Morven Maclean of CHAS and Sarah Latto from Shelter Scotland introduce two new guidance documents on impact measurement and investing for success.
Volunteering participation in Scotland has remained largely static over the last ten years, with just 28% of adults volunteering in 2017. If we're serious about driving participation rates and inspiring new audiences to volunteer, we need to start shouting about the incredible impact that volunteering can have, on volunteers, on our organisations and on wider society. In order to do this, we need evidence.
As volunteering professionals, we often lament that we're not listened to, our departments are not invested in and that volunteering is undervalued by our organisations. But what are we doing about it?
Are we demonstrating to our senior leadership teams how volunteering helps achieve our organisations' strategic objectives? Surely that would grab their attention and put volunteering on the map? As volunteer programme managers, we should spend less time on day-to-day transactional work and more time evidencing the impact that volunteers make. Until we do that, we won't achieve the profile and investment that volunteering deserves.
We need to get better at sharing the positive impact that we know volunteering has on our organisations. We need to showcase to senior leaders, volunteers, stakeholders and the wider world that volunteering is crucial, not only to volunteer-involving organisations but to achieving the outcomes of a better Scotland. It makes sense and is worth investing in. In order to achieve that and to get the attention of senior leadership and funders, we need to gather and share evidence of impact.
Last year the Scottish Volunteering Forum established a volunteering impact measurement sub-group in order to raise the profile of impact measurement amongst volunteer-involving organisations. The group created and distributed a questionnaire amongst volunteer-involving organisations across Scotland. The results of the questionnaire were revealing and demonstrate that a lot more needs to be done to evidence the impact of volunteering. You can read the full report here.
Responding to feedback from the questionnaires, the Forum has developed a new guide which helps volunteer-involving organisations to start, or improve their impact measurement practices. We're launching the guide this week along with a brand new guide for funders, also developed by the Forum.
Unfortunately, we often find that volunteering is not afforded the value or recognition that it deserves. Despite all of the significant benefits detailed in our new guide for funders, we find that volunteering activity is routinely left out of the strategic planning stage by funders, funding recipients and policy makers, which often means that it is under-resourced and under-measured. The guide for funders demonstrates the significant benefits that volunteering provides and explains why volunteering is a sound investment. It also highlights the importance of adequate and realistic planning, budgeting and measurement to ensure that volunteering activity is successful.
It's vital that volunteer-involving organisations develop ways to measure the impact of their volunteering programmes on volunteers and beneficiaries, in order to improve performance and demonstrate the value of volunteering both internally and externally. We need to understand what's working and what's not; and to act upon any lessons learned so as to drive the quality of volunteering in Scotland.
The more we demonstrate the impact of volunteering on organisational performance, Government policy and wider societal/community impacts, the easier it will be to secure funding for volunteering. The more we demonstrate the impact that volunteering has on volunteers, the more likely it will be that current volunteers continue to volunteer regularly and that non-volunteers start volunteering.
So this International Volunteer Manager's Day, make impact measurement your pledge. Check out our new guides and start measuring the impact of volunteering. You never know, the evidence you gather could be transformational for your volunteering programme, your organisation and for wider society.
"Time Well Spent" – Is this the case for volunteering?


All businesses face a wide range of challenges from financial and operational ones through to ensuring the right people are working for them. When it comes to the latter, hiring the right people can be tricky, as you need to ensure that they are a good fit for your business and that they do not have any undesirable qualities that may affect your business or other employees.
Of course, when a candidate fills out an application form for a position at your company, you cannot take it that everything on the form is the truth. Most applicants will tell the truth on their applications, but there are those that will either "fudge" the truth or will just lie outright about certain things. This is why there are so many different things that you need to look at before you hire someone.
If the new employees need certain qualifications to do the job, you should make sure you see proof of the ones that they have put on the application form. You can ask them to bring these along to the interview with them or get them to drop them in at a later date. You can also contact the educational institutions for further information should you need to.
Carrying out a background check on your employees is also important because it will provide you with valuable information with regards to their past. Many people fail to put details such as this in their resume or lie on their applications. By carrying out a check, you can be sure you know exactly whom you are employing.
Another thing to check on is the applicant's past employers if applicable. The application will tell you where they worked and what they did but this is information that you should verify, particularly regarding the most recent employer. This way you can find out more about why they left, whether there were any issues, and if their job duties were as described on the application.
Of course, another thing you will need to do is get some references before you make a job offer. You can choose to have employer or personal reference or you can go for one of each. Make sure any job offer you make is made subject to satisfactory references as otherwise you will be stuck with the employee no matter what the references say.


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Announcing Our New Name: Gather New Haven
James Farnam
En Español Acqui
On January 1, 2020, New Haven Farms and New Haven Land Trust merged into a single organization after several years of close collaboration and partnership. We have worked over the last six months to integrate our programs and systems, recruit a new Executive Director, and develop a new name that reflects our history, mission, and direction.
We are excited to announce we are now Gather New Haven.
Our tagline conveys our commitment to connecting people to each other as well as to our shared natural resources, and the importance of doing so to grow a vibrant community: Neighbors and Nature Thriving Together / Vecinos y Naturaleza Prosperando Juntos.
Our mission reflects the shared histories and commitments of our two predecessor organizations while challenging us to grow deeper in our collective engagement with our community:
Gather New Haven promotes health, equity, and justice for people and the environment by cultivating connections with each other and our local lands and waters, and by inspiring us to care for ourselves, our community, and the natural world.
New Haven Land Trust, Connecticut's first urban land trust, was founded in 1982 to preserve open land in New Haven and give city residents opportunities to access and learn about the environment. New Haven Farms was founded in 2012, growing out of Fair Haven Community Health Center Diabetes Prevention Program.
Gather New Haven emerges at a time of pervasive uncertainty when we cannot gather physically. We are acutely aware of how this crisis has highlighted the critical importance of safe ways to enjoy and steward our open spaces and natural resources. Even now, we are engaging with our community to weather this crisis together and emerge connected, resilient and strong.
Gather New Haven's innovative programs center on the intersection of urban agriculture, public health, community development, entrepreneurship, and environmental education, enjoyment, and stewardship. As we enter the 2020 growing and outdoor recreation season under the weight of a global pandemic, we are determined to:
Support and guide the work of 800+ individuals and family members gardening in over 50 community gardens;
Engage more community members at risk of diet-related diseases in our nationally-recognized Farm-Based Wellness Program;
Cultivate and harvest over 30,000 pounds of fresh, organically-grown produce across our farms and gardens;
Recruit high school students to join staff as Growing Entrepreneurs who learn new skills and run social enterprises while representing Gather New Haven through their carpentry and agriculture work at farms and gardens throughout the city;
Provide arts, nature, and educational programming in our six nature preserves; and
Offer a dynamic coastal nature and sailing camp experience to over 400 children, supporting many through scholarships, or, if this is not possible in 2020, offer alternative programming for children and families to explore New Haven's harbor and waterways.
Why Gather New Haven?
Gather New Haven is more than a combination of two organizations. It is a fresh take on our commitment to the people and natural places that make New Haven a treasure. Our name manifests the central importance of human relationships in our work: friendship, family, togetherness, community. It also conveys the diverse elements of our city's ecosystem: food, people, gardens, preserves, Long Island Sound, rivers, and coastline. Like the rivers that gather into the Sound, our collective work is fed by strongly-held values of opportunity, inclusion, belonging, equity, curiosity, learning, accountability, integrity, and power of place.
Last fall we convened three community forums to discuss our merger. Those conversations highlighted the value people place on the strong community connections they have created in our gardens, preserves and through our various programs. Graduates of our Farm-Based Wellness Program as well as our community gardeners are passionate about creating community spaces, growing food, and promoting community health. Our nature preserves attract families, neighbors and bird watchers engaged in protecting and enjoying the natural environment. Our new name and tagline reflects how important it is for people to connect with each other as they connect with the natural landscape.
In a time when collective health and safety demands physical distance and isolation, we are reaching out to our constituents and gathering our various resources to respond to emerging needs in our communities. We have offered our cooler space for food storage and are partnering with other organizations to expand food production this summer. We are also looking beyond the current crisis to a future in which Gather New Haven plays a critical role in cultivating opportunities, places, experiences, and events that once again bring people together in common purpose to build a strong, resilient, equitable, and healthy New Haven.
We invite our many supporters and funders to join us in the next stage of our work as we mobilize people and resources to become a more healthy and vibrant community where neighbors and nature thrive together.
Explore our new web site at www.gathernewhaven.org
Contact us at 203-562-6655 or info@gathernewhaven.org
Laura Hansen Joins New Haven Farms as Program Manager
in Announcements
New Haven Farms Announces Jacqueline Maisonpierre as New Executive Director
New Haven Farms Receives Grants From Newman's Own Foundation, New Alliance Foundation, and Connecticut Health Foundation

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Julia Kendell (born 25 April 1968) is an English interior designer, television presenter and writer.

Biography
Born in Middlesex, Kendell went to Newnham Junior School in Eastcote, and Haydon Secondary School in Northwood.

Career
Aged 14 she began working in a local soft furnishings shop, and developed a career in interior design after being offered the manager's job aged 18. She now specialises in kitchen design, bespoke cabinetry and lighting design and writes for many interiors magazines including Real Homes and House Beautiful.   Her signature style is 'rustic contemporary' and her ethos centres on creating practical, beautiful and emotionally connected homes for all. She regularly speaks at Home Shows  across the UK and abroad and mentors the Homebase Decorating Academy. In 2012 she designed the interior of the venue for Nick Knowles and his wife Jessica's wedding in the UK. In  2015 Kendell has collaborated with Danetti UK designing and launching a new range of dining furniture.

