a specially prepared travel guide

hey to the blogosphere!

for any of you planning extensive travels abroad this summer, as i am, i've assembled a guide to travelling comfortably, healthily, and informedly (yes, that is a word).

i was dreading sitting still on a plane for 15 hours* straight without music or books (i'm travelling extremely light for a 2.5 week trip), so i looked into ways to offset cabin fever and
prevent those aches i get from lack of movement (i'm antsy. so what? i can't even sit still at home for longer than an hour without getting up and jumping around.)

there's also a ton of restrictions on what u can and cannot take on board a plane these days. i had to figure this out too, since i can't risk having any of my already sparse belongings confiscated before i even get to Mongolia.

so all that (and more^!) is available here, at STEPHAN!E'S AWESOME TRAVEL GUIDE FOR THE CONSCIENTIOUS AND EASILY ANXIOUS TRAVELLER. (which is really just a link to my del.icio.us of "travel" tags. what do u want from me?)

happy travels,
stephan!e


*i don't know which i'm dreading more, the 15 hour plane flight, or the more than 1.75 days in total it will take me to get there. layovers are a bitch. especially since i'm waking up at 4 am only to be laid over for the rest of the day. and no books?! how will i ever make it?! don't get me wrong, i love travelling. it's the actual travelling (flying, driving, waiting around in airports) that i just can't stand.

^in addition to helpful bookmarks for travelling, there's a random link to a Dubai website. check it out anyway. DUBAI IS FUCKIN NUTS!!!

dramatic irony

a more dramatic and emotive version of U2's "with or without you" i have not seen, nor will ever see again.

this is a Belgian girls' choir that has produced several cd's of wistful and unexpecting pop covers. they go by the name "Scala and Kolacny Bros," which confused me until now, b/c it seemed incredibly egotistical for two dudes to take all the credit for the singing these girls were doing. [edit: Scala is actually the name of the Scala choir. oops.]

but then i saw this and i was completely convinced otherwise.

indeed, there would be no singing without the conspicuous affect of their conductor.

so carry on, carry on wayward son.
(now there's a cover i'd like to see them do!)

-stephan!e


p.s. one of my favorite moments comes around 1:12, when they sing "you give it all, but i want more." something in one of the girls' faces tells me she's got a real special interpretation of that song lyric. oh smiles!
p.p.s. 2:20 onward is pretty awesome too.

re-presenting radical student politix

i've been playing with the idea of "re-presentation" [sic]

that is, to represent some things via media is quite different from the things themselves, and so, re-presented. and so, reimagined. the representation is itself a new thing.

this came out of an earlier idea to collaboratively write a book. tho now i am thinking that rather than getting submissions and compiling the disparate pieces, a group of us (student activists) could conduct the writing as an action in itself. we "speak" (rather than write) the book.

so check this out:

a book.
(books are symbols of power, crystallized knowledge, authority. how to remove the weight of the text? (or, how to co-opt it?))

self-published by SFS
(1. challenges the top-down structure of the media industry that mirrors the hierarchies of knowledge found in the educational system. 2. challenges notion of author/reader, performer/audience, producer/consumer. 3. active, rather than passive, participation in the generation of media, dissemination of knowledge)

containing conversations
(VOICE! one thing i've noticed in my study of critical pedagogy is the concentration on theory and lack of PRACTICE. education is fundamentally social. education for the betterment of our society and its citizens - what could be more social?)

about our activism
("our." "we" "us" "you" "me". first person plural. positions my self, our selves IN the discourse. there's no distance between me (the author) and you (the reader). i am part of the problem and solution, just as you are. draws reader in...)

there are so many books out there written about student activism and disengagement of our youth, but they're all by academics and theorists, not by actual students themselves.

furthermore, participatory media builds community and can empower students with a feeling of agency if they are involved in the process.

i dunno, but i'm thinking this could become a pretty cool creative project portion of my thesis...
-stephan!e

cool gif(t)

from the awesome band Architecture in Helsinki (and the only music blog i read, StG), we get an interactive gif animation that allows you to play along with the music.


play here.

fun!
-stephan!e

i get around

this is going to change soon!

(currently showing i've visited 4% of the world. meh.)

countdown to Mongolia: 10 DAYS!!
-stephan!e


and just for fun:

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.



EDIT (6.28.07):

(now showing 5%!)

satire isn't dead!

my faith in the college student specious has been restored! (and College Humor,which until now had always been a sight to avoid, if only b/c it always confirmed my suspicions that the college male had nothing better to do than get stinking wasted at parties and ogle braindead females)

AND the world benefits from an all-too-plausible parody of - get this! - both Hollywood and Facebook!??!! (the other axes of evil)



my day just got a whole lot brighter.
-stephan!e

skype

i signed up for skype today. u should too!

we can chat and stuff. [search: "stefi.lee"]

this may be the only way i get to talk to ppl, if at all, from Mongolia.

more later...
-steph!e


afterthot: tho i love the fact i can use it to talk/chat/video conference with ppl across the world, my only complaint so far is that in the less than 30 or so minutes since i've joined, i've gotten waaay too many invitations to chat or talk from strange lecherous men. that i don't enjoy. but if u're my friend, i'll talk to you. just explain how we know each other when you request to contact me. (i've been screening...) :-)

bird fLight

my video poem, in response to Stan Brakhage's MothLight:



one thing i noticed only after watching it is the mirroring of Brakhage's vertical movement within frames, giving it the feel of a reel spinning vertically over light.

also, one thing that the youtube doesn't do justice to is the mirroring in the window glass. you can see me twice in the footage, with camera in hand.

also, the spot on the window pane where the bird hit the glass.

