Politizine.com

Random musings about politics, music, the media and modern times. Since 2002.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Oh, this is great ...

Duran Duran are playing Arcadia's "Election Day" on tour ... nice:



Yup, instead of checking work emails while drinking my morning coffee, I'm answering my facebook friends one of whom posted this great video ... work email can stew. I know that when I open it, there is just going to be a slew of spam in there anyway. Summer is slow ... Actually, there are a lot of recent DD videos on YouTube, from various shows around the country. It's amazing how an entire crowd can sing off-key. And the band sounds pretty good too. Good morning!

The Importance of Including Truth Emergency Inside the International Progressive Media Reform Movement

Guest Perspective by Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff

An international truth emergency, now in evidence, is the result of fraudulent elections, compromised 9/11 investigations, illegal preemptive wars, and continued top down corporate media propaganda across the spectrum on public issues. Glenn Beck recently was able to say on national Fox News television that 9/11 Truth people openly supported the shooting at the Holocaust Museum. Beck claimed that 9/11 truth proponents see James von Brunn as a “hero.” Beck’s statement is completely without factual merit and represents a hyperrealist slamming of a group already slanderously pre-labeled by the corporate media as “conspiracy theorists.”

Conspiracies tend to be actions by small groups of individuals rather than massive collective plots by entire governments. However, small groups can be dangerous, especially when the individuals have significant power in huge public and private bureaucracies. Corporate boards of directors meet in closed rooms to plan to how best to maximize profit. If they knowingly make plans that hurt others, violate laws, undermine ethics, or show favoritism to friends, they are involved in a conspiracy.

The main method of critics of unofficial investigations into 9/11, election fraud, and other controversial issues is to lump together all the questions and/or lines of inquiry as if they all have equal validity. Obviously, they do not. This, however, allows critics to dismiss fact-based, transparent inquiries into major problems with official explanations of these crucial matters by focusing on the most absurd claims only. These are fallacies of overgeneralization, straw persons, appeals to authority, and red herrings that provide distractions from actual fact-based, scientific investigations. These tactics avoid the debates about truth entirely. We the people must not be afraid to openly discuss, research, and validate these issues.

Here is a case in point: former Brigham Young University physics professor Dr. Steven E. Jones and some 700 scientific professionals in the fields of architecture, engineering, and physics have now concluded that the official explanation for the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings is implausible according to laws of physics. Especially troubling is the collapse of WTC 7, a forty-seven-story building that was not hit by planes, yet dropped in its own “footprint” in 6.6 seconds in the same manner as a controlled demolition.

To support his theory, Jones and eight other scientists conducted chemical research on the dust from the World Trade centers. Their research results were published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal Open Chemical Physics Journal, Volume 2, 2009. The authors write, “We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic.” Thermite is a pyrotechnic composition of a metal powder and a metal oxide, which produces an aluminothermic reaction known as a thermite reaction and is used in controlled demolitions of buildings. This should be a part of our political discourse given how much of the policy in the past eight years has been based on assumptions about 9/11.

These are some of the reasons we are in a truth emergency, which is predicated on the inability of many to distinguish between what is real and what is not. Corporate media, Fox in particular, offers “news” that creates a hyper-reality of real world problems and issues. Consumers of corporate news media — especially those whose understandings are framed primarily from that medium alone — are embedded in a state of excited delirium of knowinglessness. This lack of factual awareness of issues like election fraud in 2000 and 2004, and the increasing evidence of 9/11 Commission report inaccuracies, leaves people politically paralyzed.

To counter knowinglessness, media activists need to include truth emergency issues as important elements of radical-progressive media reform efforts. We must not be afraid of corporate media labeling and instead build truth from the bottom up. Critical thinking and fact-finding are the basis of democracy, and we must stand for the maximization of informed participatory democracy at the lowest possible level in society.

Progressive media activists should openly support 9/11 Truth and other truth emergency issues as important components of building a new non-exploitative world based on media democracy, full transparency and openness, and fundamental human rights.

Peter Phillips is Professor of Sociology, Sonoma State University; President, Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored; 9/11 Truth Steering Committee. Mickey Huff is Associate Professor of History, Diablo Valley College; Executive Committee, Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored; 9/11 Truth Advisory Committee.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Yikes: NSA power expands under Obama

Check this out:

Cahill a "socialist"? Sounds like it ...

For those of us who work in the media in Massachusetts or even just follow things there, for sport, the announcement by Treasurer Tim Cahill that he was leaving the Democrat Party and becoming an independent [or "unenrolled"] was a bit of a shocker.
However, here he is on "Keller at Large" this morning, calling himself a "socialist"! ["Keller @ Large"].
About seven minutes into the interview, Cahill says he doesn't know if he supports Cape Wind or not but does support wind power. Then he says this:
"I think where I differ from some of the in--, some of the other socialists, I would be open and, and potentially supportive of, of, uh, the death penalty in the state of Massachusetts ..."
Now, I think what Cahill meant to say was, I think where I differ from some of the other social liberals ... but, that's not what he said.
Later, in the conversation, he stated that considered himself a social moderate, saying that his religion made him uncomfortable with some positions. But he also said that he believed in the separation of church and state.
Of course, this is just a small bit of misspeak in an otherwise brilliant political move that had tongues wagging around the state last week. It's a big gamble by Cahill but probably his only chance to win the corner office - and set the state on the right track. And when you have nothing to lose, it's always better to go out with a bang ... standing by your principles.

