About our bloggers
Michael D. Berman
“The last man nearly ruined this place, he didn’t know what to do with it.
If you think this country’s bad off now, just wait till I get through with it!”
–His Excellency Rufus T. Firefly
Michael D. Berman is a writer based in the godless den of iniquity known as Los Angeles, though his heart remains in our nation’s capital of untrammeled depravity, New York. He counts the Founding Fathers, the Allies in “The Great Escape”, and the 2001 New York Yankees among his heroes. His turn-ons are freedom at any cost, justice for all, the pursuit of happiness, and long walks in the rain. His turn-offs are hypocrisy, threats to our American way of life, secondhand smoke, and rude people.
So-called charitable organizations upon which Michael casts a wary eye include:
People For The American Way — Their American way is not America’s American way. Would YOU trust a group founded by the man who created “Meathead“? Didn’t think so.
Doctors Without Borders — Sounds like socialized medicine … with real socialists … who are foreigners!
Yale University — Though Yale blessed us with Mr. Burns, this bastion of Ivy League elitism also educated the Clintons. It must be stopped.
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) — With everyone protecting the environment from us, who’ll protect us from the environment? Al Gore? Didn’t think so.
Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence — If we don’t have guns, how will we defend ourselves against hurricanes and floods? (See NRDC)
- View all TakePart blogs by Michael
Wendy Cohen is the Managing Editor of the TakePart.com blog. After a thrilling 4 years in New York she moved to the westcoast to join the Participant Media family. Wendy was previously the Community Manager at the Huffington Post and programmer of the Media That Matters Film festival. She is the founder and National Director of Screening Liberally and produced her first film last year, called Every Third Bite. Wendy is very afraid of earthquakes, knows all the words to Grease 2 (don’t judge), always has a month old New Yorker in her bag and loves pluots.
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Blair Golson is a web producer at Participant Media, the production company whose digital division publishes this blog. Blair was previously the managing editor of Truthdig.com, the progressive news magazine that won two 2007 Webby Awards for “Best Political Blog.” Earlier, Blair was a reporter for the New York Observer, where he chronicled the re-birth of the World Trade Center, among other topics. Blair is vice president of the Yale Club of Southern California, for which he runs volunteer programs; he also hosts a Meet-up in Los Angeles for people interested in using the Internet for social good. Blair lives, surfs and plays volley ball in Venice Beach and is an avid devotee of Burning Man.
- View all TakePart blogs: by Blair
Nicole Hughes is a writer and researcher living in New York City. She founded Plastic Sugar Press in 2004, an independent publishing house specializing in political non-fiction, but eventually gave up a noble, yet impoverished career as an independent publisher to study Middle Eastern development politics. She has traveled extensively throughout the region, and has written about various area issues including post-conflict reconstruction in Lebanon and state/market transformation in the UAE. She will begin a doctoral program in political science this fall. In her semioccasional spare time, Nicole enjoys reading, running, and going on culinary expeditions in the outer boroughs.
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Andy Kondrat lives in Chicago where he goes to grad school full-time, because work was never really his thing. He plans on being done with grad school in about ten years, at which point he’s going to try and swing going back to being an undergrad and start the whole process all over again.
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Jon Popham is a writer, filmmaker & web developer living in New York city. After graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Film & Television program, he directed, co-wrote and co-produced an independent feature film about graffiti artists in his hometown of Baltimore, MD. He is currently in development on a documentary about discriminatory housing practices in Baltimore. Jon is an avid cyclist, an art enthusiast and enjoys trips to the Yucatan peninsula to explore reals of ancient Mayan cities and modern Mexican cuisine.
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Gina Telaroli is a filmmaker and cinephile residing in Brooklyn, NY. Like her favorite filmmaker, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, she believes that “The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo.” She is also a member of the Meerkat Media Arts Collective, a collaborative arts group whose feature documentary, “Stages” recently played at a special DocuClub screening at Silverdocs. When she isn’t making movies, Gina is most often found teaching the wonders of video or wandering in and out of New York movie theaters. She openly loves Francois Truffaut and detests Quentin Tarantino.
- View all TakePart blogs: by Gina
- Other projects include : Project Film School - Gina, AKA the Graduate Secretary - Day for Night
