Thursday, June 18, 2009

Juneteenth, A Forgotten Holiday?


People in the Twin Cities celebrated the annual Juneteenth festival yesterday at Theodore Wirth park in Minneapolis, but event organizers still have their work cut out for them as far as educating people about the historical significance of the celebration. KFAI's Michelle Alimoradi reports.

Thursday, June 4, 2009




In times like these I'm reminded of the lyrics from one my favorite musicals, Avenue Q.


What do you do with at B.A. in English?
What is my life going to be?

Four years of college,
And plenty of knowledge,
Have earned me this useless degree.

And so it is there that I stand, right in the middle of internship eligibility and two years professional experience. How does that type of system even make logical sense? Why are there not more entry-level positions? Why do more people not have paid assistants instead of unpaid 'interns?' I would gladly sit alongside a seasoned professional in my field for barely above minimum wage if it meant that I would be gaining the type of experience necessary to actually advance in my field later.

In light of this apparent catch 22, I've decided to return to the basics. Learning to rediscover my love for writing may be the only way to maintain my current level of sanity. My reserve supply of patience has long since been consumed, my virtues, exhausted.

I even find myself at a loss for topics to write about. I won't pretend that people will remain interested in my log of personal antics and happenings for long. It's nice to break up the news with personal check ins now and then, but I know, in the long run, I have to find my areas of conviction.

Recently the issues that have been weighing on me pertain mostly to the job market, obviously. Many layoffs that have occured lately were ill-advised and exponentially harmful to the terminated workers. My own cousin was just recently laid off from his job at a television station in Flint, Michigan where he had been employed for many years. His position was eliminated due to a station merger and now he has been leadless in his job search for months. I am convinced that new legislation should be developed to prevent companies from approving drastic job eliminations without first exhausting all other options.

How have the powerful few in this country gotten away with isolating the fruits of their success from the hands of their labor-class counterparts? How has this exploitative mindset survived for so long in the land of the American dream? I am not a socialist, but I don't believe that the rich few can lay claim to the vast wealth earned by the manual labor of a less fortunate army. We must shrink the opportunity gap in this country, now more so than ever.

Perhaps the American dream has become antiquated with rapid population growth. How can this country sustain delusions of equality when there are too many people to track? Sometimes I feel as if our system has been out-manned.

My current dilemma is that I have no tangible solution. I am literally and figuratively stuck. I am also not sure if I have wandered outside the realm of my intellectual capacity or if my frustration has become temporarily debilitating. Where to turn from here?

For now, I am at a loss for other topics to explore. Feel free to offer any suggestions you'd like to hear more about.

Alimoradi out.