text:
When to Start Looking for Student Accommodation
We think you'll agree:
Knowing when to start looking for student accommodation can be hard, especially with so many things to consider - accreditation, landlords, agencies, flatmates, deposits, to name but a few.
Not to mention the fact that you are competing with thousands of other eligible students in your area for that perfect spot. 🏠
It doesn't have to be that hard. By knowing when the best properties will be available, you can prioritise the most important part of any new accommodation - planning how you are going to decorate it!
And here we have something that should help: a guide to help you know exactly when to start looking for student accommodation.
When to start looking for student accommodation
You might be wondering:
Should I be looking for my student accommodation right now? That answer can actually depend quite heavily on where you are in the UK. The short answer is: YES - even if you are not actually looking to move for a number of months, it can be extremely helpful to get an idea of what's out there, what sort of prices you can expect and the best area for you.
Here are a few main times of the year that do stand out though:
Private Halls can sometimes offer rooms as early as January. So if this is something you are interested in, it can pay off to start looking this early in the year.
Cities other than London generally will start advertising student accommodation much earlier in the year, so it could pay off to start scouting what is available and getting a much clearer idea of what your perfect room/flat/house looks like. It may feel like a long time until the actual move date, but it can actually make the whole process a whole lot smoother…
Or, perhaps you are actually looking to make a move after your first semester is up. This would be a good time to look for any potential spare rooms or flat shares for February, if you fancy a change of scenery.
It is important to note that accommodation in London is often not advertised more than a couple of months before the move in date. But this doesn't mean you should leave it last minute. As with most things, the more information you are armed with, the more likely you will find the right place at the right price.
Housing Fairs. These are actually quite common throughout the year so we recommend researching when and where your university's fair is held. Spring/Summer is often the busiest for housing fairs, but just be aware your local one may be earlier in the year. Even if you don't find exactly what you want at the fair itself, they are a great way of getting questions answered and getting some insightful information on the local area.
This really is a busy time for student accommodation, especially in the larger cities and towns. This is the time when the greatest number of privately rented places are being advertised.
Sounds like the perfect time to start looking, right?
Well, it's a bit of a double edged sword actually - although there are often many more properties on the market, there are also many more people looking to fill those properties. Consequently, the closer it is to the beginning of the academic year, the faster properties will be snapped up.
That being said, if you do wait until this time, just make sure you have a clear idea of the area you want to live in, what sort of properties you see yourself in and also the maximum rent you would be willing to pay. Having a good idea of all of these factors will mean you are able to decide on a property quickly - and hopefully quicker than your rival house-hunters 😉.
The academic year starts!
Hopefully you have found your perfect home for the year already. But don't worry if not, there will still be spare rooms available - although you will certainly be more limited for choice - so we would definitely not recommend leaving it as late as this to start looking.
It really isn't ideal to still be house hunting while the semester has already started - extra stress nobody needs.
Don't forget to check out our guide of where to look for student accommodation.


text: Ranking the Star Wars Films Morgan Lewis April 25, 2016 Articles, Film The Star Wars films are timeless tales of a youth who comes from humble beginnings and sets out on an adventure with the fate of the galaxy resting in their hands. It's a story, in a different form, that has been told for generations which resonates with us all. There is much controversy as to which film is better than others; prequels versus originals, and now even prequels versus originals versus sequels. This article will give some insight into why some of the films are overrated, why some films are great, regardless of popular opinion, and why some of the films may simply be mediocre. 7. Attack of the Clones While Attack of the Clones isn't a bad film per se, it is a mediocre one and the worst of the Star Wars films. It is in a class of its own on the bottom of this list, which each of the other films being much closer in rank. While Attack of the Clones had a great premise, amazing visuals, and a wonderful score by composer John Williams, it was plagued by clunky dialogue and horrible pacing. The editing was god awful, and it is by far the worst Star Wars film, although it does have some wonderful moments and it is not a horrible movie. 6. A New Hope There was a time when A New Hope wasn't even known by A New Hope; it was simply called Star Wars. It was the movie that started it all and is a wonderful film in its own right, but it doesn't have the kind of depth the other Star Wars films have, which is why it is so low on this list. It was revolutionary and created the modern-day summer blockbuster, but that doesn't make it the best Star Wars film. A New Hope's pacing is so-so, the dialogue is a little cheesy (although this is more of a preference), much like the rest of the series, and it lacks the emotional impact that the other films do, even with Obi-Wan's death and Luke's eventual triumph. 5. The Phantom Menace Jar Jar Binks did not ruin Star Wars. There, I said it. Now, with that out of the way, The Phantom Menace had a tough job on its hands. It had to lay the foundation for an entire saga (the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker), and it did a fantastic job of doing that and establishing key plot points that would be pivotal down the road. Jake Lloyd was not nearly as terrible acting-wise as some would have you believe (he was only eight years old) and it has the best pacing of any of the Star Wars films, even at times being "mired" by the political backdrop of the prequels. These politics are important though because they all lead to one of the most important scenes in Star Wars: when Palpatine pronounces himself Emperor. Darth Maul was a really cool character and the lightsaber battle at the end was the second or third best in the series. Jar Jar was a little annoying, but he didn't destroy the enjoyment of the film. Enough said. 4. Return of the Jedi Return of the Jedi saw the spiritual death of Darth Vader and the "return" of Anakin Skywalker. If only the movie had more Palpatine, Luke, and Vader scenes. These scenes were done to perfection and is why Return of the Jedi is so high on this list. The rest of the film was just okay. The beginning was important to wrap up plot points dangling from the previous film and establish Luke as a powerful Jedi, but it simply drags on for too long. The Ewoks weren't terrible, but the Battle of Endor simply wasn't believable and while the space battle against the Death Star was impressive, I was much more interested and invested in Luke's story with his father, Anakin, who the whole saga is based on. Everything with Luke, Vader, and the Emperor is perfection. Everything is, well, okay at best. 3. The Force Awakens I was both surprised and skeptical when a sequel trilogy for the Star Wars films was first announced. I went into The Force Awakens with no expectations at all. I found it surprisingly satisfying though. On the surface, it may seem to simply be a re-hash of A New Hope, but there are so many different layers to the film on multiple viewings, and fans will analyze the "forceback" scene to no end. If Rey is a Skywalker and my theory is correct, Kylo/Ben is a mirror image of Vader before the suit, and Rey is a mirror image of Anakin Skywalker himself. Many people refer to Rey as a Mary Sue character, but I disagree. Yes, she's resourceful, she can use the Force out of nowhere ("They continually speak to you, telling you the will of the Force." – Qui Gon Jinn), and she's kick ass in general, but there's also a vulnerability and a loneliness to her. She also has a bit of a dark side in her, like Anakin, as she was ready to kill Kylo on the spot before the ground split during their saber duel, which was probably the best behind Sith and Empire. Regardless of all of that, the film was a lot of fun, harkened back to the glory days of the Star Wars films, and had some hidden depth. I just need the continuation of that final scene! 2. The Empire Strikes Back The Empire Strikes Back is lavished as the best of the Star Wars films, and for good measure. It had the depth that A New Hope lacked, it was the dark middle act in a trilogy, and it had one of the greatest reveals in all of film history. In 1980, no one could have guessed that Darth Vader was Luke's father. Whether Lucas already knew this or not in 1977 is up to debate, but, that doesn't make the twist any less genius. It is what defined Star Wars as the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker. Yoda was an incredible character and the puppetry used to bring him to life was so realistic that I would have believed he was an actual person (if you can define Yoda as a person?). The dialogue in the film is also the best in the series, as a whole. Empire had the depth, darkness, acting, and story that is superior to almost every Star Wars film, which is why it takes the number two spot on our list. 1. Revenge of the Sith Revenge of the Sith is the finale of the George Lucas Star Wars films, and he went out with a bang. Action packed with a lightning-speed pace, Revenge of the Sith tells the story of the fall of Anakin Skywalker. It is not a perfect film, but if you view Anakin Skywalker's fall to the Dark Side as a two-hour transformation into the suit rather than a one-hour turn, the story actually does work. The lightsaber battle with Obi-Wan and Anakin is the best saber duel in the Star Wars films, hands down. You really see Anakin's struggle to do the right thing in the film, from telling Palpatine he shouldn't kill Dooku because he's an "unarmed prisoner" and it's "not the Jedi way", to telling Mace Windu to arrest Palpatine because he's "unarmed" and it's "not the Jedi way." Both respond that the latter is "too dangerous to be left alive", and while the dialogue is not perfect in Revenge of the Sith, it's these subtleties that make the film great. It also shows the hypocritical nature of the Jedi and gives Anakin one of his motivations for turning to the Dark Side. Revenge of the Sith has depth, it has amazing action, it has decent acting (something the prequels were criticized for), and it tells a very human tale that resonates with people. The dialogue isn't perfect, but there are parts that rhyme with one another, like a stanza in a poem, and when noticed gives one a very gratifying feeling. Revenge of the Sith is the best of the Star Wars films, although with how strong The Force Awakens was, a film in the sequel trilogy just may overtake it, with Looper's Rian Johnson at the helm for the next installment in the Star Wars saga.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Pick Me Up! Special Series is your monthly feast of the best real-life stories from Pick Me Up! Each bumper issue is crammed with a variety pack of true stories, money-saving tips, laughs, health ideas, great looks, budget beauty, food ideas and 12 puzzles to keep you entertained!
