The Way We Were

The way we were; the way it was - is not coming back.

What was, back then - from the birth of television and into this new century -  kept running through my head at a labor meeting tonight, called to fight  against a new owner's insistence that all labor unions at KING Broadcasting agree to new jurisdictional language, the short of which is that unions will be much weaker, perhaps out of business, and that the age we knew - of professional photographers, experienced journalists, and a staff of tested engineers - will swiftly vanish.

The impulse - immediate - is to fight for the way it was - unions representing employees meeting with management (the KING management back in the way it was believed in organized labor; a management that, while tough at the table, knew that better products come out of a workplace treated with respect and fairness) to hash out working conditions, pensions, health care, pay, etc.  But the nagging thought is that we're in a different time.

 KINGTV then was family, the Bullitt family.  We could bargain across that table knowing the goal of better journalism and a workplace that could produce it was shared - with respect.  Now, a national corporation owning 23 TV stations is in charge and - as City Council Member Sawant (not always my favorite, but she was right tonight) said, consolidation and corporate power over local television and much else is on the rise.  She and Council Member Licata argued for organizing, pressuring legislators, using media - good on paper and yes, even a suggested city council resolution could help -  but I wonder if we can go back.

When I began in local journalism, the sources for news were countable on a single hand; now we have one less newspaper but also a smartphone full of news sources, and new breeds of journalist/writers who fill a Crosscut, a Politico, a Stranger and much more.  Information is a constant throb, a digital river, pulsing on your device of choice.  As a long-time news junkie, there's no way I can keep track of it all.

As a former shop steward and long time union member, as an employee who negotiated contracts and once threatened a strike, I know that the technological changes of this century will shift the makeup of local TV news, pushing it more on-line, changing its formats - more streaming and less of the actual news hour on a set time and channel - as they are changing the delivery of film, television, music, books, groceries, etc.  We're not at the same bargaining table.

This is long enough, and I hope will spark some conversation.  The problem discussed by broadcast jouranlists at Kane Hall tonight is real - unions are under threat, jobs as we've known them are in jeopardy, professionals may become low pay interns if they survive at all - but I doubt the old strategies can turn that around.  The way it was, the way we were, won't come back.

We didn't discuss a model for our time, this time and century - but workers everywhere, not just inside newsrooms, will need one.

And soon.

2nd GOP Presidential debate

I gave up.
At my age, two hours of three with 11 Republican presidential candidates is enough.

Fair disclosure – given the attacks on Planned Parenthood, the emerging belligerence on foreign policy, the same-old rhetoric on immigration, I don’t see any of them winning my vote.

But on the night:

Huckabee gets the over the cliff prize, ranting that simply requiring the director of a Kentucky government office to do her job amounts to “criminalization of Christianity.”
Hello?

Cruz has apparently decided that the general election is not important, as his entire campaign is now a red meat appeal to the extreme corners of his party – shred the Iran deal first day in office, Planned Parenthood “killing children for their body parts,” etc. 
If the country truly wants his angry, negative, doomsday rhetoric as the White House standard, it might be time to take that long vacation somewhere safe.

Trump seemed weaker, his usual bombast muted and absent any real policy detail, but the moderators and other candidates – at least in my two hours – spent far too much time going over and over again what Trump said about whom and when.
Bluster without content – my two cents. But did he ever get air time.

Fiorina helped her candidacy last night – sharp and on point, excepting a tiresome back and forth with Trump re: their alleged business successes and failures. Christie finally called them out, asking – can we talk about real issues?

Carson – not much to say. If Trump thought Jeb Bush was low energy, Carson’s low, low key barely wandered into pulse territory. Nice, polite, respectful. A President? Not likely.

Rubio apparently scored points in the last hour of the debate but they’d all lost me by then. He's smart on analyzing the main points in the immigration debate but has abandoned the only policy that makes sense.

Bush is still, with Kasich, the only one on stage who wouldn’t throw me into trauma should he win. His takes on issues from the Iran deal to immigration are more nuanced, even though – at crunch time – he also went off against Planned parenthood.

Kasich – still my adult in the room, focusing on issues instead of personalities and offering the quote of the night:
“If I’m watching this at home I’d be inclined to turn it off.” (Three hours is TOO long.....)

I see I'm not mentioning Rand Paul, Scott Walker, or Chris Christie (though he did get off some good lines).
Nothing to say......

---- Adding to this some lines from a NYT editorial re: the debate - on point:

".....Peel back the boasting and insults, the lies and exaggerations common to any presidential campaign. What remains is a collection of assertions so untrue, so bizarre, that they form a vision as surreal as the Ronald Reagan jet looming behind the candidates’ lecterns. 

It felt at times as if the speakers were no longer living in a fact-based world where actions have consequences, programs take money and money has to come from somewhere. Where basic laws — like physics and the Constitution — constrain wishes. Where Congress and the public, allies and enemies, markets and militaries don’t just do what you want them to, just because you say they will."

Charter Schools

Guess I'm not losing much sleep over the State Supreme Court's ruling that charter schools are unconstitutional.

