December 27
I no longer have to babysit tonight so I think I’m going to spend all day watching Party Down on Netflix Instant Watch (…and working on applications)
stuffI think about Nuci’s Space all the time. We had the best internship there!
something I forgot to mention about Nuçi’s Space: it’s where Whitney and I became good friends!
here are some other non-profits that I think are worthy of your dollars
- National Network of Abortion Funds (or, better yet, whichever local fund serves your area)
- Medical Students for Choice
- CHOICE (Philadelphia based reproductive health hotline/education center)
- Prometheus Radio Project
- Media Mobilizing Project
Nuçi’s Space is a really great non-profit that I’ve been thinking about in light of Vic Chesnutt’s death and whole health-care reform debate.
Here is a description of what they do from their website:
It is a support/resource center dedicated to promoting the emotional, physical and occupational well-being of the music community. With a staff of musicians, under the guidance of founder Linda Phillips, the center provides a stable caring environment. For many, such an environment is all that is required to impart a sense of worth and value. For others additional help is needed. They are referred to a group of off-site, licensed professional therapists who work closely with Nuçi’s Space to deliver affordable treatment. Since most musicians who use Nuçi’s Space have no health insurance, they are asked to pay a nominal fee of $10.00 to see a therapist and $20.00 to see a psychiatrist - Nuçi’s Space pays the balance. In addition, a physician volunteers his services twice a month to see uninsured musicians with minor ailments. Working with an audiologist and an optometrist, the Space assists musicians in attaining professional grade earplugs and eyeglasses for a very low cost. To address occupational needs, the Space provides four soundproof practice rooms, a performance area, a library and a coffee bar. Musicians as well as a variety of artists perform to benefit the Space. Career and health workshops are conducted along with other topics of interest. A Survivors of Suicide Support Group meets twice a month and a Post Partum Depression (P.A.C.E.) Support Group also meets twice monthly.
If you are in the position to consider charitable giving, I urge you to consider making a gift to Nuçi’s Space. Non-profits really aren’t kidding when they say that any amount helps.
Jim Lehrer's rules for journalism
My favorite: “I am not in the entertainment business.”
I really like all of those rules, but I also like the ombudsman’s response:
Lehrer’s guidelines embody lots of the good, praiseworthy stuff, and we come out of the same journalistic generation and traditions. But I think on a couple of points they are actually too nice, too lofty, cruising somewhere above some of the grittier realities of journalism.
For example, “Assume the viewer is as smart and as caring and as good a person as I am. Assume the same about all people on whom I report.” Really? Bernard Madoff? Osama bin Laden?
Then there is: “Assume personal lives are a private matter, until a legitimate turn in the story absolutely mandates otherwise.” I would argue, and have, that the NewsHour withheld from its viewers at the time a legitimate turn in a major story — reported by all other major news organizations — last year when it declined to inform them that a former senator and former candidate for the vice-presidency, John Edwards, issued a public statement and went on ABC Television to acknowledge that he had had an extra-marital affair with a woman who had been hired by his political action committee to make films for his campaign. That’s news.
Finally, there is, “Do not use anonymous sources or blind quotes, except on rare and monumental occasions.” I agree about the blind quotes when they are used to attack someone personally. But anonymous sources have often proved to be absolutely crucial to the public’s right to know what’s really going on in scores of major stories as they have unfolded from Watergate to secret CIA prisons overseas.
I don’t think that there is anything wrong with a journalist holding himself to a higher standard, but is it too idealistic?
'You’re cruel and you are constant'
I’m not saying Vic Chesnutt would be alive today if universal health care existed in the United States. But I am saying he could have died with a bit more dignity.
Sure, some scribes, like Chris Riemenschneider of the Minneapolis Star-Triune, captured Vic after his passing as many of us saw him when he wrote:
“… Those first few times, I have to admit it: Vic scared me. I was too young and too vanilla to get the ocean-deep context and river-rapid outpouring of symbolism and poetry in his songs. So all Vic was to me back then was a guy in a battered physical state with a thick, backwoods Georgia drawl and a surly demeanour. He was damn intimidating. …”
But those wonderful words were the exception. Instead of mentioning the wealth of dark, beautiful music he left for us, music far too many have yet to be exposed to and influenced by, many of his obits were forced to focus on the amoral health care system that contributed to his death. Here’s a chunk from the obituary in my former newspaper, and Vic’s hometown rag, the Athens Banner-Herald (which disappointingly avoids mentioning the name of the “local hospital,” and coincidently its biggest advertiser):
“… Chesnutt, 45, who lived in Athens, was partially paralyzed from a car crash when he was 18 and used a wheelchair. … The New York Times, citing a family spokesman, said Chesnutt overdosed on muscle relaxants earlier this week. He was reported Thursday to be in a coma.
Chesnutt faced a lawsuit filed by a local hospital following surgeries that racked up bills in the range of $70,000, he said in an interview with the Banner-Herald published Nov. 1.
With a Canadian label, Chesnutt often worked with musicians from north of the border and told the Banner-Herald that Canadians are stunned by his health care issues.
‘They do feel for me, but it’s something that blows their minds; there’s nowhere else in the world that I’d be facing the situation I’m in right now. They can not understand what kind of society would inflict that on their population. It’s terrifying … I’ve been nearly suicidal over it.’ …”
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times just a few weeks ago, Vic set the stage for his final exit:
“I’m not too eloquent talking about these things. I was making payments, but I can’t anymore and I really have no idea what I’m going to do. It seems absurd they can charge this much. When I think about all this, it gets me so furious. I could die tomorrow because of other operations I need that I can’t afford. I could die any day now, but I don’t want to pay them another nickel.”
What passed the U.S. Senate last week is a joke, a love letter to insurance companies that wouldn’t have helped Vic one bit. The compromise bill might be even worse, if possible. But that’s to be expected.
Folks, the argument is simple: America views health care as a privilege. Canada (and most of the developed world) view it as human right.
You can spin the debate any way you wish, talk about everything from death panels to opt-ins, but it boils down to which side of the profits-versus-people line you place health care. In the United States, our foolish belief that The Market cures all has killed thousands. Period. Kind of embarrassing my home country applies the same philosophy to selling iPods and curing sickness.
RIP, Vic. Someday, maybe we’ll get it right.
So sad and so true.
As an aside: Athens, GA has taken so many hits this year: Randy Bewley, the killings of the Town and Gown players, Jon Guthrie, Jerry Fuchs, the burning of the Georgia Theatre, the deaths of UGA music professors Fred Mills and Kenneth Fischer, the horrible dog maulings of the Schweders…and now Vic Chesnutt! 2010 can’t be worse, right? RIGHT?!
—Lucas
what are the first three words you see?
(via: maura: bail, fool, leave / blurintofocus: love, tin, dirt / whatisastephy: pogo, coke, and malice / biancaduenas: secret, man, fool / stardustandsupernovas: “sorg, the swedish word for sorrow”)
secret, read, naked
Role Model: Jessica Mitford
December 26
- Toby: Sam?
- Sam: Yeah?
- Toby: You're going to come to a verb soon, right?
- Sam: Okay, you know what this is called?
- Toby: Bad writing?
- Sam: Imagery.
- Toby: You say potato.
<333
Epic Freaks and Geeks Reunion!
sam got kinda cute
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