Valerie Saturen

Protecting First Responders

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:30:00 +0000

Published September 11, 2011 on the earthbongo blog: http://blog.earthbongo.com/2011/09/protecting-first-responders/

Ten years ago, amid the tragedy of 9/11, we saw the sacrifices first responders make to save others’ lives. Their heroic deeds remind us that ordinary people are sometimes called upon to do extraordinary things. As we honor our firefighters, we should also recognize the emergency personnel who perform critical tasks but remain out of the public eye.

Among the ranks of these unsung heroes are fire police like those of the Fountain Hill fire station in eastern Pennsylvania. They spend sleepless nights at the fire hall, brave extreme weather conditions, and put themselves at risk to ensure that firefighters can do their jobs safely.

As Hurricane Irene wreaked havoc across the eastern seaboard, fire police officer Tiffany McCartney knew she was in for a long night at the station. She and more than twelve other “Hurricane Crew” members stayed up through the Sunday night peak of the storm, frantically fielding calls. From 2 a.m. until 5 p.m., 47 calls came in, sometimes four or five at a time. The crew rushed to pump out basements flooded by torrential rains. At a local elementary school, they prevented a potentially disastrous fire by stopping water from leaking onto a generator. While the storm unleashed high winds and heavy rain, Tiffany stood in the downpour, making sure no one hit the firefighters as they came out of their trucks in the dark.

Besides protecting firefighters, fire police keep the public out of harm’s way by controlling traffic and crowds, securing emergency scenes, and evacuating residents from unsafe areas. Tiffany says that the challenges of working with the public have taught her to be patient and understanding, yet firm in enforcing the rules. “People may not understand why you’re there,” she remarks, and may jeopardize firefighters by ignoring a barricade. In these situations, fire police risk their own safety to prevent firefighters from being hit. Some have lost their lives doing so.

Tiffany is continuing a family tradition that began with her father, Marlin Bozes, who served as a fire police officer. Growing up, she excitedly watched him go out on calls. “I saw what he got to do, and that he was out in his community helping people,” she says. “That inspired me.” She has been following in his footsteps for seven years, volunteering alongside her husband, firefighter Glenn McCartney. Serving together has brought the couple closer together, giving them a shared sense of purpose. Tiffany reflects that volunteering “was a joint effort, and doing it together gave us a common bond.”

Tiffany is keenly aware of the dangers confronting the firefighters she has worked with for so many years. “Being on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, you never know what’s going to happen,” she says. She was reminded of this reality when, during a home fire, a floor collapsed and nearly trapped a firefighter in a basement. Luckily, he survived, but had to be taken to the hospital. When he was released, the firefighter eagerly returned to keep battling the blaze.

Another vivid memory is the five-year anniversary of 9/11. A local family was remodeling their home when a lamp fell on some plastic, engulfing the entire house in flames. Strong winds made the fire especially difficult to put out. To Tiffany, the fire crew’s work was a fitting tribute to the 343 first responders who lost their lives in the Twin Towers.

On this anniversary, Tiffany is organizing a commemoration ceremony at the fire hall. She has asked firefighters to share their thoughts and memories of 9/11. “To me, that was the best thing,” she says, “because it’s coming from the mouths of people who do the same thing for their community as those guys did in those towers.” For those who share that common bond, remembering the events of that day—and the protracted recovery effort that followed—takes on a special meaning.

The fire service forms a close-knit community forged by trust, and each member is conscious of his or her responsibility for the others’ lives. “Everybody’s connected,” Tiffany says. “Everybody’s in that brotherhood or sisterhood of the fire department. It’s like an extended family, and most of us would do anything for anybody else.”
We at earthbongo salute the heroes of 9/11 together with Tiffany and other first responders across the world. Thank you for your service.

September is National Preparedness Month, which is a great time to plan ahead for emergencies. Check out earthbongo project Be Ready for Emergencies to see what you can do to keep your family safe.

Improving Kids' Lives with a School Supply Drive

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:24:00 +0000

Published August 21, 2011 on the earthbongo blog: http://blog.earthbongo.com/2011/08/improving-kids-lives-with-a-school-supply-drive/

It’s almost time to go back to school, and that means parents are scrambling to get the supplies their kids need for the new year. For many families who struggle to pay the bills and put food on the table, this can be an enormous challenge. That’s where Queen Anne Helpline comes in. The Seattle organization is filling backpacks with much-needed materials to make sure local kids are ready to learn.

Founded in 1982, Queen Anne Helpline provides an array of services to disadvantaged families, including residents of the approximately 800 low-income housing units on Queen Anne hill. With the economy still suffering, the Helpline has seen a skyrocketing demand, including people who had never before asked for help. According to board secretary and volunteer Donna Hegstrom, 11 new families have approached the organization this week alone. Some walk into the office bearing eviction notices. Many are among the over 2 million “99ers” whose unemployment benefits have run out after 99 weeks of joblessness. “Most never thought they’d find themselves in this position,” says Donna. “The need is growing by leaps and bounds.”

At the same time, parents are shouldering a higher burden to provide supplies public schools can no longer afford. Donna explains that deep budget cuts to Seattle’s public schools mean that parents are obligated to provide items not only for their own children, but for the classrooms. They receive long lists of requirements, including items like white board markers, scissors, pads of sticky notes, and hand sanitizer—all for communal use. The kids must also come to school with supplies for themselves, from notebooks to ear buds and USB drives for working on the computer. “If you’re a single or low-income parent with more than one child,” says Donna, “these costs can really add up.”

How much do they add up to? Running down the lists, I did some virtual back-to-school shopping at Kmart.com, looking for the most inexpensive brands I could find (except for the items where high-quality name brands were specifically listed). It turns out that one second grader’s list totaled $77.87. An eighth grader’s was $96.53. You don’t need to buy a calculator to see how these sums can multiply.

Luckily, there’s help. Donna led me to a room in the Helpline office filled with cardboard boxes overflowing with folders, crayons, glue sticks and other back-to-school needs. The majority of the supplies have been purchased by the Helpline and its volunteers, often out of their own pockets. In one corner sits a box of backpacks waiting to be picked up August 26-29.

Will you help Donna and the other Helpline volunteers fill them? The packs are almost ready, but two of the required items are still needed to make each one complete. Join volunteer Nancy’s projects, USB Thumb Drives for the Kids and Headphones for the Kids, to help the children walk into the classroom prepared!

Smiling All the Way to (and from) the Bank

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:21:00 +0000

Published August 10, 2011 on the earthbongo blog: http://blog.earthbongo.com/2011/08/smiling-all-the-way-to-and-from-the-bank/

Sharon Fillingim’s puppy knows all about the benefits of local banking. On walks down Seattle’s Queen Anne Avenue, the puppy eagerly tugs on the leash when Sharon passes HomeStreet Bank, hoping for one of the treats stashed there.

A trip to this small community bank is a treat for customers, too. The name says it all: HomeStreet is a welcoming hub for many residents of the Queen Anne neighborhood. Instead of rushing through their transactions and leaving, they linger to chat over coffee. On Fridays, they can munch on one of the scrumptious cookies a customer bakes herself. According to branch manager Hossein Soleymani, she has never asked for reimbursement.

Hossein Soleymani (photo by Andrew Ryznar)

Hossein has been with HomeStreet for over a decade. “Small banks have more opportunities to help the community,” he says. “It’s not just a good idea to do—it’s something you must do as a neighbor.” He and other employees have put in numerous hours volunteering for local charities, including Queen Anne Helpline, which provides a variety of social services to neighbors in need. Hossein says the bank’s growth stems not from spending money on advertising, but from building community trust through word of mouth. “Our customers bring customers,” he says.

The cornerstone of this trust is customer service that goes the extra mile. Sharon owns the charming Le Reve bakery just down the street from the bank. When I tell her Hossein sent me, her face brightens. “He was just here today for lunch!” she exclaims. Since she opened her business account at HomeStreet, she has gotten to know him and the tellers, who have typically held their jobs for many years. If Sharon and her staff run out of change, they deliver it, a time-saving favor she can’t imagine many banks doing. It’s all part of the personal atmosphere that often distinguishes local banks from their huge Wall Street counterparts. “What impressed me most is that they greet each customer by name,” she says. “It makes you feel special.”

Ronda Miller says the same thing about her local bank, Umpqua. She’s the proud holder of the key to the second safety deposit box at its brand-new Queen Anne branch, which opened its doors July 20th. For many years, she did her banking at Washington Mutual. But when WaMu was acquired by JPMorgan Chase amid the 2008 financial collapse, things began to change. “Whenever I walked in the door,” she says, “I felt pressured to buy something.” These high-pressure, often deceptive sales tactics were so bad that in June, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) fined the bank $27 million. Employees might approach Ronda more than once, delivering the same pitch without recognizing her face or recalling their previous encounter. While the impersonal service was off-putting, it wasn’t until Ronda had a problem with her credit card that she decided enough was enough. The bank gave her the run-around, passing her from one person to the next without resolving the issue. Ready for a change, she closed her account and opened a new one at Umpqua, where she says, “I’ve never felt like I was being sold a product.”

Queen Anne’s new Umpqua branch (photo by Andrew Ryznar)

Ronda had read good things about Umpqua in a newspaper article about its Green Street lending program. Through the program, Umpqua offers homeowners affordable loans to make energy-saving improvements and install solar panels. The bank is part of a program called Solarize Seattle, a project of the nonprofit organization Northwest SEED. Its partners include the local solar company Sunergy Systems and Sustainable Queen Anne, a grassroots group promoting economic and environmental sustainability.

While other banks may have a business plan, Umpqua has a manifesto. In it, the bank says it’s “equal parts checking account and knitting club, commercial loan and local music store, IRA and Internet café.” Supporting the local economy is an obvious Umpqua priority. All the goodies customers enjoy, from daily coffee to free massages on special occasions, come from local businesses. To say hello, the new branch hand-delivered plants to the front porches of each of its new neighbors.

At Umpqua, Ronda receives all the same services she did at her Wall Street bank, but instead of fees and aggressive sales, she enjoys a personal atmosphere that puts a smile on her face. “When you go into Umpqua,” she says, “you talk to one person, not three. You walk up, and they help you with everything.”

Isn’t that the way it always should be? Recently, I heard about a campaign called Move Your Money, a large-scale movement to “invest in Main Street, not Wall Street” by switching to a local bank or credit union. I decided to do the same and moved my money to the Washington State Employees Credit Union. I’ve never looked back. Here’s how you can join me, Sharon, Ronda, and millions of other people in finding a bank that really knows how to make change: http://earthbongo.com/project/243/move-your-money-to-a-local-bank.

Careers in Public Relations

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:16:00 +0000

Published March 2012 in Next Step Magazine: http://www.nextstepu.com/plan-for-college/career-path/careers-in-public-relations.htm

Every business or organization needs a good reputation in order to succeed. That’s why companies, nonprofits, government agencies, hospitals and educational institutions all have a growing demand for public relations specialists. If you enjoy working with people and have a way with words, this could be the career for you.

Public relations specialists build positive relationships between their organization and the public. They write press releases, contact the media, coordinate events and stay up to date on public attitudes and developments in their field.

Education, skills

Careers in public relations typically require a bachelor’s degree, and it’s best to major in communications, journalism or marketing. While in college, internships are one of the most valuable ways to gain experience and network with professionals in the field. They are often the best routes to finding your first real job.

Kristina Tirloni is a media/public relations specialist for TG, a Texas nonprofit that guarantees student loans and helps students plan financially for college. At the University of North Texas (www.unt.edu), she looked for a major that would suit her interest in discovering what makes people tick. She ended up studying journalism, with a focus in public relations and marketing. After graduation, she began an internship with a small company that later hired her as an account executive.

Tirloni recommends doing more than one internship, preferably in diverse industries, in order to find the best match. “Always be willing to try something different,” she says.
Besides internships, there are many opportunities for students to gain real-world experience and start building a writing portfolio. Many local newspapers have junior writer programs in which high school students can submit articles and photographs. Or, try writing for a magazine or website with a young readership.

Another way to learn about the industry is joining the student chapter of a professional association like the Public Relations Society of America or the International Association of Business Communicators.

Typical day

Job descriptions vary with the size of the company. Within small organizations, one person often handles many or all of the marketing and public relations responsibilities, while employees in larger organizations have more specialized roles. For example, they might promote their company online through social media.

This career involves a great deal of research and writing. Public relations specialists keep informed of new developments by maintaining files of relevant articles from newspapers and magazines. They also write publicity materials and editorials for publication.
In this fast-paced industry, be prepared for long hours, tight deadlines, unpredictable schedules and constant pressure to generate new ideas. Public relations is hectic work that includes juggling several projects at once and traveling to attend events or represent the company at conferences. If a crisis comes up, you may have to work around the clock until it is resolved.

Is it for you?

Public relations specialists must have strong oral and written communication skills. They should have an outgoing personality, confidence, exceptional judgment, creativity and a natural understanding of people’s desires and motivations.

People skills and a willingness to take the initiative are also important. As the public face of your company, be prepared to really put yourself and your company out there.
Tirloni emphasizes, “You’ve got to be willing to pick up the phone and talk to somebody you’ve never met and sell your message. You have to go out on a limb.”

One of the biggest keys to success is flexibility. Be ready to handle unpredictable situations and build relationships with people who have different viewpoints.

“If something doesn’t work out the way you planned, you’ve got to be ready for Plan B,” says Tirloni.

This field offers an opportunity to exercise your creativity, build relationships and play a key role in helping an organization succeed.

Vital stats

National average salary: $51,000
Education: Bachelor’s degree in journalism or communications, along with real-world experience through at least one internship.
Pursue if: You are outgoing, possess excellent written and verbal skills and can think on your feet.

Consider HBCUs

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:09:00 +0000

Published February 2012 in Next Step Magazine: http://newserver.nextstepu.com/plan-for-college/college-planning/consider-hbcus.htm

Students who enroll in historically black colleges are likely to find a supportive atmosphere, close relationships with faculty and a longstanding tradition of African-American excellence. With notable alumni including Martin Luther King, Jr. (Morehouse College, www.morehouse.edu), Oprah Winfrey (Tennessee State University, www.tntstate.edu), Spike Lee (Morehouse College) and Thurgood Marshall (Lincoln University, www.lincoln.edu), these institutions have long played a key role in educating African-American leaders.

