Good Night and Good Luck

Good Night and Good Luck:
The Revolution May Never Be Televised

“I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable,
restrained and more mature than most of our industry's program planners
believe.”
Edward R. Murrow, 1958

To say that George Clooney’s new film “Good Night and Good Luck” is one
of the most important films of this year is to be guilty of significant
understatement. Not since Michael Mann’s 1999 thriller “The Insider”
has a Hollywood film director made a media-focused mainstream movie
this important or timely.

Clooney tells the story of CBS news broadcaster Edward R. Murrow
(masterfully played by David Strathairn) and his battle to expose the
anti-Communist excesses of Wisconsin junior Senator Joseph McCarthy
(played by himself, thanks to recovered 1950s kinescope footage). Led
by CBS producer Fred Friendly (a be-speckled Clooney) and supported by
a loyal news team, Murrow’s courageous “See It Now” TV program
confronted the domestic fallout of Cold War ideology (and, by
extension, the military/industrial/media complex propping it up) while
simultaneously staking out a more tolerant and inclusive version of
American patriotism that honored privacy, individual rights, and a
sense of fair play.

Does this debate sound strangely familiar?

While Murrow’s truth-telling won him praise from New York Times media
reporter Jack Gould and other influential cultural gate-keepers, his
nightly stories put “See It Now’s" parent company and Columbia
Broadcast System CEO William Paley (Frank Langella, in the film) under
tremendous pressure. Large corporations cancelled their underwriting
contracts with CBS (during the 1950s, before the days of wall-to-wall
ads, companies like Alcoa often single-handedly supported an entire
program), and US military officials showed up in Friendly’s office for
a not-so-friendly heart-to-heart chat.

In telling Murrow’s story, Clooney wisely plays to his medium’s
strengths. Shooting in black and white, he has produced a compact film
that is tightly edited, atmospheric, and, for TV news studio scenes,
downright claustrophobic. We learn nothing about Murrow’s personal
life, very little about any of the story’s major characters beyond the
news room, and precious few details about Cold War culture.

What we do learn, thanks to Clooney’s decision to book-end his film
with a speech Murrow made at a 1958 Radio-Television News Director
Association dinner, is that many Americans like Murrow believed very
much in the power of television to educate, enlighten, and inspire,
rather than to simply sell people stuff. Murrow’s 1958 observations –
now legendary in media circles - still stand as some of the most
prescient and honest statements about TV and U.S. society ever made by
an industry insider.

“We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have
currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information.
Our mass media reflect this.” Murrow observed on that October 1958
evening in Chicago. “But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and
recognize that television in the main is being used to distract,
delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance
it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally
different picture too late.”

What would Murrow make of U.S. television today? The massive global
consolidation of a hyper-commercial corporate structure? The 28 hours a
week we Americans watch, on average? The Fox-ification of TV “news”?
The 24-7 ad-driven “consensus trance” created by the medium, our
society’s epistemological command center even today? The 1996 $70
billion Congressional giveaway of the publicly-owned digital spectrum –
for FREE - to the telecommunications industry? Or, on the positive
side, community cable TV broadcasters’ valiant efforts to exploit the
medium to capture the real lives of real communities – to use TV for
something other than simply selling us stuff?

And, if Murrow were alive today, would he tackle our most provocative
but unreported national news stories-to-be? Election Fraud? 911 Truth?
Corporate corruption on a grand scale? International drug trafficking
by our country’s own intelligence agencies?

“This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even
inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined
to use it to those ends,” Murrow concluded in 1958. “Otherwise it is
merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive
battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference.
This weapon of television could be useful.”

Prophetic words. And ones that, I fear, will never be completely
realized as long as the television medium, in the main, is owned and
operated by our society’s richest and most powerful players.

Historian, media educator and musician Dr. Rob Williams lives in
Vermont’s Mad River Valley. Read, listen, and watch at
www.robwilliamsmedia.com

Made in BRASIL: Two Documentaries, One Premiere

http://www.salaodoencontro.com/
Thursday, October 27, 7:00pm
Media in Community Service
SFSU Creative Arts Bldg. Studio 1
1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco, CA
(415) 338-1326


San Francisco State University’s Broadcast Electronic Communication Arts MEDIA IN COMMUNITY SERVICE presents two Brazilian stories about a way of life at a non-profit organization “Salao do Encontro" or "The Meeting Place." The two half hour documentaries will premiere on Thursday,
October 27, 2005, at 7:00pm in room Studio One,
located at SFSU’s Radio & Television Creative Arts Bldg, Holloway Ave Entrance.

