http://spenshaonline.com/site/

Video: Spensha Baker - "Hallelujah"

let's get some praise up in hurr. enjoy!

 

Posted by KenyaChristian at 1:04 PM

 

 

____________________________

Spensha Baker - Purpose

_____________________________

Spensha Baker Interview

Announcing Our 2011 Fiction Contest

Tennessee Williams / New Orleans

Literary Festival • March 23-27, 2011

The Festival is pleased to announce our 2011 Fiction Contest. We will be accepting submissions by mail and online from June 1, 2010—November 15, 2010. Grand Prize $1500 Domestic airfare (up to $500) and French Quarter accommodations to attend the 2011 Festival in New Orleans VIP All-Access Festival Pass ($500 value) Public reading at the 2011 Festival (25th anniversary: March 23-27) Publication in Bayou Top Ten Finalists Names will appear on website. Finalists will also receive a panel pass ($60 value) to attend the 2011 Festival. Judge: TBA Guidelines A submission is one original short story, written in English, up to 7,000 words. The author's name should not appear on the manuscript. Please include a separate cover page with story title and word count as well as the author’s name, address, phone, and email. Pages must be numbered and single-spaced. Simultaneous submissions accepted; please notify the Festival if your story is accepted elsewhere. Unlimited entries per person are allowed. You must complete a separate entry payment and submission form for each entry. Stories can be any theme or genre. Do not include professional resumes or biographies with your entry. Entries are judged anonymously; the judges only consider manuscript quality. Eligibility This contest is open only to writers who have not yet published a book of fiction. Published books include self-published books with ISBN numbers. Those who have published books in other genres besides fiction remain eligible. Only previously unpublished stories will be accepted. Stories that won this contest in previous years are ineligible; their authors remain eligible but must submit new work. Stories submitted to this contest in previous years that did not place are eligible. Stories that have won any other writing contest are ineligible. Deadlines The deadline for online and mailed-in submissions is November 15, 2010 (postmark). The winner will be announced by March 1, 2011. Entry Fees $25 per entry. Unlimited entries per person. Submission fees are non-refundable. To enter online: Electronic submissions are preferred and must be in .doc, .rtf or PDF formats. If you are using the latest version of Microsoft Word, please save your submission as .doc and not a .docx file before sending it to us. We accept entry fees via Discover, MasterCard and Visa only. To enter by mail: Send your manuscript and check or money order for $25 (made out to the: Tennessee Williams Literary Festival) to: Fiction Contest Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival 938 Lafayette Street, Suite 514 New Orleans, LA 70113. Do not send submissions by certified mail or signature-required delivery. Fiction Contest Online Submission Step 1: Entry Fee To begin the Fiction Contest submission process by paying your $25 entry fee, click the button below. Once you've paid your entry fee, you'll be taken to the Entry Submission form to provide additional information and upload your contest entry. Read the contest eligibility rules and guidelines above BEFORE you begin the online submission process. Submission fees are non-refundable.

The Ingram New Works Project

Tennessee Repertory Theatre has been gifted with the funds to support the creation of new work for the theatre, and with this mission Tennessee Rep has created the Ingram New Works Project, a program which includes the New Works Lab. Tennessee Rep seeks committed playwrights for residency in the 2010-2011 New Works Lab.

The Ingram New Works Lab

Tennessee Rep will serve and support selected regional playwrights as they work in residence to create new work for the theatre. Tennessee Rep will provide the playwrights-in-residence: 

• A season-long playwright-run script lab that meets once a month.
• Access to professional actors, providing a choice of collaborators amongst theatre artists in Nashville.
• Workshop sessions involving professional directors, designers, and dramaturgs.
• Access to professional marketing and audience development resources.
• A symposium with the Ingram New Works Fellow, a playwright with a national reputation.
• Participation in the New Works Festival, giving the playwrights the opportunity to work with a professional director and actors in rehearsal and hear their script read in front of a live audience.
• A supportive environment to foster and support the playwright’s process.

Monthly script lab

The New Works Lab will meet once a month to provide playwrights-in-residence with a supportive but disciplined environment to workshop their scripts. By definition a laboratory is a testing ground inasmuch as it offers opportunities for observation, practice and experimentation. Every playwright will have the opportunity to hear multiple drafts of their script read aloud by actors and receive feedback from their fellow playwrights. The lab will provide the opportunity for playwrights to shape, mold, and develop as many drafts as they feel necessary before festival rehearsals begin.
Lab Meeting dates (5:30 pm–9:30 pm):
2010: Sept 13; Oct 4; Oct 25; Nov. 22; Dec 13;
2011: Jan 10; Feb 7; Mar 7; Apr 4; April 25; May 9

Collaboration opportunities

Tennessee Rep will facilitate for playwrights-in-residence opportunities to work with their choice of collaborators from amongst top theatre artists in Nashville. Playwrights-in-residence will have access to Tennessee Rep’s professional staff throughout the season, and will have ongoing opportunities to meet with a director, costume designer, set designer and dramaturg to explore what it would take to get their script from page to stage. Each playwright will also have the opportunity to consult with marketing and audience development staff to gather ideas about resources available to best promote their new work.

Lab symposium with New Works Fellow

Playwrights-in-residence will participate in a week-long New Works Lab symposium with the recipient of the Ingram New Works Fellowship, a nationally recognized playwright (symposium dates TBA, subject to the Fellow’s availability). The symposium will take advantage of the New Works Fellow’s experience and skill, focusing on a wide variety of issues related to working as a playwright: everything from how an emerging playwright gets a script produced to how to manage the pitfalls of the development process to specific guidance on the art of playwriting. The New Works Fellow will serve as a mentor to the playwrights-in-residence throughout the season via electronic communication. Lab participants should be prepared to clear their schedule for the entirety of the week-long symposium.

Participation in New Works Festival

Work in the Lab will be focused on goals established by the playwrights-in-residence. However, each playwright will be expected to work toward the creation of a new play that will be presented in a staged reading at the New Works Festival, whether completed or as a work in progress. Please note the following criteria for New Works festival plays being developed in the lab:

• Full-length plays (prefer 80-120 mins. running time)
• Plays that utilize no more than 10 actors.
• Plays that have not previously been produced by any professional company.

