Photo Contribution

A photo I took at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC was used for an article in The Eagle:
http://www.theeagleonline.com/scene/story/bookworms-gather-in-d.c

Film shows new side of army life

Written for the Eagle and published on Monday, September 28th, 2009.
http://www.theeagleonline.com/

Film shows new side of army life

Brats feel consequences of base life
By NATALIE KIRKPATRICK
September 27, 2009

“Where are you from?”

It’s a simple question. It’s one that is asked after learning a person’s name. But for five percent of the United States population, it’s a rather difficult question. Children with military parents end up jumping from one city to the next and are unable to associate with any place. As the documentary “BRATS: Our Journey Home” notes, “Home is not a place, but a state of mind.”

The documentary was the product of seven years’ worth of interviews and was initially released in 2006. Last Wednesday marked the launch of Operation Military Brat, which features free screenings across the country of the award-winning documentary. After the film viewings, writer and director Donna Musil hosts town hall meetings with those who attended the screening.

“Sometimes we get as many as 600 or [as few as] a handful of people at these screenings,” said co-producer Timothy Wurtz.

The documentary was a way to raise awareness about challenges that brats of all ages face, according to Musil. “It’s a documentary,” she clarifies, “not an exposé.”

The film itself, like any documentary, is a learning experience. The film boasts itself as “the first documentary about growing up military,” and it is easy to believe. The film explores the positives and negatives of growing up with at least one parent in the military, a seemingly unexplored topic in anything other than Pat Conroy’s novel, “The Great Santini.” While society directs focus to members of the military, rarely does anyone explore the health and well-being of the family members like it is done in “BRATS.”

While the concept of the film can easily be confused for one about the military, the writers took on the challenge of maintaining focus not on the military members, but rather on the children — the brats. The film explores “base life,” where things like clothing and housing are provided for brats for free or at discounted prices, but is an area surrounded by barbed wire. After the age of 18, the children’s ID cards are taken away and the brats are no longer welcome on the military bases, the only “home” they’ve known.

While the positive aspects to base life — the ability to travel, meet new people and transcend social boundaries — could make us civilians envious, the film also delves into the negative aspects of military life. The behavior of brats reflects directly on their parents. The expectations of these children are exceptionally high, causing low self-esteem and eventually leading to bigger issues. Even just the basic essence of a child — the desire to ask questions and to explore — is put on hold during base life.

The film focuses on the brats of Vietnam, the Cold War and World War II — dating it a bit — but the participants of the D.C. screening/town hall meeting and Musil noted how the brats of today’s wars are having a completely different experience. For instance, the families and brats of previous battles could not seek mental health maintenance without punishment and did not have the benefit of e-mail or current technology. Also different is that many of the current brats are more stationary than the brats of previous wars.

The brats of today are a population of people to be studied and are now aiming to provide support for those with similar experiences and invoke change in the systems of the current wars.

For a fairly unappreciated percent of the population, the brats’ community now stays alive through the Internet. At the town hall following the screening of “BRATS” at the West End Neighborhood Library, the brats touted that the bases they lived on are closing and their pasts only live on through the Web.

One interviewee in the film noted that it is not only military officers that serve, but also the entire family.“My life is dedicated to you because my dad’s is,” he said.

For what brats would call “civilians,” the film explores a community that is rarely talked about but is in dire need of attention. “BRATS: Our Journey Home” is a good start. For fellow brats, the film is a shoulder to cry on, a friend to laugh with and a trip to the “place of mind” they call home.

Not Blue, Not White, But Green

Written for an Advanced Reporting course in the Spring of 2009. We were assigned to follow a beat of our choosing and write an article associated with our beat at the end of the semester. I chose the environmental beat and wrote about the influx of green jobs. Never published.

One year ago, green jobs were not considered an employment option for many. Green jobs were seen as a trendy political idea that was never followed through with. Now with an unstable economy and a troubling job market, more blue and white collar workers are taking green jobs more seriously.

The term “green” jobs is still being used loosely but its popularity is rising in the environmental sector. Presidential candidates John Edwards, and Hilary Clinton have spoken about the importance of green jobs in the past and now the Obama Administration is on board with creating a stable economy and a sustainable environment through green jobs. The administration passed the stimulus bill in February which included monetary support for green jobs

On June 24, 2008, then Senator Barack Obama said, “A green, renewable-energy economy isn't some pie-in-the-sky, far-off future. It is now. It is creating jobs now.”

