Ladyfest Dayton - 3-5 September

LadyFest Dayton 2010 is September 3 - 5 @ c{space!

Ladyfest is a community-based, not-for-profit global music and arts festival for female artists that features bands, musical groups, performance artists, authors, spoken word and visual artists, and workshops; it is organized by volunteers and is a family event that people of all ages are welcome to attend.

The first ever Ladyfest was held in Olympia, Washington in August 2000 with over 2000 people attending. Prime motivators in the event were Sarah Dougher, Sleater-Kinney, Cat Power,
Neko Case, and Teresa Carmody.

Since the first Ladyfest, the event has branched out into other urban centres such as Amsterdam, Atlanta, Belgium, Berlin, Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Brooklyn, Cambridge, Columbus, Chicago, Cardiff, Dublin, Glasgow, Lansing, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Melbourne, Orlando, Ottawa, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego, Sevilla, Toronto, Washington DC, and more. Each new festival is organized locally and independently of other Ladyfest events in other states or countries, primarily by volunteers, and most proceeds are donated to non-profit organizations.

This years charities: The Noble Circle, PUSH, c{space

The information below is from their Facebook page...

SEE BELOW FOR LIST OF PARTICIPANTS!!!
September 3-5
Friday September 3rd
5pm to 1am
$10
...Saturday September 4th
2pm to 1am
$10
Sunday
2pm to 7pm

Ladyfest Marketplace, Visual art, Workshops & Music!!!

Friday Music and Performances will include: Jasper The Colossal-Little Cub-The Pistol Whips-Paige Beller- Good English- Kira's Oasis- NPD- Misunderstood- Kelsey Skaggs- Tricia Calvert- Bellydance By Bronwen-Michelle Bullock- Natalie McCollum- Stephanie Baker- and more!

Saturday Night Performances will include- Real Lulu- The Seedy Seeds- The Dirty Socialites- Burlesque by Timeless Entertainment- Never Quit Dance Crew- Kira's Oasis- Ashley Watson- Audrey Isabelle- Fusion Dance Crew- A Shade Of Red- Kelly Campbell- Nine Dollar Nady- Samantha King- and more!

The Visual Artists:
Adrienne Filyó, Amy Kollar Anderson, Anna Moser, Carly Perkins, Cathy Jeffers, Cherry Fullam, Chrissy Barret, Crystal Gay, Dawn McCoy, Elizabeth Crabtree, Elizabeth Hilt, Erica Blackstock, Erin Holscher Almazan, Heather Lea Reid, Jen Dyke, Jessica Williams, Kelly Nordstrom Sexton, Kidtee Hello, Kim Lozano, Kristin Bailey, Lisa Alexander, Lisa Bunny, Marsha Pippenger, melissa, Melissa Faulkner Vanzant, Pip Moser, Rebecca O'Brien Sexton, Shannon Grecula, T. Faith, Talia Shade, Tamra Wallace, Tess Cortes, Valerie Smith

Ladyfest MARKETPLACE:
Butter Cafe, Lissa Lush, LoadedEvolver, Miss Motley's, Cathartic Slant, Sara Anne Sade, Lily Whitehead, Bombshell Bake Shop, Sarah Baker, ADORN BY MSL, Kidtee Hello, Georgia Stathopoulos, Acid Poptart, JUST B, Jax Rose

Workshops include:
Feminism 101, Yoga, Self Defense, Basic pinup hair, t-shirt altering, needle felting, basic car maintenance, feng shui, belly dance, hip hop dance, herbal remedies

Ladyfest Dayton - 3-5 September

Dayton Lebanese Festival: 27-29 August

The 17th annual Dayton Lebanese Festival is this weekend!

St. Ignatius of Antioch Maronite Catholic Church, Dayton, Ohio is proud to sponsor their 17th Annual Dayton Lebanese Festival to be held Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 27,28 and 29, 2010 at their new 5-acre home at 5915 Springboro Pike (S,R. 741), Dayton (Miami Township), Ohio! The festival features authentic Middle-Eastern food and pastries, traditional dancing by St. Ignatius Debbke Troupe, belly dancing by Conchi and her dance troupe Alhambra and dance troupes Raks Devi, Egyptian Breeze, Kira of Kira's Oasis and others. In addition, there will be amusement rides and games for all ages and, for adults, various games of chance: Poker, Showdown, and Blackjack. Admission is FREE. Free on site parking. Free overflow parking available across the street at Meijer department Store.

Mmmmmmmmmm. Tasty, tasty food. Nom nom.

You can find out more at this website.

