president of my youth group in high school. But this was the first time I actually felt like a leader. And it was when I learned that it's possible to make things like human rights and social justice upbeat and fun. I know I can definitely be a debbie downer with the subject.

Well, I'm a senior now, and we haven't had a Jamnesty since my freshman year. The organization kind of fell by the wayside, then I studied abroad, then we changed over from Amnesty to IC Human Rights. It's been quite the journey.

But the e-board really knocked it out of the park and IC Human Rights is having a huge concert tonight at Oasis. We've managed to carry the theme of womens rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo through the whole semester, and tonight it's culminating in this amazing show. I am so excited. I've been pushing for another concert for years and it's finally here! AND, all the proceeds from the door and bake sale are going to the City of Joy!

This is going to be my last IC Human Rights event. It's been a wild ride. This club has become such a part of me...I don't really remember life without it. IC Human Rights and Amnesty International have really been the guiding forces in my life these past four years. These clubs, and the people in them and the topics we've tackled together, have shown me that I want to make the fight for human rights the focus of my life, rather than just a passing hobby.

But it's time to pass the IC Human Rights baton. Whoever becomes the next president is probably going to have to pry my fingers off it.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Be Our "Guest"

Hey all,

Here's the link to an article I recently wrote for Buzzsaw. It's about guest worker programs in the United States, which allow people from other countries come here for a specific amount of time to work.

While this seems like a great idea, you know, giving people the opportunity to make it in America and all that jazz, the program has been poorly executed and has resulted in numerous human rights violations.

Last month, Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) unveiled a new, bi-partisan plan for immigration reform. Unfortunately, it doesn't make any improvements to the guest worker program. It actually expands it! In their proposal they make it sound like the United States doesn't have a guest worker program. But in reality, it's more like they're covering up the failure of the one we already have.

Anyway, enjoy the article. It's a bundle of happiness and joy.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Chile

So this post is long, long overdue. Chile's earthquake was almost a month ago.

Then again, they've felt over 300 aftershocks since then, and they're still happening.

When the earthquake in Haiti happened, it was absolutely horrifying. But because I have never been to Haiti, there remained a kind of distance between me and what was happening. I never walked the streets of Port au Prince myself. There was very little chance that I knew any of those people buried under the rubble. It was a nightmare, but it wasn't...personal.

But Chile...I was in Santiago and Valparaiso less than a year ago. I keep looking at my blog posts from spring break...and it's a rough experience. I just keep trying to match up my memories with the idea of hospitals being moved into parking lots because none of the buildings are stable anymore.

I've always planned to go back to Chile someday, for an extended trip. And I know that I still will. But it's strange to think that the country will be different. Oh, I always knew that it would change, countries are always changing. But I figured it would be because of urbanization and politics. Not a natural disaster. It's a disconcerting thought.

One of the places in Santiago that I visited was this beautiful park, Cerro Santa Lucía. Here are some pictures I took last April-May.






And here's a video of Cerro Santa Lucía now. The music is kind of bizarre and the handheld is annoying, but it gives a decent idea.

My mind just keeps going to the night that I hung out with the guys that ran my hostel in Valparaiso. I happened to have been there on one of their birthdays, Pablo's, and we all drank together and went dancing in an underground club.

What happened to that club? What happened to the hostel? What happened to Pablo?

Hopefully everyone is okay. Valparaiso wasn't hit as bad as places like Santiago, Talca and Constitución. But I still wonder. And I'm afraid.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Being observant

This is just a piece I had to write for my narrative journalism workshop a little while ago, to learn how to write without interpreting what we're seeing. We had to sit in a busy place for a few hours,to "become aware of our surroundings. Allow the place and it's inhabitants to pervade your consciousness..." Then we had to write about it all in a way that was showing, not telling the audience.

So here it is. It was really relaxing to write, actually.

Friday 29th January, 1:30pm, Hilton Garden Inn Reception Desk

Beige walls, beige floor. Dishwater blonde hair in a ponytail and a cream sweater behind a beige desk.

Brrring! Brrring! Brrring! “Thank you calling downtown Ithaca Hilton Garden Inn. This is Melissa, how may I help you?’

Black suitcase rolling across big beige and little green tiles. Klah-klunk klah-klunk klah-klunk klah-klunk.

Automatic doors open. Winter air. The sound of traffic driving through slush interrupts recordings of pianos and saxophones. Splash. Splash.

Brown sweatshirt, black baseball cap. Jeans and a short brown beard. “Hi, I have reservations for Curtis? Yes. And it’s for two nights.”

“I have your room ready. I just need your credit card. Have you been here before?”

Heater rumbles. Rrrrr. Rrrrr. Rrrrr. Thunk. Silence.

Brown and cream fisherman’s sweater. Hair swept into a messy ponytail, with lots of little hairs falling out from the rubber band.

“I’ll go look at our license plate.” Wet sneakers leave marks on the cream and green tiles and navy blue carpets.

