Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Monday, December 24, 2007

Home for the Holidays: Day One

Minooka.

Please use caution with these two shadesters. I also first practiced my life coaching sesh with Kris and Sky. See above video (next post).


My cousin. Badass. Intelligent as shit. AND what I assume to be is an indigo. I cannot wait until shes old enough to initiate conversations rather than just respond.


I have the best grandma ever. She will "pwn" any one who challenges her for that title.


Megan being.


The cloak that ryan designed for me. Made in Colorado by what I like to think are roll-playing hippies. There is only one in the world and I own that bitch.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

The mission statement of malachi ritscher

Thank you Patrick,

The mission statement of malachi ritscher

My actions should be self-explanatory, and since in our self-obsessed culture words seldom match the deed, writing a mission statement would seem questionable. So judge me by my actions. Maybe some will be scared enough to wake from their walking dream state - am I therefore a martyr or terrorist? I would prefer to be thought of as a 'spiritual warrior'. Our so-called leaders are the real terrorists in the world today, responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden.

I have had a wonderful life, both full and full of wonder. I have experienced love and the joy and heartache of raising a child. I have jumped out of an airplane, and escaped a burning building. I have spent the night in jail, and dropped acid during the sixties. I have been privileged to have met many supremely talented musicians and writers, most of whom were extremely generous and gracious. Even during the hard times, I felt charmed. Even the difficult lessons have been like blessed gifts. When I hear about our young men and women who are sent off to war in the name of God and Country, and who give up their lives for no rational cause at all, my heart is crushed. What has happened to my country? we have become worse than the imagined enemy - killing civilians and calling it 'collateral damage', torturing and trampling human rights inside and outside our own borders, violating our own Constitution whenever it seems convenient, lying and stealing right and left, more concerned with sports on television and ring-tones on cell-phones than the future of the world.... half the population is taking medication because they cannot face the daily stress of living in the richest nation in the world.

I too love God and Country, and feel called upon to serve. I can only hope my sacrifice is worth more than those brave lives thrown away when we attacked an Arab nation under the deception of 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'. Our interference completely destroyed that country, and destabilized the entire region. Everyone who pays taxes has blood on their hands.

I have had one previous opportunity to serve my country in a meaningful way - at 8:05 one morning in 2002 I passed Donald Rumsfeld on Delaware Avenue and I was acutely aware that slashing his throat would spare the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people. I had a knife clenched in my hand, and there were no bodyguards visible; to my deep shame I hesitated, and the moment was past.

The violent turmoil initiated by the United States military invasion of Iraq will beget future centuries of slaughter, if the human race lasts that long. First we spit on the United Nations, then we expect them to clean up our mess. Our elected representatives are supposed to find diplomatic and benevolent solutions to these situations. Anyone can lash out and retaliate, that is not leadership or vision. Where is the wisdom and honor of the people we delegate our trust to?

To the rest of the world we are cowards - demanding Iraq to disarm, and after they comply, we attack with remote-control high-tech video-game weapons. And then lie about our reasons for invading. We the people bear complete responsibility for all that will follow, and it won't be pretty.

It is strange that most if not all of this destruction is instigated by people who claim to believe in God, or Allah. Many sane people turn away from religion, faced with the insanity of the 'true believers'. There is a lot of confusion: many people think that God is like Santa Claus, rewarding good little girls with presents and punishing bad little boys with lumps of coal; actually God functions more like the Easter Bunny, hiding surprises in plain sight. God does not choose the Lottery numbers, God does not make the weather, God does not endorse military actions by the self-righteous, God does not sit on a cloud listening to your prayers for prosperity. God does not smite anybody. If God watches the sparrow fall, you notice that it continues to drop, even to its death. Face the truth folks, God doesn't care, that's not what God is or does. If the human race drives itself to extinction, God will be there for another couple million years, 'watching' as a new species rises and falls to replace us. It is time to let go of primitive and magical beliefs, and enter the age of personal responsibility. Not telling others what is right for them, but making our own choices, and accepting consequences.

"Who would Jesus bomb?" This question is primarily addressing a Christian audience, but the same issues face the Muslims and the Jews: God's message is tolerance and love, not self-righteousness and hatred. Please consider "Thou shalt not kill" and "As ye sow, so shall ye reap". Not a lot of ambiguity there.

