Daddy Love and SWAN

The ability to write and perform is one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects for musicians worldwide. Richard 'Daddy' Love takes great pleasure in helping others achieve that goal. The Song Writers Association of Norman (SWAN) is a non-profit organization that Daddy Love founded twelve years ago as a way for musicians who wanted to write music and needed a group of people to encourage and critique their writing and playing. From a newly aspiring writer, to Love, who has been writing music for over thirty years, this motley group of musicians exists to help song writers in Norman discover their own voice.

The of "Ray B"

Ray Bribiesca does not just have terrific, if not terrifying, stories to tell of his life adventures. But his career as a combat cameraman has given him much insight into the world of ethical journalism.

Currently in Yemen, Bribiesca, a cameraman for 60 minutes is shooting footage for a story of the events in taking place in Yemen. His team is going to the place that tried to send the bomb on the cargo planes bound for Chicago on October 29th of this year. Needless to say that his job will be very dangerous while in Yemen.

However, one of the great combat cameramen in the U.S. seemed to have a sense of calm when speaking about what he is getting himself into when he spoke to a group of faculty and students November 1st.

That is, one day before he was to leave for Yemen.

He spoke about his job history that is rich: he has shot footage in every war from Vietnam to now. He has shot for presidential elections and campaigns from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama. He has shots of the caribou migration in Alaska. He will be working almost exclusively for National Geographic when he returns from Yemen.

But amidst his accomplishments, "Ray B" as he was called by Laura Logan one of the 60 minute reporters has much knowledge for journalism student looking to find his or her way to greatness.

"Be the little dog in alot of fields to be the big dog in one certain field."

The simple proverb speaks to his rich past as a workaholic cameraman to his now established and sought after footage of modern warfare.

However, he did mention that luck had something to do with some of his shots. "Being lucky and practicing makes a great photographer," said Bribiesca.

But past the photo/video portion of his job, he is still a journalist. He spoke mentioned that as a journalist, one has to follow the rules of ethical journalism by protecting the source when they require it to give information.

As such, Bribiesca has a few sources in the Middle East that want to be kept secret because they are important to what they are trying to accomplish. Although he wants to keep the best interest in mind for his country, he is also keeping his job and his integrity in mind as well by protecting them when they give him information.

He knew, to some extent, about the attacks from Yemen back in March.

Throughout all this he has shown an ability to balance country pride to journalistic integrity and is now one of the most revered combat cameramen in the United States.

Ray Bribiesca can do it all.

Bribiesca

Realities of Sports Journalism

Many young aspiring sports journalists see ESPN or their local news network's sports broadcasters and want to do the same thing. But the sports journalism field is as big as it has ever been because of bloggers of sheer desire for information among sports fans around the country.

In this way, one of the many growing fields is high school sports recruiting. Football recruiting has especially grown in popularity over the last ten years. A recent article from the Hartford Courant credits the growth of sports recruiting knowledge with the accessibility of the internet and its resources. People are more interested in sports recruiting because it is more available.

Clark Foy, a journalism senior at OU is one of the sports recruiting writers for SoonerScoop.com, a recruiting website for oklahoma basketball and football. He thinks that writing for Sooner Scoop is no different than other types of journalism. He has to make visits and calls and is always ready for someone to call him with quotes for a story.

Rivals.com, the sports affiliate with SoonerScoop.com is under the Yahoo umbrella. They bought Rivals in 2007 for about 100 million dollars. This is important to note because not only does this show sports recruiting's strength in this era, but that there is some value in this form of journalism. Three years ago, there were about 185000 subscribers and the number has steadily grown since.

Moving forward, although many want to claim sports journalism as a tough field to get in, there is money in it, and there is still a need for better coverage for many different outlets.

Audio Test

Lincoln Ferguson, broadcast journalism sophomore, talks about the weather.

Look him up on facebook.

RENT

For the past two weeks OU's School of Musical Theatre has performed one of the most popular modern musicals, Rent. It takes place in New York City towards the end of the millennium. The musical follows some members that are struggling to make money and subsequently pay Rent, but the issues are much deeper. OU took this musical to the next level with an incredible set, breathtaking voices, and surprising portrayals of the characters.

The performance was incredibly remarkable because of the intense moments of kissing and dancing. One of those moments came early in the musical when Angel Shunard, a transvestite street drummer, jumped, spun and slid on six inch high heels. There were many moments when the characters had long lip-locking sessions. Most of the time were with members of the same sex.

