TresSugar

Do Tell: What Did Summer Camp Mean to You?

DearSugar — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:00:00 -0700

Depending on who you ask, Summer camp is either a wonderful, life-changing part of childhood or a horrifying, embarrassing experience to be avoided entirely. For many kids, attending sleep-away camp was a first taste of independence. You're tossed into an unfamiliar place and forced to make new friends while sampling all sorts of exotic activities - from horseback riding and campfires to dancing with boys and having your underwear run up a flagpole. If you grew up in the city, it may have been your first up close and personal encounter with the outdoors; if you were raised in a rural area, maybe it was the first time you met a kid from the big city.

Did you go to Summer camp as a kid? If so, do you have fond memories, or was it a horrible experience you never want to endure again? Did it help shape the person you are today? And if you didn't go away to camp, how did you feel about kids who did?

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S'more Support: Camp Helps Kids Cope With Military Parents

CitizenSugar — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:00:14 -0700

'Tis the season for sleep away camp - and for 100 kids attending a weeklong camp in the tiny Rocky Mountain town of Larkspur organized it's no exception. The only difference is, the camp is free, and sponsored by the National Military Family Association. The association is hosting 10,000 campers in 37 states this summer - with a special mission: to help both veterans and their kids deal with the stresses of deployment.

There are more than 155,000 American children with a parent deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan, and though their parents have a tough job, the kids at home bear a burden too. With dad or mom gone, days can easily fill with loneliness and anxiety over their parents in combat. S'mores, songs, and sleeping under the stars with new friends who understand their situation is a big help. The typical camp activities are there - but they're geared toward the service as well. Instead of writing letters home the kids' notes will be dispatched to brighten military dining halls overseas. One camper says, "It's nice to help more than just our parents."

One entire wall of the dining hall is plastered with photos of parents serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. A note scrawled on one reads, "So me and my brother all have to be strong and make sacrifices for my dad because we all want him to come back."

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Summer Camp Helps International Enemies Become Friends

LibertySugar — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:30:00 -0700

Every summer kids from conflict-ridden regions attend the Seeds of Peace international summer camp in Maine. But this camp isn't just a chance for these children to have fun in America. At Seeds of Peace campers come face-to-face with their enemies, and together participate in a conflict-resolution program designed to help them confront differences and bring new understanding back home.

While arm-in-arm with her new Palestinian friend, Israeli 15-year-old Nadia Tibi told BBC: "Seeds of Peace is the best experience that ever happened to me. I've met people I never thought I would meet." On Fridays campers are invited to attend both Muslim and Jewish Services, so the can learn about one another’s religion and traditions.

Seeds of Peace began in 1993 with the hope that when teenagers see the human faces of their enemies, they will become a catalyst for a human solution when they grow up. Do you think a small group of leaders with this summer camp experience can make a difference?

View 5 Photos ›

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40 Years Later: Woman in Famous Photo Recognizes Herself

TresSugar — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:00:00 -0700

I love this story! The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is currently exhibiting Robert Frank's photographs from his landmark 1959 work The Americans, widely viewed as the photographic analogue to Jack Kerouac's beat classic On the Road. Frank and Kerouac both had similar sensibilities, wanting to show the sprawling, diverse, and melancholy side of postwar America. Kerouac, in fact, wrote the introduction to The Americans. Regarding the above photograph, "Elevator - Miami Beach, 1955," Kerouac asks, "That little ole lonely elevator girl looking up sighing in an elevator full of blurred demons, what's her name & address?"

Turns out, "lonely elevator girl" turned 50-something Sharon Collins saw an exhibit of "The Americans" a few years ago and recognized herself as the 15-year-old in the photograph: "When San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art first opened, I think it was more than 10 years ago . . . I stood in front of this particular photograph for probably a full five minutes, not knowing why I was staring at it, and then it really dawned on me that the girl in the picture was me." To hear what Collins has to say about the photograph, read more

An NPR reporter asked Collins what made her come forward as the elevator girl now and not ten years ago when she recognized herself. She said that a recent San Francisco Chronicle review of the exhibit used this photo on the front page of the entertainment section, and when she told her husband and sons about it, they urged her to call the paper.

