Tuesday, September 8, 2009 | | 0 comments

Knewsing 9: Singing and Dancing at 80


Today’s story comes from the Portland Press Herald Online/Sun Journal: Grandmother Launches Music Career. By Eileen M. Adams.
http://www.sunjournal.com/node/271857/


In Maine, lighthouses will have an open house on the 12th of September for all to visit; a man is convicted of child pornography because he placed hidden cameras in his bathroom and caught his girlfriend’s teenaged daughter on the toilet, as well as dressing and undressing; the Yorktown Paper Mill has caught fire; and Burmese immigrants are calling the northern state home.

But the article that I’m picking for the day is about an 80-year old woman who has started a new career in music. My grandfather, since his retirement, has deteriorated, mostly out of an awful boredom. Sometimes he’s so bored he takes long walks up and down the parking ramps of the garage in his apartment building. Not so with Joyce Gammon, who has ventured upon a new career path, tapping her feet and strumming her Dobro guitar the whole time through. It all started when she wrote her husband a song for his birthday. He wanted a convertible, which she couldn’t afford. “So I wrote him a song instead,” says Gammon. It turned out pretty good. Now she’s jotted down forty songs and recorded eight.

I hope I’m like that at 80 – still singing and bringing out the dancing shoes.

Monday, September 7, 2009 | | 0 comments

Knewsing 8: The Maquiladoras & The Nature of Change


The article for today comes from The Arizona Daily Star: Maquiladoras in Global Squeeze. By W.J. Hennigan.

When you read a newspaper from a border state you always get a tale of two cities, at least. In this article, what we are getting is a tale of three countries, feeling the effects of both globalization and economic crisis. The Maquiladoras, in Nogales, AZ are losing ground. Nogales is city known for its Maquiladoras – factories in which mostly Mexican workers receive materials/products form a particular country and then assemble goods to ship back to where the materials/products came from for retail. We’re talking everything from notebooks to airplane parts.

The reason Nogales is losing ground is that the work is being shipped to China, where labor is cheaper. Obviously, this is an interesting article to look at on Labor Day. For many reasons. Mostly, because the nature of our work is changing and we are in a state of, often painful, transition.

So many mornings, when we pick up the paper, or get online, it feels like the world is suffering a long, hard ache. Like the heartache after a serious relationship has broken (the feeling of not wanting to move-on, not wanting another lover, wanting still to linger in the comfort of a familiar bed, in familiar arms); or like a growing pain; or like the homesickness of migration. But this is the nature of change.

A year ago, when we voted in a new president in for the United States, we were calling for change. Change is happening all over the world now – in healthcare, in the car industry, in the book industry, in politics, in technology, in foreign trade, in the stock market, and in Nogales. It’s everywhere and sometimes it hurts. And before we can see any kind of light, we’ll have to whether the tides of change and tread through the transition.

There’s a country song by John Rich called Shuttin Detroit Down. It’s a song about the working man. One verse reads:

Because in the real world they're shuttin' Detroit down,While the boss man takes his bonus paid jets on out of town. DC's bailing out them bankers as the farmers auction ground. Yeah while they're living up on Wall Street in that New York City town,Here in the real world they're shuttin' Detroit down.

The situation in Nogales isn’t all that different.

The question that rises out of all of this is: What’s next? Because hopefulness for the future is also part of the nature of change. Yes, there’s always the chance that it will all turn out worse, but perhaps it will be better than we know; more than we know. Perhaps we are shuttin’ Detroit down to make room for a revolutionary kind of transportation that doesn’t rely on fuel and thereby changes our entire global/political dynamic. Perhaps the Maquiladoras will shut down and perhaps Hispanics will have a better tomorrow – better than those grueling days, and the pains of putting together someone else’s goods for preposterously little pay. Anything is possible. That’s the great part about the brink of change.

Sunday, September 6, 2009 | | 0 comments

Knewsing 7: Jesus Knocks out the Devil in Africa

Today's article comes from The Oklahoman: U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe Leads in Trips Abroad.
By Chris Casteel.

Jesus sure does get around. Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma has been traveling the world on the “taxpayer’s dime,” says this particular article. One of the places he’s been going to is Africa. Sen. Inhofe also said, at one point, that one of the reasons he went to Africa was because it was a “Jesus thing.” Uh-oh. Red Flag. Red Flag.