What is God? God is the force of life - the spark of creation. We each carry it within us, we share it with each other. Whether we are conscious of the life-force is a choice we make, every minute of every day. If you choose to ignore it, nothing will happen - you are just 'less conscious'. Maybe you are less happy (maybe not). Maybe you grow able to tap into the universal force, and increase the creativity in the universe. Love is anti-entropy. Please notice that 'conscious' and 'conscience' are related concepts.

Why God - what is the value? Whether committee consensus of a benevolent power that works through humans, or giant fungus under Oregon, the value of opening up to the concept of God is in coming to the realization that we are not alone, establishing a connection to the universe, the experience of finding completion. As individuals we may exist alone, but we are all alone together as a people. Faith is the answer to fear. Fear opposes love. To manipulate through fear is a betrayal of trust.

What does God want? No big mystery - simply that we try to help each other. We decide to make God-like decisions, rescuing falling sparrows, or putting the poor things out of their misery. Tolerance, giving, acceptance, forgiveness.

If this sounds a lot like pop psychology, that is my exact goal. Never underestimate the value of a pep-talk and a pat on the ass. That is basically all we give to our brave soldiers heading over to Iraq, and more than they receive when they return. I want to state these ideas in their simplest form, reducing all complexity, because each of us has to find our own answers anyway. Start from here...

I am amazed how many people think they know me, even people who I have never talked with. Many people will think that I should not be able to choose the time and manner of my own death. My position is that I only get one death, I want it to be a good one. Wouldn't it be better to stand for something or make a statement, rather than a fiery collision with some drunk driver? Are not smokers choosing death by lung cancer? Where is the dignity there? Are not the people the people who disregard the environment killing themselves and future generations? Here is the statement I want to make: if I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world. I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians, who did nothing to threaten our country. I will not participate in your charade - my conscience will not allow me to be a part of your crusade. There might be some who say "it's a coward's way out" - that opinion is so idiotic that it requires no response. From my point of view, I am opening a new door.

What is one more life thrown away in this sad and useless national tragedy? If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country. I was alive when John F. Kennedy instilled hope into a generation, and I was a sorry witness to the final crushing of hope by Dick Cheney's puppet, himself a pawn of the real rulers, the financial plunderers and looters who profit from every calamity; following the template of Reagan's idiocracy.

The upcoming elections are not a solution - our two party system is a failure of democracy. Our government has lost its way since our founders tried to build a structure which allowed people to practice their own beliefs, as far as it did not negatively affect others. In this regard, the separation of church and state needs to be reviewed. This is a large part of the way that the world has gone wrong, the endless defining and dividing of things, micro-sub-categorization, sectarianism. The direction we need is a process of unification, integrating all people into a world body, respecting each individual. Business and industry have more power than ever before, and individuals have less. Clearly, the function of government is to protect the individual, from hardship and disease, from zealots, from the exploitation, from monopoly, even from itself. Our leaders are not wise persons with integrity and vision - they are actors reading from teleprompters, whose highest goal is to stir up the mob. Our country slaughters Arabs, abandons New Orleaneans, and ignores the dieing environment. Our economy is a house of cards, as hollow and fragile as our reputation around the world. We as a nation face the abyss of our own design.

A coalition system which includes a Green Party would be an obvious better approach than our winner-take-all system. Direct electronic debate and balloting would be an improvement over our non-representative congress. Consider that the French people actually have a voice, because they are willing to riot when the government doesn't listen to them.

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government... " - Abraham Lincoln

With regard to those few who crossed my path carrying the extreme and unnecessary weight of animosity: they seemed by their efforts to be punishing themselves. As they acted out the misery of their lives it is now difficult to feel anything other than pity for them.

Without fear I go now to God - your future is what you will choose today.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

a threeandahalf year cycle?

"...the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." -Jack Kerouac, On the Road

I will officially be done with my undergraduate career in less than 12 hours. Still waiting to see how this project turns out. I am feeling quite insecure about the entire ordeal. Sleep has become a commodity this week. I think I am up to around 6 hours over the past three days. Not including tonight of course. Maybe that is why my coping skills and patience are suffering. That, or this overwhelming feeling that I am trapped in some kind of glass box. I can see the promise land, but there is this barrier keeping it out of arm's reach. Not saying that tomorrow I will instantly have the capabilities to break through. But, I will feel a hellofalot closer than I do right now.