Sharon Collins was then 15-year-old Sharon Goldstein, living in Miami Beach and working as an elevator girl at the Sherry Frontenac Hotel in 1955. Her mother was single, so instead of being able to go to Summer camp, Sharon worked to help out. Asked what she thought of the photo, Collins explains what it was she thinks Frank was able to capture in his image and Kerouac in his words:

"I think he saw in me something that most people didn't see. You know, I have a big smile and a big laugh. So people see . . . one thing in me. And I suspect that somehow Robert Frank and Jack Kerouac saw something that was deeper that only people who were really close to me can see, and it's not necessarily loneliness, it's, I don't know, dreaminess."

I've always wondered whether people in documentary photos ever know that they're in museum exhibits. It's fascinating to hear about one woman who discovered that a wistful expression from her teenage years became an iconic photograph in the oeuvre of a major American artist!

Robert Frank/Courtesy National Gallery of Art

Richard Dawkins Funds Atheist Camp For Kids

TresSugar — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:00:00 -0700

Famous atheist Richard Dawkins has put his money behind a Summer camp for kids - you can think of it as the anti-Jesus Camp.

At atheist Camp Quest, kids aged 8-17 learn about rational skepticism, moral philosophy, ethics, and evolution - while enjoying traditional camp activities. According to those involved, the project is not about changing what kids think, but about changing the way they think.

Do you think kids should be able to go to camp and just have fun, or is it valuable to include an emphasis on religious or ideological values?

German Neo-Nazis Hold Hitler Youth Camp, French Sell T-shirts

LibertySugar — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 03:00:05 -0700

Hitler may have died 63 years ago, but his anti-Semitic propaganda did not go with him to the grave. Last week police in northern Germany raided a neo-Nazi camp attended by children. At the camp, which was modeled after Hitler Youth Summer camps, 39 teenage campers wore uniforms of white T-shirts and black shorts, and studied racist Nazi materials. Following the police raid, the head of the German equivalent to the FBI warned that the German neo-Nazi movement has become increasingly ambitious and violent, marking a change in strategy.

Next door to Germany, French prosecutors have begun investigating Parisian clothing shops accused of selling anti-Semitic T-shirts. Covered in Polish or German, the shirts display slogans used by the Nazis, such as "Jews forbidden from entering the park." Sales people at the stores say they did not understand the inscriptions, but also that the shirts have been very popular with some customers. Let's hope widespread anti-Semitism never goes back in style in Europe.

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Negative Opinions of Jews and Muslims on the Rise in Europe

LibertySugar — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:30:14 -0700

Negative attitudes toward Muslims and Jews are mounting Europe. A new survey found negative views among 46 percent of Spanish, 36 percent of Poles, 34 percent of Russians, 25 percent of Germans, and 20 percent of French. Britain is the only surveyed European country where anti-Semitic views did not rise, as only nine percent rate Jews unfavorably. In the US, seven percent of Americans have negative views toward Jews.

As for unfavorable attitudes toward Muslims, 52 percent in Spain, 50 percent in Germany, 46 percent in Poland and 38 percent in France hold negative views. In Britain the rate is 25 percent, and in the US it is 23 percent.

Not too long ago we heard stories about European extremists ready to capitalize on this hostility. This summer, German authorities uncovered a neo-Nazi children's summer camp, and the French have been investigating Paris clothing shops selling anti-Semitic T-shirts.

Is there a difference between latent unfavorable opinions, and dangerous hatred?

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Study: Children Are Aware of Voter Prejudice in US

LibertySugar — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:45:50 -0700

The "race card" has been a hot phase for pundits, politicians, and the general population throughout campaign season (McCain's own camp even alleged that Obama "played the race card" earlier this Summer), and apparently, it's a notion that's not lost on the youngest among us. A new study shows children are aware white males have monopolized the US presidency, and most attribute the trend to racial prejudice.

Researchers at the University of Texas found most elementary-school-aged children are aware there has been no female, African-American, or Hispanic president. Many of the children attribute the lack of representation to discrimination.

