Tuesday, April 08, 2008

  • Putting a (red) price tag on war...

    redtag

    As I promised earlier, I want to blog about a young woman named Lauren Sammons. A grad student at the Cleveland Institute of Art, she is creating an art installation called The Red Tag Project. This will be a memorial commemorating the grievous, needless loss of American and Iraqi lives during the five years of this sham of a war. An intern at the Veterans Resource Center (part of Volunteers of America of Greater Ohio), a nonprofit agency that provides temporary housing and social services to homeless veterans, she will be assisted by the vets in building the installation.

    Lauren wants to incorporate 100,000 red tags into the artwork. Printing charges are $12 per thousand tags. She is currently up to 41,500 tags, but much of that money came from her parents and grandfather. I want to see her reach this goal so that there will be tangible proof of the cost of this "war" on display to the public.

    I would like to ask that you please visit her MySpace page and become a sponsor. Donations can be made through the PayPal link at the site. Also, please send this blog entry to anyone who would be interested in sponsoring Lauren's project. I know that times are tough; you may not be able to donate $12, but even $5 would be a help. Barack Obama's campaign has proven that we "little people," through small contributions, can become a force to be reckoned with. If we band together and give as much as we are able, we can help Lauren's vision become a reality. Also, please leave her some words of encouragement.

    On April 20, my friend Judy Novak will host a Red Tag party for Lauren. Judy is the Cleveland coordinator for Drinking Liberally, a social network of progressives and liberals who get together once a week to discuss politics over a drink or two. (Even if you don't live in NE Ohio, subscribe to Judy's mailing list. If her weekly state-of-the-union messages don't get you stoked, you are legally dead). For anyone who shows up, Judy will provide drinks and munchies in exchange for donations and help in numbering the tags. Did I mention that EACH TAG needs to be numbered--manually?

    Anyway, I will post photos from the party in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, please, please do what you can to help Lauren!

    , vj

    P.S. You may need to create a MySpace identity to access Lauren's page.

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