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March-o-la

I can't believe it's already March. Holy crap! For real. This semester has been ridiculous. I'm doing a lot of work, but having a lot of fun too. So here...

internship:
I'm working on getting a newspaper internship for this summer. I emailed a bunch of places and I'm going to send in a portfolio to the Portland Tribune. If I don't get that I can probably get one with one of the smaller papers I've contacted that have told me to come for an interview when I get back from school. Exciting! Not so much of a failure as I thought I'd be! Yeah! I'm excited to have a photo internship this summer. It will be awesome going out and working as a photographer every day. yesssss.

artsy fartsy:
In other photography news, I'm taking Photography 2 in the fine arts department and it's fun as well. It's nice to be able to go out and shoot whatever I want without having a real specific story or assignment in mind. Man, y'all artists have it easy. :p Our next assignment is doing long exposure and/or night shots. When we print them all of them have to be toned and on 11x14 fiber paper. We don't do that shit in journalism. ok? jeeze. anyway. It should be cool. Also, Steve (the photo teacher) gave us Holgas to play with. So fun! I took a roll already. I think I'll develop it on Monday. The back of the camera fell off in my bag so there should be some interesting light leakage.

Uber.com:
I tried to make a website on this site. I failed. I don't like it. It doesn't let me control enough and it's hard to use. Cotey, you are practically a genius for making it work for you. I think I officially hate it.

Flippers:
So. They were carding at the Union club last night, and the clever ploy of telling them I was the designated driver didn't work. So we decided to go to flippers. Honestly, I was kind of scared. From the outside that place looks like the sort of place you get shanked in. For serious. And the name...is just creepy. But we got inside and I was surprised at how non-shitty it was. Granted, there was a jukebox instead of a band, but it made it a lot quieter, and there were much fewer people, which was what I was in the mood for.

Joni Mitchell: she fuckin rocks.

daylight saving time: its super late. for sure. I'm going to be working on my women in america midterm all day tomorrow, and I have work in craig tomorrow night. Someone spare me. Jeeze.

To finish this post... some pictures of last night's festivities

cotey chewing on his plastic wine cup and looking tortured as we look at his art.

first friday people

walking across the higgins st. bridge

blurry cars.

Love you all.

lovealison

War is Over (if you want it)

Happy New Now

I will make an update of what is going on in my life right now... (with bullet points and everything):

first thing is:

-this christmas, and winter break in general
My break has been pretty good so far, although I seem to have been sick for most of it, which is irritating. Kellen came to Missoula, during the last few days of finals week and we had a good time. We watched a lot of movies, and he helped me pick out some beads to make some earrings for his mom and sister for Christmas... which I haven't sent yet. I need to do that... I had a little christmachanakwanzica/atheist-kids-get-presents-day informal get together. I made some tasty rice pudding, and some rockin baked brie (which contrary to popular, albeit, less cultured belief, did not look like turkey). We watched the first 2 bourne movies and played some katamari, and ate and drank, and it was nice and laid back and rather fun.
After finals were over I went to spokane with kellen for almost a week. I give spokane a hard time, and with good reason. It kind of sucks. But I suppose its not that bad. Let's face it, I might end up there for a few years, so I should try to accept the mediocrity of the small-city/large-town now. We had a really great time. Went to No Country for Old Men, ate out too much, spent a lot of good, quality time together, I cooked two rockin meals, and I'm pretty sure we annoyed the hell out of kellen's roommate, aaron.
I flew to portland from spokane, and some family friends picked me up at the airport. It was very busy, as it was one of the busiest traveling days of the year. My parents were in San Jose taking care of my Dad's crazy aunt who lives there. They didn't get in until that night, and my brother was in New York City on a class trip, so I had the house to my self for most of the day. I hung out with my cats, and watched tv.
We went to twin falls for christmas for the first time in a long time. My grandparents on my mom's side live there. We hadn't seen anyone in twin falls since two summers ago at the 4th of july since I was in london last summer. It was a good time, although my family can grate on my nerves sometimes it was good to see everyone. I got some sweet stuff for christmas, such as an ipod shuffle, which I love. It is so cute and convenient. I also got some bose in-ear headphones to go with the shuffle. They are freaking amazing. I am so excited to be able to listen to music and have it sound good again. After shitty laptop speakers, these are nearly a miracle. I also got lots of good smelling bath products. I will never have to buy body wash again, and that's alright with me. I got some gift cards for some snazzy places such as anthropologie, sephora, and nordstom (also works at the rack, YES!), so I have some shopping to do. Oh yes.

