Young Voices
Exchanging ideas from the show and blogging about topics in the news from a range of perspectives.
July 5, 2008
The Regrettable Second Coming of James Frey
by Jeremy Freed
Remember James Frey? Of course you do. The author of A Million Little Pieces, the famously fictional addiction memoir, whose credibility was destroyed, who was shamed in front of millions by Oprah. “Emotional truth,” it turned out, was not enough.
People demanded their money back. Some even sued. As Frey admits, it was a very bad year.
The upside of the whole thing, though, was that he made a lot of money. A whole lot. His book stayed on bestseller lists through the scandal and beyond, making him a household name, albeit one associated with duplicity and shame.
Frey's a survivor, though (that part of the memoir, it turns out, was not made up), and he's managed to parlay his fame/notoriety into another book deal. His new novel, Bright Shiny Morning, is not about him, but rather, about several fictional denizens of Los Angeles. From the noble bum who lives in a bathroom on Venice Beach, to the two teenagers in love from the Tom Petty song (or was it a Steve Miller song?) attracted to the bright lights of the big city, to the Hollywood power couple with terrible (but fairly predictable) secrets, Frey intersperses their stories with anecdotes about the City of Angels, as he attempts to lay the metropolis bare before our eyes.
Bright Shiny Morning has echoes of the first two books in both its style and content. Its long, austere sentences are short on punctuation. Its characters are familiar and not terribly complicated, their actions predictable to anyone who's ever watched a Hollywood movie or read a drugstore paperback (as one reviewer pointed out its only Mexican American character is a maid.) It doesn't, however, break any new ground, or do much to justify its 500-plus pages.
In her glowing review of the book in The New York Times, erstwhile Frey-decrier Janet Maslin notes of the book's tired characters and situations, “Not so original, so what? So what if the book always made poor people humble, decent, better than rich spoiled profligate ones?” So what? So this: the reason we read books is to learn things we didn't know, see things we've never seen before, or things we have seen before in a way we've never seen them.
The Times ran another review, written by novelist Walter Kirn, who, with more than a trace of jealous bitchiness, does Frey no such favors. He compares Frey's factoids to Wikipedia entries, his descriptions of people and settings to pages from Zagat's. “[Frey's] point is not new, nor is this manner of making it, but the least one can ask of a writer who can't resist is that he maintain some sense of timing and showmanship — that he keep his act snappy since it can't be fresh.”
There were more reviews, some good, most bad (David Ulin's in the LA Times starts out, “Bright Shiny Morning is a terrible book. One of the worst I've ever read.”) and lots of press. The book is selling, not as well as the last ones, but it's doing alright.
Way back when, Frey tried to sell his memoirs as fiction, and when he was rebuffed, rewrote them as fact. This explains the all-too-perfect harlequin quality of some of the scenes and the story. There were times reading it when I thought to myself, this is just a bit much, isn't it? But I went along with it, carried by the run-on sentences, enjoying the narrative, wanting to believe. I think that was pretty common. As fiction, though, it sucked. And I think that was as much the problem as anything.
July 1, 2008
Bye-Bye, Big Charity
by Tamika Thompson
With all of this presidential election business, you may not have been following the latest New Orleans post-Katrina news.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal recently backed a $1.2 billion teaching hospital in downtown New Orleans that would treat 70 percent of the region's uninsured patients—if all goes well—by 2012.
The 424-bed facility would provide medical care to residents who used to get treatment at Charity Hospital, a.k.a. Big Charity, which has been closed since Hurricane Katrina rocked the area in 2005.
All sounds swell, right? The storm beat up Big Charity. A new hospital will replace it and serve the uninsured patients who used to go to Big Charity. Well, all sounded swell until I heard what Naomi Klein told Tavis the other day (Click here for the full conversation).
The award-winning journalist and author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism said this: “Charity Hospital, the largest public hospital that treated people without health insurance is still closed. It could be open. There's now only 220 beds in the entire city to treat people without health insurance. There were 550 before the storm.”
It could be open? What did she mean, “it could be open?”
Hello, big fight
The answer to that question is not simple.
In this corner we have the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, which operated Charity Hospital and had been pushing for a replacement hospital even before Hurricane Katrina. With backing from the state, the LSU system argues that Big Charity was in big trouble long before Hurricane Katrina came along and whacked it over the head, and a new hospital will better serve the community.