In June 2005, Professor Betsy Blosser, along with
two teacher assistants Vanessa Pinheiro and Ryan Stouffer, and seven students took an international trip to a small Brazilian town where they would put education into practice. The self funded group made sure that upon their return to the US the production would see through to its completion. In December Salao Do Encontro will receive the documentaries to use as part of their fundraising strategies so they can help more people.

“Salao do Encontro” is a story about a non-profit organization that is self sufficient through harvesting their own crops, recycling, caring for its people and neighborhood, creating jobs & paying a fair wage, giving chances to those that don’t necessarily have the means to obtain a second chance, and much more.

It’s a story about the people and the love of one woman who organized Salao do Encontro so that the underprivileged would have the opportunity to make a better life for themselves. And this includes the children, the youth, the adults, the elderly, the
disabled, everyone and anyone society deems insignificant… but to the founder of Salao, Dona Noemi only sees potential.

It has been said that Salao shouldn’t be talked about,
it should be seen.

Refreshments, Newsreel and Slideshow
Plus Q&A with Filmmakers
***FREE***

Documentary 1
Director: Maya Chinchilla
Producer: Rinchen Lama
Editor & Audio Supervisor: Geoff Kottmeier
Director of Photography: Joseph Cousins

Documentary 2
Director: Keith Morikawa
Producer: JJ Moffat
Production Manager: Evangeline Fabia

Executive Producers: Ryan Stouffer,Vanessa Pinheiro & Betsy Blosser

Hip Hop in Education-RBTR Film Festival update

Hey my beautiful friends and family, I am currently working on my new documentary about Women in Spoken Word and finishing up the editing on my project about an amazing non-profit from Brazil that should be done in October.

Also the first documentary I worked on is going to be showing in some film festivals coming up so come out and support! (yeah this has been my heart and soul and also one of the main reasons I have been pretty underground...you know following dreams, taking back the media and tell the stories that need to be told... the only true path to happiness, doing what you love... I am testing out that theory while I max out the credit card)

Thanks always for all your love and support. Please pass this on to anyone who may be interested.
www.mediamuxerista.blogspot.com

First off Reading Between the Rhymes will be shown this upcoming Tuesday at SFSU:

FilmFest 2005
Jack Adams Hall
Cesar Chavez Student Center 30th Anniversary Film Festival showcasing a variety of films by current and former SFSU students.
www.sfsustudentcenter.com/film

Tuesday September 27th 6:45 p.m.
"Reading Between the Rhymes" (2005)
Director: Keith Morikawa
Associate Producer: Maya Chinchilla
"Reading Between the Rhymes" is a documentary that explores the use of the hip hop culture in the classroom as a learning tool to engage and inspire youth. 27 min.


San Diego Asian Film Festival 2005
September 29 at 7:00 PM, UltraStar AZN/Cox Theatre 6
October 2 at 4:30 PM, Brickstones
www.sdaff.org

H2Ed Hip Hop Education Summit 2005 (Bronx, NY)
November 5 at 1:15 PM, Bronx Museum of the Arts
www.h2ed.net
(R.B.T.R. was based largely on last years H2Ed Summit. A mandatory event for all educators seeking alternative and creative ways to teach. You must register and obtain a summit pass prior to attending. www.h2ed.net for more info.)

H2O (Hip Hop Odyssey) International Film Festival
November 6-12, TBA
www.h2oiff.com
(New York's hottest Hip Hop event this fall and a world class event, promoting social awareness and youth empowerment through media)

Also, be sure to check out this months Edutopia Magazine from The George Lucas Educational Foundation. There's a meaty article, Hip Hop High, that focuses on, but of course, Hip Hop and education.

HURRICANE CARE, NOT WARFARE!

What's goin on folks...

In solidarity with the actions that will be taking place all over the country on the Weekend of September 23-25th we will be making our voices heard right here in downtown Oakland. There will be some great speakers & performers (check out some of the names below).

Please come through if you can.
Peaze,
S.H.

ps...also try to come through Dolores park in SF at 11am on Saturday the 24th. Info is below as well.

Let this administration know that they will never have the Bay!
_______________________

Please post & forward widely!
________________________


HURRICANE CARE, NOT WARFARE!
No Recruitment, No Draft.
Support GI Resisters: AN ARMY OF NONE!

FRI SEPT 23
4pm: Speak Out & Performances
Street Theatre, Spoken Word, Hip Hop & Samba,
Destiny Arts, Art in Action, Cesar Cruz, Aima (The Mamaz) and more!
Chevron Gas Station
Telegraph Ave and Grand Ave, Oakland
(19th St. BART)

5pm: March, Demonstrate
and Nonviolent Direct Action
Armed Forces Recruiting Center
2116 Broadway, btwn 21/22nd Sts
*******************************

MAKE ART, TAKE ACTION!
If you want to support the upcoming action
and/or participate in nonviolent civil disobedience
take note of the dates:

***Saturday, September 17th ****
ART BUILD FOR THE ACTION
3 – 6pm
Come make banners and signs
in the picnic area by the Berkeley Art Center
1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park (across the creek from Levana’s
“house”)
North Berkeley. Veggie BBQ – bring something to throw on the grill!
Directions: From Downtown Berkeley, go north on Shattuck till it
appears to end, turn right on Rose, then left right away on Walnut and
go down about a block. You will see the Berkeley Art Center on your
right.