-Spring semester '08
This coming semester I'm taking 19 credits. On Tuesdays and thursdays I have 4 classes in a row. I'm also going to still work sunday and thursday nights, and then I'll have class at 9 the mornings after that... So we'll see how that goes. Here are my classes:
Photography II - in the art department (or is it fine art....bwaha) oh my. Should be interesting. I will amaze them all with my fabulous photojournalistic skills.
Cardio & Core - Genesie made me. I hope I don't die.
Laws of Mass Communication - I'm already annoyed by this class because the book is more than $100. For a journalism class. for reals... jeeze.
News Editing II - supposedly not like News Editing I, which was a living hell, I've heard this is more design based, and not a basic grammar and ap style class. Here's hoping.
Multi Media Project - this class will be good. It's working with pictures, audio, and a little video. We're also learning final cut. It will be useful, fun, and also very stressful.
Feminist Theories and Methods - self explanatory. Should be alright. I had the teacher last semester. She is a good women's studies teacher. This one should be an A most likely.
Women in America: Civil War-2008 - I'm looking forward to this a lot. Although it's the 9 o'clock one. I really want to take it. I've heard the professor is great, and it should be informative.

So that's it. Bear with me this semester. I will be lacking sleep, and making many photo-j projects. I think I'll be ok though.

-Computer
My hard drive died at the end of thanksgiving break. I lived without my lap top for about a month. it has been an awful experience... haha. kind of. Took it in to the apple store. Since my hard drive also died this summer and they replaced it then, the apple dude said he'd extend the 90 day warranty on it and replace it for free. Yay! I was kind of hoping for a new computer, but this will be good. I can save up for a snazzy big screen or something.

-Spring Break
Yes. I am already planning spring break. I suppose it's not that far away. And that is a good thing. Kellen and I are working on planning a trip. I really want to go to this adorable bed and breakfast on San Juan island. They have alpacas, and there's a good price, and a giant breakfast is included that looks delicious. I miss the water so much, living in Missoula, and I think it'd be a ton of fun. Kellen is not so sure though. He thinks we should go somewhere warmer. But going warmer, means going south-er. Which would be more expensive. If anyone knows of anything that's warmer, and a good price, tell me.

-Decemberists
As you see in my last post, I was heartbroken because the decemberists' tour was cancelled. Well. They're having 2 shows in portland the week I get back in missoula. fuck. it's tragic. be sad for me. I miss my decemberists.

-Misc
I started playing my guitar again a lot more in the middle of the semester. Although it may have annoyed my roommates, it felt great for me. I'd been missing it a lot. I should take some lessons again, but I've been doing alright using the internet to look up chords I've forgotten. So far I've been playing 3 or 4 decemberists and beatles songs over and over. I've also been playing my baritone ukulele since I've been home for winter break. I might buy a case and try to take it to missoula. Friend cotey has a soprano uke and wants to jam. Also, genesie is taking band this semester and will have her trumpet. She and I are starting a mariachi band. I think we need some violin players and some other people who play various mexican instruments. Tell me if you want to join. :)

That's pretty much it for now. I had a festive year year's eve. I laid in bed most of the day watching anthony bourdain feeling ill. I drank ginger ale and ate toasted focaccia bread. It was a rockin' new years eve indeed.

Having a relaxing break at home. I'll go back to spokane, and then to missoula around the 16th-ish. If you're reading this in Portland you should contact me somehow and tell me you want to get together, and we will. I'm rather bored. I miss you all. Can't wait for this summer when Clariece is back. Miss you!

I will attempt to update more regularly.

Wishing everyone a wonderful 2008.

lovealison

Hey Y'all

I'm supposed to be at a Decemberists' concert in Portland tonight and tomorrow night. But the tour is canceled.... le sad....

UM Arabic teacher brings Palestinian culture to students

April 12, 2007

MISSOULA – “Howdy; what neck of the woods are you from?” Colloquial greetings were some of the first parts of American culture that Palestinian-born Samir Bitar picked up when he moved to Havre, from Jerusalem in September, 1974.