(please note: this is not the latest cover)
Click on the various stores below to download the latest issue!
Pick Me Up! Specials UK
Pick Me Up! Specials International
Pick Me Up! Specials North America
Fancy a chat? Join in on the latest conversations on our Facebook page.


text:
A spectacular address like the naturally luxurious Settlers Cove development, in a magnificent waterside location, has been an opportunity to craft multi-media communications infused with an air of lushness and magnificence. Each stage has had its own distinct personality framed within an over-arching brand identity of exclusivity, amenity and tranquillity.
Project details: six stages to date comprising 132 apartments and four villas, all with resort-style facilities, set amidst nature reserve and overlooking Noosa Sound.


text:
Hi, everybody.
So I think I'm fortunate enough to get both BV and UTI at the same time because my vagina loves me. I've had plenty of recurring UTIs and BV once before. I'm currently studying abroad in Taiwan, so before I left the States, my doctor helped me out by prescribing me Nitrofurantoin (for UTI) and Clindamycin (for BV) in case I get those infections while I'm out of the country.
Well, yesterday, throughout the day, I felt a strong urgency to pee with just a few drops of urine each time. I took my cranberry supplements (I know it's to prevent the UTI, not cure, but I took them anyways hoping they would help) and drank lots of water. By night time, it felt like it cleared up. This morning, I decided to start taking the Nitrofurantoin, even though I didn't feel any UTI symptoms throughout the morning. This afternoon, I noticed the BV symptoms, a fishy odor. It's not very strong, but stronger than normal. Later on, I noticed white discharge. I assumed that maybe I didn't have a UTI after all.. maybe it's BV instead. So during dinner, I took one Clindamycin. Two hours after taking it, the UTI symptoms are back and I can't stop running to the bathroom.
My current symptoms are: frequent urination, but not much comes out (it doesn't burn, but my urethra is definitely irritated and tingly), fishy odor, slight discharge, and neon yellow urine (that may be caused by the meds). I used one of those AZO UTI test strips, and I definitely have white blood cells in my urine, and it seems like negative nitrite. I took one nitrofurantoin this morning, and one clindamycin this evening. I know... I'm stupid for taking two different antibiotics at the same time. I wasn't thinking straight. Just wondering if I can get a UTI and BV at the same time? and should I keep taking the antibiotics? More importantly, which antibiotic should I take?
If this doesn't clear up in another day or two, I'll probably go to a nearby hospital/clinic. I'm just worried about the language barrier.
Thanks in advance!!
If this doesn't clear up in another day or two, I'll probably go to a nearby hospital/clinic. I'm just worried about the language barrier.
Thanks in advance!!


text:
BIO APPLE JUICE - Bag in Box
Our Organic Apple Juice is a juice obtained from the direct pressing of whole organic apples from Trentino Alto Adige.
Unlike juices obtained from concentrate, Apple Juice obtained from whole apples maintains the aromas and body of the fruit.
The high quality we offer is therefore mainly due to the careful selection of organic raw materials and craftsmanship.
The fine and delicious flavor is due to a perfect mix of sweet and sour organic apples.
Adults like our Apple Juice, children love it!
Combined with: perfect for breakfast, excellent as a snack accompanied by biscuits, yogurt or other snacks, excellent throughout the meal.


text:
So, you really have heard that buying tadalafil Canada is better, especially via online pharmacies? Most people who hear this try to visit the country personally to buy. For those who are close to Canada, that is fine. However, for those who are in other continents that can become a huge problem. So, the internet is the sure way to go where these issues are concerned. To successfully make online purchases via the internet from Canadian pharmacies, you need to take some days out of your busy schedules to research. There are times when some people need to take tadalafil for specific time periods and that is it. However, no matter the reason why you need it, nothing stops you from buying high quality and also affordable tadalafil from Canada. If you have heard some scary information or details about how online Canadian pharmacies can be dangerous, do not worry. That is a very normal thing. This is because not all the pharmacies online from Canada will have the same level of self respect and focus. So, do not be pushed out or feel discouraged due to that.
Tadalafil Canada purchases must be fulfilling
There is nothing as fulfilling as reading online reviews about different tadalafil Canada purchases and deciding to make the very same decisions as well to have the best time. Mostly, the fulfillment comes in after you have taken the pill or tablet and it works amazingly for you and makes you very hard as well as brings back the confidence you lost since you found out you were impotent. Most men when they realize that they found it difficult to achieve hard erections immediately start to search for the best erectile dysfunction drugs. Your search will always bring you all the way to tadalafil from Canada and that is one thing you need to be careful or cautious of. If you aren't ready to make the purchases, do not make it. It is better not to make this purchase than to waste time and buy it when you know there is no way you will take it.
Some reasons to by tadalafil from Canada
There are so many reasons why tadalafil Canada is purchased. You however need to know clear what some of these are in order to help you make confident decisions. It is a world known fact that the Canadian currency is not as high as the American dollar. This means that there is some cut there. Other reasons include:
1. Making tadalafil from Canada purchases is simply amazing and will always come in different ways. However, the bottom line is that it is extremely convenient and that is what most people do not understand till they have experienced it. For instance, you can use your computers or other smart devices to make your purchase from your office or home.
2. With the availability of the internet, it is easier for you to find all that you need with ease and that is what you should never forget.
3. You can obtain coupon codes to cut down the cost of purchases for you with much ease.


text:
KIRPAL GORDON: Such a pleasure to google you & find out all you've done since I last saw you in
, in 1988.
You were deeply into a Doctor of Arts degree in Critical Theory & with A
Little Salsa on the Prairie: The Changing Character of Perry, Iowa, a documentary
you recently wrote & co-produced, it seems your progressive approach to
writing & teaching has come full circle. So what happened? Albany, NY
JODY SWILKY: After leaving Albany I took an academic position at Drake University in Des Moines, joining an English department that intended to make a wholesale revision of its curriculum, moving from the old smorgasbord of categories structured by nationality and periodicity to one more informed by writing and reading as interdependent activities. Everyone would be responsible in varying degrees for teaching reading-and-writing intensive courses, and I was hired to teach a range of these courses, including "Freshman Seminar in
Writing," " Reading and
Writing Poetry," and "The Teaching of Writing: Theory and Practice."