Brrring! Brrring! Brrring! Brrring! “Good afternoon, thanks for calling downtown Ithaca Hilton Garden Inn. This is Melissa, how may I help you?”

Black and white pictures of old Ithaca reflect a glare from within brown wooden frames. Maps, construction sites, flora and fauna.

Black leggings, black North Face and hot pink slippers walk by. “I gotta go to court.” Cell phone chatter fades into the distance.

Rapid clicking. “Okay, you’re all set arriving on the eighth until the tenth of February. Do you want me to read you the confirmation number? Okay, you’re all set then.”

Whur. Whur. Splash splash splash splash. Unintelligible voices filter from outside.

More footprints on the navy carpet, leading from doors to desk. “Is it possible to get change for a twenty?”

“Sure! Do you want all fives?”
“Yeah yeah. Definitely.”

Blue windbreaker with black shoulders. Black slacks. Closely shaven head and a goatee. Leaning into the phone and typing with both hands.

“Let me go and transfer you back to Kelly.”

A short beep when the elevator arrives. A long beep when the elevator departs.

Tapping. Hot pink slippers walk across the floor again. Arms full of Cornell-brand luggage and a cell phone still tucked under her chin.

“Our parking isn’t validated. Thank you for making my life difficult, I really appreciate that.”

Clicking. Light comes through the windows. Beige floor turns gold. Stacked Hilton points package pamphlets cast a glare. Bright white and blue. Go tropical.

“Is that validated for us?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”

Hot pink slippers turn around. Short beep. Long beep.

“Whenever she’s here…” Big sigh.

Constant beeping. A door is unlocked. Fluorescent lights shudder on and cast shadows over piles of luggage.

“I don’t know which bags are mine, there are two red bags left.”

“Yup, that’s all.”

Klah-klunk klah-klunk klah-klunk klah-klunk. Whur. Whur. Splash splash splash. Honk. Splash.

“Take a deep breath before you go outside. This is upstate.”

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

A wonderfully perfect walk home

This is all so cheesy, but this is how the night just kind of felt and worked itself out.

When I got out of work, there was this really thick, strange fog just covering everything. I'd been in the office since 6pm, and the skies were clear when I arrived. I wasn't expecting the change in weather at all.

There was rain, but was more of a drizzle and it was mixed with snowflakes.

For all the complaining I've been doing about the cold and the winter (I think maybe all the complaining everyone on the east coast has been doing about the cold and the winter), it was beautiful outside. The fog diffused the glow of the street lights and public safety call boxes, making the snow shine with a blue and gold haze. All the cars and signs were cast in a dark shadow, but the buildings themselves seemed to be glowing from the inside out.

I put my ipod on shuffle as I was leaving the office, and "Drops of Jupiter" by Train came on. The fog was so thick, and there really weren't very many people out. I was able to indulge in some middle school nostalgia and sing off-key about traveling through the galaxies and sharing soy lattes without anyone on campus recognizing me (I hope). I was able to throw in a few dance moves in an empty parking lot as well. It was really tempting to swing around a lamp post (actually meandered towards a few), but didn't give in that far. This isn't "Singing in the Rain."

Today wasn't particularly special. In fact, it had some downright shitty moments. Bad memories from recent events kept popping up in my head, and I ended up just keeping myself as busy as possible to keep from having a total, cry-in-the-corner meltdown.

But for a few minutes, on this walk home, my life was a music video. And everything was okay.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Pussies Unite!

The Vagina Monologues performance was last week, and it was AWESOME. Even more awesome was the fact that I remembered all my lines, didn't trip/pass out/vomit on stage. Go me!

All-in-all, through ticket sales and merch sales (and by merchandise, I mean chocolate vagina lollipops), IC Players and IC Feminists raised over $2,400 dollars. 90 percent of the proceeds are going to the local womens advocacy center, while the other ten percent are going to the V-Day Movement to help women in the DRC.

I had so much fun doing the show. It was amazing to be able to act in a play for the first time since high school, and have actual lines. And to play an adult. Not a sick child or Scrooge's corpse (they built the bed too small for anyone else. So my big role in "A Christmas Carol" was to lie under a black sheet for 20 minutes and breathe as little as possible).

But I digress. The show was amazing, and IC Human Rights was there to table for women's rights in Congo. We had fliers with facts, lists of things people can do to help end the violence, and a letter to Hillary Clinton people could sign. We got over 80 signatures! Not too shabby.

The members of IC Human Rights are so amazing. We got asked to table at the show pretty suddenly, and even though the civil war in Congo wasn't originally on the semester's agenda, the members really studied up and took to the challenge with open arms.

We're now planning a teach-in, a bake sale (Cookies for Congo!), and a benefit concert to help the V-Day Movement build a City of Joy in eastern Congo. The City of Joy will help female victims of sexual assault heal both mentally and physically, and train them to become independent leaders. It's a pretty amazing project and I hope it's successful.