Television career
Kendell's first television appearances were for ITV's 60 Minute Makeover for which she made eight series between 2004-2014, most recently co-presenting with Peter Andre. She has also appeared in a two-part special for Tonight with Trevor McDonald highlighting the demolition and refurbishment debate of Victorian housing stock in the UK. In January 2008 Julia took over the role of designer for DIY SOS on BBC One. Three years later Kendell was instrumental in taking SOS to an hour-long 'Big Build' format where the team complete entire house builds over a 9-day period involving an army of trades volunteers. In April 2011, she was the DIY and makeover expert for Daybreak's "Guide to Transforming Your Home", in 2012 she appeared on several episodes of The Alan Titchmarsh Show, and in 2015 'Rebuild Our Home' with Nicky Campbell for ITV.

Personal life
Having moved to Henley on Thames with her first husband, she now lives in the area with her partner, James. She has renovated and built homes in the area including an award-winning self-build eco home constructed in 2008. Julia has two grown-up daughters and a granddaughter. Her passions outside of design include organic vegetable growing, keeping hens and self-sufficiency. She is a prolific cook and enjoys scuba diving and skiing.

References

External links
Official website
60 Minute Makeover ITV.com
DIY SOS BBC1 One

Living people
People from Eastcote
English interior designers
English television presenters
1968 births
Designers from London