More on the Eagle Times closing

The Union Leader has a pretty good story here about the demise of the Eagle Times newspaper by a former reporter and current UL correspondent: ["Claremont mourns loss of local voice"].
Interestingly, the owner said he couldn't subsidize the newspaper anymore. Well, that makes sense but it also makes me wonder a bit. Why were they hiring more people if things were so bad? Why were they closing titles instead of trying to sell them for at least something? This doesn't seem like good business to me. Everyone in the business is having to do more with less. I don't understand why they couldn't figure out a way to adapt. Could the Eagle Times be turned into a weekly or bi-weekly instead of a daily? A circ of 9,000 is pretty good but with so many employees, I can see where it might have been hard to make it work.
As daily newspapers go the way of the dodo, they do have options. Going to multiple editions a week or ending editions which are not popular are possibilities [I've written about this previously]. The Eagle Times didn't have a Saturday edition. Maybe it could have published Monday, Thursday, and Sunday, and done it with half the employees? I don't know. I'm just guessing. But it seems more than a little sad to close down a 175 year institution.

Update: The Monitor's great columnist Ray Duckler has a piece here about the shuttering of the newspaper: ["Paper vanishes; community reels"].

Saturday, July 11, 2009

For Mikey Dee fans ...

For those of you out there who were fans of the late, great Mikey Dee, Drugless Douglas reminds us that he has a ton of the live performances from "On the Town with Mikey Dee" up online: ["http://druglessdouglas.com/ott/old.html"].
I know Joel Simches, another fill-in and master band mixer, is planning a big anniversary show coming up and has asked people to submit clips. I have been trying to find something worthy of airplay to give him ...

Neglecting the blogs ...

Admittedly, I've been neglecting my Politizine and OurConcord Web sites, mostly due to work commitments, which have been pretty overwhelming lately.
A few weeks ago, the staff reporter I worked with took another job in the industry. We were all excited for her but it left a huge hole. Because I haven't had staff support, I have been putting in a lot more than the 45-plus hours per week I normally put into the job, in order to get everything done and maintain what I have always believed was my own personal work standard.
Frankly, it has not been easy trying to maintain the standard alone. In fact, it has been nearly impossible to continue to be one of the top home page poster of the 100-plus weeklies, produce video content, a weekly email alert, weekly poll, numerous blog posts, writing even more stories and editorials [one week it was seven and the next two weeks it was nine ...], and producing, granted, a small print edition. It gave me a broad, albeit short, view into the world of what it is like to be a single editor running an entire operation, trying to meet high journalistic standards while delivering what customers want and expect [thankfully, the reporter was replaced with another from within the company. But, shockingly 14 other newspapers in the unit I work in have no other staff support, just correspondents, and it's not bound to get better].
Needless to say, it's extremely difficult, even in a busy and active town where the stories just fall off the trees. So, you can understand why things might fall by the wayside, or, you would at least assume why some things might.
On top of this, I'm trying to spend more time at home so that my wife can devout more time to her freelance business, in order to make up the difference of a 7 percent corporate pay cut. As things get worse, and they probably will, who knows what will happen. And yet, the journalistic standard - personal, corporate, reader, whatever - remains, nearly impossible to fill in a 40-plus hour workweek.
As I have flipped back and forth between radio and newspapers numerous times during the last decade-plus, the threshold of what is expected from employees keeps changing. Consumers want more for less; management wants more for less, etc. Essentially, the finish line keeps being moved forward while management and owners fiddle with everything under the sun, unable to predict the future and in some cases, unable to make the smallest decision about what is best. Sometimes, they make extremely bad decisions. They are only human, after all. We all make mistakes. But shouldn't employees be honest about what they are feeling and shouldn't they have more of a role than just mopping up the mess and trying to make due? We're all in the boat together, right?
At some point, it just breaks. For many, it already has. I can count on four or five sets of hands the number of talented broadcasters and journalists who have left [or been driven out of] the business due to these factors when it simply didn't need to be this way. And yet, it didn't have to be this way. I know from my reading that there is really a difference between management and leadership and it is clear. It isn't easy to change from moving the chairs on the Titanic to making sure that everyone gets off the boat safely and soundly. Should employees be inspired and driven to reach new heights or driven and inspired to flee?
I don't claim to have all the answers. I know I don't. Everyone seems to be in the same pickle these days. But it clear is that something needs to be done to keep the news business alive while at the same time keeping quality employees engaged, activated, and feeling as if they have a role in the future - instead of fearing the future. There are other things too but I want to get on to enjoying my weekend ...
Back to the blogs. I don't know what the future holds for them frankly. As can happen, a couple of times a year, I begin to question and wonder what I'm doing with them and whether or not they are worth the time. I honestly don't know. I had a short conversation with a family member the other day and I realized in the course of that conversation that I am technically middle aged. At 44, I'm probably past what was once considered middle-aged [A Google search of "how old is middle age" revealed 96 million entries on the topic ... Wikipedia says that the U.S. Census lists middle age at 35-44 and 45-54 ... so, that's about right, correct?]
I keep coming back to the book ideas I'm never going to finish, the degree I never finished, the fact that I'm not learning much or growing from much that I'm doing. Sure, life is an education. Family always needs more, and that's fulfilling. But, I need more too and I don't quite know how to bring about that change that will allow me to grow personally and professionally.
I wonder, what are all of you doing out there? Do you think about these things? Do you prospect for the future or does it fall in your lap? Do you analyze the fork in the road or just take one route in the hope that if you make a mistake, you can turn around and drive back? Or, are you just doing whatever you can to get by? Let me know, I'm interested in having an online conversation about how other folks are handling everything that is going on in the world.

Real unemployment figures? Probably at least 10 million

Check out this interesting analysis from "the fringes," if you will ...: ["Unemployment Claims: How Bad are the "Real" Numbers?"].
I only say "the fringes" because this guy seems a bit out there not unlike Alex Jones and some of the other folks online who are telling people what seems to be the truth but they may not be all that trustworthy.
However, I like the way he has broken out the official numbers to present what looks like a true depression, in the sense that the unemployment numbers, even altered for population growth, are twice as bad as the 1982 and 1975 recessions! That means we're in a depression at this point folks, no doubt about it.
Again, like I said a few weeks ago, these numbers don't include the folks who have fallen off the rolls, who are only able to get part-time work or are unemployed, or anyone else who isn't working full-time but is not counted in the statistics. What does that mean? Well, it means that there are probably a lot more than 10 million people out of work right now.

