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“EVERYONE HAS A HOMETOWN”

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PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST 2016

Sponsored by PAST Preservation Association of the Southern Tier   May 3rd to May 29th

Broome County has been home to many and has a rich history. In the "Everyone Has A Hometown" Photography Contest, sponsored by the Preservation Association of the Southern Tier, we invite you to submit original photographs that highlight and celebrate the historical, architectural and cultural uniqueness of Broome County. Through this competition we hope to advocate, educate and encourage civic engagement. All entries will be on display at the ART Mission and Theater gallery beginning on May 6th and throughout the month of May.

Deadline: Tuesday, May 3rd, 3:00 to 6:30

Entrants may bring their framed photography to the ART Mission and Theater, 61 Prospect Street, Binghamton (www.artmission.org). All photos must be of Broome County. Applications will be available at the ART Mission, at the PAST Salvage Center, 21 North Depot Street and PAST’s web site (www.pastny.org).  Each photo requires a short application and a $15 entrance fee. Students in high school or middle school will have a $10 fee. Make checks payable to PAST.

Photos need to be framed and ready to be hung.  A 3×5 card needs to be attached to the back of the frame and be filled out with the title of the picture, the location, and the photographer’s name, email address and phone number. Note: The photographer does not have to be from the town that they photograph.  Judges will use the number assigned to the frame to determine winners.

Download application below.

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Susquehanna County, Pa. Family and Friends Defend the Trees from the Gas Pipeline

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by Vera Scroggins

Here comes another gas pipeline through our county just south of the Broome County, NY border. This one is 30" wide and 124 miles long, 24 miles in Pa. and 100 miles in New York. We've been fracked since 2008 and now hold 1400 gas holes / gas wells, 45 Gas Compressor Stations spewing out their daily toxins and industrial noise, loads of industry traffic pounding our rural roads, and an endless web of high-pressure, gas pipelines crisscrossing the county till we are surrounded by Industrial squalor.

Some families said, "NO", to the pipelines cutting through their fields and forests and went to court to fight the Williams Energy Company and Cabot Oil and Gas. The Industry would not take , "No", for an answer. The Court ruled in favor of the Industry and now the reality of Eminent Domain has dominated these landowners' lives.

One Family decided to take a major stand and not just roll over for the Corporate Machine. This family, the Hollerans and Zeffers of New Milford, Pa. on Three Lakes Rd. have amassed a growing, supportive following of citizens who also want to help them defend the land, the trees, and property rights and value. The Trees in particular are Maple Trees that are tapped for their sap which is running way early this year since the end of January. They are cooking down the sap into Maple Syrup and continuing their Maple Syrup Business and now the area has also become a camp for Defending the Trees and Stopping the Constitution Pipeline at this property. Fourteen days of cooking sap over the fire and holding camp with shelters and signs and food for the Defenders and a Passionate, Caring Community supporting each other to do what others would not dare to do: Stop the Big Corporate Machine from rolling over another community, county, group of landowners to forever change the landscape of Rural America into a smoking, toxic, air and water-polluting Industrial Zone; all in the Name of the Capitalist Dream of never-ending profits at the expense of clean air and water and the Rights of Nature.

The Hollerans/Zeffers and Supporters will continue their Watch and Stand daily from about 7 am. to the evening hours till they can't cut anymore on April 1st. There is a time limit to all this. We stopped the Chainsaw Crew that came this past Wednesday to cut the trees and talked them out of it and Earth Justice has filed a motion to FERC to review and stay this pipeline. Come and join us and keep the Chainsaws away and meet folks with guts and a vision. A love for the land and their trees and their Rights as Americans to Choose what they want, the life they want to continue to lead, the Right to Protest and Resist any Invader including Corporate / Fracking America.

Contact the following for info: If you are planning to come, call Megan 570-709-3268 or Alex 570-269-9589 or Vera Scroggins 607-237-9685. The location is 2131 Three Lakes Road, New Milford, PA, 18834 or use these coordinates: 41.8272387, -75.7585062.

God / Goddess Bless the Trees and their Protectors. Check out this link of an article with photos and a video of the tree-cutting going on at other parts in our county that are undefended. http://www.dcmediagroup.us/2016/02/11/pennsylvania-farm-defended-constitution-pipeline-tree-cutters/ Reporting from Susquehanna County, Pa.: Vera Scroggins , Citizens for Clean Water, 607-237-9685

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Binghamton University to digitally preserve local history through Past 2 Future Project

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BINGHAMTON, NY – You might have preserved your grandmother’s wedding gown for posterity, or plan to pass a cherished family necklace along to your children, but what about photos, films, letters and other records – the kind of records that tell stories so easily lost?
 
What if you could have them digitized at no cost to you?
 
Binghamton University’s Past 2 Future Project (P2F) can do just that and is actively seeking letters, documents, photos, diaries, movies, audio-tapes and other records that depict the rich history of individuals and organizations in the Southern Tier. Students will digitize the records, return them and a digital copy to the owner, and Binghamton University will retain a copy for students, faculty and the community to use for research.
 
