The Corporation for National Service with its grantees and partners has launched an effort to exponentially increase the numbers of volunteers who serve their communities to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This initiative includes reaching out to community and faith groups, businesses, educational institutions, nonprofits and individuals to plan and implement projects and serve on this holiday …..but it also includes creating the sustainable infrastructure for the those individuals and institutions to remain connected and provide valuable service in their communities throughout the year, while also providing the foundation for a growing King Day of Service in 2007 and in coming years.
Specifically, if you or anyone you know is interested in serving a year as a VISTA member to work on this expansion effort and are available immediately, please contact the people listed below. Please put King Day of Service VISTA in your subject line.
As you probably know, VISTA provides support for relocation and individuals are eligible to serve a 3rd term in AmeriCorps as a VISTA member (although you are not eligible to receive a 3rd Segal AmeriCorps Education Award).
Sacramento, CA: Hands On Sacramento, Nancy Olson at NOlson@handsonsacto.org
Columbia SC: City Year Columbia, Brad Mahdi at bmahdi@cityyear.org
Baton Rouge, LA: City Year Louisiana, Carrie Miller at
cmiller@cityyear.org\n\nProvidence, RI:
City Year Rhode Island, John Crews at jcrews@cityyear.org
Philadelphia, PA: City Year Greater Philadelphia. Jana Curtis at jcurtis01@cityyear.org
United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Heather Wertz at hwertz@uwsepa.org
New Orleans, LA: Interfaith Works, Nancy Murray at ndmurray@earthlink.net
Bridgeport, CT: Service for Peace, Diana Vaptzarova at ridgeport_ed@serviceforpeace.org
Louisville, KY: Service for Peace, Peter Hayes at Louisville@serviceforpeace.org
Birmingham, AL: Hands On Birmingham, Candi Williams at HandsOnBhm@aol.com
Harrisburg, PA: Corporation for National and Community Service, Mary Strasser at
cmiller@cityyear.org
Providence, RI: City Year Rhode Island, John Crews at jcrews@cityyear.org
Philadelphia, PA: City Year Greater Philadelphia. Jana Curtis at jcurtis01@cityyear.org
United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Heather Wertz at hwertz@uwsepa.org
New Orleans, LA: Interfaith Works, Nancy Murray at ndmurray@earthlink.net
Bridgeport, CT: Service for Peace, Diana Vaptzarova at Bridgeport_ed@serviceforpeace.org
Louisville, KY: Service for Peace, Peter Hayes at Louisville@serviceforpeace.org
Birmingham, AL: Hands On Birmingham, Candi Williams at HandsOnBhm@aol.com
Harrisburg, PA: Corporation for National and Community Service, Mary Strasser at
strasser@cns.gov
05 October 2006
04 October 2006
summer pics because i'm cold
Ola at the beach at Ocracoke, NC in June 
so this is Ola and the baby sister Boopsie (sometimes known as Allison) footballing in mom's front yard in may. exciting times... 
and this is me at the museum of flight at kitty hawk, NC in june.
ta-da!
i only include these because i'm bored and don't want to do any actual work.
ta-da!
02 October 2006
vermont
this weekend ola and i went up to vermont for fall color, which was lovely. he was post-call and of course very tired, and once we arrived at the b&b we both fell asleep (at 5 pm) and woke up the next morning. obviously it was MUCH-needed. we stayed at a b&b called the wiley inn, which i don't think we can recommend to others, unfortunately...the walls are a BIT thin, and on one side of us we had a guy who snores and on the other side we had an *enthusiastic* young couple. however, the manchester area is just beautiful, and i'd recommend it highly in general. it's so cute, and it's ridiculously easy to get caught up in the kitsch. so that was the exciting weekend :)
27 September 2006
UEP 2007-08 Application online now
For ardent UEP followers, and i know that there are MANY, the 2007 application is officially online.
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/scholarship/focus_areas/undergraduate_exchange/guidelines
How exciting is that? Very. Yes. Very. Spread the news, especially for all of you Bosnian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Moldovan, Mongolian, Romanian and Serbian undergrads reading this. Because you're the only ones eligible to apply.