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Live Webinar Schedule for July 2018
Thursday, June 28, 2018 APA , Expert Advice , Flow , webinars No comments
Join us for one or all of our live webinars this coming month, with topics including: APA Style, Writing Center services, flow, and sentence structure . Students at Walden University don't take a summer break, so neither does our webinar schedule. Sign up today!
Title: An Inside Look at Writing Center Paper Review Appointments
Date: Thursday, July 5, 2018
Time (Eastern): 2:00PM - 3:00PM
Audience: All Students
Title: APA Part 1: Method to the Madness
Date: Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Title: Cohesion & Flow: Bringing Your Paper Together
Date: Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Time (Eastern): 12:00PM - 1:00PM
Title: Engaging Your Reader with Sentence Structure
Learn more about our webinars, view any of our archived webinar sessions, and find out how to suggest topics for future webinars by navigating to our Webinars Homepage.
The Walden University Writing Center presents weekly webinars on a range of topics related to scholarly writing, APA style, and the writing process. In addition to webinars, the writing center offers paper reviews, live chat, and a podcast to support writers during all stages of their academic careers.
Catch Your Reader's Ear: The Simpler the Better for Scholarly Word Choice
Monday, June 25, 2018 Scholarly Writing , Word Choice , writing style No comments
"It appears the authors contrived a contextual audit of distinct, historical orators and their praxes in order to generate a conspectus of western rhetorical practices"
Yikes! I'm embarrassed to say this lengthy sentence can be found in my first grad school assignment. I'm still not sure I know what it means, and I don't think I knew then either. Luckily, I had a very patient professor that saw right through my attempt at sounding collegiate. They told me that good writing didn't mean long-winded sentences full of multi-syllabic words I had looked up in a thesaurus. Again, Yikes.
Sure enough, I had written my paper in (what I thought) was a good example of scholarly voice. It had been awhile since I had been in school, and I was very self-conscious of my writing. I had no idea what my professor expected of me in my first paper, and I couldn't help but compare myself to my peers. A number of them were in their second and third semesters of grad school, and some had already been published in academic journals! I thought I had to compensate for my inexperience by writing with complex jargon and ideas, void of any individual style.
I couldn't have been more wrong! Scholarly writing is often viewed as dull and long-winded, but it doesn't need to be. In fact, the best examples of scholarly writing are clear and direct, and they use concise language to inform and persuade.
However, like all forms of writing, developing a scholarly voice requires practice. Although my professor had explained where I went wrong with my first assignment, it took time and practice to hone the rules of good scholarly writing. For example, I had to learn to balance a formal tone with clarity and concision. In my example sentence, the tone is formal, but the words themselves are unnecessarily complex. To edit this sentence for clarity, I could replace the word "contrived" with "created" and "praxes" with "habits."
In fact, to edit this sentence for scholarly voice, I would rewrite it as follows:
"The authors created a list of distinct, historical orators and their habits to create a summary of western rhetorical practices."
While I substituted some of the complex language for simpler ideas, the meaning of the sentence is still obscured. For example, while authors could in fact "create a list of orators," the word "researched" better explains the authors' specific actions. My second revision is as follows:
"The authors researched a list of distinct, historical orators and their habits to create a summary of western rhetorical practices."
Finding your scholarly voice takes time and patience, and sometimes you have to accept help to discover your mistakes and opportunities for improvement. However, the Writing Center's staff is here to support you through your journey. We get that scholarly writing is challenging and can be intimidating, because we've been in your shoes! Eventually, we all found our scholarly voice, and you will too.
Now it's your turn! How would you revise my sentence, "It appears the authors contrived a contextual audit of distinct, historical orators and their praxes in order to generate a conspectus of western rhetorical practices" for clarity and concision? Or, if you have a personal example of a sentence you have edited for scholarly voice, please share with us in the comments!
Tasha Sookochoff is a writing instructor in the Walden University Writing Center. Along with earning degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Stout and Depaul University, Tasha has written documentation for the U.S. House of Representatives that increases government transparency, blogged for DePaul University, copy-edited the Journal of Second Language Writing, tutored immigrants and refugees at literacy centers, and taught academic writing to college students.
Transitioning into Your Final Doctoral Study?
Thursday, June 21, 2018 Capstone Writing , Dissertation , Expert Advice , Scholarly Writing No comments
It's been a long time coming. After all those courses, discussion posts, projects, writing assignments, and time spent researching topics in your field... you are finally moving into your final doctoral study. Each degree program has its own requirements and series of documents, but many follow this pattern: premise; prospectus; and final study, project, or dissertation. Your program may not include all three of those or something may go by another name. However, these documents are a big shift from the course work you have been doing.
The Walden University Writing Center has many resources to help you as you transition into these documents that are part of your final doctoral study. Writing Center instructors are here to help you with your preproposal documents: the premise and prospectus. Let's take a look at some of those now.
Here are webinars designed especially for the doctoral capstone writer. You may want to check out the one about moving from coursework into capstone writing. These webinars share tips about the specific documents you will be writing.
Writing at this level can often feel lonely. The writing process for the capstone documents is sometimes done without the hustle, bustle, and interaction that comes with course work and discussion posts. On the podcast, we talk about the value of a writing community for academic writers.
The first documents you work on will be the premise and/or prospectus, depending on your program. The Walden Writing Center offers a preproposal starter kit to walk you through these documents.
If you are working on a premise or prospectus, you can still take advantage of our paper review service. Just be sure to choose the "preproposal schedule."
When the day comes when your prospectus is approved and you begin work on the proposal, you will find all the help you need on the Walden Writing Center form and style page.
If you are looking for a specific type of supporting resource, please reach out and let us know. We will be happy to find it for you.
The Walden University Writing Center creates resources for scholarly writers at all phases of their Walden University journey. We cater to students just starting their coursework, all the way to students finishing their capstone projects. Paper reviews, a podcast, a website, modules, and live webinars are among just some of the resources we offer to students.
Catch Your Reader's Ear: Avoiding Bias and Increasing Sensitivity
Monday, June 18, 2018 Expert Advice , Scholarly Writing , writing style No comments
Sensitivity in APA style can be a, well, sensitive subject. When we writing instructors receive questions in chat or in paper reviews about sensitivity, students often ask how to be sensitive in their writing—and what sensitivity even means in relation to APA style! The general definition of sensitive applies to APA style in a couple of different ways.
According to the dictionary, a sensitive person has "a quick and delicate appreciation of others' feelings." If you have researched how to avoid bias in APA-style writing, this definition makes sense. Sensitivity in APA style does relate to understanding and appreciating the feelings and thoughts of others. However, there is another definition for sensitive that can also be related to sensitivity in APA, and this definition is that a sensitive person is "quick to detect or respond to slight changes, signals, or influences." You might be wondering how quickly responding to changes relates to APA style, so I'll return to this second definition after talking a little bit about the general guidelines for avoiding bias and showing sensitivity in APA-style writing.
While there are many ways to ensure sensitivity when writing about groups of people, there are three overarching rules that you can follow to adhere to the APA-style guidelines for sensitivity:
Be specific. It can be tempting to use general terms in an attempt to be polite, but it is almost always best to avoid generalizing. For example, if a writer says, "I interviewed young children," readers will wonder what constitutes "young." Does the writer mean toddlers or preteens? If the writer instead says, "I interviewed participants between the ages of 5 and 10," readers will have a stronger understanding of who the writer interviewed.
Keep terms parallel. It is also important to ensure use of parallel terms when describing groups of people. For example, it wouldn't be parallel to research how women and males respond to video games. A scholar might instead use men and women. In fact, it's a best practice to avoid using male and female as nouns in general because these terms are largely used as descriptors, such as when studying male and female penguins, for example.
Use a group's preferred language. This rule is a little more difficult to follow because different people and different groups prefer different terms. For example, while people-first language is generally the standard for sensitivity in APA, some groups of people, such as autistic children, prefer the descriptor to be used first. It is always a best practice to research preferred descriptors and language when writing about a group of people.
There is one final rule not included in the above list because this rule is principal and supersedes the others: Accept change!
To ensure sensitivity in APA-style writing, it is important to understand that change is constant and that a change in preferred descriptors or language is generally a positive sign of a responsive academic community. For example, at one time, the norm in writing instruction was to only use "they" as a plural pronoun. However, due to changes in language preference in the LGBTQ+ community, we at the Writing Center updated our policy to illustrate our acceptance of gender-neutral pronouns. Change means progress, so being flexible and willing to comply with changing norms can help writers ensure sensitivity and avoid bias in writing.
To that end, the second definition of "sensitivity" that I linked above concerning being responsive to change should now make more sense in relation to sensitivity in APA. While it is important to be sensitive to others' feelings, it is also important to respond quickly and gracefully to changes in preferred language. By always researching before writing about a specific group of people and by being considerate of changing norms, scholar-practitioners can help contribute to an inclusive atmosphere in academia.
Katherine McKinney is a writing instructor in the Walden University Writing Center. She received an M.A. in English from Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Education at Walden. Katherine's goal as an instructor is to show students that the best writing results from practice, and she aims to provide feedback and resources that will guide students through the invention, composition, and revision process.
Thursday Thoughts: On Writing Introductions Well
Thursday, June 14, 2018 Expert Advice , Walden University , Writing Process No comments
Why are introductions so hard to write? When should I write an introduction: before or after the draft has been written? I have a thesis statement, but where should I put it in my introduction? How do I give my reader a clear, concise preview of my essay? Do capstone projects have introductions?
Here in the Walden University Writing Center, we receive questions about writing introductions all the time. And students ask these questions for good reason: Introductions are important. They're not the most important element of your essay, but they are the first important element of your essay.
While the scope, length, and critical elements of your introduction will vary depending on the writing situation in which you find yourself, we've created some helpful resources that you can access as you need them. Take a look and follow the links below:
Here's our Writing Center webpage overview on writing introductions
Would a trained Writing Instructor leading you through a lesson on introductions be helpful? Click here and view our live webinar session on introductions, replete with plenty of opportunities to practice these useful skills
Over the years on this blog, we've compiled many resources dedicated to introductions. Here's a post that answers one of the introduction-related questions above (Protip: use the search bar on the right to find all of our introduction posts)
Our Walden Writing Center podcast, WriteCast, has a wonderful episode on avoiding the top-five introduction mistakes.
And for you Walden University capstone writers out there, we've assembled a Doctoral Captsone Form and Style Kit called How Do I Introduce My Study.
Enjoy these resources, dear reader. We enjoyed creating them for you!
The Walden University Writing Center creates resources for scholarly writers at all phases of their Walden University journey. Students just starting their coursework, all the way to students finishing their capstone projects will find useful resources to help make them better writers today!
Catch Your Reader's Ear: Verb Choice and Scholarly Voice
Monday, June 11, 2018 Expert Advice , Grammar and Mechanics , Word Choice , writing style No comments
If you want to level-up your scholarly voice, there's one part of speech I recommend focusing on: verbs, the words that convey the action in each sentence. Today, let's consider three different kinds of verbs that can make a big difference towards improving your scholarly writing.
Avoid Verbs that Express Feelings
When you're passionate about your topic, it's tempting to bring your personal opinions into a paper. However, it's best to avoid phrases such as "I believe," "I think," and "I feel" in academic writing. Because you're the one writing the paper, your reader will safely assume that you believe, think, or feel what you've written. Furthermore, academic writing privileges research-based evidence over personal opinion.
Instead of writing an opinion, like this one:
I think that students need to pay more attention to what they read.
Support your beliefs with evidence from your research:
Adler (1940) argued that most Americans did not understand what they read, so the author outlined a series of three reading strategies to aid comprehension.
Your own opinions can be a great place to start, especially when choosing a topic, but it's important to ground your academic writing in research and remain objective as a scholar.
Vary Verbs that Introduce
It's often a good idea to introduce evidence with a brief contextualizing phrase. However, it can be tiresome to write "according to so-and-so" over and over again. To add some variety into your use of evidence, incorporate different kinds of verbs into these introductory phrases.
The way you compose your introductory phrases can also show your reader your own perspective on the evidence. If you agree with the source material, you might say the author concluded or proved, whereas if you disagree with it, you might say the author chose or justified. If you don't have any feelings about it either way, you might say the author proposed or examined.
See this verb "cheat sheet" for a great list of verbs that you can use in your own writing.
Replace "to be" Verbs
To really make your writing more dynamic, try omitting all versions of the verb "to be." These include be, am, is, are, was, were, been, and being. Instead, substitute verbs that better convey action. For example, take a look at this passage in which a student describes themself:
When I was a college student, I studied nursing and earned my BSN. After graduation, I was a nurse in an emergency department for 6 years. I am now a lead nurse in the emergency department of my hospital. I am interested in earning my MSN so that I am able to continue to advance my career and contribute to social change.
Let's find all of the "to be" verb conjugations. I have highlighted them below:
Now, look at this revision, which avoids the "to be" verb:
I earned a BSN from Walden University. After graduation, I served as an emergency department nurse for 6 years. Now, I work as a lead nurse in the emergency department of my hospital. Earning my MSN will allow me to continue to advance my career and contribute to social change.
I hope you'll agree that the revised version is not only more concise, but also more interesting to read.
The next time you revise a piece of writing, I hope you'll look at the verbs in your paper in a new light—they really can be key for making your writing sound more interesting and scholarly.
Cheryl Read is a Writing Instructor in the Walden University Writing Center. Verbs that typically describe Cheryl include writing, parenting, hiking, and knitting.
Catch Your Reader's Ear: A Five-Part Blog Series on Scholarly Tone and Voice
Thursday, June 07, 2018 Expert Advice , Featured , Scholarly Writing , writing style No comments
One of the greatest challenges for scholarly writers is creating compelling, interesting prose that will encourage readers to engage with the writer's ideas. Unlike more informal genres of writing, scholarly prose covers topics, theories, and ideas that require precise, scientific description. Oftentimes, these descriptions are, by necessity, antithetical to the idea of captivating an audience. Plus, the formality valued in scientific research writing means the writer cannot rely on ornamental phrasing or grand spectacles of language to engross the reader.
So what methods do scholarly writers have at their disposal to engage their audience, to catch their reader's ear?
Here at the Walden University Writing Center, our answer to that is writers can write engaging, compelling, interesting prose by harnessing a clear and confident scholarly tone and voice. As writers present their evidence-based research to their readers, there are a number of strategies that can be used to compel readers to engage with their work.
To help writers learn and utilize these strategies, we would like to present a five-part blog series that delves into this topic. Each post in this series will introduce, explain, and put into practice a writing strategy that will help writers harness a scholarly tone and practice using their scholarly voice. We hope these topics will be interesting and helpful to you as you develop your own methods to Catch Your Reader's Ear!
Join us for each part in this series for tips to help you harness your scholarly tone and voice
Using Sentence Structure to Enhance Scholarly Tone
Verb Choice and Scholarly Voice
The Simpler the Better for Scholarly Word Choice
Avoiding Bias and Increasing Sensitivity in Scholarly Writing
Revision Tips to Enhance Scholarly Voice
We hope you will enjoy this blog series and learn from the strategies each Instructor presents. Please let us know in the comments if there are any other scholarly voice-related topics you'd like us to address in future posts.
Until then: Keep writing. Keep inspiring!
The Walden University Writing Center seeks to teach writer's what scholarly writing is, and how to deploy it as a strategic communicative device. Scholarly writing, like all forms of writing, has certain features that are unique to it and that its readers expect to encounter. Once a writer understands and can utilize those features, scholarly writing becomes another tool that can enhance the effectiveness of the writer's expression. This blog series strives to build these skills and understandings.
Catch Your Reader's Ear: Using Sentence Structure to Enhance Scholarly Tone
Monday, June 04, 2018 Expert Advice , Grammar and Mechanics , Scholarly Writing , Word Choice , writing style 6 comments
My post today will focus on using sentence structure to enhance scholarly voice in writing. To do so, I would like to present two areas related to sentence structure where writers sometimes falter and create unclear expression: the use of ambiguous subjects for sentences, such as using the pronoun "it"," "this," or "that," and using passive voice.
Scholarly voice is important for several reasons, As a Writing Instructor, I encourage writers to practice clarity of expression and writing concisely in their work, which means that sentences are clear and words are used economically. However, when writers focus solely on these two characteristics of scholarly voice readers can be left with more questions than answers as they read over previous sentences to understand the next sentence.
Ambiguous Subjects Lead to Unclear Sentence Structures
Before discussing the use of ambiguous subjects for sentences, it might help to take a quick refresher on basic sentence structure. The structure for clear and complete sentences is subject à verb à object.
Note: Throughout this post, the highlighting and font styles in the "examples" correspond to the parts of the sentence: yellow highlighting in bold type (subject); green highlighting in underlined type (verb); blue highlighting in italicized type (object).
Example: Nurse practitioners would benefit from emotional intelligence training to ensure that they cultivate a community of trust and respect among nursing staff.
When using this sentence structure, the subject of the sentence, nurse practitioners, is specific; thus, the point is clear for readers. However, what happens when the sentence that follows includes a subject that is more ambiguous?
Example: Nurse practitioners would benefit from emotional intelligence training to ensure that they cultivate a community of trust and respect among nursing staff. It can also support relationships between nurses and their patients.
Wait, what does "it" refer to here? The subject of the last sentence was nurse practitioners, so the use of an ambiguous subject in this sentence makes it hard for readers to know exactly what "it" refers to since "it" doesn't have a clear antecedent (it is not clearly connected to a subject). "It" could refer to nurse practitioners, but the reader doesn't know for sure. It could refer to "emotional intelligence." "It" could refer to "training." Without a specific subject, the reader is left to guess. And since clear, direct, specific prose are important characteristics of scholarly voice, forcing the reader to guess creates non-scholarly voice.
Instead of referring back to previous terms, topics, and subjects using ambiguous pronouns, I recommend that writers write clear, direct, unquestionable subjects into all of their sentences. "It," "this," and "that" might seem like scholarly shortcuts to achieving economy of expression, but be careful. The more your reader has to guess as to what you mean, the less scholarly your writing voice becomes.
Passive Voice Leads to Unclear Sentence Structures
While APA warns about the use of "it" and other less specific subjects for sentences, the style guide also warns about passive voice, which can occur when the subject of the sentence is proceeded by the verb. Structuring sentences in this way creates passive constructions because it is often unclear who or what is acting on the verb For instance, let's say you want to paraphrase an author:
Example: It was argued that emotional intelligence training can also support relationships between nurses and their patients (Minton, 2018).
Since "it" doesn't create a clear and specific subject, this sentence is already in danger of falling into the passive voice. We also can't answer the question "who did the arguing," which makes the subject of this sentence further obscured. Clearly, the lack of specificity and precision in this sample sentence stands in the way of the reader's understanding.
Let's look at how slight changes to the sentence structure can improve the reader's understanding, thereby enhancing the writer's scholarly voice. Recall the structure for clear and complete sentences: subject à verb à object
Let's start by finding a clear subject for this sentence. Since "argued" is our verb, ask yourself, who did the arguing? Yes, Minton! Therefore "Minton," the author of this information, is a clear and specific subject for our sentence. Let's move the subject to the fore of the sentence and see how that creates a clearer, more scholarly sentence.
Example: Minton (2018) argued that emotional intelligence training can also support relationships between nurses and their patients.
Notice that not only the subject of the sentence is specific, but the rest of the points in the sentence are specific as well to ensure clarity of expression and connection and flow among points.
Example: Nurse practitioners would benefit from emotional intelligence training to ensure that they cultivate a community of trust and respect among nursing staff (Minton, 2018). Minton (2018) argued that emotional intelligence training for nurses can also support relationships between nurses and their patients.
In conclusion, while the use some pronouns, such as "it," are acceptable in APA style scholarly writing, these pronouns need to be clearly connected to a subject within the sentence and should not result in passive voice.
We'd love for you to share with us an example of the appropriate use if "it" in a sentence or let us know what other pronoun use complicates the clarity of a sentence. And stay tuned to the blog in the upcoming weeks as we continue our exploration of scholarly voice and tone.
Veronica Oliver is a Writing Instructor in the Walden Writing Center. In her spare time she writes fiction, binge watches Netflix, and occasionally makes it to a 6am Bikram Yoga class.
Catch Your Reader's Ear: The Simpler the Better fo...
Catch Your Reader's Ear: Avoiding Bias and Increas...
Catch Your Reader's Ear: Verb Choice and Scholarly...
Catch Your Reader's Ear: A Five-Part Blog Series o...
Catch Your Reader's Ear: Using Sentence Structure ...


