Rosa Parks’ greatness, said Congressman John Lewis, was that 'she got in the way.'
Gary Sanders, peripatetic gadfly from Iowa City, got in the way of the City Council and Board of Adjustment when they bent over backwards to make Wal-Mart feel welcome. Sanders and his intrepid attorney Wally Taylor filed a lawsuit to prevent the city from re-zoning 54 acres of land to accommodate a 22-acre Wal-MartSuperCenter, and won a judge’s approval to depose city council members on what information – if any –they received outside of city council meetings. Send donations for legal expenses to Iowa City Stop Wal-Mart, 831 Maggard, Iowa City 52240
F. John Herbert also got in the way.The proprietor of Legion Arts drew attention to Cedar Rapids Mayor Paul Pate’s attendance at a prayer breakfast featuring Ken Hutcherson, a notorious opponent of equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans (“God does not condone homosexuality and neither will we”). Herbert publicly chastised the mayor for appearing with someone whose view directly contradicts the Cedar Rapids Municipal Code, which makes it illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation.
“Philosophically, I’m pro-union. I just can’t see myself in one,” said a University of Iowa librarian. Thus an effort by UI professional and scientific staff to form a union went down swinging, despite widespread concern about hiring and classification inequalities, wages falling behind inflation, and job security in an environment increasingly hostile to public education, public health, and public employees. But dozens of P & S staff members found their voice, challenged UI administrators and colleagues to face difficult issues, and built considerable support in their first attempt to win the right to bargain collectively.
So maybe Gov. Vilsack, in preparation for a run at the Presidency, wanted to revamp his ‘English Only’ image as a small-town thinker from a nearly all-white state. Regardless of motive, Vilsack’s executive order restoring voting rights to felons who have served their time ended one of the most restrictive disenfranchisement laws in the country. 19 percent of those denied the vote in Iowa are black, even though the state’s population is only 2 percent black.
Dean Wright, professor emeritus of sociology at Drake University, said of legislation to prevent sex offenders from living within 2000 feet of just about everything: “Residency requirements are generally there to placate. These kinds of things make people feel like they’ve done something. Programs that make people feel good usually don’t work.” The Iowa Civil Liberties Union was equally outspoken, long before the Des Moines Register and legislators realized the unintended consequences of residency restrictions and their failure to make children safer.
Erin Buzuvis, the adjunct lecturer at the UI College of Law who received death threats for questioning the tradition of pink bathrooms in the visiting teams’ locker room at Kinnick Stadium, proved beyond a doubt that the only thing worse than perpetuating a stereotype is pointing it out.
Progressive Action for the Common Good exploded on the eastern Iowa scene, taking less than a year to enlist 1000 members actively engaged in a dozen social justice issues,from predatory lending to the Iraq occupation to workers’ rights. Two of them, Cathy Bolkcom and Karl Rhomberg, take to the airwaves (1270 AM) every Saturday morning to announce events and to banter about Quad Cities politics.
Eddie Moore, Jr., finally packed his bags for Seattle, but not before establishing the annual White Privilege conference at CentralCollege as a major national event on race, gender, and class issues. Iowa will miss the Black Tulip of Pella.
The Prairie Progressive Iowan of the Year award goes to UI professor of pediatrics Jeff Murray for changing his mind after accepting a high-dollar job at Harvard: “I didn’t think the fun quotient was going to be as high there.”
—Prairie Dog
From the January 2006 issue of the Prairie Progressive, Iowa's oldest progressive newsletter, available only in hard copy for $12/yr. to PP, Box 1945, Iowa City 52244. Co-editors of The Prairie Progressive are Jeff Cox and Dave Leshtz.
This Week in Media The
biggest news this week was all but ignored by the media. The
grassroots group Iowans for Better Local TV filed a formal Petition to
Deny with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), challenging the
renewal of a broadcast license to KGAN Channel 2 in Cedar Rapids, a
station owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. The petition is
available online and the supporting affidavits and exhibits (close to
400 pages) will soon be available for reading at the Iowa City Public
Library.
Free Press was also active this week, filing a Formal Complaint with the FCC protesting “payola punditry.”