"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." -Thoreau

This evening I got my first real consulting job. A goal completed. Every time that something like this (a scratch through a number on my list) occurs...it seems rather uneventful. I should be celebrating right now...bright eyed and smiling until my cheeks hurt. Sheer exhaustion and mental fatigue have set in, priorities have shifted and life has been thrust upon me. As much as I would like to take it in...you just have to accept, embrace, conquer and move. I know that I am one step closer...but the inevitable seems ohsofar away. Perhaps that impatience is me just embracing the defining characteristic of youth. With eyes burning. Time to recharge.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Finals Gone Bad

UTURF FINAL

So here we are today…standing in front of everyone…and I am sure at this point in my diatribe about the UTURF chapter in my life, you are wondering if we don’t have a project…or this isn’t relating to anything…then why the hell are we standing in front of you presenting this information?

Well silly…You see that this blog about our bunk project is the new project itself.

UTURF Part Eight


Though, our group finally had our promotions portion of the UTURF launch together, the writers that I mentioned early really couldn’t, nor cannot even now say the same. Out of the 10 paid writers—only 1 actually turned in their reviews after 3 months.

This put our group in a very interesting position--We had no site to launch. This essentially translated to us as, “ We have no project.” Seeing, as we found out that the website was not going to be an option so late in the game…creativity became key.

UTURF Part Seven


So we tried to schedule several meetings and the only variable that maintained consistent at all engagements was myself. The group meetings were blown off or illustrated poor attendance for a variety of reasons…some legitimate—health concerns…others were just careless.

Seeing as we were starting to run out of time…a couple of the group members sent ideas on how to promote UTURF…and I ordered promotional goods based off some of their suggestions, and others that would draw attention and be relatively inexpensive. We had a graphic designer make our logo to be imprinted on thousands of balloons, condoms, mega-phones, bubble machines, t-shirts, stickers and so on. Then, once the artwork was approved by Alloy (which was a process in and of itself, as well) the orders were placed and the shipments were received.

UTURF Part Six

It is my last semester of school, and not to say that Columbia is a bad place to get an education…but it is what you make of it. So, as usual, I wanted to challenge not only myself, but also my group members as well.

As Dr. Bae explained our final projects during one of the first weeks of class--I thought that UTURF would be a cool project to take on. It was not just some imaginary or very small-scale anomaly that we were doing. This was the launch of a major corporation’s website…and we were in charge of all the promotions. We had a lot of freedom with what we could do, and in addition to that we actually had a budget so we could carry out our plan on somewhat of a massive scale. The group was stoked, I was happy that they were happy…all was well.

A UTURF TESTIMONIAL

UTURF Part Five


So UTURF is on the front left burner for a right-handed person. UTURF became one of those things where you know it has to get done but by what means and with what time? I kept getting updates and people were “writing reviews” which is essentially the content creation that we needed on order to get UTURF up and running. All that we needed was 10 people to write 50 reviews about anything in Chicago, each review is 50 words or less, and once the sight is launched they need to get 10 friends with .edu web addresses to sign up. That is what their contract stated (Ill post it on the blog), in order to get paid $500 for their efforts.

All the people that offered their services to UTURF were writers. Generally, when I think back on my experience working at newspapers, and having friends who are journalists…the most important guideline that they must follow to be successful is meeting a deadline. Not to mention…the deadline was not some very short-term thing. They had more than 3 months to write essentially 4,000 words.

UTURF Post Four

…But I made it there on-time. Ready to go. All set to get my life at The Chronicle back in order…and dive right into UTURF so we could get all the bugs worked out and the site itself launched by late October. If only it were that easy…

UTURF Part Three--Step Back to Reality



My flight arrives home sometime around 7pm on a Tuesday. I have no cell phone. My ex beau decided to give me a call as my flight was boarding to London enroute to Johannesburg. It is always a good sign when the bane of your existence decides to give you a call as you are leaving for a trip half-way around the world. After an awkward 2 minutes of conversation, I put the ole’ Sidekick III away in the seat pouch as the plane was taking off. Due to a borderline “I need to go to the hospital” case of exhaustion, which caused me to sleep through the only 5-days of summer that I had. Lets not forget that this includes sleeping through my own 21st birthday. I mean sleeping all the time when you are on a plane isn’t too bad. Except another repercussion of my illness was the fact that I couldn’t stop going to the bathroom. This is never a good thing when you are on planes and in airports for the better part of 2 days. So, in the wake of sleeping incessantly and while awake trying to avoid getting up every 10 minutes to use a plane bathroom I forget my phone on the plane. Good thing I had that $2/minute and international text-messaging plan added to my phone before I left. ; )

Any who, I get back into the states and check my email (impoverished countries internet is even slower than you imagine). I come to find out that Chris (the paper’s GM) apparently thinks I am dead or something. He thought I was coming back the day before and just never showed up. With no phone (or voice mail because the line had to be froze) he had no real way of contacting me. I email him back assuring him that I am alright…though he requests that I come into work the very next morning.

