Hey, I know them!
Keep an eye out for some dedicated Chapel Hellions and Carrborators taking off their clothes for peace TODAY at 5 pm. Here’s a local article about it, and here’s CNN coverage of the larger movement they’re a part of. (Yes, they’re part of a movement!)
Author: Ruby Sinreich
Ban homelessness?
Once again, the Town of Chapel Hill is trying to deal with poverty and homelessness by BANNING it. This proposal has *just* showed up on the Council’s agenda, and yet the Chamber of Commerce is already officially lobbying for the tightening restrictions. Read about it at the Chapel Hill Herald, or read the proposal on the Council’s agenda.
The Town Council has been getting letters from people continually complaining that they won’t go downtown for FEAR of being asked for money. Of course those of us who live and work downtown don’t contact the Council to tell them that we daily enjoy downtown, and everyone in it.
If you can’t come out to the Town Council this Monday night, please e-mail them and ask for a PUBLIC HEARING on the panhandling proposal and a little compassion for people who need our help.
Here’s what I had to say to them:
To: mayorandcouncil@townofchapelhill.orgI am surprised to once again see a proposal on your agenda with no public consideration. I know that you sometimes hear from citizens who are afraid to come downtown because they feel threatened by what they consider to be “aggressive panhandling.” I hope you remember that there also many thousands of us that live and/or work downtown and see no need to complain to you about the fact that we get to interact with a wide range of people on a daily basis.
I believe that the Town’s current regulations on “aggressive panhandling” are already very restrictive. If enforcement of them is a problem, creating additional rules will not help. The idea that our residents should have different rights based on the time of the day or where they are standing seems quite absurd to me.
Should I remind you that I am 5 feet tall and live in what is considered by many to be the most high-crime neighborhood downtown? I am frequently walking home alone after midnight, and have never felt afraid for my person (since I was in college). Perhaps some people are threatened by what they do not understand, or feel uncomfortable at being reminded of their privilege in the face of poverty.
I urge you not to pass either of the ordinances before you, but to instead call a public hearing to give the entire town a chance to comment on how we can best help some of our most needy and vulnerable neighbors. With laws like this, it is no wonder that Chapel Hill is tarred by a reputation as elitist armchair liberals. Let’s take this chance to prove that wrong by showing how a thoughtful and compassionate community treats it’s citizens in need.
= Ruby
Rally in Chapel Hill & Carrboro
I’m all about this local stuff. You don’t have to schlep to D.C. and you really count.
RALLY FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE!
March to Protect Civil Liberties,
Denounce the Bush Doctrine,
and Halt the Rush To War.
Sunday, March 2nd
McCorkle Place on UNC-Chapel Hill campus
(across from the Post Office on Franklin St.)
1 PM: Rally
2 PM: March to Weaver Street in Carrboro
3 PM Brief rally in Carrboro
Speakers will include:
Students
Hadiyah Muhammad, a public policy major
Michal Osterweil, an anthropology graduate student
Anna Carson-Dewitt
Faculty
Professor Daniel Pollitt of the Law School
Professor Chuck Stone of the Journalism School
Professor Sarah Shields of the History Department
Professor Gene Nichol -Dean of the Law School
Community Leaders
Senator Ellie Kinnaird
Reverend Carrie Bolton
Mary-Lou Smith
Reverend Rick Edens
Henry Landsberger
John Herrera
Joe Straley
Henry Azar
Rania Masri
+ MUSIC
Won’t you be my neighbor?
Personally, I was very disappointed to hear NPR gloss over the death of Fred McFeely Rogers. Here was a man who took the boob toob and turned it into an instrument of community-building. A whole generation are slightly better humans thanks to him.
“I believe that those of us who are the producers and purveyors of television — or video games or newspapers or any mass media — I believe that we are the servants of this nation,” Rogers said.
That’s why he got into television in the first place.
“I got into television because I hated it so,” he said. “And I thought there was some way of using this fabulous instrument to be of nurture to those who would watch and listen.”
…
Rogers said he hoped kids who watch it will take it with them as they grow into adults.
“We all long to be lovable and capable of loving,” he said. “And whatever we can do through the Neighborhood or anything else to reflect that and to encourage people to be in touch with that, then I think that’s our ministry.”
Why not?
I’m off to Joisey for work and no time to ‘blog, so why not visit The Elvis Buddha Interplanetary Peace-Love Web Page? You actually used to be able to purchase the Elvis Buddha figurine. Now the site is just an exploration of kitch and animated GIFs, but it entertains for a minute or so (if you don’t get a headache first).