The
Senateconfirmed two members to the FCC, Michael Copps (returning) and
Deborah Tate (new), on Wednesday. The confirmations fill four of
the five seats with a nomination for the fifth expected early next year.
A great editorial by Marie Cocco details the terrible track record of the press in 2005.
“This has been an annus horribilis for the American press.
Other
years have produced more spectacular scandals — the serial fabrications
of former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair come to mind. But
nothing resembles the depressing mixture of press failure,
brass-knuckled administration enforcement of secrecy, and blatant,
taxpayer-funded promotion of government propaganda we suffer now.
Add to
this the corporate slashing of newsroom budgets that decimates staffs
and diminishes what the remaining, overworked journalists can produce,
and you have a poisonous stew.”
And Free Press Minutes Media Minutes are here. Please
consider becoming more active in Media Reform as one of your
resolutions for the New Year. Sign up to be an Free Press
E-Activist here or join Iowans for Better Local TV by sending an email
to feedback@IBLTV.ORG.
Group Delivers Petition To Deny the Broadcast License of KGAN Channel 2
Iowans for Better Local Television to hold broadcaster to a higher standard of service
Iowans
for Better Local Television (IBLTV) are gathering at the offices of
KGAN-TV to deliver a copy of their Petition to Deny the License Renewal
to Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The petition requests that
KGAN-TV Channel 2’s application for license renewal not be granted
until a public hearing is held to ascertain whether the broadcaster has
met the “statutory public interest” standard. Television
station licenses are granted by the FCC for an eight year term. The
deadline for Iowa television stations to apply for license renewal was
October 1, 2005. The public has until December 30, 2005 to file
petitions to deny these renewals, or informal comments to the
FCC. Thus, it will be another eight years before citizens have a
chance to examine the performance of their local stations. According to
IBLTV Co-Chair Trish Nelson, KGAN and its corporate owner, Sinclair
Broadcast Group, have failed to meet the FCC’s programming and
management standards required of all television license holders. The
petition states that KGAN owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group, appears to
have lied to the FCC, violates the FCC’s ownership rules, has a
technically inadequate signal, fails to meet standards for children’s
programming and does not do an adequate job of reporting local issues.
“Filing
a license challenge against a broadcaster is an enormous effort,”
Nelson said. “We’ve met to work on the petition twice a month for the
past year; we’ve visited KGAN nearly a dozen times; we’ve recorded,
watched and analyzed hundreds of hours of KGAN programming; we’ve read
hundreds of public comments; many of us have even taken vacation time
from our jobs to complete the project by the FCC’s deadline.” In the
coming months the FCC will review IBLTV’s license challenge and report
back its findings to the group. “If the FCC is ever going to deny a
television station license renewal, this is the case,” IBLTV member
Arron Wing said. “Sinclair, honored by Business Week as one of the
worst managed companies in the country, manages to increase profits,
while its revenues decrease, by engaging in joint operating agreements,
cutting staff, and totally ignoring its statutory and moral obligations
to the community. If the FCC won’t deny a license renewal for one of
the worst television stations, and worst broadcasting companies in the
United States, perhaps there ought to be a congressional hearing on the
FCC’s performance as well.”
Iowans for Better Local TV -
IBLTV.Org
Thank you, Iowa!
10 more signatures needed
to reach 500 by Thursday noon!!
Non-partisan 'Families' Focuses on Middle-Class Economic Issues The Dyersville Commercial
The following is an excerpt from a story in the December 14, 2005
issue of The Dyersville Commercial, a small town paper that still provides excellent
reporting on local topics of importance to citizens. The Commercial is available in print only.
by Josh Jorgenson
A new grassroots organization is doing its part to shift the
national political focus back to middle-class economic issues.Working Families Win held one of its first Iowa town hall meetings in Dubuque Wednesday night.Some of the issues the group hopes to address
are support for increasing the minimum wage, opposition to trade deals like
NAFTA and CAFTA, stronger union rights and the protection of health care and
pension benefits.
David Osterberg, the executive director of the Iowa Policy
Project,recited statistics that
indicated a declining number of Americans have health insurance. The former Iowa state legislator noted 25 percent of all positions
in the U.S.
are non-standard positions, which he defined as being part-time or temporary
jobs. Of those with non-standard positions, Osterberg said 79 percent are left
without health insurance.