Dayton Lebanese Festival: 27-29 August

The Laboratory Show - through 29 August

Thru Aug. 31 •
Amy Kollar Anderson - The Laboratory Show
Gallery 510 Fine Art, 510 E. Fifth St.; call for times. (Note: Artist Talk is 29 August @ 3pm)

Amy Kollar Anderson created a 'mini-lab' in Gallery 510's front window that celebrates her interest in science as well as art. The show will include a presentation of Amy's new time lapse movie Bounce, as well as a host of new pieces including new Vivariums and FeFes, an installation of 49 5' canvases. Also available are painted purses, prints and postcard sets. Free admission. 672-6717

You can find more details at Amy Kollar Anderson's website (deeplink to bit about the show here), see her working on Youtube, and read the Dayton Most Metro article on her (with more images).

The Laboratory Show - through 29 August

Dayton Barber & Stylist Cut-Off - 22 August

Baltimore Ravens Brandon McKinney brings The "Dayton Barber & Stylist Cut-Off" to the Dayton Convention Center . Free haircuts and hairstyles will be provided by professional barbers and stylists to students grades K through 8. Vouchers to attend can be picked up at the Dayton Urban League, Mt. Olive Baptist Church and Dayton Metropolitan Housing Authority. Hair must be washed, detangled, blow dried and down. An adult must accompany the child. There is a limit of three (3) vouchers per family.

August 22, 2010, 9:30 am to 7:00 pm
Registration for First Session at 9:00 am
Registration for the Second Session at 2:30 pm

Dayton Convention Center
Bill Feldmann, Director of Development
UHS - The Job Center Mall
1133 Edwin C. Moses Blvd. - Suite 308
Dayton, OH 45417 937-220-6602

www.uhs-dayton.org

Dayton Barber & Stylist Cut-Off - 22 August

Tea Party Exchange Shutting Down

Apparently, the Tea Party Exchange is shutting down. The website now only says (as of 2300 hours, 17 Aug 2010):

Website and business operations are being stopped until further notice. Dayton, Ohio was the test market for Tea Party Exchange. TPX will analyze the results of the test to decide any future decisions.

There were a number of mis-steps during the conceptualization and promotion of the site, some of which were covered here:¹

• Outsourcing work for a website promoting local businesses


• Covering up the outsourcing instead of admitting the problems


• Selling the program to businesses as a way to gain customers (like the Entertainment cards you see every year) instead of a political fundraiser.

The first two were covered in depth by this blog here. The last one was mentioned in the last two articles by Ms. Hulsey at the DDN (here and here); both the owners of Beef O'Brady's and Reiber Cleaners claim that they were sold on the concept as a merely a promotional tool.

If the business owners are truthfully reporting how this plan was marketed to them, then maybe that was what tipped the Tea Party Exchange over the edge. Personally, I'm not sure that I believe them; the business owners claiming that they never really supported the Tea Party (or didn't know what it was) seems awfully convenient at this point, doesn't it?

Still, let me make this clear: I'm surprised that the Tea Party Exchange shut down. That was not my goal.

It's not that I'm a friend of the Tea Party (I'm not - other contributors to this blog may be), but really, I'm not opposed to the idea behind that website. As I was quoted saying in the Dayton Daily News, I'm not opposed to outsourcing per se. Nor am I opposed to the Tea Party (or Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Libertarians, or whoever) making lists of businesses that support their causes. People will choose to support those businesses or not. That's part of a free market.

But closing the Tea Party Exchange because of some mistakes just seems childish. As I mentioned in a comment earlier today, what I hoped to see was a mea culpa - that Mr. Hutchinson admit to making mistakes and then working to rectify them. Instead, when called on his mistakes, Mr. Hutchinson decided to take his ball and go home. He apparently would rather quit than admit that he did anything wrong.

That's a disturbing thing in and of itself.

All of us make mistakes. That's normal. We get called on them - sometimes publicly. That's also normal. The responsible thing to do is to then turn around and try to make amends as best we can. Maybe that would be through refunding money. Maybe it would be through hiring local companies to redesign the website. Maybe it would be through making sure that all the businesses are fully aware of what they're supporting.

It would definitely involve admitting mistakes and apologizing, and apparently that's something that Mr. Hutchinson is not willing to make public on the TPX website. That's a damn shame - but something that Tea Party supporters should definitely make careful note of.

And for everyone else, we need to hold our own fundraisers and boosters to exactly the same standard.

¹ There was also a clear instance of copyright infringement, but I don't think that was ever publicly discussed.

Tea Party Exchange Shutting Down

Outsourced: Tea Party Exchange (additional info)

Last week, I posted some material about the Tea Party Exchange outsourcing their website. (It's below as well, so you don't have to follow that link.) Several other places - for example, the forums of the Baltimore sun - also picked up on the story. But what bothers me more than a site to promote local businesses outsourcing their work is what happened when they were called on it. The full story - to the best of my knowledge - is below. I have e-mailed the Tea Party Exchange, Mr. Hutchinson, and Graphic Impact as well to get their side or additional comments; as of 6pm today, none of those e-mails had been answered. I am not sure why the DDN hasn't picked up on this - their two articles about the Tea Party Exchange are here and here.

