Having just declared this week, Howard Dean may only officially have just gotten in the race for DNC chair, but he's already got two endorsements: A Winding Road & Interesting Times.
A Winding Road is firmly in the Howard Dean camp when it comes to who should be DNC chair:
To hear Senator Reid's comment last week regarding Howard Dean's candidacy for the Chairmanship of the DNC was to cringe and realize afresh that the Senate Democrats have put themselves into the hands of exactly the wrong person. Reid said words to the effect that Dean only appeals to the Progressive wing of the party, and the chairman should appeal to all the people in the party.
Excuse me, Senator Reid, but what you're really saying is that you want someone who appeals to YOUR wing, the NeoLiberals, the Republican Lites.
Someone, perhaps, like the newest candidate, former Congressman Tim Roemer, who like Reid is Anti-Choice. No doubt he's right up Reid's alley when it comes to someone who doesn't 'just' appeal to the Progressive wing of the party.
Since when were Progressives a 'wing' of the Democratic party? That's the problem right there, actually. Democrat and Progressive should go hand in hand, but the party has been hijacked since the Clinton era by people who just do not get it. People who rush to jump into bed with Corporate American and pay what is increasingly just lip service to Working Class America.
And now, in the year 2005, there is actually a real debate about whether the Democratic party should support Abortion Rights in its platform!
Say what you will about those of the far right who have taken over the Republican party (and believe me, there's plenty to say!), one thing they've proven themselves to be very good at is taking control of the dialogue.
So much so that they've got a lot of foolish, half hearted Democrats truly believing that they have to start playing the game on Republican terms to win.
It should be clear that if you take it to their level, they're going to completely destroy you. You cannot out-Republican the Republicans. You cannot appeal to the voters by becoming more like them, because the voters who want what the Republicans stand for are going to vote for Republicans.
The only way to win is to re-embrace the true base of the party, the progressive, liberal tradition that had Democrats on top in this country from the 1930's through the 1960's. Even the one Republican Administration in that era, the Eisenhower Administration, was a form of Moderate Republicanism that is an endangered species today.
The Democrats need to recognize that they're losing because they've driven voters away with their increasing drift to the right. They're not marking themselves as any different from their opponents.
. . .
At any rate, the last thing the Democratic party needs right now is someone like Roemer at the DNC. They need someone who understands the progressive grassroots movement that made the Democrats what they once were is still very much alive in this country and looking for an outlet, a party that will truly embrace their ideals.
I think Howard Dean is actually what Harry Reid says he's looking for. He does appeal to the Progressives, he does understand what I just mentioned. But he's also a career politician, someone who, prior to his awakening to the grassroots movement during his Presidential campaign, wasn't considered to be the most liberal guy out there by those in his own state of Vermont.
So he gets the moderate view, he may even be a bit more comfortable within that framework. But he's also come to understand and recognize the power of the progressive view, and it's ability to revitalize the Democratic party.
Just going by what Harry Reid said, Dean is actually the perfect candidate. Of course, Reid didn't say what he really meant, so no wonder he's working against Dean.
What we need to do, we progressives (and that means all of us, Democrat or third party) is make our voices heard on this to the DNC. Write in and let them know how odious a choice someone like Tim Roemer is to you. Let them know you don't want to see the Democrats move further to the right.
(http://awindingroad.blogspot.com/2005/01/whose-world-do-you-live-in.html)
Checking my email this morning, I found two things of importance that I thought I would let you know about. The first was an email from Governor Howard Dean. I'm sure anyone who was signed up to his newsletter either for his Presidential campaign or his Democracy For America organization receieved the same thing, but for those who didn't, I thought I'd include it here. It's his official announcement to his supporters that he is running for the DNC Chairmanship, and why.
As you know, A Winding Road fully supports and endorses Governor Dean's candidacy. I stated my reasons in my last post.
(http://awindingroad.blogspot.com/2005/01/letter-from-howard-dean-and-silent.html)
Also coming out for Howard Dean is Interesting Times, which notes these important characteristics:
The next DNC chair has to "get" the internet. But he also has to "get" the grassroots. He has to "get" the labor unions. He has to "get" the Democratic party leadership. He has to "get" the establishment media. He has to "get" framing. He has to get "get" a whole host of other issues.
And, finally, I think he needs to be something of a superstar. He needs to immediately get the media's attention when the party wants to push something. Dean has the visibility right now. In fact I would say he is probably the most recognizable Dem after Clinton, Clinton and Kerry (and Kerry's star is fading fast). He will certainly get more attention than either Reid or Pelosi. Do any of the other candidates have that kind of immediate draw?
Howard Dean is a renaissance man for a renaissance party. That's why I'm supporting him.
(http://interestingtimes.blogspot.com/2005/01/times-change.html)
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Beth's Follow Up: A Conversation
Beth wanted a follow up. We i.m.ed this evening and here's a transcript. This is a conversation, not "Beth asks questions and I answer them."
I've wanted us to do this for awhile and have asked three people. One never responded and two have stated they'd enjoy doing it but haven't had time yet. So today, I asked Beth if she was up for it and she replied: "Let's do it now!"
Beth: Why is it okay for you to not say which journalist or journalists read The Common Ills?
CI: Would it be okay, if someone in the media requested it, if I identified you as a member?
I think everyone that's a member is a member. Everyone has the same right to expect
privacy.
Beth: Fine. I just thought I knew who it was and wanted to ask. What politician has most influenced you?
CI: What politician has most influenced you?
Beth: Probably JFK. Since I was a child I've heard things about him and his brother. I think they made a difference. They weren't perfect. The womanizing doesn't bother me because . . . I guess I'm thinking "that's the way it was then." But I was going to say, it does bother me about the way Marilyn Monroe was treated. Maybe if other women were people I knew I'd be bothered as well? I don't know. I would say if JFK was an up and coming politician today, I'd be judging him by a different standard and maybe that's fair and maybe not but
that's how I feel. I voted for Cobb by the way.
CI: I don't know that there's one person I could name. Maybe because of the things you cite,
which is going back to the fact that we're looking for heroes and then recoiling when we find
humans. At different times, when I really needed a voice to steer me or let me know I wasn't
alone. There's a long list but to just cite a few people who've inspired me in some way there would be Gloria Steinem, Howard Zinn, Jane Fonda, Alice Walker and many, many more.
Beth: But no elected politician?
CI: I find it easier to get behind and support Medea Benajmin than I do looking to an elected official for leadership.
Beth: What do you think of Kat's Korner?
CI: What do you think of Kat's Korner?
Beth: It's kind of snide and not at all the "Oprah voice" that someone's always saying they hear [that would be Gina].
CI: And?
Beth: Like what I think of it?
CI: Yes.
Beth: It makes me laugh. I usually end up thinking about something. I hadn't thought about "Soldier" really until then. [When Kat wrote about it.] I do see that's dangerous. Little kids walking around singing, "I want a solider" and it's just one more slogan. I have one of their CDs. But I'm not buying the new one and I don't think I'll ever just buy a CD because it's catchy or hot but [instead] think about what is it saying and what are my dollars supporting. I guess my question here is why does Kat get her own section on the blog?
CI: People didn't want to post replies and that [was] fine. We had e-mail. But that usually means getting permission and that means waiting for replies until everyone's had a chance to grant permission. Sometimes someone only wants one line quoted. Sometimes, and you've done this, they only want to be quoted on one section and it has to include all from that one section. Or take Eli who writes hilarious e-mails and that's usually not obvious from what he's comfortable being quoted on. Recently, Denise was outraged by a story in the Times dealing with Saturday Night Live. She wrote about that. I asked if her she wanted that posted but she wanted to rework it. She did that and it went up. I feel she touched a number of important issues and I hope I noted that when we quoted it. Kat wasn't the only one asked. But Kat and I were having back and forth e-mails about the importance of music. And during one of them she wrote that the community really needed to engage in musical discussions. I agreed and asked her if she was interested in it. That's how Kat's Korner came about.