"He's Alive" is an episode of the The Twilight Zone.
"Portrait of a bush-league fuehrer named Peter Vollmer, a sparse little man who feeds off his self-delusions and finds himself perpetually hungry for want of greatness in his diet. And like some goose-stepping predecessors, he searches for something to explain his hunger, and to rationalize why a world passes him by without saluting. The something he looks for and finds is in a sewer. In his own twisted and distorted lexicon, he calls it faith, strength, truth. But in just a moment, Peter Vollmer will ply his trade on another kind of corner, a strange intersection in a shadowland called The Twilight Zone."
Peter Vollmer (Dennis Hopper), the leader of a small and struggling Nazi group, is visited by a shadowy figure who teaches him how to enthrall a crowd. The figure instructs Vollmer to arrange the death of one of his followers, Nick, thereby creating a martyr to rally everyone around. Following the figure's instructions and assistance, Vollmer is considerably more successful and his group's following grows. However, the elderly Jewish man that Vollmer lives with, Ernst Ganz (Ludwig Donath), spent nine years in Dachau and strongly disapproves of Vollmer's politics of hatred. Ernst disrupts a rally, accusing Vollmer of being "nothing but a cheap copy" of Adolf Hitler. After the failed rally, responding to the shadowy man's accusation that Vollmer has the instincts of a rabbit, Vollmer demands to know who his mysterious benefactor is. The man steps forward from the shadows to reveal himself to be Adolf Hitler.
The figure orders Peter to kill Ernst, and Peter steels himself enough to complete the task. Hitler congratulates him and asks him how it felt. Peter replies that he felt immortal. Hitler's thundering response is "Mr. Vollmer! We ARE immortal!" Afterwards, police arrive to arrest Peter for complicity to commit Nick's murder; he is shot while fleeing the scene. Peter stares at his bullet wound, astonished by the pain...and by the sight of his own blood. He addresses the police: "There's something very wrong here...Don't you understand that I'm made out of steel!?"
Hitler leaves the dying Vollmer, off to look for another worthy candidate.
"Where will he go next, this phantom from another time, this resurrected ghost of a previous nightmare - Chicago? Los Angeles? Miami, Florida? Vincennes, Indiana? Syracuse, New York? Anyplace, everyplace, where there's hate, where there's prejudice, where there's bigotry. He's alive. He's alive so long as these evils exist. Remember that when he comes to your town. Remember it when you hear his voice speaking out through others. Remember it when you hear a name called, a minority attacked, any blind, unreasoning assault on a people or any human being. He's alive because through these things we keep him alive."
The talented author Richard Matheson pays a return visit to Twilight Zone with a story called "Mute". It provides an exceptional challenge to the acting talents of Barbara Baxley, Frank Overton and an unusual 12-year-old by the name of Ann Jillian.


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Home :: WMD :: Library :: News :: Iraq :: 2015 :: January ::
WMD Menu
IS Sharia Courts in N. Iraq Dispense Cruel Punishments
by Lisa Schlein January 20, 2015
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights is condemning cruel and inhuman punishments meted out by so-called Sharia courts established by Islamic State militants in northern Iraq. The agency says anyone falling foul of the militants' extremist interpretation of Islam is at risk of being killed.
IS militants claim religious, political and military authority over all Muslims. The U.N. Human Rights Office says IS is exercising its power over the population of Iraq in the most ruthless, barbaric manner through its so-called Sharia courts.
U.N. Human Rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said scores of people have been executed since the courts were established late last year. She told VOA executions of men, women and children were being carried out for a variety of reasons.
"Quite often, immediately after the sentence is handed down, the people are executed in public. And the kinds of people who are executed are across the board. Some are executed for being disloyal to ISIL (IS), some for refusing to pledge allegiance. As I mentioned, there were these four doctors who were killed for refusing to treat ISIL fighters. So, really any kind of disobedience, any kind of lack of adherence to ISIL's twisted philosophy can lead to execution," she said.
Disregard for human life
Shamdasani said last week, IS posted photos on the web of two men being "crucified" after they were accused of banditry. She cited the case of a woman being stoned to death, allegedly for adultery.
She said the ruthless murder of two men, who were thrown off the top of a building after having been accused of homosexual acts, was another terrible example of IS's monstrous disregard for human life. She said this case was tried in a so-called Sharia court in Mosul, but such trials occurred in other areas where ISIL's reign of terror holds sway.
"We have received numerous other reports of women who have been executed by ISIL in Mosul and in other areas under the group's control, often immediately following sentences passed by its so-called "Sharia courts." Educated, professional women, especially women who have run as candidates in elections for public office seem to be particularly at risk. In just the first two weeks of this year, reports indicate that three female lawyers were executed" said the spokeswoman.
Reacting to reports the terrorist group is holding two Japanese men for ransom, Shamdasani said hostage taking was a grave crime under international humanitarian law.


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text:
Kriminalnyj talant () er en sovjetisk spillefilm fra 1988 af Sergej Asjkenazi.