Friday, July 10, 2009

More newspaper problems in NH

I almost took a job at this newspaper two and a half years ago ... and now, it's gone: ["Eagle Times Publisher Filing For Bankruptcy"].
This is one day when I realize that I made the right decision not taking a job. I really wonder about my decisions sometimes. At the same time, it was Tim Donnelly, the managing editor, who saw my resume online and called my house one day. I saw his number on the phone and said, "Who would be calling me from the Claremont Eagle Times?" We had a nice chat over the phone and I went up for the interview. The drive was a haul - about an hour and 20 minutes - and I was just wondering how bad it would be in the winter ... going north!
But the money wasn't bad and I was impressed with the small-time operation when I got there. Tim wore a dress shirt that was too small on him and a strange small necktie but I thought, "Well, a bit eccentric, no biggie ..." I was interviewed by him and the new editor who had just moved to New Hampshire from Chicago, which seemed a tad odd, but whatever. I thought the interview went pretty well and it seemed like they wanted me for the job.
Afterward, I took a short drive around Claremont and the back way home and realized that the region was a treasure trove of potential stories. I noticed a slew of independent businesses which seemed to be struggling which made me think that a series of features might be a good thing. There were run-down buildings all over the place. It got me wondering about poverty levels; code and zoning issues; how difficult is it to find housing in Claremont and surrounding communities; etc. I wondered, were my assumptions based incorrectly on what I saw ... which might not be the reality?
I pitched the ideas and a few more questions about responsibilities and other issues and, later, got a response from the editor that just took me back a little bit. Instead of being excited about the fact that one of his new reporters had already come up with a slew of new story ideas after being in the city for about an hour, he seemed discouraging. So I turned the job down and it was the right decision at the time.
Later, the owner of the Eagle Times and a slew of other weeklies closed down the Argus Champion, the newspaper of record for the Lake Sunapee area and surrounding communities. The newspaper was one of the oldest in the state, dating back 177 years. People were furious about the decision and the Concord Monitor published a few articles about the newspaper closing down. There was a rumor that the owner was interested in selling it. I attempted to find out if this was true but, it turned out, the owner was more interested in closing than selling ... I found that odd too. Hmm, close something down or get something for it ... weighing the options ... something vs. nothing ... he chose nothing.
Even more interesting is the fact that the Argus Champion was closed nearly a year ago. I wonder who is going to go next.

Annoyed with Gov. Lynch ...

For the first time, I'm actually annoyed with Gov. Lynch: ["Lynch Vetoes Medicinal Marijuana Bill"].
I can't believe he would veto this law. It is a simple thing that we can do for people who are very sick with cancer or AIDS. The plant, which God created, is much better for the body than all the chemical-based THC substitutes the pharma companies have come up with. No heart at all on this one. A big disappointment.

Practically On the Table

Guest Perspective by Ralph Nader
A few days ago, a citizen asked the progressive legislator from California, Congressman Henry Waxman why he took his name off the list of about Eighty House sponsors of single-payer health insurance? Mr. Waxman replied: “it [H.R. 676] isn’t going to happen.”

In early January and last year, Americans who believe in Presidential accountability for constitutional, statutory and treaty violations asked Democrats in Congress—“If not impeachment, why not at least a resolution of censure of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney?” The uniform reply was “It’s not practical.”

These lawmakers—Democrats all, who are the majority in Congress and who agree with these questioners—keep saying “It’s not going to happen” or “It’s not practical.”

“It’s just not practical” to provide a federal minimum wage equal to that in 1968, inflation adjusted, which would be $10 an hour.

“It’s not going to happen” to get comprehensive corporate reform at a time when a corporate crime wave and the Wall Street multi-trillion dollar collapse on Washington, on taxpayers and on the economy is tearing this country apart. A little regulatory tinkering is all citizens are told to expect.

“It’s just not practical” to give workers, consumers and taxpayers simple facilities for banding together in associations with their own voluntary dues to defend these interests in the corporate occupied territory known as Washington, D.C.

Last year, the excuse was a Bush veto. So the Democrats didn’t even try to advance reforms they believe in, knowing Bush and his Republican Party would stonewall. What’s the excuse this year with Obama in the White House?

After all, it was only a year and a half ago when nominating and then electing an African-American President was “not going to happen, was not practical.”

But since it did happen, why aren’t these and many other long overdue beneficial redirections and efficiencies happening for the American people? Why aren’t there rollbacks, at least, of the Bush-driven inequities and injustices that have so damaged the well-being of working people?

Why isn’t a simpler and more efficient carbon tax more “practical” than the complex corruption-prone, corporatized cap and trade deal driven by Goldman Sachs and favored by most Democrats? The avaricious tax cuts for the super-wealthy are still there.

The statutory ban on Uncle Sam negotiating volume discounts on medicines purchased by the federal government are still there. Taking the huge budgets for the Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan off their annual fast track, and putting them a meaningful House and Senate Appropriations Committee hearing process has not happened.

Face it, America. You are a corporate-controlled country with the symbols of democracy in the constitution and statutes just that—symbols of what the founding fathers believed or hoped would be reality.

Even when the global corporate giants come to Washington dripping with crime, greed, speculation and cover-ups, and demand gigantic bailouts on the backs of taxpayers and their children, neither the Republicans nor the now majority Democrats are willing to face them down.

The best of America started with our forebears who faced down those who told them “it’s not going to happen,” or “it’s not practical” to abolish slavery, give women the right to vote, elevate the conditions of workers and farmers, provide social security and medicare, make the air and water less polluted and so on. These pioneers, with grit and persistence, told their members of Congress and Presidents—“It is going to happen.”