The Sierra Club, a grassroots organization to improve the environment, is embracing a greener job market with the Green Jobs for America Campaign. According to the campaign green jobs are “Simply put, it’s work that helps us build the clean energy economy. And there are millions to be had, if our leaders stop making bad choices and start investing in energy independence.”

“Something that can create jobs that the product of the labor is contributing to the creation of a clean energy economy is a win-win,” said Special Assistant for the Energy Opportunity Team at the Center for American Progress, Sean Pool. “Just any old job, building an office building is a job, great, they are paying you but…not only is someone employed but the product of their labor is something we desperately need for the sustainable environment.”

“What makes these entirely familiar occupations ‘green jobs’ is that the people working in them are contributing their everyday labors toward building a green economy,” according to the June Report of “Job Opportunities for the Green Economy: A State-by-State Picture of Occupations that Gain from Green Investments.” “We therefore consider and refer to the strategies examined in this report as green investments, in addition to global warming solutions.”

According to an article written by Dona DeZube, the Monster Finance Careers Expert for job search agent Monster.com, the solution for temporary or permanent unemployment is green.

“Whether you’re currently employed or out of work and looking for a stable job in a new field, stimulus spending on green initiatives could create your next position” DeZube wrote in the article titled, “Stimulus to Fund Thousands of New, Green Jobs.”

Some think that this giant push towards green jobs is due to President Obama’s Stimulus package.

According to recovery.gov, a web site created to educate visitors on the provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act said the act, “specifically includes $7.22 billion for projects and programs administered by EPA. These programs will protect and promote both ‘green’ jobs and a healthier environment.”

“I certainly think there’s lots in the stimulus bill that’s going to try anyway to stimulate green collar jobs and open up new sectors in the energy field,” Paul Wapner, Associate Professor and Director of the Global Environmental Politics program in the School of International Service at American University, said. “Big questions are going to be whether you can monitor this money and watch where it goes.”

This trend isn’t a new one. A year ago, on March 26, 2008, Steven Greenhouse, a reporter for the New York Times wrote “Millions of Jobs of a Different Collar,” an article discussing the wave of “green collar jobs” and how while some are skeptical, some presidential candidates were promising an increase. The concerns then were that the jobs will not have the “staying power” to push through the economic struggles and that green jobs might not pay as much as the jobs they are replacing making them undesirable.

“There have been far more articles pointing to the idea that green jobs are if not as evenly distributed between high and low paying jobs, they are equal or even more high paying jobs,” Pool said. “These jobs are generally more stable and more secure just as high paying as jobs available with a normal average non-green job.”

Some skeptics have noted necessary training for “green” jobs as a downside for those seeking employment but opportunities range from entry-level green jobs working with energy efficiency, construction and renovation jobs, landscape architects, landscape designers, grounds and greenhouse maintenance workers, contractors, managers, gardening, plant studies, lawn care, and many others.

Some of the attention to green jobs can be attributed to the slump in the job market and a hike in unemployment rates. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics web site, “Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia recorded over-the-month unemployment rate increases, while all 50 states and the District of Columbia had higher rates than a year earlier.”

The founder of Green for All, an organization that advocates for job creation and training in a green economy, Van Jones was appointed as a special advisor for green jobs within the White House's Council on Environmental Quality in the Obama Administration in March.

There are big goals including turning around the unemployment rate and creating an influx to greener jobs to create effect on the job market and later the economy and how they are achieved is still in the works.

A report entitled, “Green Recovery – A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy” put out by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts under the commission by the Center for American Progress, outlines a “green economy recovery program” including how this job creation can occur.

“By accelerating the implementation of these polices, we address our immediate need to boost a struggling economy and jumpstart our long-term transformation to a low-carbon economy. This green economic recovery program would spend $100 billion dollars over two years in six green infrastructure investment areas,” the report detailed.

“There is rising unemployment, 9 percent, at the same time we have so much work that needs to get done and we really need to do a lot to change our economy to something more sustainable,” Pool said. “The time we have to do that is getting lesser and lesser.”

The report also outlines how this green recovery plan can directly result in more jobs.

“There are three sources of job creation associated with any expansion of spend­ing—direct, indirect, and induced effects,” the report stated. “We estimate…from spending $100 billion in public funds in a combination of our six green investment areas… the number [of jobs created is] 935,000 million direct jobs, 586,000 indi­rect jobs, and 496,000 induced jobs, for a total of about 2 million total jobs created.”