Beth: But I never know when it's going to be up.
CI: She's not being paid for this. She's writing about music and she needs something that inspires her to write about. Then she needs the time in her own busy life to actually write it.
So she does what she can and we're lucky to have Kat's Korner.
Beth: I like movies. Could I get a Beth's Corner?
CI: If you want to address the political implications of movie and culture, absolutelty.
Beth: Why can't you do a post about the site being linked by someone?
CI: That was asked on Sunday. And answered.
[See http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2005/01/beths-questions-ethical-policies.html.]
Beth: Some of my favorite albums didn't make Kat's Korner. I've got a feeling you have everything that made the list.
CI: You're wrong. Love's Forever Changes is something I bought this past Sunday. Some people e-mailed and they'd counted the list. It was 151 albums listed or a little over 250 albums listed, according to the various counts. I don't have the time to count. But no, I don't have everything on the list. And there are albums I do have that I think are better than some that made the list. What would you have put on the list?
Beth: Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home and Prince's Controversy.
CI: I like Controversy. Bringing It All Back Home came out before 1964 and the list was focusing on albums that came out that year and later.
Beth: Who is Shirley and was she asked to proof each post?
CI: She's a member who's been writing for some time. She might have been one of the first five who wrote [on the second day of the blog], I'm not sure. But she points out mistakes and they get corrected or not. I say or not because there's not always time. The general rule is if it's someone's name, it gets corrected. Or if someone writes in saying that the quote left out a word that gets fixed. After that, if time permits, other things will be corrected. Sometimes Shirley will say, "This section is confusing" or "This section needs to be developed" and, if there's time for that, I'll work on it. It's really more important to me that new posts go up then that spelling is corrected or punctuation. I think most of the time people can figure it out without a correction.
Beth: I want to see more opinion.
CI: Others have said that too. I enjoy snapshots and may do one of those tomorrow or tonight. Where various sections of various articles are pulled together so that hopefully you end up with a better picture of an issue or an event then if it's just one voice.
Beth: What's the community's age span?
CI: I have no idea. I know that of people who've given their age, Eli is our oldest. I know that we have college students and one high school student. If there's anyone younger than high school they haven't identified as such. I don't ask anyone's age.
Beth: I'm 27. I've written Kat twice and she hasn't replied.
CI: That's something you take up with Kat. If an e-mail comes into the site (common_ills@yahoo.com) for her, it's forwarded to her account. She gets a lot of e-mail at the site and I'm sure at her e-mail account (kats_korner@hotmail.com). She's reviewing music and if she thinks something is worth including, I'm sure she will. But as for her replying to every e-mail, that's something you take up with her. You might also try making sure you state what you're writing about in the message heading because she's talked about getting spammed. If she thinks you're sending spam, I'm sure she won't bother to open it.
Beth: What's the most e-mail that's come in during one day?
CI: It would be the Thursday when Senator Barbara Boxer was the only senator to stand up for voting rights and sign on to Congress woman Stephanie Tubbs Jones' petition. I don't know how many e-mails came in that day. I know there were 397 on that subject because I counted. But Molly wrote that day [about privacy concerns] and she had to wait for a reply until Saturday. She wasn't the only one. I did try to reply in some way to each of the 397.
Beth: Were you suggesting on Sunday that you would let someone else handle the e-mail?
CI: No. I was whining. If someone else handled it, I might get a report on what was most on people's minds but I wouldn't really be in touch with what the other members were concerned about. But it is sometimes too much, if I can whine. If I forget to bring up something you asked me to, e-mail me again to remind me. In one of Daniel Okrent's columns, when I was reading them all one after another a few Saturdays back, he wrote, I believe, that the Times got 80,000 e-mails or letters. I was astounded at how low the number was. And, because I've contacted the Times many times, how many times they didn't even bother to reply. Forget the reporters a second, the editors have assistants. With e-mail, it takes five seconds for them to do a quick reply. And if anyone suffers under the delusion that if you write a letter to the paper, you will get a reply, let me clear that up because it's simply not the case. Now I have noticed that if you write in about something you liked, they tend to always reply and to reply quickly. I think they need to review how they handle negative criticism.
Beth: Maybe they're afraid it's a spam campaign either by e-mail or letter?
CI: I know of four members who subscribe and always do something: note that they are subscribers and give their address in any contact they have with the paper. I'm not saying the people who subscribe are better or more important than the ones who buy the paper at a newstand or store. But the people who subscribe can be very easily verified. The paper wants you to pay them over $460 a year. [Bad with math but I believe the full price for a year is $552 -- check the math, it's $46 dollars a month.] I think for that kind of money, if you have a problem, they should be able to at least send you a form letter.
Beth: What's about the public editor?
CI: Most of the time, if I've gotten a reply, it's been from Arthur Bovino, Daniel Okrent's assistant. And I've probably gotten a reply for evey eight times I've written. That's poor customer service. If you're writing to note a problem and they can easily verify that you are a subscriber, what message does that leave you with? You've already got a problem with something that has appeared in the paper. You take the time to contact this company that's taking over $460 dollars of your money a year and they can't even reply in some way? Yes, they get a lot of mail but since I've never not gotten an immediate reply when I've written in to say "Good job," I have to wonder about the culture at the paper that allows them to ignore any criticism that isn't positive. The reader writing in already is bothered by something and the policy of the paper is to then aggrevate the situation by ignoring the reader? Daniel Okrent hasn't helped at all. I know that from members who've shared copies of the e-mails they've sent in. There are these huge areas that never get covered. He has no interest in the dining section or the arts section. (Though he can be quite chatty in an e-mail to someone writing in about the sports section judging from the forwarded e-mails that I've seen.) The book review was a mess before it changed leadership and it's only gotten worse in the view of most members. But he doesn't want to touch on that. He writes his silly op-eds, for instance attacking the Times for how he expects they will cover the Tonys, and every now and then he'll do some general piece that deals with a large topic. If you wrote in about the Times getting something wrong -- have you written in?
Beth: Yes, about an article on Madonna.
CI: About them cherry picking from SoundScan and Billboard figures?
Beth: Yes. And I got no reply.
CI: Well, if, for instance, I picked up the paper and Okrent wrote, "Beth has a problem with . . ."
and then dealt with it, I might think, "Well when are you going to get my issue?" but I'd also be grateful that a real issue had been dealt with. Jim won't mind me repeating this but he thinks Okrent writes "readers" when it's really Okrent writing about a topic he's decided to write about. Jim had four examples and I'm blanking on them now. I believe one was about an article in the Sunday Magazine. Readers are invisible. It's all about what Okrent wants to write. Or "what I want to write about" as he put it in that one column. He's done an awful job. He's mistaken himself for an op-ed writer when he's supposed to be the readers' representative. And because the Times has failed to point that out to him, he thinks it's okay that he quoted from a private e-mail against the wishes of "George" and that it's okay that he identified George by name and location. That's not okay. He's not [Adam] Nagourney's body guard. He's the readers' representative. And when he elected to out "George," he spit on every reader of the paper. If you piss Okrent off in some way, you better know he'll out you and make snide remarks about you. Not just in the paper but elsewhere as well, like his comments in Business Week. Okrent abused his position at the paper and the Times refused to call him on the carpet.
This is something that will be a major embarrassment for them because they didn't address it and it's not going away. People remember what happened and they're going to continue to talk about it. The Times has apparently decided they'll deal with the situation by ignoring it. I don't know who gave that advice but it's bad advice. We addressed that ("Daniel Okrent, Step Down") because a number of members were offended by Okrent's outing of "George." Not just Rob, a large number of people. By refusing to address it, they've allowed it to fester and people are outraged by it.
Beth: Agree but I meant "what about the public editor and his replies?"
CI: Non-replies. He and his assistant could do a better job of responding and they don't. So you read the column thinking, "Well it'll be in this." It never is. You begin to realize that your complaints don't matter at all. It's just this huge box that's overflowing with complaints from various people and at some point (in May?) the box will be tossed in the trash. That makes you wonder how much the paper values it's readers?