Medvirkende
 Aleksej Zjarkov som Sergej Rjabinin
 Aleksandra Zakharova som Aleksandra Rukojatkina
 Igor Nefjodov som Vadim Petelnikov
 Vladimir Korenev som Sergej Kurikin
 Vladimir Simonov som Victor Kaplitjenkov

Referencer

Eksterne henvisninger

Sovjetiske film fra 1988
Dramafilm fra Sovjetunionen


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Q: MySQL: Optimizing query for records within date range I have a table (logs) that has the following columns (there are others, but these are the important ones):

*

*id (PK, int)

*Timestamp (datetime) (index)

*Duration (int)

Basically this is a record for an event that starts at a time and ends at a time.  This table currently has a few hundred thousand rows in it.  I expect it to grow to millions.  For the purpose of speeding up queries, I have added another column and precomputed values:

*

*EndTime (datetime) (index)

To calculate EndTime I have added the number of seconds in Duration to the Timestamp field.
Now what I want to do is run a query where the result counts the number of rows where the start (Timestamp) and end times (EndTime) fall outside of a certain point in time.  I then want to run this query for every second for a large timespan (such as a year).  I would also like to count the number of rows that start on a particular point in time, and end at a particular point in time.
I have created the following query:
SELECT
    `dates`.`date`,
    COUNT(*) AS `total`,
    SUM(IF(`dates`.`date`=`logs`.`Timestamp`, 1, 0)) AS `new`,
    SUM(IF(`dates`.`date`=`logs`.`EndTime`, 1, 0)) AS `dropped`
FROM
    `logs`,
    (SELECT
        DATE_ADD("2010-04-13 09:45:00", INTERVAL `number` SECOND) AS `date`
        FROM numbers LIMIT 120) AS dates
WHERE dates.`date` BETWEEN `logs`.`Timestamp` AND `logs`.`EndTime`
GROUP BY `dates`.`date`;

Note that the numbers table is strictly for easily enumerating a date range.  It is a table with one column, number, and contains the values 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc...
This gives me exactly what I am looking for... a table with 4 columns:

*

*date

*total (the total rows that start and end outside the current point in time)

*new (rows that start at this point in time)

*dropped (rows that end at this point in time)

The trouble is, this query can take a significant amount of time to execute.  To go through 120 seconds (as shown in the query), it takes about 10 seconds.  I suspect that this is about as fast as I am going to get it, but I thought I would ask here if anyone had any ideas for improving the performance of this query.
Any suggestions would be most helpful.  Thank you for your time.
Edit: I have indexes on Timestamp and EndTime.
The output of EXPLAIN on my query:
"id";"select_type";"table";"type";"possible_keys";"key";"key_len";"ref";"rows";"Extra"
"1";"PRIMARY";"<derived2>";"ALL";NULL;NULL;NULL;NULL;"120";"Using temporary; Using filesort"
"1";"PRIMARY";"logs";"ALL";"Timestamp,EndTime";NULL;NULL;NULL;"296159";"Range checked for each record (index map: 0x6)"
"2";"DERIVED";"numbers";"index";NULL;"PRIMARY";"4";NULL;"35546940";"Using index"

When I run analyze on my logs table, it says status OK.

A: Note in the EXPLAIN output that the join type for the logs table is "ALL" and the key is NULL, which means a full table scan is scheduled. The "Range checked for each record" message means that MySQL uses the range access method on logs after examining column values from somewhere else in the result. I take this to mean that once dates has been created, MySQL can perform a ranged join on logs using the second and third indices (likely those on Timestamp and EndTime) rather than performing a full table scan. If you only have indices on Timestamp and EndTime separately, try adding an index on both, which might result in a more efficient join type (e.g. index_merge rather than range):
CREATE INDEX `start_end` ON `logs` (`Timestamp`, `EndTime`);

I believe (though could easily be wrong) that other items in the query plan either aren't really a concern or can't be eliminated. The filesort, as an example of the latter, is likely due to the GROUP BY. In other words, this is likely the extent of what you can do with this particular query, though radically different queries or approaches that address table storage format are still possibly more efficient.

