Blogs
Voices in Conflict get "Courage in Theatre" award for its "non-performance."
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 03/29/2007 - 17:36I got this forwarded from David Isenberg:
Constitutions and Debts
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 03/29/2007 - 14:01Twenty years ago today, the people of Haiti voted to adopt a new constitution to “Ensure their inalienable and imprescriptible rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; in conformity with the Act of Independence of 1804 and the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1948.”
Yet having a new constitution is not enough when you are saddled with debt. Earlier this month, Rep. Maxine Waters introduced H. Res 241, “Urging multilateral financial institutions to cancel completely and immediately Haiti's debts to such institutions, and for other purposes”, aka the Haiti Debt Relief Bill.
Jubilee USA is urging its supporters to contact their Representatives in Congress today, to become co-sponsors of this bill.
For those of us who live in the Constitution State, I can think of no better way of living up to our heritage and celebrating Haiti’s constitution than contacting our Representatives and urging them to become co-sponsors of H.Res 241.
Perspectives
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 03/28/2007 - 10:37Yesterday, Montana Maven pointed me to Jay Rosen’s recent entry on Huffington Post. Jay, together with Arianna Huffington, is searching for ways to get more people to “Participate in Politics by Covering the Campaign”. It is a great idea, which I wish them luck in, but that also raises a few concerns.
Back in January, I wrote a New Year’s resolution post for Gather.com. It was part of my preparation for Journalism that Matters conversation in Memphis. My resolution was to “to help people find their voice”. In Memphis, I refined it further to become, “to help the voiceless find their voice”.
I hope that Jay and Arianna’s efforts will help people find their voice in the political discourse. However, I worry that it might be the same rich white ivy school educated young men that I run into on the blogs and the conferences across our country. I worry that the discourse might end up being not substantially different from the nasty, horse race, Coke or Pepsi type coverage that we see in the traditional mainstream media.
Resolutions out the window
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 03/27/2007 - 17:20Back in January, as I was preparing for a journalism that matters conference, I wrote my New Year’s resolution on Gather.com, “to help people find their voice”.
Yesterday, I received an email from the folks at gather.com asking “It's almost April . . . do you know where your resolutions are?” Yes, I do. They’ve gone out the window.
Let me explain. The New Year came upon me full of hope. There were plenty of opportunities ahead of me to help people find their voice. Yet as the days turned to weeks and on to months, these opportunities have not materialized into what I had dreamed. Yes. I went to the journalism conference, and it was a great event. I got a chance to blog the Libby trial and it changed me. There are more conferences coming up, but few of the things that I had hoped would happen have. It seems like everywhere I turn, I find a new closed door.
Fighting false dichotomies
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 03/27/2007 - 11:03In his op-ed in the L.A. Times, Ronald Brownstein asks the question, “whether Obama is "blue enough" to increase his support among blue-collar whites.” It is based on a couple false dichotomies that he has set up. He appears to think there are only two candidates that are running for the Democratic nomination, and that there are only two constituency groups, the “upscale "wine track" candidates and blue-collar "beer track" contenders”.
Well, as the great quote, originally from George Bernard Shaw, that Robert Kennedy was so well know for, "Some men see things as they are and say 'Why?' I dream things that never were and say, 'Why not?'"
The mainstream media is setting up a false dichotomy. It is the same false dichotomy that Sen. Obama spoke about at the Democratic National Convention.
