New photographer

Brianna Cooper comes to us as a work study student and will be working with the photography team.

She has four years experience with her high school paper not only shooting pictures, but writing articles too.

Two new copy editors!

Welcome to Colleen Bowerman and Kurt Olsen!

We had an unfortunate opening on our copy-editing team as Cheyenne had a family emergency that will keep her from school until winter quarter, at the least.

We had over 10 applications.
Some of those applications were very qualified. I looked over the roster and chatted with Jared, who was signed up for both copy editing and graphics. He more than happy to switch to graphics assistant rather than having double duty.

 I would like to thank Christopher for narrowing the field. Thanks to his help, we have these two new hires, plus another very capable editor in the pool, should another opening arise.

I'm sure Colleen and Kurt could do a better job at introducing themselves here, so I'll leave that to them.
Watch for their posts! (I hope?)

Ira Glass on creativity

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

Summer - or what is left of it

Hello all,

My name is Casey Picha. YES my last name is pronounced like the lovable companion to Ash Ketchum. For those who don't know ask around :)

Why and how does summer fly by so fast? It seemed just a few days ago I was getting home from EWU and my sister got out of high school. Now my sister is at college, Gonzaga!!!, and my parents have less than a month until they are empty nesters. This year is my senior year at EWU but I will be staying an extra quarter or two to double major, in Finance and Economics.

Events that have happened to me this summer;

Summer job - Painting for an entrepreneurial company

Knee Injury - probable torn meniscus in my right knee, final doctors appointment this week to figure it all out

Just a few things about me.

• I am a staff photographer, I started Winter 2011, I picked up photography my freshman year at EWU
• I would rather be behind the camera instead of in front of it.
• I am heavily involved at EWU through various clubs and organizations.
• I love all sorts of photography and really appreciate the artistry behind anyones views/ideas
• I am pretty laid back, but I can be pretty up tight when school/a project/idea gets to me
• Love the outdoors

Signing out,

Casey "Picha-***!!!!"

Welcome two new columnists!

The Easterner is pleased to welcome back two previous staff as columnists.

Brittany Waxman was the Eagle Life Editor and Dustin Toms was the managing and sports editor.

Welcome! We look forward to working with you this year!

How to get stoked?

I was linked to this and thought some of you might appreciate it. It's a little too assumptive for my personal tastes, but you might glean something from it.

Simple Daily Habits to Ignite Your (Creative) Passion

Cheers,

Crash

Introduction: New writer!

I'd like to introduce MelLissa Brien. (Pronounced: Mel-Lisa) She'll be writing sports. While she has a very busy schedule (I'll let her tell you about it herself), she's very interested in becoming involved with the paper. Be sure to give her a warm welcome when you next see her.

The financial collapse of America

It’s finally here. The time we’ve all dreaded. Most of us knew it would come down to this. The draconian lies of the Republican Party, and the Machiavellian ideals of the Democrats. Either party is a vote for business. To paraphrase Noam Chomsky, there are not two parties in America to vote for. There is one: the business party. Both say they have differences of opinion, but both are simply factions to one party: business. To serve the interest of the ruling class, hasn’t that always been what power is about? From the days of “democracy” in Ancient Greece, where only the ruling class could vote, to the Roman Republic, whose history has so many parallels with America right now many enlightened people call New York City “New Rome,” and Americans the “New Romans.” Fast forward through the dark ages and we have the church, structured in such a way as to serve the interest of the ruling papacy. No one had the authority to interpret scripture until the Protestant Reformation.  We have the “divine right of kings,” where nobility, moreover, the monarch, was no less than Jesus in vicar. The peasants were kept stupid and were robbed of their labor, land, and rights. Feudalism is not different than Capitalism. The CEOs and Presidents and government officials are simply the new nobility. And the working class is simply peasants, robbed for their time, lives, health, humanity, freedom, love, dignity. Only now we have the illusion that we’re free to vote. The Republican Party has done a fine job at concealing the fact that labor unions fight for health care, decent pay, shorter days, and a guaranteed job. But a vote for them is a vote for the off-shoring of jobs, of tax-breaks for the super rich, of people like the Koch brothers who have so much money and are so disgustingly libertarian they’d rather there be no social safety net and America be anarchistic, but to the point of chaos, not ideologically. And now, instead of compromising with the Democrats, they want to let America collapse because they don’t want tax increases on corporations or the mega-rich.  Gotta love them Republicans, whose voter base is highly religious, which is one of the illusions that keep them in power. Jesus wouldn’t have stood for privatized tyranny, so why should the right-wing base? And to the left, with such grand plans as NAFTA, simply another form of neo-colonialism. And so, as we stand here on the eve of financial collapse, we should all be wondering, when is enough? When have the people had enough? When will the people wake from their apathetic slumbers, as MLK once said? When will something truly equitable come along to replace this illusion of a two party system, a system which has America cornered, in check, with very little hope to get out of it? Ask yourself, when the **** have you had enough? Get out there and protest! It’s your constitutional right to do so! It’s your responsibility as an American! Tell Congress that the only anti-Americanism is their support of corporate, privatized tyranny here at home and abroad and soon enough the whole thing is going to fall. Then we’ll have to deal with China.