I’m not going to wax on here very long, it is a blog after all, and I’ve been talking too much lately. But, I will say that this particular Senator says he holds prayer meetings with African leaders. Do you get a mental picture? This is what I think about. I think about a trip to Ghana I took in 2004. We were driving on the way to Cape Coast, where the slaves were shipped out of Africa and into America to work for King Cotton. Along the way there were small shanty shops, beauty salons and barber shops, and the like. They were all named something like “Jesus Saves Beauty Salon,” and “Mary, Queen of Heaven Salon,” or “Saint-something-or-other Barber Shop.” And then, sandwiched amid them there was a particular little shanty shop called “The Fuck You Beauty Salon.” Ah, Colonialism.

Apparently, Jesus really likes to travel because Sen. Inhofe has been taking trips like drinking water – from Australia to Paris.

Saturday, September 5, 2009 | | 0 comments

Knewsing 6: Control


The article I am choosing to talk about for today is called: Pursuing God and Sex: The Warring Obsessions of Phillip Garrido’s Life. By Maria L. La Ganga.

The article is about Phillip Garrido’s struggle between the Jesus and his sexual fantasies. About his Manifesto re: Jesus saving his life from the dark corners of pornography, lit by the florescent bulbs of guilt. And then there’s all that LSD he took. His father said he was ruined after that…

God, we are creatures of extremes. I’m not saying we all Rape and Pray, not exactly. But, to some extent Garrido is just an extreme of our extremes. Deranged, yes, definitely – regular brain wires on speed, distorted, off-track.

All of us have wars inside us. The good and bad angel on each shoulder; our nations’ balance between war and peace; our binging and purging; our fighting and making up…If what keeps us in check is the ability to balance our extremes, keeping us from not going too far off each end, isn’t Garrido just what happens when we lose control. Maybe that's obvious. But it makes me think about the word "control" and what it really means. Makes me wonder where this control comes from to begin with and if it isn’t the core of what we call morality? But then, do we ever truly have complete command over ourselves – isn’t that the biggest struggle there is; why people go to therapy and read self-help books, dip themselves in holy water, light candles, and celebrate “new” years as clean slates?


Other things learned/gleaned from the LA Times today:
1. The LA Times is a great paper -- Journalist Ashley Powers, for one, writes like an angel: “The Strip kept adding hotel, and suburbs chewed through the desert.” Nice rhythm, nice image.
2. Speaking of writers – Nicholson Baker has a new book out: The Anthologist – going to go buy that.
3. Christian Poveda, French-born documentary filmmaker was killed by the gang he documented and talked bout “trusting.” – “If you look long enough down the throat of the lion, he will eat you.”

Friday, September 4, 2009 | | 0 comments

Knewsing 5: Life & Death from Juarez, Mexico to Carrollton, Texas

The two stories for today are from the Dallas Morning News: Drug Treatment Center Targeted in Mexico, 18 dead. By Olivia Torres and Alicia A. Caldwell (The Associated Press) http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D9AG3VTG0.html; and a Video/Photo story called Choosing Thomas. http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/photography/2009/thomas .


In Dallas this morning, the news goes something like this: Sports, of course, The Dallas Cowboys kickoff their season with a luncheon; Schools all around North Texas fear that Obama’s speech to students is “liberal indoctrination;” and Dallas-area home listings are falling. But, the two stories that struck me hardest were the story of a bloodbath at a drug treatment center in Juarez, Mexico; and the story of Baby Thomas in Dallas.

Apparently, when you go into rehab in Mexico, you not only have to deal with the hard road of recovery, but you might also face death. In Juarez, drug Cartels are using rehab centers as recruiting and training centers. I quote: “Garcia Luna said in Michoacan, Cedeno's rehab centers held retreats to train members, and if addicts did not cooperate, they were executed. He said the La Familia gang preferred recovered addicts because they were less likely to touch the drug loads.” Luna is Mexico’s Public Safety Secretary -- a tough job, needless to say, at the turbulent border between Juarez and El Paso (which is clearly in sight from Mexico’s most dangerous city). Juarez claims more than 1,300 lives a year. In this particular case, at the Aliviane site, what was happening, according to another article in the Dallas Morning News was that one Cartel was attempting to exterminate another. The Sinaloa have been hitting up the Linea (the Juarez cartel), trying to exterminate every last one of them – “killing people at will, hitting them like sitting ducks” (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-juarez_04int.ART.State.Edition2.4bcfae5.html)

I think about so much as I read these stories about Juarez. I think about how when people meet Israeli’s or Iraqis they always ask them how they do it – wake up every morning in the midst of such violence; how they live a day-to-day existence in it, how are they not afraid to walk outside their door. They are, just as people in Juarez are afraid. “It’s scary,” said one resident, “I’m ready to move.” You don’t have to go as far as the Middle East to see the kind of violence that freezes and infiltrates the minutes and hours and long days of innocent bystanders– here it is, massacre, just miles away from our American borders. How much are we responsible for, as Americans, and, more generally, how much does this say about our humanity? That last question may seem trite to some, but it’s not, not when you really delve into the heart of it.