A supportive environment

According to the Higher Education Act of 1965, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions that were established before 1964 with the primary mission of educating African-Americans. These institutions originally provided educational opportunities to black students when they were systematically barred from other colleges and universities. There are 105 public and private HBCUs, including four-year colleges, community colleges, medical schools and graduate or professional schools. Most are located in Southern states.

For African-American students, attending an HBCU offers an opportunity to be part of a close-knit campus community where many others share their heritage. “They allow African-American students the opportunity to share, develop awareness, bond and connect in ways that may not have been made available at other institutions,” says Dr. Katherine Bankole-Medina, Professor of History at Coppin State University
(www.coppin.edu). At the same time, students of other races benefit from exposure to fellow students from a different ethnic background.

Pamela Champ is a five-year MBA student at Hampton University (www.hampton.edu), a historically black university in Virginia. To Pamela, a key advantage has been the presence of positive role models on campus. “It exposes African-Americans to other successful African-Americans, whether it’s the peers you see on the road to success or the professors you see daily,” she reflects. Because of the lower student-to-faculty ratios at many HBCUs, professors are not only positive examples, but also mentors. “At an HBCU the classes are generally smaller, so I’ve really gotten to know my professors one on one, and I wasn’t just a number,” says Pamela. “The intimate learning environment really helped me.”

Living history

The majority of HBCUs were founded shortly after the Civil War, and they often have a rich and storied history. Their legacies are intertwined with the history of Civil Rights and the struggle for equality. “Most colleges may teach history,” says Pamela, “but at Hampton I felt like I was a part of it, right in the middle of historical events.” Hampton students can study beneath Emancipation Oak, the site of the first Southern reading of the Emancipation Proclamation.

This year, a group of Tennessee State University students traveled to Jackson, Mississippi for a special event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides. They met Civil Rights activists, including Freedom Riders who were alumni of their university.
Dr. Adrian Samuels, Vice President for Student Affairs at Tennessee State University, says that this “deep-seated, rich history” helps forge a strong sense of community. He adds that, “from a retention standpoint, students understand the historical context of the institution,” which keeps them engaged and motivates them to continue their education.

The celebration of African-American culture and heritage often extends to the curriculum. As a student in Hampton’s Honors College, Pamela took seminar courses on hip hop music, the African-American church and the pros and cons of historically black higher education institutions.

Challenges

Despite the high caliber of academics, availability of resources can present a challenge. According to Dr. Bankole-Medina, HBCUs are often underfunded and face structural challenges. They have also suffered disproportionately in the current economic downturn, facing budget cuts and faculty layoffs.

This can mean they have fewer and less well-maintained facilities than their bigger-budget counterparts. And while their tuition rates are generally lower than those of other schools, fewer scholarships may be available.

College to career

Dr. Bankole-Medina says that HBCUs “offer the kind of education that leads to the development of leadership abilities and real world skills that lead to meaningful employment opportunities.”

The transition from college to career is a priority at Tennessee State. Freshmen are required to visit the Career Development Center, which maintains a relationship with them throughout their studies. They also take a Service to Leadership orientation course, where they get hands-on experience through community service.

Diversity is a growing priority in the corporate world, and many businesses seek the best and brightest diverse candidates by recruiting at HBCUs. This can be challenging because each student is competing with other highly motivated, predominantly black students. According to Pamela, whose campus enjoys frequent career recruitment, “You have to work harder to set yourself apart, and you have to be more driven.” When she graduates this spring, she will begin the job she already has lined up at one of the Big Four accounting firms.

All are welcome

While 80 percent of students enrolled in HBCUs are African-American, these colleges welcome students of all backgrounds and ethnicities. Students of all races are drawn to their affordability compared to other institutions, and to their unique academic offerings and friendly environment.

For many students, historically black colleges and universities can offer unparalleled educational and social opportunities. Whether they are a perfect fit, however, depends on the individual. For a full list of HBCUs, visit the U.S. Department of Education’s website (www.ed.gov).

Above all, setting up a campus visit is the best way to find out whether a particular HBCU is the right choice for you.

Breaking down Citizens United

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:29:00 +0000

Published January 18, 2012 in Real Change:

http://www.realchangenews.org/index.php/site/archives/6194/

There's no such thing as a corporate citizen; only people deserve the right to free speech

Should corporations have the same rights as human beings, and also the right to buy elections? Two years ago, in its landmark Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court ruled yes. An overwhelming majority of Americans, however, say no. In growing numbers, they are calling for a constitutional amendment to establish that corporations are not people and that the unchecked flow of cash does not equal free speech.

The undue influence of corporate and financial interests is deeply detrimental to our democracy. As we mark its second anniversary, the consequences of Citizens United are already painfully clear. The mid-term 2010 election saw record $4 billion spending, and the 2012 race is poised to leave this spending spree in the dust. Already, the parade of attack ads and toxic rhetoric has commenced its ugly march across our TV screens.

Overturning a Supreme Court decision is no easy process. It requires a constitutional amendment, which must be approved by three-fourths of state legislatures or by ratifying conventions in three-fourths of states. However, such an amendment would enjoy broad support across the political spectrum. According to a poll by Hart Research Associates, this support includes nearly four in five, or 79 percent, of Americans. This kind of popular backing has allowed for the swift passage of constitutional amendments in the past, including the amendments to end Prohibition and to lower the voting age to eighteen as teenagers were drafted into the Vietnam War.

Joining with state lawmakers across the country, Washington State Senator Adam Kline has introduced a bill to abolish corporate personhood. His Senate Joint Memorial 8007 states that Citizens United “has created a new and unequal playing field between human beings and corporations with respect to campaign financing, negating over a century of precedent prohibiting corporate contributions” to campaigns.

In the meantime, there are other effective ways to reduce the role of money in politics. One of these is to allow for clean elections, typically by offering public funds in exchange for an agreement to limit private donations. Clean elections already exist in several states, including Maine and Arizona. Modeling their proposal on these successful state initiatives, a bipartisan group of Congress members has introduced the Fair Elections Now Act (FENA) to create similar reforms at the federal level. With backers ranging from members of the Tea Party to the Sierra Club, the bill would allow federal candidates to run for office without relying upon large private donations. By freeing candidates from the pressures of constant fundraising, FENA would enable them to get back to the work of serving the people who elect them.

Transparency is another key part of the equation. After Citizens United, corporations and financial institutions can anonymously channel millions through Political Action Committees and 501(c)(4) organizations, which are classified as non-profit social welfare organizations. These groups—often with civic-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, and Citizens United—can pool unlimited funds toward ads without disclosing where the money comes from. The DISCLOSE Act seeks to remedy this by requiring organizations involved in political campaigns to reveal the identities of major donors. Though the bill was blocked in the Senate, more progress can be found at the state level. In April 2011, the State of Washington passed legislation to enhance campaign disclosure requirements. Shedding light on money in politics will strengthen our democracy by helping voters to make informed choices.

In an era of angry partisanship, the poll numbers show that most of us agree on the need to take money out of politics. While ordinary Americans struggle to cope with the economic downturn, our nation’s capitol should not remain awash in special interest money. The more energy candidates spend pursuing campaign dollars and courting lobbyists, the further the needs and concerns of ordinary Americans recede into the background. By ensuring that our leaders are accountable to the people who elect them, not to corporate sponsors, we can make sure that they put the well-being of the people first.

Seattle Girl Raises Funds for Uganda Wells

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 04:17:00 +0000

Published November 22, 2011 in Seattle's Child: http://www.seattleschild.com/article/seattle-girl-raises-funds-for-uganda-wells

Seattle resident Isabella Todaro was just eight years old when she made it her mission to bring clean water to other children across the globe. As a first grader at the Meridian School, Isabella was horrified to learn that many people lack access to this basic necessity. By the third grade, she decided to do something about it, and Drop Foundation was born.

Isabella is now a fifth grader, and her foundation has grown from a daydream into a project that has vastly improved the lives of rural villagers in Uganda. Drop Foundation has raised the funds to build desperately needed wells in two villages, Kamira and Mityomere.

Isabella launched her fundraising effort by recruiting her third grade class to make and sell homemade dog biscuits. Learning of the Ugandan children’s passion for soccer and lack of school essentials, she enlisted friends’ help in collecting soccer balls and pencils. Inspired by his sister's dedication, Isabella's brother Max, now 8 years old, began gathering donated books to build libraries in both villages. The siblings have become a fixture at Seattle’s annual Seafair, where they sell dog treats and water to festival-goers. Drop Foundation is now working toward its third $7,000 well.

The funds for each well are channeled through Concern for the Girl Child, a Ugandan-based non-profit organization cofounded by Ann Hayes, a friend of the Todaro family. The organization allocates the funds by locating communities with water shortages, conducting geological surveys to find optimal drilling sites, and hiring contractors to build the wells.

This summer, Isabella traveled with her family to Uganda to visit the people with whom she has developed a lasting connection. “They were the nicest people I’ve ever met,” she says. “No matter how little they had, they were so caring and generous.”

In Kamira, she met some of the 600 children whose crowded primary school is the site of Drop Foundation’s first well. Kamira Primary School students have little in the way of supplies, sharing pencils and close quarters, with approximately 70 children to a classroom. Compounding their educational challenges are the long hours they spend helping their families survive. Fetching water was one arduous task often shouldered by the children. Before the well was built in 2010, villagers had to trek a mile and a half to reach the borehole that they relied upon for all of their water needs, including drinking, bathing, cooking and washing.

Leaving the first village, Isabella and her family traveled to Mityomere to watch the completion of the second well. “We drove for five hours on a road that wasn’t really a road,” recalls Isabella. “Kids were popping out from the bushes.”

The students at Mityomere Primary School face even harsher conditions than those of Kamira, packed into a one-room schoolhouse constructed of cow dung, where cattle roam freely. Other classes are held outside under a tree. Isabella accompanied villagers to the green, brackish marsh that had previously served as their sole water source. Beginning at age five, the children made daily treks to and from the marsh, carrying jugs of water on their heads. Worse than this ongoing hardship was the health hazard posed by the contaminated water source, which villagers shared with their cattle. To keep their new wells safe, members of both villages have formed water committees and built fences to safeguard this vital resource.

Isabella’s goal is to build one well per year. She says that this experience has taught her “to consider myself extremely lucky. I’ll never take water for granted again.”

To find out how you can help, visit www.dropfoundation.org.

This article was made possible through collaboration with earthbongo.com, a social network to make the world a better place, one project at a time. If you would like to conserve water, visit http://earthbongo.com/project/507/shorten-your-shower.

Careers in the Culinary Arts

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 01:19:00 +0000

Published in Next Step Magazine November 2011.
http://www.nextstepu.com/articlePage1.aspx?artId=3839&categoryId=4

Do your original recipes have your family lining up for seconds? If you have a passion for food, love to create and enjoy making others happy, you might consider a career in the culinary arts.

Culinary careers include chefs, cooks and restaurant or catering managers. Many chefs have a specialty, such as seafood or pastries. They may work in an assortment of settings: a restaurant, a hotel, or an institution like a school, hospital or nursing home. Others decide to open their own restaurants or catering businesses.

Education, skills.

It is possible to begin a culinary career straight out of high school, starting as a food preparation or line cook and making your way up the career ladder. However, most chefs and head cooks have completed training programs ranging from a few months to two or more years. Upscale establishments and higher-level positions often require two-year culinary arts degrees, which are offered at culinary institutes, vocational schools, some community colleges and the armed forces. These programs provide courses in cooking skills, restaurant management, health and sanitation and menu creation.

Chef Dean Massey earned his associate degree from Clover Park Technical College (www.cptc.edu ) in Lakewood, Wash. After spending 15 years working for Restaurants Unlimited and the Lobstershop Corporation, he joined the faculty at Clover Park. “There are plenty of chefs who have started at the bottom and worked their way up,” says Massey. “But it’s a long process. An associate degree will help you get in the kitchen at a higher level more quickly.” A bachelor’s degree in hospitality is beneficial for those who start their own business. Whether or not you get formal training, it is important to gain real-world cooking experience to find out if the culinary arts is for you. As a high school student, you can take cooking classes or get an internship or summer job at a food service management company or restaurant.

Typical day

A career in the culinary arts means working in a fast-paced, physically demanding environment. Fitness and physical endurance are important, since these careers involve standing for long hours, lifting heavy pots and kettles and working near hot stoves and ovens. “It’s very pressure-oriented,” Massey says. He adds that while you may have mornings off, you can expect to work evenings, weekends and holidays.

Is it for you?

In addition to being physically fit, cooks and chefs must be quick, efficient and good with their hands. They will be interacting with customers and working as part of a team in the kitchen. Natural cooking talent and a sensitive palette are a must. “You’re going to be working long hours, and you’ll be on your feet 10 to 12 hours a day,” Massey says.

If you can take the heat (literally) you may find a very satisfying career in the culinary arts.

“There’s a lot of creativity in it,” he says.

VITAL STATS

Salary: Earnings depend on the position and the establishment. On average, chefs and head cooks earn $37,000 per year, according to www.bls.gov.

Education: An associate degree will help you attain a more highly paid position.

Free Speech for Real People

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 02:34:00 +0000

Published in Z Magazine Vol. 24, No. 6 (June 2011)

http://www.zcommunications.org/free-speech-for-real-people-by-valerie-saturen

What happens to democracy when corporations are legal persons with the right to free speech? And what happens when free speech is equated with the unchecked flow of cash? In a 5 to 4 decision that flouted legal precedents and campaign finance legislation, the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC last year ruled that corporations have the constitutional right to spend unlimited money toward political advertising. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat or Republican,” said Seattle-based MoveOn activist Patricia Daly, “Citizens United is turning over...our democracy in favor of corporations.” Daly is one of many people across the nation taking action to challenge the ruling, push for greater transparency, and promote clean elections.