-stephan!e

bike lexington 2007

...was fun!

i don't understand why lexington can't do this more often. once a year seems hardly enuf. do we think lexington might just be cool enuf to adopt the ways of the Mass?

this looks promising and familiar:

(Bike Lexington in the Courthouse Plaza, compare to Critical Mass in Chicago's Daley Plaza)

i guess we'll just have to see...
-stephan!e

all tomorrow's parties

i'm going to sleep early 2nite b/c i'm gettin up early for this:

BIKE LEXINGTON 2007!!

i'm really excited b/c if there's one thing i regret about my hometown it's that there's not enuf room for bike culture. i see more Hummers here than i see in Hummer dealerships (i kid u not - i see at least one every day! and trust me, i'm not lookin!)

i'm really excited to go on a ride on my bike thru the town i grew up in and see it anew. the world seems really different when u're on your bike. it seems more vibrant and fresh. must be all the wind blowing in your hair... aaaah i'm so excited already!

all day i've been thinking about how i miss the Critical Masses i rode in Chicago.

us in Daley Plaza every last Friday of the month. oh, what glorious days those were...

i miss having that to look forward to every month. i've been thinking of starting one in Oxford next school year, but i kinda wonder how successful it would be. i bet i could get a lot of ppl out, but the available routes are few and far between. but even just a monthly ride thru uptown and campus then to Hueston Woods would be something beautiful to see. hm, perhaps...

sweet dreams and an exciting 2moro!
-stephan!e

video poetry

sorry for the virtual absence, but after wrapping up one of the most trying academic years of my life, i needed to get away. i spent a lot of time in the woods in the back of my house, picked up the harmonica and tambourine, danced and jumped around, and said goodbye to many dear friends. i've crawled around in attics of lofty chapels, swung from vines, and howled at the moon from rooftops. i've passed whole evenings ensconced on windowsills drinking wine from bottles, and spent whole afternoons looking up thru sun-filtered leaves at the sky.


i haven't done any recreational reading, but i've found the act of sitting down to read a difficult one to commit to. i've been restless and noisy lately, a development my parents no doubt regret. since my fascination with the percussive arts has come to a recent boil, they've been trying to divert my energies toward the piano. but since i injured myself during finals week [oh yes, it has been a while: i ran into a concrete wall with my arm while rushing to class and probably fractured it. it swelled up to twice its natural size and then turned a dark purple. the bump has lessened, but a lump remains, and i've been a little worried about my inability - still! - to put pressure on it] piano has been kinda difficult. trills, for example, are inadvertently syncopated, since i can't seem to move the fingers fast enough [that was another thing that was injured in the collision: my knuckles!]

anyway, what i HAVE been up to is trying to find a place for all this stuf i've accumulated in the past year. and, i'm organizing my bookshelf in preparation for SENIOR PROJECT. yes, the huge 80-page thesis i must complete for my defunct degree is nigh. and eventhough i have been writing and preparing for it since basically my sophomore year, i am still worried about it. and so, i am gathering all the hard materials i've been collecting since my freshman year and organizing them into stacks in my room. virtually, i've been collecting research articles and pdf's that are filed away in folders on my mac. i'm working them into chapters soon, and it's exciting to see some form come from all this madness.

other various things: i'm going to Mongolia in less than a month! yippee and yikes at once! i have to find another sleeping bag soon, since the one i have is much too small now and not nearly as warm as i need for the below freezing Mongolian nights. i also have a paper and research to finish b4 i can leave the country, so whew! i am kinda exhausted just talking about it.

but anyway, the REAL point of this post is to share with you the project i have recently started. in the past year i've been taking media aesthetics classes, which was great, b/c i got to watch beautiful films and talk about them all the time. problem was, i never got to make any of my own. and this flies in the face of my own philosophy about being a producer rather than just a passive consumer of cultural products. and so, i have undertaken to make some movies [pardon, FILMS] this summer.

on my list of to-do's:
-video-document the Mongolia trip (i need to buy a new camcorder for this!)
-begin/finish(?) the Students for Staff documentary i started
-do something with all the dozens of video clips i have from the past year...

starting with an idea i had today for a video called Bird Flight, a response/rxn/derivation of Stan Brakhage's Moth Light.


whereas Moth evokes the life (and death) of a moth thru the cutting and pasting of pieces of its actual habitat, i will seek to evoke the life of a bird thru the documentation of its death, thru the cutting n pasting of images it encountered before the moment of its fall. and thusly, i hope to evoke something of a mirror on human life as well.

if i can just get my damned iMovie program to cooperate for a friggin second!!

so stay tuned, somethin's gonna come...
-stephan!e

stick a fork in me...

I'M DONE!

let's have a party now, ok?

p.s. and how's THIS for a mission accomplished?

ground control to major tom

commencing countdown, engine's oooooooon...

introducing the newly up n runnin SFS reading group forum! (on the impossibly frustrating and user-unfriendly WordPress!)

RADICLES [SIC]

blam, baby!
-stephan!e

radicles

"In botany, the radicle is the first part of a seedling (a growing plant embryo) to emerge from the seed..." [wikipedia]

---

hello dear friends,

so these past two weeks have been downright hellish. but, i can say i survived, despite expectations to the contrary. and if i do say so myself, i'm a little stronger for it.

but alas, finals week has just begun. (yes, that other stuff was just the first circle of hell)

i realized i have not one, but THREE finals on Monday, including 2 papers and 2 presentations/ projects. + much other fretting to be done b4 the summer can begin (including summer research project planning, the US Social Forum planning for SFS, and deciding whether i am brave enuf to shave my head or not...)

also, i am starting up a reading group for Students for Staff, so we may all become more informed and conscientious practitioners and agents of social change. planning a reading list is kinda like drafting a syllabus, and it's been fun to play teacher, but designing a web platform for the group has been a little less than fun, even tho i am usually one to take kindly to web design and blogging.

what i have so far:

(on Blogger)

(on WordPress)

i preferred the Blogger one until this afternoon, when i discovered that i can post pdf's and doc's on Wordpress = chapters from my senior thesis and research articles!!

what do others think?

