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LSRJ is thrilled to introduce four passionate and thoughtful resident bloggers for the 2010-2011 school year. They will be sharing their insights, opinions, and experiences as RJ advocates on law school campuses across the country. Post questions, challenge them and yourself, and join the conversation! They are:

Lucy Panza - Georgetown University Law Center

Lucy is a 3L at Georgetown. Originally from Argentina, she was raised in Maryland and has loved politics and dogs from a young age. She is co-president of her LSRJ chapter this year, which offers the ever-exciting opportunity to grapple with a Catholic university over free-speech issues, coverage of reproductive health benefits in the student insurance plan, and heading up an unfunded, unsponsored student organization. Lucy is excited to bring a Latina perspective to RepoRepro — and she’s excited to be nearing the end of law school!

Lara Shkordoff - Northeastern University School of Law

Lara is a 2L at Northeastern. She hails from Toronto, Canada and has led many different lives in her journey from Canada-land to Beantown to LSRJ resident blogger. She was a waitress at an Irish pub; an almost-Masters student in Longdon; a receptionist at a cosmetic surgery clinic; and co-founder of an education advocacy organization that fights to end sexism, racism, classism, and homophobia in Ontario high schools. Lara is particularly fond of watching New York Undercover marathons and listening to cheesy early 90’s R&B (she cites TLC, Salt N Pepa, and Boyz II Men as particular favorites). She is not fond of questionnaires, speaking in third person, or wearing sunglasses in the club. Lara is excited to blog about RJ for many reasons, one being that since taking up residence south of the Canadian border, her uterus and ovaries have felt a little less legally protected.

Sara Taylor - University of Michigan Law School

Sara is a 3L at Michigan and a proud LSRJ intern alumnus! She loves to bake and makes a life-altering ginger scone. Sara had a rich professional life before the oppressive nature of law school took over, from bartending to biology, most of which required a sense of humor and sometimes an anal probe. Her goal in life is to help women and girls feel safe and supported no matter where they’ve been or where they’re headed. She knows she is going to love being a resident blogger because she can finally stop having conversations with herself.

Jess Wilkerson - Vermont Law School

Jess is a 3L at Vermont. As a strong believer in the equal distribution of power among all peoples, she is interested in asking critical questions about the state of access to reproductive information and health globally. At VLS, she actively seeks to engage the entire community in discussion about how these issues play out for each individual personally and how future clients may be affected as well. She is excited to be bringing this conversation to the greater online community! When she has time, she loves to put her off-road driving certification to use by getting outside!

If you are interested in guest blogging for or cross-posting on RepoRepro, email reporepro at lsrj dot org.

So before I move forward, I thought this was pretty important to point out...the proposed location for the "Ground Zero mosque" is NOT at Ground Zero, it is NOT across the street from Ground Zero, it is a few blocks away in what was formerly a Burlington Coat Factory (click here to see for yourself).

And what makes people think that the group purchasing the mosque has anything to do with the 19 terrorists that are responsible for 9/11? They "share" a religion (but!!! are of completely different sects). Nothing else. How fucking awful.

Since when did it become a political issue when a private religious organization uses their own funds to buy a building to worship in? It's ridiculous that Obama even commented on this issue. How could any lawmaker justifiably deny a religious organization the right to put their church anywhere? The answer is they couldn't, even if they wanted to.

So WTF are these 500 hicks thinking?



This is what I think is most hilarious/confusing about the far right. Forty seconds into the video an Egyptian man actually says "I'm from Egypt. We're not allowed to build churches" in defense of why he's protesting the building of the mosque?!? If you moved to a country for religious freedom then EXPECT religious freedom...for everybody. Unless he's saying he moved here in hopes of finding an anti-Muslim climate...which would make more sense.

Fast forward to 4:13 when a woman says "it's an effort on the part of the Muslims to rub our constitution in our faces." Oh, what's that? Our precious founding fathers already wrote a solution to this dispute? And you're acknowledging that? But this time the founding fathers must have made a mistake...they meant to write, you know, the thing about America being Christian that Glenn Beck's always going on about!