Last Thursday (12 August 2010), I had a friend point me to "The Tea Party Exchange". It's a local (to me) website where you can see if a particular business supports the Tea Party and shop there (or, ahem, not).

My point isn't whether or not this website (or the Tea Party) is a good idea. Let me point you at a few things from the home page as it was on the 13th.

In Donald L. Hutchinson's story of why he created the site, he said (emphasis mine):

I asked the [Tea Party] members that night this question: “How many of you by a show of hands would prefer to shop at a local, tea party owned small business, if that business would agree to donate 5-10% of the proceeds to the Dayton Tea Party?”

And yet, if you scroll down the page and look in the bottom right corner, you see this (screengrab from 8/12/10 @ 1850 EST):


That "Website Outsourced to:" link was a live one, so I followed it to see who DESIGN Web Graphic was. According to their site, DESIGN Web Graphic:

We will be your offshore web design partner in India. Save up to 70 to 80% expenses by outsourcing web development projects to India.

Dayton has plenty of web designers here. Heck, one of the businesses in the Tea Party Exchange is a graphic designer. It's nice to see that the Tea Party (the Tea Party Exchange is endorsed by the Dayton Tea Party (PDF link)) is so committed to local businesses that he outsourced a site designed to promote local businesses to India.

By the 14th, the web page had changed. The live link had changed to the static text below:

I couldn't find anything for "DESIGN Web Graphic, USA" - kind of odd, for a web design company, right? So I e-mailed people. I e-mailed the Tea Party Exchange, the graphic design company listed on the Tea Party Exchange, and Mr. Hutchinson. None of them answered.

The only person who did respond was Mitul Bhavsar from DESIGN Web Graphic. I am not going to post the entire e-mails here (that'd be rude), but he confirmed that they developed the Tea Party Exchange and have a business relationship. He said they stopped using live links as it gave "bad reputation on google for their [client's] online strategies".

Mr. Bhavsar also said that he had "operational hubs" in many countries, including the US. I'm not sure what an "operational hub" is, or why you'd have one but route all business (including e-mail, phone, and snail mail) through India. (At least, I don't understand what relevance an "operational hub" has when you're talking about web design.)

What does this look like? All the evidence that I can find points to one conclusion: The Tea Party Exchange, a website set up to promote local businesses, outsourced their web design. When that fact was uncovered, rather than offering a mea culpa, the Tea Party Exchange tried to hide the evidence that they'd outsourced the work for the site.

Rather than taking responsibility for their actions, they tried to cover it up. THAT, even more so than the hypocritical outsourcing, is truly shameful.

This is not some lone wacko, nor is it a hoax. Mr. Hutchinson - the founder of the Tea Party Exchange - plans to speak at the national "March on DC Tea Party Rally" ¹, and the Tea Party Exchange was endorsed by the Dayton Tea Party (PDF link). Unless the Tea Party acts, they are not only condoning outsourcing of American jobs, but are also condoning businesses hiding unethical behavior.

If outsourcing and covering up are what the Tea Party stands for, then I can't see why any honest person would want anything to do with them.

¹How disrespectful to hold a partisan political event on 9/11. I mean, really.

Outsourced: Tea Party Exchange (additional info)

Garage Sale in a Tent: 11-14 Aug.

The annual Garage Sale in a Tent is being held in front of Cub Foods on Wilmington Pike:

Wednesday, August 11th 6:00pm - 9:00pm

Thursday, August 12th 9:00am - 9:00pm

Friday, August 13th 9:00am - 9:00pm

Saturday, August 14th 9:00am - 1:00pm - which is the famous "box sale"

Items for sale include electronics, TV's, patio furniture, upholstered furniture, bikes, books, baby items, clothing, decorative items, tool boxes, work out equipment and more.

All funds raised go to Boy Scout Troop 516.

Garage Sale in a Tent: 11-14 Aug.

Aug. 13-15 • Indiana Jones Weekend

Aug. 13-15 • Indiana Jones Weekend
Victoria Theatre, 138 N. Main St;
Friday & Saturday - 7:30 p.m.,
Sunday - 3 p.m.

It wouldn’t be summer without a blockbuster or two. How about three? This summer, the Michelob Ultra Cool Films Series pays tribute to Indiana Jones with three classics from the adventure collection: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) on Aug. 13; Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) on Aug. 14; and Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (1989) on Aug. 15. Join Indy as he escapes Nazis, ritual sacrifice and, of course, snakes. Free popcorn and sodas are available in the lobby, and an authentic theatre organ concert and sing-a-long begins 30 minutes prior to showtime. $5. 228-3630.