The only way to overturn a Supreme Court decision is through a constitutional amendment. This is precisely what many democracy advocates are calling for. Amending the Constitution is not easy. A proposed amendment must be approved by three-fourths of state legislatures or by ratifying conventions in three-fourths of states. However, there is widespread bipartisan support for an amendment to overturn Citizens United. According to a recent poll by Hart Research Associates, this includes 68 percent of Republicans, 82 percent of Independents, and 87 percent of Democrats.

David Cobb, the 2004 Green Party presidential candidate, now travels the country galvanizing that support through “Move to Amend.” He points out that state legislatures from California to Vermont have introduced bills calling for a constitutional amendment protecting the free speech rights of people, not corporations. “This is really about a broad democratizing movement,” said Cobb. “Legal and electoral systems have been hijacked by ruling elites.”

In the shorter term, advocates want greater transparency. While the 2010 mid-term election saw unprecedented campaign spending, the public has remained in the dark about the full extent and sources of that spending. Further, many corporate interest groups hide behind civic-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Works, and Citizens United. Requiring campaigns to disclose the identities of donors helps voters make informed choices.

Steve Breaux, a WashPIRG public-interest advocate, urges support for the DISCLOSE Act. The bill, which passed the House, but was blocked in the Senate, would require organizations involved in political campaigns to reveal the identities of major donors.

Like other states, Washington has introduced a bill to shed light on money in politics that has passed the State Senate and now has to clear the House. In 2010, California passed similar legislation, requiring disclosure for political messages that appeal to voters to approve or reject a candidate or measure, even if the ad doesn’t use the “vote for” or “vote against.”

Another way states are promoting clean elections is by providing candidates with a public alternative to corporate campaign financing. Publicly-funded campaigns have worked in seven states: Maine, Arizona, North Carolina, New Mexico, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts. However, clean elections face a tough fight, since their popularity and effectiveness has drawn the ire of corporate interest groups. Legislation in Massachusetts was later repealed and Vermont’s was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which is now ruling on the constitutionality of Arizona’s Clean Elections Act, which levels the playing field by using public funds to match the corporate funding of another candidate.

At the federal level, the Fair Elections Now Act (FENA) calls for public funding of Senate campaigns. The bipartisan bill would allow federal candidates to run for office without relying on large private donations, freeing candidates from the pressures of constant fundraising.

Building the momentum for these efforts requires public education and consciousness-raising, according to John Bonifaz of Free Speech for People. Although voters overwhelmingly agree that corporations wield too much political influence, few have even heard of Citizens United. Hart Research Associates found that only 22 percent of voters were aware of the decision. Some groups are informing the public through teach-ins and forums. Others are taking a more dramatic approach.

Americans are demanding an end to the cynical politicking that has tainted our democracy for far too long. They don’t want to see their elected officials up for sale. In these challenging times, it is essential that our leaders focus on creating jobs, getting our economy back on track, fixing our broken health care system, stopping multiple wars, and addressing ongoing environmental degradation. Putting democracy into the hands of the electorate can help ensure that our lawmakers put these pressing issues, and the wellbeing of the people, first.

The Real Class War (Review of Winner-Take-All Politics)

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 01:46:00 +0000

Reviewed: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, Simon & Schuster, 340 pp., $17.46
Published May 25, 2011 in Toward Freedom: http://towardfreedom.com/americas/2405-the-real-class-war
When then-Senator Barack Obama called for reforms to "spread the wealth around," opponents labeled him a class warrior intent on stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. What they didn't mention, and what too few Americans realize, is that precisely the opposite pattern has unfolded over the past forty years. Winner-Take-All Politics details this dramatic redistribution of wealth and shows how it is no natural outcome of economic forces. It is the result of political decisions. Increasingly dependent upon campaign funds from well-organized special interests, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have legislated in favor of the extremely rich at the expense of everyone else.
Hacker and Pierson back up their assertions with striking data. For example, the share of the nation's income raked in by the top 1 percent shot up from 9 percent in 1974 to 23.5 percent in 2007. The figures are even more remarkable at the very upper echelons: the top 0.1 percent has seen a fourfold increase in their share of the pie, from 2.7 percent to 12.3. Meanwhile, wages for the poor and middle class have stagnated and failed to keep up with the rising cost of living.
Experts often pin the growth of economic inequality on the shift to a knowledge-based economy, which has produced a large gap between the educated and uneducated. But Hacker and Pierson point out that extreme income disparity exists even among the highly educated. Further, the same level of disparity is not found in other developed nations. Clearly, an additional force is at work.
That force, according to Hacker and Pierson, is American government and politics. Since the 1970s, the tax code has become progressively less progressive. Not only have the super-wealthy enjoyed large tax cuts, but they have benefited from loopholes such as the capital gains tax. Since capital gains like investment income are only taxed 15 percent, private equity and hedge fund managers end up paying "a dramatically lower rate than their secretaries." Often, policy decisions go quietly unnoticed in the form of "drift": the government simply fails to respond to changing economic realities. The minimum wage is never updated to keep up with inflation. Legislation fails to address skyrocketing executive pay, which now approaches 300 times the earnings of average workers.
So why, if our democracy is based on the principle of "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," have our policies so consistently favored the few? The answer lies in organization. In the past, unions provided a voice for the interests of working Americans. Yet while union representation has sharply declined (from 30% in 1960 to 13% in 2000), lobbyists representing corporate and financial interests have proliferated in the corridors of Washington. Unlike the fragmented and politically uninformed electorate, these special interest groups have banded together and pooled their vast resources to exert powerful political pressure. Hacker and Pierson describe the revolving door between Congress and K Street. Take Max Baucus, the Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee, who packed his office with pharmaceutical lobbyists. Or take John Breaux, former Democratic senator from Louisiana. After repeatedly undercutting progressive initiatives, Breaux made the smooth transition from elected official to lavishly paid consultant at a lobbying firm.
Despite the media spectacle that surrounds presidential elections, the growth of inequality has little to do with which party occupies the White House. In fact, it was under Carter that the dynamics of "winner-take-all" began to rapidly accelerate. Hacker and Pierson turn our attention from the presidential "horse race" toward the far more significant "politics of organized combat" that has consumed both parties. They describe a GOP that became incrementally more radicalized over the past four decades, most dramatically under the leadership of House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich in the 1990s. While the GOP shifted further to the right--a shift that would recur with the emergence of the Tea Party--the Democratic Party was forced by the fundraising arms race to become more business-friendly. In turn, business interests were keen to court Democratic leaders who could stall or water down reforms.
Meaningful reform is made even harder by the structural flaws of a system predisposed toward gridlock. Since states have equal representation in the Senate, conservative small states hold disproportionate sway over less numerous but far more populous states. The increasingly ubiquitous use of the filibuster poses another roadblock, making it easy for the minority party to--with the help of a few bought-off colleagues across the aisle--stymie legislation. Such obstructionist tactics always benefit the minority party that employs them, convincing the public that the majority party is inept and that Washington is broken. During Obama's presidency, this has given congressional Republicans an incentive to block any reform-minded legislation rather than engage in bipartisan compromise.
If the problem is organization, Hacker and Pierson conclude, then organization is the solution. And it will have to be sustained. "Political reformers will need to mobilize for the long haul," the authors write, "appreciating that it is not electoral competitions alone that are decisive, but also the creation of organized capacity to…turn electoral victories into substantive and sustainable triumphs."

Citizens United against Citizens United

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 22:49:00 +0000

Local activists fight controversial Supreme Court decision

Published March 16, 2011 in Real Change (Vol. 18 No. 11)

http://www.realchangenews.org/index.php/site/archives/5424/

In a 5 to 4 decision that flouted legal precedents and campaign finance legislation, the Supreme Court, in Citizens United v. F.E.C., last year ruled that corporations can spend unlimited money toward political advertising.

What happens to democracy when corporations have the same rights as people, including the right to influence elections?

On March 10, the University of Washington hosted the forum “After Citizens United: What Now?” Enrique Cerna of KCTS 9 Public Television moderated the discussion, sponsored by Washington Public Campaigns.

Lynne Dodson of the AFL-CIO said Citizens United is part of the same “rapacious pursuit of profit” that caused the current recession. She said the ruling enables corporations to back candidates who support offshoring, deregulation, and fewer labor rights.

Several speakers emphasized that the issue extends beyond corporate free speech rights in the context of elections. Jeff Clements, general counsel of Free Speech for People, said the fundamental question is corporate power, including whether corporations should be treated as legal persons. He called for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United ruling and establish that corporations are not people.

Amending the Constitution won’t be easy, the speakers agreed. A proposed amendment must be approved by three-fourths of state legislatures or by ratifying conventions in three-fourths of states.

Free Speech for People Director John Bonifaz pointed out that “overwhelming majorities” across the political spectrum would support such an amendment. According to a recent poll by Hart Research Associates, this includes 68 percent of Republicans, 82 percent of Independents, and 87 percent of Democrats.

Advocates worry about transparency in the short term. Steve Breaux, a WashPIRG public-interest advocate, urged support for the DISCLOSE Act. The bill, which passed the House but was blocked in the Senate, would require organizations involved in political campaigning to disclose the identities of large donors. In Washington State, a similar bill (SB 5021) is scheduled for a public hearing at 8 a.m. on March 16.

To challenge Citizens United, people can attend hearings and town halls, contact senators and representatives, write op-eds and letters to the editor, and form grassroots groups, said Claudia Kauffman of the Minority Executive Directors Coalition of King County. Temple De Hirsch Sinai’s Rabbi Alan Cook encouraged people of faith to get their congregations involved in the effort.

Bonifaz told of the late Doris “Granny D” Haddock, who turned 90 while walking across the United States to advocate campaign finance reform. For 14 months, she walked 10 miles per day through wind, ice, rain and snow until she reached the Capitol.

“When she was born, the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote had yet to be enacted,” Bonifaz said. “In the name of Granny D, it is time for us to stand up and fight … to ensure that ‘we the people,’ not ‘we the corporations,’ govern in America."

Making a Difference with Americorps

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:44:00 +0000

Published in the February issue of Next Step Magazine:

http://www.nextstepu.com/articlePage1.aspx?artId=3731&categoryId=43

If you want to have a positive impact on a community while earning money for college, then you may want to consider joining AmeriCorps.

AmeriCorps consists of three programs:

1) AmeriCorps State and National, 2) AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), and 3) AmeriCorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps). AmeriCorps State and National members work with organizations to address community needs in education, public safety, health and the environment.

VISTA members serve with community organizations to build programs geared toward bringing low-income individuals and communities out of poverty. AmeriCorps NCCC is a full-time residential program for people aged 18-24, in which members work intensively in a particular community.

Benefits of service

AmeriCorps members receive health coverage, training, deferment for student loans, a modest stipend to cover living expenses and many also receive housing assistance. Full-time members who complete their service receive $5,350 to pay for college, grad school or existing student loans. (Those who work part time receive a partial award.)

Giving back

One of the most rewarding parts of working with AmeriCorps is the chance to create a positive impact on others’ lives. Robin Solash worked with AmeriCorps’ Northwest Service Academy as an environmental education provider in Toledo, Ore. She implemented environmental service learning activities for middle school students and ran an after-school program.

“I got to meet many different people, and I also got a chance to help out in a community that really needed it.”

Visit AmeriCorps.gov for more info about each of its programs.

March like an Egyptian

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 05:15:00 +0000

Published on Middle East Mirror on January 29, 2011

It began in Tunisia, spreading like wildfire to the streets of Egypt and Yemen. Taking to public squares and defying brutal suppression, the people of these three Middle Eastern nations are demanding an end to the poverty, corruption, and repression they have long endured. For the sixth day, turmoil has continued to shake Egypt, with demonstrators defying curfew and forcing back police barricades. As the dramatic unrest continues, the 30-year Mubarak regime is in a tenuous state.

Under the Bush administration, "spreading democracy" in the Middle East was the oft-heard refrain. Yet when popular enfranchisement failed to bring results favorable to U.S. interests--as in 2006, when free elections brought Hamas to power in Gaza--the tenor began to change. While the administration issued cautious, general praise for aspirations toward democracy, "stability" had become the word of the day.

Now, in the midst of this historic uprising, Obama's rhetoric echoes that of his predecessor. Rather than condemning the autocratic regime, the president merely called on both sides to exercise restraint, mildly affirming Egyptians' democratic hopes and urging reforms. Obama's tepid response reflects a delicate balancing act. Rage against U.S.-backed strongmen fuels anti-Americanism and terrorism, yet democracy may pave the way for Islamist rule.

Obama's dilemma is not without legitimacy or historic precedent. While the demonstrations have had no singular leadership, and despite the prominent role of Nobel Peace Prize winner and former IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood has formed a significant presence within this movement. There is a possibility that this revolt will mirror the 1979 uprising that ousted the U.S.-friendly Shah of Iran. What we now call the Islamic Revolution began as an ideologically diverse movement strongly influenced by secular Marxism; only later did the religious fervor of Khomeini stand at its apex. If the people of Egypt are successful in toppling the regime, only time will tell what kind of replacement will emerge.

The Egyptian army will play a decisive role in the outcome of the unrest. Unlike the police force and security apparatus of the Interior Ministry, the army has not historically served as the boot of the regime. Not only has the army proved generally hesitant to use force on protesters, but there have been reports of soldiers stripping off their uniforms and joining in.

Egypt is a key U.S. ally in the region, receiving nearly $2 billion in annual foreign aid. In 2010, $1.3 billion went to military aid alone. Thus, the results of this uprising will undoubtedly have important consequences for U.S. relations with the Middle East. As the demonstrations continue, Obama's response will test the integrity of America's professed ideals. Will we fall down on the side of the tyrant we know, or will we risk uncertainty and support Egypt's people as they take their destiny into their own hands?

Heeding the Lessons of History in Rwanda: An Interview with Joseph Sebarenzi

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 21:52:00 +0000

Dr. Joseph Sebarenzi was the speaker of the Rwandan parliament from 1997 to 2000. As a young boy, he hid under a neighbor's bed during an outbreak of violence as machete-wielding Hutu men pursued his family. Years later, he, his wife, and their young son fled a Rwanda on the brink of genocide. After this tragedy, he learned that his parents, seven siblings, and countless other family members were among the 800,000 Tutsi brutally murdered. As head of the parliament, Sebarenzi's advocacy for democratic reforms placed him at odds with then-Vice President Paul Kagame, and he was forced to flee the country once again under threat of assassination. Today, he lives in the United States and serves on the faculty of the CONTACT school at the School for International Training. His memoir, God Sleeps in Rwanda (Atria Books, 2009), tells his story and sounds a call for forgiveness and reconciliation.

