User:Laurele

Laurele is the nickname for Laurel Esther Rurrana Tina Kornfeld, a writer, actress, and political activist born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on July 10, 1965. She started acting in musicals as a young child and has been performing most of her life, later moving on to straight plays and films. She has starred in many horror films and is known for her trademark long reddish wavy hair and youthful "baby face."

Laurele is the oldest child of prominent parents David Kornfeld, a former Israeli diplomat and politician, and Marion Rosengarten Kornfeld, a librarian who as a teen was active in Zionist youth movements. She has two younger brothers, Marvin, born in 1969 and Michael, born in 1975.

Inheriting her parents' passion for political activism, Laurele became politically active at 17, spending years as a self-proclaimed "anti-establishment hippie" advocating for universal single payer health care, ending economic inequality, US support for a free and independent Lebanon, ending eminent domain abuse in redevelopment, sustainability and environmental issues, fighting poverty, and various other causes. As a writer, she is a frequent contributor to many newspapers' op-ed pages on various political topics. In 1988, while at Harvard University, she joined the Dukakis/Bentsen presidential campaign, and still prides herself on being a "Dukakis Democrat." She was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Borough Council in her hometown of Highland Park, NJ, in 2002 and again in 2005. While she did not win either race, the media attention her second campaign brought to the potential ousting of local businesses through the use of eminent domain eventually contributed to the demise of the town's redevelopment plan. As a result of the campaign, Laurele began a blog expressing the voice of the opposition to the local government, known as the "Blog for Highland Park."

Of Eastern European origin, she often refers with pride to her great uncle, Moshe Kornfeld, who took part in the 1917 Russian Revolution.

Laurele obtained a BA in Journalism from Douglass College at Rutgers University, an MA in Middle East Studies from Harvard University, and an MEd in English Education from Rutgers University's Graduate School of Education. In addition to acting, she works as a freelance writer. She also has extensive studio training in acting for theater and film from New York's H.B. Studio and Roger Hendricks Simon Studio. She also completed several leadership training programs including Women's Campaign School at Yale (2001), Leadership Somerset (2005), the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions (ANJEC) Inaugural Leadership Training Program (2005), the Governing Institute of New Jersey (2006),and the Rutgers Cooperative Extension Environmental Stewards Program (2007). Since 1996, she has served on various local appointed boards and commissions in Highland Park, NJ and on the state Natural Areas Council, to which she was appointed in 2006 by Governor Richard Codey.

In 2006, Laurele publicly opposed the demotion of Pluto from planet status and actively began campaigning for its reinstatement. In "Laurel's Pluto Blog" on LiveJournal and later on Blogspot and in writings published in various publications including the UK Space Conference web site and "The Asterism," the newsletter of Cranford, NJ-based Amateur Astronomers, Inc., she strongly argues in favor of Pluto's planet status and chronicles worldwide efforts to overturn the demotion by the International Astronomical Union. Laurele has done several public presentations on the subject of Pluto and planet definition, the most prominent one being at the August 2008 "Great Planet Debate" at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, MD. In addition to her membership in Amateur Astronomers, Inc., she also belongs to the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the Planetary Society.

Also in 2008, she combined her interest in theater, literature, politics, and astronomy in the writing of her first full length play, a highly controversial anti-establishment fantasy drama titled "The Passion of Pluto."

In March 2011, Laurele earned a Graduate Certificate of Science in Astronomy from Swinburne University's Astronomy Online program, based in Melbourne, Australia. Accepted into the Swinburne Astronomy Online Masters program early in 2011, she deferred her studies to write a book on the Pluto controversy, tentatively titled The Little Planet That Would Not Die: Pluto's Story. The book was previewed in the December 16, 2010 online edition of The Atlantic. A Phi Beta Kappa, she was admitted to the Golden Key International Honour Society in April 2011 for her outstanding academic performance at Swinburne.

A champion of non-conformity known for her "in your face" attitude, Laurele has lived quite an unusual life. In 1995, she was nearly trapped underground in a 30-foot pit on a spelunking trip. The near-miss, thanks to quick action by leaders of the expedition, made her a local, older version of "Baby Jessica," with well wishers sending money and gifts to help pay for medical care in the injuries she sustained in the near-disaster. During her campaigns for public office, she endured criticism from opponents who claimed she exploited the incident to collect an unknown but supposedly significant sum of money.

Laurele has made no secret of her happiness as a bachelorette, citing her love for personal freedom.

Her Pluto Blog and her many online comments defending the planetary status of Pluto have earned her the online nickname "Plutogirl." She continues to perform in musicals, films, and Renaissance Festivals. Most recently, she has publicly expressed her vehement opposition to the concept of royalty in response to what she regards as media obsession with the upcoming British wedding, adopting the "title" "Her Royal Highness Princess Plutogirl" as a gag urging everyone to take on a royal title as an egalitarian gesture rejecting monarchy worldwide.