I was also asked to develop new courses in literacy, cultural studies, and
writing. I was excited by this possibility, despite the fact that I was not
thrilled about moving to Reading , a
sentiment that has changed radically over the years. What attracted me was the
fact that the department was interested in revising its programs and informing
them by theoretical and pedagogical developments that recently emerged in
writing studies and cultural studies—developments that
dominated my graduate work at Des Moines . Albany
I remember coming across an interview with Jane Tompkins that would be critical to the writing and teaching I wanted to pursue:
Although I didn't realize while I was in graduate school and for the first twenty years of teaching that I really aspired to be a writer more than a critic, now that I have made this crossover, I'm absolutely delighted. Let me say, though, that I think it's a false dichotomy: a scholar/critic versus a writer. It's a dichotomy we've all been sold in some way by the tradition we work in, and it's not useful to us anymore.
-from "Jane Tompkins and the Politics of Writing, Scholarship, and Pedagogy" Interview in JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory)
KIRPAL GORDON: I saw you erase such dichotomies with the journalism & creative writing students you taught at Arthur Kill CF, but it sounds like the SUNY-Albany program helped you combine your skills as a teacher-poet-writer-critic-activist in new ways.
JODY SWILKY: The graduate courses at
that had
the most invigorating impact upon me were the courses that encouraged me to
blur distinctions between writing and criticism, between aesthetic and critical
writing. The English department at Drake seemed interested in people who had
training in multiple fields or divisions within a discipline, who, for
instance, had attended an Albany MFA program
and pursued doctoral work in writing studies or cultural theory, and who could
contribute such training to the curriculum revision initiative. I wanted to
teach courses and produce writing that was informed by tensions between and
intersections of storytelling and rhetoric. I wanted my writing to take an
ethnographic approach to studying culture, to study and use language in
multiple ways that
challenged traditional divisions between notions of the creative and the
critical, between academic and journalistic writing, and between storytelling
and critical analysis. After a few years of continuing to produce writing that
served to preserve the conventions of genres, I embarked upon a decade-long
collaboration with Daniel Mahala, another Albany grad, that produced writing
that integrated storytelling and cultural theory, both our own and the work of
other writers, illustrating how storytelling was being performed in multiple
academic disciplines—in critical legal studies, in literacy studies, in
anthropology, in the social
sciences, and in literary theory—constructing a layered essay that advocated
making story, testimony and the personal central to academic writing. Much of
this writing captured the struggle to represent a fuller self, one that engages
and exploits the conventions of academic writing while using language that
enables writers to work towards their particular intentions.
The storytelling in a number of our essays took various forms, sometimes appearing as nonfiction, other times seeming more like fiction. Whatever writing strategy we employed, narrative translated abstract concepts into a representation of lived experience. The crossover that JAC promoted, what Tompkins advocated in her interview, enabled my collaborator and me to continue to build on the work supported by the doctoral program we attended, which attracted a group of people who were making crossovers: a published playwright working on a doctorate on avant-garde contemporary performance theory; an erstwhile journalist working on a theory of documentary filmmaking; an engineer writing a multi-genre dissertation, capturing, through poetry and prose, his interpretation of William Carlos Williams' epic poem, Paterson; and a good number of card-carrying,
MFA program grads engaged in
projects concerned with theories of storytelling, composing, and
collaboration—three activities that would begin to inform the work I produced
after I left the program.
KIRPAL GORDON: Talk more about ethnography as a means or method to understand culture. What inspiration did you draw from that study?
JODY SWILKY: Modern ethnography appears in several forms, traditional and innovative. As an academic practice it cannot be separated from anthropology. Seen more generally, it is simply diverse ways of thinking and writing about culture from a standpoint of participant observation.
(James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art)
In 1988, James Clifford's seminal study of Western ethnography was published, offering an important critique of how anthropology, travel writing, collecting, and museum displays of tribal art represented culture and cultural groups. Clifford offered an alternative practice which, as the quotation just displayed suggests, called for a more inclusive perspective on who might study culture, and through example, how writing might include the voices of those being studied while serving their interests.
That same year, The Thin Blue Line was released. Errol Morris' groundbreaking documentary depicts the story of Randall Dale Adams, a man convicted and sentenced to die for a murder he did not commit.
Adams' case was
reviewed and he was released from prison approximately a year after the film's
release. He told reporters,
"The fact that it took 12 and a half years and a movie to prove my innocence should scare the hell out of everyone in this room and, if it doesn't, then that scares the hell out of me."
The integration of an investigative perspective with the aesthetics of filmmaking is the hallmark of Morris' documentary, which weaves a thread of reenactment, of dramatic storytelling, with interviews, plus a multitude of images—of faces, newspaper headlines, street, maps and buildings—presented through imaginative camerawork and pacing—zooming in and out, spanning landscapes and rooms, capturing and dispersing colors, and moving to the hypnotic effects of Phillip Glass's score. The film lets us know we are in the presence of filmmaking. The results were art and social justice.
Clifford's and Morris' work opened up possibilities for studying culture, particularly who contributes, and what materials and representational strategies are used, to construct and capture their storytelling; and in distinct ways, their work complemented how writing and filmmaking can serve the social interests of the individuals and groups being studied.
Over the past decade, within writing studies, there has been increasing concern about the relationship between words and images, what Kristie Fleckenstein has described as a shift from "a language-centric to a polymorphic literacy," a response acknowledging that "meaning shapes itself in response to the dictates of different media, modes and contexts of representation," what she deems a necessary response in this post-Gutenbergian, image-dominated age, in which we are subject to an unending stream of information-melding words with mental, graphic and verbal imagery. If we fail to account for how imagery affects our understanding of experience, Fleckenstein argues, we limit how richly we can understand the world that impinges on us. This suggests a new possibility for composing culture—a transformation from creating images only through language to working with multiple kinds and modalities of images—graphic, verbal, and mental—the product being a text that does not abandon language but rather incorporates multiple semiotic systems.
Possibilities can represent opportunities as well as challenges. Since Clifford's book and Morris' film were released, academics who previously wrote about culture, primarily for a specialized audience, have begun to work in documentary film.
KIRPAL GORDON: How did your interest in making documentary film come about? Did you seek out the work of other academics?
JODY SWILKY: Since I began work on a documentary in 2005, I have attended dozens of screenings by first-time, academic filmmakers, who had little or no formal training in filmmaking or prior experience adapting their writing for a non-specialized audience. These events have caused me to think more about the challenges of transitioning and adapting, including working with multiple semiotic systems, negotiating the interests and desires of different audiences, and establishing ethical participant-observer relationships with the culture being studied.
A significant challenge has been moving from working with images through language to composing culture through multimodal texts, moving from reading and hearing language to considering how language works with visual images and sounds—and how that might affect the listener-reader-viewer.
I remember in the late 1970s and early 1980s theories of image-making that stirred my interest. There was Pound's misreading of the Chinese, captured in "The Chinese Character as a Medium for Poetry," which might have had the linguistic substance wrong, yet his theory represented a powerful way of thinking about constructing images: placing perceptions side by side, as if they were ideograms.
KIRPAL GORDON: Would you give us an example from your own poetry?
Shared Music
They sang the same songs for years,
in the dark, across a continent,
sometimes awake at dawn,
humming to a frosted window.
Years would pass before they danced
to ballads in a shadowy room,
careless of stepping
on each other's toes.
The muted trumpet lingered
and something burned their faces—
the remains of an incredible embrace,
the body speaking a startling language,
the way the woman who just left her lover
and now arrives home,
suddenly stops smiling, then smiles again,
surprised by her daughter's laughter.
