Fast Times in Palestine, tells the story of Pamela Olson, a young woman from small-town Oklahoma whose political innocence was shattered when she wandered into the West Bank in late 2003. Her fellow travelers and young Palestinians introduce her to a world of soul-destroying injustice that outsiders seldom hear about. With new knowledge and dizzying speed, Pamela finds herself working as a journalist, serving as the foreign press coordinator for a Palestinian presidential candidate, and witnessing the Disengagement from inside the Gaza Strip. Funny, gorgeous, surprising, and galvanizing, Olson’s memoir changes the way we think about the Middle East.
Monday, August 15th at 7PM At Bluestockings Books | http://bluestockings.com 172 Allen Street, New York, NY 10002, (212) 777-6028 For directions click HERE
It’s love in the time of occupation as Pamela Olson… takes us on the emotional roller-coaster of her very personal experience of life in Ramallah and in doing so lays bare the human drama of a people… determined to live free.— Tony Karon, Senior Editor, TIME
A moving, inspiring account of life in Palestine that’s enormously informative yet reads like a novel — Rebecca Vilkomerson, Jewish Voice for Peace
In a field overcrowded with arcane academic texts and strident polemics, Pamela Olson has broken through with a refreshing read that packs gritty journalism into a fast-paced, intimate personal narrative.— Max Blumenthal, Author of Republican Gomorrah
Danny Bobis was a fellow activist, a drummer, a husband, a surf coach, a math teacher, and a friend to countless people. Danny went missing almost two weeks ago while surfing in Indonesia and after an almost week-long search his body was discovered by a local fisherman. Our greatest fears were confirmed.
Danny’s right arm was tattooed with the message “Wealth is Weighed in Spirit” — a portion of the chorus from the title track of his band, Cipher’s, second full-length album, Children of God’s Fire. This proclamation was more than just a sing-along or mere tattooed lettering — these were words that Danny lived by and it is a sentiment echoed today in everyone whose life was touched by Danny’s.
Danny taught math and coached the surf team at Long Beach High School. When word arrived that Danny was gone, hundreds of his students gathered on the boardwalk for an impromptu candle light vigil, they were quickly joined by members of the community, surfers, activists and fans of his band. The gathering was an eye-opening summation of Danny’s spiritual wealth. If the people holding candles that night on the boardwalk made a point to touch only a fraction of the people that Danny did in his short life then tens of thousands of people would have their lives forever impacted.
For over a decade Danny’s band Cipher was, for many, their first taste of social justice activism, and for some the beginning of a life of charitable activism. Danny used music as a medium for social change & education, playing benefit shows to fund relief efforts in the wake of hurricane Katrina or through helping to organize 100 Shows For Haiti. Cipher used their music as a means to educate at shows and Danny’s work as a teacher helped him to touch even more people. Please join us in celebrating Danny’s life tomorrow at Laurelton Beach, NY.
The Bobis family would like to invite everyone reading this to a public memorial tomorrow, 8/7/2011 at 5:30pm at Danny’s hometown surf spot, Laurelton Beach, in Long Beach, NY (CLICK HERE FOR MAP & DIRECTIONS) The entire community is invited. Join us as we honor a life of purpose and courage.
The memorial will be immediately followed by a paddle out to sea. All are invited to join. We will start promptly. For any questions, contact friendsofdannybobis@gmail.com”
There are many benefits for the Bobis family planned for the near future. To stay up-to-date about events in your area please check out the following links…
We lost a shining example of a person when Danny passed. We should strive every day to follow his example and continue to move this world as he would have. If wealth is weighed in spirit then Danny’s legacy has left us all rich.
Ever since Chef Ayinde Howell partnered with Sparrow Media to bring us his Wildflower Vegan Pop-Up, there has been a groundswell of press attention highlighting Ayinde’s cruelty-free contribution to the grassroots pop-up phenomena. From write-ups in The New York Times, to features on New York Magazine‘s “Grub Street”, this recent press push has helped to further mainstream vegan ideals, raise questions about our nations continued reliance on animal husbandry despite amazing vegan options, and all the while help make a name for this breakout chef.