A: You could look at merge tables to speedup the processing. With merge tables, since the tables are split up, the indexes are smaller resulting in faster fetching. Also, if you have multiple processors, the searches can happen in parallel increasing the performance.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Corporate Cronies Complain Again: Rangel's Tax Bill
I was just reading the business section of the NYT when I came across this article about congress's attempt to reform the "alternative minimum tax" and was once again confirmed in my view that the business page contains the most important news stories. I checked the WSJ for stories on the bill and found this story, which frames the problem as one of the Democrats trying to maintain fiscal responsibility and keep in line with "pay as you go" rules that call for off-setting any spending with changes in taxes or spending cuts. A similar story in Forbes focuses on the "tax-the-rich" vs. "tax-the-middle-class" aspect of the story, as does the New York Times. Both papers say it is unlikely that the senate will pass the bill, but if they do, Bush has promised to veto it.
The policy advocated in this new House bill, written by Charles Rangel, seems reasonable. It would keep "upper-middle-class" taxpayers from being caught by the Alternative Minimum Tax, and pay for it by closing a loophole that benefits ultra-wealthy hedge-fund managers, who currently pay 20% less in taxes than most other people. As Citizens for Tax Justice puts it, the bill calls for the end of the ongoing use of middle-class tax dollars to subsidize multi-millionaires. Real-Estate interests have responded by hiring a major Bush economic advisor, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, to spin the story by suggesting that increasing the taxes on hedge-fund managers to the regular rate instead of keeping it at an especially low-rate will hurt real-estate in a time of crisis. Karl Rove goes beyond that, obfuscating the issue with scare tactics, and claims that proposed tax changes in the house threaten a general "$ 1 trillion tax increase." Here's how Rove got there. According to an article by Lisa Lerer, Politico.com,
Repealing the AMT would reduce federal tax revenue by more than $800 billion over the next 10 years — and that's assuming the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010. With the tax cuts in place, the costs would near $1 trillion.
But of course, Rangel's proposal does not create a big gap in the budget without paying for it; it shifts the tax-burden to hit more of those ultra-wealthy people that got major tax-cuts from Bush. The tax-increases in the bill include:
a surtax of four percentage points on married couples with adjusted gross income of more than $200,000 and 4.4 percentage points for couples with more than $500,000 in income.
The bill also targets the managers of hedge funds and private-equity firms. The executives' earnings would be taxed at ordinary income tax rates, which are more than double the capital gains rate they now pay. Hedge fund operators would also lose their ability to defer income taxes through the use of offshore havens.
Ultimately, the $1 trillion tax-hike that Rove and Republicans are proclaiming would effect the wealthy people that have benefited most from the hugely expensive Bush tax-cuts. The Tax Policy Center breaks down Rangel's bill like this:
* About 86 million households (57 percent of the total) would get a tax cut in 2008.
* About 3.6 million households (2.4 percent) would pay higher taxes.
* Almost no one earning less than $100,000 would receive a tax increase.
* Almost 80 percent of households earning more than $500,000 would face higher taxes.
As Sam Pizzigati of the blog "Too Much" argues, it doesn't reverse that much of the damage; it's a modest proposal, after all.
Given the clarity of what the bill does, the questions are: 1) will the American public get clear enough information to see that the bill is in the interest of the middle class? and 2)Will Democrats have the courage to support it when it goes to the senate?
Posted by reb at 9:40 AM 3 comments: Links to this post
Lyrics of the Day: Two Professors Describe Their Work Weeks
Last night, I was co-emcee with Blanche Weisen Cook at the Professional Staff Congress event "Our CUNY vs. Their CUNY." The event featured satirical pieces by union members who teach at Brooklyn College, The CUNY Grad Center, Hunter, Laguardia Community College, BMCC, and John Jay. Since I also wrote and directed a short musical theater piece for the event (in which I also performed)), today's lyrics are by me. They are two songs about the work-load at the CUNY's community colleges.
The first is a duet between a professor Shifrin, who teaches writing-intensive courses, and Professor Stone, the department "suck-up" It's called "the 27 hour blues" with music by Joyce Moorman, of CUNY's music department. The 27 hours in the title refers to 27 credit hours, which means five classes one semester and four classes in the next. Or a "fifteen hour week" in one semester and a "twelve hour week" in the next. As the song explains, teaching involves more work than what's done in the classroom.
The 27 Hour Blues
SHIFRIN:
I teach 27 hours a year,
It makes me crazy
Oh, 27 hours a year
You mean that's all you do?
I think you're lazy
We get the summers off too
You and your whining really amaze me
If you knew how hard I work
You wouldn't be so scornful
When you hear my 27-hours-a-year blues
you'll know why I'm so mournful
STONE: If you think you can explain
I'll try not to interrupt
Maybe I'll feel your pain
We call forty hours a regular week
So how can 27 be so bad?
I'll break it down for you piece by piece
STONE: It can't be really bad just take it from me
SHIFRIN
According to a study by a Texas professor
It takes twenty minutes to grade a student's paper
With twenty-five students that 's 500 minutes
Or more than eight hours before your work is finished
And if you teach four classes the hours are 33
But if you're teaching five classes, it's 42 you see
And if you add prep time the total comes 57
Do you believe me yet when I say this job isn't heaven?
If you add the hours spent in class the total hits 72
Now do you see why I've got the blues?
SULLIVAN: You forgot the office hours - aren't three required?
SHIFRIN: That makes it 75 !
STONE: Now I think I see your point
That leaves me with 93 hours a week.
SULLIVAN: You have to sleep!
Subtracting sleep leaves 37
subtracting three for meetings
and another two for email reading
leaves thirty two!
SHIFRIN AND SULLIVAN: which divided by seven leaves four hours a day
Time off we need it
We need it all
If we remembered the work-load
we wouldn't come back in the fall
Don't make us come back early
Vacation is short
Time off we need it!
We need it all!
I see why some run from a job at CUNY,
It's not just the lousy pay
The second song was sung by "professor Sullivan" who responded to Shifrin's song with the comment that her work-week wasn't as bad because she didn't teach writing-intensive classes. However, as we see in this song, sung to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General," perhaps she spoke too soon....
I am a very conscientious history professor
I spend ten hours reading books before I give each lecture
From Spartacus to Reconstruction, Manitou to mass production
I answer student's questions with the facts and not conjecture
I'm very well acquainted too with matters technological
I use computers in my class because it's pedagogical
I spend seven hours weekly on those methods Paolo-Freirean (hmm, Paolo Freireran...)
And if I have two preps it's twenty-seven hours I'm carryin'
I'm fifteen hours in the classroom and five more in the office clime
I do more than I'm asked because it seems to me I've got the time
The students really need me see, they visit on the regular -
It's 47 hours and we haven't got to grading yet
I write my own exams and quizzes, that's at least two hours I bet
Add another five for grading - piles which are so very thick
The total's now at 54 - I think I might be getting sick
Administrative meetings are another duty of my week
The emails that I must respond to are another hour at least
Let's round it off at sixty hours, I thought I had it easier…
But when I think of finals week it makes me even queasier.
It's blue books by the pound and their handwriting is so hard to read
And multiplied by 35 it's really quite a task indeed.
With twenty minutes for each one, it's 12 more hours before I'm done
And multiplied by five it means I hardly see my kids at home.
Gosh I didn't know that I worked 120 hours a week
That leaves just 48 for me, I see that I am up shit's creek.
Anti-War Demonstration News Round Up and comments
I'm so out of the loop that I completely forgot about ANSWER's demonstration in Washington today, because I'm planning to go to one of UFPJ's marches next month and I'm now in the rare position of trying to figure out what the demonstration was like based only on news coverage. First, take a look at these photos posted at the DC indymedia site. The presence of uniformed veterans and their participation in civil disobedience is striking. Sycamore's Diary at Dailykos also has pictures, interesting comments and thoughts from "Kossacks" who were also a presence at the march. What it may have lacked in numbers, it seems to have made up for in spirit. UFPJ's strategy has clearly been to stop doing major DC mobilizations, partly because they don't want to deal with ANSWER. There are a number of local and regional actions planned for the entire month. I would say that the most effective way to get these going among a larger percentage of the population would be to do them through schools and workplaces, neighborhood clubs, etc., which is probably the idea. My question to readers is, do these need to happen on a national basis to be effective? Or is the activism at the regional and local level more meaningful?
Both the NY Times and the Washington Post had stories comparing the demonstration to the spirit of Anti-Vietnam protests because it became "rowdy" and involved 189 arrests. The Post story reported on the major presence of uniformed Iraq war veterans from IVAW; the Times ignored their presence, and both papers gave substantial coverage to pro-war counter-demonstraters. While one paper referred to "dozens of arrests," the number was close to 200, which I think may be the highest of any mass national anti-Iraq war protest.
More so than usual, the papers suggest that the pro-war demonstrators were equal to the anti-war activists. However, this reportgives the number of 1,000 for the pro-war protesters and the organizers' estimate of 100,000 anti-war protesters. (closer numbers were reported on Indymedia as 50,000 anti-war demonstrators and 500 pro-war demonstrators)
For thoughts on the relatively small size of yesterday's posters, the comments section of Marc Fisher's Washington Post column yields an interesting "view from the American street" on the war, the media, and anti-war activism. Common Dreams, which has the AP story and another set of commentsgives a view from the left.
And now it's time for me to head out. Sorry I've been off the blog so much. I haven't felt motivated by ongoing events and news coverage. Jon Stewart had the best comment on the Petraeus report that I've seen.
Posted by reb at 11:35 AM 1 comment: Links to this post
By August, My Garden Is a Little Overgrown
Posted by reb at 9:40 AM No comments: Links to this post
Posted by reb at 9:38 AM 1 comment: Links to this post
From May to July in My Garden
Scroll down to see the progress from spring to summer.
Let the Joyous News At Last Be Spread.....
No, it's not clear yet whether it's time to break out the festive brews here in Munchkin Land -
We've got to verify it legally to see
if he
is morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably (of course I mean politically) dead.
But I jumped like a kid on Christmas morning when I heard Amy Goodman say "Karl Rove is stepping down." Was I dreaming? Apparently not. I may try to get more together later, but for now, I like the headline at The Huffington Post, the comments at Daily Kos,and the article by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo.
Posted by reb at 10:16 AM 2 comments: Links to this post
Maybe We Should Impeach Them All
Posted by reb at 12:05 PM No comments: Links to this post
Labels: Last Month at Strawberry Fields
Hoping for the Fall of the Torture Czar
It was with glee that I sat in the Kings County court's jurors' lounge and saw that justice was again creeping slowly after the Bush administration, its nose filled with the essence of Brimstone seeping from under the collar of Atty General Alberto Gonzales. My jaw may have even dropped when I read that it might finally catch up with that wicked toad, Karl Rove.
Patrick Leahy has used strong language, comparing the attorneys scandal to the dark days of Nixon, and this is reason for hope. Still, I can't help but wish that these men had lied about sex, which most Americans seem to care about (we can relate to it, you see), instead of spying on us, because then something might come of it. What if, instead of just approving illegal torture and flouting the Geneva Convention in direct public statements that Gonzales had misbehavedin his bedroom?
I wish that Rove, instead of orchestrating the stealing of three presidential elections, had gotten caught out in the wrong bed.
After the much anticipated "Fitzmas" following the investigation of the Plame leak, I am only reluctantly optimistic about the notion that justice will ever catch up to these Bushies. It seems likely that despite the 2006 elections we will just continue to read with sick fascination the compilation of crimes at sites such as TPM'smuckraker, along with the detailed accounts of iniquity by such excellent reporters such as Robert Parry, who has a new book out, and Murray Waas, but that nothing will actually result from this knowledge. At least we will know in painful detail about the ongoing, and yet unpunished crimes of an unrepentant political elite. Someone I met on jury-duty told me about the new Comedy Central show L'il Bush and I thought it sounded like the kind of theater that was popular on the streets of France before the revolution: the comedy that you reach for when the people who govern you are completely unaccountable. Although they were royals claiming divine right, and we have "elected" representatives, in what real democracy would a policy developed by a president with a 30% approval rating still manage to surive ?