The Ingram New Works Lab is intended to be an artistic home for playwrights to share work, hone craft, receive direction, and springboard themselves into the next phase of their writing career, providing a fertile environment for the emergence of great new plays.

Application Guidelines for the Ingram New Works Lab

Tennessee Rep will award up to eight residencies in the New Works Lab to regional playwrights. Each playwright who accepts the residency will commit to participating in the monthly Lab meeting, the New Works symposium, rehearsals for the New Works Festival, and assisting with the New Works Festival in June 2011 as auxiliary artistic staff. Playwrights-in-residence will also be invited to participate in Tennessee Rep staff and outreach events. All playwrights who accept a residency must commit to be available for all lab, symposium, rehearsal and festival dates. Should a playwright-in-residence miss multiple commitments, they may be asked to forgo their place in the New Works Lab. Tennessee Rep does not provide monetary compensation or housing for playwrights-in-residence and encourages regional playwrights to consider travel commitments before applying.

Applications must be submitted by July 15, 2010 to be considered for the 2010-2011 Ingram New Works Lab. Playwrights-in-residence will be identified by August 15, 2010.

All applications should include the following material:

• A letter stating your objectives for working on a new play in the Ingram New Works Lab at Tennessee Rep.
• Bio w/ history as playwright.
• A play that best represents your writing skill. Full-length is preferred, but a substantial one-act play (min. 1 hr running time) will be acceptable for this application. Your script should be collated, paginated, and bound with either binder clips or brads. Please do not use three-brad portfolio covers or report covers, etc. To save trees and shipping costs, we encourage applicants to submit double-sided copies. Author and contact information must appear on the title page. Please do not submit musicals, screenplays, TV scripts, or children’s theatre.
• A brief synopsis of the application play.
• A character breakdown of the application play

Application materials should be addressed to:
Lauren Shouse
Artistic Associate
Re: New Works Lab
Tennessee Repertory Theatre
161 Rains Ave.
Nashville, TN 37203

Travel Contest

Win $1000 in Our Travel Writing Contest - Write a Road Junky Country Guide!

By Roadjunky, Posted Jun 25, 2010

Who said there was no money in travel writing?

If you can’t be comprehensive you might as well be opinionated… Entries due by August 31, 2010.

We were looking at all of our country guides and realised there were some big gaps – how is it we have a guide to Kazakhstan and not France, for instance? Plus a lot of our country guides were written in the early days of Road Junky and we need some fresh blood.

So we decided to have a contest to fill up our list in one big go.

The winning travel writer will get $1000 and the 20 runner ups will get $100 and their guides will be published,

So if you think you know any of the countries listed below like the back of your hand then read the rules REALLY, REALLY, REALLY carefully and submit your guide.

Travel Contest Rules

1. Read some of our country guides first to understand what we’re talking about. Check out some of the better ones like The Philippines, Italy and Hong Kong to get the idea.

2. We said ‘read the country guides first’!

3. Send us the Intro page and the People page first (more on the specific sections ) and we will select 21 entries to go through to the next round and complete the rest of the guide.

DON’T write the whole 6000 word guide and send it in until we’ve approved the first 2 pages!

4. Any entry that uses phrases like ‘land of contrasts’, ‘bustling marketplace’, ‘boasts natural wonders’ will be deleted without a second thought.

5. Photos aren’t necessary but are a plus if they’re entertaining – DON’T send us any files though, just include the links to your flickr page or whatever.

6. If you want to have a chance of winning please understand that we’re looking for ironic, outspoken, original writing that shows us the country in a whole new light. Lonely Planet already did bland and politically correct.

7. Final submission deadline for the first 2 pages is August 31st 2010. Then we will choose 21 writers to complete the full country guide. Once all the guides are finished we’ll probably get everyone to vote on their favourite.

8. If selected as winner or runner up you give us exclusive online rights to the work though you can do anything you want with the piece in print. You can submit as many guides as you want.

9. Include a short bio.

10. Send entries to submissions@roadjunky.com and mark your entry ‘contest country guide’.

Countries available:

Afghanistan
Algeria
Bulgaria
Canada
Chile
China
Croatia
Cuba
Czech Republic
Egypt
Estonia
Ethiopia
Finland
France
Greece
Guatemala
Honduras
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Italy
Jamaica
Jordan
Kenya
Laos
Mali
Madagascar
Mozambique
Namibia
Nepal
Nicaragua
Nigeria
Norway
Papau New Guinea
Poland
Portugal
Senegal
Serbia
Singapore
Somalia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Turkey
Ukraine
Vietnam
Yemen

and maybe we’d consider other ones if they were particularly biting.

Planning on submitting a guide? Let us know by RSVPing on the Contest Facebook Page (not required):

Follow Road Junky on Twitter for live updates @roadjunky

Brooke Smith and John Prendergast

Posted: June 28, 2010 08:55 AM

BIO Become a Fan

Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index

Hello, I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC --

Here's How I Help Fuel the World's Deadliest Conflict

Hello, I'm a Mac, and I'm helping fuel the war in the Congo - currently the deadliest conflict in the world. So are PCs, cell phones, digital cameras and other consumer electronics. That's what Apple's famous "I'm a Mac ... And I'm a PC" ads don't tell you. So I (Brooke) and cinematographer Steven Lubensky, with the help of actors Joshua Malina and John Lehr, decided to create a version that does.

It is not surprising if you didn't know that your favorite Apple gadgets -- your iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac -- are linked to the conflict engulfing the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo today and for the past dozen years. Most people don't know - which is in part why the war in Congo has gone on for so long. With more than 5 million people killed, it is the deadliest conflict since World War II.

As Nick Kristof wrote in The New York Times yesterday, "Electronics manufacturers have tried to hush all this up. They want you to look at a gadget and think 'sleek,' not 'blood.'"

Tech titans -- including Nintendo, HP, Dell, Intel, and RIM, the makers of BlackBerry -- have made millions from products that use conflict minerals and have gotten off the hook for fueling violence in the Congo, thanks to a tendency in today's culture not to question where our everyday items come from.