While this seems like a large number of jobs earned, the jobs lost have been great as well. The report noted that, “As of July 2008, there were 8.8 million people officially unemployed within the U.S. labor force of 154.6 million, produc­ing an official unemployment rate of 5.7 percent, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Sta­tistics.”

A year ago, doubters of green jobs thought it was another empty campaign promise, but with the new administration, the idea seems to have stuck as more than just a temporary trend to environmentalists.

“Some skeptics argue that the phrase ‘green jobs’ is a little more than a trendy term for politicians to bandy about,” Greenhouse wrote a year ago, but is that still the case? After the storm of the 2009 presidential election has cleared, can the nation embrace green jobs as an option?

“I think it is already changing in a sense that Obama clearly seems to understand what’s at stake,” Professor Wapner said. “He’s looking at the economic crisis as an opportunity to move ahead on energy, renewable energy, and these issues are much more profound than any human being is possible of addressing and understanding.”

“The economy has become this issue that we talk about. What has become a low hum is now resonating with people. Especially now when people are losing their jobs,” Pool said. “Long run is every job will be a green job one day because we’re going to transition to a more sustainable environment and more people will be working for companies and services that will help our environment and not destroy it.”

Fantom Comics Profile

Written for my Reporting class last semester. Never published. 

     Washington, DC -- X-Men, Captain America, and Batman are common names heard in Tenleytown’s superhero haven called Fantom Comics. Stuck behind corporate giants Best Buy and the Container Store hides the independently owned comic book store, a place for anyone to hang out.
      The triangle shaped store can only be found if you follow the series of signs with the logo and one huge arrow pointing towards a crick in Wisconsin Avenue. The white walls would seem dull if the bright colors of endless stacks of graphic novels didn’t pop off of them.

     “It’s a teeny, tiny, hole in the wall comic book shop and there’s something really appealing about that.” said Tate Strickland, a junior at American University and occasional comic book reader.
      The store opened in Tenleytown in 2003 and recently opened another outlet at Union Station.
     “Location wise, it’s probably the safest and nicest area I’ve had to walk through 

to get to a comic book store,” said Regional Manager at Fantom Comics and AU Alum, Jordan Kessler. “Stores were never nice or easy to get to. DC has a great advantage. This is on the red line and the other store is on the red line.”
      Kessler said that the store feeds off of publicity from blogs or columns, most recently Tania Anderson’s column “Shop to it” featured on the Washington Post web site.
     “The area is also home to Fantom Comics, a 3-year-old store that sells comic books, graphic novels and manga, which are Japanese comics,” Anderson wrote in her column entitled Off the Beaten Path: Tenleytown. “The store, which gets a new shipment every Wednesday, invites all who read comics and even those who don't in a fun setting.”
     “I don’t think people come here and think of coming to shop. [Anderson] said that Tenle

ytown is a place for shoppers who know what they want,” Kessler said. “I need hiking boots; I’m going to Hiking Trail. I want the new Superman comic; I’m going to Fantom Comics.”
      “Fantom Comics is definitely the best place in the area to get comics and graphic novels,” said Dominic Lee in a comment on Anderson’s column. “Plus the staff will always have a cool new book that you should check out that you never heard of before.”
     Fantom Comics does it’s best to stray from the stereotype. Strickland thinks that this new literary medium gets a bad rap.
      “I think [comics] are really interesting and entertaining,” Strickland said. “People think comics and they see the comic book guy on the Simpson’s, or any other similar stereotype and it’s a medium that has a lot of breadth and depth there is so much to it, literary, entertaining, silly, you know, whatever.”
     “Are there still nerdy comic book guys? Yeah, they’re here, they come, and I’m not so arrogant to say that I’m not one of them,” Kessler said. “It’s an awesome clientele. We have the college student, high school student, dad, a good friend of mine, one of the owners, it’s very eclectic. A lot of women, we have a good sized female population.”

     Even though the nerds still exist, Strickland got a more modern feel from Fantom Comics.
      “They’re cool and really interested in comics, not in the way that they want you to be a customer but they’re excited that you read comics,” Strickland said. “They’re friendly and helpful. Definitely a cool place to go.”
     Although the store is small in size, that can be appealing to the common customer.
      “It’s small, a hole in the wall, nice, organized, surprisingly easy to find everything you need,” Strickland said. “It’s small and intimate, but not the way that’s creepy or sketchy but it occupies a small amount of space, you can get what you need and it adds to its appeal.”
     While the store has proven to feed off of the city it calls home, Fantom Comics offers something to the community as well.

