June 2008

June 25, 2008

June 25, 2008

Lack of opportunity for young people in Baltimore is one of the most serious issues we face as a city. It’s a matter of life and death.

Think that’s an overstatement? We spoke with some young people this hour who might convince you otherwise.

June 18, 2008

June 18, 2008

Today's show featured a discussion of the investigation by the Maryland state prosecutor's office into past spending irregularities at Baltimore's City Hall. The investigation has been ongoing for two years, dating back to Mayor Sheila Dixon's term as City Council President. Dixon's home was raided by state prosecutors early yesterday morning. Later in the day, prosecutors served subpoenas on five city employees.

Joining Marc throughout the hour were Anthony McCarthy, former Director of Communications for the Office of the Mayor, Charles Robinson, Correspondent for State Circle on MPT, Sean Yoes, Senior Reporter for the Baltimore Afro American newspaper, and Baltimore Sun reporter John Fritze.

Please click on the podcast player below to listen to the show now, or click on the mp3 link below to download it!

June 12, 2008

Medgar Evers & Obama

Today is the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Medgar Evers. Medgar Evers was a Mississippi civil rights leader, and the head of the NAACP On this day 45 years ago, June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers was gunned down in the drive of his home, the same day that Alabama’s segregationist Governor (and later Presidential candidate) stood on the steps of Alabama’s all white university to personally block the entrance of two black students.

President Kennedy gave one of his most impassioned speeches about the moral crisis that America was facing. He sent federal marshals to ensure the safety of those children.

The man who killed Medgar Evers was a man tied to the White Citizens Council, Byron De La Beckwith. He was never convicted in two trials, by two all white juries. They were both declared mistrials. It took thirty years but De La Beckwith was finally convicted of those murders before he died.

I will never forget the photos of Medger Evers, the great civil rights warrior lying in his own blood just feet from his home.

I was thinking about how so many died to end segregation in America , when Jessica Phillips, my producer, asked if I had seen what Fox News said about Michelle Obama. I had not and I wish I still hadn’t.

They are doing stories on their news about how the Republicans are going to go after Michelle Obama. The title on the screen under the story which ran on TV, that I was shown on the web, said “ Outraged Liberals: Stop picking on Obama’s Baby Mama.”

How outrageous, how disgusting, how blatantly racist. How is it that we have come this far and someone could still think this is ok?!? This is a major TV news operation, owned by Rupert Murdoch, known for its conservative slant and blatant untruths...but this reaches new heights, or should I write, new lows of despicable behavior.

This is the state of our media. This is the mindset that must be defeated. This is why we need to take back our media from corporate, uncaring bottom feeders who only think about the bottom line.

FOX News, Rupert Murdoch, you owe the Obamas, you owe your viewers, and you owe the nation an apology. Local outlets should stand up.

I am outraged.

Since we live here in Maryland, let’s call up Fox 45 to ask them if they will repudiate what their parent company has done.

Medgar Evers and Barak Obama are the bookends of our history of building an America that is a nation of hope for all our people and children. Fox News is the expurgated entrails we thought were thrown in the garbage, only to have its slime ooze over the edges onto our floors.

June 10, 2008

06/10 Marc on Larsen’s resignation from the PSC

 Steve Larsen's Resignation

I am not surprised that Steve Larsen resigned as the head of the Public Service Commission. When community activists railed against him and O’Malley as sellouts to Constellation Energy, I always defended Larsen as a man of integrity and honesty. He believed in using the tools of the government to make the public sector more responsive to the citizens. He was a quiet, diligent and intelligent crusader on the inside, whether it was health insurance or regulating energy.

I think he resigned not to go back to the public sector to make more money but out of frustration. When the state reached the deal with Constellation Energy that ensured that the PSC would have no subpoena power, it took the teeth out of the PSC. Larsen would not be able to get to the bottom of any sweetheart deals between the Constellation and its subsidiary BGE to unearth whatever potentially unscrupulous deals were made to purchase energy at the consumers’ expense.

I wondered aloud how long Steve Larsen would stay after this. He was crusader for the people who had his cape destroyed. He chose to walk away rather than plummet to the ground.