Beth: Who picks the links?
CI: The permalinks? The ones that are off to the side and always on the site?
Beth: Yep.
CI: I do. E-mails will come in saying, "Link to this!" And when they do, I do link for a story or an article. I picked BuzzFlash and Democracy Now! as the first two links with no input because I felt they were strong sites. (And no one was giving input then.) After that, Ms. Musing and Dahr Jamail went up. I picked those two to highlight them. On the next round, Naomi Klein's writing had been mentioned so she was an obvious pick and a number of people had asked for a permalink to Bob Somerby's Daily Howler because I wasn't always mentioning it everytime he had a new post. So they wanted a link there where they could just click right away. [Although clicking on BuzzFlash and scrolling down would have allowed them to check both BuzzFlash and The Daily Howler.] The ones at the start of the month were NOW, which I'd said we would link to in a posted entry [ahead of time] and then the blogs that members were asking for links to: Interesting Times, Science And Politics, and Why Are We Back In Iraq? Tonight I made the decision to link to A Winding Road and Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude because those are two of our members who've just started blogging and I wanted to be sure we were supporting their efforts as a community. Is there something you want linked to?
Beth: NAACP.
CI: That's actually going to be linked to at the end of the month. Five other people have asked for that.
Beth: Okay, getting to the last topic. My cousin and I both read and I print it up for my aunt who doesn't have a computer. When I write in or my cousin we always wonder if we'd be quoted if we wrote this long thing about "Oh I love the site it has changed my life. You are the greatest" and like that for three paragraphs, if we'd get quoted?
CI: Has your cousin been quoted?
Beth: Yes.
CI: If someone's telling a personal story, I'll pay attention but if it's generic statements like you indicate, I scan them quickly to find out what they're writing about. Are we not highlighting something? Do they feel something's highlighted too much? Did I offend someone? Do they have something they want to share with the blog? That's what I'm reading for. No one needs to include a kiss-up opening to get a reply or to be quoted. I used to collect autographs when I was a child. At first in person and then I had this huge collection and people (grown ups) would always say, "That's going to be worth so much money one day!" I think I got greedy. Because then I started writing to people for autographs. Three months later, you might hear from someone or you might not. After the first three months, I moved to a schedule where I'd write two people a week for autographs. That way instead of waiting and waiting for a reply, hopefully there'd be something coming in pretty regularly. Point, I wrote a lot of people that were my "back up" autographs. I didn't really admire them, I just wanted the autograph to add to the collection. So I wrote a lot of kiss up paragraphs as I tried to get an autograph. I'm not offended when someone does that in an e-mail but I'm not sitting there thinking, "Oh they love me!"
And it's not about me, it's about a community. So there's no need for it. You don't even have to include a greeting. Rob usually writes very short e-mails and he's been angry sometimes. He's never had to include a paragraph or a sentence praising me or the site to get quoted.
Beth: But some people get quoted all the time.
CI: People who get quoted more often either reply to requests to quote them with their permission or else they are, like Jim, someone who says "quote me" or "you can quote me"
in their original e-mail. I know you don't feel you've been quoted enough but you usually respond two days after you've been asked and often a post on the topic has already gone up.
Someone else, Gina or Kara or whomever, could say, "Hey, Beth got to do an interview! Why didn't I get to do one?" You wanted questions answered (in an e-mail Saturday night) so I answered those Sunday. Then Monday or Tuesday you wrote, "I want follow ups." So that's why we're here right now.
Beth: One more. What do you hope the community does?
CI: Gets more informed. Thinks more critically about the way things are presented. I don't mean in a negative manner only. The Times did an incredible job of covering the tsunami for the first two weeks. People saw that and we noted it. We should do that when there is good reporting. But when there's bad reporting, we should note that too. And hopefully, with all the sharing going on here, we're able to not just say, "It was bad" but "It was bad because it ___ and it ___." So that's one hope, that we don't just passively read or watch or listen to the news.
Another hope is that we're all becoming a little more informed about the world we live in and each other. You said you voted for Cobb, right?
Beth: Right.
CI: Where did you learn about him?
Beth: I went to a rally.
CI: And the media?
Beth: I don't remember one story on him being on TV, or as Randi [Rhodes] says "right there on my TV screen." I don't remember reading one story on him or by him. If he hadn't showed up in my area, I wouldn't have known about him.
CI: Did you complain to anyone about the lack of coverage?
Beth: No. I should have.
CI: Right because we need to be heard. And hopefully, people in our community that aren't as active will become more active. And hopefully, with us all sharing, we'll manage to learn about something we wouldn't have known about -- an opinion, a development, a candidate, etc. I think I stated on this site before that I did everything I knew of to do in 2004 except start a blog. Friends were always saying, "You should do a blog." I didn't know anything about blogging or how to blog. But after the election, a number of us were looking at where we were successful and where we weren't. That's one reason we don't highlight the Times' op-eds. A good friend of mine feels that they spoke to people who were in a position to receive them but for people who wanted to dismiss them, they were able to say, "Oh, that's the New York Times!" In our [informal] survey, we found out, for instance, that Molly Ivins was far more successful in reaching swing voters because she spoke in a voice that reached them. But we were all also talking about what we could do to make sure the next election went differently. The one things I could think of that I hadn't done was blog.
Beth: And do you think it's made a difference?
CI: You said last question awhile back. I think we've made a difference, we. You've got two members doing their own blogs now. You've got some new names popping up on the entries and some of them are new members but some of them are members who've e-mailed for awhile but only now feel comfortable expressing themselves. You've got people participating in the Times, not just reading it and tossing it aside. There are people who write to say that they always kept their mouths shut when someone at work or wherever was singing Bush's praises. But Erkia's points about the power of yes and the power of no have allowed them to say, "I don't like him."
That's a big first step. There are people who now write the Times about something. And there are some members who'll send in something from our blog to the paper. People are finding ways they are comfortable with to interact. It only makes us all stronger.
Beth: Okay, last question, promise. Three books that you think everyone should read?
CI: I don't think there are only three books and I don't think that everyone needs to read the same books. I'll pick three books that I think might get overlooked and I'll stick with non-fiction. Gloria Steinem's Outrageous Acts & Everyday Rebellions because it drives home the power that we do have. At one point, she's writing about how to get active and one of her points is that we can all take the time during The Tonight Show (I think it was The Tonight Show that she named) to write a letter to a Congressional representative. That book came out in 1983. Today, with the internet, it's even easier to weigh in and be heard. There are a number of reasons to read the book but I think it's strong book and one that's beneficial. Susan Faludi's Backlash is another book I'd put on this list you're asking for. It's funny, it's political and it will make you think not about an isolated incident but about larger connections. I loved that book because there were a number of people around me at that time who would dismiss any discussion on media portrayals as non-important. These are the cultural narratives of our times, our modern day bedtime stories or fairy tales. And we do need to think about the message they send. When people of a certain age dismissed any discussion on media portrayals after Backlash came out, I was always able to whip the book out and say, "Well Susan Faludi says . . ." (I took that book everywhere. Even on a camping trip.) For the last one, I'll pick something more current. In the last two years, a number of great non-fiction books have come out. I'm going to highlight one that I feel was overlooked, Benjamin Barber's Fear's Empire. I think we need to think about the effects of sloganeering and the realities of what's being done when we passively go along. For those reasons, I'll pick Fear's Empire.
Beth: Okay, three novels.
CI: I'll give you three novels if you'll list three and three nonfiction books.
Beth: Nonfiction. Laura Flander's The W Effect, Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin. I think everyone should read them.
CI: I like those books. Fiction?
Beth: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. And everyone should read them.
CI: Of those three, I've only read Their Eyes Were Watching God. My three? John Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle, Alice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy and Jay McInerney's Brightness Falls.
I've wanted us to do this for awhile and have asked three people. One never responded and two have stated they'd enjoy doing it but haven't had time yet. So today, I asked Beth if she was up for it and she replied: "Let's do it now!"