Aug. 13-15 • Indiana Jones Weekend

EarthSky

http://earthsky.org/

*EarthSky – a clear voice for science for broadcast and the Internet – advocates science as a vital tool for the 21st century.*

EarthSky brings scientists’ words and insights to a large audience thanks to the support and partnership of thousands of scientists and scientific institutions.

We know science is not perfect. It’s a process, not a body of facts. History tells us that some of today’s scientific truths will inevitably turn out to be wrong, or only partially true. Still, science leads to profound insights about the natural world that are as true as anything can be here at the beginning of the 21st century.

The EarthSky Promise: To bring the ideas, strategies and research results of scientists to people around the world, with the goal of illuminating pathways to a sustainable future.

[This text is taken from the website]

EarthSky

Stephen Zimmer signing in Columbus 14 August

It's a little far afield, but I've met Stephen at a few cons this year. He's a cool cat, and well worth taking part of a roadtrip day to Columbus to see. It will take place at the Borders in Columbus Ohio (4545 Kenny Road Columbus, OH) from noon to three.

Book signing, meet and greet, and appearance at Borders on Kenny Road in Columbus OH on behalf of The Storm Guardians, book two of the Rising Dawn Saga.

If you are in the Columbus area, we would really appreciate your support at this event, and if you have friends in the area, please invite them as well using the link on the right side of this event page.

The event will take place from noon to 3pm.
...
Those that buy two or more books get a free t-shirt, choice between the two new Storm Guardians designs.

There will be art cards, glossy cover arts, and bookmarks to give away to anyone that stops by to say hi.

For more information on Stephen and his work, please visit www.stephenzimmer.com

Stephen Zimmer signing in Columbus 14 August

Next Thing You Know - 12 Aug (and $10 coupon)

This month, jumpstART leaps into musical theatre with the up-and-coming local company, Encore Theatre Company. After ETC's success with Rent and {title of show}, we're excited to see the final show in their summer series. Check out these really talented, young, local performers when they tackle a great new show on its way to New York!

What's it about? Real life comes real fast. One day you wake up, and instead of a hangover, you have a job. Instead of a fling, you have a live-in girlfriend. And instead of naïve dreams, you have reality. For four artists in New York City, discovering yourself can take a lot longer than you think. The little joys and compromises that bring us into adulthood are brought to life in this all-new musical from the creators of the Drama Desk Nominated hit I Love You Because, Joshua Salzman and Ryan Cunningham. ETC is pleased to be developing the show here in Dayton before making its way to the Edinburg Festival and then off to New York. See it here first!

And what about that coupon? Special ticket deal is 2 tickets for $20. That's $10 off! Tickets MUST be ordered online at encoretheatercompany.com by midnight on Wednesday, August 11 - enter passcod JUMPSTART to get this deal.

Next Thing You Know - 12 Aug (and $10 coupon)

Downtown Dayton Photo Contest

First Friday in downtown Dayton is always fun, but this Friday evening (August 6) will bring even more excitement to the city streets. The 2010 Downtown in Focus photo contest kicks off with a light-up of downtown buildings, giving amateur and professional photographers a great opportunity to capture fantastic images. But the contest doesn't stop there: photos of city life and surroundings (people, street scenes, architecture, rivers, Dayton's beautiful new bridges and more) are encouraged, with a deadline of August 31. Entered photos will be displayed at Urban Nights on September 10. Read more about it at the Downtown Dayton Partnership website.

Downtown Dayton Photo Contest

Backing Up

https://www.dropbox.com/

https://spideroak.com/

These two services (and lots of others) allow you to back up your data online. Just backing your data up to a CD (or another place on your hard drive) isn't enough. What if the CD gets scratched? Your house burns down? The hard drive completely fails?

I managed to destroy all of my user profile last week, and the service I use (one of the two above - both are about the same cost and work on Win, Mac, and Linux) let me recover a large amount of my data.

Backing Up

Tuesday Tales - 3 Aug @ 10 am

August 3 • Tuesday Tales: Big Fish! Little Fish! Lots of Fish!
RiverScape MetroPark, 111 E. Monument Ave.; 10-11 a.m.
Come explore the Great Miami River! Listen as Five Rivers MetroParks’ biologists share with you and your preschooler their knowledge of the river and the fish that call it home. Fish of all shapes and sizes will be on hand to see and touch! Bring blanket or towel for seating. Weather dependent. Free. Call 274-0126 for more information.

Tuesday Tales - 3 Aug @ 10 am