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/scholarship/focus_areas/undergraduate_exchange/guidelines
How exciting is that? Very. Yes. Very. Spread the news, especially for all of you Bosnian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Moldovan, Mongolian, Romanian and Serbian undergrads reading this. Because you're the only ones eligible to apply.
Call for papers: Movements of transition: hegemonies, resistances, alternatives
here's a fascinating call for papers that i just got.
Call For Papers
>
>'Movements of Transition: hegemonies, resistances, alternatives'
>
>A stream at 'Reconnecting Critical Management', The Fifth Critical
>Management Studies Conference, Manchester Business School, 11-13 July
>2007
>(http://www.cms5.org)
>
>::Stream Description::
>
>The transition from 'socialism' to a free market economy has probably
>been one of the most pivotal events over the past two decades,
>affecting the lives of millions of people inside and outside the
>countries and nations involved in this process. This transition has
>been part of a wider movement towards the widening and deepening of the
>logic of neo-liberal states, free markets and capitalist management
>around the world. In popular imagination this societal change process
>has been frequently portrayed as the archetypal journey from serfdom to
>freedom with certain teleological references to the 'end of history'.
>Reflecting the Zeitgeist of drastic transformations set in
>motion by the disintegrating Soviet model (and its variants), the free
>market ideology has captured the minds of its reluctant allies and foes
>alike. Unanimously embraced as an antidote to the inefficiency and
>irresponsiveness of state bureaucracies, and (the only) tool for wealth
>creation, but also as an emancipatory political force - the free market has
>been elevated to the status of the new master signifier in societal
>discourse. In this new 'post-historical' world the free market and its
>associated capitalist management processes in the state, economy and civil
>society have become the hegemonic articulation of organisation as such,
>promising freedom, democracy, wealth and even equality, responsibility and
>security.
>
>Perhaps such grand transformation with high moral underpinnings at
>stake justifies the 'transitory' human costs: the tears, broken dreams
>and anxieties; the massive unemployment, religious hatred and
>nationalist wars; the military and daily violences, poverty and
>disillusions. Perhaps the TV images transmitted to unsuspected
>consumers in the making - those 'poor' souls who are yet to fully
>experience the promised land of Big Macs and big Mercs - might
>eventually materialise turning the catastrophic wastelands of the
>present into dreamlands of the future. Perhaps the many liberations
>that privatisation of state industries have brought about together with
>privatising common fates has been a price worth paying. Or we are made
>to believe so...
>
>In contrast to prevailing ideologies, we would like to question this
>notion of transition as an imposition of historical, a-historical or
>pseudo-historical truths onto our reality and subjectivity. We see
>transition - transformation, reconfiguration, repositioning - as a
>particular change process, a personal and collective one at the same
>time, that is concerned with the real opening of and in society. Moving
>beyond nostalgia and critique, we look out for rupture/s in the
>symbolic order and wish to interrogate imaginary institutions of
>contemporary consumerist society with the hope of experiencing the
>real; the real being defined as a resistance to dominant discourses
>pertaining to market fundamentalism and neo-liberalism, and as a quest
>for alternative ways of being, organising and constituting public
>space.
>
>Our aim is to challenge the distortion that equates collective and
>agonistic
>forms of action with tyranny and coercion, and to identify ways of
>resisting
>hegemonic discourses and share alternative experiences. We are interested
>in
>movements of transition that point to speculative openings: new ways of
>social organising, new ways of producing, new ways of being. We are excited
>to explore the creativity and innovation of social movements in all parts
>of
>the world resisting the neo-liberal market logic and, at the same time,
>experimenting with the organisation of new, alternative forms of life.
>
>Trying to make sense of a wider change process involving new forms of
>citizenship and collective engagement, we would like to invite
>contributions that problematise, re-think and re-define different
>notions of transition,
>including:
>
>- The historical epoch of social transformation from what was known as
>'real
>existing socialism' to today's (post-)transition market economies -
>examining and evaluating the significance of social and organisational
>transformations in light of foreclosed and recreated opportunities for
>radical movements of transition;
>- The liberalisation and structural adjustment policies implemented in many
>developing countries around the world - examining and evaluating the human,
>social, cultural and economic costs involved and documenting the movements
>of resistance against neo-colonial oppressions;
>- The 'successful' Marx-to-Mao-to-Market transition as experienced in China
>- teasing out the historical complexities and hidden costs of this change
>process with particular emphasis on the different types of resistances
>possible in today's Chinese society;
>- The 'forced' and violent transition in countries such as Afghanistan,
>Iraq
>and Kosovo - not to mention Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada and the many other
>countries where Western hegemony has invaded foreign territories in the
>name
>of liberation, freedom and democracy.