This year, President Paul Kagame has secured another seven-year term, claiming 93% of the vote. Yet it was an election marred by the exclusion of candidates from opposition parties, a crackdown on critical media outlets, and violence against dissidents. Kagame claims no involvement in the latter. Could you talk about this?

The elections were marred by a crackdown on opponents, assassinations, and arrests of journalists to make sure the true opposition does not participate in these elections. For those of us who are familiar with Rwanda, it's not a surprise. It's something we expected, although some of what took place in recent months was unexpected to us. What was unexpected was, for instance, the assassination of the vice president of the Green Party, Mr. Andre Kagwa Rwisereka. What was also not expected was Kagame’s choice of his competitors, known to be close friends of Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front; the people who are part of the ruling class. And of course, the assassination attempt against the former General Kayumba Nyamwasa in South Africa, where he fled earlier this year. President Kagame is allegedly behind these violent acts. We did of course expect that these elections would be rigged, but none of us would have imagined the occurrence of these terrible violations. We knew well that Kagame was not ready to allow these elections to be free and fair, because - as you can read in my book - Kagame has many motivations to retain power as long as possible.

In your book, God Sleeps in Rwanda, you described how as speaker of the parliament, you challenged the autocratic nature of Kagame's government, and you ended up being exiled from the country as a result.

Yes, that's true. And it's from that perspective that I give my point of view on these elections. A democracy with fairness and transparency is what we needed in Rwanda. That is what we tried to do back then in the late 1990s or early 2000--to build strong institutions, to design a form of democracy that fit the socio-political realities of Rwanda in the post-genocide era. But instead of letting the country move toward strong institutions, Kagame stealthily built himself into a very strong man, an autocrat who basically would stay in power as long as possible, using semblance of elections to make the international community believe that he has a popular mandate.

How do you respond those who point out that Kagame has spearheaded Rwanda's economic development? He's created stability; he's created a large amount of female representation in government. What do you say to those arguments?

You know, I can't deny that, but you need to put those in context. For instance, the increased representation of women in state institutions is not something that was built over time. What it required was for Kagame to take that decision, and on the basis of that decision, everything followed. That's one. Second, having women as majority in parliament - and in the other branches of government - does not mean they have power to help ordinary women improve their situations. So what is the point of having many women in a parliament that is rubber stamp? Yes, we need to have a greater number of women in state institutions, but it’s meaningless if they don’t have power to impact policies. This is one example of the things Kagame does to mislead the international community.

With regard to the economy, I think that if you look closely at what is happening, you will find that at least 50 percent of Rwanda’s national budget is funded by foreign donors. Also, there are many international non-governmental organizations operating in Rwanda because of the genocide; this helps Rwanda’s economy. You also have Western countries that feel guilty for not preventing the genocide or stopping it, and that now show tremendous generosity to help the government build the economy, and so forth. So Kagame’s role in the economic achievements is overstated. These achievements do not reflect a replication of what heads of state in countries like Singapore or South Korea did in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. It is different.

You've also argued that the lessons of history must be heeded before it's too late. What are these lessons?

One is that as long Rwanda does not have political compromise between Hutu and Tutsi regarding how power is shared, there will inevitably be a renewal of violence. Rwanda has a very complex situation where Hutu are an overwhelming majority and Tutsi are a small minority. For the last 50 years there has been a power struggle between the two "ethnic groups," despite the fact that they share a language, they share a culture, and live side by side. As long as Rwanda lacks a consensus democracy to defuse the violent competition for power between the two communities, there may be another cycle of violence. And Kagame is doing nothing resolve this issue. Rather, his rule has kept or reinforced the tensions unresolved and alive – albeit buried under the carpet. So that's one. Second is the issue of justice. Rwanda has achieved some sorts of justice with regard to the 1994 genocide. Some of the perpetrators were arrested and tried in Tanzania by a U.N. court, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; others were tried in Rwanda using domestic courts; and others were tried using traditional courts called the gacaca. But all those tried and convicted--and some have been forgiven--are the Hutu who committed the genocide. The problem is that virtually no justice has been done for the Hutu killed before, during, and after the genocide. As long as Rwanda’s authorities champion a one-sided justice, they are making possible another ethnic-based violence sooner or later. Without justice, victims may seek revenge; may pass on their grievances to future generations; and soon or later opportunistic politicians will misuse genuine grievances and stir up animosity in an effort to acquire or retain power. It is important to note that justice does not have to be retributive. Rwanda can explore a truth and reconciliation commission approach. There are many issues other issues, but those two are the most pressing ones.

I'd like to go back to the issue of ethnic tension that you mentioned. A couple of the opposition leaders, Ingabire and Ntaganda--both of whom were barred from participating in the election--have been charged with violating a law that prohibits "genocide ideology," or speech that promotes ethnic division. Do you feel that Kagame's policy of downplaying the distinction between Hutu and Tutsi is helping to move the country forward, or is it increasing the risk of future violence?

He's actually increasing the risk of future violence, because people like Bernard Ntaganda and Victoire Ingabire are not extremists at all and they definitely don’t advocate for genocide. They don't deny the genocide, contrary to what Kagame’s administration claims. They simply are victims of injustice. And such injustice toward them may be perceived by some Hutu as injustice against their community, which increases the likelihood of further violence in Rwanda. For now, it just creates frustration, anger, and resentment. I think Kagame is misusing the laws on genocide ideology. He's using them as political tools against opponents, including Tutsi opponents such Mushayidi, who is by the way a genocide survivor. These laws should be used to go after the people who truly deny the genocide, and people who advocate division between Hutu and Tutsi--not against innocent political opponents.

It seems like it would be sort of a fine line, though, to determine at what point somebody is actually advocating violence or genocide. How do you make that distinction?

You just need to look carefully at what people say; look carefully at what people write. And on that basis, you can determine whether or not someone is denying genocide or advocating division between Hutu and Tutsi. And I have not seen that so far from Ingabire or Ntaganda. These are some of the more moderate Hutu we have. I know we have Hutu extremists, and we have Tutsi extremists Tutsi. Any extremism is wrong and it should be eradicated through an impartial application of laws – and of course through extensive education in order to change peoples’ minds.

In your book and elsewhere, you've strongly advocated for the need for reconciliation. How do you envision this reconciliation taking place, and what components would it need to have in order to be effective?

In my book, I offer some details about reconciliation. I think that one component of reconciliation in a divided society like Rwanda is to have justice on both sides. Whoever is implicated in either genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, or any other human rights violation, should be held accountable, regardless of ethnicity. Impartial justice is essential in the process of reconciliation. I am however mindful of the fact that Rwanda has so many perpetrators in each community that punitive justice would simply jeopardize hope for reconciliation. As I mentioned earlier, we need to have a mix of prosecutions and a truth and reconciliation commission, where those who have the highest responsibility are punished, but others are encouraged to tell the truth. If they tell the truth and apologize, then we can encourage the community to forgive. The ultimate goal should be reconciliation and lasting peace. Another component is power sharing in Rwanda. I advocate for a consensus democracy, which means a democracy with all its attributes, but one that is suitable to the context of Rwanda: a history of interethnic violence, a small minority, an overwhelming majority, etc. We should find a compromise along the lines of what we have in the United States in which states are represented equally in the Senate, whereas in the House of Representatives, states are represented based on the size of the population. The other thing about reconciliation, which I mentioned in my book, is peace education. We need to educate young people from a very early age, and instill into them the ideas of love, forgiveness, and empathy; ideas of seeing themselves first as human beings, as God's creatures, before they see themselves as Hutu or Tutsi. If we do that--and of course we need to work on the economy, and we need the assistance of the international community--I am sure that Rwanda can firmly move toward reconciliation.

I'd like to switch gears a bit and ask you about the lessons that the international community can learn from what happened in Rwanda in 1994. In your book, you described the hate speech that filled the airwaves prior to the genocide, in which Tutsi were referred to as "cockroaches." In the U.S. one often hears dehumanizing rhetoric against immigrants, against Muslims, and against other groups, especially on talk radio. In one particularly striking example, the popular radio host Neal Boortz said, "Muslims don't eat during the day during Ramadan. They fast during the day and eat at night. Sort of like cockroaches." How concerned should we be about this kind of speech?

I cannot talk about specific rhetoric against specific groups, but suffice to say that any dehumanizing speech is dangerous. I hear some inappropriate speech in the U.S., and it makes me sad. But the good thing is that the U.S. has very strong institutions. There is a deep-rooted rule of law. If some of personal attacks or attacks against some groups happened in a country like Rwanda, you would see violence the next day. But those are the things people need to watch carefully. The international community should learn from what happened in Rwanda, because people don't wake up one day and take their machetes or their guns and go after their neighbors. It starts with words. It starts with what people write. So people should pay attention to all that, and prevent [violence] before it's too late. Anything can happen anywhere anytime if the seeds of violence are allowed to develop. And coming back to what happened in Rwanda, people should watch those early signs of violence, such as the pre-election violence, the suspension of independent newspapers, persistent exile of political figures, arrests without charges of military officers, etc. These are early signs of violence. When the international community stands by, it renders a disservice to peace in Rwanda and in the region. It’s imperative that the international community engage - without further delay- Rwanda’s authorities to ensure that democracy is build in consensus way, and lasting reconciliation is promoted.

History, Memory & Identity: A Conversation with Laurence Silberstein

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 22:16:00 +0000

Published October 8, 2010 in Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture.
http://www.zeek.forward.com/articles/116995/

Laurence Silberstein is the Philip and Muriel Berman professor of Jewish Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. His book, The Postzionism Debates: Knowledge and Power in Israeli Culture (Routledge, May 1999) was nominated as a finalist in Jewish Philosophy and Thought by the prestigious Koret Jewish Studies Book Awards. In 2008, he edited the collection Postzionism: A Reader (Rutgers). I sat down with him to discuss the evolving relationship between history and identity among Israelis and American Jews.

Laurence Silberstein

VS: I’d like to start by asking you about the emergence of the so-called “New Historians” in Israel in the mid-90s and the role they played in changing how Israelis relate to history. Why is history so important, and why is it so contentious?

LS: Well, I think the importance is that, first of all, Israel is a young country. And so a lot of things are taken very seriously in a way they’re not necessarily taken here. And [Israelis] perceive themselves to be besieged. They have a certain victim mentality, as do the Palestinians. There are two victim narratives competing. In fact, until the late 1980s, the only story that was told regarding the Palestinian flight was that the Palestinians willingly left because they were promised by Arab leaders that they would come back. That was the story that I grew up on, and it was the story Israelis grew up on. So this is really very important to how they perceive themselves, how they perceive their country, and how they perceive the emergence of their country.

In the early 80s, there was a declassification of documents from the period of the founding of the state in 1948. Younger scholars had grown up in a different reality than their seniors. They had grown up and spent a lot of their adult years during a time when Israel was already occupying the West Bank and Gaza. That provoked certain kinds of questions. They lived through [the Yom Kippur War in] 1973; they lived through 82, the invasion of Lebanon. They lived through the Intifada. And they had a different kind of impression of what Israel was all about and the myths that had dominated in the earlier years. And so they began to ask questions that hadn’t been asked by scholars to any significant degree. Benny Morris, who is now a fairly right-wing Zionist, did this amazing research. He went to every Arab village, to every Arab community that had departed. He tried to analyze the factors that contributed to that and came up with a very complicated picture, but part of that picture was that at some times, the Israelis wanted the Arabs to leave and intimidated them into doing so. This was pretty radical.

A friend and colleague of mine, who’s a philosopher at Tel Aviv U, told me a story that he subsequently wrote up and published in a book I edited. He said that his father was involved with Etzel, the right-wing organization that many people have defined as a terrorist organization. And he always denied that anything happened at Deir Yassin, an Arab village where, on April 9, 1948, around 120 fighters from Zionist paramilitary groups killed roughly 600 people. On the day of the September 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre during the Lebanese civil war, when Lebanese Phalangist militia murdered a disputed number (400-3,500, according to various sources) of Palestinian refugees in the two camps while while the area was surrounded by Israeli forces, his father said to him something like, “This reminds me of something that happened many years ago.” He was referring to Deir Yassin. My friend was shocked, because his father had lied to him.

I’ve sometimes given talks in which I’ve compared the Israeli atmosphere at the time to how Americans dealt with what we learned since I was a kid about how African Americans were treated here, about Native Americans and the genocidal practices that we had. I can understand how Israelis felt, because I had no idea that any of that had happened. Now, we’re a country a couple of hundred years old, which is not the case for Israel. We could take it in stride. We could integrate it into our curriculum. But in Israel, everything is politicized. I think it was under Barak that it was put into the curriculum. It was put in a fairly mild way, and then when Likud was back in power, they took it out. As far as I know, it’s not in the curriculum anymore.

VS: Well, it’s still an ongoing debate in Israel as to whether to include the term Nakba (a word literally meaning “catastrophe,” which Palestinians use to refer to the displacement of 750,000 refugees during the war of 1948) in the textbooks.

LS: There’s another scholar by the name of Baruch Kimmerling. He made the argument that the way we tell the story and the narrative that’s used determines who’s an insider and who’s an outsider. For example–and he went beyond Morris did–if you talk about Israeli history in terms ofaliyot (the plural form of aliyah, meaning “ascent,” used to describe Jewish immigration to Israel), you’re using a Zionist term. That creates problems for certain groups of people. Also, the way the historiography of aliyot kind of implied that Mizrachim, Israeli Jews with origins in the Middle East or North Africa, were secondary citizens–they came later, after the state. He felt that to use Zionist concepts in writing Israeli history was to politicize it.