---

in other news, i took a much-needed break from the grindstone and spent some time outside at Western's annual Spring Fling. it's always been my favorite week of events, and i especially love the Western Games.

this year, i ran the 3-legged race with the interim assistant dean (we came in 3rd this time. last year, my prof and i totally smoked the competition!), then partook of a drum circle!



dscn0276.mov
that was my favorite part of the whole day. i've always wanted to play the drums, but have never had the chance until now. i love percussion. i always tap my feet or create crazy rhythms on my legs when i'm nervous and need something to do with my hands.

(that is the look of some intense concentration...)

one of the drum guys, Pete, is a German prof at Miami and invited me to join their multi-generational drum troupe. i'm quite excited! i think i'm going to buy some bongos over the summer...

beats!
-stephan!e

and it's only monday...

--->this is how the penultimate week of school makes me feel...

i've been busy. the last few weeks have borne upon me a ridiculous amount of work, and i didn't sleep more than a total of 8 hours all of last week. as you can imagine, i was hardly a person by week's end, merely a doughy shell.

i also ran out of money on my meal plan, so lately have been occupying myself with foraging for little snackies to keep alive with. i had a lunch of baby carrots before i passed out on a bench and slept until the storms came in. i woke up and the land had turned dark and i didn't know where i was any more. and i found the tiniest little bird hopping around in front of my bench, whistling and just having a hell of a time despite my utter confusion. he sure was whistling the hell out of himself. it was kinda a magical moment i wish i had on Kodak film or something.

so this post took place over the course of 3 hours because i kept getting called down to the writing center. it's finals week at last, and the signs are everywhere.

stay well friends, and don't eat more than eight pieces of cold pizza a day. cold leftover pizza is hardly nutritious enough to subsist on, and i'm pretty sure it does permanent damage to your digestive organs.

love and all,
stephan!e

living rage

for immediate release:

Miami University Students for Staff take the campus by storm! Give our staff fair wages! Information Blackout! Blam! Confrontation with Hodge! Hodge puts a hand up to silence and ignore community concerns at Miami University!

What do we want? I don't know, maybe A LIVING WAGE. when? how 'bout NOW!

-stephan!e

living wage meow

some things are better when roared.

-stephan!e

SFS Rally! video

my favorite part: when President Hodge says "the problem is you can't tell us what a living wage is. when you tell me what a living wage is..."

and then my friend Dylan says "it's right on here, Dr. Hodge" and then he points to the letter and reads "A LIVING WAGE IS A DECENT WAGE"

-stephan!e

p.s. i've been up for nearly a whole week straight. i've slept a total of 7 hours in the last 4 nights. but there's good news: i think my body is learning to take it, and i'm getting closer to getting my work done...? i did waste a lot of time editing video for fun, but at least it was thrilling at the time...

he gives us the hand

does this look like someone willing to engage in conversation?


not likely...

(from the Living Wage Rally video. link forthcoming...)

-stephan!e

civic duties

today, i spent the morning devoting time to a variety of (neglected) civic duties.

first, there was a peace rally in uptown Oxford today, which i missed b/c of the cold n wet weather, so that was a bust.

then, i realized i had forgotten to file my taxes. which is ironic, considering that i've spent every Saturday morning for the past 2.5 months helping other people with their's. so, after rummaging thru stacks n stacks of various papers and forms tucked away in the drawers of my desk, i finally salvaged the 1040EZ instructions i'd gotten from my library at home many months ago (ha – i must've thot i'd get an early start on this...)

only to discover i'd failed to get the actual form.

i was close to giving up at this point, but thinking i should probly do at least one civically responsible thing today, i pushed on and am now typing out my tax forms on Adobe (the whole situation was considerably improved by listening to French poetry podcasts. "Le pont Mirabeau, qui coule la Seine...")

anyway, the point of writing all this: i found it quite an absurd juxtaposition of civic duties: protesting (to exercise freedom of speech, to be critical of the government, thus to be a responsible citizine) & taxes (to pay give some hard-earned $ back to the state so they can spend it on the war i'm protesting and not put it into educational reform or healthcare or ...)

it's also raining cold wind this morning, with no sign of sunny warmth in the near future. is this really April?

confused.
-stephan!e

Living Wage Rally!

Students for Staff organized a successful rally and protest outside the Miami University student center yesterday. Despite the unusual cold, there was a crowd of about 50-70 students and staff gathered together on the patio, eating snacks and hanging out.


This is a rare occasion on our campus, when people come together and engage in meaningful dialog with one another, and even more rare is the opportunity to apply our shared concerns into ACTION.

But, that is exactly what we saw yesterday, as the event kicked off with speeches and testimonials from students AND staff, in support of a mutual fight for just wages at Miami University.


We then took to the streets in collective action, carrying signs and this letter to President Hodge,


snaking through campus, hitting a campus landmark, the Upham Arch,


where traditionally most Miami mergers begin with a kiss (the image of students and staff charging thru in peaceful protest is thus particularly poignant),

to end on the steps of Roudebush, the administrative building.


We extended hands and ascended the stairs, a chain of students in solidarity, from the President's door, where we delivered the letter, down to the door.

It was beautiful to see so many people out there doing something political together, and standing strong even in the face of the police, who came expecting to break up a student protest. It made me swell with hope, realizing that maybe we'd finally woken people up.

-stephan!e

on cue

and of course, this happened again.

what's so splendid about this, though, is that this little tart is the fiancee of jackass Ben Alexander, whose simian antics in passive-aggressively attacking SFS have been laughable at best.

--- Katie Klug wrote:

What do you want? And when would you like it?
Take me off your listserv -- wealth redistribution is not one of my key interests...

--- Stephanie Lee wrote:

How delightful of you to ask, Katie.