To paraphrase the words of a great man, the late Reverend William Sloan Coffin, it is as if those legendary stalwarts from our past, knowing how much more there is to achieve a practical, just society, are calling out to us, the people today, and saying “get it done, get it done!”

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Happy 4th!

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Friday, July 03, 2009

Ode to Perot

Guest perspective by Ralph Nader
I’ve wondered often why people who go to “town meetings” held by campaigning politicians rarely ask fundamental questions.

Here is one that should have been asked of presidential candidate Barack Obama: “If you get to the White House, will you appoint to top positions Americans who have a track record of making the right decisions in their respective fields?”

“Of course, I will,” Obama would have undoubtedly replied.

Of course, he did not when it came to the collapse of the corrupt Wall Street casinos and the bailout of these gamblers by the American people. Obama chose the very Wall Streeters and Wall Street servants who were involved in, condoned, or profited from the speculative binges that led to the biggest government bailout scheme in world history. The President’s explanation is that he wants experienced people who know how Wall Street works. Yeah, right! In reality, he wanted political cover.

Something very important is missing when even people who are part of the ruling establishment are ignored, marginalized, or ridiculed even though their detailed, public warnings prove to be all too accurate.

Consider billionaire, Ross Perot. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Ross, as everyone calls him, was right on General Motors, right on NAFTA trade, and right on the federal deficits.

In 1984, he joined the Board of Directors of GM after selling his successful company, EDS, to the auto giant. He could scarcely believe how stodgy, bureaucratic, and insensitive GM executives were in running the company. He tried to shake up the boys at the top to meet the fast-growing competition from Asia and Europe.

The GM brass couldn’t stand Ross “at large” probing up and down the company, so in 1986 they bought out his shares in return for him leaving the Board.

Two years later, reflecting on his experience at GM with a reporter from Fortune, Perot called the “General Motors system a blanket of fog that keeps people from doing what they know needs to be done.”

Warming up, Perot continued: “One day I made a speech to some senior executives. I said, ‘Okay, guys, I’m going to give you the whole code on what’s wrong. You don’t like your customers. You don’t like your dealers. You don’t like the people who make your cars. You don’t like your stockholders. And, to a large extent, you don’t like one another. For this company to win, we’re going to have to love our customers. We’re going to have to stop fretting about dealers who make too much money and hope they make $1 billion a year though us. The guys on the factory floor are the salt of the earth—not mad-dog, rabid, burn-the-plant-down radicals. And all this sniping at one another—the financial guys vs. the cars guys—is terribly destructive.’”

GM didn’t listen to Ross. Now, after a long, relentless slide, GM is bankrupt, abandoning their workers, two thousand of their dealers, and their customers’ grievances. Moreover, GM is into the U.S. taxpayer for over $70 billion.

Perot devoted much of his 1993 published book Save Your Job, Save Our Country to NAFTA and trade. Looking back, he was right most of the time. NAFTA cost more U.S. jobs than it created, generated a huge U.S. trade deficit with Mexico, and mainly benefited the “36 businessmen who own Mexico’s 39 largest conglomerates or over half of Mexico’s Gross National Product.”

The border-located maquiladora factories have high worker turnover and squeeze the laborers in often unsafe conditions for little pay.

Here is how Perot described the scene behind the boasting of Washington, DC, and corporations about the large increase in trade after NAFTA:
“Most of the goods produced in the maquiladoras are shipped into the U.S. market. Consequently, most of the so-called trade between the U.S. and Mexico is not trade as trade is commonly understood. Rather, it is primarily U.S. companies shipping their own machinery, components, and raw materials across the border into their Mexican factories and then shipping their finished or semi-finished goods back over the border into the U.S.”

A good deal of the U.S. auto industry went south after NAFTA, leaving workers and communities stranded in Michigan and other states. Bankrupt Chrysler is planning to move a modern, award-winning engine plant in Wisconsin to Mexico after receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts.

On Perot’s nationally-televised deficit warnings (with charts), what more need be said? Even he did not envision what would pile up after his clarion calls. The burden on the next generation and the tax dollars diverted from our country’s needs to pay the interest on these trillions of dollars of debt were pointed out again and again nearly twenty years ago by the Texas entrepreneur. He even has a website (perotcharts.com) updating the red ink.

In Bush’s and Obama’s Washington, there is no room for Perot to gain visibility and recognition.

It is one thing for the Washington politicians to ignore prescient progressive commentators, like William Grieder, who have been prophetically right on. It is quite another escape from reality to turn their backs on leaders within the business establishment itself.

There are many like Perot who must be watching the day’s news and saying “we told you so, but you didn’t listen then and you are not listening now.”

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Jobless rate reaches 9.5 percent

And, frankly, this is only the folks who are collecting: ["467K Jobs Cut In June; Jobless Rate At 9.5 Percent"].
At this point, all the people who have fallen off the rolls, because they have been out of work for more than a year, are no longer counted. I would bet that the un- and under-employment numbers are probably around 20 percent, maybe more.
I recall an article in the Boston Herald back in 1992 that had the real unemployment rate - which included people collecting, people out of work, people in part-time jobs who couldn't find full-time jobs - was around 30 percent. It was based on some study that was performed by some think tank. I don't remember exactly since it was so long ago. However, times were not as bad then as they are now. So, who knows what the number potentially is.

Not surprisingly ...

There is a flash flood warning for Hillsborough County. I can't just imagine how high the Merrimack is at this point ... the rain can end any time now ...

Monday, June 29, 2009

Consumer Reports doesn't recommend Honda Insight

This is interesting: ["Honda's new hybrid disappoints"].
No surprise. I already suggested it was iffy. And 38 mpg? Wow! I beat that with my Civic ... when I drive at a reasonable speed.

Congrats Murrow winners!

