Election 2008 and the Media
Pulling from the bottom of the deck? Playing the race card?
When Obama said, “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.” he was right.
Who knows how many voters will not vote for Obama simply because he is a black man? It is not a white working class issue, but is an issue for many that cuts across the entire spectrum of white people in America-working class, middle class, rich. There are a lot of visceral things that define how we vote. We don't determine our votes entirely on the outcome of long, intellectual deliberations of the issues. One would hope that is part of it, but that is not what motivates many people when they pull that lever or push that button or punch that chad or write in that name on the first Tuesday in November.
The creative campaign war team around Senator McCain are the same people, or mindset, who during the 1988 presidential campaign played the “race card” by using William Horton to help George Bush defeat Michael Dukakis and who brainstormed into being the sultry white women asking Harold Ford to “call me” in Tennessee. All of this is playing on the innate racist fears of America. Tapping into the worst within us. They are the ones who cleverly rode the swift boat to sink Kerry and are now attempt to smear Obama with being the mindless pin up dreams of Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton.
This is going to be very ugly. Now, politics in America has always been ugly. It was historically contained and restrained by a media that was limited to print and partisan print, at that, read by a chosen few. Now the complexity of modern technology means constant accessibility every vantage point.
Unfortunately, whether you believe the media to have a liberal or conservative or just a corporate bias, it is mostly mindless bland blather despite all its immediacy and visual bells and whistles.
Obama is treading lightly, fearing to touch on race but you know his Republican opposition will keep bating him with it, subtlety and overtly, throwing it America’s face.
The network media will soundbite for all its worth into the shallowest part of our consciousness touching our deepest fears without any substantive conversation to jar us into thinking.
Twenty four hour news stations and all we get are drivel and sound bites.
Just look at this week. It seems as though major TV media and some print are working to trivialize this campaign and especially Obama’s message.
Now, let me clear, as I will post in my coming blogs, there is a lot about Obama’s platform and ideas that bother me, stuff I don't think he has thought through enough. I am not talking about critique of substance but a trivialization of ideas and the very future of America.
Obama came out with a major statement energy policy this week. It was well thought out, and one may have serious disagreements with it (as I did).
None and I mean none of the major TV media used this an opportunity to set up Obama’s vision of ending oil use in our lifetime versus McCain’s vision of more oil exploration and nuclear power. They could have produced a stunning debate on one of the most important issues of our time. It could have been visually and intellectually compelling. Where was it? Not there.
Instead, they trivialized Obama with NBC News anchor Brian Williams devoting 30 seconds to theses critical energy speeches. All Williams had to say was, with no details or analysis mind you, was some quip Obama was “refining” his energy plan. The other media didn't do much more with perhaps even less substance.
The McCain love fest is back, the media has grown tired of its new love interest, Obama, the uniqueness of the color of his skin fading in the dullness of their mindless coverage.
We face a critical juncture in our energy future, in the war in Iraq and our foreign policy, in issues of torture and our conduct internationally, our economy fraying at its carbonized edges with auto and airlines teetering on verge of collapse and own infrastructure bankrupting cities. All we get is Brian Williams and Katie Couric their ratings and their banality.
Sorry folks, had to vent .. it was driving me nuts.
What do you think?
-Marc
"Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart.
In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized."
Wow, I just read it and sat there stunned for a minute. Then I woke up,
and wondered what I was so shocked about.
Here we have Wal-Mart, a store, that despite its new green image and it’s pronouncements about the Green economy with SEIU boss, Andy Stern, has a history of abusing its employees, paying low wages and few benefits.
Wal-Mart says they are not telling any employees how to vote or who to campaign for. Right, I am working the cash register at Wal-Mart wearing a big Obama button. Oops, is that a pink slip floating after me?! Who’s to know, who’s to protect my rights. Oh yes, that would be Papa Walton.
Let me be clear about my past. I have been a member of union. I have
been a union organizer. I am one of those who believe that if had not been for unions we would have had no middle class in the numbers that we have in America. They fought to ensure that their working class members had a decent life.
Now, unions have become increasingly irrelevant to life in America. Partially of their own making by becoming lethargic corporate giants themselves. Union leaders got too far away from their own members forgetting what it means to work hard to pay your bills and take care of your families. They stopped organizing. Yes, unions were victims of this economy and of the erosion of the industrial base of America. But they have done little to fight it, to change with the times, to organize new workers, to speak up for the unorganized and to enter the 21st century. They became lethargic dinosaurs.
They became easy targets for onerous laws to destroy or curtail or cripple their power to organize. Unions became the media demon and the business
the clean good guys in white shirts that knew how to run a nation.
Unions are only here because so many employees get screwed. It is
interesting I can think of five friends who own companies that don’t have unions. Their workers don’t want or need them. These owners run the gamut from libertarian to progressive to conservative to liberal. They don’t have unions because they treat their employees right. They offer health care, take care of people, worry about their families and take human beings into consideration. They are small companies, too, from 50 to 200 employees. They do it right.
If business leaders don’t want unions, then treat people right. Meanwhile,
America’s laws should be union friendly. Unions need to be protected while organizing and have the freedom to do so. The Employee Free Choice Act that Wal-Mart and others are so worried about is the least our government can do to protect an employee's right to organize and better their lives.
Senators McCain and Obama, what say ye? We are waiting here.
We're pleased to bring you a special guest blog today by CEM contributor Lea Gilmore.
When 10
Psst! Looking for Marc's blog post on legalizing marijuana? Click here to read it! We sent the wrong link in the last email! Sorry!
Yesterday's Sun carried a story about Mayor Sheila Dixon's desire to
reclaim control of Baltimore City Schools. She was always troubled
by the state takeover, as were many of us. She is being encouraged by all the other Mayors who have taken control of their city's schools.
I remember when State Superintendent Dr. Nancy Grasmick made her move
to control the management of city schools. We aired a number of
conversations in this debate. I was very doubtful then of the logic
of the move. More importantly the state's bureaucracy was no more
nimble or creative in its work, or willing to take the risks necessary
to change the city schools than the city school's entrenched
Paleolithic-minded bureaucracy.
It was not until the Baltimore City Board of Education's leadership
and direction changed that things began to move. More importantly it
was not until parents, students and teachers started to demand charter
schools that any movement took place. Ultimately, it was when Dr.
Andres Alonso arrived that our city schools began to make the
radical leaps needed to shake the lethargy out of aging special
interests. Now our schools have begun to blossom. Students,
parents, teachers and principals are beginning to be heard, held
accountable and be made part of running our schools.
The Board and the new CEO and our schools seem to be operating almost
independently of the state or the city. Things are changing. The
state needs to get out of the way. The city should not get in the
way. Maybe an entirely new partnership has to be created between the
city and our schools. Perhaps we have not invented the next step, yet.
The Mayor and the School CEO need some quiet time together to think
this through. City officials, the CEO, the school board, parents,
teachers, students, and our business and philanthropic leaders need to
spend some time thinking calmly and clearly about the future.
There is no going back to old paradigms and designs. There is no
handing pack power to old models of control and management. We need
to be moving forward to new ideas, not stuck in 20th century power
politics playing with the lives of our children.
We have a unique opportunity here. Let's build it not blow it.
A look at the practice of using tax credits to lure film industries to locate their productions in Maryland.
Federal Hillywood?
That was some game last night at Camden Yards. Hard fought between the Toronto Blue Jays and the O’s. The crowd was on its feet, people did the wave over and over. It was the bottom of the 9th, 2 outs, bases loaded, men walked standing on base, full count three and two, just two runs away from winning the night that was a see saw battle. People were chanting go O’s … then the pop fly … out … it was over. Three men left standing. Oh well, it was beautiful night in our lovely Camden Yards. We had great seats, six of them right down by third base. I bought ‘em at silent auction for Young Audiences, it was a steal. Well, it was a contribution.
But I looked around and the stadium was empty. I was shocked at how empty the place was. It struck me that the more expensive the seats, the more people were in them . The bleachers, such as they are in Camden Yards (I mean by that they are still pricey but there is not a bad view in the house) were the most empty.
