Michael Thornton previews the December 10th anti-fracking rally7 in Oakland

Mike Thornton, organizer for the Sierra Club’s California Coast Campaign, talks about the group’s plans to join a demonstration at 5:30 pm PST on Tuesday, December 10^th, at the Oakland Convention Center in support of a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) as an option in the Environmental Impact Report being prepared by the California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR), which will be holding one of a series of hearings on fracking at the Oakland Convention Center at that time, recorded from Sacramento, California, on December 4, 2013. 

Ben Franta from Divest Harvard previews fossil-fuel divestment forum

Ben Franta from Divest Harvard previews the fossil-fuel divestment forum being held in Room 113 of Sever Hall in Harvard Yard between 3:30 pm and 5:00 pm EST on Friday, November 8, 2013.

 

Seattle Mayor speaks up for the divestment ask at Harvard

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn has joined a growing chorus of environmental and other activists in calling on Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust to accede to the "ask" of Divest Harvard to divest the University's world-record endowment from entanglement with the fossil fuel sector.  

You can read his op-ed piece,"Let's Prevent This Crisis: A Letter to Harvard's President Faust,"on the Huffington Post's Green section.

Etopia News has requested an interview with Mayor McGinn and is waiting to hear back.

"Escape Plan" screenwriter Miles Chapman talks about his work

Published on Oct 15, 2013

Miles Chapman talks about writing Escape Plan and what it was like for the Philadelphia native to script fight scenes with Sylvester Stallone. Chapman's comments were recorded at the Writers Guild of America, West's BEHIND THE SCREEN 2013 screenwriter/press reception held on October 10, 2013 at Capital Grille in West Hollywood, CA.

All credit for the content of this blog entry belongs to the Writers Guild of America, West.  Used with their permission.

 

Last night at the Writers Guild’s “Behind the Screen 2013”

The Writers Guild of America West outdid itself last night (October 10, 2013), throwing an intimate and distinguished shindig at the Capital Grille adjacent to the Beverly Center to honor and promote their member/screenwriters who have new films opening soon. 

Chief among them were Miles Chapman, the screenwriter of the soon-to-be-released “Escape Plan”; Michael Polish, writer/director of “Big Sur,” coming out later in October; and Karl Mueller, whose picture isn’t coming out for a while yet, and was more subdued than the other two. 

Miles Chapman has been working since 2007 to see his idea for a film about an escape artist trapped in a prison he can’t escape from (or can he?) finally come to the screen.  Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger play the leads.  Miles met his vivacious wife at the Harvard-affiliated American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

Michael Polish recounted filming “Big Sur” in Big Sur, California.  His movie is a chronicle of the demise of New Age icon Jack Kerouac, who was residing in that locale during that time.  He related that Kerouac himself had once met Richard Brautigan, author of “A Confederate General in Big Sur.”    He reported that Esalen, once the epicenter of New Age exploration/hedonism and located in Big Sur, is now a spa.  Was Kerouac ever a guest at Esalen?   Did (or would) it have helped him or exposed him to even more of what eventually did him in?

Press Pass LA Founder and Head of Content Jennifer Buonantony was there, along with her congenial colleague Lauren, who helps produce a lot of the text pieces derived from long interviews with worthy Hollywood denizens that run on this information-packed website that helps its visitors “get what matters.”

The mood was convivial and the culinary opportunities were plentiful, including slices of beef, delicious tamari-tasting broccoli florets, Crème Brulee, some kind of dry and crispy flatbread/cracker, the usual shrimp, and plaster serving spoons loaded with mini-crab delicacies and kernels of corn.  Truffles and high-glycemic chocolate cookies were also available during the dessert course.

Gregg Mitchell, Communications Specialist at the Writers Guild, was there “hosting the event & running around wrangling screenwriters for on-camera interviews,”  He should be commended for organizing and running a pleasant soiree featuring some of today-and-tomorrow’s most important screenwriters in a congenial setting with a commanding view of the streets below.

Compilation of Divest Harvard videos and articles on Etopia News as of October 9, 2013

Etopia News has been covering Divest Harvard since June 13, 2013, when it presented “Akhil Mathew talks about Divest Harvard,” at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sALL7lrTEQ

This was followed up with a multi-campus panel discussion of university divestment entitled, “Talking Divestment Blues: UC Berkeley, Princeton, Brown, Harvard,” which first aired on June 24, 2013, at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LTvXPD8pno

Prior to the September 16, 2013 alumni rally for divestment in Harvard Yard, Etopia News featured a “Harvard Alumni for Divestment 9-16-13 Rally Preview” on September 11, 2013, at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB5BHjZ_DM0

Following this event, Etopia News convened a panel of Harvard Divest activists on October 7, 2013, to talk about it and about the path forward for the campaign, entitled “Update on Divest Harvard, October 7, 2013, at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KQ_GZcgDFg