VS: And it extends beyond just what goes in the history books. It’s also, as you’ve mentioned, language–what do you call things, what do you call people, place names, all of those different things…

LS: Absolutely. Museums, archeology. It permeates everything. One of the most devastating critiques is in the work of a scholar at Ben Gurion by the name of Oren Yiftachel. Yiftachel is a political geographer studying the way in which land and boundaries are established within Israel and the occupied territories. He came up with the argument that you cannot really call Israel a democracy because it’s dominated by one ethnic group. About four years ago, he published a book called Ethnocracy (University of Pennsylania, 2006), and one of the things he shows is that through the way in which Zionist concepts get painted in Israel, the land becomes “Judaized.” It’s perceived as “Jewish land” from the Jewish perspective. The land is owned by the state; houses in certain places can’t be sold to Arabs. So I think Yiftachel’s critique was a very telling critique. He doesn’t consider himself a postzionist. He doesn’t think the word means anything, so he dismissed it. I tried to argue that it had a value, but he didn’t think so.

VS: Why is it that, among many of the scholars who are identified with postzionism or whose views seem to be aligned with postzionism, there is such a resistance to using that term? And why have you chosen to use it?

LS: I think some, like Yiftachel, don’t even want to be involved with that controversy. They feel that they’re scholars; they do their work; they reach their conclusions; they have their evidence, and it’s got nothing to do with Zionism or postzionism. So he feels, I think, that the use of the term doesn’t add anything to his scholarship. But I think it’s a decisive term in a debate about Israeli identity, and it’s useful for distinguishing different kinds of perspectives. Over the years, I came to feel that it has a very specific meaning, even though the meanings are pretty loose and they change. I think a postzionist is one who has concluded that as long as Israel is dominated by Zionist discourse, it cannot adequately address the challenges that it faces. Now, some people may be postzionist and not know it, and some people may be called postzionist. Baruch Kimmerling didn’t like the term. He wasn’t as reactive as Yiftachel was. Uri Ram, the sociologist, used it to identify himself and the kind of sociology he advocated. He was one of the few. And it was first applied by cynics, the Zionist critics. And by saying that you’re a postzionist, they essentially wanted to equate that with anti-Zionists.

VS: What is the difference between postzionism and anti-Zionism, or simply non-Zionism?

LS: It depends on the usage. I would say once Zionism prevailed, it was hard to say you’re non-Zionist, because Zionism was there wherever you looked. So there were some who said, “We’re postzionist because once we had the state, we’ve achieved what we wanted and can move beyond it.” Others feel, though, that’s not what it means. What it means is that we have to attend to the ways that Zionism creates unjust practices– land practices, judicial practices–and we have to correct them. There are liberal Zionists who believe that a) Israel is a democracy; b) it will be able to address the kinds of injustices that the critics point to through the legal system, the judicial system. I think a postzionist feels that it’s too late.

VS: And what do you mean by that, that it’s too late?

LS: The Zionist categories have so insinuated themselves into the judicial system and into the political system that you would never be able to achieve a society in which non-Jews–particularly Arabs and Palestinians–would have an equitable place in the society. And the whole way in which, let’s say, the settlers moved into the territories. And it wasn’t just the right-wingers who either turned a blind eye or actually materially helped the settlers. It was both Labor and Likud governments, all the way through. So why was Labor doing it? Well, I think that they still had the same idea of what Zionism was about: it was about taking back the land. And even though they on their own may not have gone into the West Bank and founded some settlements, once there were people doing it, they had very ambivalent feelings about, you know, stopping these people. I can’t for the life of me conceive of any government being able to effectively remove the settlers. A significant number of them who are probably there for economic reasons would leave, but a significant number are there for ideological reasons, and we saw what happened in Gaza with the disengagement: in August 2005, Israel evacuated its 21 settlements containing approximately 9,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. The emotionally charged disengagement was a target of considerable protest and nonviolent resistance by settlers and their supporters.

VS: Do you feel, then, that a two-state solution is impossible at this stage, or do you think it may still happen?

LS: Well, I think there are some encouraging signs on the Palestinian side. There are these groups that are set up, commercial structures and things like that, and the police force is operating. I think that what they’re trying to do is not too different from what the Israelis tried to do to build the state of Israel. The Jews came in and set up the Jewish Agency, and essentially established a framework for a state. And when the Mandate ended and the British left, they were ready. And I think that’s what’s happening in the West Bank. There’s a core of very savvy leaders who are going ahead on the assumption that they’re responsible for establishing their own institutions. But I honestly don’t know. Am I optimistic? No. And there are Israelis, the very few that remain on the Left, who are not optimistic either. And among a certain group of American Jewish intellectuals, there is a growing sense of disillusionment.

So who knows what can happen in twenty or thirty or forty years, but I think that the Israelis are making a mistake in assuming that time is on their side. The Palestinians, or the Arabs, always believed that time was on their side, because they’d been there for so long. I was hopeful for awhile that the Obama administration was going to be serious, but they haven’t been. Just one of the many ways in which some groups of liberals feel less than thrilled about Obama. He says they have to stop building [the settlements], and then he turns a blind eye to it. His public stance is on par with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (a right-leaning pro-Israel lobbying organization), although he did invite J Street (which describes itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace” and lobbies for a two-state solution) to the White House. But he’s not really listening to them.

VS: If these things continue–the expansion of settlements, the demographics changing where the balance is tipping more in favor of an Arab majority in the future, and so on–if there is no two state solution, can Israel remain both a Jewish state and a democracy? Would you say it has ever been both?

LS: I think they’re contradicting. There’s a wonderful discussion in a book that David Grossman wrote called Sleeping on a Wire (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1993), and (Arab-Israeli writer) Anton Shammas is arguing with (Jewish-Israeli writer) A.B. Yehoshua, who considers himself a liberal. And Anton is arguing that as a Palestinian, when he lands in France or someplace else, his passport doesn’t identify him as an Israeli. It identifies him as an Arab, from what I understand. He wants a passport that says “Israeli,” and Yehoshua says, “Yeah, but Israel is a Jewish state in the same way that France is a French state, and nobody complains about France being a French state.” It’s a total misunderstanding. If you want to compare France to a French state, then you have to consider Israel an Israeli state, because the nationality is Israeli, not Jewish.

In my course on Israel, I have my students read two articles on the question, “Is Israel a democracy?” One is by Alan Dowty, who wrote a book called The Jewish State: A Century Later(University of California, 2001). He’s a political scientist in the United States, and he argues that if you look at Israel’s institutions and elections, it’s democratic. The structure is democratic. And then I have them look at one of Yiftachel’s articles. Yiftachel has not as much interest in the structure as in the practices, and the way in which the land becomes Judaized, by which Jewishness is the determining factor in the ways the land gets used, divided, and things like that.

VS: It seems, at least from my experiences, that college campuses can be very contentious hot spots for this issue. I think they’re very polarized.

LS: It’s interesting. For reasons I could never particularly understand, it never happened at Lehigh.There was an article published in the New York Review of Books sometime earlier this year–it could have been in February–by a professor from Columbia by the name of Peter Beinart. Some Jewish philanthropists hired someone to do focus groups of young Jews to get a sense of their attitudes toward Israel. What they discovered is that members of the younger generation of Jews privilege their liberal values over their identification with the state. So to the extent that they see the state violating what they consider to be liberal values, they come down as critics. That’s not surprising to me. There were times in my course on Israel where I commented that this particular book on Israeli identity is considered to be controversial in Israel–this was about four or five years ago–and my students who had read the book couldn’t understand why, whether they were Jewish or not.

There have also been sociological population studies that show that since the late ’80s, early ’90s, there is clearly a growing decline in the sense of identification with Israel among the younger generation. I would like to hope that the success of J Street and the fact that an alternative PAC was established and that even though there’s still strong support in the Jewish community for AIPAC, a lot of helpful criticism has risen to the challenge. So things have definitely changed, and there is a greater possibility of public debate and criticism. There are very few Jews of college age or older, from that generation, who could be cowed into keeping silent. They wouldn’t buy it. I think it’s changing. Things haven’t changed totally; they’re in the process of changing. So [the relationship with] Israel is changing. The role of the Holocaust is probably changing, because it ties together.

VS: How has that changed?

LS: Well, I think that the way that second-generation survivors, American writers, have dealt with the Holocaust has been far more complicated and complex than just the issue of a survivor. You take someone like Art Spiegelman–have you read Maus? (The popular graphic novel portrays the author’s relationship with his father, a Holocaust survivor, and relates his father’s story.) It’s a totally different way of looking at it. It’s complicated; it actually portrays a survivor in critical terms. And there are other kinds of writings that deal with the complexity of the telling of the story, of representing the Holocaust. I also think that some of the emphasis on the Holocaust in Jewish education has turned some Jewish students off.

I did a course at Lehigh called “Responses to the Holocaust,” in which we’d read post-Holocaust writing. Take somebody like Primo Levi, who raises all kinds of questions about memory, about testimony, about how much can you rely on inmates to tell the story. He was an inmate. And he wrote an essay called “The Gray Zone,” in which he deals with that fine line between participating and being complicit in evil and perpetrating evil and judging, and all these kinds of things. So there are all kinds of issues that have been raised that weren’t raised when it was a black-and-white story. A lot of this may not have drifted down to the general public. Another example would be Hannah Arendt. She wrote Eichmann in Jerusalem (Peter Smith, June 1994), and she was pilloried for writing that Eichmann was a plain guy; he was banal; he wasn’t this overwhelming evil; and that Jewish leadership in the ghettos were complicit with some of what went on. And she was just pilloried, but I hear her name being cited more and more by Jewish intellectuals as a resource for an alternative way of thinking about being Jewish. Judith Butler is one of them, but there are plenty of others.

Jews were asked which of these factors is really an act of Jewish identity. So they would have reading Jewish books, taking courses, going to synagogue, observing holidays, remembering the Holocaust, identifying with Israel. Remembering the Holocaust was up at the top. I don’t know if it still is. What does that mean? Sometimes I’ll ask my students, “Is there anything that all Jews have in common?” And they try all these different things and see that they don’t really work, and then they come up with a common history. And I say, “Well, what do you mean by a common history?” And they’ll say something like, “Well, the Holocaust.” I’ll say, “You experienced the Holocaust?” Well, no. I say, “So what do you mean a common history?” Well, because we remember it. Okay, so what does remembering it mean? And it gets a lot more complicated. While the Holocaust will always be an important factor in Jewish historical consciousness, it can’t be the basis of a vital, vibrant, creative identity. Nor can Israel. And now we’re seeing that. In some ways, there’s a lot of very exciting stuff going on, experiments in different kinds of Jewish identity, especially by younger Jews.

VS: Do you have any thoughts for people who want to transcend the polarization over Israel? Especially for young Jews who feel a strong attachment to Israel and care about Israel, but who want to see more nuance in discussing the issues related to Israel and move beyond this victim mentality. Do you have any thoughts on that?

LS: I’d have them read Spiegelman. I get e-mails every day from J Street; I get e-mails every day from a guy who runs a blog called The Magnes Zionist. He’s a Modern Orthodox Jewish scholar who’s raised his kids in Israel. His kids have served in the Israeli army, and basically he’s arguing for the position of a binational state. Jewish Voice for Peace–go to their website. I think it’s important that there are places that are accessible online that engage in exactly the kind of conversation you’re talking about. If some of these have local chapters to participate in, that’s a possibility.

I don’t find that J Street totally expresses my thinking, but it certainly is a far-reaching difference, and they’ve gained credibility. They’re worrying some of the more conservative groups. And there are just a lot of books out there. There are an enormous number of good books out there that tell a far more balanced version of Israel and the Middle East. It’s not uncommon for me to have Jewish students in a course on Israel who, upon first reading these books, ask, “How come we didn’t hear about this when we were going to Hebrew school?” There are groups like Rabbis for Human Rights; there are Doctors without Borders, who have made strong statements about the Middle East. And there are websites in Israel–a great one is B’tselem, which is Hebrew for “In the Image.” They’re a leading human rights organization, and they put up different maps. This is much more available today, partly as a result of the Web and partly because the climate is changing.

Eliminating My Own Great Garbage Patch

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 02:57:00 +0000

Published September 29, 2010 in the Tacoma Weekly.

http://www.tacomaweekly.com/article/4933/

As I brought the plastic bottle of iced tea to my lips, I paused before taking a sip and stared at the horrific image on my television screen. Mired in oil, a pelican was struggling to free itself of the deadly slick from the Deepwater Horizon spill. I almost did not have the stomach to polish off the big plastic bag of tortilla chips I was scarfing. Tossing the refuse of my snack into a plastic trash bag, I grabbed the plastic remote and turned off the heart-wrenching newscast.

But the images continued to haunt me. As much as I railed at British Petroleum for its recklessness and shook my fist at the government’s aversion to stronger environmental regulation, I knew deep down that I had played my own part in the disaster. Like most Americans, I enjoy a comfortable lifestyle driven by an unquenchable thirst for oil. Maybe I could not go stuff Tony Hayward into the well and save all those poor otters and sea turtles. But I could, at least, change my own consumption habits. Walking and using public transportation was a first step, but since I already lead an almost car-free lifestyle, I decided to take things a step further. As long as oil kept spewing into the Gulf, I resolved to abstain from using disposable plastic.

The environmental impact of plastic extends far beyond the petroleum used to make the material. In a landfill, plastic bags can take an estimated 500 years to break down. Fewer than 2 percent of plastic bags end up getting recycled. Instead, they litter our streets and pollute our oceans. Isolated beaches in Hawaii, despite their remoteness, have been thoroughly covered by plastic debris. According to studies, 100,000 marine animals, an unknown number of sea turtles, and 2 million birds die every year with bellies full of trash. Nowhere is the crisis more flagrant than in current-driven garbage patches where the plastic to sea life ratio is six to one. The largest of these patches is the Pacific Gyre, or Great Garbage Patch, which is roughly the size of Texas and contains 3.5 million tons of waste. Much of this garbage has broken down into tiny pieces that bond to toxic endocrine disruptors such as polychlorinated biphenyls and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. The pieces are consumed by small fish and jellyfish, carrying their toxicity up the food chain as the contaminated creatures are eaten by bigger fish. They, in turn, pass our poisons right back to us on the dinner table.