That's not necessarily a criticism; it's just the way the world works now, where we interact with materials from every corner of the globe on a daily basis. So we tend to think that our new iPhone came from the Mac store down the street or our new digital camera originated from an online camera store. But as you see in our video, the problem arises with all the components inside.

Essential parts of our electronic devices are made from minerals found in eastern Congo. Tin, tantalum, tungsten -- the 3Ts -- and gold serve such necessary functions as making our cell phones vibrate or helping our iPods store electricity.

The same armed groups who control most of the mines that supply these essential minerals to the world market are responsible for the epidemic of sexual violence in eastern Congo. Women and girls pay a gruesome price, and the persistent health conditions and severe trauma that linger for years after an attack are leaving communities and families in utter ruin. In addition, the labor conditions in the mines are abysmal. Indentured servitude is common practice, and children as young as 11 are used to squeeze into the tight spaces underground.

There are few conflicts in the world where the link between our consumer appetites and mass human suffering is so direct.

The lucrative mineral trade -- estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually -- perpetuates the violence because it enables militias and government soldiers to buy weapons to continue the fight for these valuable resources. All along the supply chain that winds its way through central Africa, armed groups and governments benefit immensely from the trade in conflict minerals, making it a very stubborn problem to eradicate.

This reality isn't the result of an elaborate cover-up. Until consumers started asking, electronics companies were satisfied to say that they didn't know whether their products were made with conflict minerals from Congo. The trade in minerals from eastern Congo is shockingly opaque, hence the easy exploitation. Even now, as the issue of conflict minerals gains traction, companies like Apple continue to tell us that their products do not contain conflict minerals because their suppliers said so.

From towns and campuses across the United States to the U.S. Congress, advocates are protesting this inadequate response and pushing to put a system in place to trace, audit, and certify the minerals in our electronic devices, so that ultimately, we as consumers can choose to buy conflict-free.

Visit RAISE Hope for Congo, www.raisehopeforcongo.org, and send the message to tech companies that you want them to make their products conflict-free. And please share this video with your friends.

Brooke Smith is an actress, writer and director. Brooke has acted in many feature films including "The Silence of the Lambs", "Vanya on 42nd Street" and "Series 7: The Contenders." On television, Brooke played Dr. Erica Hahn on "Grey's Anatomy." The MAC/PC Conflict minerals ad is the third PSA Brooke has directed for The Enough Project's RAISE Hope for Congo campaign.

John Prendergast is Co-Founder of Enough, the anti-genocide project at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., and co-author with Don Cheadle of the forthcoming book The Enough Moment.

 

• iPhone
• Apple
• Congo
• iPad

Hello, I'm a Mac, and I'm helping fuel the war in the Congo - currently the deadliest conflict in the world. So are PCs, cell phones, digital cameras and other consumer electronics. That's what Apple'...

Hello, I'm a Mac, and I'm helping fuel the war in the Congo - currently the deadliest conflict in the world. So are PCs, cell phones, digital cameras and other consumer electronics. That's what Apple'...

Related News On Huffington Post:

99.8% Of College Students Have Cell Phones: Ball State Study Over the last few years, the image of students talking, texting or e-mailing on their phones in between classes has become increasingly common on most...

"There Is Almost Total Impunity for Rape in Congo"
Jennie Lorentsson interviews MARGOT WALLSTRÖM, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict

Margot Wallström Credit:UN Photo/Mark Garten

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 28, 2010 (IPS) - Sexual violence against women has become part of modern warfare around the world. In some countries, women cannot even go out to draw water without fear of being attacked and raped.

On Apr. 1, Margot Wallström became the Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Her job is to investigate abuses and make recommendations to the Security Council.

The appointment of Wallström, currently a vice president of the European Commission, comes amidst continued reports of gender violence, including rape and sexual abuse both locally and by humanitarian aid workers and U.N. peacekeepers, mostly in war zones and in post-conflict societies.

The incidents of sexual attacks, both on women and children, have come from several countries, including Cote d'Ivoire, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Haiti, Burundi, Guinea and Liberia.

One of Wallström's first assignments was a trip to the DRC, a nation she calls "the rape capital" of the world. Excerpts from the interview with Wallström follow.

Q: Tell us about your trip.

A: Congo has attracted attention in the media [as a place that is suffering] systematic rape in war. One statistic quoted is 200,000 rapes since the beginning of the war 14 years ago, and it is certainly an underestimate.

When in Congo, I met government representatives and particularly women who had been raped and violated. It was interesting but also disappointing - nothing is getting better and more and more civilians are committing rapes.

But I should be fair and say that there has been progress, the government has introduced laws against rape, it has a national plan and there is political will. There is a lot to do to implement the legislation, but now there is an ambitious legal ground to stand on to be implemented by the police, judiciary and health care.

Q: What are the roots of the problem?

A: The sexual violence in Congo is the result of the war between the many armed groups. To put women in the front line has become a part of modern warfare.

Men often feel threatened in times of conflict and stay inside, but the women have to go out and get water and firewood and go to the fields to find food. In many cases they'll be the first to be attacked. Especially if there is no paid national army that can protect civilians, rape is a part of the looting and crimes against the innocent. In addition, there is almost total impunity for rape in the Congo.

Q: The U.N. has its own force, MONUC, in Congo to protect civilians. What is being done to help women?

A: MONUC has had to adjust their operations after the conditions in the country. For example, MONUC has special patrols which escort women to health care clinics and markets.

Q: The U.N. and the Congolese government are discussing when the U.N. should leave the country. What would happen if the U.N. left the Congo now?

A: We have reason to be worried if the United Nations would leave the Congo. It is still unsettled in some parts of the country and the U.N. provides logistics for many of the NGOs operating in the country, and they rely in the U.N.

What is happening right now is that [the government] wants to show that it can protect the country itself - it's a part of the debate on independence.

Q: How do feel when you hear about U.N. peacekeepers committing atrocities?

A: Just one example is too much. It destroys our confidence in the U.N.'s ability to do great things.

Q: There is criticism that the U.N. is a bureaucratic and inflexible organisation. Do you agree?