If the first article was about death; lives cut short. So is the second story I’ve chosen for today, about Baby Thomas. Except it’s also about life and love.

“Baby Thomas” is the son of TK and Deidrea Laux, a Carrollton, Texas couple. Thomas who was diagnosed with Trisomy 13 while still in the womb. The Laux family knew that due to his genetic disorder, this baby would die within minutes or hours or at the very most a few days after birth (if he even survived the birth). But the couple decided to have the baby anyway.

On the one had, I think immediately about how awful it is that Baby Thomas is now going to be the poster child for Anti-abortion activists. But, on the other hand, I can’t get my head around this story as a testament to the need for love (both giving it and receiving it, we have within us).

Half of my thinks this is a strange masochism on behalf of the parents. And, didn’t the child suffer more by having to live out a disease that was meant to kill him within days (he died five days after birth)? However, another part of me is so deeply moved by the video – by what seems to be a true act of love. And therein lies a counterpart to the Juarez story, the complex layerings that make us up – the layering that allows us to laud Ted Kennedy was a wonderful senator while knowing that Chappaquiddick and the death of a young woman lie in his past and on his (and our) conscience.

Amazing how the news can not only provide the daily happenings of what’s important to a particular urban center, but also really make me sit her and delve deep into the stuff we’re made up of, as people.

It makes me think of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. I should say more about that, but I won’t. I’ve said enough.

Thursday, September 3, 2009 | | 0 comments

Knewsing 4: Anchor-women, Governors, and Escorts – A Lesson in Point of View



Today’s stories come from The Seattle Times. There are three of them I’m responding to today – all threaded by a common link: Women and the way they are written about.

The First article is: Charles Gibson to Step Down as Anchor, Diane Sawyer to Take Over. By Bill Carter and Brian Stelter.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009796197_gibson03.html

The second article is: Levi Johnston: Palin Wanted to Adopt Grandchild. By The Associated Press.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009793602_apuspalinlevijohnston.html

And, the last article for today is: Police: ‘Chunky” Escorts Rip Off Intoxicated Men. Posted by John de Leon From Times staff reporter Christine Clarridge.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/theblotter/2009787305_--_from_times_staff_reporter_2.html

The first story is about Diane Sawyer finally making it to anchor on ABC. I quote: “Sawyer, the longtime – some would say long-suffering – co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” was named successor to Charles Gibson, who is stepping down as the anchor of ABC’s “World News.” Barbara Walters called it, “a great day,” and I would have to agree. For the first time ever, two of the three main networks will have a woman at the helm. This is wonderful because, let’s face it, aren’t women the true “anchors” of society anyway – the ones that are constantly holding down the ship, no matter what the weather?

What sticks in my brain most, however, about this article is a quote by Richard Wald. “You’re going to have, for the first time ever, two women competing as solo anchors in the television framework that just – within living memory – sort of destroyed every woman who tried to do it,” said Wald, a former news exec at ABC and NBC. I want to know what he means by that? The article simply puts it out there and then lets it go. And, really, what he means and why he is saying what he is saying is at the crux of this story. Why?

Next, we have an Associated Press story, having also to do with politics and women: Palin, in particular. It lists the complaints of Levi Johnston (the father of Sarah Palin’s grandchild and Palin’s daughter Bristol’s ex-fiancĂ©) about Palin. Johnson, who apparently wants to be a model and an actor, bashes Palin. He says she moped around the house after she lost the election; that she doesn’t really know how to shoot a gun; that she wanted to adopt his and Bristol’s child in order to cover up the pregnancy of her 17-year-old daughter. But, what’s really sort of pathetic is when he begins to talk about her parenting skills: “Sarah doesn’t cook…” I don’t even like Palin, but I am setting this out here to make a point, which I will make after setting up the next example.