Given the price of oil, the cost and real crisis we are facing with electricity generation and looming public wars over our energy future we need more caped crusaders or this secure world of ours could be in trouble. -Marc

Related blog posts:

04/09/08 Looking back at the session

03/28/08-Marc's argument against the settlement

03/03/08 Marc on what is missing in the investigation

 

Banning Little Cigars

What would it really accomplish to ban the sale of small cigars in the city of Baltimore? What I am writing about is the Mayor and Health Commissioner wanting to ban the sale of individual little cigars that many young inner city folks use to make into blunts. Blunts are cigars stuffed with marijuana. Many young people and young adults buy the individual cigars because they can’t afford to buy a whole pack. They come in flavors that are very enticing to some such as watermelon, sour apple, and grape. Some people just like to kick back and have a smoke to relax. Much like more well off patrons who go to cigar shops and throw big bucks for a wannabe Havana cigar. I never did like them even when I smoked though I do like a Havana a few times a year.

 

Let me admit, I always have an initial visceral response to the banning of most anything. Outlawing substances that people choose on their own to ingest does nothing but increase criminalization of what is otherwise activities of individual choice. Tax products, go after unscrupulous manufacturers and distributors, and find creative ways to combat it. Don't ban it.

 

If you ban the sale of cheap cigars by corner stores in the inner city then some enterprising young hustlers will buy them up and sell them on the street. I understand what the city is trying to accomplish, it is just the wrong way to go about it.

 

As some City Council representatives said to me “What do we do about the young people on the corner who terrify the older neighbors … it really is a generational thing . .lack of respect for the elders….” The response has to be much more profound than banning little cigars.

 

Take this to the state legislature, ban the sale of individual cigarettes state wide, tax the cigars, put warning labels on them, take on big tobacco, their Annapolis lobbyists and friends in the legislature, start an education campaign about health and smoking theses little flavored cigars. Open recreation centers, work programs for youth and hit the streets with street workers to challenge the street culture.

 

Banning cigars sales… a waste of time, money, energy and it is just the wrong thing to do.

 

-Marc

 

June 9, 2008

Jim McKay

We lost a great voice on the air last weekend with the death of Jim McKay. He was a gentleman of the airwaves in radio and television. I will never forget, no one who heard it will ever forget, Jim McKay’s broadcast during the 1972 Munich Olympics when the Israeli athletes were kidnapped and murdered by Palestinian terrorists. He was off that day, but came in, and in his gentle, deeply human manner walked the world through the terror and impending tragedy of that moment.

I remember being so deeply moved by him and I remember my joyful anticipation almost exactly ten years ago, on May 29th, 1998, as I was about to interview him for the first time. He was as unassuming in person as he was humble on the air. What a lovely human being he was. We did not stay in close touch but we talked from time to time.

His life has a lot to teach us about how to behave on the air and as human beings. He was a Baltimorean and a Marylander.

He loved his family, his horse and his work. We will miss him. Our sympathies go out to all in his family.

-marc
June 6, 2008

A Tragic Mistake at One of Baltimore’s Best Public High Schools

CEM intern Stavros Halkias is an alumni of Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. We're excited to share his writing with our listeners. Please let us know what you think. Baltimore Polytechnic Institute is one of the best schools in the state of Maryland. It is consistently one of the best performing schools in the state with regard to standardized testing, has a list of influential and successful alumni that is both expansive and ever growing, and is often vaunted as one of the few Baltimore City Schools offering a world class education to its students. The success of the school is due, in no small part, to extremely talented and dedicated faculty that are willing to put their students first. In the recent history of Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, or Poly, there was no faculty member more talented or dedicated to his field than Dennis Jutras. Unfortunately, Dennis Jutras will be nowhere to be found when Poly students return to school in September. Click "Read More" below for the rest of this article.
June 6, 2008

06/06 Marc on 1968

"Where were you when...?"

Resurrection City, June 1968. Photo by Ollie Atkins.  See more.

 

I remember clearly where I was for all the horrible assassinations of the 1960's.

 

I remember my quiet walk with Adrienne Cooper (who later died from a back alley abortion) around Stockbridge Bowl the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination. We walked and reflected on the world we lived in light of that horrible event.

 

I remember two years later standing in line to view Malcolm X’s body as it lay in state in Harlem. I had taken a bus to New York as soon as I heard about the assassination.

 

I was living in the heart of the D.C. Ghetto, and pulling up to my apartment in my old VW bug when I heard the news on the radio that Martin Luther King had been assassinated. I was in the heart of the city, our nation’s capital, and within hours the city was burning all around me. I walked through that rebellion in the wake of his death.

 

When Bobby Kennedy was killed I was living in a plywood shack between the U.S .Capital and the Washington Monument with thousands of others in a place called Resurrection City.