The final stanza of the poem, read line by line, embodies how the body speaks a "startling language." Collectively, the lines of the final stanza create the stages of the experience—departure, arrival, readjustment, and surprise. A sequence of perceptions, of scenes, each ordinary in itself, yet as you read through them, each can carry the residue of the previous images, accumulatively creating new meaning.
KIRPAL GORDON: To make the old new, to express the "startling language" hidden within the everyday that yields those haiku-ish, satori-like eurekas—you've wrought the best of Pound's misreading of Fenolossa. You've made good on other influences, too, yes?
JODY SWILKY: Another theory of image-making that influenced my work in language was that of the deep-image aesthetic. I was taken by the notion of a poem playing states of being against each other, or building and possibly provoking a more imaginative state of consciousness. Some poems I wrote about seeing and the imagination attempted to exploit a tension between common visual images and images that aren't of the natural world.
KIRPAL GORDON: Would you illustrate the tension in a poem?
JODY SWILKY: An example appears at the end of this poem:
A man walks through a district
of perfume and dress shops,
and wherever he turns,
whatever his eye might spot
through the sunlight, shadow,
and damp odor of traffic,
he sees only the cold beauty
of women in windows.
If a mannequin leans,
offering her perfect hand,
or the woman sitting in bed
whispers a few words,
he knows, as the body absorbs
sight and sound, they're calling him.
And if they stand as stiff as plaster,
he thinks each inviting gesture
is saved until the streets empty,
until his fingers touch luminous glass,
leaving a handful of kisses
on their billboard smiles.
The closing image of the poem works with what can be seen, a common image in advertising, and what must be imagined, an almost magical gesture of affection for one's own creation, the animated inanimate object—the mixing of language of intense desire with that of simulated beauty.
KIRPAL GORDON: Perhaps on the other side of affection for one's creation there's a loneliness inferred in those last lines as well: is the fetish defeating the real thing? Is kissing the "cold beauty / of women in windows" a sad confirmation that he can't get no satisfaction, that he's hooked on image? The ad's reflection in glass lends this reader to re-think ideas about beauty, flesh, desire, artifice, propaganda, advertising, manipulation, the politics of the female body & the separation from nature/woman inherent in your cityscape. After reading your collaborations with Daniel Mahala, I find you're packing a punch akin to this Deep Imagism in your essays.
JODY SWILKY: The hybrid collaborative essays were enabling new territory for critiquing culture, and although they used storytelling to capture institutional, programmatic and disciplinary situations, they represented a divided writing identity, what seems to me more critical than creative. Later, when I found myself working in a multimodal medium (film), I sensed a more balanced construction of aesthetics and critique, which emerged by working with multiple forms of images, created through the linguistic, the visual, the aural, and most important, through the integration of the three—through how they present image, story, critique and argument—and consequently produced a critical aesthetic through the composing of culture that worked against a divided disciplinary identity. A writer-critic, if you will.
I have been considering these challenges of representation and collaboration ever since I worked on A Little Salsa on the Prairie, the documentary I wrote and co-produced. What I mean by representation is the way one or more modes of symbolic representation are used to construct the story and the perspective(s) from which a story is told; in other words, issues of composing and storytelling which often blur or are interdependent.
Vivian de Gonzalez Transcript
You know, when I got here to Perry, ah, and people would look at me they thought, oh, you know, she doesn't understand English, she's Spanish speaking, she, you know, she doesn't understand, but not knowing that, you know I am, I did speak English, and I am an American and um, I've, I've had to have proved myself not only once but twice because I have to prove myself not only to my own people but to the Anglo population too.
Now I would like you to watch and listen as Vivian speaks: Go to
You know, when I got here to Perry, ah, and people would look at me they thought, oh, you know, she doesn't understand English, she's Spanish speaking, she, you know, she doesn't understand, but not knowing that, you know I am, I did speak English, and I am an American and um, I've, I've had to have proved myself not only once but twice because I have to prove myself not only to my own people but to the Anglo population too.
When I first read Vivian de Gonzalez's account of how she was perceived after her arrival in Perry, I had not seen film footage of her interview. My response to the transcript was that there was an important message in her explanation that addressed a fundamental problem in understanding the relationship between recent Latino immigration and the identity of New Iowans, as well as the consequences of this misunderstanding. I initially decided against using this footage to open the film, however, because I felt unsure about the syntax and how that might come across to viewers. But when I viewed the footage and listened to the speaker—after seeing her face and body, and noting her body language; after hearing the register of her voice, the pace and emphasis of her phrasing; and imagining music accompanying the footage—I had a different response. Her presence as speaker made the written text particular, personal, as she infused the text with pauses, emphasis and emotion. When I read the transcript, I could construct an image of her, but now her visual presence affected any image I previously had. My method became: listen, look and read.
Along with the challenge of the medium for composing culture, there has been the matter of approach. When I consider the structure of A Little Salsa on the Prairie, the challenges of representation and collaboration become entwined. Moving from the past to the present, from reconstructing history to documenting a community-wide dialogue, we intended that the role of residents would be enhanced as the story unfolded, and that through this process, the competing interests and needs of the community would emerge.
The first chapter, which offers a historical view of Perry through a perspective that considered the relationship between ethnicity, industry and immigration, was constituted largely by archival images and scholars' voices. The ensuing chapter focused ONLY on the residents' views concerning the dramatic culture change of the 1990s, when Latinos came to work at the meatpacking plant and settle in the community.
The next segment documents a dialogic process during which residents met for five consecutive weeks in small groups,
followed by a community-wide forum, to discuss the challenges the transformed community faced. Through the structure of the story, Perry's residents took a more active role as actors in telling the story. At the same time, from the footage we shot and the archives we visited, we selected the materials and we designed their arrangement, and thus the needs and interests represented were not the result of our negotiating with the community. While two rough cuts of the documentary were screened for several community groups, and their feedback was taken into consideration, throughout the production process, we did not work with members of the community on determining the specific interests and concerns that would inform the film. Thus, it was our representation of "their interests and concerns."
What might have been the story if we had regularly negotiated the content? We came closest to this approach to collaboration in the coda to the film. Using Vivian de Gonzalez's and Father David Polich's uncut representations of the religious ritual, replacing the voiceover with the voices of two residents, each having a distinct story informed by their connection to the ritual; consulting with them regarding the B-roll to complement their narratives, we constructed the film's coda. The process was collaborative and the coda became a metaphor for collaboration, integration. That was closer to what the politics of the both the film and filmmaking could have been.
Despite the limitations of the project, I must say that it was an incredible experience, as far as what I learned about writing grants and securing resources, the tensions of studying and working with a community of people, the tensions and revelations of collaborative work with an artist situated outside academia, and the challenges of constructing a product that integrates language, images, sound, and so on.
KIRPAL GORDON: What pieces of advice would you give to someone just starting out?
JODY SWILKY: The most important thing about the grant world is learning formulas and expectations.
The spectator-researcher subjectivity is much more complex, particularly negotiating the fact that people who you care for are subjects of your work, and you must hone your care and concerns for them in relationship to a story you are striving to construct. That's why in an interview format (section II of the documentary), we let Anglo and Latino residents report on how they responded to the dramatic culture change in the community, then followed these interviews with a section shot more in cinema verite format, with the camera rolling on the study circle groups, with people not as poised, not as careful about expressing their views on immigration, assimilation, and culture change.
Then there is the tension of working with someone whose purposes and rhythms differ from those of us trained and housed in academia. Based on my limited experience, the academic and independent artist can have divergent priorities, and different pressures can affect attention to phases of the project, including research, writing, shooting footage, and editing. There are also different realms of knowledge: for example, a videographer who works produces work for the general public might think differently than an academic accustomed to writing for a smaller audience. It certainly was a lesson in understanding a new form of otherness.