The price of a ticket to a game and the cost of having a beer or a soda and some food is astronomical. My daughter Maisie and our friends’ daughter Jahia went down for some food. I bought a beer, two waters, a crab cake, shrimp and box of popcorn. It cost almost fifty bucks. It could have been a $200 night.
No wonder it was empty. The economy is sinking, people are stretched paying for gas, groceries and the essentials. Who can afford baseball or football? To watch on TV you got have cable and that ain’t free either.
The time when you could turn on local TV and watch a game, or go to a game with your family of four or five, buy some food and drink, and have money left over, is gone, long gone.
I sat having another beer, eating some peanuts with our friend Sherrilyn and my lady, Valerie. I remarked how long the game was taking. There used to be just a seventh inning stretch. Now everyone was stretching between every inning. What was that? Well, that was the big screen entertaining while baseball and television made their multi-millions selling advertising on television between each inning. So, a long game is even longer. Have another beer!
With all that money flowing and public money to build private stadiums, why is this simple entertainment costing us so much? It's more than just the huge salaries.
Maybe the owners should open up the park sometimes for less money. Go out to the middle class neighborhoods, the Latino community and inner city. Put some baseball back in the lives of people . Build tomorrow’s lovers of the game.
When the game was accessible on the tube, in your home, it belonged to everyone. I saw a man walking down to his seat with his son. He had on an Orioles jersey with the number 34 on it and the name Hagy above it. Remember him? Wild Bill Hagy, the
He died not long ago. An era went with him.
It was still a great game, though. Great baseball being played. We had a blast. The girls holding up their home made Go O’s signs in orange and black trying fruitlessly to get the camera to see them so the world in Camden would see them waving on the big screen...it was fun.
Beautiful, beautiful stadium, great weather, good friends, good night …
But it ain’t the people’s game no more.
That infamous cover
Today I received a flurry of e-mails about the controversy that surrounded last week’s cover of The New Yorker depicting Barack Obama as a muslim in the White House with a picture of Osama bin Laden over the mantle with the American flag burning in the hearth. He is shown fist bumping with Michelle Obama who is sporting an Afro, ala 1960’s revolutionary Angela Davis, with an AK-47 slung over her back, camoflauge pants, and combat boots.
My initial response was to laugh at the satirical absurdity of the cartoon. Ah yes, all of us sophisticated readers of The New Yorker. I am one, I love the magazine. I always find one or two or three articles I can’t wait to read. We are all so erudite, that is why we know how to laugh at the cartoon on the cover, when others do not. (You're detecting my facetious tone I hope.)
But then I stopped a minute. I began thinking about how that cover plays into the hands of racists and those who deeply believe that this cover represents reality. I heard this morning of one blogger who has used this cover in an animated gif. First you see the cover, then a message that reads “Why take the risk? McCain 2008.” The alleged and purported sophistication of many New Yorker readers not withstanding,(and I run the risk of angering some people here) some liberals often lack judgment that may be inspired by a racism that they would deny, or perhaps are not aware even exists within their consciousness. It runs deep in America. Or maybe it is just real satire that New Yorkers and other cosmopolitans get but others don’t. Maybe it is all the above.
I oppose censoring any kind of speech no matter how hateful, racist, sexist, anti Semitic or insulting to any group it might be. I have a deep American rooted libertarian strain in me that chafes at any rules governing an individuals rights to say what he or she believes whether spoken in truth or satire.
Many people coming from minority cultures in America are often accused of being overly sensitive to what can be perceived as hatred, blatant or latent. I am one of those. I feel the anti-semitic and racial stings deeply. When I read Tim Wise’s critique of that cover cartoon, I found his comments to be at the very least latently or subtly anti-Semitic, though there was truth in his argument that the media is loathe to satirize Jews but are willing to do it to Blacks. And of course, we are all willing to satirize images of poor whites.
The New Yorker’s article became just another distraction in what needs to be a real conversation about this race. It even distracted from the interesting article in that issue about Obama’s Chicago political roots by Ryan Lizza. The story gave us new insight into how Obama got his political roots, lending to speculation about what kind of President he would make.
If I was editor of the New Yorker, I would have said no to the cover but maybe yes to it on the inside of the magazine as an illustration to create a discussion. Satire should attract intense debate not distract us from debate.
What did you think?
-Marc
P.S. Some cartoonists have made their own versions of this cover, swapping John and Cindy out for Michelle and Obama. What do you think?
Another 100 layoffs with 60 from the newsroom. Our once vaunted paper is being decimated. Owner Zell already informed employees, the reporters and journalists that they were expendable and costly. He instituted a mathematical analysis of how many lines a reporter wrote to determine worth and wondered aloud why it takes 5 or 6 or 9 journalists to turn in one story on Iraq. It has all become bottom line and profit. Sure a business has to make money for reinvestment but news should not be entered into to make a financial killing. Maybe all papers should be non-profit, or maybe owners need to be satisfied with a smaller profit margin.
Who do we turn to understand, get stories and analysis from and of the daily news in our city, state, nation and world? Fox? Tabloids? Blogs? A democracy needs a free press that functions.
There was a time, when I was a kid, that the Sun was read every day in the White House. Now it is fast becoming fodder for the parakeet cage.
The writers and reporters at the Sun are some of the best in their world. I admire and feel their frustration at not being able to work their craft. We all deserve better.
Maybe there is an opportunity to create something new with all that talent now on the loose looking for work.
An interview with textile artist Sonya Clark, whose exhibit at the Walters Art Museum shows sculptures made of human hair.
In her latest commentary for CEM's website, former Assistant State's Attorney Page Croyder takes a look at the judicial system. In particular, she examines Judge Nathaniel Braverman and argues that he is one of the answers to the question, "Why can’t Baltimore keep its violent criminals off the street?"
Keswick
When I got back from Cape Hatteras last week, I was driving down Roland Avenue and saw all these signs saying “Stop Keswick.” I thought maybe all the retirees and senior citizens who live at Keswick Multi-Care Center had run amuck in the streets or became merry senior pranksters.
Money and Political Power
The Baltimore Sun came out with a story this morning about the Mayor’s former boyfriend, Ronald Lipscomb, being part of a deal that won a lucrative contract even though another firm was given a higher rating, from the city’s housing commissioner, to receive the contract (read that article by clicking here).
I wish I had a dollar for every time we have reported or had discussions on a government contract going to "favored sons" instead of a seemingly more qualified group. I don’t think Mayor Dixon’s relationship with Lipscomb had anything to do with who was awarded this contract. The Sun raises a non-issue here, connecting dots that do not meet.
The real story is the cozy relationship between developers and local politicians. The real story is the inside track conversations that take place between the financially powerful and politically powerful over a drink, on the phone, during dinner or at some high priced ticket event.
It is almost impossible to keep money out of politics. All we can do is pass laws and have rules of ethics that elected and appointed officials of government must follow. We must have watchdog agencies that do not allow the wheels of power to be greased so they speed passed us unseen.
It appears that Mayor Dixon did not follow the rules. Successful politicians and their powerful friends get over on us all because they follow the disclosure rules. Then they go about making their millions perfectly legally (or at least getting away with it because they follow the modicum of procedural rule) though unethically.
Mayor Dixon and Senator Ulysses S. Currie (get up to speed on that story here) appear to not have made full legal disclosure of their contracts and contacts. They did not recuse themselves or make their relationships known before voting on contracts involving friends, clients or families.
Speaking of power and money...
Many of Senator Barack Obama's supporters and others who want to and may very well vote for him were very disappointed when he did not accept public financing of his campaign. I must admit that I was shocked at how he went about this decision.
I was surprised that he, and his advisers, did not enter into serious discussion and negotiations with the McCain campaign to come to an agreement on public financing. If he had entered into those talks they may have come out with a plan that would have worked. Of course negotiations might have fallen apart. If the latter happened then they could have announced no public financing. Instead, they did not even try. He made great statements about public financing before he became the front runner and then presumptive nominee.