     “I think one it gives it a bookstore. It gives you a place to hang out. There are not a lot of places to hang out that are not Starbucks or are not Angelico’s. There’s nowhere to go,” Kessler said. “I really want to eventually evolve the store to have seats and a table and to be somewhere where people can hang out.”
      Fantom Comics acts as a gem in a mass of corporate giants, for anyone, even mothers searching for the right gift for their kids.
     “I get the sense that Fantom Comics is an island, because there’s a big electronics store to one side, whole foods across the street and neither are very closely associated with the clientele that Fantom Comics attracts,” Strickland said. “I think it’s interesting that they chose 

Tenleytown as opposed to something hipper and cooler.”
      “I think we have built a lot of loyalty,” Kessler said. “I constantly hear customers saying, ‘well, I wanted to give you the business first.’”

     “We’ve become a store people can trust I really police the kids section and put great things in it remove things that aren’t so good,” Kessler said. “I think people can trust and want to come here.”
      The key word for Fantom Comics is acceptance. No matter who you are and what you’re doing in their store, judgments are left at the door. Kessler noted that he would never chase anyone out of the store for reading a comic like he’d find at other stores, and he’d never laugh at you for liking Wonderwoman.
     On the stores web site, http://www.fantomcomics.com/, they stated that one of their goals that says it all.

     “Fantom Comics is an open, inclusive store that welcomes people who've never read a comic book in their lives…whether you're a fan who want to talk comics, or a novice who wants to learn comics (or just look for the right gift for the fan in your life), our employees are there to help you.”

#     #     #

Perspectives from the Street

From the American Observer web site on January 22, 2009. 

http://inews6.americanobserver.net/articles/perspectives-street

Interviewing Inauguration go-ers about their feelings of the new change in government. 

Ansel Adams/Georgia O’Keefe Exhibit Review

This article was written for the American University Eagle, but was never published.



By NATALIE KIRKPATRICK
Contributing Eagle Writer

The first ever comparison of two artists with a shared appreciation for the American southwest is on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibit “Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities” is a comparison between the artists works and shared subject matter on display through January 4.

The comparison pairs these artists and pin points their mutual desire to feature the American southwest in their works, either paintings or photographs. The exhibit features 42 paintings, and 54 photographs that share the same subject matter, but with differing perspectives. O’Keefe is more famous for her paintings as abstractions of flowers, where as Adams is more famous for his black and white photographs that depict the landscapes with intricate attention to details. Given their backgrounds the notion of a comparison between these two artists was intriguing.

The similarity in subjects for the two artists was also surprising. Adams spent the majority of his time photographing the Yosemite National Park and certain landscapes in Hawaii. At a glance, O’Keeffe’s more famous work was unrecognized as being related to a geographical area because the works are abstractions of flowers, shells, rocks, or other commodities found in nature.

In the 1980’s Adams noted why the American southwest was so attractive to him when he said, “Despite its seeming intrinsic ruggedness the land is unusually fragile.”

The two artists practiced the art of the extremes. On the one hand, both artists focused on grand landscapes from great distances, and then went to the opposite end of the spectrum and viewed a pine needle or a clam shell at a surprisingly close angle.

When discussing the tendency to focus on objects at a smaller scale with a closer emphasis in 1976, O’Keeffe stated, “I often painted fragments of thinks because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could.”

One surprising aspect of O’Keeffe’s work was her tendency to paint trees, in addition to her more popular abstractions of flowers. The first half of the exhibit featured her more popular works, but the second half of the exhibit has more depth of her landscapes and note for the Taos church and other famous scenes featured in New Mexico. The subjects were strikingly more similar than expected and her use of color infused a sense of a new perspective, and a fresh look at the same scene against Adams’ photographs. Adams’ pieces take the extra step with detail. Where color lacks, detail takes advantage. In his photographs, there are multiple planes, and visual stimulus found in the detail.

In 1922, O’Keeffe noted this lack of detail in her work as a purposeful act. O’Keeffe said, “Nothing is less real than realism—details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get the real meaning of things”

This notion of abstraction is not lost on Adams. Adams uses the scene as inspiration. A quote featured in the exhibit from 1972 said, “In the east there is emphasis on the social aspects of the medium; out here there is a fine balance between the social emphasis on the natural scene and on the abstract and experimental.”