I found myself in new territory in my work, and, dare I say, opening up new territory for humanists at Drake. I was the first member of the humanities faculty to get the highest level of support for a multimedia project ($15,000) from Humanities Iowa, a state organization affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities. The film project also received additional state funding ($6,900) from Iowa Arts Council, and from a private foundation, Bock Family Foundation ($7,500). Then there was the strange world of soliciting funding form individuals and industry.
Commencing in the fall of 2006, I began a five-year period of traveling and lecturing. There have been about 40 public screenings of the film, on campuses and in communities, and I have spoken at many of these events. The film has been aired several times on Iowa Public Television and was shown for two years on The Documentary Channel which is available through Direct TV. Finally, and perhaps most important to current and future research projects, since 2008 I have been invited to give seven presentations on the effects of recent immigration on
and the
nation. The majority of the invitations have come form universities and
colleges, among them Technologico de Monterrey (Guadalajara, Mexico), Manhattan
College (New York, NY), SUNY at Geneseo (Geneseo, NY), Saint Mary's College
(Moraga, CA), and St. Thomas Aquinas College (Sparkill, NY). Iowa
KIRPAL GORDON: Yikes, Jody, this sounds like the antithesis of the stodgy academic life! You're connecting with so many communities, you're constantly synthesizing feedback, you're uniting people of a similar karass, you're engaging with one of our country's biggest issues & you're making a difference to people who have not necessarily paid your employer any tuition.
JODY SWILKY: If I consider the historical trajectory of this project, if I think about its evolution from applying for grants to the recent presentation of the documentary in Mexico to an audience of hundreds, many who have personally known someone who has been part of the phenomenon over the past two decades of changing rural communities throughout North America, I can say I have been engaged in what I think is a vital discussion across our nation—how welcoming you will be to the new immigrants who are changing our country. The disparate responses of people who have attended screenings has engaged me in numerous discussions about divisive issues—what it means to think of a human being as "illegal," what should be the responsibility of the government in promoting or restricting immigration from south of the Rio Grande, the importance of precluding, restricting or enabling paths to citizenship, and how fear and the unknown inform contrasting perspectives on welcoming new residents of the U. S. These exchanges have taught me the importance of using the documentary to promote discussions concerning the historical causes of recent demographic change, the struggles and challenges immigrants endure, and the contrasting consequences of recent immigration for communities across the nation.
I often find my thinking aligned with a point that Sonia Nazario raises in her national bestseller, Enrique's Journey, concerning the problem with the way we debate and legislate immigration: no matter how legitimate, campaigns and law have had a "corrosive side effect" (xiv). Recent immigrants' presence in the
is deemed either good or bad,
reducing these individuals to a "cost-benefit ratio," downplaying or erasing
the reasons for, as well as the struggles and effects of, immigration. While
immigrants' stories about culture change, assimilation, and the future
frequently reflect the thinking that informs public debate, these narratives
simultaneously speak about experiences and identity in ways that complicate and
challenge the way public debate has defined the effects of immigration. Thus,
in our attempts to understand the meaningful possibilities for reform,
we need to look not only at the thinking that informs public debate and
produces legislation, but to the culture change in communities and the stories
their residents tell of the specific effects immigration has had on the quality
of life—for themselves and other residents of the community. That was a primary
objective of the documentary. United
KIRPAL GORDON: So how has all this time in
JODY SWILKY: When I came to
in 1988, some of my students and some locals considered
me a somewhat abrasive, perhaps too intense, Easterner, something of an
intruder from the East. My character and personality frequently clashed with
the dominant mores and attitudes. In one sense, this is a generalization; at
the same time, however, there were enough statements in student evaluations and
reactions from people in the community to suggest to me that I was somewhat of
an outsider. I have changed, and people who get to know me, at Drake and around
greater Des
Moines , have
shown willingness to accept my contrasting ways. This sense of being "somewhat
different" has been useful to me as I presented the documentary across the
state, for it has helped me gain insight of our fears of otherness, whatever it
might be, whether it is among ethnic groups or my own intimate circles. So I
have learned more acceptance of the elderly Anglo woman from rural Des Moines , who has
lived in a homogenous community all her life, and then experiences her
community undergoing rapid ethnic diversification. What a challenge for her
being confronted by dramatic culture change that can initially present too much
of the unknown. I have learned to be more attentive to, and accepting of her
fears, of the challenges she faces. It reminds me of a poem that I wrote
decades ago: Iowa
Nothing but Image
If I am amazed by anybody
it's the bum on
who bears the abuse
of executives and salesmen,
who smiles at secretaries
rushing past his ragged presence.
My father once told me:
Don't trust these men with no purpose.
They seem harmless, he said,
but look hard and you might see
your own fallen image
fading across their faces.
So I turned my head and walked away.
But one night, in winter rain,
an old man mumbled,
spare change...
and I stared into his bloodshot eyes.
Water dripped down his face
like sweat, and his busted nose
broke the dark,
perhaps the proud wound
of a forgotten middleweight fight.
As I handed him some coins,
didn't he lower his head,
bless me, call me brother?
Now I love to look for those
whose faces and clothes deceive us,
this bum standing up
to the insults of the crowd,
who leaves us shaking our heads
and talking to ourselves
like men lost in the heart
, in an
almost memorable past. New York
KIRPAL GORDON: You're bringing me back to the
34th Street where we
first met---in publishing---in 1979 & now all these years later you have
created the life that poem suggested was possible to you, a life of looking
closer, of not being afraid to discover yourself in the face of the other &
sharing the methodology & the results.
JODY SWILKY: The transitions I have made in my writing and film work have been possible in part because I have worked for several decades in an institutional department that within a few years after I arrived let go of artificial and unproductive divisions such as writer vs. critics, literary vs. popular, high vs. low culture, and aesthetic vs. political. There has always been a visible group of people within my department and the broader institution that supported and encouraged work that did not preserve artificial boundaries that limited the possibilities for expression and creation, among them the role of writer-critic. (And there have been resources and awards for connecting writing to teaching.)
In the early 1990s, soon after I arrived at Drake, a coalition of senior and junior faculty advocated throwing out the well-established curriculum, those containers informed by periodicity and nationality, replacing this common curricular form with a more rhizomic structure—all courses connected by the interdependence of reading, writing, and recent developments in theories of discourse and culture, and courses branching out and building on each other. We underscored students becoming close readers and serious writers, rather than exposing them, primarily, to periods of literature and particular author-figures.
We intended the emphasis on reading and writing to engage students in multiple genres of writing, to engage canonical and non-canonical texts in the same course, and to gain a sense that close reading and serious writing is valuable in the here and now, as well as preparation for life and career after graduation. Having gone to graduate programs that enabled me to work in multiple genres of writing, often for the same course, I valued such experience and applied it to designing courses that asked students to produce similar projects in courses such as "Reading and Writing Place," "Storytelling as a Social Practice," "English in America," "Reading, Writing, and Making Documentary," and "Writing within and against Academic Discourse."
I believe that students taking classes through my department are being given the opportunity to read and write in ways that encourage creatively critical attitudes toward texts and the world. What students miss in coverage, they get double in opportunities to learn to be close readers of texts, and to try out and develop different approaches to writing sanctioned within and outside the academic institution.
It is probably a commonplace today to claim that meaningful teaching requires that teachers take a philosophical attitude towards their work. To be philosophical about teaching means to be aware of what one is doing and why, which necessitates having, what Cy Knoblauch and Lil Brannon, two of my comp mentors, have described as "an exploratory and reflective attitude towards ideas, issues and questions" pertinent to how people learn and how they develop as learners. In addition, a philosophical stance towards pedagogy requires that teachers gain awareness of the values, attitudes and beliefs that inform different teaching methods—those contrasting philosophical perspectives "on language, on meaning, on communication, on learning, and on the ways of assisting learning." Awareness of the philosophical dimensions of teaching, Knoblauch and Brannon contend, makes instruction "sensible and deliberate."
