Be a part of a new and innovative Facebook project aimed towards the Latino community! ‘Cuentame’ will portray the rich culture, history, arts, and current events which revolve around this large part of the population. Participant must be bilingual, be VERY Facebook literate, and have a good sense of the Latino community.
Description of position:
Excellent written and verbal skills
Able to work well as part of a team
Working knowledge of Final Cut Pro
Heavy research
Looking for archival photos and video
Logging footage
Transcribing interviews
Translating interviews
We prefer someone that can devote 2 full days or 3 half days a week to this project as it is just starting and will need lots of attention. Attention to detail, a positive can do and pitch in attitude, and positive attitude will be required qualities in this position. Come work with a fun crowd on a one of a kind project!
Cultural provocateur, Andy Bichlbaum from The Yes Men, invades Brave New Studios next Wednesday, October 21st, and you’re invited. During this Brave New Conversation, Andy will discuss The Yes Men’s work with Brave New Foundation producer, Christopher Sprinkle. Join us at 11:30 am for an hour of sneaky subversion and sabotage!
Learn about The Yes Men’s hilarious new documentary, The Yes Men Fix the World, a screwball true story about two gonzo political activists who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world’s most outrageous pranks.
It’s Brüno meets Michael Moore — and you can meet half of the duo behind it.
For a limited time, we are expanding our event invite list to include not only Brave New Foundation’s donors, but other email list members in Los Angeles. Become a donor today to receive invitations to future events in this series!
You will not want to miss this Brave New Conversation.
Here are the event details:
Date: Wednesday, October 21st at 11:30 am Please arrive on time. We are filming this event and will shut the studio door promptly at 11:30 am.
Parking: There is free parking on the streets on either side of our building.
Please do not park in the parking spots behind the building as they are reserved.
This summer, Brave New Foundation supporters did something extraordinary: in response to one of our videos, you gave $15,000 to Afghan refugees in need of food and blankets.
Recently we received video footage of the provisions purchased with that money being distributed in an Afghan refugee camp. We thought it was worth sharing with you.
Your support showed Afghan civilians the best of the American spirit. It is through acts like these, not through bombing villages, that we can improve the conditions of life for the Afghan people. And by chiseling away at anti-American sentiment in the region, it is through acts like these that we can improve our own security.
America can do more for the Afghan people and for ourselves through generosity and compassion than through violence. We’ve made an impact on one group of refugees, but it will take a change of policy to help all of Afghan society. Congress needs to act, and it can start by holding hearings on civilian alternatives to the failed military approach to Afghanistan.
Sign our petition. When we reach 100,000 names, we will bring it to the Capitol and demand that hearings be held on alternatives to war.
The debate on Health Care reform is ramping up. Like the majority of Americans, we fully support including a public option. Credo has a petition to remind President Obama that part of the reason he won the presidency was his plan to enact major health care reform that included a public option.
President Obama said that a public option was just a “sliver” of his plan. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius went so far as to say that the public option was not an “essential” part of reform.
The comments this weekend by the president and Secretary Sebelius rhetorically pave the way for the Obama administration to cave on a meaningful public option and instead accept toothless regional health care co-ops that would be unable to compete with insurance companies and keep them honest.
Help us remind President Obama that part of the reason he won the presidency was his plan to enact major health care reform that included a public option, a provision that 76% of Americans support.
Sign Credo’s petition asking him to pledge only to sign a bill with a robust public option similar to Medicare.
I would like to invite you to an event with Billy Bragg at Brave New Studios this Friday, August 28th. Billy Bragg is coming to Brave New Studios to perform some of his music and to sit in conversation with Brave New Foundation Producer Christopher Sprinkle.
Billy Bragg is an English alternative rock singer who blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs. Bragg has been extremely active in grassroots political movements and has been an outspoken opponent of fascism, racism, bigotry, sexism and homophobia. He has been a supporter of a multi-racial Britain, has worked to combat voter apathy and has actively championed workers’ rights.