***Sunday, September 18th***
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE PLANNING MEETING
6 – 8pm
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
344 40th Street between Broadway and Shafter, Oakland


***Thursday, September 22nd***
If you plan on risking arrest, please come to the nonviolent direct
action training and orientation.
NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION TRAINING & ORIENTATION
7 – 9pm, Nonviolent Direct Action and People Power training
The Spot, 1629 Telegraph Ave. between 16th and 17th, 5th floor


HELP TO SPREAD THE WORD!
DISTRIBUTE POSTCARDS FOR THE ACTION – THIS WEEK
Pick up at the Sat Artbuild(above), Destiny Arts (Beginning Monday)or
download
from website: CourageToResist.org
3900 Telegraph between 40th and MacArthur
Beebe Memorial Cathedral
*****************************************


If the government won’t listen to the people, we will stop the war
ourselves by
organizing campaigns to remove the pillars of support on which the war
depends.
By supporting counter recruitment, GI resistance and draft resistance,
we can
strategically cut off the supply of compliant troops. This action
supports
these people power campaigns that are key to the resurgent movement to
stop the
Iraq war and occupation, and policies of empire behind it.

While over 200 billion a year of our money is spent on the Iraq war and
occupation, money was cut from flood control projects that could have
helped
avert much of the disaster. Large numbers of National Guard troops that
might
have helped are in Iraq. The resources that are spent for hurricane
care dwarf
next to that wasted on warfare. We're working to uproot the system
behind the
Iraq war in the Persian Gulf and the government made disaster in the
Gulf
Coast. It is time to replace racism and poverty with economic and
racial
justice!

Recruiters grow desperate as more civilians, especially
African-Americans and
women, are refusing to enlist. At the same time, more and more enlisted
soldiers are refusing to fight this war for empire. Recruiters are
intensifying their campaign of lies upon our youth, and especially on
working-class neighborhoods and communities of color. Over $185
million a day
goes to maintain the occupation of Iraq, while here in California money
goes
into prisons instead of schools. Here, working class youth and youth of
color
are told "you can go into the military or to jail," and then once
enlisted,
soldiers refusing to kill are imprisoned.

How can we step up our support for youth to find alternatives to the
military, for those already enlisted who are refusing orders to kill or
going AWOL, and for Iraqis who are fighting for their lives under U.S.
occupation? Please join us on the 23rd, spread the word and bring your
friends.
There will be a safe zone for those not risking arrest.
*******************************************************

From A Nation Rocked To Sleep/
For Casey Sheehan

Have you ever heard the sound of taps played at your brother's
grave?
They say he died so the flag will continue to wave,
But I believe he died because they had oil to save.
Have you ever heard the sound of taps played at your brother's
grave?

Have you ever heard the sound of a Nation Rocked to Sleep?
The leaders want to keep you numb so the pain won't be so deep,
But if we the people let them continue, another mother will
weep.
Have you ever heard the sound of a Nation Rocked to Sleep?

By Carly Sheehan

***************************************
People Power Can End the War Collective
An ad hoc group of youth, students, people of faith, veterans, military
families
and counter recruitment and military resistance support organizations
working to
support people power strategy to end the war and occupation.

Supported by: Veterans for Peace-Chapter 69, Central Committee of
Conciencious
Objectors, Courage to Resist, Art in Action, , Naked Souls Artist
Alliance,
Mother Speak, Fr. Louis Vitale

strategyproject@riseup.net
http://www.CourageToResist.org

Teatro Luna

Hey yall come out to see these outrageously funny and entertaining theater group on these two dates. You may also see me and other members of Las Manas on both of these nights.
9/13 & 9/17

SPECIAL PRESENTATION
Teatro Luna BLAZES into the Bay Area!!
Chicago’s all Latina Theatre Ensemble presents two hilarious/bitterweet productions to satiate the budding thespian in all. Galería de la Raza is proud to host Teatro Luna's ten-day artist residency...


Tuesday, September 13

“Aparicíon” - A Staged Reading

Aparicíon is the story of Natalia, a Mexican born Tejana whose day-to-day life is interrupted by the appearance of an Entity. As Natalia muddles through the complicated relationships in her life – an affair with her sister’s husband, her domineering and class-obsessed Mexican family, her friendships with a working class Tex/Mex woman and her new neighbor, a transplant from Chicago who is one of the only African-American men in her town – she struggles to bind this Being to her.