Following the surge of press attention Bravo Television has asked Ayinde to compete on their reality dinner party show “Rocco’s Dinner Party.” Ayinde will make his Bravo appearance tonight (Wednesday 7/13/2011) at 10pm EST, 9pm Central and we as a movement of compassionate activists should use this opportunity to send a message to Bravo that we want them to have an increased vegan focus in their program mix.
Bravo TV’s website features a user contributed content forum called “twitter battles.” We invite you to join us as we participate in one of these battles during and around the show’s airing to reign in the narrative on their twitter forum by tweeting links about vegan outreach, and tweets emphasizing your interest in Bravo’s continued commitment to vegan programming.
Here are a few ways you can help…
1.) Access the twitter battle & read tutorials on how to participate at this LINK. Then log on and start tweeting. The possibilities are endless but here are two examples that you can feel free to ad-lib as you like.
I wish @roccodispirito on @bravotv featured more #vegan chefs like Chef @AYINDE
Want to know why @AYINDE is #vegan ? – [insert link to vegan resource here]
2.) You can share the LINK to the twitter battle on your facebook page, tumblr, or twitter accounts and encourage your friends to get involved in the twitter battle as well.
3.) Tell friends & family that “Rocco’s Dinner Party” on the Bravo network will be featuring the vegan culinary stylings of chef Ayinde Howell.
4.) You can also leave Bravo a comment thanking them for featuring a vegan chef and suggest they do it more often HERE
Food Not Bombs, Long Island, is an entirely volunteer-based organization that has brought free plant-based meals, groceries,and clothing to those in need for over 14 years. In the last five years the group has seen an exponential growth in the number of volunteers, amount of donations, sponsors, as well as in the community participation at the food shares —all without any operating budget. Following a mantra of “solidarity, not charity” Food Not Bombs community food shares feed hundreds of families vegan meals & groceries each week in 5 cities across suburban Long Island.
Food Not Bombs DIY ethos and decentralized structure is what has allowed it to flourish and spread its feedings virally to countries all around the world. Maintaining the ideals, autonomy & purely volunteer framework of Food Not Bombs is what will assure it’s continued success and continued growth within the community. It is for these reasons that Food Not Bombs volunteers have started a partner non-profit with the purpose of increasing access to recovered food, increasing distribution of food to communities in need, and for the purpose of coaching existing soup kitchens & pantries to more efficiently serve the community even while operating on a shoestring budget.
This new partner non-profit, properly named ‘Community Solidarity‘ can use your help. They have been nominated to the Vivint Gives Back Project, a socially-driven non profit incubator, and if they receive enough endorsements from people like you they can earn one of a handful of grants for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Food Not Bombs is asking all of their supporters to endorse the Community Solidarity project by visiting http://vivint.com/givesbackproject/charity/647 and casting your vote for them. You can continue to help them by sharing the endorsement link with your friends on social networks. You can return back to the Vivint link to vote once a day until the drawing in August.
It is a sobering fact to learn that poverty and a lack of access to food and water kills more people every day then violent conflicts do. A fact that we so often ignore is that the blight of scarcity, poverty, and hunger are things we can do something about it. Food Not Bombs & Community Solidarity are showing us that DIY hunger relief and community empowerment are more then just bright-eyed ideals, they are an ever-growing concrete reality.