An ex-marine came up to one of the ICHR e-board members during tabling. He said he had been to Congo, and it was a mess. But that our letter to Hillary Clinton won't do shit to help the situation. He might be right. There are so many reasons why the United Nations and the United States have failed to act. Cultural, economic, etc. But we have to put at least a little hope in the American Dream, that our elected leaders would stand up for the things we, the citizens, believe in and respectfully represent us abroad. Sure, Hillary Clinton might read our letter and wipe her ass with it. I don't know. But at least IC Human Rights and the signers of the letter tried through legitimate channels to make a change in the world.

And letter writing campaigns have been proven to work. Go ask Amnesty International.

We know the likelihood of our letter ending the civil war in Congo. That's why ICHR is doing other things as well, like raise money for the City of Joy. We're not putting all our fragile human rights eggs in one basket.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Femicide

The civil war that has been happening for the past twelve years in the Democratic Republic of Congo has taken over six million lives. Thirty times more than the earthquake in Haiti. But it constantly escapes the media's attention.

Why? Is it a matter of race? Another sad story about Africa? What is it about the civil war in Congo that makes no one want to report about it?

I am an avid believer in the idea that the more people know about a situation, the more people will try and do something to alleviate it. Sure, there's always the opportunity for compassion fatigue to set in, for the desire to see some happy headlines on the front page of the paper. But isn't risking compassion fatigue worth it?

What's going on in Congo is, according to Nicholas Kristof, the most lethal conflict since World War II. And the main target of aggression this time is women. What's going on in Congo is femicide. The United States government cannot act like it did during World War II, ignoring pleas for help until it was almost too late. The United States has to overlook its need for the minerals in Congo's land to save the women living on the land.



This weekend, at the productions of The Vagina Monologues, IC Human Rights will have a fact table set up outside the entrance. It's been absolutely amazing seeing the members of the club get together to make this table happen. We've made posters, fliers, fact sheets, and have written letters to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to ask the United States keep up the promise of "never again."

If you're in the Ithaca area, please come to the productions of the show and sign our petitions. A few signatures can really go a long way.

Also, here's a January 15, 2009 article from The Nation about other things you can do about the war in Congo. Eve Ensler, the playwright of The Vagina Monologues and the creator of the V-Day movement, helped compile the list.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Theater, pubic hair and human rights

So I've been back at school for three weeks. And to say things have been hectic is...kind of an understatement. It's my final semester! I'm supposed to just be applying for jobs and lolling about. Preferably lolling about drunk.

Instead, I'm just beginning to crawl out of an awfully draining cold, and lots of fun other things. After four years, I still get surprised when college isn't what the movies make it out to be.

But on the bright side. My first theatrical performance since high school is this coming weekend!

I will be enacting a monologue from Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues." Basically, in the 90s Ensler interviewed hundreds of women about their vaginas. What they look like, how they smell, what they would wear, what they would say, y más. Lots of thoughtful, insightful stories. A lot of people consider the show to be kind of a "She woman, man hater," experience, but personally I love it. It's fun, it's enlightening, and all of the money earned through ticket sales goes towards good causes.


Now, people keep asking me: "Briana, what vagina are you supposed to be?" Like the different characters in the show are the Spice Girls. There's the angry vagina, the sad vagina, introspective vagina...well I'm hairy vagina.

Sexy, I know.

I get to read a monologue about how a woman's husband said that he screwed around, because she wouldn't shave down there.

So it's not that deep of a story. Pubic hair. Woo hoo. At least it's fun.

But some of the monologues in the show are absolutely earth shattering. One in particular, this year's Spotlight Monologue, is about teenage sex slaves in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. During the past few years, rebel Hutus have been traveling across the border between Rwanda and Congo. Everywhere they go they leave a trail of fire, destruction, death and pain. Almost 6 million people have been killed, and over 200,000 women are known to have been raped. Some as young as 14 months old.

A portion of this year's proceeds from "The Vagina Monologues" is going to help the survivors of Congo's femicide.

Here's Nicholas Kristof's amazing January 30 column about rape in Congo. Like many of the human rights stories that Kristof consistenly covers, I am often left feeling like he is the only reporter on the scene. Which absolutely should not be.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

I'm a bad, bad blogger.

For as much time that I spend on the computer, I never seem to have the time to write for this thing. Sharpening my mad procrastinating skills.

My apologies to people that actually follow!

Anyway, now that my digital journalism workshop has been put to rest, I'll start posting again. Pinky swear.

Digital journalism, for all the time that it sucked from my schedule and all the joy that it sucked from my soul, was a wonderful experience. Learning how to shoot and edit packages for the Internet was so amazing that I've actually started to look for jobs that include it. I think it could be a lot of fun to be a digital journalist. It means that I could do more than write every day. And as much as I love writing, I like to switch it up a bit sometimes. You know? Of course you do.

Here's some samples of my stuff, if you're bored and looking for ways to learn and be entertained. Watch out for the dailies! Those were the ones that my partner and I had less than 24-hours to make...and sometimes it really shows.

I'm going to try and keep up with a post every other day, so bear with me and push me around if I start to procrastinate again!