Despite its deadliness, plastic is omnipresent. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, more than 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed each year in the United States. Immediately, it became clear that breaking the habit completely would be virtually impossible. I would have to stop brushing my teeth, do away with my asthma pills and inhalers, and somehow find a store that sold quill pens. Still, it is surprisingly easy to keep plastic to a bare minimum by remembering the “three Rs”: reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Reducing starts with the choices we make at the grocery store. Opt for the glass jar of peanut butter, the paper milk carton, the cardboard box of detergent, or the aluminum can. Recycling aluminum is cheaper than producing new aluminum, and it is completely and endlessly recyclable. For a tasty snack, try Sun Chips, which are now packaged in plant-based compostable bags that biodegrade in 14 weeks. One hundred percent biodegradable trash and pet waste bags are also available from companies like Bio Bags, which manufactures them from a corn-based material. Many co-ops and farmers markets sell bulk foods and detergents you can stash in a reusable container. Finally, ditch the unhealthy processed foods and head for the fresh fruits and veggies. Buy your bread from the fresh bakery section or bake your own (look for a cheap bread maker at your local thrift store).

Reusable options abound, from bringing a cloth or canvas bag on shopping trips to toting a stainless steel drink holder. Many grocery stores offer a small discount per reusable bag, and Starbucks similarly rewards customers who bring reusable coffee cups. Cloth bags and Tupperware containers are great for lunches and leftovers, and cloth napkins and kitchen towels eliminate the need for the plastic-wrapped paper kind.

If plastic containers are an absolute must, buying the largest size possible and keeping the container for future storage are two ways to reduce waste. For those old plastic bags you have been stashing under the sink, look for specially marked recycle bins at participating retailers.

Now that the gusher has been sealed, it is tempting to go back to my old ways, pushing aside the images of muck-covered wildlife. But I do not think I will ever return to my former pattern of careless consumption. Like a fish in the Pacific, I am ensnared in my own garbage patch, but – little by little – I am learning to break free.

Green-Collar Jobs: Growing Jobs in the Environmental Field

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:57:00 +0000

Published in the March 2010 issue of Next Step Magazine.
http://www.nextstepmagazine.com/nextstep/articlePage1.aspx?artId=3556&categoryId=62

America is going green, and going green is going to take a lot of work. With the spotlight on the environment, new job opportunities are opening up.

These “green-collar” jobs provide good wages, and the training is affordable—usually requiring an associate degree at most. And with the help of $500 million in federal stimulus funds, many new training programs are appearing in order to meet the growing demand.

A study by the American Solar Energy Society showed that American green-collar jobs totaled more than 9 million in 2007, and as many as 37 million can be created by 2030. These jobs include building energy-efficient homes and businesses, restoring habitats, installing solar panels and wind turbines, and producing biofuels.

Find a job in: energy efficiency
Some of the fastest growing green-collar jobs involve designing and building modern, environmentally friendly buildings, and weatherizing homes and businesses to make them more energy efficient.

In order to help families and businesses save energy, workers insulate attics and walls, put caulking around windows, and install energy-saving appliances like solar water heaters.

Energy efficiency has created new careers in green architecture and energy auditing, while putting a new spin on traditional careers like heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) technicians, carpenters, electricians and plumbers.

Find a job in: renewable energy
Because of concerns about global warming and high oil prices, renewable energy—power generated from natural sources like the sun, wind and geothermal heat—is making up a growing part of our energy use. Solar power is another fast-growing field.

Career opportunities in solar energy include solar system installers and managers, solar engineers and engine assemblers. Meanwhile, wind has the potential to provide 20 percent of the nation’s energy needs, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

This means more engine assemblers, machinists and mechanical engineers are needed to build wind turbines. And then there’s geothermal energy, which is created by drilling wells into underground reservoirs to tap steam and very hot water. This requires welders, mechanics, plumbers, architects, geologists and hydrologists.

Find a job in: alternative fuels
The same concerns driving renewable energy have helped the growing popularity of alternative fuels, including biodiesel, ethanol and fuel cells.

In 2007, there were 1.8 million alternative fuel vehicles sold in the United States, according to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. These jobs are likely to grow even more as a result of legislation that requires the U.S. to sell 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022.

Some jobs in alternative fuels are ethanol plant and systems operators, ethanol plant technicians, electrical maintenance mechanics and biodiesel lab technicians.

Find a job in: habitat restoration
Habitat restoration is the process of cleaning up polluted habitats in order to re-establish healthy, self-sustaining ecosystems.

Along with many nonprofit organizations nationwide, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service implements numerous conservation projects. Someone with a career in habitat restoration might restore salmon spawning beds, remove toxic algae and invasive species, plant native trees and other vegetation, or teach kids about protecting the environment.

Get your green education at a community college

“Community colleges have a large role to play in vocational skills training, especially in this day and age, with green-collar jobs,” says Linda Kurokawa, director of Community Services and Business Development at San Diego’s MiraCosta College (miracosta.cc.ca.us).

MiraCosta offers training for future solar and wind installers. These one-week accelerated courses give students hands-on preparation for longer, more involved apprenticeship programs offered by unions in San Diego.

Florida’s Palm Beach Community College (pbcc.edu) is offering a new degree program in alternative energy.

At Central Carolina Community College (cccc.edu), students can study green building, biofuels, sustainable agriculture, ecotourism or organic culinary arts.

Los Angeles Community College District’s (laccd.edu) green building program is a “living laboratory” for students, who are helping to revamp campuses with solar panels and power-generating windmills.

So You Want to Work in Health Care?

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:49:00 +0000

Published in March 2010 issue of Next Step Magazine:
http://www.nextstepmagazine.com/nextstep/articlepage1.aspx?artId=3545&categoryId=62

If you like helping people and are looking for a challenging career with an excellent job outlook, the growing field of health care may be for you.

Some careers involve a great deal of direct patient care, while others allow you to work behind the scenes by examining X-rays or developing nutrition plans.

There are as many educational paths to a career in health care as there are occupations in the field.

“The curricula for many health careers require a strong background in science and math,” says Dr. Lori Gonzalez, dean of the College of Health Sciences at the University of Kentucky (uky.edu). “But beyond the coursework, the successful health care professional has a desire to make a difference in the lives of others.”

Here’s a look at some of the career opportunities that are available and how you can prepare for them.

Job: Medical assistant
Years in school: 1-2
Training: Associate, certificate
Average salary: $22,000-$24,000
About the job: Medical assistants perform administrative and clinical tasks in the offices and clinics of physicians and specialists in order to keep them running smoothly.

Job: Registered nurse (RN)
Years in school: 3-4
Training: Diploma from a hospital school of nursing, associate, bachelor’s
Average salary: $58,000
About the job: RNs work in collaboration with physicians and other health professionals to assess symptoms, administer treatment, monitor patient progress, and act as educators and advocates for patients, families and communities.

Job: Radiologic technologist
Years in school: 1-4
Training: Certificate, associate, bachelor’s
Average salary: $42,000-$65,000
About the job: Radiologic technologists are allied medical professionals who perform diagnostic imaging procedures, such as X-rays, MRI scans and CT scans.

Job: Pharmacist
Years in school: 6-8
Training: Doctorate
Average salary: $107,000
About the job: Pharmacists dispense drugs prescribed by physicians and advise physicians and other health professionals on the selection, dosages, interactions and side effects of medications.

Job: Physical therapist
Years in school: 6-9
Training: Master’s, doctorate
Average salary: $68,000
About the job: Physical therapists work closely with injured or disabled individuals to improve function and mobility and relieve pain while promoting overall fitness.

Job: Physician assistant
Years in school: 2-6
Training: Master’s; some associate, bachelor’s degrees offered
Average salary: $65,000-$80,000
About the job: Physician assistants provide diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventative care to patients under the supervision of physicians.

Job: Registered dietitian
Years in school: 4-5
Training: Bachelor’s
Average salary: $42,000-$55,000
About the job: Dietitians develop nutrition programs to promote good health, prevent allergic reactions, and alleviate the symptoms of illnesses. They may oversee the nutrition of patients in hospitals and other institutions, design nutrition programs for communities, or consult with food service managers.

Job: Licensed practical nurse (LPN)
Years in school: 1
Training: Program in practical nursing at a vocational school or community college
Average salary: $31,000
About the job: LPNs care for sick, injured, convalescent or disabled patients under the supervision of physicians and registered nurses. They check vital signs, administer injections, apply dressings, collect samples, and keep patients comfortable.

Job: Clinical laboratory technician
Years in school: 2-4
Training: Associate; additional training is required for specialization
Average salary: $32,000-$62,000
About the job: Clinical lab technicians discover the presence or absence of disease by examining lab specimens.

Job: Physician
Years in school: 10-15
Training: Doctoral degree from a medical school
Average salary: $150,000-$300,000
About the job: Physicians examine patients, evaluate medical histories, make diagnoses and prescribe treatment. They may work in a particular specialty, such as anesthesiology, internal medicine, pediatrics or surgery.

Susan Tucker, a professor of Allied Health at the University of Oklahoma (ah.ouhsc.edu), says that one good way to find a career match in health care is to meet with a health care professional or discuss options with a virtual advisor at virtualadvisor.org.

“A next step might be to spend some time shadowing or observing a health professional at work, which is an excellent idea to get a feel for what a day in the life of a health professional is really like,” she says.

Health care professionals agree that no matter what path you choose, one of the most rewarding aspects of this field is the opportunity to have an impact on others’ lives.

June Larson, a registered nurse and associate dean of Health Sciences at the University of South Dakota (usd.edu), says, “I have had the opportunity to work with people at the most vulnerable times in their lives, and they have given me so much more than I ever gave them. In that interchange between the nurse and the patient, there is a helping/healing relationship that binds you forever.”

The Triple Bottom Line: Green-Collar Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:23:00 +0000

Published in What's Working, the Winter 2010 issue of WIN Magazine. (An earlier version of this article appeared in Learn as You Go, the Fall 2009 issue of YES! Magazine.)
http://www.warresisters.org/node/940

Over the past few decades, the decline of industry has meant lower wages and uncertain employment for a growing number of U.S. workers. Yet communities across the country are being revived by a growing job market in clean energy and energy efficiency. These green-collar jobs offer simultaneous solutions to several of the nation’s most pressing issues: economic wellbeing, environmental sustainability, and peace.

According to a 2009 report by the American Solar Energy Society, American green-collar jobs totaled more than 9 million in 2007, and 37 million can be created by 2030, if policymakers support renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives at the state and federal level. “We must build a 21st-century workforce in America to compete in the new clean energy economy. This means training a new generation of workers to fill a wide range of skilled jobs in the rapidly growing green sector,” says Phil Angelides, Chairman of the Apollo Alliance, a coalition formed in 2001 to push for a clean energy revolution.

Climate change legislation such as the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, introduced in the Senate by John Kerry (DMA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA), promises to expand the clean energy industry by capping carbon emissions and boosting job training programs. Every dollar spent on clean energy creates nearly four times as many jobs as a dollar invested in oil and gas, Kerry pointed out in an op-ed promoting the bill.

Pathways out of Poverty

Because green-collar job training is affordable—usually requiring an associate’s degree at most—and because these jobs typically offer good living wages, they represent a way out of poverty and into the middle class. For example, an experienced journeyman trained to retrofit houses stands to make up to $50 an hour. “If a job improves the environment but doesn’t provide a family-supporting wage or a career ladder to move low-income workers into higher-skilled occupations, it is not a green-collar job,” says Apollo Alliance spokesman Sam Haswell.

The creation of green-collar jobs is having a positive impact on communities plagued by violence and economic despair. “By increasing green jobs training opportunities for young people in low-income areas,” says Haswell, “we can create pathways out of poverty and help end the cycle of violence that afflicts many of America’s poorest communities.”

In Santa Fe, where the high school graduation rate languishes below 50 percent, a group called ¡Youthworks! collaborated with city officials and local businesses to create the Green Collar Jobs Apprenticeship Program in 2008. The program offers youth valuable training, academic skill building, and job counseling, while helping to change their image in the community.

“There’s a lot of racism and discrimination and bad perceptions of young people in Santa Fe,” says Tobe Bott-Lyons, educational coordinator at ¡Youthworks!. “And now you see these tattooed kids that people are generally used to being scared of restoring the river and building a house, and they’re retrofitting homes and installing solar panels.”

Lauren Herrera’s life turned upside-down when her six-yearold son died last year. She started getting into trouble, which culminated in drug-related felony charges that caused her to lose her job as a dental assistant. Scarce jobs and a criminal record made it hard to find work, until ¡Youthworks! gave her an opportunity to turn her life around and play a positive role in her community. Now she weatherizes homes for low-income families with the newly launched Energy RX crew. “They’re ecstatic when they find out it’s free,” she says. “It’s very rewarding.”

Fostering Peace

Since green-collar jobs offer alternatives to youth whose limited career options may have once pushed them toward military service, some peace organizations view them as a counterweight to the “poverty draft.” The American Friends Service Committee notes on its website that the Pentagon devoted $4 billion to recruitment among low-income and minority youth in 2003. The organization has highlighted green jobs in the career guides it makes available to youth who are considering military service.

As the green economy develops, it is likely to help ease conflicts over resources and climate change-driven social upheaval. “Transitioning to homegrown renewable fuels will reduce our dependence on unstable, war-torn regimes to meet our own growing demand for oil, which will in turn increase U.S. energy security and also help curb climate change,” asserts Haswell.

Few understand this equation more personally than the veterans who have seen first-hand the harmful effects of oil dependency. They are raising their voices through organizations such as Operation Free, a veterans group fighting for climate change legislation and green jobs. Main State Rep. and Operation Free Campaign Coordinator Alex Cornell du Houx says he began thinking about the need for clean energy while deployed with the Marines in Fallujah in 2006. He and other veterans recently toured 22 states telling their stories and highlighting the importance of green energy as a national security issue. In December, Operation Free members joined representatives of 170 countries at the international climate conference in Copenhagen.