He noticed the friendly nature of Montanans and appreciated the cultural similarities he found to exist in his new and old homes.

“I’m from a culture that greets,” Bitar said.

Bitar is the adjunct professor of Arabic at the University of Montana. He teaches first year Arabic with distance lecturer Dr. Nabil Abdelfattah and second year Arabic by himself.

Bitar uses his loves of language and culture to teach each one more effectively. Through his teaching he tries to make his students understand what it means to be Palestinian.

“I always say I teach language and culture,” Bitar said “Language is culture.”

Bitar sets aside time in his language classes to teach purely about Arabic culture. In some classes Birtar shows newscasts or clips of popular Middle Eastern TV shows such as “Star Academy”, the Middle East’s version of “American Idol.”

Bitar said that these shows show students something they won’t see on their local TV stations, or American television at all. He said they allow students to see a variety of Arabs and hear a variety of Arabic dialects.

“A Lebanese is nothing like a Saudi; Arabs are diverse,” Bitar said.

Teaching students Arabic culture gives them context for learning the language and lets them relate to the language. Bitar said that culture makes learning language more than just a process of memorizing. He said that students can recall the cultural context of the language and this helps them learn.

Jacob Childers, a 22-year-old UM junior is in first year Arabic. He has applied to study at the Rothberg International School in Jerusalem. He said that learning about culture helps him better understand Arabic, especially words that don’t have a direct translation to English.

“A lot of words that are used every day in Arabic make a lot more sense now,” Childers said.

One of the ways Bitar gives context to his students it to share stories about growing up Palestinian in Jerusalem such as being in the Boy Scouts and having meals with his family.

Bitar said that he feels the American media is not concerned with Palestinian culture. What they do show, they get wrong. Bitar wants to provide a real life experience that his students can relate to. “Not just sound bites,” he said.

One of Bitar’s concerns is that the media don’t show real Palestinian people. When he poses the question, many people say that have seen Palestinian refugees and terrorists in movies and on TV, but few to none recall seeing a Palestinian father with his wife and children.

“That would be too human,” Bitar said.

Bitar tells stories about being a kid growing up with the reminders of war and occupation all around him. One day he told his class about how his childhood house was bombed in the Six Day War.

Bitar described how his family and neighbors crowded in to the safest room in the house and covered the windows with sandbags. He believes that the sandbags his neighbor brought saved their lives.

Although those sandbags lessened the force of the blasts, shrapnel from an explosion hit Bitar.

He was taken to a nearby hospital and stayed overnight, but had to be moved the next day. “They burned the hospital,” Bitar said.

“I love listening to his personal stories,” said Emma Young, 23, a first year Arabic student.

Young said that learning about Palestinian culture has reinforced her belief that “certain aspects of culture are universal.”

Students often ask Bitar why there is so much conflict in the Middle East and about the Palestine-Israel conflict.

“Most Arabs feel that they’re living under governments that were put in place by colonial powers,” he said.

Bitar said that he believes one of the main problems is that Palestinians, along with many other Arabs don’t feel like their governments are a part of a progression of their own history, but rather that government is imposed on them.

This past December and January Bitar spent UM’s winter break in Jerusalem visiting his family. He dedicated several class periods to telling stories, reading from his diary, and showing pictures from the trip.

Bitar told the class about visiting two of his aunts who live in Jerusalem.

“I used to run from one house to the other when I was a little kid,” he said. Now this is impossible because of the wall Israel is building to separate its self from the Palestinian territories.

Bitar said his sister told him it would take about an hour to get to the aunt’s house inside the wall, but several hours to get back because of security checkpoints.

“It changed all aspects of life,” Bitar said. “Now all the shop keeper’s customers live on the other side of the wall.”

More than anything Bitar wants people to actively seek more knowledge about Palestine and to make up their own minds about the Palestine-Israel conflict rather than listen to the media.

“One thing I try to stress when I speak to the young is to encourage them to use critical thinking,” Bitar said, “As Americans they can. My job is to share my experience and they need to make up their own mind. The old should know that. Democracy is an activity and if we aren’t all involved it won’t work. That’s why we have what we have now.”

Bitar said that many Americans today don’t have time to be informed because, “they’re too busy trying to keep up with the Joneses, trying to make a living.”

If Americans could know one thing about Palestinians Bitar said, “They need to understand what Palestine means to the Palestinians. They know what Israel means to the Jews.”