Further proof of the far right being bat shit crazy: Rick of Brutally Honest (and the WizBang blogger that reposted the "scary" Ground Zero/mosque photo linked to above). An artistic rendering of Rick shows him cock-eyed with a halo around his head, driving a military tank and holding a magic wand?!

Brutally Honest's subtitle, "Plain thoughts, delivered roughly," are my thoughts exactly! Rick seems to have diarrhea of the mouth (or I guess in this case, fingers). Case in point, his About section:

Needless to say, I was, to my chagrin at the time, found not worthy to continue toward ordination in the Episcopal Church. Seems I was a bit " too rigid theologically" as some were quick to point out. I think however that my downfall began when I inadequately expressed how I felt about my penis.

If you looked at the Ground Zero photo, the above quote may seem familiar to you. This is because it seems to be tagged onto everything he's written! Rick is so amused by penis and tata jokes that he frequently posts about others making them, like church officials!

But I'm being unfair in only pointing out the outrageously ridiculous aspects of his website. Other posts are, of course, about Obama hating Jews and Ronald Reagan foreseeing his opposition to (gasp!) healthcare reform--pretty standard petty hillbilly banter.

The strange thing is, Rick thinks he's smart or something. Apparently he was fighting off the people's attempts to draft him into politics.

In 1993, I somewhat reluctantly accepted the position of local chairman of Michael Farris's failed campaign for lieutenant governor (Farris did win in my county) and fought off attempts by some the following year to draft me for the position of chairmanship of the local Republican party.

Today, I'm a government contractor leading a team of technical professionals and hoping that somehow I can survive long enough in the biz to beef back up those retirement funds and live as God would have me live from here on out.

Oh, GOD, give me a break! The man is delusional. And what sort of team of technical professionals is he leading exactly? *cough* tea party terrorist *cough*

(...sssomebody stop me!)

But really, dear readers. You and I, seemingly safe in hippie-dippie California, may think people like Rick are harmless. No respectable person with any type of authority would listen to what he has to say, right? Wrong. Remember when an imbecile like Rick was our President? Currently the fanatical right is grouping together all over the country in hopes of ensuring that next election, someone like Rick or Dubyah will take the Presidential seat.

Let me know what you think by commenting below and while you're at it, let Rick know what you think.

Today my two friends took me out to dinner and forced (for lack of a better term) me to go and see the new Jennifer Aniston movie, Switch. I was really hesitant about seeing the movie because I really had heard nothing about it other than the fact that her character was trying to have a baby on her own. I was hesitant about the movie because I had this idea in my mind that at some point in the movie that she was going to meet a man who would change her mind about having a baby, sweep her off her feet and save the day by getting her prego.

For the first ten minutes I was anticipating just how much I would be able to take before walking out and sitting in the car for it to end. I didn't much care for the silly jokes in the beginning of the movie, but after a bit I settled in and figured that it wasn't so bad after all.

What I enjoyed about it was that she did choose a sperm donor although her male best friend and other people urged her against doing it. It really was a delight seeing a movie where a woman chose to be a single mother. And although the movie ends with the typical happily ever after type of plot that is typical of these movies, I also really enjoyed that the supposedly dorky guy with the quirky and neurotic behavior came in first place.

Although this isn't necessarily the type of movie that I am really drawn to, I'm glad that I made it past the first ten minutes and finished watching it.

Hi all-

I've been off this blog for a bit since I've been working on other web projects elsewhere. There's a particular project that I have been brainstorming with my partner for quite a bit of time, and now we are ready to get started on this one starting next week!