In the other corner we have a group of advocates, including The Foundation for Historical Louisiana, who argue that “after the water receded, the medical community, the military and a number of volunteers pumped out the flooded basement, cleaned up the debris, and restored electrical power to make the building usable again, but the doors to the hospital were permanently locked when the building was deemed unsafe and unusable by the Louisiana State University (LSU) Medical System.” In other words, it could be open.
The Foundation has hired an architectural firm to conduct a first-of-its-kind assessment of Big Charity's structural integrity and the possibility of restoring the medical facility. That study will be complete around August 21st.
But Gov. Jindal's recent support makes rebuilding Big Charity unlikely, so what are the uninsured patients doing until 2012?
Apparently they are crowding into private hospitals, filling up volunteer clinics and suing the LSU Health Sciences Center.
So, what's the big idea?
Enters David Hood, Senior Healthcare Policy Analyst at the non-profit, non-partisan Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, who told me that both arguments could be right, but all parties need to get on with it.
“So whether we reopen the old hospital, build a new hospital,” Hood said, “I think that it only begins to scratch the surface as far as providing the kind of access to care that low-income people need.”
Hood, who is a former cabinet secretary for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, called medical care issues with Big Charity and the Charity Hospital System an “ongoing saga in Louisiana.”
He threw some long-term solutions at me that challenge the charity model itself: Provide coverage for the uninsured; provide reimbursements for local community hospitals to treat the uninsured; and—my favorite—offer BETTER QUALITY medical care to the uninsured, you know, since Louisiana has been named “least healthy state” in the nation for 15 of the last 17 years.
Whether Big Charity reopens or not, I'm thinking after 17 years of far below-average healthcare performance and quality, the uninsured in New Orleans need a solution before 2012.
July 1, 2008
Business as Usual for Zimbabwe
by Jeremy Freed
“Politics are politics, and sometimes they don't have much to do with the realities of what is going on, but this week's events are almost too much to bear.”
Almost a year ago today, I blogged about Zimbabwe, the African Union, and the monumental failure of African leaders to publicly recognize the enormous catastrophe that the aging oligarch has wrought on his country. How sad to see that, if anything, things have only gotten worse.
The focus of last year's post was a prediction by the departing U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe that total economic collapse was but a few months away. Zimbabweans needed only to hold on, Christopher W. Dell said, help was on the way. Unfortunately, but maybe not surprisingly (because how many predictions of total catastrophic collapse actually prove accurate?), he was wrong. Zimbabwe may have continued to decline on all fronts, but as far as Mugabe's corrupt regime goes, it's business as usual.
As my fellow Young Voices bloggers Rose and Sean have both pointed out recently, things in Zimbabwe are not good. The results of the recent runoff election see Mugabe still in power, dissenters and opponents beaten, imprisoned and murdered. Meanwhile, at the recent African Union summit in Sharm El Sheik, he was given a hero's welcome by other African leaders, most notably by regional powerhouses South Africa and Egypt.
Politics are politics, and sometimes they don't have much to do with the realities of what is going on, but this week's events are almost too much to bear. As condemnation from Western nations continues to be heaped on African leaders for their tacit approval of Mugabe's regime, very little seems likely to change. And this year, no one's calling for economic collapse, either. Maybe next July things will be better. Or maybe they'll be worse. More likely than not, though, they'll be pretty much the same.
June 30, 2008
A Congress That Works
by Sean Nixon
President George W. Bush signs bipartisan GI Bill into law.
The president recently signed into law a bill that gives Americans the actual help they need.
Talks about expanding the GI bill have been going on for some time and even became the subject of debate between respective Democratic and Republican presidential nominees Barack Obama and John McCain.
The provisions in the bill will allow among other things, monies necessary to provide relief from floods occurring earlier this year, full scholarship dollars for veterans and troops serving in the military at least three years, and monies to extend military operations in the Middle East.
Partisan politics aside, it finally seems as though Republicans and Democrats came together to do something good for the country. It takes me back to the day following September 11 when the members of Congress came together and sung “God Bless America”.
Our troops have sacrificed their lives, their family, tears and blood for our liberties. They should absolutely have this provision. It's the least we as Americans can do to thank them for their courageous service.
June 29, 2008
Blackwater Rising
by Jeremy Freed
“Hiring profit-motivated companies to fight wars makes as much sense as hiring profit-motivated companies to run prisons or high schools or hospitals.”
Monday's guest, journalist Jeremy Scahill, is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, which, as the title suggests, is a scathing exposé of the infamous security contractor.