Finally, the third story is about escorts. It’s about a group of guys in Mountlake Terrace who get drunk and call an escort service. When the escorts get there, they don’t look like the girls in the picture they saw, which had incited them to dial-up for prostitutes in the first place. Instead the escorts look “larger and thicker” than they did in the picture, says one of the men to the police. The escorts, when they got to the men’s house, went about stealing blackberry’s and such instead of giving the boys a blow job. I have to say: good for them. However, the point is this. This is not a story about the fact that these women are selling their bodies for money, or why they are (there’s that question again: why?). This is not a story about a crime. No, this is a story about three drunk-of-their-ass men who are disappointed by their “fat” escorts. The title says it all – Police: ‘Chunky’ escorts rip off intoxicated men. The drunk men then go on to rate the escorts on a scale of one to ten. The writer makes it a point to say that one of the men called the women a “2” while the most drunk called them a “4.”

So, what do we have here – we have a view of women set in today’s paper. I’m not sure who wrote the Associated Press article, whether it was a male or a female. But mostly, what we are getting are men writing about women, and doing it poorly. And, quite honestly, it’s upsetting. The spin all of these articles take is neither funny nor informative, perhaps to the exclusion of the first article on Sawyer, which is why I have placed at the top in order to prove a point about the actual strength, intelligence, and power women can have in the world, when they are not being hit over the head by articles such as the latter two (or pigeon-holed into “long-suffering” jobs for morning shows). And still, even that one leaves questions unanswered.

As for the Palin article – it is important to know that I am a Democrat, that I voted for Obama/Clinton and that I do not agree with any of the things Palin thinks and says. But, I also don’t care whether she “cooks.”

In regards to the third story mentioned above: I believe that escorts should be taken off the streets, because it is an objectifying profession that is detrimental to women. I don’t care if the escorts that are out there are “chunky.” And, finally, I want to know: WHY has the position of anchor on a major network “destroyed” the women that have taken up the job?

Every story has a point of view, no matter how objective a journalist attempts to be. And point of view, is almost always subjective. What does this say about how society regards women, even today?

Wednesday, September 2, 2009 | | 2 comments

Knewsing 3: Slap the Kid



Today’s story comes from the Atlanta Journal Constitution: Man Slaps Stranger’s Crying Kid. By Kate Leslie

So, imagine, you’re in a supermarket, or a department store, or (worst of all) an airplane and the kid behind you won’t stop crying. Crying and crying and there’s nothing the mother/father can do (or sometimes even try to do) to stop it. You have options. You can ignore it, as most people would. You can roll your eyes and curse the kid and mother under your breath. You could turn around and give the kid and/or mother that dirty look you’ve been perfecting, just for the occasion. And, if you’re on an airplane, you can even ask the flight attendant to see if she can get you some earplugs (unless you’re the type that carries those around due to trauma left by a super-snorer boyfriend – then you’re all set. That also applies to the anti-social, airplane reader who is always prepared to shut the world out).

Or, if you live in Gwinnett County, you could do as one 61-year-old man did in a local Stone Mountain Wal-Mart. Turn around and smack the kid. You’ll be arrested, of course. And, in this man’s case, held without bond and charged with a felony: cruelty to children. And herein lay the difference between the people who do, not think.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009 | | 0 comments

Knewsing 2: Peter Pan Kids



Today’s article comes from The Miami Herald: Pedro Pan site Hits Milestone as Social Networking Connection. By Luisa Yanez. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1211386.html

The interesting thing about the Miami Herald is that it’s probably the only city in America where Cuba makes front page news almost daily. Today they posted a story about a new database/social networking site that the Miami Herald has made for and by Cuban-Americans, specifically for Peter Pan Kids (keep reading if you don’t know what this is).

Forget what you know about Facebook or Twitter or any other kind of “social networking” – this is a website that connects people linked by a particular socio-historical moment in time. Operation Pedro Pan (Operation Peter Pan) was a movement that transported children from Cuba, alone without their parents, to America from 1960-1962. It was directed mostly by Monsigner Bryan O. Walsh and the Catholic Church. The idea was to get these kids out of Communist Cuba, where the parents were becoming fearful of the new regime and what it meant for their children. Later, they would reunite with their children, when they themselves could get out. That was the plan. Some of the kids, however, remained orphans, never seeing their parents again.

Just imagine it: being in Cuba, a kid, your parents whispering in the kitchen and all of a sudden you are being shipped to a camp in Florida with other Peter Pans, and eventually taken into foster care. Talk about growing up fast – the irony of the title of this operation never ceases to amaze me. Some stories are happier ones, granted. Regardless, these stories make up a part of American history as much as they do Cuban history and the database the Miami Herald has created is allowing for this story to be told in the first person. A great effort, I think.