New York, NY: LTO, 171 East Broadway —Wildflower is a one-of-a-kind crowd-funded pop-up restaurant that will be bringing 28 courses of the finest plant-based cuisine all with a summer grilling motif to discerning New Yorkers over June 10th-12th, 2011. Just like the short-lived beauty of blossoming annuals in the field, Wildflower is here today and gone tomorrow. Complementing the ever-growing trend of food trucks, pop-up restaurants are proving to be breakout venues for some of foods finest artisans and tastemakers. Wildflower will pop-up at New York’s exclusive LTO (Limited Time Only) located at 171 East Broadway and for three days will take patrons on a 28 course journey that will traverse a landscape of diverse vegan cuisine ranging from soul food to raw fusion to a vegan street food tasting menu. Brunch will be served on Saturday and Sunday morning June 11th and 12th, drawing from the menu of Ayinde’s popular monthly Brooklyn Petit Dejeuner, Waffle Brunch, which has already gathered a cult-like following by Williamsburg hipsters, vegans, and foodies alike. Crowd-funded through kickstarter.com, Wildflower is a direct response to the demand of New Yorkers who want to see gourmet vegan dining with an upscale atmosphere in lower Manhattan. An opening reception with celebrity guests, style icons, and giveaways from Vaute Couture, The Ethical Man, and Evolve Jewelry will follow Friday night’s dinner. A full menu is available HERE
Born in Tacoma, WA, to vegan parents, Chef Ayinde Howell has been a lifelong vegan, giving him a fresh lens to see his culinary art through. At a time when most vegan restaurants have emphasized meat-anologs and processed soy dishes as an appeal to carnivores, Chef Ayinde’s vision alternatively celebrates his food’s unprocessed source by highlighting their natural flavors, brilliant colors, and captivating aromas.
About Chef Ayinde Howell
Ayinde Howell is an entrepreneur, executive vegan chef and founder of http://ieatgrass.com He has a background in a variety of vegan fare covering soul food, raw, and new American have been featured in the New York Times and Time Out New York. Ayinde got his start in Seattle as co-owner of Hillside Quickies Vegan Sandwich Shop, an offshoot of his family’s business. Hillside Quickies became a popular lunch spot known for blasting hip hop during the crowded rushes and being frequented by patrons like The Roots, Saul Williams, Common and Erykah Badu. Since his arrival in New York, Howell has served as a health consultant to celebrities, acted as executive chef at Jivamukti Yoga School, cooked for media mogul Russell Simmons, and has demoed his vegan cooking on BET’s popular ’106 & Park’ music hour.
To arrange an interview with Chef Ayinde Howell, to arrange a tasting,
or to obtain high-resolution images of his culinary creations please
On May 7th the Sparrow Project was proud to support the efforts of activists in La Jolla, California rallying for added protections and a sanctuary for a colony of Harbor Seals that call La Jolla’s Casa Cove their home. We were excited to see that our press release generated some great coverage, shedding much-needed light on the plight of the La Jolla Seals. Following coverage in the La Jolla Light & San Diego Tribune, Dorota Valli of San Diego Seal Watch was invited on CNN’s Headline News to discuss the seals. In the wake of the buzz on May 13th a judge issued a temporary restraining order protecting the seal colony from shared use of the beach until a future court date in June. Listed below is a roundup of the flurry of coverage dedicated to the La Jolla Seals.
“Must we humans be so selfish that we would deny the seals a small spot on the coast they can call their own. Those who want the seals removed so children can have the beach have certainly not asked the children what they want. Most children would prefer to see seals living happy on a beach than to see them removed. The people who are victimizing these seals are both anti-nature and anti-children. They have their own agenda of greed and prejudice,”
— Captain Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
So after two full weeks of recovering old files, pulling all-nighters on the phone with our hosting service, and with a whole lot of help from Nate from Vegan Corner & Matt Mitchell of InteractiveOne our databases have been restored, and we are well on our way to website that far-exceeds the reach of our last setup.
Our web presence will consist of three parts; one part to catalog projects that we are currently working on or have succeeded with, a second section will provide you insight into our PR work by importing an RSS feed of our recent press releases, the last will be a newsfeed that we will slowly start opening to activist guest bloggers who want to share their work & opinions with the world.
We will continue with our 50/50 benefit prints through Merchdirect, and will be publishing a once yearly journal with writings and art from some of the world’s most influential revolutionaries.
We welcome you to join us in this process. If you are interested in contributing to our newsfeed, journal, or current projects feel free to send a writing sample to info@sparrowmedia.net
So it’s a huge mess. We are loosing hair and sleep to bring this up to date fast. We are running image tests and re-building databases. This may take almost a week, but maybe, just maybe, the site will look nice when all is said and done.
