Stop cheaping out on the young ambitious people of the world by offering only “unpaid internships.” It’s class warfare anyway you cut it, and unless you are quite literally a mom and pop establishment, I think you can afford to shell out $3,000 for a summer of exploitative work.

Don’t even try to defend yourselves. You are the Museum of Modern Art. The cost of an intern doesn’t even equal the cost of mounting a single painting. What do you expect me to do? Live in New York City for a summer without even my housing costs covered? Perhaps in your cushy life as a curator you’ve forgotten how expensive your fair island is. Imagine trying to live here, eat here, all in o

rder to simply work here. I will be that reminder: its f***ing expensive.

And we’re just talking about costs. We’re not talking about students who need to make enough money to cover tuition, or school housing, or books. No, we’re just talking about being able to make an internship in New York City, or Boston, or San Francisco, or Chicago a reality.

The unpaid internship is everywhere. It’s become a common facet of the student workplace. And I can see the attraction to employers. A whole summer/fall/winter/spring or even a year of work provided at no cost? All you need to offer is a place for someone to work? Perhaps a letter of recommendation somewhere after the fact?

What a deal indeed. From an employer perspective it’s a steal.

Yes, truly it is theft. It steals opportunities from all students or workers and gives it only to the students who can afford it. Students or workers from secure financial backgrounds. Students or workers with private wealth. Which means that the unpaid internship always acts a social filter, reinforcing the idea that jobs in the arts, in print, in museums, in broadcasting are continually reserved for those in the middle class who can afford them. And students from other backgrounds are kept from even considering these positions.

Employers of the world, stop being socially thrifty. Stop confusing saving money with preserving the class-orientation of higher employment.

It may be true that merit is considered among an applicant pool for unpaid internships. No doubt, the most qualified applicant is selected for the job. But what can be said for the applicants who are not present because they cannot afford to even consider such a position? Their merits have not even been considered. Their perspectives, talents, and qualifications have been erased by a financial bottom line. Your financial bottom line.

So what can you do? It’s quite simple: fund your internships. Here’s the minimum equation: find the average cost of housing in your immediate (10 mile) vicinity for a summer. Add $100 for food a week for the duration of the internship. Then add the cost of a monthly pass for local public transportation. You know have a working idea of how much an internship should promise in terms of funding. It’s probably around $3,000.

If you are charitable soul, consider adding money for tuition/books. It may be a small thing for you, but it will mean the world to your intern. S/he will work harder, and think higher of you.

As will we all.

david plouffe, the campaign manager for obama 2008, just finished giving an hour and half speech at pomona college in claremont, california. he was described in the event’s “lecture bill” in the words of his former boss, now president, obama. “he is the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the … best political campaign, i think, in the history of United States.” that’s some pretty top-notch praise, from someone who should know. but let’s be honest for a moment, who doesn’t know that about david plouffe.

in his half hour of taking questions from the crowd of claremont consortium students, plouffe thoroughly revealed his deep analytical perspective, and a great sense of loyalty to president obama as well as the democratic party. this was somewhat surprising, as one might recall that plouffe is a hired professional, not an elected official. not to make the guy out to be a mercenary, especially considering the fact that according to reports, he only made $144,000 on the year. which is INSANELY low for the liberal answer to karl rove. particularly when we consider that axelrod apparently made over a million dollars.

anyway, plouffe had a lot of interesting things to say at pomona. speaking to a crowd of well over 1,000 students at the gorgeous bridges auditorium, plouffe commended young people for being involved in the democratic process. “I’ve never been more sure in the future of our couintry than I am becuase of the creativity and energey of young people” plouffe said. he also laughed derisively at the lack of youth-orientation of the other campaigns. responding to what allowed obama to overtake hillary in iowa, plouffe recalled a comment by mark penn (then hillary’s campaing manager). just before the caucus, penn told reporters that obama’s youth strategy was misguided, because “facebook doesn’t caucus.” not only was this proven quite wrong, but everyone in the crowd got a good laugh over the incorrect grammatical phrasing.

a thorough democrat, plouffe reserved his best wit for deriding the republican party. responding to questions about how obama outplayed mccain for the win, plouffe explained that obama had a notable disadvantage in that he did not secure the democratic nomination until june 3rd,  two months later than it had taken john kerry to do the same in 2004. “john mccain had 8 months to raise money and differentiate himself from george bush,” plouffe explained, “but by some feat of political malpractice, mccain did neither of those things.”