Given the legal lay of the land he could have accepted public financing as a show of integrity and still counted on hundreds of millions of dollars not covered by the public finance laws. Congressional and Senatorial campaign committees, independent 509 committees and other groups could have raised all the money they need to support anyone’s candidacy.
We should not be surprised. In politics, money seems to be the most powerful medium for alleged free speech.
Many are upset at what appear to be Obama’s moving to the center and changing positions, but we will save that commentary for another time.
What do you think?
-Marc
Today is the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Medgar Evers. Medgar Evers was a Mississippi civil rights leader, and the head of the NAACP On this day 45 years ago, June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers was gunned down in the drive of his home, the same day that Alabama’s segregationist Governor (and later Presidential candidate) stood on the steps of Alabama’s all white university to personally block the entrance of two black students.
President Kennedy gave one of his most impassioned speeches about the moral crisis that America was facing. He sent federal marshals to ensure the safety of those children.
The man who killed Medgar Evers was a man tied to the White Citizens Council, Byron De La Beckwith. He was never convicted in two trials, by two all white juries. They were both declared mistrials. It took thirty years but De La Beckwith was finally convicted of those murders before he died.
I will never forget the photos of Medger Evers, the great civil rights warrior lying in his own blood just feet from his home.
I was thinking about how so many died to end segregation in
They are doing stories on their news about how the Republicans are going to go after Michelle Obama. The title on the screen under the story which ran on TV, that I was shown on the web, said “ Outraged Liberals: Stop picking on Obama’s Baby Mama.”
How outrageous, how disgusting, how blatantly racist. How is it that we have come this far and someone could still think this is ok?!? This is a major TV news operation, owned by Rupert Murdoch, known for its conservative slant and blatant untruths...but this reaches new heights, or should I write, new lows of despicable behavior.
This is the state of our media. This is the mindset that must be defeated. This is why we need to take back our media from corporate, uncaring bottom feeders who only think about the bottom line.
FOX News, Rupert Murdoch, you owe the Obamas, you owe your viewers, and you owe the nation an apology. Local outlets should stand up.
I am outraged.
Since we live here in Maryland, let’s call up Fox 45 to ask them if they will repudiate what their parent company has done.
Medgar Evers and Barak Obama are the bookends of our history of building an
Steve Larsen's Resignation
I am not surprised that Steve Larsen resigned as the head of the Public Service Commission. When community activists railed against him and O’Malley as sellouts to Constellation Energy, I always defended Larsen as a man of integrity and honesty. He believed in using the tools of the government to make the public sector more responsive to the citizens. He was a quiet, diligent and intelligent crusader on the inside, whether it was health insurance or regulating energy.
I think he resigned not to go back to the public sector to make more money but out of frustration. When the state reached the deal with Constellation Energy that ensured that the PSC would have no subpoena power, it took the teeth out of the PSC. Larsen would not be able to get to the bottom of any sweetheart deals between the Constellation and its subsidiary BGE to unearth whatever potentially unscrupulous deals were made to purchase energy at the consumers’ expense.
I wondered aloud how long Steve Larsen would stay after this. He was crusader for the people who had his cape destroyed. He chose to walk away rather than plummet to the ground.
Given the price of oil, the cost and real crisis we are facing with electricity generation and looming public wars over our energy future we need more caped crusaders or this secure world of ours could be in trouble. -Marc
Related blog posts:
04/09/08 Looking back at the session
03/28/08-Marc's argument against the settlement
03/03/08 Marc on what is missing in the investigation
Banning Little Cigars
What would it really accomplish to ban the sale of small cigars in the city of Baltimore? What I am writing about is the Mayor and Health Commissioner wanting to ban the sale of individual little cigars that many young inner city folks use to make into blunts. Blunts are cigars stuffed with marijuana. Many young people and young adults buy the individual cigars because they can’t afford to buy a whole pack. They come in flavors that are very enticing to some such as watermelon, sour apple, and grape. Some people just like to kick back and have a smoke to relax. Much like more well off patrons who go to cigar shops and throw big bucks for a wannabe Havana cigar. I never did like them even when I smoked though I do like a Havana a few times a year.
Let me admit, I always have an initial visceral response to the banning of most anything. Outlawing substances that people choose on their own to ingest does nothing but increase criminalization of what is otherwise activities of individual choice. Tax products, go after unscrupulous manufacturers and distributors, and find creative ways to combat it. Don't ban it.
If you ban the sale of cheap cigars by corner stores in the inner city then some enterprising young hustlers will buy them up and sell them on the street. I understand what the city is trying to accomplish, it is just the wrong way to go about it.
As some City Council representatives said to me “What do we do about the young people on the corner who terrify the older neighbors … it really is a generational thing . .lack of respect for the elders….” The response has to be much more profound than banning little cigars.
Take this to the state legislature, ban the sale of individual cigarettes state wide, tax the cigars, put warning labels on them, take on big tobacco, their Annapolis lobbyists and friends in the legislature, start an education campaign about health and smoking theses little flavored cigars. Open recreation centers, work programs for youth and hit the streets with street workers to challenge the street culture.
Banning cigars sales… a waste of time, money, energy and it is just the wrong thing to do.
-Marc
We lost a great voice on the air last weekend with the death of Jim McKay. He was a gentleman of the airwaves in radio and television. I will never forget, no one who heard it will ever forget, Jim McKay’s broadcast during the 1972 Munich Olympics when the Israeli athletes were kidnapped and murdered by Palestinian terrorists. He was off that day, but came in, and in his gentle, deeply human manner walked the world through the terror and impending tragedy of that moment.
I remember being so deeply moved by him and I remember my joyful anticipation almost exactly ten years ago, on May 29th, 1998, as I was about to interview him for the first time. He was as unassuming in person as he was humble on the air. What a lovely human being he was. We did not stay in close touch but we talked from time to time.
His life has a lot to teach us about how to behave on the air and as human beings. He was a Baltimorean and a Marylander.
He loved his family, his horse and his work. We will miss him. Our sympathies go out to all in his family.
-marc
Baltimore Polytechnic Institute is one of the best schools in the state of Maryland. It is consistently one of the best performing schools in the state with regard to standardized testing, has a list of influential and successful alumni that is both expansive and ever growing, and is often vaunted as one of the few Baltimore City Schools offering a world class education to its students. The success of the school is due, in no small part, to extremely talented and dedicated faculty that are willing to put their students first. In the recent history of Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, or Poly, there was no faculty member more talented or dedicated to his field than Dennis Jutras. Unfortunately, Dennis Jutras will be nowhere to be found when Poly students return to school in September.
Click "Read More" below for the rest of this article.
"Where were you when...?"
Resurrection City, June 1968. Photo by Ollie Atkins. See more.
I remember clearly where I was for all the horrible assassinations of the 1960's.
I remember my quiet walk with Adrienne Cooper (who later died from a back alley abortion) around Stockbridge Bowl the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination. We walked and reflected on the world we lived in light of that horrible event.
I remember two years later standing in line to view Malcolm X’s body as it lay in state in Harlem. I had taken a bus to New York as soon as I heard about the assassination.
I was living in the heart of the D.C. Ghetto, and pulling up to my apartment in my old VW bug when I heard the news on the radio that Martin Luther King had been assassinated. I was in the heart of the city, our nation’s capital, and within hours the city was burning all around me. I walked through that rebellion in the wake of his death.
When Bobby Kennedy was killed I was living in a plywood shack between the U.S .Capital and the Washington Monument with thousands of others in a place called Resurrection City.