>>What do you want? A LIVING WAGE.
> > And when would you like it? NOW.

And you're not on any Students for Staff listserv. I got your email from Miami's website. I'd remove you if I knew how.

Take care,
Stephanie

----

anyway, they deserve each other. rumor has it Ben Alexander used to be a punk (without a capital P) before he met her, and then he went conservative on our asses like no one's biznass.

if love turns u into a conservative, count me out.

in other news, it's 6:20 in the AM and i just finished a final paper! it's that Foucauldian/Derridean analysis of Fight Club i've been talkin about. excerpts later...

-stephan!e

[in other other news, i stayed up all night working on the aforementioned paper, only to catch the Kurt Vonnegut news right as it was breaking. it was a strange feeling, the sudden news and the early hour of the day making me feel suddenly so alone and weary.]

listen up!

oh, this level of prolificness simply will not do. this is the third day in a row i've published something here! u're going to get spoiled and upset with me when, in a few days, i write nothing at all for days and days at a time.

but alas, that is a future unconscionable at the present time, b/c here again i have something for you:

the LIVING WAGE FORUM was a HUGE success! and my introductory speech, so i hear, was a knock-out, flat-out flash-out, drag-out hit!

so, to share my elation with those of you who could not be there, the intro, which i slaved and fretted over in between writing Foucauldian and Derridean analyses of Fight Club...

-stephan!e

---

It is so easy to forget about poverty, when we are so comfortably surrounded by wealth. Most Miami University students come from families with an average household income of over $200,000. Miami University is fairly well off as well, with a total of $47 million in net assets. Yet, there are innumerable staff at Miami who are living at or below the poverty line.

As our administration has acknowledged, many University employees are struggling to make end's meet because they do not earn a sufficient income. Students for Staff values the work they do and believe that valuable work demands valuable compensation. It is Students for Staff's stance that no one working full time for a public institution should require government assistance to sustain a basic style of living.

As the largest employer in the area and a public trust, Miami University has a responsibility to address the rising poverty rate in Butler Co.

Students for Staff has been working for over 3 years toward a more just wage policy for the workers of Miami. We join other universities such as Yale, Harvard, and Georgetown, as well as UVA in seeking economic justice for our workers.

Students for Staff are undergrads, graduate students and alumni who believe in living the values of liberal education by putting research and knowledge into ACTION. Students for Staff sees itself as the voice of the workers on campus, as they have been silenced and ignored by the administration. We have been collaborating with workers to understand the working conditions at Miami University, and believe President Hodge and the administration have a responsibility to listen to the staff and the community and address the inequities they face.

Students for Staff has reached out to other student groups, has worked with the local AFSCME union, has met with staff committees and administration, including President Hodge, Carol Hauser the head of human resources, and Richard Norman from the Board of Trustees. And now we are reaching out to you. Students for Staff believes that through engaging in meaningful dialog, and through community building, we can achieve the strength to empower students AND staff to affect change, and work toward our collective interest of making Miami a better, a more inclusive, and more respectful community.

We see the effects of disempowerment everyday, and Students For Staff strives to counter the disengagement we see in our community, by building strong relationships and connections between groups.

i just bring out the best in people...

is it me, or do the denizens of Miami University just seem particularly starved for attn, so much so that they'll lash out at anyone hopeful enough to make compassionate appeals to them?

well, the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. and boy, do i got lots o it!

but first, the call to arms:

---
Please join Students for Staff and economists, Dr.'s Stephanie Luce and Christian Weller, for a Living Wage Forum.

TOMORROW, TUESDAY APRIL 10TH

Fisk Lounge, Ogden Hall, above Bell Tower Dining Hall
4:30 PM

- talks by living wage expert Dr. Stephanie Luce and economist Dr. Christian Weller
- discussion with students and staff to follow

FREE FOOD AND DRINK PROVIDED

---

Students for Staff
FAIR WAGES = FAIR MIAMI
http://musfs.org/

---

Sponsors:
The Bishop Debate Society (Miami University)
The Center for American Progress ( http://www.americanprogress.org/)

---

and now, the pudding [*notice that i am no longer removing emails to protect non-innocents. use this info to your discretion. but do not let them know who told you... ;-) ]:

--- JT <hatfiejt@muohio.edu> wrote:
How the hell did you get this email address? Take me off your stupid hippy listserve, or I swear to god I will see to it that every single MU staff member will die cold, hungry, and alone. And naked. Make it happen.

--- Dave Sorrell <sorrelldave@hotmail.com> wrote:
Please do not pollute my inbox with your socialist drivel. I did not ask to be put on your mailing list, so please remove me immediately and do not send me any further messages. Thank you.

---
to which i replied:

You're not on any listserv or mailing list. I got your email from Miami.

You should know Miami also sells your email to spammers. Ironic, considering they also pollute your mailbox with Barracuda Spam Quarantine Summaries.

Have a good day,
Stephanie
---

and i didn't even mention how Mother Miami also sells our phone numbers to telemarketers. i thot too much truth in one day might just kill them.

love!
-stephan!e

p.s. interestingly, i remember JT from high school. he was the mopey lanky kid with a muffin cut who sat in the back of math class and never talked to anyone. now i like to think of him as the self-aggrandizing shmuck who was in my Media Aesthetics class who had to drop b/c he couldn't pull his lazy ass out of bed at 9 am 3 days a week, who saunters around campus in a camel hair overcoat, looking much too full of himself for his own good. i'd love to punch him in the neck. kids with parents with that much money and no heart really don't deserve to speak of hard-working honest people in that way. sorry. it wasn't worth holding all that in...

in good faith

in my research on social change organizations, i came across a book called Dry Bones Rattling, about faith-based activism in the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF).