I encourage the students I work with to take an attitude towards learning similar to the philosophical stance that Knoblauch and Brannon advocate teachers adopt towards pedagogy. I ask them to work towards developing this stance as readers, writers and speakers because learning is a process of exploring issues and ideas, coming up with provisional understanding and reformulating beliefs through thinking, which is not likely to happen when teachers locate themselves in the educational process primarily as figures who profess knowledge that students passively internalize. What more meaningfully serves the goal of students developing a philosophical attitude towards learning is a pedagogy that underscores reading, writing and speaking as means for producing and revising thinking, that makes the classroom a social space in which students are expected to be active participants who collectively interpret, discuss and debate issues, and that positions the teacher in different roles necessary to facilitate and complicate such learning.
The complications and difficulties my teaching poses for students have to do as much with matters of (un)familiarity as with ideology. Students I have worked with at Drake have had a variety of educational experiences, and they exhibit different degrees of interest in and resistance to the demands of my teaching. I have found it counterproductive to perceive students to be generally anti-philosophical. Rather, it makes more sense to think about their differences and potential as well as their limitations, and therefore recognize that only some students present extreme resistance while others already show interest, and many have the potential to become more philosophical about learning.
The most meaningful way I know to counter student resistance to my teaching is for students to see themselves change as readers, writers and speakers, and in so doing, attain some genuine understanding of the value of their learning. I ask them to engage in the processes of revision and re-visioning. The first activity focuses on deepening one's interpretations and arguments; the second, on seeing how they might interpret and argue differently. I ask them to write and respond to each other's work each week, often for each class, and to understand that their individual and collaborative work is produced and shared so they can see different possibilities for understanding texts and the world, become more insightful at interpreting their own and other students' writings, and appreciate how thinking can change and deepen through hard work. As someone responding to what they say and write, my responsibility is not only to offer questions that help them deepen their thinking and consider others ways of understanding what they write about, but to provide questions and commentary that help clarify for them the meaningfulness of any genuine changes in their thinking and writing.
I am not suggesting that the method I have outlined nullifies student resistance to developing a more philosophical stance towards learning. A pedagogy that asks students to become more responsible for their learning requires that many of them unlearn the way they have become accustomed to performing in the classroom. However, my experience leads me to believe that the different degrees of confusion and discomfort students experience can eventually be perceived as productive if they receive support and gradually recognize they are gaining something significant through their struggles. They will always need to know that what they say matters, but it is reasonable and necessary to increase expectations for their persuasiveness as they move through this transitional process. That is why I believe in starting out where students are, rather than where they "should" be, and gradually complicating the challenges of learning. And those students who eventually perceive their abandoning of ingrained behavior as more than simply giving up how they have learned to perform, they will have begun to understand differences in the values, attitudes and beliefs that inform teaching, and thereby have become more philosophical about learning.
KIRPAL GORDON: One could also say that you're facilitating students in their building "a room of one's own," midwifeing their birth into a fuller self, what once was called soul-making. You're reminding me of that Cassandra Wilson line from "Running the Voodoo Down," "In this quiet place I own, worlds are born." So how can Giant Steps reader see your film, stay in touch with all of that you do & when you will next be in their city or town?
JODY SWILKY: I get what you are saying about those lyrics.
Now for a radical shift: the
DVD is
available on the web at http://littlesalsaontheprairie.com.
Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to catch up with you and share with your readers the projects I have been engaged in for several decades.
It was a pleasure.


text:
Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'post processing'.
Found 6 results
Hello, I am new in Photography but have gotten heavily into it. I take photo's daily as much as possible and spend a great deal of time learning how to post process the photo's in Photoshop better and learning the in's and out's of the program. I'm left with a few questions after going through countless other photo's from good photographers. First, I notice their photo's are crystal clear and usually devoid of noise. I've tried using reduce noise to reduce the noise in my photo's, as well as using a small surface blur, and even tried using a second layer with the image on top of the first layer as overlay or screen to increase contrast. I've tried using high pass also. While those things seem to work to a minor degree (Nomatter what I put the settings to) the images don't turn out like what I see with the professionals. While they look nice, if zoomed in to max resolution you see issues. If I use reduce noise or blur to fix the noise, it becomes too blurry. I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge to shoot photo's, using pro mode so that I have as much control as possible and even doing zoom manually to get the sharpest picture possible. I have the ISO setting at 50 or 100, sometimes 200 if it's dark. I realize shooting with a high ISO will cause noise so I keep it as low as possible and try to shoot in well lit area's. I adjust the shutter speed to allow only as much light as necessary to avoid blurry pictures, and in the settings I tell the camera to save the raw dng files so that I have more to work with post processing. I realize I need a better camera, but I don't have enough money at the moment to upgrade. I was hoping to make money with what I have so that I could buy a professional DSLR camera. So, the questions I have for you guys are: 1.) What is the best entry level camera? I don't have a lot of money to spend, but I need something better than this Smartphone I imagine. I've read the best entry level is the Nikon D3300 or D3400. 2.) How much better is an entry level DSLR over a Galaxy S6 Edge? Will the photo quality improve greatly? 3.) What kind of post processing in Photoshop do you normally do to make images look their best? Are there any good tips on making images crisp/clear and noise/artifact free? Thank you in advance for your help!
Hi everybody, my Alamy experience started badly with me having only 4 major sales in over one year and now 2 months from the last sale occurred in late May. It's my fault since i've uploaded in the beginning a lot of similars and may be bad keywordered files with the "cream" of having not properly post processed all my images. Most of you all veterans advised me about these things but it seems i'm a bad student My CTR is low but my views are up (few zooms actually) so it seems topics i covered are requested by customers and my CTR is not so bad. What do you suggest me at this point? 1) Delete badly post processed or similar files 2) Improve keywording BEFORE adding new files 3) Add new files caring more about the above points 4) Play with pseudos 5) Start a new account and add new files there I know 2) and 3) i should do by the way but it would be enough without doing 1) , 4) or the worst option 5) ? Thanks
Photo Creativity
kmahaffy posted a topic in Alamy Quality Control and technical talkCan I use post-processing to make a photo look old? For instance - I have a photo of a paddle-wheel boat and I have made the photo look as if it was from the Civil War Era (tin type, scratches, faded) - Would that be accepted or rejected? Thanks, Kmahaffy
How much PP is too much?
Pete A posted a topic in Alamy Quality Control and technical talkHi, just joined Alamy and I'm a little confused. For the four images submitted, there had to be no sharpening. I had one failure for 'over manipulation'. There were no sharpening artifacts on the image or halos around the subject. This image has been successful on other stock sites, so I'm now wondering to what extent can I push the post processing on Alamy? Any and all advice will be gratefull appreciated. I have now had full acceptance, but not sure what to upload next for fear of rejection through over manipulation.
Hi, I'm preparing a submission and wonder if the original post-processing I've applied would be suitable for Alamy. There is a few images out there but I feel its not the norm, is it worth submitting heavily processed images or is a more simple cleaner finish preferred by buyers?
DXO Optics Pro
Stephen Haunts posted a topic in Alamy Quality Control and technical talkHi Does anyone here use DXO Optics Pro to do lens corrections on their images before submitting to Alamy. Is this something QC are generally ok with as it does enhance sharpness. It looks like a nice tool and I am thinking of trying it out but don't want to persist if it falls foul of the QC process. Thanks Steve


text:
Tweet This
- Let's start with the fairly obvious origin of the problem: I hid my gender because I wanted to make sure to be taken seriously in a male-dominated industry.
- If investing is about projecting which odd-looking idea will have a solid place in the future—the ability to step outside your view of the current world is a great skill to have.
I realized there was likely a great reason that I wasn't approached:
I have never represented myself as a woman investor. If anything, I spent much of my career convincing people NOT to see me as a woman.