Resurrection City was an encampment of thousands of poor people-Black, White, Puerto Rican, Mexican American and American Indian. They came from mountain hollers, the rural south, Indian reservations, small mill towns and inner cities. The Poor People’s Campaign, one of King’s last acts before he was assassinated, was an amazing movement because of its racial unity and its class-consciousness. It was led and driven by the poor themselves. They marched on D.C. from a dozen routes from across the nation. They took over the mall, built the city out of plywood. We slept there, cooked our meals there, had meetings, studied, played and created theater. This movement went beyond notions of white power or the new slogan of Black power. This was the people’s power, the power of the poor united across color lines. There were many in both Black Nationalist and white conservative movements who despised the interracial power of this movement and many wealthy supporters of civil rights were put off by the class demands of this group. I think this march may have heralded the end of the civil rights movement. Right now the mainstream media is doing story after story about the magical, mad, terrifying and glorious year of 1968-but in all that reporting, almost nothing has been said about the Poor People's Campaign. A notable exception is the public radio program Weekend America which did a great piece on Resurrection City as a part of their series This Weekend in 1968. Click here to for their interviews and multimedia slideshow.
Bobby Kennedy was one of those who supported the idea of the poor marching on the capital. His death brought a pall over our encampment. His body passed us on the way to the Rotunda. The mourning was palpable, soulful and deep among the thousands who camped on the mall that summer.
It has been forty years since a politician like that captured the imagination of America. Bobby Kennedy was loved by all the communities camped out on the mall that summer and by working and middle class people across our country. You can’t help but ponder what America might have become had he become the President of the United States.
Do we have another running now like that? Do we?
What do you think?
-Marc
The Marc Steiner Show Returns!
OK, folks we are about to launch our new show on WEAA. In the beginning we will only be on WEAA once a week, but we will be moving to a daily show in September.
For now, join me every Wednesday morning at 9 AM on 88.9, WEAA, for a live show. We will have some town meetings over the summer so you can join us live in the evening, as well.
At last, a candidate!
Tell me what your take is on the Presidential election. What do you make of Hillary Clinton's speech? If the delegate count is what it is and the voting is over then should she not concede? Should she not now unite in a way that allows the increasingly divided Democratic electorate to heal and unite?
In her defense, Senator Clinton has stated that she has won the popular vote. The issue of the popular vote is real given how cheated, dismayed and angry Democrats felt in 2000 after Al Gore won the popular vote but did not attain the presidency. However, is it right that Hillary Clinton's camp counts Florida and Michigan in vote counts when those primaries were invalid? When Senator Barack Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan?
That brings up another issue. I thought it was insane for the Democrats to disallow Florida and Michigan from participating in the primary elections. The whole primary system is ridiculous to begin with. It is an anarchic system with each state vying for supremacy of importance. Iowa and New Hampshire, whose caucus and primary did not come into importance until 1972 and 1953, respectively, are anachronisms. The entire system of primary and general elections needs to be shortened and simplified.
All that not withstanding, should Senator Hillary Clinton concede and bring her troops in for the battle for November? Or should she fight on in hopes of his stumbling bloody before the finish line?
I really want to know where you are on all of this.
More soon....
-Marc
Hello everyone,
Jessica here, happy to be back in the good old USA. Nothing like two weeks out of the country to make you appreciate home again. Even if you have a wonderful time, as I did during the past two weeks in Vietnam, it is good to come home again. But enough of that; I have so much more to tell you about my trip.
Click "Read More" below for more stories and pictures.
Hello friends,
Jessica here with an update from Vietnam.
The past few days have been among the strangest, most challenging and most wonderful of my entire life. There is no way I could even begin to do them justice in this blog post. All I can do is bring you a basic outline of what has transpired over the past few days and promise you that soon after I return home we will begin work on a documentary to bring you this amazing story.
Click "Read More" below for the story and pictures.
These are photos I took looking out across an active mountain removal site on Kayford Mountain in West Virginia. It's hard to get a feel for the size of the mining site without being there. It's even harder to imagine what it looked like in its natural state, but look at the dark green, tree-covered hills all around it to get some idea.
We'll be bringing you more about what's happening on Kayford Mountain soon, but I wanted to get these images out there right away. Larry Gibson showed us around here. He grew up on Kayford Mt. and now the land his family and others lived on for generations is being irreparably destroyed. He came with his cousin that day to mow the grass in two family cemeteries that are here. We walked past them on the way to what is now a cliff over the mining site where I stood and took these pictures. Another of their cemeteries has already been destroyed by the mining company as they've blasted the mountain apart and carted away ton after ton of coal from inside of it.
Larry told us not to waste his time. He wasn't showing us around for no reason; he wanted to make sure we were going to do something about what we saw. Larry is for abolishing the use of coal altogether, despite having family members who work in the industry and are upset by his stance. Unlike many people we spoke to who expressed support for continuing mining in a responsible, less destructive manner, Larry told us he doesn't believe it's possible to mine and use coal in a way that is not harmful.
Over and over again last week, people mentioned supporting the Clean Water Protection Act as the most important thing anyone can do right now to help bring an end to mountaintop removal. Contact your Congressmen and make sure they support it!
Please also check out our new forum on mountaintop removal, and these two blog posts from West Virginia last week - 1 & 2.
-Justin
Greetings from Pleiku
I am sitting on my bed under a mosquito net in Pleiku, Vietnam, and I finally have a few spare moments to update you on the latest adventures of your favorite globe-trotting producer. Click "Read More" below for stories and pictures.
Hello from Hanoi!
Well I see that my coworker Justin is trying to outdo me with multiple blogs from his trip to West Virginia. Since it is
only 5:30 am at home and he is sure to be asleep, I will take this opportunity to do a little reporting of my own!
Click "Read More" below for stories and pictures.
We spent our first full day in West Virginia visiting people in their homes, taping interviews. People shared incredible stories with us that we'll be bringing back. I recorded about 6 hours of audio today alone. We saw a 90 year-old woman's fingers turn black with coal dust from running them across her tv screen. Again and again, people expressed their respect for the old ways of underground mining. At the same time, they spoke with outrage about mountaintop removal and the unprecedented level of destruction coal companies have caused in this area over the past 25 years or so.
Antrim took this picture of Patty Sebok and her husband Harry "Butch" Sebok in their kitchen. Patty is a community activist who works for Coal River Mountain Watch. Butch is a union miner who worked underground for almost 30 years. He was forced to retire when a doctor told him he risked paralysis if he continued working after an injury on the job that resulted in a herniated disk.
We'll be up bright and early in the morning to tape some more interviews before heading up Kayford Mountain to see an active mountaintop removal site and meet the last man holding onto his home as the mountain is destroyed all around it. I encourage everyone to do their own research to learn more about mountaintop removal and the history of coal mining in West Virginia and beyond. Please let us know if you have any questions or thoughts to share.
-Justin
When we flip on a power switch in our homes, where does the electricity come from? How is it generated? There's a good chance it's from a coal-fired power plant. Click here for an easy way to trace your power source with nothing more than your zip code. With all the talk of developing new, sustainable energy sources, we're still relying heavily on the old standbys like oil and coal.
Last November on The Marc Steiner Show, we had a coal industry spokesperson and a group of West Virginia residents as guests on the show to discuss coal mining. The conversation centered around mountaintop removal, one of the most widespread and quickly growing methods of mining coal in use today.
We were all blown away by what we learned in the process of putting that show together, and since then we've been wondering why this issue hasn't been getting the attention it deserves. So, we decided that it's something we should keep an ongoing focus on. Look for us to have continuing coverage both on this website and on the air.
Rather than covering the issue from afar, we decided to go straight to the source. This morning, I set out for the coal fields of southern West Virginia, along with photojournalist Antrim Caskey, who's been working for the past 3 years to get people to pay attention to and do something about the environmental, including human, destruction caused by modern day coal mining practices in Appalachia. We'll be spending this week down here lining up as many people as possible to contribute first-hand coverage to CEM on an ongoing basis. We'll also be coming back with tons of new audio, photos, and video.
We're spending the night in the Coal River Valley with Debbie Jarrel and Ed Wiley. You'll hear a lot more about and from them if you stay with us here, for now check out one of the major projects they've been involved with, advocating for the safety and health of the students, teachers, and staff of Marsh Fork Elementary School. This site is full of info on that; briefly, it's a school down the road from them sitting right down the hill from a huge, leaky sludge impoundment, or what Ed describes as a 2.8 billion gallon toxic waste dump.