The research team interviewed 205 children aged five to 10 in 2006, a year before Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama began their historic bids for the presidency. For additional findings, read more.

A third of the children said the white male monopoly was due to "racial and gender bias," and another third believed members of the excluded groups "lacked the skills to hold the position."
One in four participants told researchers they thought it was "illegal for women and minorities to hold the office of president."
The study found children were generally optimistic about the possibility that they could be president.

Rebecca Bigler, professor of psychology at the University of Kansas, and lead author of the study, noted the topic of how racial and gender exclusion play into our politics is not typically explained to children so they appear to create their own explanations for the exclusion.

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Howard: Says His Race Doesn't Celebrate National Anthem

CitizenSugar — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:00:30 -0700

Earlier this summer at a charity flag-football game thrown by Allen Iverson, Josh Howard (these men are all basketball players, apparently) made a derisive comment about the national anthem that has tipped off a storm of controversy. I wasn't familiar with this gentleman prior to this story but his message in the video is loud and clear: when the video pans to him during the singing of the anthem, Howard says:

The 'Star-Spangled Banner' is going on. I don't celebrate this sh**. I'm black.

That quote was followed by a string of the n-word and some indecipherable comments about Barack Obama. The owner of Howard's team, the Dallas Mavericks, said they've been dealing with the free-speaking incident and that ". . . we will be going through some advanced communication-skill sessions together this training camp." The comment raises an gripping question about free speech and what role race plays in a person's experience as an American.

To see the video, and analysis to the event, read more.

For ID purposes, Howard is the one with the towel on his head.

ESPN has run a very thoughtful analysis of the event, using this as historical context: in 2003, college basketball player Toni Smith was in a similar controversy for refusing to face the flag during the anthem, had a reason behind her actions. She said:

The flag means to me; first, it means it stands for the millions and millions of indigenous people who were massacred to claim it. It means the millions of those enslaved in order to build it up. And it means the millions of those who are still oppressed in order for it to prosper.

The author of the piece comes to this conclusion:

I doubt his words were a result of how he's been treated. This wasn't really about him. Think about where he was when he made the statements: Allen Iverson's charity flag football game, which raises money for scholarships to historically black colleges and universities. It's great that Iverson has organized this event, but it shouldn't have to exist. If the ideals of equality this country was founded on had always been met, there wouldn't have been a need for the historically black schools, and students wouldn't need donations to be able to attend them. So if we're going to be mad at what Howard said, we should be just as mad at the lengthy chain of events that led him to be where he was when he said it and we should do something about ending it.

Was Howard justified in his comments about the anthem? Does a person's race dictate how one feels about the country? Is this story less about what Howard said, and more about the events that might have led to it - or is that giving him too much credit?

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Kids Flock to Hezbollah Shrine, Abu Ghraib to Open Museum

LibertySugar — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:00:00 -0700

Two commemorative destinations established in the Middle East will help shape the historical consciousness of the region's newest generation. In Lebanon children flock to a shrine dedicated to Imad Mugniyah, the dead commander of Hezbollah, who is considered a martyr to some and a terrorist responsible for numerous bombings throughout the 1980s and 90s to others.

At the exhibit schoolchildren wait to see Mugniyah's bloodstained clothes, the shoes he died in, his cell phone, or the desk he sat at while he planned his attacks. Visitors also experience a multimedia exhibit chronicling Hezbollah's fight with Israel. The exhibit - which also includes a "victory bridge" made from artillery shells, a skeleton in uniform labeled "the invincible Israeli soldier" - must stay open until 1 a.m. to keep up with its popularity.

Meanwhile Iraq plans to reopen the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, where Saddam Hussein and members of the US military abused prisoners. The new Abu Ghraib prison will include a museum dedicated to exposing the crimes committed under Saddam. Stories like this make me think that efforts like Seeds of Peace, the summer camp which brings together children from enemy countries in the Middle East, are all the more important. If the forces of violence get to the next generation before those of peace, there is little hope for reconciliation in the region.

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