What demands such urgency you may ask yourself…

The answer is UTURF and training the mentally insane (literally) female that got hired on as my assistant…but, that is a whole other story for another day.



So, I have a total of 14 hours to go form O’Hare to Minooka (S/W of Joliet) then back to Chicago to work on UTURF in the morning. This barely gave me time to do laundry, de-scathe, stare in amazement at clean, flushable toilets with toilet paper and drink tap water…

PAUSE


The kingdom of Swaziland.


Grasia Machel Mandela

My August was spent in one of the hardest, yet most self-defining
experience of my life: A trip to Africa with a bunch of hippies and teachers. 40
people. 10,000 miles. The hippies hated me for being in marketing. The teachers hated me because I was one of the “kids”. Though, the irony in it all is that the liberal hippies were the most hypocritical group of people I have ever
met…and the Teachers ranged from 1-6 years older than I. On the plus side…I met a best friend for life and discovered that I was far stronger than I ever gave
myself credit to be.

UTURF Part Two


Now, you must take into consideration that this initial concept was presented over the course of the summer.


At the time…My life was pretty much chaos. I was working two full-time jobs one at The Chronicle, one at The Sun-Times (developing and executing promotions, tackling a full-on market research report and writing a marketing strategy aimed at the 18-24 year old demographic)





…taking two extremely difficult summer courses (I am talking about 2000+ pages of reading alone, not to mention papers, tests, projects, etc. in a 6-week period of time)…planning an impulsive month-long political journey to Africa (I had less than 6 weeks to prepare for from when the invitation was extended to when our Airbus was boarding)




…scouring Craigslist to find a random roommate as a result of the messy break-up

(Dave Thomas, my Craigslist roomie, actually turned out to be a pretty awesome dude)



…If you refer back to the messy breakup, the new rebound ends up even worse...both obsessed in our taking-off carrers...but our competitive nature really complicated things.


...not to mention before we officially started dating It turns out I was seeing one of his best friends, too. What luck.



So, it is a Friday morning…and I stroll in the office wearing some mom shorts and a pair of Birkenstocks as my own little version of a comfort blanket for the day. Though, low and behold the president of Alloy stops by The Chronicle to take us through a UTURF tutorial. b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l.

I have about twenty minutes left before Alloy’s president, Andy, arrives. So I grab my gym bag that contains yesterday’s business attire that I thankfully forgot to bring home, a bottle of perfume and some makeup. If there were timed matches with females in a certain MPI (Makeup per square inch) class…I am pretty sure that I would have owned the competition that Friday morning.

So, Andy goes through the entire site showing Chris (the paper’s GM) and I how to log-in, write reviews, and then proceeds to ask us a bunch of questions/comments/concerns/additions/subtractions that the UTURF people should take into consideration. We had a wonderful conversation about all the things Andy wanted us to touch on and more. After a couple of fun, yet nerve-racking hours it was time for Andy to get back to work…Though, I thought he was absolutely wonderful…I was very excited to see him cross the 33 E. Congress threshold and enter back into the steamy Chicago streets.

UTURF Part One

Ok, so it is sometime in late July that my boss approaches me and informs that my responsibilities as the Account Manager for The Chronicle are now being expanded to help develop, promote and launch some new website called UTURF. It is owned by our largest client—Alloy Marketing + Media, which is the world’s biggest agency for major firms to reach the college market.



So, I sit back and think “alright, this could be fun depending on the concept…and at this point in my career. I will take whatever experience I can get. Because that experience, whether good or bad gives me something to look back on and draw from.”

He passes me a stack of papers and asks what I think…

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

My very first blog...for educational purposes only



Now that all the lines have been blurred between my personal and professional life...I figure why not use my personal blog to promote the last class project of my undergraduate career. The following posts are a first-person account of my personal interactions with a start-up site, "UTURF".

The posts will first start off as my own experiences with UTURF, and the events that took place within my own personal life that are associated with each encounter.

As you read or watch from start to finish...the evolution of the UTURF project will become apparent.

Best Wishes,

Kate