The outsourcing of positions has also hurt American workers,
said Merle Duehr, the business representative for United Steel Workers Local
1861.Duehr noted the shrinking
workforce at one Dubuque
based company alone in the last four years. Currently, Flexsteel Industries has
285 employees, compared with around 600 in 2001.“We’ve got a problem in this country,” Duehr
said. “We need to elect officials, and I don’t care what party they are from,
that are going to support fair trade policy.”
Despite an abundance of regional Democratic Party elected
officials and candidates, along with a number of union members, at the event,
[David] Leshtz, the meeting facilitator,said the program is intended to be a non-partisan. He noted Republican
gubernatorial candidate, U.S. Congressman Jim Nussle, along with other GOP
First Congressional District candidates, were invited to the event.
The Working Families Win initiative is coming to seven
states. The Dubuque meeting was the second of
such held in Iowa.
This Week in Media The
“must read” of the week is “When Message and Medium Look to Fool” by
Leonard Pitts Jr. It takes on the Bush administration's abuse of the media both here and in Iraq.
“...while political
manipulation of the news is hardly new, Team Bush has a long and
singularly sordid record of trying to turn the media into a wholly
owned public relations subsidiary. Now they’re taking their act
on the road. And get this: They’re doing it under the guise of building
democracy. Which is rather like stealing from the collection plate
under the guise of giving to the needy." Click here for the full
story.
John
Nichols and Robert McChesney, founders of FreePress have a new book
out. “Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin
Elections, and Destroy Democracy.” Associated Press article is
here, and Buzzflash review is here.
A
transcript of “Town Hall Meeting on the Future of Media” held October
5, 2005 in Iowa City is now available here. Audio is available
here.
Greenspan Predicts Deficits Built by
Nussle Could Lead to a Reduction in Benefits for Baby Boomers Iowa Democrats.Org
DES MOINES – Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan
said the budget deficits, which have exploded under House Budget Chair Jim
Nussle, could lead to reduced Social Security and Medicare payments for baby
boomer retirees.
“In that taped speech to a conference in Philadelphia,
Greenspan said that Congress would likely have to make ‘significant adjustments’
in reducing benefits for future retirees. He said it appears the country has
promised more than it can afford to deliver in Social Security and especially
Medicare payments, given that health care costs have been exploding.”
[Associated Press, 12/2/05]
“Under Nussle’s watch, the U.S.
budget went from record surpluses to historic deficits. Now, retiring baby
boomers will have to suffer the consequences of Nussle’s reckless budgeting,”
says Iowa Democratic Party Chair Sally Pederson. Next week, the U.S. House is expected to vote on $70 billion
in tax cuts that would add an estimated $20 billion to the $412 billion federal
deficit. Nussle has expressed his support for this plan. (click here to read the entire article)
Working Families Win - A Town Meeting in Dubuque Working Families Win
Higher Expectations for Iowa’s
Working Families!
A Town Hall Meeting for people concerned about good
jobs,fair taxes, and a healthy future for our community
Wednesday, Dec. 7 7:00-8:30 PM Midway Best Western 3100 Dodge Dubuque
We know that too few of us connect the dots between public
policies and our pocketbooks, and too few of us believe that things can be
different. Health care can be
affordable. Jobs can pay good wages. Our communities can provide a safe
environment for our children who want to stay and work here as adults.
*IBLTV is a group of citizens from the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area who are concerned about the decline in the quality of local television. Fight local media consolidation, as it leads to an unaccountable medium that enriches itself while disregarding the need to serve the public good.
*The rational counter to 'The Point,' 'The Counterpoint' critiques and corrects the daily editorial by Sinclair Broadcasting's corporate vice president, Mark Hyman, that is broadcast on all Sinclair-owned television stations across the country
This Week in Media
Group Delivers Petition To Deny the Broadcast License of KGAN Channel 2
Non-partisan 'Families' Focuses on Middle-Class Economic Issues 
Greenspan Predicts Deficits Built by
Nussle Could Lead to a Reduction in Benefits for Baby Boomers