During his visit to Brave New Studios, Bragg will perform some of his landmark protest songs and will speak about his career and activism. He will speak specifically about his work to combat racism and his organization, Jail Guitar Doors, an independent initiative which aims to provide instruments to those who are using music as a means of achieving the rehabilitation of prison inmates.
You will not want to miss this engaging discussion and performance.
Here are the event details:
Date: Friday, August 28th
Time: There will be a 6:00 pm reception.
The program will begin promptly at 6:30 pm.
Note: Please be aware that we are filming this event so the studio door will be shut at 6:30 pm sharp.
Location: 10536 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90232
Please enter through the gate behind the building.
RSVP: Please RSVP by emailing ewagner@bravenewfoundation.org
Seating is very limited, so we will be taking a small number of RSVPs.
Parking: There is free parking on the streets on either side of our building.
Please do not park in the parking spots behind the building as they are reserved.
Mr. Fairey will discuss his rise in the art world through his “guerilla-art” tactics, his method and signature style, as well his iconic image of Barack Obama, seen all over the world during the election, and for which he now finds himself in a legal battle against the Associated Press for alleged copyright infringement. The case is certain to have long lasting effects in the area of copyright law known as Fair Use and on artists around the country and the works they create.
You will not want to miss this engaging discussion.
Here are the event details:
Date: Tuesday, August 25th at 11am
Location: 10536 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90232
Please enter through the gate behind the building.
RSVP: Please RSVP by emailing ewagner@bravenewfoundation.org
Seating is very limited, so we will be taking a small number of RSVPs.
Parking: There is free parking on the streets on either side of our building.
Please do not park in the parking spots behind the building as they are reserved.
What does UnitedHealth Group CEO Stephen Hemsley have to lose if Congress passes real healthcare reform this year?
Well, for starters, Hemsley’s nearlythree quarters of a billion dollars in unexercised stock options might lose a few pennies on the dollar if insurance providers like UnitedHealth Group are forced to actually pay for the treatment that patients need.
What does Isabella, a four year-old girl in Winsconsin who is physically incapable of eating and has had to be tube fed her entire life, have to gain from healthcare reform? The treatment she needs to live a normal life.
The chance for Isabella to become a normal, healthy child depends on Congress passing healthcare reform this year. But Stephen Hemsley opposes reform, and after making the equivalent of $4,096,815 each and every week of this year, it doesn’t take an expert to figure out why.
Welcome to the American health insurance industry. Instead of helping policyholders attain the health security they need for themselves and their families, insurance companies like UnitedHealth Group are sending lobbyists to Washington, DC to twist the arms of lawmakers to oppose reform of the status quo.
Why? Because maintaining the status quo means continuing to allow huge insurance corporations like UnitedHealth Group to treat the physical livelihoods of average Americans as commodities to exploit for shareholder profits and outsized executive compensation packages. It means continuing to let working class people suffer and die so that wealthy insurance executives can live in $7.8 million mansions like Hemsley’s Minnesota home.
Help Brave New Films expose the truth about what the status quo means for insurance executives, and what it means for the rest of us. And if you or a loved one has been victimized by the unscrupulous practices of CIGNA, Aetna, WellPoint, Humana or Coventry, tell us your story.
With your help, we’ll make sure that in the future, our premium dollars pay for treatment for patients like Isabella, and not to line the pockets of billionaires like Hemsley.
The U.S. has a catastrophically fragmented system that provides incentives for sick care instead of prevention. The system is in dire need of reform – reform to save lives, to save families and to save money for both patients and the American health care system.
“I spend 40 percent of my time away from my patients doing paperwork and getting prior authorizations. We need to start taking the barriers that are between me and my patients away.” Jim King, MD, Family Physician in Selmer, Tenn.
It’s time to put our health back where it belongs, out of greedy insurance companies’ grasp and back into your and your doctor’s hands. It’s time to stand with more than 450,000 doctors who support health care reform.
Now, it’s your time to stand with more than 450,000 doctors who support health care reform. Make your voice heard and call Congress to reform health care: (202) 224-3121.
