When Heather Campbell-Lieberman first applied to teach at Lakota East High School in Ohio, she had one request:She needed the school to let her students give away a thousand dollars.
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Thom Dunn is a Boston-based writer, musician, and utterly terrible dancer. He is the singer/guitarist for the indie rock/power-pop the Roland High Life, as well as a staff writer for the New York Times’ Wirecutter and a regular contributor at BoingBoing.net. Thom enjoys Oxford commas, metaphysics, and romantic clichés (especially when they involve whiskey), and he firmly believes that Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is the single greatest atrocity committed against mankind. He is a graduate of Clarion Writer's Workshop at UCSD ('13) & Emerson College ('08).
Black Female Uses Crowd-Funding To Obtain White Privilege
In a world where people have turned to crowd-funding for such absurd ventures as making a potato salad, producing Breaking Bad sequel fan-fiction starring Val Kilmer and Slash, and continuing to justify Amanda Palmer's wretched existence, Yaya M. (above) had the brilliant idea of using online philanthropy to finally get herself a piece of that white privilege that she's been missing her whole life.
As far as online-performance-art-as-scathing-social-commentary goes, I think this one's pretty fantastic (sorry, @horse_ebooks) (I'm still kind of mad about that). As she explains:
Although I have layered oppressions that have affected my ability to access my slice of the American Pie™, no issue has affected me more readily than my lack of white privilege. From being assumed to have "cheated" my way into programs for gifted children AND college (via affirmative action), to having my natural hair viewed as unprofessional amongst professional peers, to having people make negative assumptions about my competency level, interests, and job knowledge, to being viewed as naturally dangerous or threatening, my lack of white privilege has created numerous obstacles as I've struggled to successfully compete in a white dominated workforce. I am hoping that, through this campaign, I will begin to make some headway towards closing the gap that white privilege has created in my life.Read More
In return for paying for my white privilege, I would love to give you some "black privilege" in return! Yes, it is difficult being a black person but there are some neat perks, as you will discover if you donate!
Disney Princesses Singing to the DEATH! (And Also Kevin Sorbo)
This is Zach (the dude, not the velociraptor. Or the girl). Zach was one of my roommates at Clarion last summer. If the stars align right, you will someday revere him as the author of the Turnbuckle Jack series. In the meantime, you probably know him as The Guy Who Wrote This:
He's got a new wacky web series coming out called Muzzled the Musical, which is about a magical not-Disney kingdom where singing the greatest power. Did I mention that the cast includes Kevin Sorbo (aka Hercules of "The Legendary Journeys" fame) and Juliet Landau (aka Drusilla from Buffy / Angel)
I feel like most people who know me or are interested in the things I do have interests that fit somewhere in the Venn Diagram overlap between "Hercules" and "Disney parody" and "Death by singing." If you're one of those people, Muzzled is raising money to complete its first season, and if the above video is any indication, that's something that you're going to want to be a part of. Check out their (insanely elaborate) Kickstarter video below:
Like most smart Kickstarters, this independent team is essentially using this campaign as a pre-order of sorts, with "rewards" like a soundtrack and a download of the complete first season. But I mean, c'mon: who doesn't want a musical TV show about badass singing princesses?
"The Winning Ticket" at FiveByFiveHundred.com
Check out my latest piece of flash-fiction over at FiveByFiveHundred.com, titled "The Winning Ticket," based on a true news story. Sometimes when you win, you still lose — even when you win the lottery. Enjoy!