I've mentioned in the past that I was financing a project and that we might need writers for it. So the time has come! Being the kind of "everything is done so much better as a team" kind of gal, I've decided to open the idea up to others that I know on twitter and in the blogosphere who might be interested in getting in on the action. Here is my idea:

We are creating a website about a certain topic (and if you are interested in participating, I will give you more information). I'm financing the site, the design and the marketing piece, and I will also be creating certain products on the site as well as writing and editing. My partner will be writing, editing and coordinating all aspects of the collaborative writing team.

As we are getting started, we wanted to invite interested writers to join us for our launch! My instincts and research are telling me that with the right people on board, that we can create a successful website. So, we are going to pick a handful of people to first start as writers with us because we will be able to generate more content, and the site will receive more exposure if multiple people are also tweeting about it, etc. Since we are just starting out, our primary source of revenue will be google adsense ads and other forms of advertising (which we've been pretty successful on with a couple of other sites that we have been working on).

In a nutshell, we will provide topics to write about (and we will first start with a huge series of biographies) and we will also accept suggestions from writers. We will code all ads that are included on your page with your name and you will receive 70% of all revenue generated from the ads on the pages that you write. The more people that we have involved, the more opportunities for promotion--the more people who visit the site will click around on the various pages and click different ads.

If you are interested, please leave a comment here with your email (I won't publish it), send me a message on twitter if you follow me, or email me at badassfemmes@yahoo.com.

You don't have to be a great writer initially because my partner will help edit some of the work. You don't need experience. You just need to be dedicated and have patience because you will not become a millionaire over night. Oh, who am I kidding, you will never be a millionaire-it's writing. The more that there are of us, the more opportunity for growth and revenue there will be and we will also be able to work together and network with one another in order to improve our writing. My partner and I eventually plan on also creating a private writer's forum for some of us to work together and help one another.

A couple of final things: We will retain the copyright to the material that is written and the content can't be published elsewhere on the web because it will penalize the site in search engines. You can write with no name attached, or you can create a bio with a link back to your site if you would like. You probably won't make more than $500 for a while, but when you do if you plan on making more then you will need to fill out a W2 form to receive further payment which will be paid through paypal or elance.com.  In addition to the revenue generated from the writing, we also have many opportunities planned for additional opportunities to generate revenue and receive bonuses, although these opportunities will take backseat to getting the site up and running.

We're looking for people who want to belong to a community, where we are all working together to promote the pages that we are all writing because this is a collaborative effort! We've experienced success in the past with promoting sites on certain social networks like digg and reddit, so we are also looking to work with our writers to effectively use these sites to promote one another. If you are interested, please contact me soon because we will be starting the project formally next week!! Thanks!! I hope some of you are interested!!

Yet another Right Wing Fascist exposes the reality of their point of view: Narrow, racist and devoid of common sense.

After using the N-word 11 times on her radio show, when addressing a Black woman's concern about her white husband's tolerance of the racial epithet, Dr. Laura decided to call it quits so that she can be held less accountable when using racial slurs.

The younger yet equivalently acrimonious and racist pundit Michelle Malkin showed solidarity with the bigoted radio personality stating, "More power to her" on her blog Tuesday in reaction to the resignation. Conservative journalist Tim Graham from the Media Research Council penned an apologist piece declaring that Dr. Laura wasn't technically calling anybody the n-word, however, merely mimicking Black comedians, etc...and then he somehow spun the entire event into a conspiratorial witch hunt for right wing pundits. Puhleeze. Even though he eventually had to admit that she had no real basis for even using the word at all. No flipping duh Tim!

Personally, I would think a conservative woman, with supposedly high moral regard for humanity, would refrain from using such language. Oh but that's right, just like the rest of the conservative gang bangers from her hood, she's not truly trying to uplift humanity, she's just trying to get noticed. Any publicity is good publicity, wink wink. Even if we have to perpetuate or confirm negative stereotypes about ourselves and others to do so. A people divided, is good for her business, just like Malkin, Beck, O'Reilly and the whole lot of them. The desire for a positive unification of the American people is touted as corruption (i.e. working together through economic crisis) while unification under the realm of war and expansionism is correct and right even when it is proven that we are sending our TEENAGERS over to foreign soil based on lies, greed and immoral behavior.

