Opera as Training for Human Rights Advocacy (and at video from last night’s performance!)

I tend to get a certain question–”Opera? How does that fit?”–a lot, particularly when marketing myself to potential employers. I usually explain that singing opera gives me a unique opportunity to get comfortable performing, engage with texts in half a dozen languages, and teaches me about effective management (because if there has ever been an unmanageable group, it is opera singers). But those answers all leave out the most important reason why my opera training helps me be a more effective advocate for human rights: because opera is about human rights.

I’ll use the opera I am in (go here to see the webcast). Dialogues of the Carmelites by Poulenc is about the lives of the nuns who were massacred in 1794 in France near the end of the revolution. More to the point, it is about human rights in a time of revolution.

1. Religious persecution

   In the opera, the Carmelites were a reflective order. As the Mother Superior says: “we are nothing but a house of prayer”. However, because they are perceived by agents of the revolution (a cadre of soldiers in this case) to be representatives of the Pope, they are treated as traitors and publicly stripped )in the final scene of Act 2 (in our version, the soldiers also attempt to steal the sacramental cup). The anti-Catholic actions of the soldiers are put into context by the captain of the guard who tells Mother Marie “In the church at home, I served two years as Sacristan. Our noble priest, I loved him like a brother–but I’ve no choice but to howl with all the wolves”. Whether motivated by fear of the mob or hatred of the church, the soldiers are engaging in religious oppression.

2. State-sponsored violence

   The soldiers are also agents of state-sponsored violence. As representatives of the revolution, they feel empowered to harass and humiliate the nuns. When the nuns are imprisoned, the jailer (also a representative of the revolution) taunts them and accuses them of being in “correspondence with our enemies”, when they were really imprisoned for having mass illegally. Even more tellingly, as the nuns are herded into a government office where they must sign their names to receive “the benefits of liberty” (access to food and housing?), a soldier tells them they will continue to be “under the watchful eye of the law”–as he says this in our production, he leers at Sister Constance (a novice) and stalks her as she rushes to sign her name. The opera shows the evils of power without accountability and how it can become state-sponsored violence.

3. Judicial corruption

   In the opera, the nuns are sentenced to death and executed without a trial by their peers, essentially murdered by committee. Before that, just before they are stripped, they are informed they have been expelled from their home “in the name of the Republic”–that is, an undemocratically elected group who used the church as a symbol of the opulence and aristocracy they hated (in this case, ignoring the willing poverty in which the nuns lived to cast them as agents of the Pope).

4. Violence against women

   While some of the nuns fight back (yours truly tries to take a soldier out when he starts to strip a friend) the opera is a story of men attacking a women’s community. The most peaceful scenes (1.3 where we are all spinning and sewing, 2.2 where we meet the new Mother Superior) are occupied solely by women. The opera makes the case that women can create their own self-sufficient communities which men (with the exception of the priest, who is allied with the women because he is celibate) see as threatening to their power and feel they must use violence to  destroy (whether by banning them as the soldiers do, or trying to force women to leave them, as Blanche’s brother does).

5. Casualties of progress

   The nuns did represent orthodoxy–as a largely sequestered order, they had an allegiance to the monarchical system which had supported them for hundreds of years. The french revolution, for all of its blood and terror, eventually brought about one of our world’s great democratic nations. But good opera, like all good history, does not lend itself to easy categories like good and bad. For me, the joy of opera is the complexity of the picture is presents. In the end, the women in the convent were restricted by their vows to a life I would never choose as a modern woman. But their life is also not one I would deny to a women who chose it freely. As Madame Lidoine reminds us as the sisters await their sentence in prison: “How could they deprive us of liberty, which we so long ago surrendered of our free will?”

Finally, here is our execution scene from last night, via a bootleg (I’m the one of the far right, who walks to the guillotine holding my sister’s hand):

Inspirational Quote:

“The arts is a life of faith, its pure faith.
People preach about faith, who have no idea what faith is.

But artists know. Artists are the lilies of the field that Jesus preached about in the Sermon of the Mount.

‘Consider the Lilies, don’t worry about what you are going to eat or wear. Consider the lilies. They toil not and spin not, and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’

The life of the artist is pure, pure faith.”

September 19, 2009. The News from Lake Wobegone, with Garrison Keillor

My Top Three Picks for Summer Interships in Washington DC (as of 1:44pm, October 18, 2009)

I’m writing from the middle of the internship competition season, part I. Because of long security review periods, I have to apply for federal internships (with the Departments of State or Defense, or the Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service) by Early November 2009. NGOs which work closely with the federal government (or are highly competitive) can also have their summer internship deadlines in November. Part II of internship competition season will start around March and go until April or early May–this is where the smaller, but just as awesome, NGOs will want their applications.

