When Shaun Franks was arrested for protesting student loan debt in Washington, D.C., over spring break, he never imagined his own university would consider imposing additional punishments on him.

Franks, 26, was arrested for sitting on private property at the office of Sallie Mae, a private corporation that provides student loans.

The protest had been organized by the U.S. Student Association, a national student group known for political activism.

Franks was one of two Southern Oregon University students arrested, and one of nine who participated during the 300-person protest.

The Ashland Independent Film Festival tonight announced the 2012 juried and audience award winning films at a gala Awards Celebration at the Historic Ashland Armory. Eleven awards were presented to attending filmmakers, honoring their work screened at the 11th annual festival.

The 2012 AIFF Artistic Achievement Award was presented to Julie Taymor at the Awards Celebration, in recognition of her groundbreaking achievements in independent film, which AIFF Executive Producer, Anne Ashbey Pierotti, likened to "a delicious, and surprising, and deeply satisfying meal that makes you want to stay at the table all night." In her acceptance speech, Taymor emphasized the importance of the film festival experience in providing venues for live audience-filmmaker interactions. The AIFF presented "Essential Transformation: In Conversation with Julie Taymor," an on-screen interview conducted by Oregon Shakespeare Artistic Director Bill Rauch, and featured sold out screenings of Taymor’s films "Across the Universe" and "The Tempest."

"The accurate content of the message for the Maya Prophecy for our times is that the date of December 21, 2012 is nothing more than a general marker, a specific date that infact indicates a whole era, an era of hope, an era of opportunity - the opportunity to re-establish a sense of community amongst all humans of this planet..." -From The Maya Taino Prophecy Initiative, led by Maya Elder Antonio Aj Ik and Taino Elder Miguel Sague - www.mayatainoprophecy.webs.com

December 21, 2012 marks the Shifting of World Ages, a return to zero point, where we officially transition from the current 5,125 year World Age Cycle, and enter into a New World Cycle; marking a new level of our unfoldment as a planetary collective; a new level of our human evolution in concert with our living Universe.

The proposed Mount Ashland Association ski area expansion is a corporate snow job, blowing a bitter wind in August; and the public has been given neither good science or any real supporting evidence to justify what is transpiring under our noses; nor even the real reasons why the ski area wants to expand into a pristine roadless area when there are five other documented MAA expansion plans that would cause little or no impact to the last and largest wilderness area of its kind in the Eastern Siskiyou Mountains.