The picture at the top is from this afternoon, during a beautiful hike Ed took us on in the woods behind his home. The pictures below are from this evening. They're taken from the road, as we drove past an area being cleared by a coal company to put in a new beltline to transfer coal from the mining site to the processing plant.
Lou Cantori
Lou Cantori was a force to be reckoned with. We lost him this week to a heart attack at his home on Monday.Lou appeared on our show dozens of times over the last fifteen years. He was just a lovely and wonderful human being with a powerful mind.
He was every bit of the Marine sergeant that he was as a young man in the fifties. He was a patriot who continued to teach not just at his academic home, UMBC but also at our
He was that unlikely combination of a military and intelligence analyst who was a champion of social justice in
Despite all his work, his first priority was the love he had for his family. As his son Greg Cantori said to me this morning, Lou was the best father in the world. He was always there for them.
Greg also told me the story about when they lived in LA during the mid-sixties. Lou was the head of the West Side Housing Association, fighting racial discrimination in housing at a time when you were allowed to have "Whites Only" and "No Colored" signs in your advertising. The great Carroll O'Conner, Rob Reiner and others were fixtures in their home, as board members of Lou's movement. It was there that Greg first learned about fighting for social justice.
He is a beacon for all of us. He was a tough guy and gentle caring soul, he was a patriot, a progressive, a jarhead (Marine) through and through, a fighter for social justice and deeply devoted father and husband.
From the Cantori Family
Exact details on time and directions will be available soon on our memorial blog/website:
http://rememberlou.blogspot.com
Please check back soon. We will be updating and checking this site frequently.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to either of the following:
UMBC Foundation, Lou Cantori Scholarship Fund, C/O Kim Robinson
8th Floor,
Kidsave c/o Lou Cantori Memorial Fund
Lou touched many lives: personally, professionally and in his community and it's been quite a job contacting so many people. Please feel free to forward this message to others that knew Lou.
Our family would like to thank everyone who kept Lou in their thoughts during his illness.
The Cantori Family
Juvenile Justice
The Sun story on Saturday May 10, 2008 of the Juvenile Justice Center being out of control is not new news (read it here). The teachers are fearful and have had enough so they stepped up to the Governor.
Last year, we reported on the Marc Steiner Show about the potential for an explosion and the loss of control at the center. Ray Cook, who works with gangs and inner-city kids in trouble with their lives and the law, through his program On Our Shoulders, was hired by juvenile services after meeting Secretary Donald DeVore on my program earlier in 2007. Ray is one of those unique figures who can walk into a situation and can instantly demand respect and trust on the toughest corners, with young people deeply involved in Bloods, Crips, and other gangs. He is from those streets. He has hustled, led criminal operations and been jailed on those streets. He turned his life around. Now, he’s obsessed with saving the children of our city. He is a father figure to kids around Edmondson Avenue and now down in Cherry Hill. At any rate, Ray took a job with DJS because he thought he could make a difference. Secretary Donald Devore, who I truly believe wants to and is trying to change the system, hired him because he knew Ray could make a difference. Ray, and another man he brought in to the Juvenile Detention, Dante Wilson, who runs Reclaiming Our Children, (ROCAP,) had the hardest cases in that joint listening, weeping and talking and on the move, the slow grueling move, to come face to face with their emotions and turn their lives around. Ray and I spoke everyday that he worked at the detention center. It was tearing him up inside. He kept saying to me “Man, it is out of control. They won’t listen (talking about the bureaucrats.) It is off the hook.” He quit in frustration.
Ray Cook is not a company man but an effective man who knows how to move children who are deeply damaged by the streets and poverty, in a way most with all the graduate degrees in the world cannot. This is not to disparage all the teachers, social workers, counselors, and therapists working with our kids who have been busted, detained, arrested, and jailed. It is a process where all parties and skills are needed to work together to salvage our collective future. It is to say, this is not new news. They would not listen to Ray and the others.
The solutions are right in front of us. Maybe the Juvenile Justice system ought to turn the school and therapeutic sections of that institution over to men and women who can run it successfully. Bring in an independent non-profit designed to do the job right. Give them the independence and power to do it right. Hire people who come from the streets themselves, who have track records of successfully working with children in trouble. Don’t be afraid to hire ex-cons and others who can make a difference. Maybe the state should think twice before building more maximum-security juvenile institutions. Maybe we should start investing in community programs, halfway houses and community corrections facilities instead of prisons. Maybe we should put money into recreation centers and after school programs, turning our neighborhood schools into community schools that operate 24/7. Maybe we should invest the resources we have now in new directions. Maybe spend a little more in the right and most effective places. Maybe the state government and bureaucrats should start listening to and heading the advice of the Ray Cooks of our world.
Then maybe we can start to turn this thing around.
-Marc
VIOLENCE AND OUR SCHOOLS
On May 19th, from 6 to 8 PM, I will be hosting a special two-hour, live call-in with Baltimore Schools CEO Dr. Andres Alonso on WEAA, 88.9 FM, your community radio station.
One of the issues we will talk about is violence in our schools. In many city schools, it is palpable when you walk through their halls or when you talk to students and teachers who are in them every day.
It is fine to give more control to individual principals and schools, but there needs to be a system-wide policy to address what is in their control to address. Violence cannot be tolerated. Students who attack teachers and other students have to be dealt with firmly. Students have to know the limitations. The response can be therapeutic and healing, but it must be swift and with consequences.
Then you can talk about what individual schools can do.
So, please, join us on the 19th; it will be great being back on the air with you and taking your calls.
THAT RADIO STATION WHERE WE USED TO BE
So, I wandered over to the WYPR website yesterday. Don’t do that often. Actually, this may the second or third time I have done it since they kicked us off the air. I thought I would take a gander to see what was going on.
The Board of Directors meeting scheduled for May 20th at the Learning Tree has been turned into an internet meeting to be streamed live. Apparently, so many folks still outraged by the senseless cancellation of our show called in to say they were coming to attend the meeting. So, the folks at the top at the station said we could be in compliance with Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) open meeting rules by streaming it on the web.
It is amazing they really have no respect for the people of this community or their station’s listeners and members. It is outrageous and very telling when the leaders of that station are afraid to face and listen to their listeners.
For a while a few years ago, I was excited by how much underwriting was being brought into the station. It was to be a model for the nation’s public radio stations on how to address the dwindling federal support for public broadcasting. Then I realized that while underwriting grew, funds for expanding and building membership were being eviscerated at the station. Underwriting accounted for over 53% of funds and membership was down to the thirties. Underwriting by large corporations has steadily grown at WYPR since the station's founding. The influence that the corporate money buys is significant, but that is clearly to the liking of the management.
I now realize that this is not the salvation of public radio, but the bells chiming that could be its death knell. Public broadcasting is supposed to be adventuresome, where opinions outside the mainstream are heard and given voice, where creative experimentation is unleashed, where members and listeners actually participate.
We are losing control of our public airwaves and we must demand them back.
THE LIGHT RAIL
I was reading in the Sun about the MTA light rail dilemma, which got me thinking about mass transit. So, more people seem to be using light rail because of high gas prices. That is a wonderful thing. Most seem to believe we can’t get people out their cars into public transit. Well, I think over the long run we can. Keep gas prices high, stop building new developments, squeeze the auto industry to make hybrid/electric/hydrogen vehicles, and for god's sake put money into mass transit and stop building so many bloody highways. Life can change. It takes, it takes patience …… it takes money.
In the meantime, MTA has to get its act together. The state should take some of that highway money (those highway contractors and developers are powerful lobbies in Annapolis) and put it into MTA and the MARC to buy more cars, high speed (give them a lane) hybrid alternative diesel busses, and more maintenance workers and inspectors. In the long, they should build more rail (so MARC runs faster and the Light Rail has at least two tracks with more routes.)