C.J, a columnist for the Star Tribune of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota states it eloquently and succinctly in her open letter to Dr. Laura when she summarizes why Dr. Laura doesn't get to use the N-Word:

"The vicious little N-word has been appropriated, hijacked by the very people it was designed to dehumanize. That makes some people crazy. Maybe black comedians, who more than likely started the trend publicly, are smarter than I think. By co-opting the word, blacks have diminished its power. By using it in a loving way, ownership has changed hands and now the race that originated the insult shouldn't use it."

Here is one version of Dr. Laura's apology, explanation and rationalization as posted on E News:

"My contract is up for my radio show at the end of the year and I've made the decision not to do radio anymore," Schlessinger told King, who also happens to be on his way out this year (for less incendiary reasons).

"The reason is I want to regain my First Amendment rights. I want to be able to say what's on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors. I'm sort of done with that."

She's not retiring or quitting, she added, but rather, hopes to be "stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country."

Schlessinger apologized for her verbal gaffe the day after it happened, admitting that she did "the wrong thing."

"I didn't intend to hurt people, but I did. And that makes it the wrong thing to have done...I was attempting to make a philosophical point, and I articulated the N-word all the way out—more than one time. And that was wrong. I'll say it again—that was wrong."

What a crock! I've heard the radio program and read the transcript, she was not attempting to make a philosophical point, in fact she was doing the exact opposite, trying to shut down the conversation and halt the caller's attempt to truly look critically at the situation. And like all the other right wing fascists who love to demagogue and suck lemons all day until the bitter sourness becomes the very essence of their scornful foundation, she looks like a narrow-minded, one track fool.

Warning: blah, blah, blah, nudity, blah, blah.

Feeling extra sex positive tonight (listening to Prince) so I want to share some erotic city with ya'll. If you've browsed through my links list, you may have noticed a few sex positive feminist artists andor post-porn modernists, namely Annie Sprinkle, Karen Finley, and Carolee Schneemann.


Well in '65, Schneemann released a self-shot erotic film called Fuses (click to watch it on Ubuweb). It's silent but not devoid of noise; sounds from waves or storms are constant throughout the film. Also, for the first 5-10 minutes, it's pretty hard to figure out what's going on. The shots are dark except for flashes of ambiguous body parts moving rhythmically for a few seconds. With all of the film techniques (manipulating/scratching the celluloid itself) blending erotic and natural scenes together, Fuses seemed appropriate as a title for Carolee Schneemann's award-winning controversial classic. One criticism I do have has to do with so much of the film's emphasis on sex as a part of nature while the images focused solely on heterosexual coupling. Once again queer sex was, by virtue of ignorance, almost deemed unnatural in the film (as it was by many proponents of the supposed sexual revolution in the '60s/'70s in general). Perhaps someone will do a queer take on Fuses. However, the film has continued to inspire female avant-gardists into the 21st century, and one could argue that these women are queering the film by making it less accessible.

Caroline Bergvall, a mixed-media poet and performance artist, watched the film, ran it through her filter of perception, and inscribed for readers using textual cues what that perception really entailed in her 2005 poem also titled "FUSES." To give you a feel for the poem, here's the tenth stanza,

BLACK GREEN leaves water BLACK RED lightrees windowlight
GREEN lights navelhair navelhair arm GREEN turn navel hairy close
RED cat wheel car treeslightbreasts smile light light trees GREEN still
window lights ORANGEwindow curtains Seacurtains seagulls
ORANGE ORANGE patches city Lightstunnel fuckrhythm lights
fuckrhythm steady blowjobhairy fingersfaceSeafuckrhythm
Down fuckrhythm lights BLACK WHITE BLACK waterwater Sea

Bergvall is of the school of conceptual poets rejecting claims to originality. Perhaps this could be her interpretation of nature, sex, and creation--as more of a set of laws dictating urges that we're slave to rather than anything we consciously create. Oh, btw, she was featured on a track with DJ Rupture?! Ch-check it out below.