i was skeptical at first when i read about how the IAF relies heavily on religious organizations and religious community leaders for building its power base and affecting broad social change. it seemed to me that incorporating people of strong faith could potentially alienate non-religious people, and even repel many progressive individuals, who (in my experience) often repudiate organized religion.

but after attending my second Passover Seder at the house of a kind friend, and taking part in the reading of the Haggadah, i soon saw that religion may share many of the same ideals and goals of social change movements. or, rather, that activism draws its inspiration from many religious teachings.

for example, from the Four Children section of the seder (at Passover, the family confronts the stories of their ancestors' pursuit of liberation from oppression. this section gives suggestions for ways in which to answer the children when they ask the elders how to pursue justice in our time):

"[The Indifferent Child may say:] 'It is not my responsibility.'
Persuade him that responsibility cannot be shirked. As Abraham Joshua Heschel writes, 'The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference. In a free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty, but all are responsible.'"

i liked that part very much.


and i found Passover Seder to be quite delightful. it was so nice to be amongst friends and gentle strangers, and to feel so welcome in a home not my own. it made it very difficult to remember that there are others suffering from hunger, disease, war, injustice, when the world seemed so filled with light.


let us take care of each other,
stephan!e

the hits they keep on coming

as is my usual practice, whenever my favorite student activist group (Students for Staff) has events on campus, i plug it like hell in all my classes and daily conversations. i send mass emails to everyone i can think of, and make (perhaps) excessive use of all the BlackBoard class email banks, where i've discovered i can easily send one announcement to something like 400+ honors kids at a time.

after doing this for the last 2 events, i've gotten to expect maybe one or two angry responses to my spamming. most are wondering who i am, and how i got their email, not realizing that Miami has a history of favoring spammers over the privacy of its students (in fact, Mother Miami sells our information to spammers and telemarketers. ironic since one of the frequent complaints of the Miami student specious is the excessive barrage of Barracuda Spam Quarantine Summary emails.)

well this most recent spam session resulted in the quickest deluge of responses yet. those clever honors kids! they're so sun-starved and attention-hungry, just chomping at the bit to engage in meaningful interaction with any fellow human being, that their anger pours forth like effervescent steaming magma, spewing in my face.

but no matter. little do they realize that i'm more than willing to bite back. mine is a rhetorical fight, and i am ruthless.

below, a sampling of the rantings i found pleasantly awaiting me in my inbox, a mere 5 minutes after the first wave of emails. [angry Honors kid's response, followed by mine]

but first, the context:

----

The campus org Students for Staff, in conjunction with the Center for American Progress and the Bishop Debate Society, has organized a week of events for discussing and taking action for a living wage in our community. We invite you to attend the following events on April 10 & April 12 as we explore the intersections of work, wages, class, and economic disparity at Miami University.

TUESDAY, APRIL 10TH
LIVING WAGE FORUM
- talks by living wage expert Dr. Stephanie Luce and economist Dr.
Christian Weller
- discussion with students and staff to follow
Fisk Lounge, Ogden Hall, above Bell Tower Dining Hall
4:30 PM
FREE FOOD AND DRINK PROVIDED

---

THURSDAY, APRIL 12TH
LIVING WAGE RALLY!
come show your support for a living wage!
4:30 PM, the patio behind Shriver
FREE DINNER

----


chomp chomp,
stephan!e

--- Matt Kern [email removed] wrote:

Stephanie,

You realize this is two days, and not a week's worth
of events, yes?

Can I also ask how you got my email address?

and who is the Bishop Debate Society? I've never heard of them
before. Do they have meetings?

thanks for your response...whenever it comes.
-matt kern

--- Stephanie Lee wrote:

Matt,

The Bishop Debate Society is, in my most basic
understanding, a funding source that provides
assistance to student groups who bring speakers
to campus. It was created, I assume, in the spirit
of dialog and community-engagement.

I probably got your email address from one of the
many BlackBoard sites. Miami makes it easy for all
student groups to advertise for their events this way,
and it is no form of trickery on my part.

And you are correct, 2 days does fall short of a week.
Thank you for pointing that out to me.

-Stephanie


===========

---Tim Nordquist wrote:

The more we pay them the more they will charge us to
go there. [sic]


---Stephanie Lee wrote:

That is definitely not true. Tuition has been rising the maximum amount every year, regardless of increases in wages.

As someone concerned about rising tuition, you should be wondering where all your money is going, and asking why your money is being used to pay sub-poverty wages.


=========

--- Preston Parry wrote:

Have you done any research into the economics of
living wage laws? There's a lot of factual research out
there, available widely on the internet, or through the
library's databases. It would be wise of you as the leader of
this movement to know any and all arguments you will
come up against.

Also, how much work have you done with the actual
staff members themselves? Have you tried hard to
understand their position, to get to know them as
human beings, or just as a single entity that serves
as an outlet for you and your group? I'm just curious,
because not once have I ever heard a staff member
mention to me that they weren't getting paid enough,
or that they in any way disliked their job. Maybe my
sample's just too small, but I was curious how much
research you had into this area as well.


---Stephanie Lee wrote:

Preston,

I have indeed been speaking to workers, as have other members of Students for Staff. It is our invested conversations and relationships with workers that drive many of us to continue working toward a living wage. While we could not possibly speak with all 1,600 of the Classified staff (hourly employees) at Miami, we have made an effort to get to know as many as possible, and have been working diligently in conjunction with many staff liaisons, and have met with staff advisory committees such as CPAC, in order to better understand the staff as a whole.

As someone working diligently on writing and researching my thesis, I can assure you that we do not do this for our own amusement, but because we care very much for the health of our community, and the individuals therein.

I'm glad to hear you've been talking to staff on your own, and that you've been "getting to know them as human beings." I encourage you to continue doing so.

I also encourage you to attend the Forum on Tuesday April 10th for the economics research on living wages. There will be two prominent economists from Washington DC and U Mass-Amherst who will speak to the very concerns you mentioned.