In the process—I made a large part of my actual identity invisible, and did a disservice to women coming up behind me who needed stronger advocates for women's leadership. But I also just didn't understand what it meant to rep for the women's team—so I didn't do it.
I still honor that just existing in such a male-dominated industry is part of changing culture—for instance, across asset classes, women- and minority-owned firmed manage just 1.1% of the $36 trillion of AUM in North America. I happen to be a partner in one of those firms—a Registered Investment Advisor.
When I signed up online to get my firm registered, here were the security questions offered up by the regulating agency, for Pete's sake:
Clearly a man wrote these questions, for men who presumably have already had very lucrative finance careers—not for women, and certainly not women who prioritized social outcomes over high salaries. (And for the record, if I did have a vacation home, it would be by a beach…who in their right mind puts their vacation home in a city?)
As a woman partner in a field where women are barely holding on at less than 1% of AUM, it makes me much more conscious of my role in the market. And that means I'm challenging myself—and indeed, have been lovingly challenged by women peers–to have a better understanding of what being a woman investor means to me, and to the broader field.
I started out by interrogating more why I pushed back so hard against being labeled a woman investor, and wanted to share some of my insights for women investors who are equally struggling to situate the meaning of their identity to their investment practice. Here's what I've come up with so far.
Let's start with the fairly obvious origin of the problem: I hid my gender because I wanted to make sure to be taken seriously in a male-dominated industry. As a young woman I pretty much abandoned my team to make sure I could play with the "big boys." My book is filled with numerous anecdotes: I spent years being asked to bring people water, if I was the secretary, or asked where their table was despite having "CEO" on my business card. I refused to speak on panels that emphasized my youth or my gender. I'd be willing to write for Forbes, but not for Forbes Women. I worried once I got labeled as a "young woman"—and all the stereotypes that go along with that—that I wouldn't be able to work my way into professional adulthood.
The sad part is—I can't say I would've done this differently. I don't feel like I had a choice. But now I'm here with the conventional markers of success that men can't arbitrarily take away–that means not needing to hide or apologize anymore for my gender, or relative youth, or any other element of myself other than my actual weaknesses. It's on me to succeed or fail at this point.
Then there was my resistance to the solution of just saying "Yes, I'm a woman investor, and that's important": I didn't want to privilege gender, rather than a more intersectional lens prioritizing race and class.
Like many people, I was deeply impacted by Dr. Kimberle Crenshaw's TED talk that helped popularize the notion of intersectionality: "the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage." I.e. that being a white, cis-gendered woman, and queer is a different "identity basket" than being a black, cis-gendered man and heterosexual. Both face discrimination, but in very different ways and circumstances.
As a white, middle-class Oakland resident who is none-the-less steeped in the racialized impacts of housing, health, and educational discrepancies, I felt it was more important for me to center race and class in my work rather than gender, or if anything—the experiences of women of color who face multiple types of barriers that reinforce each other.
For instance—while 500 or so entrepreneurs reach out to me a year asking to speak, an impossible number of requests to fully honor, I try my hardest (and usually succeed) to sit down in person with any woman entrepreneur of color who has a business relevant to our investment thesis. I recognize they may face more barriers from other investors, so even if I can't invest I will try to do what I can to help them break in. And selfishly—these women generally over-index as incredibly committed and talented entrepreneurs given what it often took for them to get a company successfully off the ground.
Is this a gender-lens investment practice? Yes. But it's also an intersectional lens. I'm learning that its ok for me to say, "I am concerned with race, class and gender equity" and not feel like I only have to rep for women. I might have been born into a jersey for the white women's team, but it's got big sewed-on badges for race and class, too, as I try to prioritize solutions coming out of affected communities in the context of impact investment. It has made me sad to hear some entrepreneurs say, "we reached out to the gender-lens investment community, but many of them just don't care about race."
It's true that just advocating for gender equity is an upward battle in itself—so I don't fault the gender lens community for prioritizing women, and they have done a fantastic job of comprehensively elevating awareness regarding both women and girls in society. But we all need to care about—and celebrate—the various diverse lenses we bring to the entrepreneur and investor community.
Finally, I didn't know what actually made my investment practice different as a result of being a woman. If I was going to start talking about being a woman investor, I would actually need to think that being a woman made my work different than a man's work, right? And is it?
I am blessed to have a male business partner who also views the world through an intersectional lens, and is extremely respectful of women's leadership. It's very difficult for me to say that the way I approach investments is particularly different than the way he does—unless in a few very specific circumstances where we investigated companies manufacturing birth control pills or organic tampons, for instance. So why does it matter that I'm a woman?
I would argue that being part of a minority group gives you a greater ability to empathize with people of that group, whether it be based on gender or race. You grew up with more examples of people in that group being successful and considered worthy of love and attention, and hence carry less unconscious bias that would prevent you from seeing potential in people of that group. This I think most people get intuitively (or conversely, may not understand is a blind spot they carry as they struggle to be "race blind" or "gender-neutral.")
I was talking to a colleague, one of ten black women partners at a well-known investment bank out of over a thousand partners worldwide, who added the following insight that I also see as relevant to my experience as a white woman investor: Being one in a thousand also means that you're constantly used to navigating the distance between yourself and other groups, which makes you a better investor. You're simply more comfortable with the idea of difference, as it's constantly around you. You're reminded to question assumptions and equally step outside your home-base cultural group or general understanding of how people work. If investing is about projecting which odd-looking idea will have a solid place in the future—the ability to step outside your view of the current world is a great skill to have.
As she noted, "Being 'different' and successful, allows you to know instinctively that value can be found in places, spaces, and people that are often overlooked. I have always had to build bridges to survive and thrive because I am always a non-correlated asset class. As a finance professional, as a person focused on finding opportunity – it is important to be able to see nuance and shades of gray. If you are always looking to find investment opportunity in all the obvious places – so is everyone else."
Her analysis reminded me of the political scientist Robert Putnam, whose seminal work addressed the differences between bonding and bridging social capital in society. Being a black woman in the investment world gave her a unique kind of bonding capital—within black and female-centered communities–but her experience also made her stronger in her bridging capital, as she's more used to navigating difference across groups. At Candide Group the companies and funds we have supported have over 50% women or people of color founders and management, which I do believe is a direct result of our diverse team—also majority women and people of color—having significant bridging experience.
So, I'm coming to terms with being a woman investor. A woman investor who wants other women to fight past suppressed memories of the algebra teacher telling them they were stupid, or the economics professor telling them "don't major in economics, you won't be able to do the math," to do the work that excites them and can drive social change. (Ok, I tell these as hypotheticals, but yes, they happened to me). A woman investor who is used to navigating difference, and thus is hopefully more astute in identifying trends that will light the fire of an increasingly diverse world. And a woman investor who will fight fiercely for other women to take an intersectional approach to our work—lifting up the voices of women, with a distinct eye towards race and class as well.
That's what I've discovered being a woman investor means to me…what does it mean to you?
Disclosures related to my work here.
I am an investor and activist who has been building bridges between finance and social justice for close to twenty years. In that time, I've influenced over $150 Billion…
I am an investor and activist who has been building bridges between finance and social justice for close to twenty years. In that time, I've influenced over $150 Billion and helped thousands of people learn how to align their money with their values. My book, Real Impact: The New Economics of Social Change offers guidance on creating real, systemic change in the world and has been featured everywhere from Harvard Business School to the United Nations. I currently serve as Founding Partner of Candide Group, a Registered Investment Advisor in Oakland, CA. I'm also an adjunct professor at Middlebury College's graduate program, an avid dancer and a Swarthmore alumna. Learn more and contact me at www.morgansimon.com, or add me on social media (@morgansimon1).