Kevin Wright, P2F director, has developed the project to be a true University-community connection, and one that opens up several paths for undergraduate research:
through information collection, processing and preservation (film digitization, cataloguing, preserving paper records and life-history interviewing);
by interpreting and analyzing the information; and
through independent research mentored by faculty members.
Wright’s vision is that some important themes or tracks will emerge from the digitized materials. “What I hope and think will happen is that we will start to accumulate a lot of information and some important tracks will emerge, like in innovation, entrepreneurship, immigration, environmental impact – and we can actually use the project as a recruitment device for getting freshmen here,” he said. “We will teach them research methods and they’ll have real, live data to do research in their second semester of their freshman year.”
 
A number of students are already involved in P2F, and will begin a series of oral histories with local residents in the spring semester, while others train on digitizing material.
 
As the digitized collection grows, it will provide scholars and students with valuable data for exploration and analysis that will provide the people of the Southern Tier with documentation of the area’s rich history, accomplishments, failures and everyday life over time.
 
There is certainly plenty of material out there. “Pretty much any time I talk to someone about it, they say ‘I’ve got something for you,’” said Wright, who noted P2F will be in the data collection stage well into the next semester and next year.
 
“We need a sufficient amount of data before we can hand it to students,” he said. “As a researcher, collecting data and beginning to put it into user format is also part of the research project, not for the analysis, but by being actively engaged in data collection and data management.”
 
P2F is located in the Nelson Rockefeller Center, Room 262, at Binghamton University. Contact Wright at wright@binghamton.edu or call 607-427-2051.

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What Happens After The Bin?

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A lot of us have good intentions. When we’re provided the option to recycle, we toss what we think of as recyclable trash into the appropriate bin, and assume our job is over: Our waste will be recycled, and we’ve done our part. But, as we are about to learn, this isn’t always true. All plastic is not created equal. Some plastic, like the durable #1 PET (also called PETE, and when recycled, rPET), is inherently reusable—it can be melted down and reused again and again without loss of function. And other types of plastics not as easily recycled wind up in land?lls.

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Winners Announced in Photo Competition

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Best of Show: "Courthouse Detail" by Kirk Van Zandbergen

5th BOB JOHNSTON MEMORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY SHOW AND COMPETITION
SPONSORED BY Cooperative Gallery 213 and the Two Rivers Photography Club

January 1 – 23rd, 2016

            The Cooperative Gallery 213 and the Two Rivers Photography Club are sponsoring the 5th Bob Johnston Photography Show and Competition January 1-23rd, 2016. “We are looking forward to the best photography this area has to offer,” according to Peg Johnston, Cooperative Gallery president and daughter of the late Bob Johnston. It is an open themed Photography Show and Competition and all photographic media and all photographers are eligible to enter. Photographs will again be judged by J. W. Johnston (no relation), a local professional photographer.

            A reception for the photographers, friends, and the public will take place New Year's Day at the Gorgeous Washington Association Art Walk from 6-9, with gallery hours starting at 3 pm that day. The Exhibit will be open Fridays 3-6 pm, Saturdays 12-4 pm and by appointment until January 23rd. Prizes and cash awards for the winners will be presented at First Friday, January 1st at 6:30 pm at a reception for the artists.

            The winners are as follows: Best of Show– “Courthouse Detail” by Kirk Van Zandbergen; Judge’s Choice in Black and White—“Phaseolus coccineus (Scarlet Runner Bean)” and "Asclepius tuberosa (Butterfly Weed)" both by Susan C. Larkin; Judge’s Choice in Color—“Arboreal Spirit I” and “Arboreal Spirit II” both by David LoParco. Ten Honorable Mention awards will be awarded to (in alphabetical order): “Dew of the Morn” by William Bay; “The Silhouette Maker” by Barry Biddle; “Colors of Darkness” and “Indiglow” by Jessica Fridrich; “Urban Construction” by Bill Gorman; “Creepy Crawler” by Dan Harendza; “No Corner for the Devil” and “Fall Oak” by Sandra Kirker; “Selfie” by Peter Kofira Jr; “JD2040” by Lesli Van Zandbergen

            The Competition is named for Bob Johnston, a lifelong photographer and a gallery member who died in 2010. “Bob Johnston was an ‘Ansell Adams’ kind of photographer who worked mostly in black and white film and favored both urban and natural landscapes,” said Bill Gorman, also a photographer and member of the Cooperative Gallery. Bob Johnston defined a good photo this way: “For me, the successful photograph is one in which both the abstract elements and the subject matter of the image reinforce each other to provide an emotional experience for the viewer.”

            The Cooperative Gallery, a popular stop on the First Friday Art Walk, located at 213 State Street in Binghamton, is open on Frist Friday 3- 9 pm and regularly Fridays from 3-6 and Saturdays from 12- 4 pm. Find us on Facebook at Cooperative Gallery 213 and sign up for our weekly e-newsletter on our website at  www.cooperativegallery.com or on our Facebook page.