-Stephanie

Happy Birthday, Mother!

it's my mom's birthday today!

if you see this lovely lady, please wish her all the best for me, and thank her for everything she is and does.

with love,
steph

field notes: observing the college student specious in its (un)natural habitat

i wrote this passing thought in a notebook as i people-watched in the halls of Upham, waiting for a sociology prof to sign my force-add slip for Social Stratification next year.

it suddenly seemed very clear to me how the college specious works...

"no wonder ppl drink themselves into oblivion on the wkends – they need release! release from the dull, painful monotony of the rest of their week, time spent wasting in classrooms, the dead, boring material washing over them as they sit staring, hoping to catch glimmers of a future promised them, a future they desperately await, while the present passes them by"

waiting out the monotonous present, living in a zombie state, hoping for something better down the road, while making a mockery of the present and the life you could be living.

this is what Paulo Freire termed the "necrophilic" nature of traditional education. = "driven not by a love of life, but a love of death."

is it sad i can quote all this stuff from memory now?
-stephan!e

what is love?

i wondered that tonight as i sipped a glass of wine at my open window, staring out at the twinkling crisp of night, listening to an album from last summer, on the speakers from an old computer, glancing over the books and movies cluttered on a rickety old shelf i scrounged up in my Chicago apartment, an old black n white film playing silently in the corner of my mind.

i don't think about love a lot these days. there's enough in trying to keep up with the daily realities and physical burdens of life at Miami to fret about love. i'd say i'm a non-believer, i distrust it, hate its power, would rather look than touch it.

the only reason i think about it now is b/c my literary theory professor defined love as "free will" and that has been troubling me ever since. it seems that were love to be defined that way, it would make for a lot of ppl in unrequited love, quite possibly the most ripping agony imaginable. i would know, i'm quite the expert on unrequited love. but aren't we all? how often do 2 ppl fall in love equally with one another at precisely the same time, to say that they are both freely in love with one another? it's hardly probable that love happens that way, more likely it's a game of courtship rituals played out until one side dominates over the other and the losing side relinquishes and gives in.

thus finding this "free will" definition rather odd, i searched the dictionary, and found this:
-an intense feeling of deep affection
-a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone
-a formula for ending an affectionate letter

it was the latter i was most intrigued by. apparently, love can be reduced to no more than the word on the page, a courtesy extended out of formality or social pressure. yet, at the same time, an intense feeling. deep affection. the most intimate of physical contacts. one and the same, it seems...

somewhere in here i could insert some Foucauldian analysis of devotion conventions, the culturally structured conception of love that gives it such irreducible power, its dominance of the individual and the recurrent agony suffered by those who refuse or fail to explode this system of thought. i could employ a Derridean deconstruction of the words and expectations surrounding "love."

but instead, i will leave you with the words of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, who said that love is the thing we don't have that we are trying to give to someone who doesn't exist. in other words, a null set between the self and a nonexistent other....so sad...but canonical post-freudian psychology!

i think i like the Taoist phraseing better, when Lao Tzu wrote that "tao called tao is not tao."

love,
stephan!e

their beats kick back like death

all this rawkin hath lulled her into a catatonic state... glad the oven's still awake! slam ur door in her karate face!

i apologize for the lack of riting lately, but it seems that in wanting to keep this a fairly serious sight, i am much more discerning with what i write.

regardless, for lack of interesting writing of my own to share, and in lieu of my own video work (including a small docu-style film project i'm waiting to debut), i offer some amusing video finds.

the following videos are bizarre, beautiful, ridiculous. ostensibly sensual delights, particularly in their use of music to abhor, inspire, and stir ur soul.

beats,
stephan!e

----

click on image to go to vid.

Tantrum Dance // Tantric Trance

this makes Michael Jackson in Thriller look like such a faker.

Claire de Lune

if you ever wanted to know how an 80s music video for Debussy would look, here you have it.

Anthem

watch his eyes. then watch his eyes in the last five seconds. then watch his eyes in this.

rhizomatic

sorry for the lack of posts, but lately i've been working on my thesis.

in fact, i'm making some impressive progress in gathering my resources. though no actual research has commenced yet (i haven't read a lot of the information i've found due to the sheer volume of it), i have some very interesting plans for the future, once the motivation strikes me.

allow yrself a small peek into my world, if you dare...

my recent research, as bookmarked on del.icio.us, includes some interesting theoretical discussion of Situationist, anarchist, and Marxist applications in daily life and practice.

-> has inspired much fevered and passionate writing, the makings of the beginning of a chapter of my thesis! sample below:


"Students for Staff [has] created an educational grassroots movement from the ground up, cemented with bonds of friendship and respect. We learn by doing together. Students for Staff (re)writes its text every day, and preserves/sustains itself through the passing down of histories of experience through individual relationships. The content of these experiences are found in the web of interactions extant among the members of this community. Because of the lack of a hierarchical power structure (as in the capitalist model), every individual has responsibilities and potentialities, multiplied by their roles in the community, and their commitments to its individual members. The potential for growth within such a community is thus exponential; as each member interacts and forms relationships with every other member, the strength of the connecting fibers mushrooms. The power in grassroots organizing is its rhizomatic potential: lateral roots whose blossoms continually reappear, never able to be stomped out."

--> this inspired by the philosophy of the rhizomatic:

[from Wikipedia:] The term rhizome has been used by Carl Jung as a metaphor, and by Gilles Deleuze as a concept, and refers to the botanical rhizome.