 

Resurrection City was an encampment of thousands of poor people-Black, White, Puerto Rican, Mexican American and American Indian. They came from mountain hollers, the rural south, Indian reservations, small mill towns and inner cities. The Poor People’s Campaign, one of King’s last acts before he was assassinated, was an amazing movement because of its racial unity and its class-consciousness. It was led and driven by the poor themselves. They marched on D.C. from a dozen routes from across the nation. They took over the mall, built the city out of plywood. We slept there, cooked our meals there, had meetings, studied, played and created theater. This movement went beyond notions of white power or the new slogan of Black power. This was the people’s power, the power of the poor united across color lines. There were many in both Black Nationalist and white conservative movements who despised the interracial power of this movement and many wealthy supporters of civil rights were put off by the class demands of this group. I think this march may have heralded the end of the civil rights movement. Right now the mainstream media is doing story after story about the magical, mad, terrifying and glorious year of 1968-but in all that reporting, almost nothing has been said about the Poor People's Campaign. A notable exception is the public radio program Weekend America which did a great piece on Resurrection City as a part of their series This Weekend in 1968.  Click here to for their interviews and multimedia slideshow.

 

Bobby Kennedy was one of those who supported the idea of the poor marching on the capital. His death brought a pall over our encampment. His body passed us on the way to the Rotunda. The mourning was palpable, soulful and deep among the thousands who camped on the mall that summer.

 

It has been forty years since a politician like that captured the imagination of America. Bobby Kennedy was loved by all the communities camped out on the mall that summer and by working and middle class people across our country. You can’t help but ponder what America might have become had he become the President of the United States.

 

Do we have another running now like that? Do we?

 

What do you think?

-Marc

June 5, 2008

6/05 Marc on the end of the 2008 Democratic Primary Season

 

The Marc Steiner Show Returns!

 

OK, folks we are about to launch our new show on WEAA. In the beginning we will only be on WEAA once a week, but we will be moving to a daily show in September.

 

For now, join me every Wednesday morning at 9 AM on 88.9, WEAA, for a live show. We will have some town meetings over the summer so you can join us live in the evening, as well.

 

At last, a candidate!

 

Tell me what your take is on the Presidential election. What do you make of Hillary Clinton's speech? If the delegate count is what it is and the voting is over then should she not concede? Should she not now unite in a way that allows the increasingly divided Democratic electorate to heal and unite?

 

In her defense, Senator Clinton has stated that she has won the popular vote. The issue of the popular vote is real given how cheated, dismayed and angry Democrats felt in 2000 after Al Gore won the popular vote but did not attain the presidency. However, is it right that Hillary Clinton's camp counts Florida and Michigan in vote counts when those primaries were invalid? When Senator Barack Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan?

 

That brings up another issue. I thought it was insane for the Democrats to disallow Florida and Michigan from participating in the primary elections. The whole primary system is ridiculous to begin with. It is an anarchic system with each state vying for supremacy of importance. Iowa and New Hampshire, whose caucus and primary did not come into importance until 1972 and 1953, respectively, are anachronisms. The entire system of primary and general elections needs to be shortened and simplified.

 

All that not withstanding, should Senator Hillary Clinton concede and bring her troops in for the battle for November? Or should she fight on in hopes of his stumbling bloody before the finish line?

 

I really want to know where you are on all of this.

 

More soon....

-Marc

June 4, 2008

The Coates: A Father and Son Discuss the Road to Manhood

 

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an author whose new book is called The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood.  Paul Coates is the father mentioned in the title.  He's the founder of Black Classics Press.  They joined us to discuss the complexities of coming of age and raising a family in black, urban America.  Their real-life story takes place in Baltimore, but could translate easily to many cities around the United States.

Ta-Nehisi has written for numerous publications including The Village Voice, Time, The Nation, NY Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and O.  I would recommend his blog as a great place to check out some of his writing.  Also, click here for a recent interview Ta-Nehisi did with us focusing largely on the '08 presidential campaigns.

The running time of this podcast is 49 minutes.  The transcript is available below.

June 2, 2008

Home sweet home!

Hello everyone,

Jessica here, happy to be back in the good old USA. Nothing like two weeks out of the country to make you appreciate home again. Even if you have a wonderful time, as I did during the past two weeks in Vietnam, it is good to come home again. But enough of that; I have so much more to tell you about my trip.

Click "Read More" below for more stories and pictures.