Beth: Why is it okay for you to not say which journalist or journalists read The Common Ills?
CI: Would it be okay, if someone in the media requested it, if I identified you as a member?
I think everyone that's a member is a member. Everyone has the same right to expect
privacy.
Beth: Fine. I just thought I knew who it was and wanted to ask. What politician has most influenced you?
CI: What politician has most influenced you?
Beth: Probably JFK. Since I was a child I've heard things about him and his brother. I think they made a difference. They weren't perfect. The womanizing doesn't bother me because . . . I guess I'm thinking "that's the way it was then." But I was going to say, it does bother me about the way Marilyn Monroe was treated. Maybe if other women were people I knew I'd be bothered as well? I don't know. I would say if JFK was an up and coming politician today, I'd be judging him by a different standard and maybe that's fair and maybe not but
that's how I feel. I voted for Cobb by the way.
CI: I don't know that there's one person I could name. Maybe because of the things you cite,
which is going back to the fact that we're looking for heroes and then recoiling when we find
humans. At different times, when I really needed a voice to steer me or let me know I wasn't
alone. There's a long list but to just cite a few people who've inspired me in some way there would be Gloria Steinem, Howard Zinn, Jane Fonda, Alice Walker and many, many more.
Beth: But no elected politician?
CI: I find it easier to get behind and support Medea Benajmin than I do looking to an elected official for leadership.
Beth: What do you think of Kat's Korner?
CI: What do you think of Kat's Korner?
Beth: It's kind of snide and not at all the "Oprah voice" that someone's always saying they hear [that would be Gina].
CI: And?
Beth: Like what I think of it?
CI: Yes.
Beth: It makes me laugh. I usually end up thinking about something. I hadn't thought about "Soldier" really until then. [When Kat wrote about it.] I do see that's dangerous. Little kids walking around singing, "I want a solider" and it's just one more slogan. I have one of their CDs. But I'm not buying the new one and I don't think I'll ever just buy a CD because it's catchy or hot but [instead] think about what is it saying and what are my dollars supporting. I guess my question here is why does Kat get her own section on the blog?
CI: People didn't want to post replies and that [was] fine. We had e-mail. But that usually means getting permission and that means waiting for replies until everyone's had a chance to grant permission. Sometimes someone only wants one line quoted. Sometimes, and you've done this, they only want to be quoted on one section and it has to include all from that one section. Or take Eli who writes hilarious e-mails and that's usually not obvious from what he's comfortable being quoted on. Recently, Denise was outraged by a story in the Times dealing with Saturday Night Live. She wrote about that. I asked if her she wanted that posted but she wanted to rework it. She did that and it went up. I feel she touched a number of important issues and I hope I noted that when we quoted it. Kat wasn't the only one asked. But Kat and I were having back and forth e-mails about the importance of music. And during one of them she wrote that the community really needed to engage in musical discussions. I agreed and asked her if she was interested in it. That's how Kat's Korner came about.
Beth: But I never know when it's going to be up.
CI: She's not being paid for this. She's writing about music and she needs something that inspires her to write about. Then she needs the time in her own busy life to actually write it.
So she does what she can and we're lucky to have Kat's Korner.
Beth: I like movies. Could I get a Beth's Corner?
CI: If you want to address the political implications of movie and culture, absolutelty.
Beth: Why can't you do a post about the site being linked by someone?
CI: That was asked on Sunday. And answered.
[See http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2005/01/beths-questions-ethical-policies.html.]
Beth: Some of my favorite albums didn't make Kat's Korner. I've got a feeling you have everything that made the list.
CI: You're wrong. Love's Forever Changes is something I bought this past Sunday. Some people e-mailed and they'd counted the list. It was 151 albums listed or a little over 250 albums listed, according to the various counts. I don't have the time to count. But no, I don't have everything on the list. And there are albums I do have that I think are better than some that made the list. What would you have put on the list?
Beth: Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home and Prince's Controversy.
CI: I like Controversy. Bringing It All Back Home came out before 1964 and the list was focusing on albums that came out that year and later.
Beth: Who is Shirley and was she asked to proof each post?
CI: She's a member who's been writing for some time. She might have been one of the first five who wrote [on the second day of the blog], I'm not sure. But she points out mistakes and they get corrected or not. I say or not because there's not always time. The general rule is if it's someone's name, it gets corrected. Or if someone writes in saying that the quote left out a word that gets fixed. After that, if time permits, other things will be corrected. Sometimes Shirley will say, "This section is confusing" or "This section needs to be developed" and, if there's time for that, I'll work on it. It's really more important to me that new posts go up then that spelling is corrected or punctuation. I think most of the time people can figure it out without a correction.
Beth: I want to see more opinion.
CI: Others have said that too. I enjoy snapshots and may do one of those tomorrow or tonight. Where various sections of various articles are pulled together so that hopefully you end up with a better picture of an issue or an event then if it's just one voice.
Beth: What's the community's age span?
CI: I have no idea. I know that of people who've given their age, Eli is our oldest. I know that we have college students and one high school student. If there's anyone younger than high school they haven't identified as such. I don't ask anyone's age.
Beth: I'm 27. I've written Kat twice and she hasn't replied.
CI: That's something you take up with Kat. If an e-mail comes into the site (common_ills@yahoo.com) for her, it's forwarded to her account. She gets a lot of e-mail at the site and I'm sure at her e-mail account (kats_korner@hotmail.com). She's reviewing music and if she thinks something is worth including, I'm sure she will. But as for her replying to every e-mail, that's something you take up with her. You might also try making sure you state what you're writing about in the message heading because she's talked about getting spammed. If she thinks you're sending spam, I'm sure she won't bother to open it.
Beth: What's the most e-mail that's come in during one day?
CI: It would be the Thursday when Senator Barbara Boxer was the only senator to stand up for voting rights and sign on to Congress woman Stephanie Tubbs Jones' petition. I don't know how many e-mails came in that day. I know there were 397 on that subject because I counted. But Molly wrote that day [about privacy concerns] and she had to wait for a reply until Saturday. She wasn't the only one. I did try to reply in some way to each of the 397.
Beth: Were you suggesting on Sunday that you would let someone else handle the e-mail?
CI: No. I was whining. If someone else handled it, I might get a report on what was most on people's minds but I wouldn't really be in touch with what the other members were concerned about. But it is sometimes too much, if I can whine. If I forget to bring up something you asked me to, e-mail me again to remind me. In one of Daniel Okrent's columns, when I was reading them all one after another a few Saturdays back, he wrote, I believe, that the Times got 80,000 e-mails or letters. I was astounded at how low the number was. And, because I've contacted the Times many times, how many times they didn't even bother to reply. Forget the reporters a second, the editors have assistants. With e-mail, it takes five seconds for them to do a quick reply. And if anyone suffers under the delusion that if you write a letter to the paper, you will get a reply, let me clear that up because it's simply not the case. Now I have noticed that if you write in about something you liked, they tend to always reply and to reply quickly. I think they need to review how they handle negative criticism.
Beth: Maybe they're afraid it's a spam campaign either by e-mail or letter?
CI: I know of four members who subscribe and always do something: note that they are subscribers and give their address in any contact they have with the paper. I'm not saying the people who subscribe are better or more important than the ones who buy the paper at a newstand or store. But the people who subscribe can be very easily verified. The paper wants you to pay them over $460 a year. [Bad with math but I believe the full price for a year is $552 -- check the math, it's $46 dollars a month.] I think for that kind of money, if you have a problem, they should be able to at least send you a form letter.
Beth: What's about the public editor?
