What we mean when we say "Berkeley"
Much of what I and my Berkeley-native peers experienced growing up there was being duplicated in alternative communities everywhere, and also much of it was a product of the times. We didn't know that.
Berkeley is revealed in its "byzantine cultural complexity" by secular Jewish homegirl author of new book about going undercover in Jerry Falwell's evangelical church.
"If you’re from Berkeley...you know the muscle of the Berkeley Left is actually made up of a million fibers, often flexing at cross purposes — the Green Partiers, the Clintonites, the Obamaphiles, the Slow Foodists and Dumpster Divers, the Second and Third Wave feminists, the Marxists, anarchists, and Revolutionary Communists, the vaguely apathetic left-leaners, the merely apathetic."
"The first time I saw a bowl of table grapes I had a panic attack. ~ KOKO MULDER"
Connecting through social media with the diaspora of Berkeley kids, and comparing our upbringings. Read the New York Times article here.
Freedom of the Internet demonstration, TBT
Odd to see this Internet ban memory from my final days as an expat in Istanbul at a time when America is voting to save or kill Net Neutrality tomorrow.
A photo author, journalist & mid-east politics expert Hugh Pope took of me midway in the march from his Istiklal apartment.
What Hugh Pope wrote about that day:
Some pictures of demonstrators on Sunday 15 May 2011 calling for reform of Turkey's new conservative internet laws in Istanbul's Istiklal St today - the biggest, loudest and happiest protest I've seen in more than a decade of living in the city center. Some signs were funny too: "Dawkins is a scientist, not a pornographer, you retard!" "Your Internet is being cut according to Islamic regulations" (carried by the two gentlemen in chador-like garb, punning on signs in religious-minded meat shops) "EnSUCKlopedia" (well, roughly), "Censorship for Security is like Sex for Virginity" and "Hands off my porn".
Unless the government backtracks, a whole new system goes into force on 22 August. Internet providers will be obliged to offer every subscriber four filters of varying severity, and forcing Internet cafes to choose which sites can be accessed in advance. Any attempt to bypass such regulations will be criminal, and all Internet providers will be responsible for enforcement.
The liberal Radikal newspaper, for instance, compares this coming system to that of China, Iran or Cuba. This appears to be a new turn for Turkey, which has so far been ambivalent on Internet freedom - YouTube was banned for what seemed like years, but even the Prime Minister noted that it was easy to use a proxy server to reach it. But from 22 August even proxies will be banned ... and all this in a country negotiating to join the EU!
Not only Turks are concerned. Turkey's expat harem's Queen of Social Media, Anastasia Ashman, peeled off the crowds to visit and tweet from our windows overlooking the crowds of tens of thousands (see picture). At the same time, her Internet guru husband Burc managed to get my wi-fi system working properly for the first time in five years. So a big catch-up for me and I hope the demo will turn into a giant step forward for Turkey.
Noticing the conservative gaming of Google
Why are these the questions Google autocompletes when I was searching for the answer to how many people were about to lose their health insurance due to Congress' current action? Factcheck.org addressed this misleading Republican talking point back in 2014.
Hosting an Expat Litchat, TBT to when Twitter chats were just beginning
2009, pioneering with the twitter chats.
We've all displaced our nation...
TBT to meeting a blogger after my own heart: Mary-Lea Cox Awanohara, the editor of DISPLACED NATION....
When airlines produced 'girl-watching' guides, TBT
Students who hate reading were the first to finish my book? What!? TBT.
Thanks for sharing this, Gul Celkan. (She's an English and women's studies instructor at Eastern Mediterranean University in Northern Cyprus.)
Chief Mentor At The European Innovation Academy
Honored to be a Chief Mentor at the European Innovation Academy this summer in Nice, France. (That's like Tim Gunn's role on Project Runway, for up to 7 groups of entrepreneurs.)
500 college student entrepreneurs will take an idea to a tech startup in 15 days in this program that brings together faculty from 75 nations, and education programs developed with universities and organizations like UC Berkeley, Stanford, Google, IBM and Amadeus.