Yes, a lot of parents, students, and staff are in limbo, not knowing whether the schools, now illegal, can stay open - but at least they are open, for now.

Seattle public schools are not, and a far greater number of students and families are scrambling, looking for alternatives should the teacher strike go on much longer.

The teachers want more pay, which would seem reasonable if - as the Court demands in another case - the state were to fully fund education.

Which brings me to the punch line - if public schools are underfunded, as the State Supreme Court argues, why did we vote to funnel millions of education dollars into the now illegal charter school alternative?

If we're concerned about our public school system, let's fix it, not ship precious dollars into an alternative system that helps - if it does - a tiny fraction of all students.

You have to wonder - at least I do - what might happen if all the energy and money and talent now sustaining charter schools would focus instead on positive changes in public education - the place where the overwhelming number of our children go to learn.

Fair disclosure - I voted against charter schools twice, for all these reasons.........

Teacher Evaluation

There's something worrying - at least my two cents - in the otherwise welcome news that the teachers' strike is over, that the folks who teach our children will deservedly be earning more.
In the proposed contract the district agrees to review, with the teachers union, all tests and test schedules. That may be a positive in the endless quarrel over testing, but it may provide only a place for the arguments - and likely stalemates - to continue. Wish it well, though.

But what's really concerning is the reported agreement on teacher evaluations - that is, test scores will no longer play ANY role. No role at all? How will we then fully measure teacher effectiveness? 

Of course test scores are not the only sum of a teacher's impact on students, but to say they mean nothing, that they "play no role" in evaluations, seems ridiculous.
If a class repeatedly fails basic tests that measure student progress, has this nothing to do with the skill of the teacher? Are we to totally ignore the progress - or lack of it - of students in evaluating their teachers?
If so, how will we evaluate? 

At times I wonder if teachers, or at least their union representatives, want any kind of measurement. And yet, because effective teaching is crucial in this or any other society, we must be able to give measure to the skills of those who lead our classrooms.

To say that test scores are irrelevant in that measurement is, to repeat, ridiculous.

Seattle Arts - At The Crossroads

I don't go to early morning breakfast meetings now, but I broke that rule Friday for a probing and vivid hour of talk about the arts in our city.
It's a story with triumph and risk.

Take that first part - Seattle is the #1 American city for the number of cultural choices per capita; it beats New York, Los Angeles, Chicago. See the photo here - just one page of a Times insert listing hundreds of artistic events between now and the end of the year. I sit on the board of Town Hall, one iconic space that will offer this season alone more than 400 talks, musical performances, and cultural forums.

The risk - evident in the best question of the morning, from Seattle Symphony Executive Director Simon Wood, asking "Where is the next generation of Seattle philanthropists?"
It's the dead-on-point question because no matter how popular an art institution may be, it needs big money to survive; it needs people who can write six-figure checks. Wood, for example, must raise $11 million a year just to keep the symphony on the stage. That's not coming from crowd funding, nor from $25-$100 contributions.

And that question is aimed directly at the generation now crowding into the rising buildings of South Lake Union - the tech millennials. Are they drawn to the arts? Do they value a vibrant art culture? Will they write the big checks of tomorrow?
If not, who will?

The other big question of the morning dovetails with something we all know - the rising cost of any kind of space, from homes to business offices to art studios.
Where, the question asks, will the artists of now and tomorrow find practice rooms, studio space, even housing, that is affordable. One artist who spoke has given up her paintbrush to work full time on finding buildings and spaces - once abundant in Belltown, Pioneer Square, Fremont, Ballard - for working artists.
It asks another question - do we want working artists as residents of our urban center (and if yes, what will it take to make artistic space affordable?)?

There was much more, worth every minute even with the usual ghastly food - with one larger question looming over the hour:

If we are, and it seems so, in a golden age of culture in our town, can we sustain it?

"Strange Fruit"

I hadn’t thought about the song in a while, not even over these last months of shootings and the marches of Black Lives Matter, but here it suddenly came again – out of a jazz mix:

"Southern trees bear a strange fruit

 Blood on the leaves and blood at the root"

It’s a touchstone of American history, to hear again as we might read again Elie Wiesel’s “Night” – to remember, to never forget.

"Black body swinging in the Southern breeze.

Strange Fruit hanging from the poplar trees."

I remember – perhaps ten years ago now – talking to Larry Gossett, King County Councilman (for a weekly broadcast) - about the first day he actually saw the words to “Strange Fruit” - - he was a UW student, active in the Black Student Union:

["WHEN I HEAR THAT SONG NOW, OR REFERENCES TO IT, IT ALWAYS REMINDS ME OF THE SAME THING – THE HORRIFIC HISTORY OF LYNCHING IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.  AND PARTICULARLY IN THIS POST 9/11 ERA WHEN I’VE BEEN IN COUNCIL MEETINGS LISTENING TO MY COLLEAGUES TALK ABOUT HOW INCENSED THEY WERE ABOUT THIS FIRST ACT OF TERROR ON THE SHORES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.  AND HERE I AM COMING FROM A PEOPLE WHOSE  WHOLE HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WAS AN EXPERIENCE OF UTTER TERROR.”]