>
>While we would not like to confine our inquiry to the historical
>transitions
>outlined above, we would particularly welcome analyses of:
>
>- Comparative aspects of transition across countries and geographical
>areas and between different models of transition (e.g. 'successful' and
>'failed' ones);
>- The roles of, and the relationships between, the state, economy and
>civil society in organising societal transitions and change processes;
>- The mechanisms for establishing hegemonic regimes and organising
>counter-hegemonic resistance movements;
>- The role of particular organisations (e.g. NGOs, charities, affinity
>groups, direct action groups, media organisations) in facilitating
>hegemonic as well as counter-hegemonic transitions;
>- The modes of organisation in what can be regarded as alternative states,
>economies and civil societies.
>
>We are inviting a range of creative and innovative engagements
>including contributions such as:
>
>- Theoretical papers presenting counterintuitive and provocative
>analyses and ideas using a range of frameworks (e.g. feminist,
>post-colonial, neo-Gramscian, post-Marxist, etc);
>- Empirical engagements presenting data and texts in novel and
>non-conventional ways;
>- Individual accounts by researchers, practitioners, artists and
>activists presenting their own personal and auto-biographic stories and
>experiences of transitions;
>- Artistic projects using techniques of performance, video, poetry and
>photography;
>- Activist accounts of social movement organising, resistance and
>alternative institution building.
>
>::Details of the Convenors::
>
>Dr Marianna Fotaki
>Manchester Business School
>marianna.fotaki@mbs.ac.uk
>
>Dr Steffen Böhm
>University of Essex
>steffen@essex.ac.uk
>
>Professor John Hassard
>Manchester Business School
>john.hassard@mbs.ac.uk
>
>Professor Maria Ceci Misoczky
>School of Administration, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul Porto
>Alegre, Brasil mcamisoczky@ea.ufrgs.br
>
>Neboj¹a Milikic
>Editor of 'YEAST', the youth web-magazine for politics and culture
>Belgrade, Serbia n_milikic@hotmail.com
>
>::Timeline for paper submission::
>
>Abstracts to Convenors (e-mail attachment) - 6 November 2006
>
>Decisions on acceptance/rejection communicated to authors - 14 February
>2007
>
>Full papers to Convenors (e-mail) - 28 April 2007
>
>::Abstracts must contain the following information::
>
>- Authors (including affiliation and contact details, with lead author
>clearly indicated)
>- Stream to which the abstract is submitted
>- Title
>- Body text
>- Maximum 300 words
>- All abstracts must be single-spaced, prepared using at least an
>11-point Ariel font, with a left margin at least 1 inch for binding and
>be formatted for A4 paper (21cm * 29.7 cm).
Call For Papers
>
>'Movements of Transition: hegemonies, resistances, alternatives'
>
>A stream at 'Reconnecting Critical Management', The Fifth Critical
>Management Studies Conference, Manchester Business School, 11-13 July
>2007
>(http://www.cms5.org)
>
>::Stream Description::
>
>The transition from 'socialism' to a free market economy has probably
>been one of the most pivotal events over the past two decades,
>affecting the lives of millions of people inside and outside the
>countries and nations involved in this process. This transition has
>been part of a wider movement towards the widening and deepening of the
>logic of neo-liberal states, free markets and capitalist management
>around the world. In popular imagination this societal change process
>has been frequently portrayed as the archetypal journey from serfdom to
>freedom with certain teleological references to the 'end of history'.
>Reflecting the Zeitgeist of drastic transformations set in
>motion by the disintegrating Soviet model (and its variants), the free
>market ideology has captured the minds of its reluctant allies and foes
>alike. Unanimously embraced as an antidote to the inefficiency and
>irresponsiveness of state bureaucracies, and (the only) tool for wealth
>creation, but also as an emancipatory political force - the free market has
>been elevated to the status of the new master signifier in societal
>discourse. In this new 'post-historical' world the free market and its
>associated capitalist management processes in the state, economy and civil
>society have become the hegemonic articulation of organisation as such,
>promising freedom, democracy, wealth and even equality, responsibility and
>security.