The biggest disappointment about the exhibit was the fact that it was not a straight comparison. This four room exhibit was split in half in most cases, Adams’ works on one side, and O’Keefe’s on the other. While the resemblance between the subjects of the work and similar perspectives was striking, the viewer was forced to make that comparison from across the room, instead of being presented the two pieces on the same wall.

In many cases, without a similar photograph across the room, O’Keeffe’s paintings and their comparison for subject matter are lost in the abstraction. Without Adams’ straight depiction, O’Keeffe’s abstractions would be unnoticeable.

A high point of the exhibit lies across from a description of the exhibit and at a side entrance where one of O’Keeffe’s painting lies immediately next to one of Adams’ paintings. The most interesting aspect of that corner was that the comparison is made immediately, and without the works close proximity, the comparison would otherwise be missed.

One comparison was flooring. O’Keeffe’s piece Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico/Out Back of Marie’s II painted in 1930 was placed immediately next to Adams’ Winter Sunrise, the Sierra Nevada from Lone Pine, California printed in 1944. The two works were of the same scene from the same perspective and shared the same depth and detail that would usually be lost in the difference of medium. The only difference seemed to be the title of the works. That kind of comparison was left desired throughout the rest of the exhibit.

The exhibit is on display from now through January 4 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on 8th and F street and is definitely worth a visit if O’Keeffe or Adam’s works are intriguing. The closest metro stop is Gallery Place/Chinatown.

ANC Meeting

This was an article written for a Reporting class assignment. We were assigned to attend a community meeting and cover it.



By NATALIE KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON, DC -- All seven candidates for at-large member of the City Council found themselves crowded around a table at the Cleveland Park Public Library on Saturday facing a crowd of concerned residents and fielding questions regarding the commercial future of Connecticut Avenue.

The pre-election candidate’s forum, hosted by the Cleveland Park Citizens Association and the Woodley Park Community Association, allowed for discussion of an issue called “commercial overlay” which restricts retail use on the Connecticut Avenue commercial district between Macomb and Porter Streets.

Sally MacDonald, a resident and current secretary of the Federation of Citizens Association, said that the issue was brought to light a few years ago the definition of a restaurant was changed to somewhere that serves food.

“But food can be peanuts,” MacDonald said. “It would be easier not to have a chef, not to buy food, not to have waiters, and not to have clean tables. If you can just put a bowl of peanuts on the bar… but have a restaurant license, an easier one to get, with just peanuts on the bar and maybe a pole dancer, that would be fine.”

MacDonald said that once all of the communities were alerted “they reacted like mad to stop it.”

“No two neighborhoods are alike and we are a city of neighborhoods,” said George Idelson, president of the Woodley Park Community Association, praising the “vibrant restaurant community” the population shares. “The idea of the overlay is that it will give us a healthy balance, a healthy fix of retail.”

“You look up and down and see all the restaurants and maybe we have too many restaurants, that’s another discussion, but at least they’re serving food on tablecloths, and they’re not restaurants with a bowl of peanuts on the bar and a pole dancer,” MacDonald said.

Dee Hunter, an independent candidate for at-large member of the city Council and AU Alumni said that as a representative in ward one, he will have the opportunity to vote on this issue.

“We will uphold the elimination of our overlay,” Hunter said. “I have lived in that neighborhood for 25 years. I’ve seen the impact this has on development in the community.”

According to Idelson, the zoning code allows up to 25 % of space between Macomb and Porter streets to be devoted to restaurants and bars. The struggle between maintaining a neighborhood identity with mom and pop stores and allow for commercial flow remains an issue.

Nancy MacWood, a candidate for the Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner in ward three said, “One of the reasons that neighborhoods like overlays is because it allows them to impose their interests and needs in the underlying zoning without imposing any changes on some other neighborhoods.”

The opinions on the overlay lie at the extremes.

“Absolutely I would support overlays,” Candidate Michael Brown, a third generation Washingtonian running as an independent said. “It gives the community a chance to participate in decisions that are made.”

MacDonald said that there are four areas struggling with overlay; Connecticut Avenue West of Cleveland park, Connecticut Avenue East of Cleveland Park, Connecticut Avenue in Woodley Park and on 8th Street on Capitol Hill.

Idelson said, “We do want an honest, transparent, forcible and enforced overlay and while the concept is very simple the execution isn’t always very simple.”