Youth Trailblazers Ignite Inspiration at First Ever Startup Weekend Oakland

Feb. 16, 2014 “You know you have something special when your teen and his friend are up and ready to head in to code by 7:15 am! –Startup Weekend Oakland is changing lives”—Leah McGowen-Hare“Thanks for the best weekend of my life. We built an app with complete strangers that could save lives' and had a blast while doing it.” — Iman Saint Jean, Winning Team, “HelpCircle” … [Read more...]

Victim Blaming, “Asking For It” and Baiting Outrage-On the Radio

Sept. 2, 2016 Update Today's early release of Stanford student/campus rapist Brock Turner (3 months off an already lenient 6 month sentence) prompted this pithy video indictment by Elizabeth Plank on Vox which captures my "Friday feeling" quite well...incredulous and livid. The one in five stat echoing around college campuses everywhere as students start school this … [Read more...]

Year Round Media That Matters: Positive Picks for Kids

Nov. 26, 2012 With all the coinage and consumption swirling around Black Friday and Cyber Monday for people hunting “deals” I think it’s fitting to honor the organizations that deliver positive media and transformative vision to kids’ lives year-round. It stays with them long after the holiday hoopla and instills the notion that we all have choices in how we want to walk … [Read more...]

Toy Joy or Consumption Junction? Critical Thinking for Holiday Fun

Dec. 7, 2016 Update Why not turn holiday gifting into a media literacy opportunity? Tomorrow I'll be signing up once again for Samaritan House sorting and stocking for kids less fortunate and I can't help but think it'll end up being a blog post about what toys are being gifted and how... From gendered cues to ages and stages, I'm sure it will prove enlightening as I … [Read more...]

Talk To Me: Because Media Matters For Youth Outreach

Sept. 9, 2011 “Text, poke, like, or chat...” What about TALK? I love how this Trevor "Talk To Me" 3-word anti-bullying campaign by The Trevor Project goes back into time to cut through the social media layers to get real with face time. The Talk to Me campaign for conversation succinctly sums the “Alone Together” dynamic that MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle mentions in her … [Read more...]