CI: Most of the time, if I've gotten a reply, it's been from Arthur Bovino, Daniel Okrent's assistant. And I've probably gotten a reply for evey eight times I've written. That's poor customer service. If you're writing to note a problem and they can easily verify that you are a subscriber, what message does that leave you with? You've already got a problem with something that has appeared in the paper. You take the time to contact this company that's taking over $460 dollars of your money a year and they can't even reply in some way? Yes, they get a lot of mail but since I've never not gotten an immediate reply when I've written in to say "Good job," I have to wonder about the culture at the paper that allows them to ignore any criticism that isn't positive. The reader writing in already is bothered by something and the policy of the paper is to then aggrevate the situation by ignoring the reader? Daniel Okrent hasn't helped at all. I know that from members who've shared copies of the e-mails they've sent in. There are these huge areas that never get covered. He has no interest in the dining section or the arts section. (Though he can be quite chatty in an e-mail to someone writing in about the sports section judging from the forwarded e-mails that I've seen.) The book review was a mess before it changed leadership and it's only gotten worse in the view of most members. But he doesn't want to touch on that. He writes his silly op-eds, for instance attacking the Times for how he expects they will cover the Tonys, and every now and then he'll do some general piece that deals with a large topic. If you wrote in about the Times getting something wrong -- have you written in?
Beth: Yes, about an article on Madonna.
CI: About them cherry picking from SoundScan and Billboard figures?
Beth: Yes. And I got no reply.
CI: Well, if, for instance, I picked up the paper and Okrent wrote, "Beth has a problem with . . ."
and then dealt with it, I might think, "Well when are you going to get my issue?" but I'd also be grateful that a real issue had been dealt with. Jim won't mind me repeating this but he thinks Okrent writes "readers" when it's really Okrent writing about a topic he's decided to write about. Jim had four examples and I'm blanking on them now. I believe one was about an article in the Sunday Magazine. Readers are invisible. It's all about what Okrent wants to write. Or "what I want to write about" as he put it in that one column. He's done an awful job. He's mistaken himself for an op-ed writer when he's supposed to be the readers' representative. And because the Times has failed to point that out to him, he thinks it's okay that he quoted from a private e-mail against the wishes of "George" and that it's okay that he identified George by name and location. That's not okay. He's not [Adam] Nagourney's body guard. He's the readers' representative. And when he elected to out "George," he spit on every reader of the paper. If you piss Okrent off in some way, you better know he'll out you and make snide remarks about you. Not just in the paper but elsewhere as well, like his comments in Business Week. Okrent abused his position at the paper and the Times refused to call him on the carpet.
This is something that will be a major embarrassment for them because they didn't address it and it's not going away. People remember what happened and they're going to continue to talk about it. The Times has apparently decided they'll deal with the situation by ignoring it. I don't know who gave that advice but it's bad advice. We addressed that ("Daniel Okrent, Step Down") because a number of members were offended by Okrent's outing of "George." Not just Rob, a large number of people. By refusing to address it, they've allowed it to fester and people are outraged by it.
Beth: Agree but I meant "what about the public editor and his replies?"
CI: Non-replies. He and his assistant could do a better job of responding and they don't. So you read the column thinking, "Well it'll be in this." It never is. You begin to realize that your complaints don't matter at all. It's just this huge box that's overflowing with complaints from various people and at some point (in May?) the box will be tossed in the trash. That makes you wonder how much the paper values it's readers?
Beth: Who picks the links?
CI: The permalinks? The ones that are off to the side and always on the site?
Beth: Yep.
CI: I do. E-mails will come in saying, "Link to this!" And when they do, I do link for a story or an article. I picked BuzzFlash and Democracy Now! as the first two links with no input because I felt they were strong sites. (And no one was giving input then.) After that, Ms. Musing and Dahr Jamail went up. I picked those two to highlight them. On the next round, Naomi Klein's writing had been mentioned so she was an obvious pick and a number of people had asked for a permalink to Bob Somerby's Daily Howler because I wasn't always mentioning it everytime he had a new post. So they wanted a link there where they could just click right away. [Although clicking on BuzzFlash and scrolling down would have allowed them to check both BuzzFlash and The Daily Howler.] The ones at the start of the month were NOW, which I'd said we would link to in a posted entry [ahead of time] and then the blogs that members were asking for links to: Interesting Times, Science And Politics, and Why Are We Back In Iraq? Tonight I made the decision to link to A Winding Road and Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude because those are two of our members who've just started blogging and I wanted to be sure we were supporting their efforts as a community. Is there something you want linked to?
Beth: NAACP.
CI: That's actually going to be linked to at the end of the month. Five other people have asked for that.
Beth: Okay, getting to the last topic. My cousin and I both read and I print it up for my aunt who doesn't have a computer. When I write in or my cousin we always wonder if we'd be quoted if we wrote this long thing about "Oh I love the site it has changed my life. You are the greatest" and like that for three paragraphs, if we'd get quoted?
CI: Has your cousin been quoted?
Beth: Yes.
CI: If someone's telling a personal story, I'll pay attention but if it's generic statements like you indicate, I scan them quickly to find out what they're writing about. Are we not highlighting something? Do they feel something's highlighted too much? Did I offend someone? Do they have something they want to share with the blog? That's what I'm reading for. No one needs to include a kiss-up opening to get a reply or to be quoted. I used to collect autographs when I was a child. At first in person and then I had this huge collection and people (grown ups) would always say, "That's going to be worth so much money one day!" I think I got greedy. Because then I started writing to people for autographs. Three months later, you might hear from someone or you might not. After the first three months, I moved to a schedule where I'd write two people a week for autographs. That way instead of waiting and waiting for a reply, hopefully there'd be something coming in pretty regularly. Point, I wrote a lot of people that were my "back up" autographs. I didn't really admire them, I just wanted the autograph to add to the collection. So I wrote a lot of kiss up paragraphs as I tried to get an autograph. I'm not offended when someone does that in an e-mail but I'm not sitting there thinking, "Oh they love me!"
And it's not about me, it's about a community. So there's no need for it. You don't even have to include a greeting. Rob usually writes very short e-mails and he's been angry sometimes. He's never had to include a paragraph or a sentence praising me or the site to get quoted.
Beth: But some people get quoted all the time.
CI: People who get quoted more often either reply to requests to quote them with their permission or else they are, like Jim, someone who says "quote me" or "you can quote me"
in their original e-mail. I know you don't feel you've been quoted enough but you usually respond two days after you've been asked and often a post on the topic has already gone up.
Someone else, Gina or Kara or whomever, could say, "Hey, Beth got to do an interview! Why didn't I get to do one?" You wanted questions answered (in an e-mail Saturday night) so I answered those Sunday. Then Monday or Tuesday you wrote, "I want follow ups." So that's why we're here right now.
Beth: One more. What do you hope the community does?
CI: Gets more informed. Thinks more critically about the way things are presented. I don't mean in a negative manner only. The Times did an incredible job of covering the tsunami for the first two weeks. People saw that and we noted it. We should do that when there is good reporting. But when there's bad reporting, we should note that too. And hopefully, with all the sharing going on here, we're able to not just say, "It was bad" but "It was bad because it ___ and it ___." So that's one hope, that we don't just passively read or watch or listen to the news.
Another hope is that we're all becoming a little more informed about the world we live in and each other. You said you voted for Cobb, right?
Beth: Right.
CI: Where did you learn about him?
Beth: I went to a rally.
CI: And the media?
Beth: I don't remember one story on him being on TV, or as Randi [Rhodes] says "right there on my TV screen." I don't remember reading one story on him or by him. If he hadn't showed up in my area, I wouldn't have known about him.
CI: Did you complain to anyone about the lack of coverage?
Beth: No. I should have.
CI: Right because we need to be heard. And hopefully, people in our community that aren't as active will become more active. And hopefully, with us all sharing, we'll manage to learn about something we wouldn't have known about -- an opinion, a development, a candidate, etc. I think I stated on this site before that I did everything I knew of to do in 2004 except start a blog. Friends were always saying, "You should do a blog." I didn't know anything about blogging or how to blog. But after the election, a number of us were looking at where we were successful and where we weren't. That's one reason we don't highlight the Times' op-eds. A good friend of mine feels that they spoke to people who were in a position to receive them but for people who wanted to dismiss them, they were able to say, "Oh, that's the New York Times!" In our [informal] survey, we found out, for instance, that Molly Ivins was far more successful in reaching swing voters because she spoke in a voice that reached them. But we were all also talking about what we could do to make sure the next election went differently. The one things I could think of that I hadn't done was blog.
