Ashley

Leave a comment

Last weekend, the world lost one of the best human beings I’ve ever met. Yesterday I attended her memorial service and was reminded of house fortunate I am to have crossed paths with her.

Ashley Osment was a civil rights lawyer, a mother, a musician, and a friend to many. She was always an inspiration to me as a woman who didn’t just balance community activism with parenthood but truly integrated the two, and succeeded at both fantastically. She was so brave that after her ovarian cancer returned (with a vengeance), she responded in part writing a column in the Chapel Hill News about her experience. She knew she was dying.

I was fortunate to get to see Ashley a few months ago at an event organized by some women friends. I introduced my son to her (but kept him and his germs at a distance). We had so much fun that we thought we might all get together again, but then Ashley took a turn for the worse.

Ashley had been sending regular health updates and personal thoughts to friends, but at this point others started posting the news for her. I wrote this to them about a month ago:

Thanks to Janey, Al, Eli, and others who have helped get Ashley’s updates out. It must be especially hard given how bad the news has been lately.

Ashley, I’m so glad to read that you are finding some peace with what’s looming ahead. The only thing worse than dying has to be going out unhappily kicking and screaming. Not that you aren’t fighting, but you do it with the skill, grace, and strategy of an effective civil rights lawyer. When you let go, it will be the right thing to do at that time.

You still inspire me with your strength even now. I know Sunny will remember and feel blessed to be your daughter.

Love,
= Ruby

A truly wonderful obituary (by Ashley’s husband Al McSurely) is posted at the blog of Curmilus Dancy. I excerpt some of it below. I also recommend the profile of her published in The Carrboro Citizen in March. The

Ashley Osment, Sr. Attorney at UNC’s Center for Civil Rights and columnist for the Chapel Hill News, died in her sleep on Friday evening, May 28th. Since July 2007, Osment had been trying to hold off the inexorable progress of a rare type of ovarian cancer. She was determined to put her life over the cancer, so she could enjoy her daughter, Sunny, her job, and her family and friends as long as possible. She refused — to her last breath — to let the cancer control her life.

[…]

Osment was a student activist and history major at UNC. She helped coordinate solidarity educational actions with indigenous liberation movements in Central America and Iran. After graduating from Carolina in 1987, she worked in the Washington, D.C. office for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She tried to educate congressional staff members about the negative aspects of the Reagan-Bush policies in Latin America. In 1990 she returned to Chapel Hill to resume her studies in history. But in February 1991, Bob Sheldon, owner of Internationalist Books on Rosemary Street, was murdered and Osment quickly became the unanimous choice of Sheldon’s friends and family to manage the new cooperative they had formed to keep alive his progressive bookstore. Osment met Al McSurely, a civil rights lawyer, who had been asked by the Sheldon family to help them honor their only son’s legacy. Osment and McSurely clicked.

[…]

McSurely and Osment married in 1995, and in September 1996, they settled the Housekeeper’s case and Quinn Soleil ("Sunny") Osment was born.

[…]

She was in great pain, after the cancer spread to her hip, and she had to use crutches to get around for the last six months. But, as readers of her Chapel Hill News column know, she remained direct, honest, and exquisitely graceful in her efforts to deal with cancer, and its ruination of her life and hopes. She was able to enjoy many good times with Sunny over this last period, when she knew she was dying. She was also comforted by her three step-children’s unqualified commitment to their sister and their father, McSurely, during the terrible suffering she endured the past few months.

– Ashley Osment Sr. Attorney At UNC’s Center for Civil Rights and columnist for the Chapel Hill News Has Expired (RIP my friend)

I posted a similar version of this message at http://orangepolitics.org/2010/05/ashley-osment-yall

One of way-more-than-50

Leave a comment

Well, dang! This weekend I found out via a tweet from Nancy Shoemaker that I was included in a list of 50 Women Bloggers You Should Be Reading, by Olivia Hayes of Ignite Social Media (a social media marketing company based in NC).

These kinds of lists are fraught with issues, and there’s always someone who can’t believe you didn’t include so-and-so (and maybe they’re right) but it’s good to try anyway. I’m completely honored to be mentioned, and I’ll take it as the kick in the pants I’ve been needing to post here on lotusmedia more often (or at least cross-post).

You can read the whole list at http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/50-women-bloggers-you-should-be-reading/. Now if someone was feeling really geeky they’d make an OPML list of the RSS feeds of all the blogs so you could add them to an aggregator in one swell foop, or at least read them all in one place. I guess that’s a project for another day.

How not to do online marketing

Leave a comment

I just received the following through one of my web-based contact forms:

Hi Ruby!

I’m with Tidal Labs, and we’re repping Neutrogena to give away a thousand UltraSheer Liquid Suncreen samples to bloggers and influencers across social media for review. I enjoyed your blog, Lotus Media, and since you seem to savvy in social media, with an eye towards saving, I thought this might be a fun opportunity for you and your readers.

