Nonogirl Radio

Labor Notes: Song of the Month

Lately I've been concerned with the limits of my concrete knowledge of how our world works, politically. So I've been searching out websites to create my own little e-university of leftist politics. One of these sites is Labor Notes that "has been the voice of union activists who want to "put the movement back in the labor movement" since 1979."

I've always been drawn to music that captures the spirit of political movement and expresses the resilience of people's struggles. So I'm even more happy to see that Labor Notes features a song of the month, which acknowledges the role that music and culture plays in movement building!

They have quite a collection, so if you're ever in need of political music, check out this site!

Living to the End

I'm working on building a website to accompany the gallery show about Bill Sorro called A Serving of Love: The Passion of Bill Sorro. This site will utilize the photos, video, and audio we've compiled for the show.

In researching ideas on how to best present the information, I found this amazing web project, Living to the End. This is a project of the Oregonian that follows Lovelle Svart's last days of life. She's battled lung cancer for over five years and in June, she was given a prognosis of less than six months to live.

Each entry is a deeply personal video. Viewers may comment. And as Oregon has doctor-assisted suicide, the viewers are provided with an intimate first hand account of the decisions made by someone who qualifies for the procedure.

This is an amazing use of the web that takes the genre of reality media to a new level.

A Serving of Love.

I've been working on several projects celebrating the life of Bill Sorro. Bill is an activist who integrates his values and politics into every aspect of his life. He grew up in San Francisco's Fillmore District, danced with the Performing Arts Workshop, visited Cuba on the Venceremos Brigade, organized to bring more people of color into the ironworking trade, worked in the Mission District for low income housing, and helped rebuild the new International Hotel.

Throughout this all, he raised seven kids and turned opened his home to countless people for dinner.

We opened a gallery show  of photographs, artifacts, and a refurbished version of Fireside Chat on August 4th during the 30th anniversary  commemoration of the I-Hotel eviction. It's called A Serving of Love: The Passion of Bill Sorro.

The gallery is open until the beginning of October. Still to come is a Talk Story of people sharing stories about Bill on September 8, the DVD release, and a website.

AAJA Award

Last weekend, the Asian American Journalist Association awarded a segment I produced for Crossing East! It's a story about Andrew Thi, a Cambodian immigrant who may be deported back to a country he barely knows, a country from which his parents struggled to escape.

The best news is that upon learning the news, I tried Andrew's cell phone and he answered. He's still in the United States. In fact, because of a technical glitch, he may be able to stay permanently. He'll find out at a court hearing in March 2008.