A: In every large organisation there is critisism like this. After 10 years in the European Commission, I can recognise such trends here, there is always. But basically, there are high hopes and great confidence in the U.N. and the energy and passion that exists for the U.N. is very useful.

Q: The Security Council has promised to focus even more on the issue of violence against women. Which countries should be focused on?

A: Congo is a given, also Darfur and a number of other countries in Africa. We will also focus on Liberia, where it is more a post-conflict society which has been brutalised and where rape is the most common offence. We cannot be in all countries with conflicts, we will comply with the Security Council agenda. This is a problem that not only exists in Africa.

Q: What can your staff do on site?

A: Our team of legal experts can help a country to establish a modern legislation. Impunity is the foundation of the problem, the women have to go with guilt and the men go free. We must try to understand how such a culture is created and how it can be a method of warfare. Then we can stop it.

(END)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rape Culture 101

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, October 09, 2009

 

Frequently, I receive requests to provide a definition of the term "rape culture." I've referred people to the Wikipedia entry on rape culture, which is pretty good, and I like the definition provided in Transforming a Rape Culture:

A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.

In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable as death or taxes. This violence, however, is neither biologically nor divinely ordained. Much of what we accept as inevitable is in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change.

But my correspondents—whether they are dewy noobs just coming to feminism, advanced feminists looking for a source, or disbelievers in the existence of the rape culture—always seem to be looking for something more comprehensive and less abstract: What is the rape culture? What are its borders? What does it look like and sound like and feel like?

It is not a definition for which they're looking; not really. It's a description. It's something substantive enough to reach out and touch, in all its ugly, heaving, menacing grotesquery.

Rape culture is encouraging male sexual aggression. Rape culture is regarding violence as sexy and sexuality as violent. Rape culture is treating rape as a compliment, as the unbridled passion stirred in a healthy man by a beautiful woman, making irresistible the urge to rip open her bodice or slam her against a wall, or a wrought-iron fence, or a car hood, or pull her by her hair, or shove her onto a bed, or any one of a million other images of fight-fucking in movies and television shows and on the covers of romance novels that convey violent urges are inextricably linked with (straight) sexuality.

Rape culture is treating straight sexuality as the norm. Rape culture is lumping queer sexuality into nonconsensual sexual practices like pedophilia and bestiality. Rape culture is privileging heterosexuality because ubiquitous imagery of two adults of the same-sex engaging in egalitarian partnerships without gender-based dominance and submission undermines (erroneous) biological rationales for the rape culture's existence.

Rape culture is rape being used as a weapon, a tool of war and genocide and oppression. Rape culture is rape being used as a corrective to "cure" queer women. Rape culture is a militarized culture and "the natural product of all wars, everywhere, at all times, in all forms."

Rape culture is 1 in 33 men being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is encouraging men to use the language of rape to establish dominance over one another ("I'll make you my bitch"). Rape culture is making rape a ubiquitous part of male-exclusive bonding. Rape culture is ignoring the cavernous need for men's prison reform in part because the threat of being raped in prison is considered an acceptable deterrent to committing crime, and the threat only works if actual men are actually being raped.

Rape culture is 1 in 6 women being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is not even talking about the reality that many women are sexually assaulted multiple times in their lives. Rape culture is the way in which the constant threat of sexual assault affects women's daily movements. Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you're alone, if you're with a stranger, if you're in a group, if you're in a group of strangers, if it's dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you're carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you're wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who's around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who's at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn't follow all the rules it's your fault.

Rape culture is victim-blaming. Rape culture is a judge blaming a child for her own rape. Rape culture is a minister blaming his child victims. Rape culture is accusing a child of enjoying being held hostage, raped, and tortured. Rape culture is spending enormous amounts of time finding any reason at all that a victim can be blamed for hir own rape.

Rape culture is judges banning the use of the word rape in the courtroom. Rape culture is the media using euphemisms for sexual assault. Rape culture is stories about rape being featured in the Odd News.

Rape culture is tasking victims with the burden of rape prevention. Rape culture is encouraging women to take self-defense as though that is the only solution required to preventing rape. Rape culture is admonishing women to "learn common sense" or "be more responsible" or "be aware of barroom risks" or "avoid these places" or "don't dress this way," and failing to admonish men to not rape.

Rape culture is "nothing" being the most frequent answer to a question about what people have been formally taught about rape.

Rape culture is boys under 10 years old knowing how to rape.

Rape culture is the idea that only certain people rape—and only certain people get raped. Rape culture is ignoring that the thing about rapists is that they rape people. They rape people who are strong and people who are weak, people who are smart and people who are dumb, people who fight back and people who submit just to get it over with, people who are sluts and people who are prudes, people who rich and people who are poor, people who are tall and people who are short, people who are fat and people who are thin, people who are blind and people who are sighted, people who are deaf and people who can hear, people of every race and shape and size and ability and circumstance.

Rape culture is the narrative that sex workers can't be raped. Rape culture is the assertion that wives can't be raped. Rape culture is the contention that only nice girls can be raped.

Rape culture is refusing to acknowledge that the only thing that the victim of every rapist shares in common is bad fucking luck. Rape culture is refusing to acknowledge that the only thing a person can do to avoid being raped is never be in the same room as a rapist. Rape culture is avoiding talking about what an absurdly unreasonable expectation that is, since rapists don't announce themselves or wear signs or glow purple.

Rape culture is people meant to protect you raping you instead—like parents, teachers, doctors, ministers, cops, soldiers, self-defense instructors.

Rape culture is a serial rapist being appointed to a federal panel that makes decisions regarding women's health.

Rape culture is a ruling that says women cannot withdraw consent once sex commences.

Rape culture is a collective understanding about classifications of rapists: The "normal" rapist (whose crime is most likely to be dismissed with a "boys will be boys" sort of jocular apologia) is the man who forces himself on attractive women, women his age in fine health and form, whose crime is disturbingly understandable to his male defenders. The "real sickos" are the men who go after children, old ladies, the disabled, accident victims languishing in comas—the sort of people who can't fight back, whose rape is difficult to imagine as titillating, unlike the rape of "pretty girls," so easily cast in a fight-fuck fantasy of squealing and squirming and eventual relenting to the "flattery" of being raped.