Beth: And do you think it's made a difference?
CI: You said last question awhile back. I think we've made a difference, we. You've got two members doing their own blogs now. You've got some new names popping up on the entries and some of them are new members but some of them are members who've e-mailed for awhile but only now feel comfortable expressing themselves. You've got people participating in the Times, not just reading it and tossing it aside. There are people who write to say that they always kept their mouths shut when someone at work or wherever was singing Bush's praises. But Erkia's points about the power of yes and the power of no have allowed them to say, "I don't like him."
That's a big first step. There are people who now write the Times about something. And there are some members who'll send in something from our blog to the paper. People are finding ways they are comfortable with to interact. It only makes us all stronger.
Beth: Okay, last question, promise. Three books that you think everyone should read?
CI: I don't think there are only three books and I don't think that everyone needs to read the same books. I'll pick three books that I think might get overlooked and I'll stick with non-fiction. Gloria Steinem's Outrageous Acts & Everyday Rebellions because it drives home the power that we do have. At one point, she's writing about how to get active and one of her points is that we can all take the time during The Tonight Show (I think it was The Tonight Show that she named) to write a letter to a Congressional representative. That book came out in 1983. Today, with the internet, it's even easier to weigh in and be heard. There are a number of reasons to read the book but I think it's strong book and one that's beneficial. Susan Faludi's Backlash is another book I'd put on this list you're asking for. It's funny, it's political and it will make you think not about an isolated incident but about larger connections. I loved that book because there were a number of people around me at that time who would dismiss any discussion on media portrayals as non-important. These are the cultural narratives of our times, our modern day bedtime stories or fairy tales. And we do need to think about the message they send. When people of a certain age dismissed any discussion on media portrayals after Backlash came out, I was always able to whip the book out and say, "Well Susan Faludi says . . ." (I took that book everywhere. Even on a camping trip.) For the last one, I'll pick something more current. In the last two years, a number of great non-fiction books have come out. I'm going to highlight one that I feel was overlooked, Benjamin Barber's Fear's Empire. I think we need to think about the effects of sloganeering and the realities of what's being done when we passively go along. For those reasons, I'll pick Fear's Empire.
Beth: Okay, three novels.
CI: I'll give you three novels if you'll list three and three nonfiction books.
Beth: Nonfiction. Laura Flander's The W Effect, Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin. I think everyone should read them.
CI: I like those books. Fiction?
Beth: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. And everyone should read them.
CI: Of those three, I've only read Their Eyes Were Watching God. My three? John Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle, Alice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy and Jay McInerney's Brightness Falls.
A Winding Road & Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude
Two members of The Common Ills community have begun blogging. Last week A Winding Road started and this week Rebecca has started Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude.
Both bloggers do not use any kind of tracking of visitors to their site. (Unless Google has something installed that they -- and I -- do not know about.)
A Winding Road is focusing on politics, music and books. In fact, Saturday will be a book day each week. The e-mail address is posted on that site if you'd like to drop a line to A Winding Road.
Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude is going to, in Rebecca's words, "focus on politics in a don't blow smoke up my a-- way and I'll be drooling over various males too."
Rebecca thought her e-mail address was visible on the page (it's not). She thus far has closed off all reply comments on her blog. She isn't sure yet if she'll open up that section but said that she will work on making her e-mail address visible and to let readers of this site know it's sexandpolitics@yahoo.com in case you want to drop her line.
I'm really happy that both are blogging. They write the most wonderful e-mails and now you'll be able to appreciate their strong writing.
Rebecca warns that Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude will use strong language and that she'll be blogging on things that outrage her so "people may get upset."
I'd just done the links (which is already hard for me) when I got an e-mail from A Winding Road saying that a new blog had just been created. I wanted to link to it then but AWR wasn't sure how long the blog would last. It's a week and three days old today (check my math, always) so we're linking.
If you're a community member and interested in creating a blog, I'd urge to look into it. (And let us know so we can get the word out.) The more voices we have out there, the better.
We were silenced after 9-11 by the mainstream media and we need to make sure that never happens again. We had Pacifica radio (http://www.pacifica.org/ )
and Democracy Now! (www.democracynow.org) and Buzzflash (www.buzzflash.com) and probably a variety of other things. We did have Randi Rhodes but most of us didn't know she was out there. We now have Air America Radio (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) which is now the home of Randi Rhodes's The Randi Rhodes Show. In addition, the network hosts The Mike Malloy Show, The Majority Report, The Laura Flanders Show, Ring of Fire, So What Else Is News?, Unfiltered, Morning Sedition, The Kyle Jason Show, The Revolution Starts Now, Eco-Talk and The Al Franken Show. Are every one of those shows going to be for every listener?
No. So you shop around and find the show or shows that feed you and give you what you need.
If you're unable to listen (either over the radio or through their web stream via Real Player or Windows Media Player) when the show airs, you can go to Air America Place (http://www.airamericaplace.com/index.php) which has archives of broadcast shows.
I'll also note that you can hear highlights of the shows on the main page for Air America (via Windows Media Player only) so click on http://www.airamericaradio.com/ if you'd like to sample.
Currently, these are the highlighted segments that you'd find there:
Morning Sedition (January 12th, 2005) Monty Python's own Terry Jones joins Marc and Mark from across The Pond to explain his take on the War on Terror, and to vent his frustration over why guys like Bush and Blair seem to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Listen here.
Unfiltered (January 12th, 2005) Thai Jones, a man who comes from a long line of revolutionaries visits Rachel Maddow and Lizz Winstead to chat about his ancestry. Listen here. The Al Franken Show (January 12th, 2005) Al tries yet again to convince his Dittohead Buddy, Mark Luther, that Rush Limbaugh is completely wrong. Does he succeed? Take a listen and find out. Listen here.
The Randi Rhodes Show (January 12th, 2004) Randi Rhodes taps her good friend and doctor, Howard Dean to find out where he wants to take the Democratic party if he gets the chair. They also open the phone lines and take some questions from inquisitive callers. Listen here.
The Majority Report (January 11th, 2004) Janeane discusses the rise of the Republican far-right with Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's magazine. Listen here.
The Mike Malloy Show (January 11th, 2004) Mike delivers a flesh-tingling bio of Michael Chertoff, your new homeland security nominee. Listen here.
So What Else Is News (January 8th, 2005) Marty Kaplan talks to former Senator and presidential candidate Carol Moseley Braun about the influence of the late Shirley Chisholm. Listen here.
Ring Of Fire (January 8th, 2005) Mike Papantonio speaks with Teresa Calalay, whose son was among students subjected to horrific abuse at a "faith-based" school in Texas. Listen here.
The Laura Flanders Show (January 8th, 2005) The people spoke and some Democrats listened. Senior producer of "The Laura Flanders Show" Steve Rosenfeld and Amy Kaplan of the "League of Pissed-Off Voters" describe the movement that led to the election certification challenge. Listen here.
The Laura Flanders Show (January 9th, 2005) Ziad Abbas, co-director of a community center in a Palestinian refugee camp talks to Laura Flanders about Sunday's vote for a new president of the Palestinian Authority. Listen here.
The Kyle Jason Show (January 8th, 2005) Kyle Jason and special guest co-host Chuck D debate the evolution of HipHop and Jazz with a caller named Maleek. Listen here.
EcoTalk (January 9th, 2005) Host Betsy Rosenberg talks about "Green Media" with Steve Kerwood, host of NPR's "Living On Earth." Listen here.
There's no link to Steve Earl's The Revolution Starts Now! so let's post Air America's description of the show:
Eight-time Grammy nominee Steve Earle has signed on to host a weekly radio program on Air America Radio. The newest addition to the AAR lineup entitled, "The Revolution Starts Now," will air Sunday nights from 10:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. The weekly radio show will feature recognizable guest who will be asked to bring his/her favorite playlist for the one hour broadcast. Earle will engage his guests in discussions and debates on a range of issues including from politics, music and current affairs.