Some noticeably felt uncomfortable throughout those kissing scenes. Sarah Warner, piano pedagogy graduate student felt that way. She said that some parts of the musical were a little much for her taste. She added that her friend whom she went to the musical with say Rent on Broadway and said that even some of the actors there did not take some of the scenes that far.

However, artists should not take that as a slight at all. They made the musical memorable and the performance was spectacular. The singing was spectacular on all fronts. Seasons of Love, Rent's most popular song was perfection on Saturday night and most would be hard pressed to find a version of that song better performed than the one the audience took in that night.

The next week OU's School of Musical Theatre will be shutting down the Rent performances and moving ahead to the world premiere of The Adventures of Pinocchio. It should be great.

Next week, feedback from the cast will be coming and hopefully from more of the musical theatre staff.

The OU Fine Arts Family

A few days ago, I was on a quest to find musical theatre students and professors. What was discovered is that the distinction among the fine arts schools on the surface is surprisingly and positively blurred.

The Fine Arts Center (and more specifically the Rupel J. Jones Theatre) seemed liked the best place to find OU's musical theatre students, professors and other faculty members. Upon entering the building on Elm Ave and Boyd St, that sentiment was (seemingly) almost immediately affirmed. I wondered into the Jones Theatre lobby and a man immediately jumped up to greet himself to me. His name was Jay and he was one of the custodians for Catlett Music Center. Fail.

However, upon more wondering around the building, I met a wonderful woman named Shelly who is the Charge Director of OU's School of Drama. She helped create the stage. You can see her at the bottom left of this picture.

I then met the Master Electrician, Eric Stehl, backstage with one of his students. Their banter was humorous. Once I introduced myself and asked about what Stehl did, they continuously deferred about the magnitude of his job. While the student gushed about how great Eric was, Stehl humbly replied saying he was merely a staff member that was here to serve the student body anyway he can.

Before I left the Fine Arts Center, I met with Michael Fain, an associate professor of drama and the technical director and scenic designer for the School of Drama. He graciously took a moment for an impromptu interview and gave me an important bit of information. I might have difficulty finding many musical theatre professors or students in that building because they aren't based there.

Feeling slightly dejected, Fain suggested that I venture to Carpenter Hall to meet the Director of the School of Musical Theatre. He also introduced me to the relationship between the performing arts schools, or formally the Weitzehoffer Family College of Fine Arts. This includes: the School of Art & Art History, the School of Dance, the School of Drama, the School of Music and the School of Musical Theatre.

I went on to meet and speak with Dr. Greg Kunesh, the Interim Director for the musical theatre school about this relationship. Hear the interview shortly.

The lucky 49 musical theatre students.

It is great because the schools really do view each other as family. Each student is required to take classes through each of the performing arts schools. Whether it is costume construction, piano, dance or acting, a musical theatre student must have at least an introductory level of all facets of the performing arts major.

After the interview I went on to get tickets for the musical theatre's production that night. They were sold out. So my friend got tickets for us to go the next day. On Saturday, we experienced what the fuss was all about. Up next week, a write-up of Rent the award-winning musical. I am still feeling elated from the superb production.

Here is a view of the subway stairs used in the musical.

Blog to Connect with Justice

Most people today understand that any type of media is easier to access than ever before. All that is needed is a smartphone or public wifi for laptops to connect to a world of information that is only one click away.

But what makes any of this accessibility to news meaningful? That is where prominent Arab and Muslim lecturer and blogger Mona Eltahawy enters the scene. She spoke Wednesday afternoon on Blogging for Social Justice to an audience including many women and gender studies and international studies students. Her aim was to show that that the masses of news availability today, including blogs, has the ability to be used for righting wrongs and reporting honest news.

If you don’t participate in social media, try it. Eltahawy sees the positive attributes of it, such as getting the newest news as fast as possible on Twitter. Try either writing a blog or reading other blogs for personal opinion sites about what is going on in the world around us.

She told a story of a 28-year-old man Khaled Said who posted a video in June of two police officers sharing profits of a drug bust. He died soon after the video was posted by allegedly swallowing a bad of drugs. But, social media, whether it was Facebook, Twitter or the blogs in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries began posting about the truth of his death. He was actually brutally beaten from two plain clothed police officers and social media brought this truth to light.

Eltahawy said that blogs and social media do what mainstream media has done less and less, and that is challenge the readers. More people now than ever before have blogs and are using that outlet to “say what they mean and actually mean something.” However, she mentioned that some of the setbacks to this more personal form of media are that mainstream media members do not understand social media’s significance.

Blogging has grown vastly in the last couple of years. It looks as though it will only grow as people are exposed to the benefits of connecting themselves with billions of others across the world