That is the answer. Short term - buy more cars and busses. Long term - give us more rail.
It can be done. Am I nuts? What do you think?
DEMOCRACTIC PRESIDENTIAL RACE
The common wisdom has been, and primary election vote analyses tell us, that higher income people with more education, African-Americans, and younger voters are voting for Obama and that older voters, white women, Latinos, to a degree, and working people with less education are going with Clinton. No matter what happens, a portion of the Hillary voters will never vote for a Black man and a portion of the Barack voters will never vote for Hillary or a woman. The majority of primary voters, many of them new or voting for the first time in many years, could be Democratic voters in the fall.
It means that the two candidates have to come together and convince their supporters to support a new tomorrow together or they may once again lose despite Americans' frustrations and anger over the state of the economy and the war in Iraq.
They have to ignore the demagogic demons of cable talk TV, these so-called pundits with nothing to say but divisive viscera of mistrust and hate. Democrats have to stop talking about Reverend Wright, ignore and rise above the media’s obsession with their “bittergate" and dividing people with emotionally charged rhetoric over race and class. Sure, race and class are at the core of our fears, our mistrust, and the most horrendous parts of our history.
They have to speak forcefully, passionately, persuasively and intelligently about those things that concern Americans. You have to speak to people’s hopes and fears about the future. There is no reason why the wealthiest nation on the planet cannot guarantee a decent income, health care, and schools that we want our children to go to. Someone has to make sense of immigration and our relationship to the world economy honestly and clearly. People will hear it. Americans want us out of Iraq; we did not want to be there in the first place. Now it has to be clear that the Republican mess has to be cleared up, and it won’t be easy. Say it clearly; it will be heard. Most Americans want large corporations and the financial investment industry to be regulated and allow small business to flourish. People want immediate help and a vision for the future. Most folks don’t mind paying if they know where they are going. That is as long as the paying for is equitable where the wealthiest and the major corporations are carrying their weight and then some.
Talk about those issues and bring our future into the clear light of day and most Americans will go..."Reverend WHO?”
The Republicans have their vision and their candidate(s). The Democrats better see to theirs unless they want to sit by the gates of the White House panting like a thirsty dog for the next four years.
ABOUT TOWN
So, one of my favorite spots to eat near our new Hampden office is Soup's On, located on 36th Street in Hampden. They're closing this Saturday for three months. Just two days left to get your favorite soup, salad, chicken pot pie, iced coffee and dangerous cupcakes. The lovely Cynthia, proprietor and creator of Soup's On, is going to have a baby. Get her wares while you can, or wait till the end of the summer.
Also, went to Luca's Café in Locust Point, on Fort Avenue across from the Phillips Seafood HQ. The food was just phenomenonal and prices, well, four of with a few drinks was $96 bucks. Great wine list too. Check it out.
At the Baltimore School for the Arts, students and faculty are putting on four one-act Moliere plays. It runs through Sunday. Don’t miss it. The plays are really well acted by adults and students. My old friend Tony Tsendas is hilarious, right in his element (I think he channels the Marx brothers.) Richard Pilcher directs it all. Don’t miss it. Our School for the Arts (and Carver in Baltimore County) is among the best in the nation.
Last Thoughts
CEM is pleased to be bringing you dispatches from Indiana, courtesy of our intern Christina Arrison, who is working with the Obama campaign. This is the fourth in the series.
Election Day!
Canvassing on election day is usually pretty fun because at that point the universe of voters you're communicating with has been narrowed to consist almost entirely of strong supporters and undecided people who lean heavily towards your candidate. It's an exhilarating feeling to go to a neighborhood and find that everyone you're talking to supports your candidate. It can make it a little more heartbreaking if your campaign loses, though, because after spending a lot of time with staffers and volunteers and talking to supportive voters, a win begins to feel inevitable. Today definitely felt like that – I walked this afternoon in a mostly African American neighborhood where at least two thirds of the adults I saw at their doors and out on the street were wearing "I Voted" stickers. Most of the rest said they were heading out later in the afternoon. It was a really great way to end my time talking to Indiana voters.
Voter Access
In terms of other election day observations, I thought that there were too many gaffes on the part of election officials. This year many polling locations were changed in Indianapolis for the first time in years, and the Obama campaign found this morning that in most of the old places there was nothing to indicate where the new location was. The campaign dispatched people to stay by the old polls and direct voters to their correct location, but while the authorities don't have a legal responsibility to post the new address, it seems to me like that's a simple step that could improve voter access immensely. Many of our canvassers also talked to people today who registered before the deadline but were told that they were not on the voter rolls. Instead of the poll workers telling them that they could cast provisional ballots, many of them were simply turned away. While the last time I was able to check the news there thankfully hadn't been reports of major problems, like running out of ballots or broken down voting machines, I'm frustrated because it seems like these minor mistakes are repeated each election. And now that I know firsthand how difficult it can be to win over each vote, and how excited many new registrants are to cast their first ballot, it angers me even more to see even one person turned away. We all need to do a lot of work before November to ensure that the voting process goes smoothly everywhere across the country.
After the Polls Close
But now that the polls have closed all there is to do is wait. And clean up. And sleep. And hopefully celebrate! I have to head back to Baltimore so I won't be able to see the returns in Indianapolis, but maybe by the time I land we'll have a winner, or at least be close to knowing. No matter what happens, I've had a great time working on this campaign, and thanks to CEM for the chance to post my observations!
CEM is excited to be bringing you dispatches from Indiana from our intern Christina Arrison, who is working with the Obama campaign. This is the third in the series.
The Night Before
This is going to be a short one because I'm about to hop into bed to snatch a few hours rest before going back in tomorrow to canvass. The crazy Obama staffers are still at the office getting packets together for tomorrow, but they turned down offers of help so I got to come home to bed. They are going out at 3am to hang flyers on supporters' houses so they'll be there first thing in the morning when everyone leaves for work. I'll be going in around 6 to do some visibility, which can be pretty fun – standing at busy intersections with campaign signs and waving them around. I'm not sure how many votes it actually gets, but I guess any publicity is good, and maybe it will remind people to get to the polls.
Disenfranchised Voters
Today was surprisingly uneventful for a day just before an election. I knocked on doors in a neighborhood where about a quarter of the houses on my list were empty. I wonder where all of those people went to. I'm sure that many of them moved for benign reasons, but I couldn't help but think about the foreclosure crisis all day. That got me thinking about the many subtle, indirect ways that people can be disenfranchised. Home foreclosure of course wouldn't prohibit someone from voting, but it does mean that the voter probably won't receive any information from the campaigns, and switching your address for voter registration is probably the last thing on your mind if you're dealing with the trauma of losing a home. In Indiana if you moved more than 29 days before the election and didn't officially change the registration record you can't vote at your old precinct. There's also the fact that this state requires photo identification and proof of residence to vote, which low income, young, and elderly voters are much less likely to have. The recent Supreme Court decision that upholds the legality of such requirements means that even more states will probably establish similar laws. On a smaller scale, the fact that many lower income voters live in apartment complexes means that it's harder for canvassers to go talk to them, and personal contact at a door is one of the most effective ways of getting people out to vote. Last but not least, of course, there's the fact that the polls are only open until 6pm at night. And unlike many states, Indiana doesn't have a law mandating that employees must receive enough time off to vote, if their work schedule would otherwise prohibit them from going to the polls.
Huge Rally
Rather than close on that note, though, I should mention that tonight I was lucky enough to go to a huge rally downtown. We were all packed onto the American Legion mall in downtown Indianapolis. A local radio station put the attendance at more than 20,000, and the energy of the crowd was palpable. Stevie Wonder made a guest appearance, opening the rally with three songs which he played to the end despite a sudden downpour during the third number. The crowd held despite the several bursts of rain, and Senator Obama delivered a fiery version of his stump speech. It was a positive way to end the day and hopefully a good omen for tomorrow. The bulk of the work has been done now – tomorrow it's only what is called "knock and drag," where you knock on doors until you find someone who says they're planning on voting and you bring them yourself to the polling location. And so now to get some practice in, I'm going to knock off writing and drag myself to bed.
