Saturday, April 16, 2011

Dear Hacker

(That's right - I'm doing two-a-days this weekend to make up for my work-related blogful neglet).

As many of you may have already discovered, my email was hacked this week.

Majorly hacked - as in email everyone I know, delete every message in my account and set up a false account in my name. If you've never experienced this firsthand, trust me when I say: it was infuriating.

Actually, don't trust me - listen to this auditory journey through the land of the recently hacked. And just a PSA: friends don't let friends wire money to London. No matter what.

INTRO: Lauren Peterson never saw herself as a victim - until someone broke into her email account. In the days that followed, Lauren struggled to come to grips with the tragedy and find the upside of light identity theft.

In praise of worthy women

Grams and Mom - their phenomenalness is showing...
Someone has written "Sarah Falin is coming" in bright yellow chalk on the sidewalk in front of the state capitol.

I don't know what will happen when she gets here tomorrow, and I haven't decided whether I'll be a part of it when it does. I do know that I've spent the last week at Line Breaks 2011, and I have seen some majorly inspirational and painfully relevant pieces. Tonight's performance of "Birdies" and "Get a Room" inspired me to publish this post in honor of phenomenal women everywhere. It's an audio essay, so I think it pretty much speaks for itself.

Intro: With Sarah Palin en route to Wisconsin, Madisonian Lauren Peterson tries on a different kind of protest.



Follow-up: If you're just dying to find out more about some of the phenomenal women I mentioned, check out their work. And let me know what women YOU think we should be talking about tomorrow instead of you-know-who.

Bonnie Greene's Music Makers
University of Wisconsin - Madison Arts Institute (spearheaded by none other than Norma Saldivar)
Jasmine Mans
Lauren Rutlin

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Well Done, Sister Suffragette

We meet again, my faithful blog readers! I'm riding some serious exhaustion in the wake of the Film Festival (and as I gear up for Line Breaks at my other job), but I needed to get this post out before one of my favorite holidays passes us all by. Like any great radio piece, today's post features equal parts history and shameless pleading.

But first, a disclaimer: Alice Paul is my idol (and I am not alone in this). My unadulterated love and adoration for this feisty suffragist surpasses even my devotion to (gasp) public radio. I have tried, for the sake of brevity, to limit my gushing within this audio piece - but that doesn't mean I'm an objective source for information on the subject. As with my Film Festival reporting, I am brimming with bias - and proud of it. I lose sleep over the crushing realization that I will never have the opportunity to meet the person I most admire (what with her having been born in 1885, I suppose I could hardly expect her to have stuck around waiting for my arrival). I am a card-carrying member of the Alice Paul Institute, and if you knew Alice like I know Alice, you would be too.

Rest assured, while this may be my first Alice Paul piece, it won't be my last. If, like me, learning a tiny bit about Alice has awakened in you an insatiable urge to spend as much time with her as possible, I highly recommend the film Iron Jawed Angels. It's one of my all-time favorite movies, and I'd be delighted to lend it to you, watch it with you, or, if my copy is already on loan, simply recite the entire thing from start to finish for you.

Also, there is (FINALLY) an entire published biography of Alice, with chapters and everything. I can't lend that, since it's on my Kindle, but if you stop by my place I will make you a cup of tea and hover over your shoulder while you read it.

Intro: Less than one hundred years ago, women voted for the first time in a national election. Two months ago, Lauren Peterson headed to the polls for a statewide primary - and found her chief election official with plenty of time to chat.