Carl Jung used the word "rhizome", also calling it a "myzel", to emphasize the invisible and underground nature of life:

Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains. (Prologue from "Memories, Dreams, Reflections")

Furthermore:


Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari used the term "rhizome" to describe theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation. In A Thousand Plateaus, they opposed it to an arborescent conception of knowledge, which worked with dualist categories and binary choices. A rhizome works with horizontal and trans-species connections, while an arborescent model works with vertical and linear connections.

so, as you can see, i'm keeping busy.

back to the grindstone,
stephan!e

dreaming in vibrant film

o man i had the most intensely vivid dream last night! it's not very often i get a dream so vividly violent, that it causes me to wake up at 5 am wondering if i had just prophesied an action movie...

it was set in a very large flower shop/ boutique, with a hard gray smooth concrete floor, like you'd see in a factory. there were large windows in the front, and a metal staircase cutting diagonally across your view of the outside. there was a counter perpindicular to the windows, cutting the huge floor in half (maybe it was a dry cleaner?)

there was a woman, who looked something like Christopher Walken, very tall with an angular face, wearing a long (flowered maybe?) dress with high heels. she had a degree of feminine sophistication, while still possessing the immediate threat of an unconscionable strength. there was something very unright about her... something otherworldly (if this were a movie and i were casting for the part, i would ASK Christopher Walken (CW) to play it. i would want no one else. he has the right amount of unsettling creepiness to pull it off)

perhaps i'm characterizing her thus only in afterthought, because the dream consisted of her ripping apart and destroying the store and everyone in it, her two assistants mutilated by the crude use of various accoutrements in the room. the first, a pretty redhead, slapped upside the head with a stiletto heel, then stabbed in the heart with it. another, an older woman (this one a customer) bowled over the counter after being folded in half like a garment by CW's freak strength. another woman's blood splattered all over the walls as she tried to stop it.

i don't remember quite how the dream started out, but i remember one thing that struck me about it (and this is why i felt i had just watched a movie, rather than seen it in my dreams) was that i was watching these events happen from a third perspective! that is, despite the threat of physical danger, i was not directly involved. was i hidden from view? i remember watching as if from a fourth wall (which, as we know, is a filmic convention), no way of CW reaching me or even finding me.

near the end, all this carnage strewn about the room, CW lumbering about, hair a little misplaced, no one left. i think the lady who was thrown over the counter got up, a little shaken, and managed to surprise CW, somehow overthrowing her into a large vat of some kind. she found a rake or a pitchfork of sorts, and (perhaps too lightly) stabbed CW in the stomach with it, pinning her to the inside of this tub. bubbles of purple-red liquid came up to the surface, the pitchfork handle protruding upright from the floating body. the other lady stumbled off. the camera then pans to the vat, where there's movement now, as if the bubbles are stimulating her back to life (though she probably never died in the first place).

of course, like all action/horror movies, she jolts back to life, pulling the rake handle suddenly from her stomach, and proceeds to hunt down others.

on second thought, it's a pretty average thriller/action movie. but the way it played in my dream was just all too surreal, i had to share. (and the color pallette was amazing! blues, reds, deep purples and light lavenders, very dark and dank, but crisp somehow at the same time)

p.s. i tried looking up any extant movies that might fit this bill, thinking there was no way my imagination came up with this on its own. i found nothing close. hmm... do i see a possible Hollywood pitch?

-stephan!e

enjoying Spring into Summer

listening to some experimental sound poetry*
+ reading Dharma Bums by Kerouac (my favorite book from a past summer)

= it's already summer in my head.

sayonara,
stephan!e

---

*on Michael Snow's "Sinoms" [mp3 for download]:
"In the 50-minute Sinoms, Snow has multi-tracked some 20 voices, with as many different French and English accents, reading a complete list of the mayors of Quebec City, at some points making a simple juxtaposition of pronunciation and at others creating the effect of a choir." - U B U W E B

i was first familiar with Michael Snow and his work Wavelength, an experimental non-narrative film. but i learnt today that he was first and foremost a jazz musician, in addition to a photographer, a sculptor, an artist.

some of his photographic work, quite compelling and filmic:

Authorization (1969) - currently my laptop desktop

Venetian Blind (1970)

net neutrality!

i just spent near to my entire day trying to
1) reorganize my hefty harddrive (so many folders! goddam it, how did i get so many folders?! i can't find anything! wot a flippin' mess!) and
2) revamping my original net neutrality video.

this new version is FAR better, and MUCH improved. (the music is actually synced now!–no small feat, but a result, funnily enough, of knowledge gleaned in my current Media Aesthetics class*)

so take a look, won't you, and justify my time...


i hope it's still relevant now. (oh, who am i kidding?! OF COURSE it's still relevant! net neutrality is the blogger's battle of the decade!)

carry on, wayward suns.
-stephan!e


*sound travels slower than light. so, soundtracks must follow the film footage by at least a couple frames in order to "sync." now, how's that for applied learnin'?!

"i think we can all agree..."

...the Miami administration is not being straight with us.

as a previous post indicated, Miami University is paying its FULL-TIME employees SUB-POVERTY wages. (that is, the wages paid by MU are not sufficient to keep employees and their dependents above the federally-defined poverty line.)

furthermore, research done by social workers and non-profit organizations in Butler County indicates that 200% (twice) the federally-defined poverty line is actually the more accurate representation of financial independence in Oxford and its vicinity.

Students for Staff (the Miami University students' living wage movement) requested the 200% data after a meeting with Human Resources director Car0l Hauser indicated 32 staff members are possibly living below the poverty line, and 112 are eligible for food stamps.

the low numbers indicated to Ms. Hauser that there was no problem at Miami, and that Students for Staff (SFS) should "reconsider what [we] are supporting." (we, of course, strongly disagree...)

that was in early December. we just got the 200% data, after much persistence on the part of my friend Dylan (see email correspondence below).

-----Original Message-----
From: [my friend Dylan]
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 9:56 PM
To: [Car0l Hauser]
Subject: re: data

Dr. Hauser,

I still have not received any word on the data I requested last month. Should I make an appointment? We really want to know the 200% number. If the issue is the number of calculations you have to make let me know. As I suggested before if you want to give us a computer file we could perhaps figure it out on our own.