I’ve been keeping my eye open for neat opportunities since this summer, but I’ve really been trolling Idealist (the best place I have found for public interest internships) for a few weeks and here are my top 3 picks (below is a description of how I chose them):

1. Working on the Trafficking in Persons Report for the United States Department of State. This would be my favorite government publication. This has the earliest deadline (November 2nd) but, pending research, it looks like an incredible opportunity.
2. Enhance the online presence (blog, website, forum, Facebook) of the American Islamic Congress. The internship would also involve researching student press, and lots and lots of writing. AIC a group of moderate Muslims who came together after 9/11 to propagate the political views of moderate Muslims. Just like every other group, the tails ends of the bell curve of the American Muslim community dominate our politics discourse–the AIC supports the middle of that curve. From their website, they look like an agile group which actually helps people (see Project Nur, a community of campus advocacy groups AIC supports) where I would get autonomy and have the chance to learn effective advocacy while writing every day. NOTE: AIC has no and promotes no religious views–it represents a religious group’s political views (Less 700 Club, more Episcopal Relief and Development).
3. Writing about the human rights concerns and works of the Advocacy Project, a group which guides citizens left out of the peace conversation in their countries to speak up. They support “peace fellows” who go to countries struggling towards peace and work with advocates there to access tell their narratives, choose good exposition tools, and get funds.

This list will probably shift and flow (and there are tons of amazing internships I haven’t listed here!) but these are my top 3 picks for today.

My non-negotiables:

The organization:

1. Must be deal with transnational issues.
2. It must actually help people, not just do research about them.
3. It must be trying to use new media to spread its message.

The internship:

1. Must involve helping people access information
2. Involve writing (for reports, blogs, press-releases)
3. Must be in the public interest

That’s it for now!

Inspirational Quote:

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.” Dorothy Parker

Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Awesome news. Hat tip to Penelope Trunk for her post. This will reset his relationship with Congress, for a while at least. Cool stuff.

Inspirational Quote:

“Edward P. Jones said: “If you write a story today, and you get up tomorrow and start another story, all the expertise that you put into the first story doesn’t transfer over automatically to the second story. You’re always starting at …the bottom of the mountain. So you’re always becoming a writer. You’re never really arriving.” —from today’s Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor. Heather Kresge’s Facebook status, October 5.

Awesome 7th Circuit Holding on Forced Marriage!

Reporting from Human Rights USA’s blog, where I interned this summer, on a recent 7th circuit decision saying asylum seekers can argue they are more in danger of persecution of returning to their home countries if their families are trying to force them to marry someone they do not want to. Called a “changed circumstances”, the threat of forced marriage is “precisely the kind of changed circumstance that could materially affect a person’s eligibility for asylum” (Human Rights USA blog post).

Great news for women fleeing persecution!

Inspirational Quote:

“The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together.”–Robert C. Dodds

What I’ve Just Done For My Internship

I just invited over 200 friends to become fans of the World Organization for Human Rights USA’s on Facebook. For the past week I’ve been building the social media presence of Human Rights USA. I connected our existing blog with a Facebook page and a YouTube channel. I designed every electron of our Facebook and YouTube presences, from what tabs we  use, to whose channels we subscribe to. Did you know that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (aka ICE) has a YouTube channel? They do–and we are their only subscriber.

I value the time of every person with whom I am friends on Facebook. This is why I only send group communications when I truly believe action will make a difference, will do good. So fan us on our Facebook page. Watch one of our attorneys talk about Charles Taylor’s trial on Al Jazeera English. Maybe even Donate (any amount helps). Human Rights USA brings human rights to U.S. courts, and does substantial good. That’s why I work there.

But most importantly, pass it on.

Inspirational Quote:

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Ronald Reagan.

For more cool human rights quotes, please see this video from Human Rights USA’s YouTube Channel:

10 Tips for Laptop Security

Below is the handout from a talk I gave today at my internship with the World Organization for Human Rights USA, which focuses on impact litigation. Attorneys face special risks to their computer security because they are regularly in possession of confidential documents.

Assumptions:

1. You already have a working, updated anti-virus system on your laptop;
2. You know not to open attachments from strangers (and you do not let your email program do so either);
3. You do not let strangers have unsupervised physical access to your laptop.

3 Technical Tips:

1. Get to know your computer’s rhythms: if she slows down suddenly, or starts having weird pop-ups, run anti-virus immediately.
2. Know the security holes of your operating system. Windows is famously insecure, and many anti-piracy technologies make it even less secure. OSX is more secure, but not perfect.
3. Use https for your email (its a setting in Gmail)
   1. It is what all online banking and sales websites use—good enough for most people’s email needs
   2. “According to security expert Gene Spafford, [using https] is analagous to ‘using an armored truck to transport rolls of pennies between someone on a park bench and someone doing business from a cardboard box’” (What is https). More on behavioral security next.