>
>Perhaps such grand transformation with high moral underpinnings at
>stake justifies the 'transitory' human costs: the tears, broken dreams
>and anxieties; the massive unemployment, religious hatred and
>nationalist wars; the military and daily violences, poverty and
>disillusions. Perhaps the TV images transmitted to unsuspected
>consumers in the making - those 'poor' souls who are yet to fully
>experience the promised land of Big Macs and big Mercs - might
>eventually materialise turning the catastrophic wastelands of the
>present into dreamlands of the future. Perhaps the many liberations
>that privatisation of state industries have brought about together with
>privatising common fates has been a price worth paying. Or we are made
>to believe so...
>
>In contrast to prevailing ideologies, we would like to question this
>notion of transition as an imposition of historical, a-historical or
>pseudo-historical truths onto our reality and subjectivity. We see
>transition - transformation, reconfiguration, repositioning - as a
>particular change process, a personal and collective one at the same
>time, that is concerned with the real opening of and in society. Moving
>beyond nostalgia and critique, we look out for rupture/s in the
>symbolic order and wish to interrogate imaginary institutions of
>contemporary consumerist society with the hope of experiencing the
>real; the real being defined as a resistance to dominant discourses
>pertaining to market fundamentalism and neo-liberalism, and as a quest
>for alternative ways of being, organising and constituting public
>space.
>
>Our aim is to challenge the distortion that equates collective and
>agonistic
>forms of action with tyranny and coercion, and to identify ways of
>resisting
>hegemonic discourses and share alternative experiences. We are interested
>in
>movements of transition that point to speculative openings: new ways of
>social organising, new ways of producing, new ways of being. We are excited
>to explore the creativity and innovation of social movements in all parts
>of
>the world resisting the neo-liberal market logic and, at the same time,
>experimenting with the organisation of new, alternative forms of life.
>
>Trying to make sense of a wider change process involving new forms of
>citizenship and collective engagement, we would like to invite
>contributions that problematise, re-think and re-define different
>notions of transition,
>including:
>
>- The historical epoch of social transformation from what was known as
>'real
>existing socialism' to today's (post-)transition market economies -
>examining and evaluating the significance of social and organisational
>transformations in light of foreclosed and recreated opportunities for
>radical movements of transition;
>- The liberalisation and structural adjustment policies implemented in many
>developing countries around the world - examining and evaluating the human,
>social, cultural and economic costs involved and documenting the movements
>of resistance against neo-colonial oppressions;
>- The 'successful' Marx-to-Mao-to-Market transition as experienced in China
>- teasing out the historical complexities and hidden costs of this change
>process with particular emphasis on the different types of resistances
>possible in today's Chinese society;
>- The 'forced' and violent transition in countries such as Afghanistan,
>Iraq
>and Kosovo - not to mention Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada and the many other
>countries where Western hegemony has invaded foreign territories in the
>name
>of liberation, freedom and democracy.
>
>While we would not like to confine our inquiry to the historical
>transitions
>outlined above, we would particularly welcome analyses of:
>
>- Comparative aspects of transition across countries and geographical
>areas and between different models of transition (e.g. 'successful' and
>'failed' ones);
>- The roles of, and the relationships between, the state, economy and
>civil society in organising societal transitions and change processes;
>- The mechanisms for establishing hegemonic regimes and organising
>counter-hegemonic resistance movements;
>- The role of particular organisations (e.g. NGOs, charities, affinity
>groups, direct action groups, media organisations) in facilitating
>hegemonic as well as counter-hegemonic transitions;
>- The modes of organisation in what can be regarded as alternative states,
>economies and civil societies.
>
>We are inviting a range of creative and innovative engagements
>including contributions such as:
>
>- Theoretical papers presenting counterintuitive and provocative
>analyses and ideas using a range of frameworks (e.g. feminist,
>post-colonial, neo-Gramscian, post-Marxist, etc);
>- Empirical engagements presenting data and texts in novel and
>non-conventional ways;
>- Individual accounts by researchers, practitioners, artists and
>activists presenting their own personal and auto-biographic stories and
>experiences of transitions;
>- Artistic projects using techniques of performance, video, poetry and
>photography;
>- Activist accounts of social movement organising, resistance and
>alternative institution building.