With your help, we will change the health care system for the better. Brave New Films is gearing up with its own video, Sick For Profit, to expose abusive health insurance companies. If you or anyone you know has been neglected treatment or abandoned by a health insurance company, we need your story. Email csprinkle@bravenewfilms.org and let us know. And, join us on Facebook and Twitter for special alerts.
We want to hear from doctors, nurses and patients who have concrete stories about insurance companies standing in the way of quality patient care. If you have a story like this about one of the insurance providers above, please email it to us at csprinkle@bravenewfilms.org. If your story is the right fit, we’ll send a videographer to film you telling your story on camera and then push the video out far and wide.
Without these stories, the insurance companies will continue to spin their horror stories about rationed care and ‘socialized medicine’ without being challenged about the dysfunctional status quo that they profit from every time a patient is denied care. We need these real stories to push back.
Last year you helped us demonstrate to the public that John McCain’s refusal to disclose his medical records was a serious issue. You added your name and title to our open letter, which we ran as a full-page ad in The New York Times. CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta covered the open letter and the questions it raised as a two-part special, and The New York Times ran a front page story on McCain’s medical history, also citing the open letter.
We can have the same success with your stories about the real need for healthcare reform.
Please send us your stories about being ripped off or abandoned by the insurance companies. Help us make a difference in the fight for healthcare reform.
When I directed Iraq for Sale, it became appallingly evident that private contractors like CACI and Titan played a critical role in the torture and abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. Much like Blackwater, KBR, and others, these war profiteers were never held accountable for their unconscionable crimes. Instead, they were rewarded with hundreds of millions in new contracts. The Obama administration has already taken some laudable steps to prevent another Abu Ghraib: ordering the CIA to end enhanced interrogation techniques and follow a more lawful code of conduct; and ordering the Justice Department to investigate the use of torture. However, the President’s recent objection to a provision in the 2010 defense funding bill that would make interrogation an “inherently governmental function” is a huge step backwards.
This provision, backed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), states “the interrogation of enemy prisoners of war, civilian internees, retained persons, other detainees, terrorists, and criminals when captured, transferred, confined, or detained during or in the aftermath of hostilities is an inherently governmental function and cannot be transferred to contractor personnel.” In other words, our government would no longer be able to hand off interrogation duties (and the lavish contracts that come with them) to mercenary firms out to profit from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What’s more, if interrogators are caught violating the law and abusing detainees, our government would have the power to hold those interrogators accountable.
According to The Washington Post, both the White House and the Pentagon have a litany of excuses for opposing this provision. They don’t want US forces to be “limited” in conducting lawful interrogations, but the whole point of the provision is to set limitations and create transparency for interrogation practices. And either the US military should be training new interrogators themselves, as a senior Senate aide has suggested, or, lacking enough soldiers to accomplish this goal, perhaps our government should seek diplomatic alternatives to military escalation in Afghanistan.
Last month, Jeremy Scahill reported that the use of “private security contractors” has shot up 23 percent in Iraq and 29 percent in Afghanistan during the second quarter of 2009. Scahill estimated that there are over 242,000 contractors working on these two wars, and that contractors comprise a whopping 50 percent of our total forces in the region.
Our morals mean nothing if we do not act on them. Our tax dollars are funding this abuse and we must not be complacent. Call your senators today 202-224-3121 and tell them contractors have no place in interrogations, and you expect them to support Senator Levin’s government-only interrogation provision. Once you have done that, call the White House 202-456-1414 and leave a message for President Obama, urging him to stand with you to end prisoner abuse.
Learn about The Yes Men’s hilarious new documentary, 
The debate on Health Care reform is ramping up. Like the majority of Americans, we fully support including a public option. Credo has a petition to remind President Obama that part of the reason he won the presidency was his plan to enact major health care reform that included a public option.
I would like to invite you to an event with Billy Bragg at Brave New Studios this Friday, August 28th. Billy Bragg is coming to Brave New Studios to perform some of his music and to sit in conversation with Brave New Foundation Producer Christopher Sprinkle.