Only this will help lead to the long-term solution of peace and coexistence, Bitar said.

Dr. Robert Bullard's Presidential Lecture on Environmental Justice

March 6, 2007

Environmental issues are human rights issues, and everyone has a right to clean air and water, said Dr. Robert Bullard, who spoke at the University Theater Monday night as a part of the Presidential Lecture Series at the University of Montana.
Bullard is the Ware Distinguished Professor of Sociology and the director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, in Atlanta, Ga.
Environmental justice focuses on many places that are often overlooked in the world of environmentalism: places like ghettos, slums, reservations and the U.S.-Mexican boarder. It is the idea that minorities and the poor are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation.
Bullard spoke about the environment beyond what many Montanans are used to – beyond the Rocky Mountains and wildlife preserves.
“The environment is everything,” Bullard said, where people work, play, worship, and live. It is both the countryside and urban areas.
Bullard said that all communities are entitled to equal protection of environmental laws.
“There’re some communities that don’t have the luxury of clean air,” Bullard said.
When a company wants to put a toxic waste dump in a place where they say no one lives, Bullard and his groups find the people that live there are help give them a voice. Bullard gave the example of the nuclear repository in Yucca Mountain, Nev. He said the developers said no one lived there. “What about the Shoshone tribe who has been there for thousands of years,” Bullard said.
“Many of these communities live in terror,” Bullard said. The terror of waking up “at three in the morning, your kids wake up choking, you can’t breathe. That is terror,” Bullard said.
“We deal with lots of issues that environmental groups don’t want to face,” Bullard said.
Bullard used the environmental history of New Orleans to illustrate his point, using the examples of the aftermaths of Hurricanes Betsy and Katrina.
Bullard said the majority of people who are left behind when a natural disaster strikes are people of color, the poor, the elderly, the disabled and sick, and those who can’t drive or don’t have cars.
“Who gets left behind? It’s not rocket science,” Bullard said.
In 1965 Hurricane Betsy devastated the New Orleans in many of the same ways Hurricane Katrina did in 2005. Bullard showed pictures of a house thrown on top of a car by each hurricane. The damage from the each hurricane was the same; only the type of car had changed.
“We’ve gone from Buick to Toyota,” Bullard said.
“God didn’t do it,” Bullard said, “The levees broke: Faulty maintenance, shoddy construction. It was no accident.”
Bullard said the road home for many Katrina victims is more of a roadblock. Their predicament is similar to many victims of environmental injustice, according to Bullard.
“People want to go back home but they can’t go back home because their paradise has been destroyed,” Bullard said.
Bullard’s mission started after his wife, a lawyer sued the state of Texas and needed a sociologist to help her.
She talked Bullard, who has a degree in sociology, into helping her.
“I got pushed into it kicking and screaming,” Bullard said, “I got drafted.”
Since then he has written 13 books on the subject of environmental justice and has taken delegations to UN summits, The Global Summit in Brazil, The Hague, and to communities all over the U.S.
Bullard said today’s college students seem to understand the need for change. He said that students from all over the country, including Montana, are forgoing spring break flings in Cancun for a week of service in New Orleans.