>
>::Details of the Convenors::
>
>Dr Marianna Fotaki
>Manchester Business School
>marianna.fotaki@mbs.ac.uk
>
>Dr Steffen Böhm
>University of Essex
>steffen@essex.ac.uk
>
>Professor John Hassard
>Manchester Business School
>john.hassard@mbs.ac.uk
>
>Professor Maria Ceci Misoczky
>School of Administration, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul Porto
>Alegre, Brasil mcamisoczky@ea.ufrgs.br
>
>Neboj¹a Milikic
>Editor of 'YEAST', the youth web-magazine for politics and culture
>Belgrade, Serbia n_milikic@hotmail.com
>
>::Timeline for paper submission::
>
>Abstracts to Convenors (e-mail attachment) - 6 November 2006
>
>Decisions on acceptance/rejection communicated to authors - 14 February
>2007
>
>Full papers to Convenors (e-mail) - 28 April 2007
>
>::Abstracts must contain the following information::
>
>- Authors (including affiliation and contact details, with lead author
>clearly indicated)
>- Stream to which the abstract is submitted
>- Title
>- Body text
>- Maximum 300 words
>- All abstracts must be single-spaced, prepared using at least an
>11-point Ariel font, with a left margin at least 1 inch for binding and
>be formatted for A4 paper (21cm * 29.7 cm).
26 September 2006
current events
so the UN general assembly is finally done, now traffic can get back to normal. i'm still not totally used to people saying things like "so i was meeting with g.s., al gore and some of his people over the weekend..." but it's getting a little more normal. i'd be more excited if I could be the one dropping such ostentatious and generally obnoxious comments. but i'm not, of course. instead i can name-drop people like...well...lesha, my cubicle-neighbor, who is one hip chick.
in other current events news, i wish that more US politicians would be like the European women backing Madrid for their fantastic decision to block models with BMI's under 18. but, c'est la vie in America that instead you only hear of how that is discrimination to skinny models, and that incredibly thin models, which are held up as showing the ideal way for clothes to hang on a body, has anything whatsoever to do with girls and bad body image...seriously...
enough ranting for now. maybe next time i'll start on the recent attacks on clinton's terrorism policy by the bush administration...
in other current events news, i wish that more US politicians would be like the European women backing Madrid for their fantastic decision to block models with BMI's under 18. but, c'est la vie in America that instead you only hear of how that is discrimination to skinny models, and that incredibly thin models, which are held up as showing the ideal way for clothes to hang on a body, has anything whatsoever to do with girls and bad body image...seriously...
enough ranting for now. maybe next time i'll start on the recent attacks on clinton's terrorism policy by the bush administration...
21 September 2006
thursday morning headache
i am starting to wonder if it is even possible to keep up with the news. do we each have to choose our own little corner of it and keep up with that? or is everything just actually bullshit? i wonder because i have this recurring problem where i will make a statement about something political, and this guy, Jim, is constantly disagreeing with me and making vague references to lots of details that I can't claim to have knowledge of. Example...we're talking about Colin Powell and his failures under the Bush administration, and Jim says "well, i don't think we should have really been that surprised...look at his record. personally i can find a great deal of fault with a lot of things that Powell has done in his past, and i'm sure you can too". now, i'm not an expert on military history, and i can't even claim to have a detailed off-the-top-of-my-head knowledge of Powell's personal career history. However, Jim's particular comment made it difficult for me to engage further in that conversation unless I claimed to know more about Powell's history than I do, unless I was looking for a history lesson from Jim, which I wasn't. So was this Jim just knowing more about the subject than me, or was this a way of implying that he knows much more than he does?
I wouldn't question it, but he does things like that on a regular basis...and I don't know whether he manages to know a LOT about lots of different things or if he's just full of shit.
I wouldn't question it, but he does things like that on a regular basis...and I don't know whether he manages to know a LOT about lots of different things or if he's just full of shit.
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