That's twelve shows total so hopefully there's something there that you'll find useless.
(I'm listening to The Majority Report as I write this and Janeane Garofalo and guest co-host Lewis Lapham -- of Harper's -- have been doing an incredible job.)
But is that it?
No. Not by a long shot. Pacifica radio has a multitude of programs worth highlighting many of which are regional. If you have a favorite, please e-mail this site (common_ills@yahoo.com) and we'll note it.
I'm going to note a daily show (Monday through Friday) that's a half hour each day: Free Speech Radio News (http://www.fsrn.org/). If you listen to today's show, here are the stories you'd hear about:
•Attacks on Iraqi Army Continue: Report from Baghdad•Bush Nominee Chertoff Has Alarming Record•Debt Relief for Tsunami Countries? •UN Meets to Discuss Tsunami Relief•African Nations not Recieving Needed Aid •Israeli Occupation Continues Despite Abbas Election •Can a Connecticut Execution be Stopped?
Is that it?
Believe it or not, no!
If you go to the web site of The Progressive (http://www.progressive.org/) and scroll down you'll have access to both Matthew Rothschild's commentaries and to the weekly show:
* Progressive Point Of View Matthew Rothschild's daily two-minute radio commentaries. Last Update: January 12, 2005 Chertoff Gives Pause
* Progressive Radio Ricardo González Interview
The links are to the latest installments of both. The Progressive Point of View is a Monday through Friday feature. Progressive Radio is a half hour weekly show.
Wow, you say, that's a lot. But there's one more I want to highlight:
Radio Nation hosted by award-winning journalist and Nation magazine contributing editor Marc Cooper, has been heard weekly on scores of public radio stations since its inception in 1995. As one of the country's most important progressive media outlets, and sponsored by The Nation Institute, RadioNation features the voices and thoughts of leading journalists, authors and activists.
If you go there (http://www.thenation.com/blogs/audioblog?bid=8) and have the time to listen to various interviews, I'd recommend especially the interviews with Gloria Steinem, Tom Hayden, Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn and The Nation's Patricia J. Williamson (I find her speaking voice amazing) (which is probably why I've listened to the episode with her speaking five or six times by now).
So we have a multitude of resources out there. (And the list doesn't end there. That's just some of the things I've elected to cite.) Some will have you nodding your head in agreement, others may cause you to scowl. It's up to you to find out which resources are for you.
And if you're able to, it's great if you can share the resources. That might just mean that you're saying, "I saw this story on BuzzFlash today . . ." or "Oh! Democracy Now! did a story on that today!" I know a number of you have e-mailed that until you discovered The Common Ills and were able to make it your blog, you felt isolated because you didn't trust the mainstream media that had lied to you too often. Now you write about (these are all permalinks on the side of our site) BuzzFlash or Democracy Now! or Why Are We Back In Iraq? or Science And Politcs or Ms. Musing (which had a problem with spamming and is attempting to fix that problem) or Interesting Times or NOW or The Daily Howler or Naomi Klein's No Logo or Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches. You've found some resources and you can share those.
That's how we connect to one another. 2004 saw the end of NOW With Bill Moyers (the show will continue as a half hour show) and that was a big blow for many of us because Moyers was such a strong and true voice. We do miss him but we do have other voices and we need to make sure that the people we talk to know that they are out there.
Let us never again start an election year with the need to educate the populace as a whole. We're looking at 2006 as a year for Congressional elections and 2008 for a presidential election.
Let's make sure we're ready and not having to rush around to educate people in our circle. No more cram sessions if we can help it.
With both of those election cycles, we'll be depending on each other. As a member, it's important for you to talk up who you are supporting. And it can be a third party candidate. Yes, even during the presidential election.
This is our blog and certainly the Democratic Party is not the only game in town. So if you're supporting a third party candidate and you don't feel that s/he is getting attention elsewhere, e-mail the site so that at least we can know in our community about the candidate your supporting.
When we end up in an election, or a primary, the community may decide to make an endorsement. (Obviously, the community endorses Howard Dean for DNC chair.) But when we're in those cycles, I'm not going to weigh in. I'm posting your e-mails and I certainly get to type whatever I want. I don't want to abuse that by saying, "Well, I'm for . . ."
I didn't do that during the Democratic Primary. I elected to support John Kerry in March of 2003. I did not make a point to push him over any other Democrat during the primary. If someone asked me, I would discuss all the candidates equally and try to highlight their good points and their bad points. That was easy to do with all but one candidate. (I'm sure you know whom I mean.)
But we have members who supported Kucinich and we have members who supported Nader and we have members who supported Cobb and members who supported Dean. (I'm sure I'm blanking on someone who wrote in that they supported someone else, sorry.) When we're in an election cycle, you can make your case for supporting the person you feel is right for the job.
We spend a lot of time on the New York Times and if anyone's new to the reason for that it's due to the fact that so much of the other media (especially radio and television) are influenced by what makes the front page of the Times. Other than that, we try to highlight resources and if you see something that blows you away, let us know. Billie did that with The Fort Worth Weekly. And as a result of her, we now do a weekly roundup of the alternative press each Thursday.
Please make yourself heard even if you don't want to be quoted. And when we're in an election cycle, please make yourself heard about your choices. We need more discussion and we need more voices. This is our democracy and we have to participate if it's to survive.
Both bloggers do not use any kind of tracking of visitors to their site. (Unless Google has something installed that they -- and I -- do not know about.)
A Winding Road is focusing on politics, music and books. In fact, Saturday will be a book day each week. The e-mail address is posted on that site if you'd like to drop a line to A Winding Road.
Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude is going to, in Rebecca's words, "focus on politics in a don't blow smoke up my a-- way and I'll be drooling over various males too."
Rebecca thought her e-mail address was visible on the page (it's not). She thus far has closed off all reply comments on her blog. She isn't sure yet if she'll open up that section but said that she will work on making her e-mail address visible and to let readers of this site know it's sexandpolitics@yahoo.com in case you want to drop her line.
I'm really happy that both are blogging. They write the most wonderful e-mails and now you'll be able to appreciate their strong writing.
Rebecca warns that Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude will use strong language and that she'll be blogging on things that outrage her so "people may get upset."
I'd just done the links (which is already hard for me) when I got an e-mail from A Winding Road saying that a new blog had just been created. I wanted to link to it then but AWR wasn't sure how long the blog would last. It's a week and three days old today (check my math, always) so we're linking.
If you're a community member and interested in creating a blog, I'd urge to look into it. (And let us know so we can get the word out.) The more voices we have out there, the better.
We were silenced after 9-11 by the mainstream media and we need to make sure that never happens again. We had Pacifica radio (http://www.pacifica.org/ )
and Democracy Now! (www.democracynow.org) and Buzzflash (www.buzzflash.com) and probably a variety of other things. We did have Randi Rhodes but most of us didn't know she was out there. We now have Air America Radio (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) which is now the home of Randi Rhodes's The Randi Rhodes Show. In addition, the network hosts The Mike Malloy Show, The Majority Report, The Laura Flanders Show, Ring of Fire, So What Else Is News?, Unfiltered, Morning Sedition, The Kyle Jason Show, The Revolution Starts Now, Eco-Talk and The Al Franken Show. Are every one of those shows going to be for every listener?
No. So you shop around and find the show or shows that feed you and give you what you need.
If you're unable to listen (either over the radio or through their web stream via Real Player or Windows Media Player) when the show airs, you can go to Air America Place (http://www.airamericaplace.com/index.php) which has archives of broadcast shows.
I'll also note that you can hear highlights of the shows on the main page for Air America (via Windows Media Player only) so click on http://www.airamericaradio.com/ if you'd like to sample.
Currently, these are the highlighted segments that you'd find there:
Morning Sedition (January 12th, 2005) Monty Python's own Terry Jones joins Marc and Mark from across The Pond to explain his take on the War on Terror, and to vent his frustration over why guys like Bush and Blair seem to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Listen here.