But the Fuses conversation between female avant-gardists doesn't end there. Cheryl Donegan, avant-garde "royalty" (lol) along with husband Kenneth Goldsmith, took Caroline Bergvall's poem and translated it into another film called Refuses (2006), this time using images found from search engines and home video footage. Refuses, governed by the constraint of translating Bergvall's poem word for word, puts a slightly less romantic, to say the least, variation on Schneemann's original theme. What started off as a seemingly organic idea transformed into a mathematical one, actually fusing the realm of the body with the realm of the formulaic.


Electronic Arts Intermix calls Donegan's art "provocative and irreverent" and goes on to state "her body-based, performative video works put a subversive spin on issues relating to sex, gender, art-making, art history, and pop culture." While on the subject, please watch this video.

The kind of queer sex positivity that Schneemann's '60's-era film lacked actually exists today on a popular social media site, Tumblr. sex is not the enemy is a Tumblr blog that posts daily photos and quotes about sex, sexualities, nudity, and bodies. This site contains "mature" content but I wouldn't be quick to label it pornographic, as it has nothing to do with glorifying the subjugation of women and everything to do with demystifying sex and the body. The following photos are a few of my favorites...
sex is not the enemy reposts erotic imagery from other Tumblr users, helping to give voice to a community that believes in, not doing away with erotic image-based activism because pornography can have negative implications, but using the world of images to demystify and diversify sex, sexualities, and the body.

Let me know what you think of the links and videos! Once again, if you find yourself unwantingly exposed to, uhm, real nekkid people, sorry...I tried to warn you.

Last night something really dysfunctional happened to me and I came home and wrote a blog post about it. However, I was so disgusted by what had happened that I erased it. But right now on twitter I saw a tweet about a video that just literally gave me chills on my arms, and I suppose that I feel compelled to write about it.

I have a seriously dysfunctional part of my self that I have tried to erase over the years and have managed to keep buried. That part of myself pops up every once in a while when its triggered by a certain event or type of person.

This part of my personality is probably related to the way that I was raised, in a house full of mental, physical and emotional abuse by a mentally ill mother. It probably also has to do with being raised in a neighborhood marked by severe gang violence, where our disputes were settled with fists or weapons. Over the years it has taken tremendous self discipline and self introspection to not want to settle a disagreement with a punch in the face.

But something that I have never been able to get rid of, nor do I want to, is my attraction to all things dark, painful and macabre. I've always been drawn to suffering and pain in all of its representations-art, music, literature, poetry, movies, and other forms. Perhaps it's a result of my catholic upbringing where the "suffering is beautiful" mentality grew in my mind. It's not that I want pain in my life, or pain in my relationships, but for some eerie reason I just feel that there is something beautiful and liberating about seeing other people in pain. I'm attracted to representations of the tormented soul.

When I was in high school and slightly beyond, I was in an extremely dysfunctional relationship. Jesse was a brilliant artist, musician, song writer, poet, writer, and performer. I was drawn to his creativity and intelligence, and since then I have never met another human soul who posses his intelligence and artistic creativity. Over the years, he became addicted to alcohol, drugs, sex and other risky forms of behavior that only seemed to fuel his artistic brilliance.

Needless to say, our relationship spiraled out of control and I just couldn't break lose. The more dysfunctional it got, the more creative I felt and the more fodder I had to write and paint about. There was nothing so intoxicating to me as expressing the inner most depths of the agony that existed in my (or his) soul. During those years, I created more poetry, writing and paintings than I ever have in my entire life.

Our dysfunction finally reached a point where one night I walked away with a broken hand from punching him and a bruised neck from being choked. Well, I didn't actually walk away, rather escorted away by the police. Hours later the telephone rang with his voice on the other end calling from jail and it was then that I finally decided to change my life. I walked away and never looked back.