Scahill asserts that the North Carolina-based company, which has been deployed around the world, most notably in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. following hurricane Katrina and in the oil-rich Caspian region of Azerbaijan, is a considerable threat to the democratic process. He lists example after example of shady business practices, including recruiting soldiers from countries with terrible human rights records and refusing to release reports of its State Department-funded activities to Congress. He calls Blackwater a “shadow army.”
Since the release of his book in 2007, Scahill has gone on record many times about the threat he considers the company to pose, both in its lack of accountability and its subversion of political process. “What you have is a revolving door,” Scahill said in a video on The Nation's Web site. “Blackwater and other companies benefit the Bush administration, and in turn the Bush administration and its Republican allies in Congress have shielded these military contractors from any effective oversight, any effective accountability, any effective legal system. Their operations are shrouded in secrecy and people in Congress find it almost impossible to get information about Blackwater.”
Operating in a war zone without accountability is a dangerous proposition, and one that could have serious effects on the U.S. forces there. Through the aggressive, Wild West tactics that Blackwater's agents have become noted for, they continue to obstruct the reconciliation process in Iraq. Meanwhile, American soldiers making a fraction of what these private contractors earn, are becoming demoralized, and many of them are “going Blackwater” themselves. Already stretched thin in Iraq, this is something our military cannot abide.
If the idea of a thousands-strong private military available to the highest bidder isn't scary enough, consider the profile of Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince. The billionaire and former Navy Seal is an outspoken right-wing zealot, with strong ties to the Republican Party. He worked for the administration of George H.W. Bush, but complained that they weren't conservative enough for him. Prince also donated $80,000 to support George W. Bush's 2000 campaign for president.
The reasons why Blackwater has become so successful (according to Scahill, they have recently built headquarters at several new locations across the country) are pretty clear. The Bush cadre's enthusiasm for outsourcing federal services to for-profit corporations, coupled with Prince's longstanding ties to the religious right and the Republican Party made his outfit a perfect choice to carry out missions in Iraq that the demoralized and under-equipped U.S. military couldn't.
Hiring profit-motivated companies to fight wars makes as much sense as hiring profit-motivated companies to run prisons or high schools or hospitals. In theory, the market would force contractors to do the best job possible to keep their contracts, competition keeping standards high. But we all know it rarely works out that way, and Blackwater's continually unwholesome conduct stands as testament to that.
A few no-bid contracts and a few billion tax dollars later, here we are. Blackwater is currently under investigation by a Washington federal grand jury for the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians, as well as gun smuggling charges. They remain the largest security contractor in Iraq, and continue to defy congressional efforts to examine their operations.
June 27, 2008
POWERLESS TO STOP
by Sean Nixon
Sec. of State Rice vigorously discusses possible actions the UN could impose as a result of the fraudulent election taking place in Zimbabwe today.
By now, many of you know about the troubling crisis in Zimbabwe. I've written a couple of posts on it and have kept abreast of the situation for a while.
In short, Robert Mugabe the president of Zimbabwe continues to be a tyrant to the country. After years of oppressive leadership, elections were held this year for president. When the elections were held, a runoff had to take place, but the ruling Mugabe party kept oppressing its citizens and injecting fear tactics to influence the election in their favor.
Mugabe's opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, fearing for his supporter's lives, decided he would forfeit his chances of bringing reform and order back to this country by stepping out of the race.
One example of the tactics used by the Mugabe regime has been to actually kick out non government organizations from the country. Theses are groups of organizations who feed the hungry, give vaccines to children, and help in the day-to-day lives of men and women living in Zimbabwe. The regime is brutal and violent, and killings have already taken place to secure a dictatorship in the country.
The Queen of England recently stripped him of his knighthood and Nelson Mandela recently came out and spoke ill of him publicly about his leadership.
U. S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has spoken out against the atrocities occurring in Zimbabwe and is working with the UN to find a solution, but so far no traction towards a viable solution seems to have been found.
In situations like this, it's hard not to feel powerless. It will take strong political will and a host of people truly dedicated to solving this crisis to make something happen. My greatest concern at the moment is that we don't seem to have enough will and dedication to solve it.
Are there any suggestions out there to help solve this crisis?
June 24, 2008
Obama and Ethanol
by Jeremy Freed
“While biofuels might have a place in weaning us gas-guzzling Americans off Saudi crude, they are far from a solution to our energy problems.”