Unfiltered (January 12th, 2005) Thai Jones, a man who comes from a long line of revolutionaries visits Rachel Maddow and Lizz Winstead to chat about his ancestry. Listen here. The Al Franken Show (January 12th, 2005) Al tries yet again to convince his Dittohead Buddy, Mark Luther, that Rush Limbaugh is completely wrong. Does he succeed? Take a listen and find out. Listen here.
The Randi Rhodes Show (January 12th, 2004) Randi Rhodes taps her good friend and doctor, Howard Dean to find out where he wants to take the Democratic party if he gets the chair. They also open the phone lines and take some questions from inquisitive callers. Listen here.
The Majority Report (January 11th, 2004) Janeane discusses the rise of the Republican far-right with Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's magazine. Listen here.
The Mike Malloy Show (January 11th, 2004) Mike delivers a flesh-tingling bio of Michael Chertoff, your new homeland security nominee. Listen here.
So What Else Is News (January 8th, 2005) Marty Kaplan talks to former Senator and presidential candidate Carol Moseley Braun about the influence of the late Shirley Chisholm. Listen here.
Ring Of Fire (January 8th, 2005) Mike Papantonio speaks with Teresa Calalay, whose son was among students subjected to horrific abuse at a "faith-based" school in Texas. Listen here.
The Laura Flanders Show (January 8th, 2005) The people spoke and some Democrats listened. Senior producer of "The Laura Flanders Show" Steve Rosenfeld and Amy Kaplan of the "League of Pissed-Off Voters" describe the movement that led to the election certification challenge. Listen here.
The Laura Flanders Show (January 9th, 2005) Ziad Abbas, co-director of a community center in a Palestinian refugee camp talks to Laura Flanders about Sunday's vote for a new president of the Palestinian Authority. Listen here.
The Kyle Jason Show (January 8th, 2005) Kyle Jason and special guest co-host Chuck D debate the evolution of HipHop and Jazz with a caller named Maleek. Listen here.
EcoTalk (January 9th, 2005) Host Betsy Rosenberg talks about "Green Media" with Steve Kerwood, host of NPR's "Living On Earth." Listen here.
There's no link to Steve Earl's The Revolution Starts Now! so let's post Air America's description of the show:
Eight-time Grammy nominee Steve Earle has signed on to host a weekly radio program on Air America Radio. The newest addition to the AAR lineup entitled, "The Revolution Starts Now," will air Sunday nights from 10:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. The weekly radio show will feature recognizable guest who will be asked to bring his/her favorite playlist for the one hour broadcast. Earle will engage his guests in discussions and debates on a range of issues including from politics, music and current affairs.
That's twelve shows total so hopefully there's something there that you'll find useless.
(I'm listening to The Majority Report as I write this and Janeane Garofalo and guest co-host Lewis Lapham -- of Harper's -- have been doing an incredible job.)
But is that it?
No. Not by a long shot. Pacifica radio has a multitude of programs worth highlighting many of which are regional. If you have a favorite, please e-mail this site (common_ills@yahoo.com) and we'll note it.
I'm going to note a daily show (Monday through Friday) that's a half hour each day: Free Speech Radio News (http://www.fsrn.org/). If you listen to today's show, here are the stories you'd hear about:
•Attacks on Iraqi Army Continue: Report from Baghdad•Bush Nominee Chertoff Has Alarming Record•Debt Relief for Tsunami Countries? •UN Meets to Discuss Tsunami Relief•African Nations not Recieving Needed Aid •Israeli Occupation Continues Despite Abbas Election •Can a Connecticut Execution be Stopped?
Is that it?
Believe it or not, no!
If you go to the web site of The Progressive (http://www.progressive.org/) and scroll down you'll have access to both Matthew Rothschild's commentaries and to the weekly show:
* Progressive Point Of View Matthew Rothschild's daily two-minute radio commentaries. Last Update: January 12, 2005 Chertoff Gives Pause
* Progressive Radio Ricardo González Interview
The links are to the latest installments of both. The Progressive Point of View is a Monday through Friday feature. Progressive Radio is a half hour weekly show.
Wow, you say, that's a lot. But there's one more I want to highlight:
Radio Nation hosted by award-winning journalist and Nation magazine contributing editor Marc Cooper, has been heard weekly on scores of public radio stations since its inception in 1995. As one of the country's most important progressive media outlets, and sponsored by The Nation Institute, RadioNation features the voices and thoughts of leading journalists, authors and activists.
If you go there (http://www.thenation.com/blogs/audioblog?bid=8) and have the time to listen to various interviews, I'd recommend especially the interviews with Gloria Steinem, Tom Hayden, Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn and The Nation's Patricia J. Williamson (I find her speaking voice amazing) (which is probably why I've listened to the episode with her speaking five or six times by now).
So we have a multitude of resources out there. (And the list doesn't end there. That's just some of the things I've elected to cite.) Some will have you nodding your head in agreement, others may cause you to scowl. It's up to you to find out which resources are for you.
And if you're able to, it's great if you can share the resources. That might just mean that you're saying, "I saw this story on BuzzFlash today . . ." or "Oh! Democracy Now! did a story on that today!" I know a number of you have e-mailed that until you discovered The Common Ills and were able to make it your blog, you felt isolated because you didn't trust the mainstream media that had lied to you too often. Now you write about (these are all permalinks on the side of our site) BuzzFlash or Democracy Now! or Why Are We Back In Iraq? or Science And Politcs or Ms. Musing (which had a problem with spamming and is attempting to fix that problem) or Interesting Times or NOW or The Daily Howler or Naomi Klein's No Logo or Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches. You've found some resources and you can share those.
That's how we connect to one another. 2004 saw the end of NOW With Bill Moyers (the show will continue as a half hour show) and that was a big blow for many of us because Moyers was such a strong and true voice. We do miss him but we do have other voices and we need to make sure that the people we talk to know that they are out there.
Let us never again start an election year with the need to educate the populace as a whole. We're looking at 2006 as a year for Congressional elections and 2008 for a presidential election.
Let's make sure we're ready and not having to rush around to educate people in our circle. No more cram sessions if we can help it.
With both of those election cycles, we'll be depending on each other. As a member, it's important for you to talk up who you are supporting. And it can be a third party candidate. Yes, even during the presidential election.
This is our blog and certainly the Democratic Party is not the only game in town. So if you're supporting a third party candidate and you don't feel that s/he is getting attention elsewhere, e-mail the site so that at least we can know in our community about the candidate your supporting.
When we end up in an election, or a primary, the community may decide to make an endorsement. (Obviously, the community endorses Howard Dean for DNC chair.) But when we're in those cycles, I'm not going to weigh in. I'm posting your e-mails and I certainly get to type whatever I want. I don't want to abuse that by saying, "Well, I'm for . . ."
I didn't do that during the Democratic Primary. I elected to support John Kerry in March of 2003. I did not make a point to push him over any other Democrat during the primary. If someone asked me, I would discuss all the candidates equally and try to highlight their good points and their bad points. That was easy to do with all but one candidate. (I'm sure you know whom I mean.)
But we have members who supported Kucinich and we have members who supported Nader and we have members who supported Cobb and members who supported Dean. (I'm sure I'm blanking on someone who wrote in that they supported someone else, sorry.) When we're in an election cycle, you can make your case for supporting the person you feel is right for the job.
We spend a lot of time on the New York Times and if anyone's new to the reason for that it's due to the fact that so much of the other media (especially radio and television) are influenced by what makes the front page of the Times. Other than that, we try to highlight resources and if you see something that blows you away, let us know. Billie did that with The Fort Worth Weekly. And as a result of her, we now do a weekly roundup of the alternative press each Thursday.
Please make yourself heard even if you don't want to be quoted. And when we're in an election cycle, please make yourself heard about your choices. We need more discussion and we need more voices. This is our democracy and we have to participate if it's to survive.
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