Rape culture is the insistence on trying to distinguish between different kinds of rape via the use of terms like "gray rape" or "date rape."

Rape culture is pervasive narratives about rape that exist despite evidence to the contrary. Rape culture is pervasive imagery of stranger rape, even though women are three times more likely to be raped by someone they know than a stranger, and nine times more likely to be raped in their home, the home of someone they know, or anywhere else than being raped on the street, making what is commonly referred to as "date rape" by far the most prevalent type of rape. Rape culture is pervasive insistence that false reports are common, although they are less common (1.6%) than false reports of auto theft (2.6%). Rape culture is pervasive claims that women make rape accusations willy-nilly, when 61% of rapes remain unreported.

Rape culture is the pervasive narrative that there is a "typical" way to behave after being raped, instead of the acknowledgment that responses to rape are as varied as its victims, that, immediately following a rape, some women go into shock; some are lucid; some are angry; some are ashamed; some are stoic; some are erratic; some want to report it; some don't; some will act out; some will crawl inside themselves; some will have healthy sex lives; some never will again.

Rape culture is the pervasive narrative that a rape victim who reports hir rape is readily believed and well-supported, instead of acknowledging that reporting a rape is a huge personal investment, a difficult process that can be embarrassing, shameful, hurtful, frustrating, and too often unfulfilling. Rape culture is ignoring that there is very little incentive to report a rape; it's a terrible experience with a small likelihood of seeing justice served.

Rape culture is hospitals that won't do rape kits, disbelieving law enforcement, unmotivated prosecutors, hostile judges, victim-blaming juries, and paltry sentencing.

Rape culture is the fact that higher incidents of rape tend to correlate with lower conviction rates.

Rape culture is silence around rape in the national discourse, and in rape victims' homes. Rape culture is treating surviving rape as something of which to be ashamed. Rape culture is families torn apart because of rape allegations that are disbelieved or ignored or sunk to the bottom of a deep, dark sea in an iron vault of secrecy and silence.

Rape culture is the objectification of women, which is part of a dehumanizing process that renders consent irrelevant. Rape culture is treating women's bodies like public property. Rape culture is street harassment and groping on public transportation and equating raped women's bodies to a man walking around with valuables hanging out of his pockets. Rape culture is most men being so far removed from the threat of rape that invoking property theft is evidently the closest thing many of them can imagine to being forcibly subjected to a sexual assault.

Rape culture is treating 13-year-old girls like trophies for men regarded as great artists.

Rape culture is ignoring the way in which professional environments that treat sexual access to female subordinates as entitlements of successful men can be coercive and compromise enthusiastic consent.

Rape culture is a convicted rapist getting a standing ovation at Cannes, a cameo in a hit movie, and a career resurgence in which he can joke about how he hates seeing people get hurt.

Rape culture is when running dogfights is said to elicit more outrage than raping a woman would.

Rape culture is blurred lines between persistence and coercion. Rape culture is treating diminished capacity to consent as the natural path to sexual activity.

Rape culture is pretending that non-physical sexual assaults, like peeping tomming, is totally unrelated to brutal and physical sexual assaults, rather than viewing them on a continuum of sexual assault.

Rape culture is diminishing the gravity of any sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, or culture of actual or potential coercion in any way.

Rape culture is using the word "rape" to describe something that has been done to you other than a forced or coerced sex act. Rape culture is saying things like "That ATM raped me with a huge fee" or "The IRS raped me on my taxes."

Rape culture is rape being used as entertainment, in movies and television shows and books and in video games.

Rape culture is television shows and movies leaving rape out of situations where it would be a present and significant threat in real life.

Rape culture is Amazon offering to locate "rape" products for you.

Rape culture is rape jokes. Rape culture is rape jokes on t-shirts, rape jokes in college newspapers, rape jokes in soldiers' home videos, rape jokes on the radio, rape jokes on news broadcasts, rape jokes in magazines, rape jokes in viral videos, rape jokes in promotions for children's movies, rape jokes on Page Six (and again!), rape jokes on the funny pages, rape jokes on TV shows, rape jokes on the campaign trail, rape jokes on Halloween, rape jokes in online content by famous people, rape jokes in online content by non-famous people, rape jokes in headlines, rape jokes onstage at clubs, rape jokes in politics, rape jokes in one-woman shows, rape jokes in print campaigns, rape jokes in movies, rape jokes in cartoons, rape jokes in nightclubs, rape jokes on MTV, rape jokes on late-night chat shows, rape jokes in tattoos, rape jokes in stand-up comedy, rape jokes on websites, rape jokes at awards shows, rape jokes in online contests, rape jokes in movie trailers, rape jokes on the sides of buses, rape jokes on cultural institutions…

Rape culture is people objecting to the detritus of the rape culture being called oversensitive, rather than people who perpetuate the rape culture being regarded as not sensitive enough.

Rape culture is the myriad ways in which rape is tacitly and overtly abetted and encouraged having saturated every corner of our culture so thoroughly that people can't easily wrap their heads around what the rape culture actually is.

That's hardly everything. It's merely the tip of an unfathomable iceberg.

 

Joyful Noises and Joyless Measures in New Orleans

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/joyful_noises_and_joyless_ordinances_in_new_orleans_20100702/

Posted on Jul 2, 2010

By Larry Blumenfeld

AP / Alex Brandon

Alana Jones, left, leads the Treme Brass Band through the French Quarter of New Orleans in a 2007 parade to call attention to the plight of musicians.

_________________

There’s a scene in episode three of the HBO series “Treme”—David Simon’s TV drama depiction of post-flood New Orleans—wherein Antoine Batiste, the itinerant trombonist played by Wendell Pierce, walks through the French Quarter after playing at a Bourbon Street strip club. It’s a gig he took only reluctantly, out of need, from the slim pickings around in New Orleans in late 2005. He’s tired, maybe a little drunk, and carrying his horn, sans case. He pauses before two street musicians on the corner of Royal and St. Peter streets, in front of Rouses Market. Energized by the version of “Ghost of a Chance” played by a pretty young violinist (Annie, portrayed by Lucia Micarelli) and a gangly young pianist (Sonny, actor Michiel Huisman), he sings a verse, nods in approval of Annie’s improvisation, then turns and half-staggers into the night. His trombone grazes the side-view mirror of a police car parked nearby. Then, in a rush—“Hey, you tryin’ to bust up our unit?” shouts one cop—Antoine is up against a wall, his instrument slammed to the ground by an officer. A minor beat-down and arrest follow.