When my fellow blogger Rose pointed out recently that Barack Obama is an ardent supporter of biofuels, it came as something of a surprise. Then I read a story in The New York Times on Obama's ties to the ethanol industry, suggesting that his support for the alternative energy source was based more on lobbyists' dollars than on environmental prudence. So much for change, I thought.
Taking a closer look at Obama's campaign platform, however, I decided the candidate's yen for ethanol maybe wasn't as bad as our conservative friends would have us believe. Obama supports cellulosic ethanol, which turns the woody stalks of plants like sugarcane and switchgrass into burnable ethanol fuel. This is significantly more efficient that ethanol made by corn (which isn't efficient at all, most agree) and given that the ingredients can grow in just about any kind of soil, with minimal fertilization, its effect on rising food prices would be negligible. I was breathing a little easier now, with the knowledge that Obama wasn't planning to deprive the world's starving children of staple crops, but I was still concerned.
Obama's ties to the ethanol industry, particularly in corn belt states like Iowa and Illinois, are troubling. While biofuels might have a place in weaning us gas-guzzling Americans off Saudi crude, they are far from a solution to our energy problems, and corn-based biofuel, which uses as much energy to create as it provides, is an environmental nightmare. Like his opponent John McCain, Obama supports clean coal power and alternate sources like wind, solar and biomass, but the fact that they happen to be at the bottom of his list seems significant.
In the coming months it will become crucial to take Obama to task for his ties to industry, and hold him to his promises of changing the way policy is made in Washington. Supporting alternative fuels is one thing, but backing corn-based ethanol and the people who seek government subsidies for it is another entirely.
June 24, 2008
Obama Under Fire
by Sean Nixon
Michelle Obama
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's wife Michelle seems to be under attack for comments she made some time ago about her pride in this country with respect to her husband as a nominee. Her comments, coupled with voter's relative newness to Obama, have left lingering questions in the minds of potential voters about who she is.
Magazine covers of the couple together along with guest appearances of Obama on The View have been used to introduce her to an audience that may not be too familiar with the Chicago native.
The true question on my mind is whether or not the scrutiny Michelle Obama's comments received is unwarranted, or should people continue to probe and find out more about this potential first lady of the United States?
My thought on the matter: I'm all for purposeful scrutiny through meaningful analysis. It is a mark of sound propriety and good judgment. However, when you begin to assess someone based upon a theory, any attempt to prove a point rings hollow and demeans one's arguments. So don't attack someone simply for political gain. It's bad politics.
What are your thoughts?
June 22, 2008
One Last Note
by Rose Capozzi
After a year and a half of blogging on Young Voices, it's time for me to toss in the towel. Starting in just a few days, I'll begin a new career working on the formulation and implementation of the federal budget, something we can all agree needs all the help it can get!
It's an exciting time in Washington, D.C. With the crisp November air just around the corner, I will have the unique opportunities both to finish the work of the Bush administration and to help put in motion the plan of our next Commander-in-Chief, Republican or Democrat.
I have enjoyed the opportunity to be part of such a smart, talented and witty team of writers on this blog. Even more so, I have enjoyed engaging you, the public, on topics as far reaching as immigration reform and global warming. I have appreciated your comments and participation and will never forget your candor.
From this one young voice to many voices, both old and young, I hope you stay engaged in world events and politics, because, as the great President Ronald Reagan once put it, "We need you, we need your youth, your strength, and your idealism, to help us make right what is wrong.”
Farewell!
June 21, 2008
Thank You Mr. Mayor
by Sean Nixon
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg
During an election cycle that has already been venomous, a time when our country is at war, gas prices are soaring, and families are struggling to get by, the last thing we need right now in a presidential election are lies. Michael Bloomberg seeks to end just that.
The New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke to an audience of Jewish voters on Friday, making sure people understood who Barack Obama is and is not.
Mr. Bloomberg strongly believes that there have been strong efforts of a whisper campaign that's intended to cast doubt in the minds of potential voters that Obama, who is a Christian, is in fact a Muslim.
Seen as a noble effort by some, others speculate as to whether Independent Bloomberg is looking to make a bid for himself as a potential running mate for either Democratic or Republican presidential nominee.
Whenever asked about the matter, Mayor Bloomberg has said he is not; but political pundits everywhere are keeping their eyes peeled to see what happens next.
Future aspirations aside for Mr. Bloomberg, I think that it's important that in this election season with so much at stake that we not get caught up in smear tactics and bold-faced lies.
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