Category Archives: television

"In Humble Sacrifice" :)

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

 

Glad “Today’s Word” is back.

(And Dear Lord, I miss “Calvin and Hobbes.”)

TODAY’S WORD ON JOURNALISM — Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2007

“In the world of television, the massive flows of information are largely in only one direction, which makes it virtually impossible to take part in what passes for a national conversation. Individuals receive, but they cannot send. They hear, but they cannot speak. The ‘well-informed citizenry’ is in danger of becoming the ‘well-amused audience.'”
  –Al Gore, author, The Assault on Reason, 2007

~ ~ ~ ~
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University

TODAY’S WORD ON JOURNALISM ©2007 is a ree “service” sent to its 1,500 or so misguided volunteer subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered and don’t want the WORD anymore, send “unsubscribe.” Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em; I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. In theory, though, all contain at least a kernel of insight.) Responses, contributions and rebuttals welcome.

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” –Tom Stoppard, playwright

Kenneth Foster Update (as of 7 p.m. Wednesday)

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

Just got the following email from Hans Bennett.

Hello Everyone,

I just got off the phone (this Wed. evening) with Walidah Imarisha, a
Philadelphia journalist/activist who is there in Texas where Kenneth Foster Jr. is set to be executed tomorrow. She told me that the Board of Pardons and Parole has put off the decision regarding Kenneth until tomorrow.

It was set to respond to the appeal today, where 5 out of the 7 members have to recommend pardon, and then Governor Rick Perry has to approve it. If the
Board denies a pardon, Perry has the power to grant a 30-day stay.

Imarisha reports that supporters of Kenneth in Texas are not quite “optimistic,” but are hoping for the best because this delay of decision means that they have been extensively talking about it and are therefore taking a long time to decide.

Imarisha will call me tomorow as soon as there is anything new, and I will keep you posted.

Hoping for the best,

Hans Bennett
Abu-Jamal-News.com

Call or fax:

Those who cannot attend these are encouraged to continue faxing and calling:
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles:
Phone (512) 406-5852
Fax (512) 467-0945

Gov. Rick Perry:
Phone (512) 463-1782
Fax (512) 463-1849

Protests

Wednesday, August 29

1:00 pm to 4pm: Gather outside the Polunsky Unit in Livingston TX for a
demonstration against the deplorable, torturous conditions of the Polunsky Unit and against the double executions of John Amador, scheduled for August 29, and Kenneth Foster, set for August 30.
Polunsky Unit: 3825 FM 350 South, Livingston Texas 77351

4pm-7pm: Protest the execution of John Amador outside the Ellis Unit.
Huntsville Unit: 815 12th Street Huntsville Texas 77340

Austin, Wednesday, August 29, 5:00 PM, Governor’s Mansion (Lavaca at 11th) RALLY AND PRESS CONFERENCE FOR KENNETH FOSTER, RESPONDING TO BOARD OF PARDONS AND PAROLES’ RECOMMENDATION TO GOVERNOR PERRY AND IN OPPOSITION TO
THE EXECUTION OF JOSEPH AMODOUR AT 6PM.

Austin, Thursday, August 30, 5:00 PM, Governor’s Mansion (Lavaca at 11th) EXECUTION PROTEST AND VIGIL Even in the eleventh hour things could turn for Kenneth. If you can’t make it to Huntsville, come out to stand with others against the execution.

Thursday, August 30:
3pm-7pm: Protest the execution of Kenneth Foster Jr outside the Ellis Unit in Huntsville Texas. Groups from all over the state will converge to stand against this injustice and demand until the very end that the State of Texas do the right thing and stop this execution.

THIS CAMPAIGN BADLY NEEDS DONATIONS: Send donations to:

Velocity Credit Union, P.O. Box 1089, Austin, Texas 78767

Account name: To Save Kenneth
Foster

Account number: 831766.1

A Writer's Purpose

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

 

The following hit all the marks. 

I’m certain you know about Dr. Pipher’s public stand.

AMY GOODMAN: Mary Pipher, clinical psychologist and acclaimed author. I asked her to talk about her latest book, Writing to Change the World.

MARY PIPHER: You know, how Pete Seeger always said about music: it isn’t whether or not it’s good, it’s what it’s good for. And I didn’t come at writing as an academic or as a poet or a creative writer. I came at writing as a social activist, and I want every one of my books to have a very powerful effect in changing the culture. And so, I have spent a lot of time figuring out how to do it. And the way to do it is have a deeply personal voice, my own authentic voice that comes from deep within myself, and my writing and speaking voice are virtually identical. And then, the other way to do it is through stories, because you can’t argue with a story. You know, people can argue with you if you stand up and say what you believe or don’t believe, but if you tell them a story and tell them a story that opens their heart, they will change. So that’s what the book is about, is writing in a way that we can effect change.

And I talk about this idea that the point of my kind of writing is to empower the powerless, to give voice to people who have no voice, but also to educate readers in what I call the moral imagination. And that is the ability to understand the world from other people’s points of view. And that’s an extremely big problem in America right now, is people don’t have much moral imagination, so that when they talk about, say, “illegal aliens,” they don’t have a story, they don’t have a face, they don’t have a picture of a real person. They have almost no empathy with the person they’re talking about.

I remember when Sensenbrenner was talking about gaming the asylum system and how we had to go after those terrorists gaming the asylum system. At that point I had just happened to have been back to Bellevue in New York City to visit their unit for victims of torture. The people on that unit that were seeking asylum were Buddhist monks from Tibet. And I just thought, “Man, Sensenbrenner hasn’t been here. You know, he hasn’t been to Center for Victims of Torture in Minneapolis.”

And so, the job of the change writer, from my point of view, is to say I respect you as a reader, and I know if I tell you the truth, as I see it, having spent some time listening to people and asking them — you know, Simone Weil had that question, “What is your experience?”– asking people, “What is your experience?” which I did when I wrote Middle of Everywhere, my book on refugees. I spent three years asking people that. And it greatly enhanced my own moral imagination to listen to all those stories. You also have a good job for enhancing your moral imagination. But that’s the job of the writer: to help other people’s moral imagination grow, basically.