-Christina Arrison
CEM is thrilled to bring you these blog posts from our intern Christina Arrison, who is currently in Indiana working with the Obama campaign. Enjoy!
7 Votes
Obama won the contest in Guam yesterday by seven votes, which was really the only thing keeping me going at 1:30 am last night after two hours of putting tiny stickers that reminded voters to bring their photo IDs to the polls onto a seemingly endless stack of doorhangers. The campaign staff and I kept reminding each other about those seven voters, thinking about how the balance of the election could hang on just one sticker, one person remembering her ID who wouldn't have otherwise, and how maybe that one vote will push us over the edge. Working in the field operation of a campaign requires that mentality, the firm belief that every vote matters. Some people think a campaign comes down to a good debate performance or a savvy piece of election mail; I think it comes down to a 1" by 2" white sticker.
Canvassing
Today I got a chance to put some of those stickers into action by going out and knocking doors. A lot of my work on the primaries so far has been the behind-the-scenes organization of the canvasses, so I really relish any opportunity to get out and talk to voters. Canvassing is one of the most exhausting things that I've ever done. It's physically tiring to be out in the hot sun walking all day, but more than that it can be emotionally draining to talk to people about a candidate I'm so passionate about and be greeted with apathy or anger. It's obviously not a personal attack on me, but after the all-night sticker marathon I'm not thinking logically today. Thankfully those people are few and far between, but I do still have the urge to go out right now and wake up the 24 year old I talked to today who said that he never votes because "change will still happen whether I vote or not." I tried to convince him otherwise but to no avail. I'm comforted, though, by the thought of two other young men I talked to today, both of whom said that they've never thought that voting mattered but that this time they feel inspired to cast a ballot.
It is a very intimate experience to go to the homes of so many strangers. Canvassing has taken me into neighborhoods of all kinds that I usually wouldn't have a reason to visit. It's given me lots of food for thought. Why is there, for example, an inverse relationship between the number of items on a house that say "Welcome" and how welcoming the owner is? Why are the front doors in the so-called "bad" neighborhoods always unlocked and wide open, while in the "safe" areas there is always at least one deadbolt fastened?
The issue of race
Knocking on doors also shines a bright spotlight onto the issue of race in this country. Race has obviously played a large role in the campaign in terms of the possibility that we could soon elect our first black president, but it also concretely affects canvassers who cross over racial boundaries to go door-to-door in neighborhoods that are in many cases still very segregated. Last week two of our canvassers, both young black men, were followed around by police in the mostly white neighborhood where they were working. When the pair was done knocking, the police car tailed them the whole way across the city back to our headquarters. Two middle-aged women from one of our unions were in a similar area today when they knocked on the apartment door of an off-duty police officer who told them they were illegally trespassing in the complex (which was not true) and that if he got one complaint from a neighbor he would arrest them right then and there. As a white woman I experience a different side of things – my blood still boils when I think of the woman in Ohio who told me she wasn't going to support Obama because she didn't think that America was ready for a black president. She leaned in confidingly and added, "But I suppose he's not all black. His mother was white."
Still, all of the negative and difficult experiences are far outweighed by positive stories that make me really believe that change is possible. Our team has had thousands and thousands of conversations with voters here in Indianapolis, and stories like the ones above are the exception, not the rule. All of the canvassers I've talked to see the chance to go into unfamiliar neighborhoods and talk to people they would otherwise probably not interact with much as an amazing opportunity to build unity, not as an uncomfortable or futile task. Our volunteers have boundless energy – the two women who were threatened by the police officer today came back to headquarters, got another packet, and went back out to knock more doors. And every time the press does another story about the "insurmountable" racial divide in the electorate, I just remember standing in Ohio with an African American coworker of mine as the union volunteers were getting ready to canvass. Most of the canvassers were middle-aged, white and male, many of them current or former meatpackers - definitely not your typical Obama demographic. She turned to me, laughed, and said, "Just look at all these white guys working their butts off to elect a black guy president. Who would have thought?"
Tomorrow's the biggest day of the campaign, so I'd better go get some sleep. In Indiana the polls are open for an extremely restrictive amount of time – 6am to 6pm. That means that most of the voter turnout canvassing has to be done tomorrow because on Tuesday there won't be enough time to catch people after work before the polls close. More on that to follow tomorrow.
- Christina Arrison
Hey folks - one of our interns, Christina Arrison, is in Indiana for the primary. She's going to be sending us first-hand observations and thoughts from there for the next few days. By way of an introduction, here's her first dispatch.
The Dirty Truth
The Hoosier View
The best part about being on the ground for three important primary contests has been the chance to talk to and work with people who are experiencing this election on an individual and personal level – people who, many for the first time, feel a meaningful connection to Washington and the process that puts politicians there. It's a nice counterbalance to the Big Media view of the campaign – all scandal and spin and personal attacks and very little examination of what the election means to real people. It's been four decades since the last competitive Democratic primary in Indiana. From what I've seen, many Hoosiers are a bit bemused by all of the attention – voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania are used to the swarms of canvassers and scads of robo-calls and TV ads from past general elections, but in Indiana, a solidly red state, many people are experiencing the invasion for the first time. Overall, though, I think people appreciate the attention and genuinely believe that their voice matters. Every day when our canvassers get back from the field they give reports of talking to voters who say that this is their first time voting, and that for once they think an election offers them a chance to concretely improve their lives – by getting better healthcare or livable wages, by ending the war, and for countless other reasons. We hear heartbreaking stories like the Katrina survivor with AIDS who can't afford his pills, and asked our union volunteer to have the Obama campaign contact him to get him cheaper medication. But even if the personal connection to the campaign just involves a voter yelling at a canvasser to get off her property, or slamming down the phone on another prerecorded call, at least they are offered the chance to participate.
Rising Tensions
That being said, I am a little worried about the length and tone of the race. Even in just the three primaries I've worked on there's been a shift in voters' attitudes. When I knocked doors in Ohio, most of the Clinton supporters I talked to were firm in their choice, but polite. On the plane back to DC after the Ohio election, I was seated next to the president of the New York chapter of NOW, and we were able to chat relatively amicably about the election, she in her Clinton button, me in my Obama t-shirt. Canvassing in Pennsylvania, five weeks later, the tone had shifted. Lots more people yelled at me, balled up their flyers and threw them back, or slammed the door in my face. I remember walking up the driveway of one house just in time to hear the woman say to her neighbor "If I get ONE more thing from Obama I'm just going to-" I didn't quite catch what she was going to do, as I was doing my best to blend in with the trees as I backed away. I think a lot of people (including some campaign staffers I know who literally have not had a day off in 15 months) are ready for this to end.
I am sitting here at my computer; I have not blogged all week. I have really wanted to write something. The week has been taken up with planning the future of the Center for Emerging Media, so we can become the new public media for our community. It has taken time to raise money and plan productions. I am lucky that despite the uncertainty, Jessica Phillips and Justin Levy, my producers, left WYPR to work with me and build CEM.
So, this morning I was all set to wax forth on Presidential campaigns, Obama and Wright, the property tax wars in
And this morning, I was all set to write, when I went outside to look at the field across from our home. A family of foxes dug its den across the road. The mama fox gave birth to five kits the other week. So instead of writing I went outside with my binoculars to watch the kits cavort with one another, leaping in the air and wrestling. Some wandered over to suckle on their mother, who sat calmly watching over her offspring to ensure their safety.
Then, just as I had my fill of my new neighbors the Foxes, Valerie called me outside again. Her hands were cupped around a baby finch that had left its nest too early. It was huddled up on the windowsill of our den. She called the wild animal rescue lady and now has the baby in one of the carrying cases she keeps around to rescue small things lost or injured. My lady is a reiki master and performed her reiki healing on the young bird. We will see how the young, downy-covered boy fairs today.
The spring is full of life and new birth, as I’m witnessing with the exciting and creative growth of the Center for Emerging Media.