Veterans have another reason to take the initiative in developing the green economy: They have suffered disproportionately during the current recession. The jobless rate for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans aged 20–24 reached 15 percent in February, compared with a 13.8 percent jobless rate for non-veterans in the same age group. After finding that their military training has fewer applications in the civilian job search than they had expected, many veterans end up reenlisting. As a result, they often experience the strain of additional combat tours.

Veterans Green Jobs, a part of the Operation Free coalition, trains veterans in home weatherization and helps place them in energy-efficiency jobs in Colorado. One of its programs, called Home Energy Audit Training (HEAT), offers veterans a monthly stipend while they conduct training in the field. “Not only does it get veterans employed,” says Cornell du Houx, “but it gives them skills and training for a job that can’t be exported.”

Participating in the green economy provides veterans with more than a job, however. “All veterans come home with some form of PTSD,” says Cornell du Houx. As they cope with the psychological scars of war and struggle to readapt to civilian life, these jobs also provide a source of healing and a new sense of mission.

Job Training

Throughout the country, community college programs in alternative energy have been flooded with recently unemployed workers and those simply seeking valuable new skills. In Michigan, which suffers the nation’s highest unemployment rate (12 percent), the transition to a green economy promises to revive communities that have been devastated by job losses in the auto industry. Michigan’s Green Jobs Initiative is one of the programs made possible by the $500 million in federal stimulus funds allocated for green workforce development. The funding allows workers to receive up to $10,000 to enroll in the new training programs.

The alternative energy degree program at Lansing Community College, one of the first of its kind, has seen enrollment grow from 42 students in 2005 to 252 in 2008. Starting in the fall, the college will be offering new certificates in solar, geothermal, wind turbines, and energy efficiency. The college has also partnered with the National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium (NAFTC) to develop an alternative energy curriculum for other colleges and universities nationwide.

At the same time, there’s a return to the apprenticeship model of learning by doing and a growing acknowledgement that valuable education happens outside the classroom.

In Bellingham, Wash., which National Public Radio’s Marketplace recently declared “the epicenter of a new economic model,” the Opportunity Council’s Building Performance Center is teaming up with Bellingham Technical College to provide green workforce development. “We feel like this training has to take place on the job and in the field,” says the center’s director John Davies. “The training has to include hands-on learning along with the learning that takes place in the classroom.”

The center is one of 26 agencies participating in a state-run project that sends trainers to teach home audits and energy retrofits in communities across Washington, including those that are not served by established training programs. Led by experienced peer technicians, these sessions are customized to meet the specific needs of Washington agencies that provide low-income weatherization services.

Sound Alliance, in Pierce County, Wash., matches women, people of color, youth, and members of other traditionally disadvantaged groups with openings in green-collar apprenticeship programs. Like other Industrial Areas Foundation organizations, the alliance empowers people to create change and become grassroots leaders. One leader, Steve Gelb, emphasizes the need to train workers in deep retrofitting, which involves not only simple weatherization, but replacing furnaces and water heaters. “We do that for two reasons; it saves more energy, and it also creates higher-skilled jobs.”

The need for green workforce development has produced unprecedented collaboration among labor and environmental organizations, government agencies, schools, and businesses. Steve Gelb says that this collaboration has turned the historical divide between labor and environmental concerns on its head. “We call it the ‘triple bottom line,’” he says. “We’re reducing carbon, creating jobs, and saving money for people in the homes we’re retrofitting.”

Are You the Next Apprentice?

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:38:00 +0000

Published in the January issue of Next Step Magazine
http://www.nextstepmagazine.com/nextstep/articlePage1.aspx?artId=3520&categoryId=61

Preparing for an exciting career does not have to burn a hole in your pocket.As an apprentice, you can earn a paycheck while learning valuable skills from experienced professionals in a wide variety of trades.

Apprenticeships are as diverse as the careers that offer them, including carpentry, electrical work, firefighting, health services and more.

“The more training you have, the more likely you are to find employment,” says Randy Ambuehl, training director of the Electrical Industry Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee (JATC) in Washington state.

In addition to on-the-job training, apprentices receive classroom instruction, usually at a community or technical college. Most courses are offered at night and on the weekends.

At the end of the training program, which can last from two to five years, an apprentice receives a Certificate of Completion.

Someone who earns this nationally recognized credential is called a journey level worker or journeyman.

Who can be an apprentice?

Although some trades require apprentices to be at least 18 years old, others take on apprentices as young as 16. Still others, called youth apprenticeships, are specifically designed for teens.

Wisconsin’s statewide Youth Apprenticeship Program allows students to do paid work in fields ranging from health care to information technology, while taking related courses and possibly receiving college credit.

What’s required in an apprenticeship?

Apprenticeship programs vary greatly in their requirements. Applicants may be asked to provide a high school diploma or scores from the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB), administered by the U.S. Department of Labor Employment Services.

Depending on the occupation, apprentices may also be required to complete certain math courses or electives, such as algebra, mechanical drawing or shop classes.

“As in any occupation, you’re going to have to be dependable,” says Ambuehl. “Construction is a team sport, so you need to be relatively physically fit—and interpersonal skills are good to have also.”

How much will I make?

One of the great things about apprenticeships is that they provide a chance to receive free training. Your sponsor—the company you work for, a trade association, or an educational trust—will typically cover the cost of your apprenticeship program. At most, you may be asked to pay for books, tools, or other necessary
materials.

Apprentices are generally full-time employees, earning wages that begin at approximately 40 percent of what a journeyman makes. As their training progresses, so does their pay, often equaling 90 percent of a journeyman’s wages toward the end of the program.

In many occupations, they are also eligible for benefits such as health care and vacation pay.

Wages for apprentices and journeymen depend greatly on the trade, region, and whether the apprenticeship is with a union or non-union employer.

How do I get an apprenticeship?

You can find an apprenticeship directly through a company, a labor organization, a trade association, or your local labor department.

As long as you are willing to put in the time and work, an apprenticeship can be a great opportunity to learn new skills and get to know a trade while earning money.

Losing Liberal Arts

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:51:00 +0000

Published in the January 2010 issue of In These Times.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/5312/losing_liberal_arts

At the end of the 2007-2008 academic year, shrinking enrollment and a budget crisis forced Antioch College to close its doors after 156 years of progressive liberal arts education. Other liberal arts colleges and programs are under

similar stress. University of California-Santa Cruz is not accepting applications to its History of Consciousness for the 2010-2011 academic year. Goddard College underwent dramatic restructuring in 2002, and the New College of California ended operations in 2008. These losses are emblematic of the hardships facing liberal arts and humanities programs.

In light of rising costs, students fear liberal arts degrees are not worth the price tag. Consequently, interest in the liberal arts and humanities is on the wane, and the education they provide runs the risk of becoming restricted to elites who are rich in capital—cultural and otherwise. The liberal arts are not the only source of a valuable education, but they place an unparalleled emphasis on critical thinking, integrated learning and civic engagement. The growing inaccessibility threatens to deepen the divide between a well-educated elite (once called the ruling class) and a technically proficient, but less broadly educated, middle and working class.

In the face of financial insecurity, students, colleges and universities have begun to calculate the value of higher education in terms of the “bottom line.” As tuition skyrockets and education becomes more unaffordable, students want assurances that their degrees will benefit them financially. A 2004 UCLA survey of incoming freshmen at 700 colleges and universities reported that the top reasons chosen for going to college included “to get training for a specific career” (74.6 percent), “to be able to get a better job” (71.8 percent), and/or “to be able to make more money” (70.1 percent). Meanwhile, over the last 25 years tuition has risen by 440 percent—more than four times the rate of inflation.

A college degree is no longer a dependable ticket to a middle-class lifestyle. Though a 2006 study commissioned by the Association of American Colleges & Universities showed that business leaders seek employees with a wide base of skills and knowledge, recent graduates are not finding a higher education advantageous amid the economic downturn. The job market for college graduates dropped 40 percent in 2009, according to a Michigan State University study of 2,500 companies nationwide. For many graduates lucky enough to find employment, the recession has meant taking low-paying retail or customer service jobs while struggling to pay off student loans.

Meanwhile, colleges and universities are explicitly gearing their curricula toward the job market, including tailoring academic programs toward the needs of local corporations. Macalester College President Brian Rosenberg predicts that “20 years from now there will be fewer colleges that fall under the category of small residential liberal arts colleges.” Data on emerging trends seems to agree. In an article in Inside Higher Ed, “The Case of the Disappearing Liberal Arts College,” Roger G. Baldwin and Vicki L. Baker write that “national data on liberal arts colleges suggest that their numbers are decreasing as many evolve into ‘professional colleges’ or other types of higher education institutions.”

Some, like Massachusetts Higher Education Commissioner Richard M. Freeland, hail this development. Freeland is part of a movement to connect liberal arts and professional programs through the inclusion of internships, practical skill development, study abroad programs and experiential education. He argues that advocacy for a stronger emphasis on practical skills can complement the traditional goals of liberal learning.

Yet, it is unclear if liberal arts colleges will be able to undergo this transformation and retain their core missions. “Whether you can sustain the intensity of focus on the liberal arts portion while still doing all those other things is an open question,” says Rosenberg.

As colleges and universities strive to become more profitable, faculty are coping with their own economic squeeze. Over the past three decades, colleges and universities have replaced tenure-track faculty positions with contract positions, often part-time. In his 2008 book The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities (Fordham University Press), Ohio State University English professor Frank Donoghue writes that tenure-track and tenured professors now make up only 35 percent of college faculty, and that number is steadily falling. He notes that the decline in tenured positions has disproportionately affected faculty in liberal arts and humanities programs, which lack the government and private funding enjoyed by other departments. In turn, aspiring professors are becoming discouraged by the prospect of juggling multiple academic adjunct positions for little pay and no job security.

The current recession has greatly amplified existing pressures on liberal arts and humanities programs. Thomas H. Benton writes in his Chronicle of Higher Education article “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go,” that universities have “historically taken advantage of recessions to bring austerity to teaching” through hiring freezes, early retirements, and the replacement of tenured faculty with adjuncts. He writes, “When the recession ends, the hiring freezes will become permanent, since departments will have demonstrated that they can function with fewer tenured faculty members.”

Students, too, are likely to face the long-lasting consequences of shrinking endowments at private colleges and budget cuts at public institutions.

This past year, the director of financial aid at Reed College tasked the admissions team to not send acceptance letters to 100 scholarship students and instead find 100 students rich enough to pay $49,950 per year for tuition, room and board.

If liberal arts colleges such as Reed are unable to recover from financial hardship, they risk losing their economic, social and ethnic diversity.

In turn, students lacking a privileged background may be denied access to a liberal arts education, regardless of their achievements or aspirations.

“Figuring out a way with smaller endowments to provide the financial aid necessary to enroll an economically diverse student body—and to pay for all the other things that you have to pay for at a college—is a very big challenge,” says Rosenberg of Macalester College.

“One of the risks that we have to attend to is not becoming the educational equivalent of a BMW.”

If a liberal arts education becomes a luxury, the implications for civil society are profound. A broad-based higher education provides an environment that fosters the critical thinking skills that are the hallmark of informed, responsible citizenship. Disparity in education equals disparity in power. By making a well-rounded education available only to the elite, we move one step closer to a society of two classes: one taught to think and rule and another groomed to follow and obey.

Politics of Denial

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:40:00 +0000

Published September 24, 2009 in Middle East Mirror.
http://www.middleeastmirror.com/politics%20of%20denial.html

History is political. And in a region fraught with battles over legitimacy, where each group prizes the mantle of righteous victimhood, the political implications of history are deeply felt. Unfortunately, when political ideologies obscure our common humanity, conflicts over history can generate a climate of denial.

In the Middle East, the present reverberates with historical suffering. On Yom HaShoah in Israel, sirens mark the tragedy of the Nazi genocide, and the nation comes to a stop as Israelis stand at attention and remember the loss of six million. Memorials to the victims of terrorism dot the country. Each year Palestinians remember the Nakba ("Catastrophe") with demonstrations commemorating the exile of 750,000 Palestinians during the 1948 war. Shaheed ("martyr") posters cover the walls of refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank. The faces of martyrs are also omnipresent in Iran, where passion plays mourning Shia leader Imam Hussein swirl with memories of bloodshed in the Islamic Revolution and Iran-Iraq War.

Denying the suffering of others can serve multiple political purposes. For example, rejecting the Holocaust or the Nakba can be a vehicle to challenge Israel's right to exist or Palestinians' right of return. Denial--especially when victims are accused of emotional manipulation--can also undercut sympathy for adversaries, which is especially critical in a battle over international opinion.

Denying the Holocaust

Before heading to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a speech during Iran's annual Quds Day (Jerusalem Day) rally labeling the Holocaust "a lie" and "a mythical claim". The speech was one of many expressions of denial from the Iranian government, which in December 2006 convened a conference challenging the authenticity of the Holocaust. According to NPR diplomatic correspondent Mike Shuster, the Iranian government's Holocaust denial serves the political purpose of delegitimizing Israel's existence while diverting attention from domestic problems such as its troubled economy.

Holocaust denial also runs rampant throughout the Arab Middle East, appearing often in newspapers and other media. As the U.N. Relief and Works Agency discussed plans to teach about the Holocaust in its Gaza schools, Hamas spiritual leader Younis al-Astal condemned the curriculum as a "war crime." In a written statement, Al-Astal called the curriculum tantamount to "marketing a lie and spreading it," arguing that it "serves the Zionist colonizers."

In an April editorial in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Palestinian writer Aziz Abu Sarah wrote of his decision to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day by watching the film Schindler's List. His reflections reveal much about the impulse to deny the suffering of those on the opposing side of a conflict. "As Palestinians, we simply did not learn about [the Holocaust]," he wrote. "There was a stigma attached to it, an understanding that Israel would use the Holocaust to lobby for sympathy, then turn and use the sympathy as a terrible weapon against the Palestinian people…. Deep down, I think I felt that by acknowledging their pain, I would betray or marginalize my own suffering."

Silencing the Nakba

Denial cuts both ways, however. Israeli Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar recently announced his intention to remove mention of the Nakba from textbooks, arguing that the subject would encourage extremism among Arab-Israelis. Notably, Israeli textbooks bore no mention of the Nakba at all until Israel's former Education Minister Yuli Tamir approved a text broaching the subject in 2007.