“the republican party is having an identity crisis” he later confessed, “i look forward to watching how they reform.”

known for his belief that sarah palin was a gift to the obama campaign, plouffe also spent some time joyfully recalling what he characterized as her political inepitude and deviseness. “sarah plain was our best campaigner and fundraiser,” he told the crowd. “we receieved $8-9 million while she spoke in minneapolis alone. the next day, all our campaign headquarters received swarms of people saying: ‘i’m gonna give you the next 45 days of my life.’”

plouffe maintained that it was that kind of grassroots support that made the difference in the obama campaign. he left by giving the students of claremont a reason to clap for him by clapping for themselves. “we owe you,” he repeated twice. “you are the heroes of this election.”

it made me feel like i was back in new hampshire, right before the election, with everything up for grabs. i joined the standing ovation.

just to give the background on this story, i’ve been spending the week with my brother in california while i am on spring break. my brother is a sophomore studying international relations and spanish at pomona college. we actually spent the day at venice beach and arrived halfway through plouffe’s speech. but it was worth it.

in other (BAAAAAAAD!!!!) news. i cracked the screen for my macbook last night. and i’d alreay been thinking that i needed a little hyper portable cloud computing device. just to manage my blogging, wiki notes, and email. the cracked screen is gonna cost like $200. which totally sucks.

then, again, the olpc is simply not a blogger’s machine. sorry cute globalization assistant you can take your pint size imperialism somewhere else.

so. i have finally escaped the northeast united states. the last time i did that was almost two years ago, when i roadtripped down to st. petersburg, florida for the first, and last time. since then, i’ve only made it as far south as cape may, and as far west as… philadelphia.

it’s been getting kinda boring.

imagine my excitement then, at getting up friday morning and getting on a plane to go out west. by 2:15, i was hanging out in the terminal at O’Hare, and realizing while having a very bad plate of chinese food, this terminal was where cris columbus filmed the running through the airport scene in home alone 2.

another thing i noticed, was that they had a flu shot cart right in the middle of the terminal. for $35, you can get the flu injected into you in time for a flight to california.

i decided not to go through with it.

the flight to california seemed really long. i am realizing that as awesome as sitting on the aisle is (i like to stretch out and not feel scrunched) i really miss looking out the window. it got dark as we were flying into SFO, and when i looked out from the window, i thought we were going to crash into the ocean. totally forgot about the whole “bay” part of the “bay area.”

i took the very cool, very space age air train to the bart, where i got lost trying to get to berkeley, but appreciated the speed of the train, and eventually stepped out into a cold (i daresay new england) fall evening, and ran right into lucas zipp.

my brother, grady, who had taken a bus up from pomona in la, was right behind lucas. i had been told to give him a big hug from my mom, my dad, and one for myself. i gave him four hugs, in the spirit of the “and one for good luck” ideology that is central to my family.

with that, we were off to a hawaiian burger place. and to explore berkeley california. it had been 13 hours since i left boston.

but here i am, on the floor in the auditorium of international house (what a beautiful building!) listening to lawrence lessig speak, after years of hearing him in youtube clips and reading his books.

it’s a little like seeing a concert with your favorite artist after years of listening to their albums and proslytizing their music.

as lessig starts, sitting on stage with fred benenson (arguably the hub of sfc), he tells the crowd that he could not be more thrilled and proud to be at a meeting with this many people. he recalls what it was like when he wrote the book, and the student organization started.

fred corrects him for sounding optimistic, when he’ well known for being a pessimist.

“that’s why i had to get out of this movement” lessig explains “because I needed to be pessimistic”

hybrid economies

despite his pessimism, lessig argues that we are living/entering an Interesting new economy, a hybrid economy. in this dualistic economy, there is a captilastic sphere, and communist sphere (if you forgive the political re-reading) wherein there is both business (amazon) and sharing/volunteering (reader reviews) working in tandem.

there are two possible forms of hybrids:

type 1: “darth vader-type”

inspired by george lucas’ sharecropping mash-up forum, where users can mash-up star wars footage, but lucas will own it.

type 2: “nine inch nails-type”

where the recombination of media allows the recombinateur owns the work. they don’t own the elements, but they own their approach/curation of media.

lessig begins talking about valenti, the MPAA head he debated several times throughout the last decade, and how valenti inspired him with his claims that we were raising an entire generation of people living against the law. he thinks that we do need to consider how we live, not against the law, but changing the law. live within rules, but rules you help set.

lessig reported in june 2007, that he was moving on from issues of intellectual property in the digital age. now, he is moving on to political reform, something he claims is both more academic interest

“9% of Americans polled thought that congress members were doing a good job. More people supported the british crown at the outbreak of the Revolution.”

change congress, the group that lessig has started to campaign for poltical reform, has faced interesting pressure, and had interesting solicitation from groups who want to convene a new constitutional convention.

the future of students for free culture

“five years from now, ten years from now, what is students for free culture?” benenson asks.

“sfc needs to pick some fights” lessig says. he remembers the successful drm campaign and hopes that can be the norm for further fights. lessig thinks that the “low hanging fruit” fight is making university publications (at institutions around the country) open access. force top flight educational institutions to open up the work of their faculty’s work for the rest of the world who can’t afford to pay for access otherwise.

“it’s fun to rally around fights, they’re lots of parties involved with fights….”

drawing the line in the sand/defining free culture

“we have to come to recognize the principles that will guide us” lessig says, “it’s about whats defining for our culture”