User:Kathi L. Berke

The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.

I hold an honors B.A. in English from S.U.N.Y. at Purchase College. It was a young school and I was a member of the first graduating class. It was innovative in its curriculum; subjects in freshman year were organized around "Truth" (lots of Immanuel Kant) and "Human Nature" (lots of Shakespeare and Beckett). Since it also contained a film school, I worked on several student films as a continuity expert and actor. I learned how to put together a movie project and the intricacies of shooting a movie.

After graduating, I moved into advertising where I had such clients as Revlon ("Fire and Ice") and Campell's Soup ("Ummm Ummm Good). I felt a void there and went into grant writing for non-profit agencies, raising money for programs, services and staff.

I always wanted to write full time and get paid for it. I have been devoting more time to wriing in the past few months and managed to get an assignment covering movies for a small but influential New York City paper. I write a blog (http://whereiscassandra.blogspot.com) where I recently posted on the intricacies of subprime mortgage securitization for the lay person. I also wrote about political dirty tricks such as anonymous phone calls used against John McCain before the 2000 South Carolina primary.

I went to law school for a year and wrote about the stripping away of constitutional rights such as habeas corpus (the Great Writ) and other concerns. I am also the Communications Consultant for Target Media (http://www.targetmedia01.com) which is a boutique advertising agency specializing in comprehensive services for smaller clients.

I consider myself a Renaissance woman interested in many things from arts and culture to politics, business and the law. I can write cogently on all of them but do not want to be Jack-of-all-trades, master of none.