A cartoon from xkcd on technical vs behavioral security:

3 Behavioral Tips:

1. Your laptop security is only as good as your personal security
   1. Even if a laptop is impenetrable remotely (which is nearly impossible), if it can be stolen it can probably be hacked
2. Change or rotate passwords about every 6 months, and make them memorable enough that you do not have to write them down. Secure password trick: use a line from a favorite poem that has punctuation*
3. Treat your laptop like cash: do not flash it in public and do not leave it unattended

3 Tips on How to Learn How Hackers Think

1. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
   1. It is a fictional work about the history of cryptography, starting in WWII and ending up in the late 1990s. Reading it is a great way to learn how cryptographers think about security.
2. Black Hat and DefCon
   1. These are the two largest information security (ie, hacker) conferences. They are both in Las Vegas in the fall. Defcon’s forums are worth reading. (Black Hat also has Washington DC training sessions).
3. The Broken is a web-series on hacking. In the first episode, learn how to hack into WiFi networks (actually doing this may not be legal, but learning how it can be done is education).

Final Tip:

Think of your laptop like a house—your locks have to fit your needs. If someone is really determined, he will be able to get into your house, no matter your security system. This does not mean you cannot leave valuables in your house. It means understand that there is always a risk that something will be stolen, and the best anyone can do is mitigate that risk.
*You can think outside the box with passwords. All of the following were rated Very Strong by PasswordMeter.com:

• Twas in the Merry Month of May /
• “Impossible! for a plain…
• Who am I?24601!
• 1/4 tbs milk?
• ATCA (1789)

NOTE: don’t use these, since they are here. Choose a song or poem that is personally meaningful to you!

Inspirational Quote:

Amelia Earhart – “The most effective way to do it, is to do it.”

Same Story, Different Windows

One of my favorite publications of the US government is the annual TIPs report (Trafficking in Persons) from the Department of State. The use of photography and victim stories make it a challenging and harrowing read–but it transmits information like no other government document I have read. I try with my own photography to provide the kinds of windows into the worlds I photograph as the TIPs report provides me.

Sometimes I worry that, because of my background, the windows which I use to frame my images are warped–are too different from what other people’s window’s look like. That’s why I read Al-Jazeera English and the New York Times and the Economist–all in hopes of clarifying my window-views.

Today was a day when this diversity of perspectives turned up some cultural warpings in other people’s windows.

It is estimated that over 200 immigrants from Africa to Italy (illegal immigrants) died on the rough seas this morning. The New York Times and the LA Times first discuss the weather and then focus on the human trafficking trade out of Libya (which, according to my favorite governmental report isn’t even on the lowest tier of countries in terms of human trafficking). However, Al-Jazeera English focuses on the people–their motivations, struggles, and deaths.

Only by reading all of these sources can my window get a little clearer.

Inspirational Quote:

Nirmala Bonat is an Indonesian domestic worker who has relentlessly pursued justice in Malaysian courts for nearly four years since being brutally beaten and burned with an iron, for which her Malaysian employer faces criminal charges. Despite having to stay in Kuala Lumpur sheltered by the Indonesian embassy to continue with court proceedings, and being humiliated in court on many occasions, she has stood her ground, refusing to return home and give up her case. In doing so, she has become an inspiration for abused trafficking victims worldwide seeking to claim their rights. A young 19-year-old woman when she arrived in Malaysia four years ago, her courage is all the more remarkable given her seemingly powerless position in society.

New York Times Shows a Place for Writers

I have rather a lot of classes which require me to write functionally. Lovely prose is deemed unprofessional, unproductive and a waste of time. You can probably chart my enjoyment of a class by how much creativity I am allowed in how I write for it. Sometimes professors tell you to “write like it’s for a technical paper” or “the New York Times”. By this they mean: just the facts, ma’am.

It used to be nearly impossible for me to write that way. Now I have found a kind of cold joy in writing legal briefs–knowing I am precisely accurate in what I say and what I mean. But to characterize that kind of writing as like the New York Times does a disservice to the New York Times, as David Park’s Opinion on the shootings in Northern Ireland showed today. Here is one of the most tear-jerking posts:

But something quite remarkable has happened in this country as the hours have turned into days. It started with ordinary people interviewed on television and radio who invariably expressed an abhorrence of “returning” or “going back.” At first it was clearly the product of a deep-seated fear of regression towards the abyss, a fear that the peace process itself would crack asunder with the impact of violence, but then the fear turned to anger — an anger that a small group of fanatics with little or no popular support should seek to subvert the will of the people of Ireland.

