Fighting Debt Disease: Deadline Extended for 'Keep It In Your Pants' Student Video Contest, Judges Announced

Fighting Debt Disease: Deadline Extended for 'Keep It In Your Pants' Student Video Contest, Judges Announced

WASHINGTON, March 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Five judges will review the submissions for the Web-based video contest at www.KeepItInYourPants.org that gives high school and college students a chance to win a top prize of $5,000 for creating a public service announcement about the threat that "Debt Disease" poses to American consumers.

The co-sponsors of the contest -- Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the League of Young Voters (LYV) -- also extended by one week the submission deadline for the contest, initially announced on February 6, 2008. In order to accommodate students over spring break, the "Keep It In Your Pants" deadline has been extended from March 12, 2008 to March 19, 2008.

Two filmmakers -- Ian Inaba and Amos Poe -- and comedian/writer Billy Kimball will serve as the judges for the SEIU/LYV contest. They will be joined on the five-reviewer by William Upski Wimsatt, director of the League of Young Voters, and the Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., president of the Hip Hop Caucus.

The first-place winner of the "Keep It In Your Pants" contest -- which is open to students 14 years of age and older enrolled in middle school, junior high, high school, college, or graduate school -- will receive a $5,000 scholarship for school-related expenses. Semi-finalists will be announced on April 2, 2008 and the winner will be announced at a red-carpet event the week of April 23, 2008. Complete rules are available at www.KeepItInYourPants.org/Rules.cfm.

With the biggest banks in the United States -- including the nation's largest bank by deposits, Bank of America -- increasingly marketing credit cards to college students in particular, the "Keep It In Your Pants" contest is designed to focus attention on the growing problem of "Debt Disease" among young Americans.

"Credit card debt can ruin your life, spreading and growing like a disease," said Stephen Lerner, SEIU Assistant to the President and Director of the Private Equity Project. "We're warning young people of the dangers of 'Debt Disease' -- and urging them to protect themselves the same way they would against any other dangerous and contagious social epidemic."

ABOUT THE JUDGES

William Upski Wimsatt is director of The League of Young Voters, which supports young people to be players and winners in the political game nationwide through organizing, developing leaders, running issue campaigns, and winning elections (www.theleague.com). LYV focuses its efforts in four states: Pennsylvania, Maine, Wisconsin and California, with its tools also available nationally. Originally a graffiti writer from Chicago turned journalist turned political organizer, Wimstaff has written, edited or published five books: Bomb the Suburbs (1994); No More Prisons (1999); Another World is Possible (2001); Future 500: Youth Organizing and Activism in the US (2002); and How to Get Stupid White Men Out Of Office (2004).

Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., is president of the Hip Hop Caucus in Washington, D.C. The Hip Hop Caucus is a national, nonprofit, nonpartisan, organization that inspires and motivates those born after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and encourages the Hip Hop generation to utilize its political and social voice. Rev. Yearwood is known for his activist work as the National Director of the Gulf Coast Renewal Campaign, the co-creator of the 2004 campaign "Vote or Die" with Sean "Diddy" Combs, and recently led a "Make Hip Hop Not War" national tour to engage more young people in the movement for peace. Rev. Yearwood has appeared on CNN, BET Tonight, MTV, BBC, C-Span, and Hardball with Chris Mathews and has been featured in the Washington Post, the New York Times and VIBE.

Ian Inaba is an American film and music video director, producer, and journalist for the Guerrilla News Network (GNN). Inaba directed the music videos for "Mosh" by Eminem and "Time and Time Again" by Chronic Future. He also directed the original version of the music video for the Nine Inch Nails song "The Hand that Feeds." Inaba contributed to GNN's book about black box voting, "True Lies." He recently completed a feature length documentary film about voting irregularities in the 2000 and 2004 U.S. elections entitled "American Blackout." The film, released August 2006, received a Special Jury Prize at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. He was also one of the creators of Video the Vote in 2006.

Amos Poe is a New York City filmmaker. His film "The Blank Generation" (1976), co-directed with Ivan Kral, is one of the earliest punk films. The film featured performances by Richard Hell, Talking Heads, Television, Patti Smith and Wayne County. He is also associated with the birth of No Wave Cinema due to films such as "The Foreigner" (1978), featuring Debbie Harry and Anya Philips, and "Subway Riders" (1981), starring Lydia Lunch. During this time, he was also the director of the cable access show TV Party hosted by Glenn O'Brien and Chris Stein. Most recently he has been affiliated with the new movement of Remodernist Film.

Billy Kimball is a writer and producer for film, radio, and television. He has written for "Seinfeld," "LateLine," "Saturday Night Live," and "The Simpsons," and served as the executive producer of "The Late Late Show" on CBS and "The Al Franken Show" for Air America Radio and the Sundance Channel. He has been the writer and a producer of the Independent Spirit Awards, the annual awards ceremony for independent film, since 2002. In 1994, he lived and worked in Kiev, Ukraine for a year as a senior manager with a market reform project under the auspices of the United States Agency for International Development.

BACKGROUND ON DEBT DISEASE

With Americans holding nearly one trillion dollars in credit card debt nationally, "Debt Disease" is a growing issue among college-age individuals in particular. Some of the biggest banks in the country employ troubling practices that contribute to Americans -- including students -- going deeper and deeper into debt. KeepItInYourPants.org explains what "Debt Disease" is, how it can be caught, and how to avoid it, providing statistics including:

-- The average American carries as many as nine different credit cards.

-- College students are one of the credit card industry's fastest-growing markets. It is estimated that 78% of college students have at least one credit card.

-- The biggest banks already control the majority of the credit cards issued in the United States, and Bank of America controls 1 in 5 credit cards and 1/5 of the credit card debt in the country.

-- 82% of Americans believe household debt is a serious problem and the general public is more concerned about falling into debt than about being the victim of a terrorist attack or a natural disaster.

To draw parallels between "Debt Disease" and other social epidemics, the Web site points would-be contributors to examples of current and past videos, including venereal disease-related educational films from the 1940s-1970s.

ABOUT SEIU

With 1.9 million members, the Service Employees International Union is the fastest-growing labor union in North America. Together with consumer advocacy organizations and elected and community leaders around the country, SEIU is leading efforts to hold the nation's largest banks accountable to working families and our communities.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For more information about SEIU and bank-related abuses
against working families and other consumers, please visit
www.bigbadbanks.org.
First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

Source: Service Employees International Union, Washington, D.C.

CONTACT: Lynda Tran of SEIU, +1-202-907-1172, Lynda.Tran@seiu.org

Web Site: http://www.bigbadbanks.org/
http://www.theleague.com/
http;//www.KeepItInYourPants.org

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Profile: International Entertainment