Simon clearly meant to highlight the pressure-cooker atmosphere of New Orleans, especially within an undermanned and overburdened police force, in late 2005. And he foreshadowed a theme that courses through his show: the longstanding tension between the city’s culture bearers and its powers that be. That tension has ratcheted up, or at least has grown more pointed, since 2005.

Let’s say that “Treme” scene played out in real life, in June 2010: Police officers approach Annie and Sonny to inform them that playing music after 8 p.m. violates city ordinances, that even Antoine’s casual singing along is forbidden. They ask the musicians to read and sign their names and dates of birth on documents acknowledging receipt of a notice stating: “Effective immediately, the New Orleans Police Department will be enforcing the below-listed ordinance”—Section 66-205, which says, “It shall be unlawful for any person to play musical instruments on public rights-of-way between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m.”

In the real New Orleans, on June 12th, as the premiere season of “Treme” drew to its close, having celebrated the street musicians and brass bands of New Orleans as something like heroes, just such notice was served by quality-of-life officer Ronald Jones Jr. on the To Be Continued Brass Band (that’s to be continued, as in a cultural tradition). They’d set up shop, just as they’ve been doing most Tuesdays through Sundays since 2002, on the corner of Bourbon Street and Canal, in front of the Foot Locker store. At issue here were two ordinances: the above-mentioned Section 66-205, as well as Section 30-1456, prohibiting street entertainment between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. within the entertainment section of Bourbon Street, from Canal to St. Ann streets.

OK, forget TV fiction: For irony, one need look no further than a new series of television ads created by Peter Mayer Public Relations for the New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau, urging viewers to “book your New Orleans reservations right now.” At one point, trumpeter Irvin Mayfield looks straight into the camera: “Right now in New Orleans,” he says, “you can hear great jazz in the streets of the French Quarter.” Behind him is dark of night, likely past 8.

In New Orleans, it’s not unusual for folks to line up behind a brass band, much as in a second-line parade, in order to make their voices heard on matters of public policy. In January 2007, a crowd of 10,000 strong followed the Hot 8 Brass Band toward City Hall to demand better and more sensitive police protection in the face of violent crime. By June 29, 2010, more than 15,000 folks had signed on as Facebook followers of the page “Don’t Stop the Music. Let New Orleans Musicians Play!” which was created by Lisa Palumbo, who teaches marketing at the University of New Orleans in addition to managing the To Be Continued band. In a brief interview posted on YouTube, To Be Continued trumpeter Sean Roberts described his frustration. “What they’re doing is slowly but surely killing the New Orleans tradition,” he said. “I learned how to play trumpet on this corner.”

On June 16, the city’s new police superintendent, Ronal Serpas, issued a statement to deflect the groundswell of protest: “The New Orleans Police Department’s 8th District has for many years, and as recently as within the last several weeks, received numerous complaints from residents of the French Quarter noting that musical street performers are violating existing ordinances. These complaints have also resulted in repeated requests for enforcement from the NOPD.”

To Be Continued wasn’t the only band to receive notice: A night before its encounter, the Young Fellaz Brass Band was effectively shut down at the corner of Frenchmen and Chartres streets in the nearby Marigny neighborhood, as was the Lil People band that same week, according to accounts posted on Facebook. As NOPD spokesman Bob Young described it, “This is not enforcement per se. No one was cited. They were presented with a letter advising the musicians that they were in violation of the law.” Scott Hucheson, adviser to the mayor on cultural economy, called it “an information exercise.” The new administration of Mayor Mitch Landrieu and Police Superintendent Serpas’ force are by many degrees kinder and gentler in their approach to such matters than those of the former mayor, C. Ray Nagin, and the previous superintendent, Warren Riley. In the past, quality-of-life enforcement sometimes meant sending a dozen or more cruisers, ripping mouthpieces out of hands and slapping on cuffs. Still, serving notice of these ordinances and requiring signed acknowledgment seem tantamount to enforcement. At least the message is clear enough: Your next note is illegal.

Landrieu, who took office May 3, and a newly elected City Council must ultimately address the tangle of city ordinances that inhibit or even prohibit the very street culture that drives New Orleans’ lore and lure. None of this is new stuff: There’s a rich history of musicians being arrested while making music in New Orleans. When I first began interviewing musicians, I was shocked to learn that just as surely as the horn players I spoke with had soaked up musical tradition from authoritative sources like Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen, a beloved musician and bandleader who died in 2004, so too had they been introduced to this other legacy—arrest while playing—by badge-wearing authorities. Even Tuba Fats got arrested. More often than not, the way musicians tell it, the police tasked with enforcement knew him. They’d take him in to the station, show him a bit of hospitality, send him off 30 minutes later. It was as much a game as a show of force. But it served a purpose.

 

At her law office in a MidCity shotgun house earlier this year, civil rights attorney Mary Howell—whose work inspired the character of attorney Toni Bernette in “Treme”—recalled for me how she began defending musicians on a regular basis more than three decades ago. A nearby picture frame held Matt Rose’s 1996 photograph, which ran in the Times-Picayune, of musicians marching after one such incident: There, next to a 10-year-old Troy Andrews—better known as “Trombone Shorty” these days and, just last week, a guest on “Late Night With David Letterman”—is a teenage snare drummer wearing a sign: “I Was Arrested for Playing Music.” The French Quarter, where tourists regularly get their first encounter with New Orleans music, has long been contested space, she explained. And throughout the city, music still has a surprisingly uneasy relationship with established law. “The citywide curfew ordinance regarding music is completely overbroad and obviously unconstitutional,” she says. “And it’s unenforceable.”