If you’re interested (and the $30 product would be useful) we’d love for you to be a reviewer. You’ll just have to try out the product and let us know what you think through posts on your blog, twitter, facebook, etc. (photo or video preferred!). You can signup here: http://giantwavepool.com/ultrasheer/

Whether you’d like to review or not, we’re always looking for people to help out. So, if you’re willing, we’d love for you to send around the link to people you think might be interested in taking the signup test or post it to your blog as a nice reader incentive.

We’re looking for people who meet the following criteria:

Age 25-49 with 300+ Facebook friends & 25+ Twitter followers
Doesn’t spend time tanning (in a salon or out in the sun)
So if you’re interested, take the test. Let me know if I can answer any questions or give you links to graphics you can use and such. If this campaign isn’t a fit, but you’d like to continue to be informed about other campaigns we’re doing (fashion, beauty, music, etc), let me know. There’ll always be something in it for you.

Thanks,

Jill
Tidal Labs – GiantWavePool.com

REALLY?

Official Ruby Sinreich Voting Guide ™ for 2010

Leave a comment

It’s that time again in North Carolina. Primary Day is in one week! http://orangepolitics.org/2010/04/the-final-countdown

In keeping with my annual tradition, here are my recommendations. Take them or leave them as you please. (Like The Independent Weekly, I will not be endorsing in uncontested races.) Also, I assume you are voting in the Democratic and nonpartisan races. If you vote in the Republican primary, I can’t help you.

Orange County Commissioners
At-large: Barry Jacobs <-- STRONG endorsement District 2: Renee Price Orange County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead (with reservations) Orange County School Board (not Chapel Hill or Carrboro) Brenda Stephens Debbie Piscitelli Anne Mendenblik (I don't know any of these folks very well, but they are recommended by people I trust. Just don't vote for Keith Cook!)

A brief summary of a fantastic week at SXSWi

Leave a comment

I just finished writing this summary for work, and it took me HOURS, so I thought I’d share it here as well. Crossposted from http://www.hastac.org/blogs/ruby-sinreich/sxsw-interactive-30000-feet

—

I just returned/recovered from attending my second South by Southwest Interactive, and I must say SXSW has really solidified its place in my heart as one of the very best tech conferences one can attend these days.  The content is broader and and more innovative than I get at my typical nonprofit tech gatherings, but still has a place for discussing the social uses and implications of always-evolving online communication.  Most of the panels and speaker were top-notch, bringing not only informed ideas, but clever and engaging presentations.  Each session came with it’s own official Twitter hashtag, which functioned as both a backchannel and a Q&A tool (for the more wired facilitators).

Continue reading “A brief summary of a fantastic week at SXSWi” →

Visual problem-solving: 5 diagrams

1 Comment

As you probably figured out if you follow me on Twitter, I had the pleasure of attending South by Southwest Interactive this year. (Only my second time, and the first since 2006.) I went to over 15 different panels and talks, and most were excellent. I did a lot of live-tweeting of the good ideas from them as @HASTAC (a shared work alter ego).

Only one session inspired me to actually take notes and it was the shortest one I attended. Visual Problem Solving: 5 Diagrams in 15 Minutes was led by Dean Myers who quickly demonstrated the use of 5 techniques for visualizing thought processes. I consider myself a mostly-visual thinker, but I’m also pretty linear/logical in my thought (and I can’t draw at all) so I’m a big fan of diagrams. I was familiar with most of these examples, but I really appreciated how they were presented as a toolbox, with the different advantages and features of each.

So with no further delay: here are my notes from this session. Sorry I haven’t had time to illustrate it visually as I should, so I am scanning in Dean’s hand out… Continue reading “Visual problem-solving: 5 diagrams” →

Do you play Spore or Little Big Planet? Friend me up!

Leave a comment

My Spore thingThanks to the MacArthur Foundation’s partnerships with EA and Sony for the Digital Media and Learning Competition, I am learning more about the games Little Big Planet (on PS3) and Spore: Galactic Adventures (on Mac or Windows).

I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to play them (of course) but I have been dipping my toe in the water. In Spore I have graduated from the primordial ooze on up to “creature stage,” and in LBP I have been exploring The Savannah and unlocked the tools to make my own “level” in the game.

Ruby GBeing the social network junkie that I am, one of the features I tend to check out first are the profiles and friends. But sadly, I don’t have any friends on either network! If you play one of these games, would you friend me up? Of course I’m rubyji in both My Spore and the the PlayStation network.

Also, what are your favorite sources of information about these games and communities of game players? I ask especially because I have also been tasked with reaching out to LBP and Spore players around the competition to let them know they can submit content they make (or plan to make) in these games for awards of up to $50,000! Please pass on the web site DMLcompetition.net to people who might be interested, and/or tell me where to follow up.

Celebrating at 7 months

Leave a comment

Last weekend, I was looking at Izzy and he seemed to age before my eyes. On Saturday, I took him with me canvassing door-to-door for my old friend Mark Kleinschmidt who was running for Mayor of Chapel Hill. Izzy enjoyed it most of the way, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to entice voters with an adorable, friendly baby. It seems to have worked, because on Tuesday Izzy turned 7 months old and he also attended the victory party of the next Mayor of Chapel Hill! (He had already gone home to bed by the time the picture below was taken.)
UNITAS posse Continue reading “Celebrating at 7 months” →