Across towns and cities people of all traditions assembled to protest in dignified but powerful silence. There was a constant reiteration that what had been achieved could not now be lost, that a peace process, for all its problems, could not be usurped and subverted by the gun.

Wow. There were passages more flowery, and some more expositive, but these images brought me near to tears. It is good to know someone appreciates good writing.

Inspirational Quote

“If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I’d type a little faster.”–Isaac Asimov

And It Breaks My Heart–great video from Courage Campaign on Prop 8 Fallout

(“Fidelity” used with permission from Regina Spektor and EMI Records–cool, real permissions from a real copyright holder!)

What I like is that this video is about people. Different colors, ages, genders, family types and sizes. It’s about couples whose legal standing is now a political whiffleball.

For shame.

Inspirational Quote:

Maybe Ken Starr needs to go back to his Shakespeare:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

by William Shakespeare, read aloud quite nicely by Anthea Carns. Good valentines day poetry–here’s hoping the couples shown above can celebrate their love in more peace than they have found in the past few years.

The President’s New Website Rocks

I really wish I had a screen-capture of the ugliness that was the Bush Administration’s face to the web world. It was like the websites I remember from the 90s. But now I might have to say the Obama Administration’s website might be too cool–it’s hard to tell its a government website it’s so slick. The only truly awkward thing about it is the screen that pops up whenever you link to another government website:

Thank you for visiting our site.
You are exiting the White  House Web Server
http://www.amtrak.com/
We hope your visit was informative and enjoyable.
To comment on the site, send feedback to the Web
Development Team by clicking here.

It looks like a great private blog, except for all of the seals and stuff. The colors are great–I love the deep red and brilliant blue. The web design is also great–with logical headings, clean menus. It might become a joy to stalk what our administration is doing.

I also love the multimedia–not only is our President posting his weekly address to YouTube through the White House’s YouTube Channel, but he also has slideshows (this one is portraits of all previous presidents) and blog posts with videos. Great stuff for us visual learners.

Unfortunately, while the design is lovely, the content is lacking. The blog is fawningly supportive of the President, and his position pieces are clearly copied from his campaign website. They seem to be more focused on advocating Barack Obama’s stances than explaining them. For example, in the section titled “Women” we hear about what Senator Barack Obama has done to support women in Science and Technology and in the workplace, and only vague descriptions about what President Barack Obama will be doing. Here is the preamble to that section:

President Obama has a long record of standing up for women. In Illinois, he passed the Equal Pay Act to give 330,000 more women protection from pay discrimination and passed another law that ensured victims of domestic violence could seek treatment without losing their jobs. In the U.S. Senate, he introduced and sponsored legislation to reduce unintended teen pregnancy, strengthen families by supporting fathers who are doing the right thing and cracking down on those who are not, guarantee workers paid sick leave, and ensure that women are not receiving less pay than men for comparable work. And throughout his career, in the Illinois Senate, the U.S. Senate, and the White House, Obama has stood up for a woman’s right to choose.

Sounds like a campaign blurb rather than a Presidential one. Now, he’s only been president for a week, but in six months time, if these pages haven’t been re-written with achievements (and if the tone of the website doesn’t become more professional) I will be disappointed.

Don’t fall in love with yourself too far, Mr President, there’s a lot of work to do.

PS: maybe this is me being a super geek, but can I describe how exited I am that the President made clear that all Presidential papers go to the National Archives unless the President has a really good reason to not let them go? And, in case you hadn’t heard–the President revoked the Mexico City Policy (more commonly known as the Global Gag Rule). So. Cool.

Inspirational Quote:

Reader Responses from the Eternal Perspectives Ministries review of the book Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions by Randy Alcorn.

I am a first-year family medicine resident at SWMC. I have made the difficult decision to not prescribe any contraceptives (pills, patches, IUD’s, etc) in my practice. The main motivation for this has been Randy’s article Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortion? These possibilities were not taught to me in medical school and I really believed that the Pill completely suppressed ovulation. Now I know differently and it has changed the way I approach women’s health care. I encourage Natural Family Planning and I am trying to put together some resources to give patients. I wanted to let you know that as a ministry, you are changing hearts and my wife and I are all the more committed to life. We had been on the pill for our first 3 years of marriage. After we both read the article, we felt that the Spirit was telling us to trust God and not use contraception except NFP. It has been the best year of marriage yet! We are even expecting our first child in April! Thank you for preaching the truth fearlessly even in the face of so much confusion in the Christian medical world. – D. H.

PS: yeah DH, that’s totally your job to decide. I hope you tell your patients your beliefs before they treat you as a normal family medicine doctor. I hope this guy understood what commenting on the internet means. If you want a more medical view of Birth Control options, try Scarleteen’s Birth Control Option table. And in case you were wondering, check the author’s definition of abortion to see if it fits with yours before going off the Pill.