Section 66-205 could be construed to prohibit a lone guitarist strumming on a corner or someone playing harmonica to no one in particular in the street. Same for Section 30-1456, which, curiously, pertains to a stretch of Bourbon Street filled mostly with bars that blast recorded music well into the night. Add to this, Howell explains, that in 1974 the city passed a zoning ordinance that actually prohibits live entertainment in New Orleans, save for spots that are either grandfathered in or specially designated as exceptions. Those interior shots in “Treme” faithfully depicting the vibe at Donna’s Bar & Grill and Bullet’s Sports Bar? Grandfathered in, or they’d be technically illegal. Current zoning restrictions could, without much of a stretch, be construed to prohibit band rehearsals, parties with musical entertainment, even poetry readings. “It’s a draconian ordinance,” says Howell, “and a blanket over the city.” The very idea is mind-boggling to those who live outside New Orleans: a city whose image is largely derived from its live musical entertainment essentially outlawing public performance through noise, quality-of-life, and zoning ordinances.

When it comes to music in the streets, Howell says, “My position is, look, we don’t have garage bands in New Orleans because we don’t have garages. Where are these kids going to play? Where are the incubators? People think this is easy. This is hard. You have to have a repertoire, interact with audience, play your instrument well, and entertain. The streets are incubators and critical venues.”

According to Joe Maize, a trombonist with the To Be Continued band, the take at the corner of Bourbon and Canal streets is “a significant chunk of our income.” Shut that down, even for a stretch as city officials rethink policy, and you tighten the screws on what is already a marginal living. “But it’s not really about the money,’’ he said. “All we want to do is have somewhere we can play our instruments every day. People wonder why we sound like we sound, how come we can relate to the crowd like we do. Well, we call Bourbon Street our practice room. We experiment on Bourbon Street crowds, and they tell us what works.”

For Maize and his band mates, when quality-of-life officer Jones rolled up to To Be Continued’s corner, notice in hand, it smacked of disrespect if not disenfranchisement. “It felt like the police can decide to tell us whatever they want to tell us whenever they want to tell it to us,” says Maize, “to run us off our home base whenever it suits them.” He said he just wants to be part of the conversation. “We’re reasonable guys, we just want to work out a situation where we can play where we need to play.”

Carol Kolinchak, an attorney who has defended many musicians, has joined Howell in representing the To Be Continued band and pushing for negotiated solutions. “The larger issue for the city,” she said, “is that we all have to learn to work together to support our culture and not just trot it out whenever it’s convenient for marketing purposes or to score political points.” (Brass bands are regularly hired in New Orleans for all manner of marketing and political functions.)

Maybe there’s always been a culture war in New Orleans. But since 2005, each skirmish takes on heightened significance. And each time I hear someone in New Orleans, whether a musician or artist manager or club owner, lament the lack of effective branding and promotion (the self-designation of Austin, Texas, as “Music City” gets mentioned a lot), I have to think, Well, doesn’t respect begin at home? That, and how can you wholeheartedly promote something that is on the one hand touted and on the other kept on the run like an outlaw?

Beyond practicality and promotion, there’s a deeper read to all this. Michael White, a clarinetist who began his career in brass bands and is now a Xavier University professor, told me: “There’s a feeling among many that some of our older cultural institutions are in the way of progress and don’t fit in the new vision of New Orleans. That they should only be used in a limited way to boost the image of New Orleans, as opposed to being real, viable aspects of our lives.”

Nothing in New Orleans is not about race. Considering that brass bands are for the most part formed by young black men and are playing primarily a music born of black tradition, that Landrieu is the first white mayor in New Orleans since 1978, that the New Orleans City Council has a white majority for the first time in more than two decades, and that the city’s population, though still majority black, is less so since Hurricane Katrina, it’s hard to ignore the potential racial repercussions here. And everything in New Orleans somehow relates to class divisions: Though most would agree with what pianist Ellis Marsalis once told me, that whereas in most cities culture trickles down from the top, in New Orleans it bubbles up from the street, there is often disdain or at least condescension regarding brass bands and other elements of local street culture among professionals seeking a more burnished image for their town.

None of which implies that homeowners and businesspeople are wrong to assert a need for rules and regulations and that civility requires a certain degree of, well, quiet time. The rich history of the French Quarter includes its various incarnations as a neighborhood. The Vieux Carré Property Owners, Residents, and Associates, a nonprofit corporation formed in 1938, takes as its mission, “to preserve the Vieux Carré as a national treasure, to maintain its quaint and distinctive character and to achieve in that historic, living neighborhood a quality of life which can be enjoyed by residents, fellow citizens, businesses and visitors.” And yet it is unclear whether musicians playing at night, or which musicians and what locations, would truly threaten that character; some argue that the presence of a brass band here adds historical correctness and a certain luster to the ambience. In the case of the To Be Continued band’s corner, where Bourbon Street spills into the French Quarter off Canal Street, a main business thoroughfare, the logic of the ordinance is particularly strained. “The brass band is never a problem for us,” Don Zimmer of the Astor Crowne Plaza, a hotel on that spot, told Times-Picayune reporter Katy Reckdahl, adding: “… for us, they’re part of the excitement of the gateway to Bourbon Street.” There’s another truth to confront: These days, Bourbon Street offers little in the way of New Orleans jazz; instead, there’s mostly loud rock, R&B and karaoke. The To Be Continued band’s music may be the first and last jazz a visitor will hear heading that way.

For musicians like Maize, making music on the streets is a viable alternative to other versions of street action. At a June 18 rally in the French Quarter’s Jackson Square, Revert “Peanut” Andrews, a trombonist with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, told a reporter: “If it wasn’t for the music and these streets, I don’t know where I’d be. I don’t want to think about where I’d be.” The rally was organized and led by his cousin, Glen David Andrews, also a trombonist. Glen David, who, at 30, has been arrested more than once in his life while playing his horn, is among the city’s most forceful musicians on and off the bandstand. “We’re not bending on our position,” he told me over the phone the next day. “We’re here to play. We’re going to play. As a culture, we’ve been doing it for 100 years or more, and we’re not about to stop.” And yet he sounded a positive if not conciliatory note. “We don’t want to make it seem like it’s the musicians against the city,” he said. “We have a new administration, we have a new day in New Orleans, and I think we can all sit down and talk about this.”

