Oud, and job nibbles

[ziasudra]

The long road from Gaza

A Palestinian musician finds that playing with Israelis
leads across more than one border

After almost three months of intense travel and interviews, my friend Vanessa finally got her Palestinian musician article published. This piece is a unique look into the lives of asylum seekers/immigrants -- and even detainees -- who live in a small county in northern New Jersey. She gives Zaher, the featured "character" in the article, a chance to speak his words and tell his story. She also skillfully interjects U.S. immigration laws (and biases, imo) and sensitively contextualizes one person's story into the broader history of the U.S.-Israel and U.S.-Palestine relations.

If you read and like the article, please take a moment and comment to the article (login required). If you'd rather not log in, I'd be happy to connect you with Vanessa so she could hear what you think about the piece.

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And... I got an interview! Two interviews, actually, but one is an informal meeting next week with someone from CNNMoney, which, business-challenged that I am, I actually find very interesting because the Web site devotes a lot of space to tech and gadget stuff that I can lose hours in just reading all the articles. Not to mention the handy Jobs & Economy section that I've frequented *g*

My main interview, however, is a campaigning job with the Working Families Party, a "grassroots, community and labor based political party with chapters throughout New York State." The party endorses candidates who are already affiliated with a major party, but is pushing for the open ballot option so that voters can voice their concerns for what issues matter to them even as they vote for candidates they otherwise would support in either of the two major parties. This is active voting here, and I like it. We'll see how the interview goes.

Comments

[ziasudra.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll pass your comments along to Vanessa, I'm sure she'll appreciate it.

I do know what a heck of a hard time she had with getting access to people for this article. She spent weeks traveling back-and-forth between NYC and NJ to interview all sorts of people, and months trying to get into the detention center. I totally know what you mean about the authority of the quote depending on who gave it, and I suppose interviewing the Domino's supervisor wouldn't have been too much trouble, but that's journalism for you -- in hindsight there's always things that could have been done better.

I'm crazy about hyperlinks too! That's why I love Wikipedia so much ^_^

[sad1225.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia is the bomb!

Sure there's a little untruth in just about any article, but that's true everwhere.

Some days when I want to waste a whole afternoon I'll go onto Wikipedia and keep following links.