"Pastoral scene of the gallant south.

  The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth."

A New York writer, Abe Meeropol, wrote the song, but Billie Holliday made it her signature, her show stopper, her message wherever she sang:

"Scent of Magnolia sweet and fresh.

 And the sudden smell of burning flesh."

And it became for Larry Gossett, and others dedicated to change but also to remembering a bitter history, a dark anthem that told a story of fear, and of a debased reality that took more than two centuries of American life to overcome:

[“…BETWEEN 1890 AND 1920 THERE WAS ABOUT 28-HUNDRED LYNCHINGS IN THE THIRTEEN CONTIGUOUS STATES OF THE SOUTH, ALL OF THEM AFRICAN AMERICANS, OFTEN BECAUSE OF SOME SLIGHT TO A WHITE PERSON AND IT WAS DONE, YOU KNOW – TAKEN TO A TREE AND HUNG -  ALL TO REMIND THEM, AND ALL OF THE OTHER PEOPLE THAT HEARD ABOUT THE LYNCHING – THAT YOU ARE INFERIOR PEOPLE AND YOU ARE NEVER TO CHALLENGE THE SUPERIOR PEOPLE, WHITE FOLKS IN THIS COMMUNITY.  SO THAT SONG REFLECTS THAT  EXPERIENCE REALLY WELL.”]

When I hear "Strange Fruit" now - it's not as often - I’ll sit.  To listen again.
Dark as it is, it reminds as well of the long road we travel to make reality of our promises.

"Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop."

 -- Abe Meeropol, 1937

Yes, Amanda Knox is innocent, without doubt.....

Let this be a short memo to anyone reading who still doubts the innocence of Amanda Knox.

Italy's highest court - after its declaration last March that Knox and her co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito had nothing to do with the murder of Meredith Kercher, today released a scathing 52-page summary re its reasoning.

In sum:
- the investigation was full of "stunning flaws, or amnesia..."
- there was an "abolute lack of biological traces" of either defendant in the murder room or on the victim's body
- the international spotlight on the case caused a "frantic search" for more suspects, with or without evidence
-  the lower courts ignored all testimony of contaminated evidence

And, most vividly, re: the victim's bra clasp that supposedly contained Sollecito DNA - that clasp was on the floor of the murder scene "for 46 days, passed from hand to hand by the workers who, furthermore, were wearing dirty latex gloves."

And on and on.....

It can be said of the Italian judicial system, with its series of automatic appeals, openness to new evidence, and multiple reviews of the known facts in a case, that it finally reached the only possible conclusion, but the incompetence and disregard of basic facts by the original prosecutor cost Amanda Knox precious years of her life, damaged her family financially, and unfairly slandered the reputation of a lovely Italian town - our sister city, Perugia.

Time to set this down, to believe in the innocence of these defendants, to ponder the imperfections of judicial systems everywhere - here as well - and move on.......

A Skeptic In Time

At dinner the other night we paused before eating - held hands around the table in silence as the host offered a prayer giving thanks and asking for guidance, not only for our own lives, but for our nation.

I'm not a religious (spiritual in a way, yes) person, so the moment was rare for me in adult life - I had spent a childhood not missing an Anglican Sunday, even serving as altar boy for a time. In the days since, I've been more the skeptic, and in many cases - gay marriage, the reproductive rights of a woman, racial barriers - I've found religious practice more about dogma than kindness.

But what strikes me again, as it always does, is the sense of comfort, confidence - even a serenity - belief can give to a person, to a family, a congregation. I remember from youth that sense of community every Sunday in the social time following services. And the music - often extraordinary.

All of this is in mind reacting to the use of religion by a Virginia clerk to deny marriage licenses to same gender couples or, put another way, using religion as an excuse not to carry out duties she had sworn to perform, as a reason to ignore court orders, as a justification to defy the Supreme Court of the United States.

Absurd. 

Religion cannot be used to pick and choose which portions of a publicly funded job an elected official will carry out. It cannot be used to unlawfully discriminate. In short, it cannot be used as a fig leaf to cover up bigotry. The clerk in this case could as easily refuse a wedding license to a mixed-race couple, saying her religion forbade such a union.

Absurd.

And this is my own issue with religion - its dark side, what it can justify in the name of faith, in the distorted twisting of words written down centuries ago.
The denial of a wedding license is one thing, but see as well - in the name of faith - human slaughter, beheadings, sexual enslavement, war.

I'm still drawn now and then to the comfort and community I remember, to the help of a symbolic oar of faith on our turbulent life journey. I greatly respect the faith, and resulting generosity, of those who led that prayer the other evening.

But I remember the rest as well - and so these days I'm much more with that great skeptic, Michael Shermer:

“There are many sources of spirituality; religion may be the most common, but it is by no means the only. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades.”
― Michael Shermer

Religion, then, as I believe, is not the only path to a kind and charitable and informed human life. 

Not at all.