In fact, that’s what’s going on right now, in the offices of City Council member Kristin Gisleson Palmer (whose district includes the streets at issue in the To Be Continued band dust-up, and several other popular spots for street music) and of mayoral adviser Hucheson, and involving a number of interested parties—among them, Don Freedman, general manager of the beloved, listener-supported WWOZ-FM. “It’s time we got this right,” Freedman told me.

The To Be Continued band has been out on its corner every night since June 12, playing past 8 p.m., as onlookers hold signs with slogans like “Don’t Stop the Music.” The musicians proceeded without incident, but other bands, like the Lil People, have been shut down again in the past week. Yet Palumbo has been cautious. “My primary concern is the law that affects the To Be Continued band directly, so that we can keep doing what we’ve always done,” she said. “But I think we can address these laws in a way that respects everyone’s needs.”

Brian Furness, president of the French Quarter Citizens organization, echoed that sentiment. “It’s important to enforce the laws as they stand, but these are complicated issues that need careful consideration. I think there may be a way to address everyone’s position, and that most homeowners and businesspeople are open to that.”

The formal statements issued during the past two weeks have contained positive hints. A joint statement from Landrieu and Palmer talks about “an obligation to protect and support the very things that make our culture so authentic. … It is possible for musicians, residents and businesses to co-exist in the French Quarter and across the city. It requires having ordinances that make sense, that are clearly communicated to the public and that are properly enforced.”

It’s a tough time for Mayor Landrieu and NOPD Superintendent Serpas to give this issue due attention. On June 25, Serpas announced a major reorganization of the department, conducted just as the U.S. Department of Justice begins a civil investigation into the NOPD. And topping Landrieu’s to-do list is dealing with the fallout from the continuing environmental disaster from the failed BP oil well.

Yet issues pertaining to music and culture remain elemental to the city’s continued recovery and its ongoing identity. And Landrieu seems uniquely equipped and predisposed to address them in a logical and sensitive manner. In his previous job, as lieutenant governor of Louisiana, Landrieu fostered an aggressive cultural-economy agenda, which included high-profile conferences and specific legislation creating tax incentives for the film and music industries. Prior to that, as an attorney, he successfully litigated a 1998 case on behalf of French Quarter clubs that facilitated the striking down of the state’s “amusement tax,” which some considered a plague on the New Orleans music and entertainment industry. As seems required in politics these days, Landrieu, upon taking office, promised “change.” And yet his call had a specific flavor. “Change, real change, transformative change, enduring change, comes from the streets,” he insisted during his inaugural address at Gallier Hall. So too, he well knows, does the culture he wishes to promote. His approach to the current cultural matter reflects as well on his role, announced earlier this month, as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Tourism, Arts, Parks, and Entertainment & Sports Committee.

Now is a moment for Landrieu to signal a clean break from the policies (or lack thereof) of his predecessors, and of long-standing but ill-serving local laws relating to culture, by leading a charge toward sensible reform and rewritten ordinances. While he and his City Council consider the ordinances that tell bands like To Be Continued to keep quite past 8 p.m., why not revisit the full scope of cultural policy that is at odds with New Orleans’ true identity? Why not open the door to a more sensible approach to zoning, and why not give a place at the policy table to musicians and culture-bearers so prominently featured in the tourism ads?

It may well be a new day in New Orleans. Councilwoman Palmer met with members of the To Be Continued band earlier this week, and held another meeting with stakeholders in this issue. “We’re at a really great point,” she told me, “where, instead of simply reacting, we can craft better policies that reflect how we really feel about culture.” She said that all the relevant ordinances are on the table and that she and Landrieu are intent on following through.

Episode three of “Treme” featured another scene worth remembering. Trombone Shorty sits in the green room prior to a New York City post-Katrina benefit concert, eating a slice of pizza and talking to fictional trumpeter Delmond Lambreaux (played by Rob Brown): Delmond is a New Yorker now, swept up in a modern-jazz milieu that makes his hometown seem, to him, somewhat backwater.

“Don’t you miss home?” Shorty asks.

Delmond doesn’t miss a beat. “In New Orleans, they hype the music but they don’t love the musicians. The tradition is there but that city will grind you down if you let it.”

Fictional though he may be, Delmond has a point.

A while back, Mary Howell recalled for me a time, in late 2005, when “illegal music” was all over town. “Music was popping up everywhere,” she said. “In places that never had it and never will have it again, in some that have since been shut down. That was a sign of life, a blood transfusion, a hit of oxygen when we needed it.

“I used to get worried that this specific law or that policy would crush the music,” she said more recently. “But I’ve found some relief in finally and deeply understanding that these laws are problems—they are obstacles, irritants—and they are problematic—unjust, unequally enforced. But the thing is that the music and the culture survives despite it, and finds its way around, over, and under these laws.”

She’s right, and yet this deep and abiding truth perhaps invites a dangerous notion: that a culture developed in opposition to subjugating force requires or is somehow served by or at least lives well in spite of the occasional, capricious and overriding slap-down. But a culture born of struggle needn’t be condemned to struggle, a music that won’t die doesn’t have to endure blow upon non-lethal blow. If New Orleans wishes to restore or even re-create itself, the city would do well to think about this idea.

I’ll never forget, in 2007, at one of Landrieu’s cultural-economy forums, Grenada’s Ambassador Denis G. Antoine saying, at the height of a crime wave: “New Orleans is a perception. When we talk about safety: How safe do you feel? It’s not just about crime, it’s about how safe do you feel to be you?”

Thus far, Palmer and Landrieu, just months into their respective offices, are sounding the right notes regarding recasting a cultural policy that has long been woefully out of tune. Maybe they can do as the brass bands do: Pick up the rhythm, and collectively improvise something useful that everyone can fall in line behind. We’d all feel safer.

Larry Blumenfeld has written about New Orleans culture, politics and recovery for Truthdig, The Wall Street Journal, The Village Voice, Salon and other publications. He was a 2006-7 Katrina Media Fellow for The Open Society Institute.