Posted by reb at 10:50 PM 2 comments: Links to this post
Pitchfork Festival Round Up, Better Late than Never
Or...sometimes music is more fun in the hot sun.
My big vacation event of the summer was going to the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago on Bastille Day weekend with my friend from that excellent blog, The Pagan Science Monitor.
For those who don't know, Pitchfork is an internet music guide that notoriously sets the snark n' snob standards for hipsters everywhere, and yet remains an invaluable resource for the rest of us. In addition to all that, they now produce a remarkably un-snarky and incredibly cheap annual music festival. I have put my own concert-going cellphone videos on youtube so that everyone can experience just what it's like to be five feet tall at an outdoor rock show on flat ground. The sound is pretty good on these, so enjoy. And all you tall people, perhaps you'll gain a new perspective on the world.
And now...for the run down (including links to videos from people who could actually see the bands).
On the first day, the fest featured three full album performances sponsored by the concert series All Tomorrow's Parties/ Don't Look Back: Slint performing "Spiderland", GZA performing "Liquid Swords" and Sonic Youth doing their full double-album "Daydream Nation."
Needless to say, it was a fantastic first night of music.
GZA: Although the pitchfork vids on youtube show The 4th Chamber the peak of the GZA show, for me anyway, was their rendition of ODB's "I Like it Raw," a weird epitaph if there ever was one.
Sonic Youth: As you can tell from these assorted videos, Sonic Youth's energy was even more massive than usual.
The second day my friend and I started off well with locals, Califone,and we seemed to be standing near the band's family members. You can also see a video of theirs here.
After a too-short, but nonetheless blissful 45 minutes of Califone we were a bit indecisive about which bands we wanted to see. We heard the beginning of, but were not that enthused about Battles so we headed over to see Fujiya and Miyagi, where the sound mix was so terrible that we gave up. Instead, we collected our favorite overheard absurdities (coming soon on TPSM?), looked at the fashions on parade, ate some vegan food, drank some beer, all the while listening to an unintentional live mash-up that we dubbed "Fujiya Battles Miyagi" - it surpassed both bands on their own.
On our way to the next stage, I liked what I heard of Professor Murder, but thought I'd see them so easily in NY that I'd rather hear someone else. I wasn't sorry to miss the tedious Iron and Wine. (Jeezus, I ask you, what has happened to the indie scene?) I sort of liked Mastodon, but my friend judged them not authentic metal and I found Clipse unbelievably bad.
However, those mixed experiences were more than made up for by Cat Power's completely gaff-free performance and Yoko Ono's chthonic set with Thurston Moore. For a brief thrill, check this link for someone's clips from both shows. The Cat Power video clip linked above has better sound than most of what I found on Youtube. She did a great performance of Satisfaction but no one on youtube seems to have captured a good video of it with good sound. Here's one with a nice picture and muted sound but you can get the idea of what the song sounded like.
Yoko Ono's show was profound, the beautiful surprise of the day. My friend says that he was not expecting that much of her, but was so affected by the show that he couldn't talk about it without tearing up for two days. I'd seen her live before - in Central Park w/John Zorn and her son, Sean, about twelve years ago when her album Rising came out, so, I thought she would be good, but this show was considerably better than that one. Thurston Moore came out as her special guest for the show-stopping "Mulberry".
Hers was both emotionally rich and far and away the most politically conscious performance of the festival. Given all the negativity directed toward her even from audience members, I thought it was sadly significant that she was the only person at Pitchfork who I heard mention the war. She also is so clearly a feminist performer, and I noticed that the young men in the audience were the ones who did the most mocking. Clearly, they were uncomfortable with the way she rolled out with all that simultaneous power and vulnerability. The young women seemed to being paying more attention. As well they should; she has that witchy energy that I associate with seventies-era feminism and the earnest, bright-eyed experimentalism that seems to have left the avant-garde since the commercialized art scene of the eighties. I felt nostalgic and came home to listen to "Double Fantasy" on vinyl when I got back to NY.
The third day, we started with another Chicago band, The Ponys, who rocked up a sweat, then went over to check out Menomena, whose new record I love, but in the live, outdoor setting, they weren't equal to the sweet layered melodies of their studio recordings. Yeah, if you liked that, here's another one.
We spent the rest of the day hanging out near the shady stage. First, we had to visit the Readymade Magazine stand, where people were making their own t-shirts, We then spent the rest of the day at the "Balance stage" listening to three totally enjoyable sets: The very jazzy kids from Ann Arbor,Nomo, the very hilarious Cool Kids from Chicago who referred to themselves as "the Black version of the Beastie Boys" and Canadian rapper extroardinaire: Cadence Weapon, who just wowed us. He was lyrically inventive, his delivery was right on, he hopped up and down and crowd surfed, and to top it off, his crafty DJ, Weez-L turned out to be a young, skinny bearded white kid who liked like he was dressed up as ZZ top for Halloween.
We skipped both hipster favorites Of Montreal & Sea and Cake (who I think I enjoyed listening to while I was waiting in line for the bathroom), to check out the record and poster fairs.
Sadly, in order to see the big hip-hop acts, we missed both Stephen Malkmus, whose set was supposed to be great, and the late-starting Klaxons, who are playing Madison Square Garden w/Bjork the next time they come to this 'burg.
It was worth it, however, as we ended our Pitchfork experience with the ever-righteous De La Soul who cracked many jokes, got the party going, and brought out Prince Paul as a "substitute DJ" on the pretense that Pacemaster Mase had to go to the bathroom.
Three days of hip-hop, rock and even a wild feminist peace-happening later, I headed back to NY where the summer concert season continues...If I can get it together to write about them, I'll tell all y'all about Mavis Staples, The Noisettes, MIA, Eric Bachman, Neko Case and the ever-ready, Hold Steady.
Posted by reb at 2:01 PM 1 comment: Links to this post
This Just in: "Toxic Sludge is STILL Good for You" - NOT!
Back in 1995, John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton of "PR Watch" wrote the book Toxic Sludge is Good For You, exposing the PR industry. Since then, flaks for big corporations are still at it, most recently to NY Times' readers' disgust, in the form of the Hoover Institute's Dr. Henry I. Miller, who was also at the FDA during the first Bush administration, and is considered by PR watch to be one of the "usual suspects" or "junkyard dogs" of science, because of his shilling for industry and promoting right-wing views of scientific research. According to them, Miller,
regularly grinds an ax against what he considers the FDA's "extraordinarily burdensome regulations" regarding genetically engineered foods and new drugs. In 1996, Miller also editorialized against the FDA's proposal to regulate tobacco. "The FDA's anti-tobacco initiative . . . has not been without its own costs to American consumers and taxpayers," he stated, describing FDA commissioner David Kessler as "personally consumed by this single issue."
True to form, his Op-ed piece in last week Times' pooh-poohs the claims of activists who oppose the use of bovine growth hormone, and inspired seven people to write letters to the Times. One of those people was my stepfather, who wrote:
Henry I. Miller argues that we should "embrace" the use of bovine growth hormone (rBST) in order to feed people more cheaply, save the environment and so on. He characterizes opponents of rBST as "cynical," but I read Dr. Miller's arguments as cynical.
I have no idea if rBST is safe. But I do know that the dairy industry and its lobbyists do not want to require labeling milk produced with rBST. In fact, they are so intent on reducing information available to consumers that they are lobbying to prevent dairies from labeling their milk as "rBST-free"!
There's good reason for cynicism. George Entenman
Chapel Hill, N.C., June 29, 2007
You can find all the letters at here.
Of the letters in the paper responding to that particular Op-Ed piece, only two supported it, and interestingly, the Times identified the authors as 1)vice-president of a biotechnology company and 2)a person who has previously collaborated with Miller on published articles.
Immediately, I wondered if my favorite media watchdogs were on the trail as well. The first thing that came up when I googled Miller's name along with "FAIR" was a Media Matters article about how this same doctor had "diagnosed" Al Gore with "narcissistic personality disorder" in 2004 in the National Review Online. There's another article about Miller and his Op-Ed piece at the website eating liberally.
My step-dad is right - and literally, "on the money." Miller is cynical indeed.
Posted by reb at 1:44 PM 3 comments: Links to this post
Social Forum Part Three
Saturday was the last day of workshops at the Social Forum, and I only went to two of them. My major goal by then was to attend things that I hadn't gotten a chance to do during the rest of the day. One was to go to a hip-hop session; there were several at the conference, but the one I had tried to attend on Friday was restricted to people of color only. The one I chose was called "COINTELPRO to Rapintelpro." While the name suggested government surveillance, the panel's most interesting feature was the inside discussion of "urban radio" marketing that we got from Davey D, an Oakland activist who once worked at AOL/Time Warner and Clear Channel.
The government element in the presentation was the recent NYCLU subpoena of NYPD documentsrelated to the 2004 RNC convention, which revealed that the police had been spying on people as "radical" and "way out" as Alicia Keys and Jay Z, but that was not such new news.
The corporate aspect of the censorship was also chilling. Davey D. talked about the way commercial radio has tried to get audiences to focus on brands (Yo MTV raps; Summerjams, etc) instead of artists, and described what programming directors would say when refusing to play artists such as Talib Kweli on urban radio ("our audience is not intelligent enough for that.") while record companies chose to market him and other political or "conscious" rappers through surfing and skateboarding magazines. The audience for this event was diverse and the conversation, while limited because the people in the front had so much to say, interesting.
** *
I had workshop fatigue and skipped the middle of the day to go to the "solidarity tents" and buy a t-shirt.
Then I headed for a 3:30 workshop by the group that had the buzz of the forum: Right to the City, a national alliance of urban community organizations working against gentrification. The workshop I went to was not the most popular one they did, and started off a little slowly, but became interesting later on. (My friend Alex said that he'd encountered this at another workshop, and thought that the audience of the social forum was such that workshop organizers would have to pitch their discussions past the introductory level in order to maintain interest.) So, for example, when people at this workshop were just talking about the basics of what they did in their groups, and answering questions with rather obvious platitudes, people were leaving. When people started to get into the nitty gritty of leadership development, and then - finally - the relationship of paid staff to membership organizations, it got much more interesting. That last issue in particular led to a dialogue between workshop presenters and audience members, who included people such as members of New York's Picture the Homeless and the fabulous FIERCE.
and that's all for now.
Project South's Popular Education Project in Action
Envisioning a New Society
Social Forum Part Two
I've finally caught up on my sleep after four days of workshops in Atlanta, and have more to say about everything. As I said, I'll pick up first with the Friday evening workshop run by Project South (they also have a myspacepage). Project South is an organization that works on "popular education" and their workshop was designed to have us try out their training tools and see if we could take them back to our own organizations. One thing I liked at the outset was that they clearly stated a set of guidelines: the respect for time-limits, a way for people to interrupt by saying "whoa!" when they hear something they are bothered by, and the "step up/step back" rule was explicit (we'll call less on people who talk a lot/more on people who talk less).
The workshop starts with what they call an "Aha" moment. The exercise is to have people talk in small groups about the moment when they first felt themselves to be activists and to then identify the year. Everyone in the room also has a copy of a time-line including events in the history of global capitalism and social movements in the US. Given a smaller group and more time, there would then be a large group discussion about people's aha moments, placing them on the big timeline so that people could see clusters (say around the beginning of the current war, or around the 1960s). In addition to being an interesting demonstration of people's situation in a broader history, it also allows the group leaders to know the experience level of the people in the room.