A Staged Reading @ Galería de la Raza
Free Admission
Time: 7:30PM


Teatro Luna
89/175
S-e-x-Oh!
West Coast premiere of Teatro Luna’s fourth ensemble built show about complicated and hilarious hilarious relationship between gender, culture and the very thing our abuelas forbade us to do.

SATURDAY, September 17

S-e-x-Oh! is based on autobiographical writing and community interviews, S-e-x-Oh! places the stereotypes about Latina sexuality – the virginal mother, the pregnant teen, the “spicy” sexpot- within the larger context of Latina lives and experiences. Nothing is off limits from masturbation, exploration, obsession, jealousy, phone sex, perverts and piojos, to the more serious topics of molestation and abortion. The stories in S-e-x-Oh! move discussion about Latina sexuality beyond the Virgin/Whore dichotomy portrayed not just in the popular media, but in our own homes as well.

Saturday, September 17
“S-e-x-Oh!”
West Coast Premiere
**USF's Gill Theatre (inside Campion Hall), 2130 Fulton St., San Francisco
Admission: $8-$15

Mainstream TV Observations-Katrina

Reposted from "Bob McCannon" mccannon@flash.net

I have been recording CBS and ABC news every night for the last five
nights and lots of ABC and FOX for the last five days. A couple
observations:

1) Today, CNN had an incredibly revealing story. Yesterday, a woman
got on CNN with a cell phone. CNN broadcast her plight. She and the
people around her were stranded in New Orleans; it was a miracle that
she got through. Within hours, "helicopters were buzzing around."
Shortly after, helicopters landed on the roof. Armed guardsmen escorted
buses to the place she was. She and her group were each given
antibiotics and instructions for followup since they had to wade
through the disgusting water to their buses. Where was this woman? I
guess you can guess the type of place she was. Yes, she and her 300
fellow strandees were in the Ritz Carlton hotel.

2) Tonight on the Lou Dobbs Show on CNN I saw the first, long,
mainstream TV news show on the extent of poverty in this country in
years; 20 minutes long, it was undoubtedly a shock to people who only
watch mainstream news.

3) President Bush had an amazing photo-op in Mississippi, holding two
black girls in his arms, kissing them; it went on for eight minutes and
was the clip shown on ABC and on Fox over and over, but not on CBS.

4) Tonight, for the first time, CBS showed an official, a Miss. mayor,
saying, "We have only 800 national guard troops, because we have 3,000
in Iraq.

5) CBS and CNN had references, recorded on radio, to the mayor of New
Orleans' expletive-filled criticism of the federal government,
delivered on radio today. FOX did not show it. No one put him on
television. Why not? I could not help but think of how often Rudi
Guiliani was on TV after 9/11. No one would put the mayor on TV. Why
not?

6) Lou Dobbs identified recent studies by Homeland Security that had
identified the 100,000 people in New Orleans who would NOT BE ABLE to
evacuate. You know who they were, the poor. The army corps of engineers
knew that the levees would not hold for a category four or five storm.

7) ABC had an unusual think tank official who noted that we got water
purification equipment to Tsunami victims within three days, but not
New Orleans.

8) ABC ran an amazing story about how when national guard troops
finally got to the Convention Center in New Orleans, where
indescribable horrors had taken place for five days, their FIRST action
was to send a highly armed force past sick, dying, and thirsty
Americans into the Center to get out a Spanish diplomat.

9) The first water and food that reached the Miss. strandees came from
religious organizations, long before FEMA.

10) Tom Oliphant, on the Lehrer News Hour, noted in the past, the poor
were always taken care of first. Clarence Page observed that during the
crisis in Haiti it looked better than New Orleans and that FEMA's
budget has been cut every year for years. David Brooks, normally a
Republican apologist, noted that this comes on top of Abu Grieve, corp
scandals, failure of public institutions from the time of Hurricane
Andrews on, and Bush spent "three days doing nothing." He also noted
that if the Republican primary were held today, "Rudi Guiliani would
win in a walk."

Hmmmm . . .

Have a good weekend,
Bob

"Looters"

From Poyter.org posted Sept. 2 http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45

Wisconsin editor tells staff not to use "looting" in captions
Romenesko Letters
Randolph D. Brandt of the Racine (Wis.) Journal Times wants his staff to use "taking." He writes: "We're not there. We can't really judge. In a flooded city that's been without largely supplies for a week, 'looting' could very well mean survival."
> AFP has Yahoo pull photo with controversial "finding" caption (AP)