Thanks to Ajda Mustafova for making this connection.
Global women's leadership issues advocacy, TBT
Nine years ago:
Seven years ago:
Leading A Social Brand Workshop For Young Pros In Silicon Valley
Loved speaking on social branding with Tanya Monsef Bunger to the Silicon Valley branch of TurkishWIN (Turkish Women's International Network).
The event took place at Carr & Ferrell LLP. Menlo Park, December, 2015.
Dynamite Waiting To Happen: My Fantasy Speaker List For A Conference On Global Women Entrepreneurs
Originally posted 12/9/2013, still want this to happen!
Thinking about who I’d want to hear from on the topic of global women entrepreneurship, started a list of women whose thinking, feats and contributions in those three colliding spheres happen to bowl me over, and have, for YEARS.
And when I write ‘global’ I don’t mean ‘outside of the US’. I mean global thinker. Global acknowledger. A woman owning her spot that’s bigger than a particular place. Someone who considers deeply on a regular basis what it takes to operate in the world, and in the world today. This incorporates media, and politics, the economy, culture and society, business and tech.
To me, ‘global’ means people connecting dots that have never been connected before. These global women entrepreneurs are necessarily feminist, they are people pioneering their lives and work in ways we can all learn from.
I’d love to see them all speak together, both separately and in panel discussions.
Female wisdom nurturer, creative thinker and author Justine Musk. Haven’t met her in person yet, but will soon, and we will compare some odd overlaps in our lives, like rocket scientist pasts, and writing books influenced by The Great Gatsby featuring characters with multiple personalities. Know her mind and her heart, and her capacity to help us all be who we really want to be.
Multidisciplinary strategist, educator and jeweler Shefaly Yogendra, whose principled verve and deep perspective I’ve been enjoying on Twitter and Quora for many years. We’ve only managed to spend a morning together in London but I know there are many more adventures and discussions yet to have.
My fellow global nomad, Istanbul writing group colleague and author Nassim Assefi, who’s the director of stage content for TEDMED’14 as well as a global women’s health doctor and single mama extraordinaire. The woman attended at the birth of her own daughter. She wins everything in my book.
Worldwide people connector and super-techy Joyent SmartOS community manager Deirdre Straughan, a fellow international operator I met through a Twitter friend who went to boarding school with her in India. She’s forgotten more than most of us will ever know about digital publishing, and the Italian culture. She’s also the kind of woman to say, “I rock!” and be quite right.
LadyBits founder and “feminist cyborg” Arikia Millikan, who’s pioneering a new media model for writing that tech-savvy women want to read, and she’s doing it during a year’s trip around the world.
Future thinker Nilofer Merchant, author of the totally prescient Social Era Rules and role model for me in making good use of her resources, and telling us what she wants and what she cares about and what she sees, even (and especially?) when it costs her to do so. Nilofer suggests Al Jazeera politics and economy columnist Sarah Kendzior, whose writing on Central Asia has also captivated me.
More names started coming.
Another Bryn Mawr woman, an immigration and startup specialist who I met through the expatriate network and then in person on the Expat Harem book tour in Washington D.C., Kirin Kalia.
There’s global entrepreneurship author of “Steve Jobs Lives In Pakistan” Elmira Bayrasli, who I met through the Expat Harem blog’s discussions about our mirror-image lives as she is a New Yorker of Turkish descent. Elmira’s launching FPInterrupted, a startup to raise the voices of women in foreign policy.
More insistent names are coming to me.
Like new media-old media-McKinsey social media dynamo Aparna Mukherjee, who I’ve had the pleasure of being wowed by in Manila, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, New York, San Francisco and Istanbul since we met at an Asia-Pacific college reunion in the 1990s.
Like Michele Wucker, author and president of World Policy Institute.
I think we SHOULD make it happen, Fifi Haroon, mediamaker and political activist. (Fifi was my mate at college and we’ve been working our way back to each other for 30 years!)