We will be sending our fund drive letter out to you all soon, so you can support your new public media meeting ground in
Last night, I was the emcee for a Baltimore Green Week event at
He is right. We have to build industries in this country based on solar and alternative energy technologies. Just retrofitting all the buildings in
This week, I also lectured to a graduate communications class at Morgan and moderated a panel of actors, a writer, director and producer from The Wire at the Baltimore Museum of Industry. You can hear The Wire panel right on our site.
Two weeks ago, it was Goucher, this week Morgan, and I continued to be inspired by this generation of twenty-somethings in our midst. They want to do the right thing, are socially committed, and the graduate students I met at Morgan want nothing to do with corporate media. They want to create their own and say what has to be said.
So, all in all, it has been a good week. And next week, well I promise to write more…and want to hear from you.
Have a wonderful weekend…see you at the Flower Mart in
THE OTHER SIDE
Last night I spoke at
Welcome!
Our new website is born. So please spend some time with us here. Our endeavor is to create a new public media that crosses all the platforms and makes you part of all that is going on around you. We have archived our Peabody Award winning series, Just Words and the documentary series we produced on the Vietnam War that we taped here in the states and Vietnam. Our new programming, like conversations with folks from the Wire, Phil Donahue, Andre Codrescu and others is here, as well. There are also video, still photography, and places for your comments.
Speaking of places for your commentary, we opened forums for you to comment on anything that is on your mind. It's sort of like open phones on the web. Please join us there and send us some story and interview ideas. Tell us what is happening in your communities and things of interest you think we could share with everyone.
Politics and the Media
The Pennsylvania primary is tomorrow. Thank God, at last, we thought it would never get here!
I don’t know if you saw last week’s faux debate between Hillary and Barack on ABC. I do mean faux, it was just horrible. What is wrong with major media in our country? Is it just them or are we all becoming that shallow, uninteresting and banal? They are shirking their duty to all of us. Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos were pushing Barack Obama on his relationship with Bill Ayers, former SDS Weatherman who went underground in the sixties. They're focused on Hillary and her claim that she had to run under sniper fire which turned out to be false. The media created “bittergate” as they call it, and are pushing the capital gains tax! Well that fits, most of the big media stars are so well paid and run with such wealth that I guess they are worried about capital gains. What about the rest of us?!
Where were the questions about Iraq, the economy, health care, our infrastructure, home mortgages, the financial market, No Child Left Behind and our schools, veteran's benefits, Afghanistan, global warming, the environment and the future of this nation?
It is all about selling product and the drivel they think will sell to the masses. Well, give the masses some credit. Those who are involved and voting deserve better.
In Pennsylvania, they could have devoted the debate to the economy. What are their ideas about the financial markets? Do they believe that hedge funds and speculation of billionaires need the same oversight as banks? What role does the federal government play in stimulating this economy? Can we create a green economy and rebuild the infrastructure of America the same we did in the 30’s or in the 19th century when the federal government stimulated growth by building the canal system and then later the railroads?
Give us something! America is at a crossroads with wars, the economy and a 21st world that will be very different that the last century.
WYPR
One small tidbit that I would like to share. I heard that management will be spending considerable money for an advertising firm to rebrand the station. It feels it must clean its tarnished image of the last several months. It must purge the identification of Steiner with WYPR.
They tried that before, spending at least $20,000 on the 5th anniversary for WYPR.
Oh, well…join me, join us at the Center for Emerging Media as we create a new public media for our community, for all of us, for the 21st century.
-Marc
Welcome to the Center for Emerging Media's new website!
We're so excited to bring this to you after working on it for a month and a half. This website brings together in one place all our various projects, and also incorporates an interactive forum for our listeners to interact with each other. If you have any questions about how to use this website or where something is located, leave a comment below or send me an email at jes.phillips@gmail.com. To navigate the website, pay attention to the top menu bar. That will be your number one place to go once you know what you wanted to do. Do you want to read the blog? Click on "Blog". Do you want to listen to CEM programs? Click on "Programs". And so on. Once you make a decision, depending on what you click on, the right column will give you more options. For example, if you click on Programs, the right column will show you what programs we have available for you to listen to. If you click on Blog, the right column will show you archived entries and tags. Just click around and get to know the site. Please let us know if you have any problems or questions about how this works! We look forward to seeing you all in the forums and on this blog! -JessicaRandom Thoughts..
First, where is everybody? It seems that very few of you have questions or comments for Mayor Sheila Dixon. So, is that disinterest in city politics, or more who could care what she says, or this kind of stuff is just ho hum? Well, we will be in her office at 4:30 on Monday. Hope to have it up on our site when we get back from City Hall.
Next, we will be focusing some of our work on school violence, talking to the CEO, teachers and students. So, if you have thoughts on it, send them in. If you are a schoolteacher or student maybe you can be part of the interview. Comment here or email justinlevy2@gmail.com.
Your responses to WYPR Board
Someone asked if Martin O’Malley ever voiced his support. I heard he did from a third party. I also received calls from many elected officials outraged by what happened, including Senator Ben Cardin, Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith, Congressmen John Sarbanes, Wayne Gilchrest and Elijah Cummings, Delegate Jon Cardin, State Senator Jamie Raskin and many others. I heard there was a lot of outrage from many within the Baltimore Metropolitan delegation.
I wake angry and frustrated many days thinking about what happened. Usually, once I say good morning to my little one, walk my dog Charley, and have coffee with Valerie, I am over it.
We keep up the good fight with them where it needs keeping up, but we are moving on. We have so many stories we want to do, interviews we are waiting to produce, town meetings to organize, and a new public media we’re working to create to worry about their board and management too much. They are a distraction.
Presidential Election
I have been thinking a lot about Obama’s comments and the continuing ad nauseum conversation about what he said. How much can we talk about it, over and over and over. The other day when I was in Hagerstown for our Maryland Humanities Council performance of Martin, Malcolm and Marc, we were in a hotel bar. Fox was on. It is amazing to me that all the discredited political professionals, like Dick Morris and angry caustic commentators of new like Geraldine Ferraro kept going on and on saying so little of any substance. Is there no other news to be covered by our major media than what Obama said at his fundraiser? Their choice of commentators tells us everything about what they are attempting to make important in this election. Their base of thought is so limited, yet has the broad power to define the discussion. We can end that with new media and new conversations.
American elections have always been contentious. I have been reading the book 1800 about the election that swirled around Adams and Jefferson and others. If you just look at that election along with the elections of 1860, 1912, 1928 and 1960, you can see that the venal and the vicious has always been at the forefront. It is bare knuckled. Part of the bare knuckles of 1800 and 1860 and 1912, besides the vicious personal attacks, was actual deep policy differences. Candidates were unafraid of speaking to their visions of America, and they had them.
So, I could put up with all viscera, silliness, nastiness and meanness if candidates would just declare their visions honestly and with the passion of conviction.
I believe what Obama said about what motivates people’s distrust is true, and what McCain said to Michigan workers about their jobs not returning was real and true. They were both eviscerated and trashed for being straight.
Instead of backpedaling, candidates, tell us the reality as you see it and what you think we as a nation need to do.
That would be refreshing.
NOW
I gotta go, my 10 (almost 11 year old) only has a few more days till she is gone and back to school, so we got some Daddy/Daughter time that is calling.
Have a wonderful weekend.
-marc
I heard from a number of people what occurred at the WYPR Board of Director’s meeting.
School Violence
Any of you who saw the tape of a student beating art teacher Jolita Berry were rightly horrified. Any of you who work in our schools understands what led to this and knows that disrespect for teachers and the threat of violence felt by students and teachers is a common occurrence in our schools.
We started the morning off today with a visit from Andrei Codrescu, writer of many formats and
This has been an interesting week. First, the Peabody Award comes for our work on the series we produced called Just Words. It was funded by the Open Society Institute and aired on WYPR for a little over a year. We submitted the work for the prestigious Peabody but had no expectations of winning one.