Conservationist Speaks on Reconnecting With the Landscape

Feb. 28, 2007

MISSOULA – At a lecture Tuesday evening at the University of Montana, author and conservationist Gary Ferguson described the Rocky Mountain region as a haven for societies’ outcasts.
The west is a, “classic, archetypal landscape for those who don’t fit in,” Ferguson said.
In the past it has been an escape from dingy industrialist city life for factory workers, from social expectations for Victorian sons and daughters of privilege, from slavery for black slaves-turned trappers, and from the confines of a materialist society for the freaks of the hippie movement.
“But where do you go if you’re a freak,” Ferguson asked his audience. People now say, “we don’t want you here lowering our property rates.”
Ferguson concentrated on the concept that the landscape of an area shapes the perception of the people who live in it.
Although he gave brief examples of other landscapes, Ferguson’s main points were on the draw of the west and why the Rocky Mountain region is so significant in the United States’ past.
“I just love this landscape and have since I was nine years old,” said Ferguson, who is originally from Indiana but has lived in Redlodge for the past few decades.
As Ferguson explained though, this place he loves was once described as a hideout for heathens and devils by what he described as certain powerful people.
These powerful people rallied support for the westward movement by misunderstanding and mischaracterizing the people who made their homes in the Rocky Mountains, especially the native peoples.
Ferguson used period paintings to illustrate this. One of these paintings was, The Trapper’s Bride, by Alfred Jacob Miller, that depicted a white trapper marrying a Native American woman surrounded by her family.
Most common people and critics who saw the painting hailed it as an embodiment of the freedom and empowerment that the western United States symbolized.
From the time the country was founded wilderness as a symbol for democracy and freedom has been a popular notion.
Many people believed that the popular depictions of the west were, “Eden before the fall,” Ferguson said. They believed that, “we took the Eden that we were given and pissed it away,” he said.
Ferguson put forth questions to the audience about the wilderness today. Many of them expressed concern that most people don’t feel a connection with the wilderness, and are, in fact, scared of it.
“We want the illusion of risk, but we don’t want risk,” Ferguson said.
Ferguson made jokes about people in Yellow Stone National Park chasing bison and jumping out of their minivans with cameras but, “at least the hunger and the need for a relationship with nature is still there,” he said.
Whitney Gaskill, 19, a UM sophomore who is in the Wilderness Issues Lecture Series class said that she agreed with a lot of what Ferguson had to say.
“Its really important to see how the landscape connects to people, and to make a personal connection,” said Gaskill.
Others worried about the effect that media has on people’s perception of nature. One audience member described a popular view of wilderness as just another place we go to have a good time.
Ferguson expressed hope that people will once again feel the need to reconnect with nature and not continue the trend of watching nature through their RV windows as if it were a television show. We need to start seeing nature, “as a part of our daily lives,” Ferguson said.

Network: Best Movie Ever...?

Oh it probably is. It's one of my favorites anyway. And you should most definitely go rent it. It was made in 1976 and it's about how much television news blows. Basically. It's about this network news anchor, Howard Beale who starts getting bad ratings. So the network lets him know he's going to be "let go" in two weeks. He tells his best friend that instead of retiring he'll just kill himself on the air. The next day on the news he tells everyone that's what he's going to do in one week's time so they should tune in! And then... Hilarity Ensues. Kind of. This is one of my favorite quotes from any movie. Ever. Ever….

Howard Beale: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad.
Howard Beale: [shouting] You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,
[shouting]
Howard Beale: 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:
Howard Beale: [screaming at the top of his lungs] "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

I love this one too...

Diana Christensen: Look, I sent you all a concept analysis report yesterday. Did any of you read it?
[Aides stare blankly at her]
Diana Christensen: Well, in a nutshell, it said: "The American people are turning sullen. They've been clobbered on all sides by Vietnam, Watergate, the inflation, the depression; they've turned off, shot up, and they've fucked themselves limp, and nothing helps." So, this concept analysis report concludes, "The American people want somebody to articulate their rage for them." I've been telling you people since I took this job six months ago that I want angry shows. I don't want conventional programming on this network. I want counterculture, I want anti-establishment. I don't want to play butch boss with you people, but when I took over this department, it had the worst programming record in television history. This network hasn't one show in the top twenty. This network is an industry joke, and we'd better start putting together one winner for next September. I want a show developed based on the activities of a terrorist group, "Joseph Stalin and His Merry Band of Bolsheviks," I want ideas from you people. This is what you're paid for. And by the way, the next time I send an audience research report around, you'd all better read it, or I'll sack the fucking lot of you. Is that clear?


Oh yeah. And also great is: "There is no America; there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today."


Anyway.. I love the writing in the movie. I wrote an essay last year for my into to mass communication class comparing the network in the movie to the news now. It was pretty sweet. I thought about posting it. Maybe I will. Maybe not... if you want to read it you should tell me and I'll give it to you. Not to copy though. Not that I'm saying it's good enough to copy. Just.. Don't.

lovealison

I love this song.

and Woody Guthrie in general...

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin
Now that side was made for you and me

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.


It bugs me that most people don't know what it's about too. I was going to write some more crap about annoying people. But I need to read a whole bunch of Plato and my women's studies book called... get ready... MAN CANNOT SPEAK FOR HER. Its super intense, and basically great. Have a good day!!

lovealison

Sad.

I didn't bring my camera home with me and I miss it a lot. I wish it had snowed more. excited+scared for new semester.
lovealison