Thanks,

Dylan Daney


------------------- Original Message -------------------
Subject: RE: data
From: "Car0l Hauser"
Date: Thu, March 8, 2007 9:48 am
To: [my friend Dylan]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are 0 employees with no dependents who make less than 200% of the poverty level. There are 127 employees with 1 dependent who make below $26,400, 200% of the poverty level for 1 dependent.

With 2 dependents, 200% of the poverty level is $33,200. Our numbers go all the way up to 9 dependents. In that case 200% of the poverty level is $80,800. From your past work, I think we can all agree that we don't need to go beyond one dependent.

Thanks, Car0l

Car0l Hauser, SPHR
Senior Director Human Resources
15 Roudebush Hall
Miami University
Oxford OH 45056

-----------------------

Ms. Hauser suddenly seems to believe that only staff members with one dependent are relevant, refusing even to state how many workers with 2 dependents are not making sufficient wages to support their families. in our last meeting, we received data on ALL staff, regardless of the number of dependents they claimed. the current data is thus incomplete, as 32 is the total number from ALL classified staff who are possibly living in poverty, and 127 is only the total from among the workers with only one dependent. thus, there are certainly many many more workers than just the 127 they are willing to identify.

recap! ...
last meeting:

32
__________________________________
(all workers, those with 1 to 9 dependents)

recent data:

127
__________________________________
(only those workers with 1 dependent)

*note that the total numbers for those values in ()'s are totally different, with the denominator of the latter being far smaller than the first, but the numerator in the latter being larger than the first.
= the problem is MUCH larger than Miami administration are willing to explicity admit. but no less evident, based on simple math.

after all, 127 > 32 anyway you cut it.

-stephan!e

the horror

home for the holiday.

i'm spending some time reading, writing, and catching up on films.

and i'm seeing this guy tomorrow:



i like the David Lynch-like film-making. tho the music could match it a little better (be more pounding, more industrial, less crisp, and more flakey / scrapey)

-stephan!e

living wage discourse

hey all -
i wanted to share a brief exchange that's been occuring on the western listserv (in response to my last post) that has helped me to clarify my stance on the living wage campaign on campus.

sometimes criticism can help you redefine your purpose, so i encourage all of you to go out and engage others in similar discussions. stir people up, get in debates, create a little friction. their discomfort and uncertainty is what stimulates breakthroughs!

love,
stephanie

------

> Stephanie:
>
> Please define sub-poverty wages. How much are these
> people making, what work
> do they do, what hours do they work, etc.? Are they
> primary jobs, or second
> incomes for people whose primary work is done
> somewhere else? If they are
> eligible for food stamps, do they get them?
>
> This is quite an inflammatory claim to make, and as
> someone hearing it for
> the first time I would like to know the specifics.
>
> I realize that I don't have the stats -- I don't
> know who makes what on the
> Miami staff, or what the average wage is. But if 98%
> of Miami workers make
> above poverty wages, then that doesn't sound much
> like oppression to me.
>
> [name removed]

---

[name removed] and others:

"Sub-poverty wages" means exactly what it implies: the wages paid by Miami for FULL-TIME work are below the federally defined poverty line. That is, assuming Miami wages are the primary source of income for these workers, they would be living in poverty. Furthermore, as research and opinion from Butler County social workers indicates, the federally defined poverty lines are grossly inappropriate for predicting poverty in Butler Co. because the cost of living is much higher than national averages. The more accurate estimate of poverty in Butler Co. would be 200% (twice) the federally defined wage.

What this says to me is that Miami does not respect the work or dedication of our staff members. Anyone who gives 40+ hours a week for our PUBLIC university should not be in a position where they qualify for government assistance.

It's not a matter of "if they get food stamps" or not. What matters is what these wages symbolize, which is respect and gratitude for work done, and time and energy spent. The current wage situation suggests to me that Miami does not value its staff. And this is a huge injustice that affects, and should offend, all of us in the university community.

You said "But if 98% of Miami workers make above poverty wages, then that doesn't sound much like oppression to me."

I ask you to reconsider that statement. For though it seems like a small number, it is no less significant. These are 32 individual employees who are potentially living in poverty, DESPITE the fact that they are working FULL-TIME. There are 112 full-time staff who might be needing food stamps to feed their families.

Yes, 98% is an overwhelming majority. But why should we accept that 2% are still potentially living in poverty? Is it acceptable for poverty to exist at all in our community?

Instead of thinking 32 ppl in poverty is not that bad, think of it this way: if it is such a small number of ppl potentially in poverty, then it would take even less effort from the university to make a change. For a university that continues to raise tuition and that has $47+ million in net assets, this should not be an impossible change to make.

We should not continue to sanction poverty and, yes, oppression when it affects those in our own community.

-Stephanie

protest for living wages at Miami University

-- for immediate release --

dear friends and community members,

there will be a Students for Staff (SFS) action tomorrow, beginning at 10:30 am in front of King Library, and moving toward the hub and then to Shriver.

SFS is a group of undergraduates, graduate students, and alums who care deeply about the state of our community, and who are speaking out against the Miami administration's policies of economic injustice, policies that sanction acts of violence against fellow members of our community.*

as Myles Horton writes in his autobiography THE LONG HAUL, "the violence of poverty destroys families, twists minds, hurts in many ways beyond the pain of hunger."

it is this violence, this reprehensible disregard for human life, that we are speaking out against tomorrow. if you care about a living wage, you should join us!

because let's not forget who keeps the school up and running...
-stephanie
http://www.orgs.muohio.edu/spj/sfs.htm (needs to be updated)


* 32 out of ~1600 full-time staff are making sub-poverty wages.
112 of them are eligible for food stamps.
is this acceptable?