Over the years I have had my share of dysfunction, but I have managed to try to erase that secret part of myself that comes out when provoked by people of a certain nature. I did my share of crazy stuff as a young adult to my current boyfriend but it never managed to escalate due to his gift at being able to deescalate conflict.

Flash forward to 2010, when my old high school boyfriend shows up on my door to apologize due to one of the steps in his 12 step program for sobriety. He has managed to completely overhaul his life and although I should have been wary about his ability to quit drugs but not alcohol, I was still compelled to meet with him for dinner to catch up on his art and writing.

It's been a decent six months, where we have remained friends and I have been once again drawn to his brilliance and creativity. My boyfriend has told me that I am an idiot, that it is only a matter of time before I morph into a wacko and knock him over the head with a bottle or something, but I became convinced that twenty years have passed and that we are both different people.

And then last night happened-a lovely night of sushi with my friend and the ex. Somewhere along the line my intuition told me that something bad was going to happen and I should have listened to my gut that we should not have started drinking sake. Hours later, my intuition was affirmed when a minor argument about me being too dominant erupted into a scuffle. Luckily the "red alert" button in my brain told me to get my purse and go immediately because one of us would sooner of later end up bleeding or in jail.

I'm disgusted with myself is all I have to say. I think that I knew deep in my heart all along that it would end up like this, but I didn't listen to my gut because I was so attracted to the allure of his creativity. However, this man brings out the crazy in me that wants to break his nose and see blood running down his face and onto his shirt. I want to seriously hurt him when something that he does or says triggers violence in me.

This is not the person that I want to be. And I know that I should never speak to him again if I want to really erase this part of my personality that I hate so much. I've often wondered if this part of me exists because I was a victim for so many years until one day a counselor told me to hit my mother back and defend myself when she was hurting me. So, I started hitting her back and hitting him back when they hurt me.  Yet now I see that I have become them and I want it to go away.

So this leads me to the video that I saw on twitter today-a video that literally gave me chills and raised the hair on my arms. The video is repulsive to me because I have lived a similar life with my ex where I wasn't so much of a victim, but where we were BOTH victims of one another. I'm repulsed because I know exactly what "I like the way it hurts" means. The video makes me sad that there are young women who are watching this who might be taught that this type of relationship is normal.  But the video also relieves me that I am no longer willing to put myself in this type of situation, no matter how much I am attracted to the brilliant and alluring flames of certain people.

I've been a very bad blogger lately and I'm terribly sorry! That being said, wanna see what I have been doing?

Despite my conflicting ideas about taking advantage of what Google has to offer, I wrote a few articles for Examiner.com about using social media for activist purposes (and one on Prop 8). The first is an interview with Emily Hicks and since it pertains to the subject of women in media technologies, and since Emily Hicks is such a bad ass, I am republishing it here:

Dr. Emily Hicks, local San Diego artist, activist, and professor of Chicana/o Studies and English and Comparative Literature, is acquainted with San Diego Indymedia as well as independent media throughout Southern California. She is an advocate for the use of social media platforms for education, performance and activist purposes. She is currently accepting submissions for her Complexity Fluxus Exhibition facilitated by evolver.net.

Indymedia is the term used to refer to social and political news coverage that is democratic in nature as opposed to corporate-sponsored. At the Independent Media Center online hub, citizens have access to local coverage as well as coverage from all over the globe.

Alicia: Dr. Hicks, can you tell Examiner.com readers a little bit about yourself?

Dr. Hicks: I am a performance artist and I teach at San Diego State University. My passions are art, music, literature, philosophy and the international struggle for human rights.

A: Great! what are a few of your experiences with Indymedia?

DH: I have worked at a Spanish language newspaper in Los Angeles and I have experience with Indymedia in San Diego. I participated last year in an Indymedia program about complexity science recorded at Filter, a cafe in North Park. Also, in 2008 I attended and planned to cover the World Economic Forum on Public Events for Indymedia.