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Blight Mural Project Final Report

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The Dept. of Public Art received a $5000 grant from the Chenango Co. Arts Council and the Hoyt Foundation in 2015 to place murals on blighted properties. In all, DPA volunteers placed 37 panels on 11 sites.

The Blight as Our Canvas project aimed to post temporary murals on blighted properties in Binghamton. The goal of the project was to get public art into neighborhoods and to improve the appearance of blighted properties. Audiences included neighborhood residents, local artists interested in painting, and property owners trying to improve their buildings.

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Speak up and Stay Safe(r) Online

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December 8, 2015 – – – Three women who have survived sustained online abuse are releasing an easy-to use digital handbook designed to help others speak freely and safely in digital spaces.
 
Anita Sarkeesian director of Feminist Frequency, Jaclyn Friedman, anti-rape activist and founder of Women, Action & the Media (WAM!) and Renee Bracey Sherman, reproductive justice activist and author of Saying Abortion Aloud, have been forced to learn a lot about how to protect themselves against cyber mobs, stalkers and harassers. Now they’ve collaborated to make all of their experience available to anyone else who fears they might be targeted, or who is already under attack.
 
Speak Up & Stay Safe(r): A Guide to Protecting Yourself From Online Harassment, launched today at onlinesafety.feministfrequency.com, features a warm, friendly tone and easy-to-use navigation designed for use by people who may be experiencing fear or trauma. It details best security practices for social media, email, online gaming, website platforms, and ensuring privacy of personal information online, as well as the documentation and reporting of harassment, and caring for oneself emotionally during an online attack.
 
Speak Up & Stay Safe(r): A Guide to Protecting Yourself From Online Harassment was made necessary by the failure of social media services to adequately prevent and deal with the hateful targeting of their more marginalized users. As this guide details, forcing individual victims or potential targets to shoulder the costs of digital security amounts to a disproportionate tax of in time, money, and emotional labor. It is a tax that is levied disproportionately against women, people of color, queer and trans people and other oppressed groups for daring to express an opinion in public.
 
Speak Up & Stay Safe(r): A Guide to Protecting Yourself From Online Harassment can be found at onlinesafety.feministfrequency.com and is currently available in English, Spanish, and Arabic. More information on the creators can be found at http://onlinesafety.feministfrequency.com/#about-us

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The Inside Story of Shell’s Arctic Assault

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Reporter Barry Yeoman digs deep into Shell's oil drilling in the Arctic even after they pulled out earlier this year. Our government agencies have been bullied by Shell to rush the process. 

A months-long investigation shows how the energy giant pressured the Interior Department during the company's gung-ho Arctic push—and got most of what it wanted (except oil).   Read more here.

https://www.audubon.org/news/the-inside-story-shells-arctic-assault

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A DARING JOURNEY From Immigration to Education

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The film A DARING JOURNEY: From Immigration to Education documents three stories of people who risked their lives to cross the border from Mexico, to fulfill their dreams. The film begins with each giving a vivid description of the journey coming here, then describing their struggles to earn a living in the shadows of our immigration system. Each of them goes on to pursue education, Luis and Sergio for themselves and Ruben Sr. and his wife Janet for their son. They all share the goal of wanting to make a contribution to their new country. Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman was inspired to make this film while shopping for groceries in Ruben Sr.'s market. One day he greeted her with this news, "My son is going to college!" She asked, "Where is he going?" Ruben answered, "Vassar." Dorothy said, "What a small world, our daughter graduated from Vassar!" She knew then and there that this family's story would make a provocative documentary. Ruben Sr. and his wife, Janet, had arrived with no education, and now their son was off to a private highly-ranked college. Over the next five years, Dorothy documented Ruben Jr.'s educational journey – from Eastside College Preparatory, a school for under-represented populations in East Palo Alto, CA, through his college graduation. While filming she met the other two interviewees: Luis, a published poet who works full-time as a waiter while getting a Master's degree from San Francisco State, and Sergio, who became the first undocumented person to be licensed to practice the law in the USA. What impressed her about all of these people was that they share an appreciation for the importance of education in being able to participate, actively, in their new country while building a better life.
WHY is this film important: There are approximately 12 million undocumented people living in the United States. Half of these individuals are Mexican. These three stories present a microcosm of the realities that many immigrants experience once they arrive in the United States: of working hard to survive without legal status and going on to pursue education so they and their children are able to address the challenges in their futures with better tools and more options.
DIRECTOR/CO-PRODUCER: OSCAR-nominated, EMMY-winning filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman
NARRATOR: María Marroquín, Executive Director of the Day Worker Center of Mountain View. CONCENTRIC MEDIA is an independent media production company. Our films document stories of individuals and communities working toward social justice, human rights, and personal growth. All of our films can be viewed and downloaded FREE.

The Creative Arts Film Festival is an annual international short film festival that takes place online, every year, around the world, all throughout December. Admission is FREE, so tell your friends! We want the entire world to enjoy these amazing movies — on every continent, in every country, and in every home. Tell your friends! Because it's all about having a GREAT time watching GREAT movies from the next generation of GREAT filmmakers!

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