More Morman-y goodness
 A friend and I volunteered as peacekeepers at the February 15 march in Raleigh. (Photo by Todd Morman, used without permission.) |
Todd Morman, who covers the media in his ‘blog Monkey Media Report and is half of the force behind decades of Northern Hemisphere Live, has put together an excellent visual essay on the mainstreaming of the peace movement and the media avoidance thereof.
I’ve been thinking about this even more after watching a documentary called February One about the students who sparked a national sit-in movement by asking to be served at Woolworth’s on Febrary 1, 1960. Two things I didn’t know before watching this:
- The Greensboro Four, all first-year students at N.C. A & T, were very close friends before getting more and more pissed off and finally carefully planning this strategic action. Like Rosa Parks, it was not just a one-day-I-said-what-the-hell. They were a tight group and they did not take action lightly.
- The media coverage, which began after their first day of protest, was crucial in the fast spread of the sit-in movement at lunch counters across the country. This and other battles in the struggle for civil rights were regularly on TV screens across the nation, forcing people to confront racism and it effects even in their own homes.
This is why the mainstream media’s continued effort to ignore the massive and growing peace movement is so very disturbing to me. Representative democracy depends on voters having access to accurate information and on the expectation that people will rise up to protest policies they disagree with. The corporate news media has done more to undermine democracy in the U.S. than Bush and his pals could have hoped for in their wildest, wettest dreams.
I did it
Well I finally updated the site to reflect my new status as a fully-employed individual – only 3 weeks after starting my job. The good news is: lotusmedia lives! Here are two of the talented people who will help me to keep the work of lotusmedia going strong:
For one day, we had one voice
This is a very moving collection of
photos from February 15 peace protests all over the world (including Raleigh & Durham). A good mix of aerial photos showing the huge scale, and close ups so you can read peace messages in Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Russian, Portuguese, German, Greek, French, and a bunch of others I can’t name (typical ignorant American, doesn’t know what language they speak in Iceland).
“Sixteen months ago, the world wept with us. Now they speak out.”
Rude awakening
I won’t be needing any coffee this morning as my blood is already boiling.
At 9 am NPR led-in by describing the protests as bigger in Europe (true, but this allowed them to not talk at all about the size and scope here). Then they went into their story: claiming that Saddam Hussein was “gloating” about the protests!
Again, no information about the wide range of American cities and huge numbers all over the place. AND no mention of the impact on the marches’ targets: U.S. lawmakers and public opinion. Instead they give us the assumed perspective of the one person that we all believe to be a madman of some kind or another.
And they wonder why I won’t pledge money to pay for that kind of “reporting.”
Visit Monkeytime for more information on local news coverage (or lack thereof) of the huge protest in Raleigh, NC. An ABC News headline (from AP) says U.S. Peace Rallies Draw Tens of Thousands even though their story starts with well over 100 thousand in New York City. The Yahoo headlines include one story (out of about 40-50) about the protests.
I think I’ll go back to bed now. Someone wake me up when we have a free press or a democratically elected government.
A candidate I could consider giving a crap about
Carol Mosely Braun is running for president! In case you hadn’t been thinking about her lately (it’s OK, I hadn’t either), here’s some mid-90’s history (courtesy FAIR):
After Carol Mosely-Braun (D.-Ill.), the only African-American senator, defeated a bill that would have extended a federal patent on a Confederate flag insignia, Pat Buchanan accused her of “putting on an act” by linking the Confederacy to slavery. “The War Between the States was about independence, about self-determination,” Buchanan asserted (New York Post, 7/28/93). “How long is this endless groveling before every cry of ‘racism’ going to continue before the whole country collectively throws up?” Soon after the Senate vote on the Confederate flag insignia, Sen. Jesse Helms (R.-N.C.) ran into Mosely-Braun in a Capitol elevator. Helms turned to his friend, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah), and said, “Watch me make her cry. I’m going to make her cry. I’m going to sing ‘Dixie’ until she cries.” He then proceeded to sing the song about the good life during slavery to Mosely-Braun (Gannett News Service, 9/2/93; Time, 8/16/93). On CNN’s Larry King Live (9/15/95), when a caller praised guest Senator Jesse Helms for “everything you’ve done to help keep down the niggers,” Helms replied, “Thank you, I think.”
I wonder where she stands on the war(s)?