The rest of the workshop that I attended had to do with how people compare their own vision of what they want the society to look like with what they think the society actually looks like. The group leaders distributed poster boards, tape, markers and little cards with words on them like "money (capital)"; "health care" and "environment," that each group was to put on the board in the order that the society wanted them in. The process of putting the cards on the board was very interesting in my group, which made up primarily of college student activists who had become active around the war in Iraq. Our biggest question was what "the society" meant - the people in power? or the people in general? (the people in power was the answer we got from Project South) When the groups came back to the large group, there was a lot of agreement about how what the values of the powerful were. Then we went to step two - designing the world/US *we* wanted, there was also a lot of agreement - and a lot of interesting creativity. Almost everyone made a circle instead of a line and put "people" in the middle. One group took the word Money (capital), shredded it, and taped the pieces all around the board to show redistribution. I can imagine a version of this workshop might work well in my union. When it shows broad agreement, it helps shoot past petty conflicts, and it also can illuminate reasons for conflicts by highlighting disagreements in a way that doesn't immediately lead to a big argument.
The pictures above are the beginning of the first step: showing society's priorities. The second one shows the end of part two, when small groups shared their vision of a new society with the large group.
US Social Forum: My First Three Days
I'm writing now from the lobby of a big fancy hotel where I am staying because I am attending the big, but not that fancy, US Social Forum,an event that I had no idea would be as rich as it already has been.
The forum is more than a series of meetings, so even before I boarded the plane from New York City to Atlanta for the forum I was in the forum - without even knowing it. I shared my plane ride with thirty or more members of Community Voices Heard, a New York City low-income organizing group, two professors from Adelphi College who were bringing students, and one of my union brothers from the Professional Staff Congress of CUNY. Since that moment, I've been in one conversation about organizing and activism after another.
By the time I was contemplating whether or not to go to the forum's opening march, I admit that I was not terribly enthusiastic. It was 90 degrees, I hadn't eaten, and I'd been travelling all day. Nonetheless, I met some Puerto Rican activists in the hotel who were going and decided I should go. We joined up to figure out the rail system and head to the demo. While in the rail station, of course I ran into an acquaintance from seven years ago in Minneapolis - we all exchanged "how d'you dos" and went off to town. By the time we got to the midway point, I left my new acquaintances and went outside to look for food. I thought I was totally lost, but within fifteen minutes, I'd spotted the tail end of the demonstration. I rushed off, joined it and despite my hunger and tiredness, found it to be one of the most spirited and diverse - in terms of race, age, and general demeanor - marches I'd been on in a very long time. It filled me with excitement about the days to come.
Later on in the evening, I ventured to the Civic Center, which was surrounded by "Solidarity Tents" and even a few food vendors. I managed to meet up with the rest of my union friends and get a snack. On my way home from there, I asked a woman outside the train station if she knew of a grocery store nearby. As she was a social forum participant, she offered to take me to a grocery store that was one station away from my hotel on the train system. Being a New Yorker, I had assumed that she meant that we'd get out of the train and find the store right there, but Atlanta is different, and it turned out that, in the spirit of the social forum, Crystal who is from Atlanta, but works with a Seattle group called LELO (Legacy of Equality, Leadership, and Organizing) drove me from the station to a grocery store and back to the metro. Clearly, it was going to be a good couple of days.
Early in the morning, I again chatted away on the buses and trains from my hotel to town with other social forum attendees. There was a guy from Finland with his mother and daughter, and a couple of artist /immigrant rights' activists from Providence.
The first session I went to at 10:30 am was a tiny group, but perhaps because of the size it became a powerful and intimate conversation between the session's "audience" and the organizers of the "Faces of Homelessness" campaign of the Washington, DC based "National Coalition for the Homeless." The panel began with an overview of general conditions of homelessness, causes of homelessness, and the current upswing in hate-crimes against homeless people perpetrated by young people. The main event of the panel were the stories of Joann Jackson and David Pirtle. Jackson, the director of the Faces of Homelessness speakers bureau told the story of growing up in a family that did not value education, which meant that despite being admitted to Howard University in 1965, she wound up working as a janitor after finishing at the top of her highschool class. Fortunately for her, her boss noticed her, promoted her to payroll clerk, and eventually helped her start her own business through a Small business administration loan. Despite her success, she became depressed, fell into alcholism and crack addiction. Although she maintained her business for a time as a "functioning alcholic" she wound up selling it, spending the money on drugs, and ultimately was living on the streets. Today, she lives in an apartment and is a national organizer giving a face to the experience of homelessness. The other speaker, David Pirtle, spoke about many of his experiences as a homeless youth with schizophrenia: sleeping in an abandoned house in Manhattan and waking up one night covered in rats ("I was the warmest thing nearby") and going back to sleep, and living more comfortably on the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Eventually, he went into a shelter and received psychiatric treatment. He became an activist when the city tried to sell the homeless shelter where he lived to developers who wanted to make it a luxury hotel. Through that action, he said, he became empowered to ultimately get out of the shelter and get his own apartment.
Such stories are not didactic lessons in political strategy, but hearing the stories and talking with these formerly-homeless individuals highlighted the power of our society's hatred of the homeless simply by showing how the reality differs from the stereotype. In addition to that profound work, the workshop organizers talked about their project to have violence against homeless people classified as a hate-crime and about challenging local laws that criminalize homelessness. The media is one source of contempt for the homeless, but the laws directed at homeless (such as those that ban sleeping or lying down in public parks) are a more direct and serious problem - and those laws come from the real-estate developers and others involved in gentrification. Here, I also met to New York activists and exchanged information, in hopes that we could bring the "faces of homelessness" speakers to my school. My first impression of the Social Forum panels would hold true for most of the others: the session involved not just experts preaching to the converted, but became a conversation among a group of committed activists focused on a particular problem.
At 1:00 pm, I made it to the Jobs With Justice discussion and heard about struggles at Allied-Barton in Phildelphia, and Verizon. However, as would happen again, the most interesting speech was from a member of the audiene. Mid-discussion, Larry Newsome a 19 year employee of Blue Diamond almonds, told us about the chemical hazards of that work. Demonstrations and solidarity campaigns were announced, people got up and spoke with passion. It was a wide-ranging talk about union power in general.
At 3:30, I went to a session provocatively titled SAY WHAT?! featuring a dramatic reading of the US government's testimony to the UN human rights commission on their handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in the Gulf Coast region. The panel began with a woman shouting/chanting a poem about the events, telling us how to participate "When you hear THE MAN!" she said, pointing at a man in a suit seated behind the table, "say a lie you say "SAY WHAT?!" When I say, "SAY WHAT" you say "I Want My Human Rights Today!"
The audience went right along with the program, shouting "SAY WHAT!?" Every time one of the dramatic readers of US government testimony read a piece. In addition to the audience's shouted response, members of the group stood up and read prepared statements about what the real conditions were in New Orleans and Mississippi, not only in those first few weeks, but continuing today. Not only was this a unique way to deliver information to the audience, but the group's analysis was sharp and exciting. They asked us whether we, and progressives outside the Gulf have "Katrina Fatigue." They talked about making Katrina a microcosm of the problems of the US. These speakers also discussed environmental racism, the criminalization of the poor in New Orleans, and the continued displacement of Louisianans from the region. The discussion was my first face-to-face encounter with organizers from New Orleans and I could see, after leaving there, that the left in general has much to learn from such organizers...the point is not just "helping" New Orleans, but seeing New Orleans activists as leaders and shapers of an improved US human rights movement fueled with a new sense of urgency. That was certainly the message that this panel meant to give, and I was convinced.
The evening plenary was also about New Orleans, and featured some of the speakers I had just heard, but also an Ecuadoran activist who had come to New Orleans to work. After describing the horrendous working conditions, withholding of pay, and general disregarding of human rights experienced by Latino immigrants he said, he didn't come to New Orleans to "steal" anyone's job. Rather, he said, we should united "The New Slaves with the Old Slaves." The audience responded with applause of chants of 'Si Se Puede!"
When the floor opened for comments, Mama D(scroll down till you get to 12/06) gave a rather sensational speech which began with her chanting in a deep, slow voice "WE DON'T NEED NO MORE N-----" and included criticisms of non-profit 501-C3 organizations, racism, capitalism in general, and with the defiant comment that she couldn't respect the plenary time-limits on speakers because we needed timet to heal.
Friday....
I went to three sessions on Friday, although of the first one I tried to go to (about gender in the Palestinian movements), was cancelled. I ran into someone I knew from several years ago, and we chose a nearby session on US war crimes to attend. That turned out to be a session of the Bush Crimes Commission featuring Marjorie Cohn of the National Lawyers Guild, C. Clark Kissinger of the RCP, Dennis Brutus, and Ann Wright. They argued that it's important to get people to talk about the acts of the Bush administration as war crimes, not mistakes. They also believe that the movement to impeach Bush may come back. Although most of what they were saying was familiar to me, Ann Wright, a career army colonel who resigned because of her opposition to the US war in Iraq was quite amazing to hear, and I would love to see a film of her testimony in congress on US war crimes.
The second session I went to was about the debate between two different alternatives to contemporary globalization. One was global Fair Trade. The other was localized farming. This panel, set up by the grassroots organizing initiative and the Center for Popular Economics, staged a debate between two economists who played the opposing sides, and then featured comments by activists from other perspectives. The audience generally found the local position untenable in its pure form, though nice in principle, citing the problem of calling on denuded, deforested, and pillaged countries to produce locally despite a likely lack of resources. The most interesting speaker on that panel was Omar Freilla of the Greenworker collective in the South Bronx. His local cooperative in the Bronx was born of deep-roots in that communty as well as intensive study of other cooperative endeavors including tiny towns in the Basque country of Spain.
The third (and final) session I went to on Friday was a popular education program run by Project South, who were among the forum's main organizers. I'll say more about it in a separate post, with pictures....later.
I skipped the evening plenary to attend a meeting of Students for a Democratic Society with members of Bob Moses' Algebra project. I had been told that this would be a meeting of students and teachers about anti-war activism, and it wasn't quite that - but it was inspiring to listen to the process as a group of young high school and college activists tried to plan future actions.
And now, readers, it's almost two am, and there are more sessions tomorrow, so I'd better get to bed.
Social Forum Opening March with Pictures
I can't write much this morning because if I want to get a seat at the 10:30 "Right to the City" panel, I've got to leave my hotel in about fifteen minutes. Look below for pictures from the very spirited opening march of the US Social Forum in Atlanta from Wednesday June 27th.
I arrived in Atlanta that afternoon at about 12:30, and for the rest of the day just about everyone I met was also here for the events. I had a little trouble figuring out where everything was, but I was lucky enough to run into the opening march before it ended. As you enjoy the pics imagine the sound: an extraordinarily good drum section, and a blaring hip-hop against patriarchy truck shouting "down with coca cola" "Down with the war" - not to mention the conscious rhymes. Atlanta's business people were gaping on the sidewalks and the Hooters waitresses, in hot-pants came out to cheer and do a kick line. Was it for the "End Patriarchy" message? or the fresh beats?
Who knows, but it made me feel that:
....Another World is Possible; Another US is Necessary!
Hip Hop Against Patriarchy at the Social Forum Opening March
Getting Down at the Hip Hop Truck Social Forum Opening
New Orleans at Social Forum
social forum opening
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