text:
… with Trees for Tribs Coordinator Sarah Walsh
Trees for Tribs, as in tributaries, is a Department of Environmental Conservation program replanting New York's streams. The program began in 2007 in the Hudson River Estuary and has since expanded statewide, working with partners across the state to plant native trees and shrubs for improved wildlife habitat, water quality, and storm resiliency.
The program works with private landowners, municipalities, schools, and conservation organizations, providing technical assistance, low- to no-cost native trees and shrubs, and tree tubes for planting sites. The program currently has coordinators on the ground in six watersheds (Champlain, Mohawk, Hudson Estuary, Croton, Upper Susquehanna, and lower Genesee). Trees for Tribs works with other organizations outside of these watersheds to coordinate projects on the ground.
We rely on volunteers to complete our plantings, and an average of 1,000 volunteers participate in the program each year to help us reach our planting goals. Our tree planting is supported through our partnership with the DEC State Tree Nursery in Saratoga, which grows New York seed-sourced, hearty native trees and shrubs that thrive in riparian areas and can withstand Northeast winters. With both volunteer and nursery support, we have planted 560 sites with more than 90,000 plants along streams!
In 2017, we will be celebrating ten years of providing the benefits of trees along streams for the people of New York State. We will also be working towards additional grant programming to further expand our program's reach.
To learn more about the Trees for Tribs program and how you can be involved, please visit our website.


text:
Thursday 21 September 1939
|Polish troops in Lviv surrender to the Germans, September 21, 1939.
Battle of Poland: The Wehrmacht tightens its grip on Warsaw as it ramps up artillery bombardment.
Battle of the Atlantic: Admiral Doenitz orders his U-boat fleet to attack all ships, including neutrals, running without lights in the English Channel. [This is according to Doenitz's testimony at the Nuremberg trials after World War II.]
Holocaust: In Berlin, SS General Reinhard Heydrich issues an order to Einsatzgruppen Chiefs. It specifies that Poland's Jews and other groups looked down upon by the Germans "from the countryside" such as the Romani be loaded into boxcars and shipped to city ghettos in Poland. Smaller Jewish communities "fewer than 500 persons" are to be "dissolved and transferred to the nearest city of concentration." "Councils of Elders" are to be formed in the ghettos and made responsible "in the literal sense of the word" for any sabotage or disruptions their people cause. This becomes known as the "Heydrich Plan" and targets hundreds of thousands of people.
United States Government: President Roosevelt addresses Congress to request that it pass legislation amending the neutrality acts so that the country can sell arms to the British Empire and others fighting Germany on a "cash and carry" basis.
British Government: The government organizes its munitions procurement policies and releases the content of pre-war diplomatic exchanges in a government blue book.
French Homefront: Prime Minister Edouard Daladier delivers an emotional 18-minute address to the nation on Paris Radio. He expresses full support for the Allied cause and states that this is a fight for human dignity against a "regime of terror." He places war guilt squarely on Adolf Hitler personally and refers to the "certainty of Poland's destruction" somewhat carelessly while Poland was still resisting.
American Homefront: Radio station WJSV in Washington, D. C. records an entire broadcast day for posterity on September 21, 1939. It includes an early rendition of the national anthem and one of only four recordings of a baseball game play-by-play preserved from the 1930s.
|Prime Minister Armand Calinescu.
September 1939September 1, 1939: Invasion of Poland
September 2, 1939: Danzig Annexed
September 3, 1939: France, Great Britain Declare War
September 4, 1939: First RAF Raid
September 5, 1939: The US Stays Out
September 6, 1939: Battle of Barking Creek
September 7, 1939: Polish HQ Bugs Out
September 8, 1939: War Crimes in Poland
September 9, 1939: The Empire Strikes Back
September 10, 1939: The Germans Break Out
September 11, 1939: Battle of Kałuszyn
September 12, 1939: The French Chicken Out
September 13, 1939: The Battle of Modlin
September 14, 1939: Germany Captures Gdynia
September 15, 1939: Warsaw Surrounded
September 16, 1939: Battle of Jaworów
September 17, 1939: Soviets Invade Poland
September 18, 1939: Lublin Falls
September 19, 1939: Germans, Soviets Hook Up
September 20, 1939: the Kraków Army Surrenders
September 21, 1939: Romania Convulses
September 22, 1939: Joint Soviet-German Military Parade
September 23, 1939: The Panama Conference
September 24, 1939: The Luftwaffe Bombs Warsaw
September 25, 1939: Black Monday for Warsaw
September 26, 1939: Warsaw on the Ropes
September 27, 1939: Hitler Decides to Invade France
September 28, 1939: Warsaw Capitulates
September 29, 1939: Modlin Fortress Falls
September 30, 1939: Graf Spee on the Loose


text:
JCU Professor Shannon Russell Contributes to BBC Radio 4 Program "The Ghetto Inglese"
British novelist Matthew Kneale will present a program on BBC Radio 4 dedicated to the secret history of Rome's "English Ghetto."
Mr. Kneale's wife, John Cabot University professor of English Literature Shannon Russell, also contributed to the program.
The area around the Spanish Steps got its name because it was a favorite meeting place for English artists and writers, as well as Grand Tourists and later nineteenth century travelers.
The program will be broadcast on Monday, May 25 on BBC Radio 4 at 4 pm UK time and will also be available on the BBC Radio 4 website.
Matthew Kneale will be doing a reading at the JCU Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation on Wednesday, June 3.


text:
Securities America Adds Regional Director
October 31, 2012, 10:09 a.m. EDT 1 Min Read
Show more sharing options
Share Show more sharing options
Register now
Securities America has tapped former Charles Schwab representative Monte Garpstad to be senior regional director of branch office development for the upper northwest region.
Based out of the firms La Vista, Neb., headquarters, Garpstad will be implementing recruitment strategies to reach out to advisors.
Monte, 48, was previously with Charles Schwab for 20 years and had served as a registered representative, branch manager, senior investment center sales manager and vice president.
Monte has a tremendous amount of experience in the industry. He will be a key contributor to the ongoing growth of the company, Gregg Johnson, senior vice president of branch office development at Securities America, said.


text:
- Font:
- +
- -
Facebook has struck a deal with Baidu, the biggest Chinese search engine, to open a jointly-owned social network in China, according to reports in the Chinese press, citing inside sources.
More must-see stories
Wild Wall St.
Has the market volatility got you nervous? These cartoons may give you a little comic relief.
- Cyber-thieves create fake Kelley Blue Book site
- US says Reebok toning shoes don't really
- Can you live on $9 an hour? Play the game
- Wild Wall St.
There had been reports of this in the Western press but it's the first tangible thing we've seen. Last year Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg traveled to China and met with Baidu CEO Robin Li.Business Insider: Tour Facebook's revolutionary new data center that it's using to clobber Google
The deal makes sense for both sides. On Facebook's side, it needs a big local partner to break into the huge Chinese market. On Baidu's side, it is threatened by social network juggernaut Tencent, and it might be a safer bet to build a social network with one of the most successful social companies in the world than to try to build its own.
Copyright 2012 by Business Insider, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission from Business Insider, Inc.


text:
Fairport and Perinton; Then and Now
The trilogy concludes with a book that has vintage pictures, some over 100 years old, and pairs them with pictures of the same site or building taken today. This unique perspective shows changes over time in the community of Fairport and Perinton.
You will see the rehabilitation and reuse of factory and commercial buildings, residential houses, and one room school houses. There is a chapter on urban renewal where you will see the buildings in Fairport's central business district before and after the federal project in the 1970's.
Also included is a special chapter on the rebuilding of the Erie Canal from 1910 to 1918. See rare pictures of construction almost 100 years ago on the Erie Canal and the famous Main Street Lift Bridge sited in Ripley's Believe It or Not. Published by Arcadia Press in 2009.
Individual Book Price - $22.00