The RTNDA released its 2009 Edward R. Murrow Awards. WMUR-TV 9 in Manchester won for newscast. WGBH-TV 2 in Boston and NECN also won awards: ["2009 National Winners"]. Congratulations!

Oh wow, what a huge story!

["How a Loophole Benefits GE in Bank Rescue"]. The subhead? "Industrial Giant Becomes Top Recipient in Debt-Guarantee Program" ...

Sunday, June 28, 2009

I had forgotten how much I love this song

Furs tour dates released

Burned Down Days sent out an email last week with the national tour dates for the Psychedelic Furs. Openers are Crappy [Happy] Mondays and Islands [at least in Boston]. Here are the dates:

THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS / HAPPY MONDAYS TOUR 2009!

Sept 08 / CHICAGO, IL / House of Blues
Sept 09 / MILWAUKEE, WI / Pabst Theatre
Sept 11 / BOULDER, CO / Boulder Theater
Sept 12 / SALT LAKE CITY, UT / In The Venue
Sept 14 / SEATTLE, WA / Moore Theatre
Sept 15 / PORTLAND, OR / Crystal Ballroom
Sept 17 / SAN FRANCISCO, CA / Grand Ballroom
Sept 18 / LOS ANGELES, CA / Club Nokia
Sept 19 / ANAHEIM, CA / House of Blues
Sept 20 / SAN DIEGO, CA / House of Blues
Sept 22 / LAS VEGAS, NV / House of Blues
Sept 24 / AUSTIN, TX / Stubb's
Sept 25 / DALLAS, TX / House of Blues
Sept 26 / HOUSTON, TX / House of Blues
Sept 28 / ST PETERSBURG, FL / Ritz
Sept 29 / FT LAUDERDALE, FL / Revolution
Sept 30 / ORLANDO, FL / House of Blues
Oct 02 / ATLANTA, GA / Masquerade
Oct 03 / CHARLOTTE, NC / Amos' Southend
Oct 04 / NORFOLK, VA / NorVa
Oct 06 / WASHINGTON, DC / 9:30
Oct 07 / PHILADELPHIA, PA / Trocadero
Oct 09 / NEW YORK, NY / Roseland Ballroom
Oct 10 / BOSTON, MA / House of Blues
Oct 12 / COLUMBUS, OH / Newport Music Hall
Oct 13 / DETROIT, MI / Royal Oak Music Theatre
Oct 14 / TORONTO, ON / Koolhaus
Oct 15 / MONTREAL, QU / Olympia de Montreal

After seeing them at the Tupelo in a mixed show [I still haven't had the chance to post the review but I hope to get to it soon], I will probably pass on the Boston show.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Financial reform, words and deeds

Guest Perspective/Ralph Nader
It’s good that Barack Obama is an agile basketball player because on financial regulatory reform he’s having to straddle an ever widening chasm between his words and his deeds.

Obama said: “Millions of Americans who have worked hard and behaved responsibility have seen their life dreams eroded by the irresponsibility of others and by the failure of their government to provide adequate oversight. Our entire economy has been undermined by that failure.”

“Over the past two decades, we have seen, time and again, cycles of precipitous booms and busts. In each case, millions of people have had their lives profoundly disrupted by developments in the financial system, most severely in our recent crisis.”

Strong words, even though he didn’t include “corporate crime, fraud and abuse” to replace the euphemism “irresponsibility.” One would think that his 88 page reform proposal to Congress would be up to his words. Instead he provides Washington aspirins for Wall Street brain cancer.

The anemic nature of these reforms ostensibly designed to prevent or deter another big bust on Wall Street and its hostage grip on the nation’s savings and investments immediately drew the ire of well-regarded business columnists.

Joe Nocera of the New York Times wrote the “the Obama plan is little more than an attempt to stick some new regulatory fingers into a very leaky financial dam rather than rebuild the dam itself.” Nocera asserts that the reforms do not “attempt to diminish the use” of the customized type of derivatives which trillions of risky dollars generated “enormous damage to the financial system” ala A.I.G’s collapse. He notes President Roosevelt’s far more fundamental reforms, included the Glass-Steagall Act, which “separated banking from investment.” It prevented a lot of banking mischief until Clinton, his Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Citigroup got Glass-Steagall repealed in 1999. Obama is not proposing to re-instate this critical safeguard. Nocera said, firms “will have to put up a little more capital, and deal with a little more oversight, but….in all likelihood, [it will] “be back to business as usual.”

Star business reporter, Gretchen Morgenson, ripped into the Obama plan in the Sunday New York Times for doing too little to eliminate systemic risks posed by financial firms that are “too big to fail.” “Rather than propose ways to shrink these companies and the risks they pose, the Geithner plan argues instead for enhanced regulatory oversight of the behemoths.” She implies that taxpayers will be on the hook for even greater bailouts in the future.

A measure to prevent the “too big to fail” bailouts was suggested by none other than Obama’s current economic advisor, former Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volcker. Speaking in China, no less, Volcker recently said the Federal government could simply prevent these big banks from trading for their own accounts. But Obama is not listening to Volcker these days. Instead Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House advisor, Larry Summers, who played important roles in the past decade facilitating the enormous speculation on Wall Street, have got Obama’s ear.

The President’s plan omits, (1) strong antitrust enforcement, (2) tough corporate crime prosecution, and (3) more authority for shareholders, who own their companies, to control their hired bosses. The plan should have included giving shareholders the decisive power to set executive compensation—the perverse compensation incentives helped push companies to wild speculation.

The reform plan’s defaults go on and on. There are no mechanisms to encourage millions of investors to band together in Financial Consumer Associations. In 1985 then Cong. Chuck Schumer (Dem. NY) introduced such an amendment to the savings and loans bailout legislation. It did not pass.