A: So, drawing from those experiences, what potential do you see in independent media to counter mainstream media or provide alternative reporting?

DH: Indymedia is able to provide information from the perspective of, for example, activists who have participated in events. Employees of the mass media are given stories to cover. In Indymedia, it is the reverse: one's daily political and social activities can be broadcasted so that other cultural and community activists can know about local activities that might otherwise be ignored by the mainstream.

A: It’s no secret that women are largely absent from mainstream media, especially behind the scenes in tech-based occupations. As a woman working with complexity science and social media technologies, how are you received by other Indymedia participants?

DH: Women in technology are not as numerically present in the culture as women in other fields in Indymedia, in my experience, but new forms of communication and conflict resolution are constantly being invented. From a queer perspective, independent media should also include any members of the transgender community who want to be part of it, however they define themselves.

A: Who are some women who have written about and/or used technology in their work and how has their work been received?

DH: Allucquere had to face challenges early on, and local San Diegan Micha Cardenas will have to as well. Their knowledge enriches mine. So does the knowledge of Elle Merhmand, another local artist, Abbe Don, Pauline Oliveros, Shelley Jackson, Adriene Jenick and so many other women who use technology in their work as writers, artists, and musicians. I don't want to leave out Bjork!

A: Does the slight lack of women in tech-based fields affect the relationships between those women?

DH: I see some challenges. As women, we often want to bond and to feel closer to each other, whereas some aspects of technology are rather impersonal. I've had my feelings hurt and I've had to grow thicker skin, but I've also had great interactions in which the woman teaching me found a playful way to share information. An anime 'zine on how to use Photoshop created by one of my students is an example.

A: It seems like relationships between women are less scripted in technological fields than in occupations where women have been present for decades. Can you give some advice to other women in technological fields?

DH: It can take some awkward moments to let another woman know, perhaps in a subtle way, that condescension is not cool, and that I might know things she does not, and that we can work together. This also means ignoring and/or taking with a grain of salt certain negative comments from other women, who may know a lot about Linux, for example, but maybe not so much about Deleuze.

A: Thanks! Let's talk a little bit about social media. How can social media play a role in creating and/or sustaining communities that would otherwise go unheard?

DH: Well, in the United States, the Internet has played a huge role in the strengthening of a community of which I am a part, the mixed ancestry Melungeon community, based in the southeastern United States in southern Appalachia.

A: So, social media can act as a positive force in sustaining communities within the US; do you see social media working to strengthen communities across national borders?

DH: Overall, in my work on immigrant rights within an international context, the effects of social media are positive. Also, when gay marriage was legalized in Argentina recently, I went straight to my Facebook page knowing that my Argentine friend, Osvaldo Sabino, would have a lot to say. I felt that I got to experience a little bit of the excitement of a political victory after so many years of struggle.

A: Thank you for sharing so much valuable information. What are your future plans and where can Examiner.com readers learn a little bit more about you?

DH: In October, I'll be going to a conference in The Hague on cities and migration. You can find out more about my studies and publications online.

Dr. Emily Hicks, Ph. D.
Emily Hicks on evolver.net

Another article I wrote for Examiner featured the activist media site, Global Voices. They basically connect activists and allow uncensored information distribution. The site gives you access to news stories from hundreds of countries in several languages. For more info, read my GV article.

And finally, I published a little write-up on the Prop 8 ruling August 4th. Unless you live under a rock, you've heard about it but in the article I link to the full ruling, Schwarzenegger's response, and some resources to follow along with the appeal process.

Once again, I'm terribly sorry that I haven't thrown any recent web gems at ya (other than my own, eek :x) but I will leave you with a couple more resources for digital activism. The first is DigiActive and it publishes video and news as well as encourages activists to do the same using the Internet and cell phones. The other I'm thinking of is WITNESS, which is like a YouTube for human rights violations. Both sites are strong activist communities and great resources for relevant news.