In an interview with the Institute for Middle East Understanding, Israeli activist Eitan Bronstein, founder of the organization Zochrot ("Remembering"), described the lack of awareness about the Nakba in Israel. "When it comes to the Nakba and what was there before Israel was created, it's a big hole, a black hole and people don't know how to deal with it," he said. There is, in part, a linguistic reason for this gap: during the 1948 war, many Palestinian villages were destroyed or depopulated, and the names of those that remained were changed from Arabic to Hebrew.

In May, Israel's Ministerial Committee on Legislation approved a motion to ban Nakba Day commemorations of the birth of the refugee crisis. According to the motion, brought before the committee by Knesset Member Alex Miller of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu ("Israel Is Our Home") party, anyone observing Nakba Day could receive up to three years in jail. The motion was a source of heated controversy between those who opposed it on free speech grounds and those who alleged the Nakba demonstrations constituted "incitement" against the State of Israel.

The Armenian Genocide

In Turkey, the government refuses to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide that claimed an estimated 1.5 million Armenian lives in the Ottoman Empire during and shortly after World War I. As with the Nakba, the Turkish avoidance of history has a linguistic side. Because of Turkey's 1928 language reform, during which Turkey switched from an Arabic alphabet to a Latin-based alphabet, most Turks are unable to read Ottoman-era writings.

In April 2007, Turkey objected to the wording of a U.N. exhibition entitled "Lessons from Rwanda," which included the following sentence: "Following World War 1, during which one million Armenians were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin urged the United Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international crimes." The objection caused a delay in the opening of the exhibition, which occurred three weeks later after a compromise wording was created.

Official rejection of the genocide has had real consequences for Turkish artists and intellectuals courageous enough to address the issue. Under the controversial Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which took effect in 2005, it is a crime to insult Turkey, the Turkish ethnicity, or Turkish government institutions. The article has enabled prominent Turkish novelists Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak to be brought to trial for referencing the genocide, though charges were dropped in both cases. However, the grave repercussions of denial came through in 2006, when renowned Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was prosecuted under Article 301 and was subsequently assassinated in January 2007. The assassination took place shortly after Dink appeared in the documentary Screamers, about denial of the Armenian Genocide.

Recognition and Reconciliation

The act of acknowledging and honoring others' suffering is an essential part of reconciliation. In an interview with JustVision, Aziz Abu Sarah told of his desire for revenge after his brother died from injuries he sustained during beatings in an Israeli prison. However, after a family friend persuaded Abu Sarah and his parents to participate in the dialogue organization the Bereaved Families Forum, his growing awareness of Israeli grief prompted him to become a peace activist.

On a larger scale, such encounters can play a significant role in dismantling the climate of denial and transforming conflicts. Acknowledging past suffering does not mean excusing present-day injustices. Rather, by recognizing others' pain, it is possible to reverse the battle over victimhood and establish meaningful human connections.

Narratives War

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:20:00 +0000

Published in Middle East Mirror on September 23, 2009
http://www.middleeastmirror.com/narratives%20war.html

This week, President Obama hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at his New York hotel on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly gathering. While a step in the right direction, the meeting generated little hope for renewed negotiations between the two sides. Indeed, with the rising power of Hamas and a rightward shift in Israeli politics, most experts are casting grim predictions of ongoing deadlock that could spell the death of the two-state solution.

Yet polls show majorities of Israelis and Palestinians to support a peace settlement, and a consensus exists over the general framework of such a solution. In fact, the deepest source of contention is not whether peace is desirable or what its parameters should be. Rather, it is an all-out war of historical narratives playing out on an international stage, and the American public has front row seats.

At a fundamental level, each side of this narrative battle seeks to establish a monopoly on victimhood, delegitimizing the other's suffering while sanctifying its own. Each perceives itself as a heroic David battling an intractable Goliath, viewing the conflict through the lens of past victimization. When suicide bombers and rockets strike their cities, Israelis recall centuries of persecution culminating in genocide and wars in which they seemed hopelessly pitted against multiple armies. And when tanks and missiles tear through their streets, Palestinians remember their exiles in 1948 and 1967 and decades of occupation.

As universally human and understandable as this tendency is, it creates an obstacle to reconciliation that must be overcome if a peace settlement is to move forward. A just and lasting peace cannot come about by merely delineating borders and agreeing to end violence; it must include mutual recognition and dialogue.

Because the narratives war involves the international community, such dialogue must also take place internationally, especially in the United States. Since the creation of the State of Israel, and particularly after its sweeping, monumental victory in the Six Day War of 1967, the United States has played an important role in Israeli affairs. Because of Israel's dependence on diplomatic, military, and economic support from the U.S., both sides of the conflict are acutely aware of the necessity of swaying American public opinion. This has translated into a fierce battle over academic and media channels and the access granted them to American hearts and minds.

A major source of contention is the use of language, whether in labeling geographical locations, deciding what to call perpetrators of violence, or invalidating the opposing narrative. The West Bank becomes Judea and Samaria; terrorists become martyrs; and the peace process becomes the "peace process."

In today's Information Age, the proliferation of media has greatly increased the scope of the narratives war. College campuses have also become battlegrounds. Troublingly, the physical and rhetorical conflicts have even merged, and journalists have become targets for those who wish to silence them.

Those who care about Middle East peace can play a leading role in transforming this ideological conflict. By creating dialogue that honors both narratives, the international community can transcend the polarization surrounding this issue and help pave the way for genuine peace.

Colleges for Free Thinkers

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:59:00 +0000

Published in the September issue of Next Step Magazine : http://www.nextstepmagazine.com/nextstep/articlepage1.aspx?artId=3428&categoryId=59

Do you often wonder how your schoolwork relates to the real world? Or perhaps you have trouble remembering names and dates for history tests but write amazing essays on the lessons of history.

If this sounds like you, then you may be interested in one of the innovative colleges that offer an alternative to the traditional college experience.

Student-designed curriculum

Some students take comfort in the familiar academic structure of grades, exams and course requirements. However, there are some students who thrive much better in a self-directed learning environment with the freedom to decide their own courses of study.

At The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., students enroll not in individual courses, but in interdisciplinary programs, such as “Health and Human Development,” “Writing for Change” or “Music, Math and Motion.” Each program explores a theme or question from a variety of angles.

Like their peers at Evergreen, students at Bennington College in rural Vermont design their own interdisciplinary courses and receive detailed written evaluations rather than grades. The interdisciplinary format allows students to learn about a subject in depth, discovering the connections between different themes or ideas.

At St. John’s College, a small, rigorous college with campuses in Maryland and New Mexico, there are no textbooks or lectures. Instead, students read great works of literature, study mathematics and learn to write classical music. At the end of each semester, rather than receiving a grade, students meet with instructors for a no-holds-barred evaluation.

Evaluations are “much more informative than letter grades,” says Evergreen alum Andy Cornell. “But lackluster work will be much more glaring if you aren’t on your game.”

Real-world experience

Many of these schools strive to bridge the gap between the classroom and the real world. Eugene Lang, part of the New School for Social Research, is located in the heart of New York City and offers opportunities to intern at the U.N. Relief Work Agency, teach kids to read in Harlem, or learn directly from curators at the Museum of Modern Art.

A high proportion (64 percent) of students at Earlham, an Indiana college founded by Quakers, study abroad through opportunities like peace studies programs in Northern Ireland and the Middle East. Many are also active volunteers, collectively contributing 30,000 hours to volunteerism. These experiences help students break out of the campus bubble and bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Small classes

With a total enrollment of fewer than 800 students, the New College of Florida is a close-knit campus where students call their faculty by their first names and meet with them at cafés to discuss philosophy.

Vermont’s Marlboro College is even smaller, with an enrollment of only 330 students, allowing for close interaction with faculty, including advanced one-on-one instruction called tutorials.

Campus life

The college experience is about more than just academics, though, and campus life can be as unique as the classroom environment. Whether it’s an abundance of vegetarian food in the dining hall or the tendency of students to be involved in social activism, these campuses foster an appreciation for individuality that attracts independent thinkers.

At Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., the longest running student group is Mixed Nuts, a food co-op that provides organic food to students and community members.

On Bard’s rural New York campus, student-written “zines”—homemade, low-budget magazines about anything from music to politics—are popular, and the college houses what is reputed to be the largest zine library on the East Coast.

Portland, Oregon’s quirky, intellectual Reed College offers theme dorms, including one about ancient civilizations and an organic-friendly co-op.

Is a nontraditional college for you?

Students who thrive at nontraditional colleges like to take the initiative in their own educations.

“I wanted to learn for the sake of knowledge, not for just the degree,” says Rachel, a St. John’s alum. She adds that the curriculum there is unique because it “trains you to look at the world critically and form your own opinion.”

Of course, nontraditional colleges are not for everyone. Their rigorous but unstructured academics can cause some students to fall through the cracks. For the right student, however, these extraordinary learning environments offer a true chance to blossom as a thinker and a person.

Trade Your Job

noreply@blogger.com (Valerie) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:24:00 +0000

Published in Fall 2009 issue of YES! Magazine: http://www.yesmagazine.com/issues/learn-as-you-go/trade-your-job

The old apprenticeship model of learning by doing gets new life as people who’ve been left out of the job market train to meet the growing demand for green-collar workers.


Youth participants in the ¡Youthworks! Green Collar Jobs Apprenticeship Program in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Photo courtesy of ¡YouthWorks!

In the last 30 years, wages have dropped for people without college degrees. But in Pierce County, Washington, high school students who aren’t headed for college are learning to retrofit houses; they stand to make up to $50 an hour once they’re experienced journeymen. In Lansing, Michigan, unemployed auto workers can get up to $10,000 to train for new careers in renewable energy. These people, and others nationwide, are part of a rapidly expanding market for green-collar workers.

Since green-collar job training is affordable—usually requiring an associate’s degree at most—and since these jobs typically offer good living wages, they represent a pathway out of poverty and into the middle class.

“If a job improves the environment but doesn’t provide a family-supporting wage or a career ladder to move low-income workers into higher-skilled occupations, it is not a green-collar job,” says Sam Haswell of the Apollo Alliance, a coalition formed in 2001 to push for a clean-energy revolution.

Photo courtesy of ¡YouthWorks!

According to a 2009 report by the American Solar Energy Society, there were 9 million green-collar jobs in the United States in 2007, and 37 million could be created by 2030 if policymakers support renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives at the state and federal level.

“We must build a 21st century workforce in America to compete in the new clean energy economy,” says Apollo Alliance Chair Phil Angelides. “This means training a new generation of workers to fill a wide range of skilled jobs in the rapidly growing green sector.”

The need for green workforce development has produced unprecedented collaboration among labor and environmental organizations, government agencies, schools, and businesses. There’s a return to the apprenticeship model of learning by doing and a growing acknowledgement that valuable education happens outside the classroom.

In Bellingham, Washington, which NPR’s Marketplace recently declared “the epicenter of a new economic model,” the Opportunity Council’s Building Performance Center is teaming up with Bellingham Technical College to provide green workforce development. “We feel like this training has to take place on the job and in the field,” says the Center’s director, John Davies. “The training has to include hands-on learning along with the learning that takes place in the classroom.”

The Center is one of 26 agencies participating in a state-run project that sends trainers to teach home audits and energy retrofits in communities across Washington, including those not served by established training programs. Led by experienced peer technicians, these sessions are customized to meet the specific needs of Washington agencies that provide low-income weatherization services.

Photo courtesy of ¡YouthWorks!

Sound Alliance, in Pierce County, Washington, matches women, people of color, youth, and members of other traditionally disadvantaged groups with openings in green-collar apprenticeship programs. Like other Industrial Areas Foundation organizations, the Sound Alliance empowers people to create change and become grassroots leaders. One leader, Steve Gelb, emphasizes the need to train workers in deep retrofitting, which involves not only simple weatherization, but replacing furnaces and water heaters. Doing so saves more energy and also creates higher-skilled jobs, Gelb says.

When youth and people from disadvantaged communities step into such high-demand, high-salary jobs, it not only gives them an avenue toward a brighter future; it also helps to change community perceptions of them. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, for instance, the group ¡Youthworks! joined with city officials and local businesses to create the Green Collar Jobs Apprenticeship Program in 2008. The program provides valuable training, academic skill building, and job counseling to youth in a city where the dropout rate hovers around 50 percent.

“There’s a lot of racism and discrimination and bad perceptions of young people in Santa Fe,” says Tobe Bott-Lyons, educational coordinator at ¡Youthworks! “Now you see these tattooed kids that people are generally used to being scared of restoring the river and building a house, and they’re retrofitting homes and installing solar panels.”

Lauren Herrera’s life turned upside down when her 6-year-old son passed away last year. She started getting into trouble, which culminated in drug-related felony charges that caused her to lose her job as a dental assistant. Scarce jobs and a criminal record made it hard to find work, until ¡Youthworks! gave her an opportunity to play a positive role in her community. Now she weatherizes homes for low-income families with the newly launched Energy RX crew. “They’re ecstatic when they find out the weatherization is free,” she says. “It’s very rewarding.”

Young people aren’t the only ones looking for green-collar jobs. Throughout the country, community college programs in alternative energy have been flooded with recently unemployed workers and those simply seeking valuable new skills. In Michigan, which suffers the nation’s highest unemployment rate, the transition to a green economy promises to revive communities that have been devastated by job losses in the auto industry. Michigan’s Green Jobs Initiative is one of the programs made possible by the $500 million in federal stimulus funds allocated for green workforce development. The money helps workers enroll in new community college programs in green sector fields like alternative energy.

The alternative energy degree program at Lansing Community College, one of the first of its kind, has grown from 42 students in 2005 to 252 in 2008. Starting this fall, the college will offer new certificates in solar, geothermal, wind turbines, and energy efficiency. The college also has partnered with the National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium to develop an alternative energy curriculum for colleges and universities nationwide.

Gelb says that green workforce development has turned on its head the historical divide between labor and environmental concerns. “We call it the ‘triple bottom line,’” he says. “We’re reducing carbon, creating jobs, and saving money for people in the homes we’re retrofitting.”