What about sub-prime mortgage securities? Banks would be required to retain just a five percent stake before handing them off to other syndicates. This hardly is enough to induce prudence by banks selling these mortgages to impecunious home buyers.

Obama does propose a new financial consumer regulatory agency. But unless he appoints someone, as chair, like tough-minded Harvard Law Professor, Elizabeth Warren, who advanced the idea, the regulated financial firms will, as usual, take over the agency.

The Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein, derided the Obama proposals for not being “grounded, first and foremost, in a thorough and independent analysis of how the crisis was allowed to develop and what regulators did and didn’t do to prevent it….” He was disappointed by the lack of controls over “hedge funds, private-equity funds or structured investment vehicles.”

Obama did strengthen the fiduciary duties to investors by stock brokers. But he did not give these defrauded investors any better civil action rights in court beyond what they were left with by the hand-tying securities law passed in 1995.

So now it is up to Congress and its hordes of banking and insurance lobbyists. Good luck, savers and investors. Unless that is, you’re doing your business with credit union cooperatives which don’t gamble with your money.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Mixed feelings on health care reform

Over the years, I have had mixed feelings about health care reform, from being a solid advocate of Canadian-style single payer, to questioning that position, to wondering about some sort of hybrid position, to now, again, thinking we should have Medicare for all.
A couple of weeks ago, the relatively moderate publisher of the Hippo, Jody Reese, came out for Medicare for all in the column and I have to admit that this is where I'm heading too: ["Publisher's Note: Health care solution"].
In the current debate in Washington over health care reform, the single-payer/Medicare for all option seems to be completely out of the discussion. And that's too bad. The simple fact is that shaving the profit motive of insurance carriers, HMOs, and PPOs, is the only way to control costs and cover everyone without more, substantially larger, taxes.
In essence, as Reese notes in his column, most people with private or employer-backed insurance, will just transfer their payments from the private insurance to the government. Other workers who don't have insurance but can't afford the private plans will pay a little bit out of pocket and get something in return. In many cases, like mine, I will have a better deal and the same coverage by making this change, since the PPO plan my company has is too expensive, has too many co-pays and deductibles, or simply put, just plain sucks.
In addition, the drive of the economy recovering is going to be small business, very small business, and entrepreneurs, as Reese notes. Most of these folks can't afford the private insurance. A Medicare for all plan will cost much less while delivering more. Moving away employer monies from health care to investment in the actual business will create more jobs and speed the recovery.
Sure, all those people in private insurance will be out of work. But they will get picked up along the way doing other things like the people who used to make buggy whips and now do, to take a phony argument from the free trade cultists.
One of the other things that really keeps me from fully supporting single-payer/Medicare for all is the fact that we, as a nation, are just not very good at preventive care. Some people presume that this is because we don't have nationalized insurance like they do in Canada, England ... hell, even Costa Rica has it. Some think it is the overwhelming influence of advertising in our lives. Some think it is education - do they still have home economics in school? Some think it is just bad parenting.
I think it is probably a combination of all those things. While I'm not in the best of shape, I cringe every time I see some extremely obese person walking along, with their fat flab hanging over their shorts, lumbering along like Jabba the Hut, thinking, if we had single-payer, that person would be draining away tons of money because they can't control themselves. I think the same thing when I see a person chain-smoking or abusing alcohol.
This is why so many lawmakers want sin taxes on alcohol, smoking, and even, sugar-based products. The problem with these taxes is that they are going into the general fund of most governments and not into health care. One would have to wonder, if all the taxes on these products went straight to health care, would we even be paying a dime out of our paychecks for basic care? Probably not.
In the end, I don't have the answers to this problem but I do know that what is happening in private insurance is an abomination and I do know that the current plans being discussed in D.C. are just not good enough. Health care reform can't occur until there is regulation, control, and restraint of profitable companies who are keeping insurance from being affordable to a good chunk of Americans. And that's why, in the end, like everything else, there will be no real health care reform at all.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

July 2009 Top 30 Chart

July 2009 Top 30 Chart
Reporting: WAAF, WBCN, WBRS, WCUW, WFNX, WHRB, WMBR, WMFO, WRBB, WUML, WTCC, WZBC

1. Passion Pit – Manners
2. Animal Hospital – Memory
3. Ian Adams – Stay Up Late
4. Taxpayer – Don’t Steal My Night Vision
5. Big D & The Kids Table – Fluent in Stroll
6. Hallelujah the Hills – “Blank Passports”
7. Muck & the Mires – Hypnotic
8. The New Collisions – The New Collisions
9. Annie and the Beekeepers – Squid Hell Sessions EP
10. Boy in Static – Candy Cigarette
11. Me and Joan Collins – love trust faith lust
12. Girls Guns and Glory – Inverted Valentine
13. Hooray for Earth – Cellphone EP
14. Blackbutton – Blackbutton
15. The Bynars – Back From Outer Space
16. The Everyday Visuals – The Everyday Visuals
17. Thick Shakes – Ooh Mommy
18. Wheat – White Ink, Black Ink
19. Leo Blais – “Slow Drivin’”
20. The Blizzard of 78 – Book of Lies
21. Have Nots – Serf City USA
22. Keep Me Conscious – Sounds of Rescue
23. Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles – The Stars Are Out
24. The Steamy Bohemians – Technicolor Radio
25. Sarah Rabdau & Self Employed Assassins – Sarah Rabdau & Self Employed Assassins
26. Yes Giantess – “You Were Young”
27. Lake Champagne – “Cupcake”
28. Thick as Thieves – RX EP
29. Hands and Knees – Et tu, Fluffy?
30. Apple Betty – Streakin’ Cross the Sky

Two press releases about employment and drugs

A couple more interesting press releases worthy of republication:

Government Spends $468 Billion on Drug Abuse Costs

According to a recent report released by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) drug and alcohol use and addiction cost local, state and federal governments around $467.7 billion in 2005.
The new 287 page report entitled Shoveling Up II: The Impact of Substance Abuse on the Federal, State and Local Budgets, found that 96.5% of those funds or $357.4 billion went to handle the negative consequences of addiction including crime, homelessness, child abuse and welfare, and healthcare costs, to name a few.
But the biggest surprise is that only 1.9% of the funds went to drug rehab with even the Chairman of CASA agreeing that there has been a major shortage of appropriations to the right resources.
In the Chairman’s Statement, Joseph A. Califano Jr. announced that, “Under any circumstances spending more than 95 percent of taxpayer dollars on the consequences of tobacco, alcohol and other drug abuse and addiction and less than two percent to relieve individuals and taxpayers of this burden would be considered a reckless misallocation of public funds.” He then went on to say, “In these economic times, such upside-down-cake public policy is unconscionable.”
And Mr. Califano is not the only one who can see that there has been a major problem in regards to substance abuse spending in our country. Politicians, private and public sector leaders are promoting the fiscal viability of effective drug rehabilitation programs. Erica Catton, Director of Public Services for Narconon Eastern U.S. agrees that the only way to fully handle addiction is through successful drug rehab practices. Having spent the last 8 years helping communities and families handle drug addiction, Mrs. Catton says, “Cleaning up the mess that addiction causes without rehabilitating the individual will only create a bigger problem. Without effective treatment available, they will continue to create problems for themselves, their family and those around them. When you actually rehabilitate them through effective treatment, they will begin to clean up their own lives and the problems that they so often cause. The key is improving their abilities to handle life so they are no longer being controlled by their addiction.”
Since 1995 the Narconon program has graduated more than 25,000 addicts worldwide. The program has an average success rate of more than 70% for permanent sobriety. Narconon’s proven long-term social education model emphasizes handling both the mental and physical aspects of drug addiction with a focus on getting the addict back to being a sober and contributing member of society.
Effective drug rehabilitation is the main priority that local and federal governments will have to take up if they want to cut the huge costs created by addicts left on the community streets with no treatment options.
If you or someone you know is in need of an effective drug rehab program contact Narconon today at 877-362-9682 or log onto www.freedomdrugrehab.com.


People Don’t Want to Work in Large Companies

Madbury, N.H. - Few people today want to work at large organizations, those with 10,000 or more employees.

When asked what size organization they would prefer to work for given today’s economy, the majority (71%) of business leaders chose a medium or small organization, according to a worldwide survey of senior executives and managers conducted by NFI Research.

Forty percent say they would rather work in a medium organization while 31 percent chose a small organization. Only 14 percent prefer a large company.

When asked what factors are most important when it comes to staying with an organization, three quarters of senior executives and managers say compensation. After compensation, senior executives and managers say confidence in leadership (73%) and autonomy or challenge (70%) are the other most important factors.

“Given the economic downturn, it appears compensation is at the forefront of people’s minds,” said Chuck Martin, CEO of NFI Research and author of SMARTS (Are We Hardwired for Success?)

More senior executives than managers would prefer to work for a small organization, based on the survey of 156 executives and managers.

Given today’s economic climate, 45 percent of senior executives say they would like to work in a small organization while almost half (49%) of managers would rather work in a medium-sized company.

The three least important reasons for staying with an organization are lack of other opportunities (6%), education (13%), and vacation time (17%).

“There are far too many companies, and leaders at those companies, that lose sight of taking care of their top performers in a down economy like the one we are in,” says one respondent. “They do not realize or think about the fact that top performers are still heavily sought after in such an economy, and will look to leave if they believe their current employer is not taking care of them.”

NFI Research surveys 2,000 senior executives and managers globally every two weeks. It has chronicled the transformation of business and countless workplace issues for more than nine years. NFI's Chairman and CEO Chuck Martin is a best-selling author of seven business books and frequently presents NFI's findings to businesses. Martin also teaches at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire, where he teaches Consumer Buying Behavior and Marketing Research.

Chuck Martin is the author of the best-selling book "SMARTS (Are We Hardwired for Success?)" (AMACOM/American Management Association).

Chuck Martin is working on a new book dealing with high performing individuals. It is slated to be published by AMACOM/American Management Association.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Working With His Hands

Guest Perspective by Ralph Nader
Although his classic self-designed and hand-built furniture found its way to the White House, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian, Sam Maloof, who passed away recently at 93, preferred to describe himself simply as a “Woodworker.”

Completely self-taught, after he served in the Army during World War II, Mr. Maloof became one of the premier woodworkers and designers in the country. His bustling home, workplace and Discovery Garden spread over six acres in Alta Loma, California, draws visiting artisans, high school woodworking classes and gardeners learning about multiple uses from near and far.

Born in a family of nine children of Lebanese immigrants, Sam Maloof had the character traits of authenticity, elegance, consistency and creativity. He was dedicated to constantly refining his chairs, tables, desks, cabinets and his famous rocking chair. For about 20 years, he made no profit. Now his chairs sell for $20,000 or more each.

As he progressed, his horizons extended into what is now a veritable movement ensconced in the Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts. (www.malooffoundation.org).

A measure of the man’s spirit is reflected in these words about his work:

“Craftsmen in any media know the satisfaction that comes in designing and making an object from raw material. Mine comes from working in wood. Once you have breathed, smelled, and tasted the tanginess of wood and have handled it in the process of giving it form, there is nothing, I believe, that can replace the complete satisfaction granted. Working a rough piece of wood into a complete, useful object is the welding together of man and material.”

The exquisite manual workmanship of Mr. Maloof is further stimulating the questioning of the remoteness that modern technology visits on so many people who spend hours in virtual reality, separated from nature and its materials. Our country was built by craftsmen, artisans and other workers who designed and made real things. High Schools offered Shop Class, where students learned skills and the joy of creating. These classes opened doors to a source of livelihood - and pride - for budding artisans.

With the nineteenth century industrial revolution and mass production employing masses of workers, these independent craftsmen tried to remain independent contractors and not become what they called “wage slaves” in giant, often dangerous, factories.

Jeremy Adamson, who organized an exhibition of Mr. Maloof’s work in 2001 at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, remarked that Maloof was a “beacon for woodworkers around the world. That furniture will last forever.” The Master used no nails or metal hardware. The designs evolved as he worked. Clearly he possessed stunning visualization capacities. Imagine, he fit the chairs to the human bodies. “You can’t help but stroke the darn things,” Mr. Adamson added.
Starting in 1952 with a small house in a citrus grove at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, Mr. Maloof added 16 additional rooms branded with his unique use of woods, shapes and function.

In a new book titled Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford, the author bemoaned the closing at high schools all over the United States of shop classes that taught the mechanical arts like carpentry, woodworking, welding and other skills. They were closed to allow more funding of computer labs. And because our throw-away society no longer properly values the fruits of artisan labor.

Crawford goes on to argue and demonstrate what our society loses when we make joining the “paper economy” the chief aspiration of the younger generations or to use Robert Reich’s phrase to become “symbolic analysts.” Somebody has to keep the real world running maintained, repaired and replaced - something we realize very quickly when things don’t work in our households.

The draining of gratification from work in a techno-computerized environment is a widespread condition for millions of people, apart from the automated severance of their judgment and discretion by command and control positions.

Sam Maloof and his wife Barbara prepared his legacy meticulously. His philosophy and nature-related work increasingly steeped in sustainable practices will continue through his many students, trained practitioners and emulators.

He always found a way to wrap his zest in a few personal words. “I hope,” he once said, “that my happiness with what I do is reflected in my furniture…that it is vibrant, alive, and friendly to the people who use it.”

Sam Maloof steadfastly looked ahead. Maybe this is why, in spite of clients waiting years for delivery, he would jump to the head of the line those parents who wanted a cradle for their infants.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Letting my TV go dark

Guest Perspective by Ralph Nader
At noon on June 12, the end of analog television’s era was also when I let my set go dark. The last declaration I saw was that there were about 3 million of us disconnected but, no worry, we can still order the “converter box” to bring all those programs back to our living rooms.
Going dark on TV was not that hard at least for a while. My recent memories had too many “yuks” and too few “harks”.
President John F. Kennedy’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Newton Minow, shocked a broadcast industry audience when he called television a “vast wasteland.” That was in 1961!
Had he not mellowed as a corporate lawyer with a lucrative practice, what would Newton Minow say today? What is the superlative of “vast wasteland”?
Television today - over the air and cable - with the usual exceptions, could empty the dictionary of disparaging adjectives. Some times slots - such as daily afternoon talk-entertainment shows - are so bad, so sadomasochistic and exploitive, that they escape the media critics. Why would Tom Shales—the insightful Washington Post critic who writes like a dream - want to apply his talented eye to shows that invoke the Latin phrase “res ipsa louitur”: the thing speaks for itself?
On weekends, the shows swing from the slick infomercials, pushing cutlery and real estate wealth, to sports that become duller play by play - especially golf - to the Sunday morning news program where evasions of predictable questions run on and on.
Then there are the second-rate movie reruns, the insipid sitcom shows, so dependent on canned laughter, the dramas, so spilt-second violent that they eliminate any kind of memorable suspense.
The early and late local evening news needs psychoanalysts. Repetition may be economical for it requires fewer reporters.
The thirty minutes of the late local news is composed of roughly nine minutes of ads, four minutes of sports, four obsessive minutes of four weather segments, the usual openings with street crimes or fires, the customary animal story and half minute of contrived, spontaneous chit-chat between the anchors and the rest - the abbreviated rest - is what can be called news.
One local DC station once had the temerity to try vainly distinguishing itself from the sameness of its competitors by the slogan “no chit chat, no fluff”.
So little time is left for news that most news is not covered - not in the neighborhoods, not in city hall or the courts, not in business, labor, schools, or civic activity or achievement.
Missing so much reality by allocating lots of time for local news and wasting so much of it takes the label of those “Reality Shows” to the level of ironic satire.
How much reality would there be without C-Span - that lonely tribute to the public intellect and engagement? Over 90 percent of television is entertainment or advertisements - mostly low grade even for those willing to inhabit bad taste.
I just saw an auto ad on the news for Kia with hamsters driving and occupying the front seat.
The public air waves belong to the people. They are the owners and the television stations are the tenants. Guess what? Since the beginning of television broadcasting, these lucrative stations have paid no rent. It is a rent free way to mint money under the guidance of a supine Federal Communications Commission and a Congress frightened of the power of the broadcast industry.
Gone are the regulatory expressions of the 1934 statutory standard - namely “the public interest, convenience and necessity” - binding television stations to a level of public responsibility.
Gone is the worthy requirement for each station to ascertain the public’s information needs in an annual public report to the FCC. There is no more fairness doctrine or right of reply. FCC station license renewals proceedings are not as frequent as they were thirty years ago.
Some valuable shows manage to get through the “vast wasteland” and make money. Among them are "60 Minutes" (CBS) and "The Simpsons" (FOX). Non-profit public television has "The Bill Moyers Journal." The nature and history shows on some cable channels bear occasional attention.
By and large, however, getting through the noise, hoping to find snippets of interest in otherwise flat and formulaic programs, and having to endure the densely-packed relentless advertisements and product placements, and not knowing whether a news segment is canned from an industry consultant, invites a vacation from an already limited resort to my TV.
There are so many other things to do and learn and evoke than watching screens.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Gone fishin' ...

Posting at Politizine.com is going to be limited for the next week or so as I take some time off. In fact, since my reporter at work just gave her notice and won't be working with me after next week, there might be even less posting than usual. We'll see how things pan out in July.