One More Week: Atomic Bomb Photo Poster Exhibition
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Photo Poster Exhibition
2 – 6 p.m. Mon., Weds. and Fri.,
10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Sat.
Noon to 4 p.m. Sun.
Free
Dominican Center at Marywood
2025 East Fulton, Grand Rapids
The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Photo Poster Exhibition remains on display at the Dominican Center in Grand Rapids through March 14. Brought here by the Dominican Sisters ~ Grand Rapids, the posters and photographs are on loan from Japan’s Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
The exhibit begins with a poster that depicts photographs of the actual bombs, developed by the order of President Franklin Roosevelt as part of the “Manhattan Project.” Cut-away diagrams and text that explain the mechanics of Little Boy, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Little boy used uranium 235, Fat Man, plutonium 239. Little boy killed 140,000 people and leveled 76,000 buildings; Fat Man killed 74,000 and leveled 51,000 buildings.
Top: Survivors' art. Bottom: Hiroshima neighborhood before the blast; a 3-year-old boy was riding this tricycle outside of his home when the bomb blast burned him to death; a boy carries his injured brother away from the destruction.
(This brought to this writer’s mind previously classified documents from the era that said one major reason for dropping the bombs was to see how they worked. Targeting a non-white population made the act less objectionable—one US Military propaganda campaign dehumanized Japanese people by calling them lice that needed to be exterminated. Other documents show that the claim made that bombing the cities would save the lives of US troops and Japanese civilians was a false claim made to enlist public support.)
The next posters reveal the devastation wrought by the weapons. At its epicenter, the blast’s temperature was one million degrees centigrade―on the ground, 3,000 – 4,000 degrees centigrade (5,432 – 7,232 Fahrenheit). Heat rays vaporized people, leaving darkened, body-shaped shadows on the pavement. Next, a shock wave traveling faster than the speed of sound caused winds of up to 1,000 miles an hour, which blew bodies through the air or impaled them with hundreds of tiny shards of glass and metal.
Other victims were scalded by the heat, which burned people crisp down to the bone and major body organs. Even more were trapped in their homes and burned alive by fires, as the heat erupted into a fireball that burnt buildings and homes to the ground throughout an eight square mile area in Hiroshima and a 4.2 square mile area in Nagasaki.
Thousands who thought they escaped injury died from radiation poison in the coming weeks. Purple bruises spotted their skin and they bled through their eyes, ears and mouths. Those in the womb during the blast were born with microencephaly, which causes developmental delays, or other birth defects. Those who have survived until today live in dire straits today as their parental caregivers have since passed away.
This photo taken in the '70s shows persistent scarring.
Many other survivors, especially scarred young girls, committed suicide in the months and years after the blast. A host of survivors have developed cancers over the years. Those who are alive today never know when they, too, will develop cancer.
The exhibition winds up with posters showing US propaganda at its finest: newspaper accounts the US government providing medical aid and helping orphans.
If you have not yet walked through this important glimpse of US history, GRIID strongly urges you to take a half an hour to do so. The Grand Rapids Dominicans also provide a variety of informational handouts about the bombings and the case for global nuclear disarmament. You can also sign a petition to ban nuclear weapons that will be presented to President Obama.
War Criminal Bush Returning to Grand Rapids
According to MLive, the Economic Club of Grand Rapids has announced that George W. Bush will be the keynote speaker this year at its annual dinner on June 2nd.
Bush has been to Grand Rapids several times since the Supreme Court decided he would be President in 2000. The former President came to Grand Rapids in late January of 2003, the day after his State of the Union address announcing plans to invade Iraq. Bush also came to Grand Rapids just weeks before the 2004 election, in 2005 Bush was the commencement speaker at Calvin College and in April of 2007 Bush spoke to a closed audience at East Grand Rapids High School defending the US occupation of Iraq.
In each of these incidents, hundreds of people came out to protest Bush as a War Criminal. Some of the crimes committed during the Bush Cheney years included the illegal invasions/occupations of Afghanistan & Iraq, indiscriminate bombing and shooting of civilians, forced detention and torture.
There has been an ongoing campaign to prosecute Bush & Cheney for war crimes that was begun by the folks at afterdowningstreet.org, even after Bush left office and the Obama administration has refused to pursue such indictments.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people again showed up in big numbers to demand the prosecution of Bush for war crimes? Anyone willing to organize such an action?
March 8 – International Women’s Day
International Women’s Day evolved out of a growing effort amongst women’s and socialist groups to fight for more equality for women at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
In 1908, 15,000 women marched in New York City demanding shorter work hours, better wages and the right to vote. In 1909, the Socialist Party of America designated February 28 as the first National Women’s Day, which was to be celebrated on the last Sunday of every February.
In 1910, at the Second International Conference for Working Women, there was a proposal to have an international women’s day, where women around the world would press for their demands on the same day. The proposal was not adopted until the following year and International Women’s Day (IWD) was celebrated in several countries around the world. However, something happened just one week later that would galvanize this new international movement.
On March 25, a fire began at the Triangle factory in New York City. It was common practice for factory owners to lock the workers inside until the work day ended and because of that practice 140 women, most Jewish and Italian immigrants, burned to death in that fire. The international women’s movement, labor and socialist movements mobilized around the world to mourn these women and to organize for worker and women’s rights.
For years after the first, the Triangle factory fire became the focus of International Women’s Day and gave birth to the Bread and Roses Campaign. The Bread and Roses Campaign was begun by workers (mostly women) who went on strike at a textile factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts. This strike was organized by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) with the slogan, “We want Bread, but we want Roses too!”
In 2010, millions of women and men are celebrating International Women’s Day in almost every country of the world. Over the weekend there were marches and observances in places like London, Toronto, China, and San Jose, California. The United Nations for this year’s IWD has adopted the theme, “Equal rights, equal opportunity: Progress for All!”
The Feminist Peace Network has compiled a great list of statements from women and women’s movements around the world to celebrate International Women’s Day. These statements reflect the urgency of demanding and working for the rights of women everywhere.
One commentator, Judy Rebick says, “In the end, my conclusion is that the inter-locking systems of patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism will maintain the oppression of women. There is only so far we can go without challenging all of them. That’s why I am thrilled to see the women’s movement become more global, more diverse, more radical and more integrated into other movements for social and environmental change. Even if in the short time, we are less effective in making change, in the long term the change will be deeper and broader.”
Let us celebrate the women in our lives – our mothers, our daughters, our grandmothers, our aunts, our cousins, our wives & partners, our co-workers, our neighbors and all the women in the world who deserve equality and justice.
Beauty Mark film at the Bloom Collective 3/12
The Bloom Collective is hosting a screening of the new documentary Beauty Mark: Body Image and the Race for Perfection.
In this courageous, deeply personal new film, Diane Israel examines American culture’s toxic emphasis on thinness, beauty, and physical perfection. Israel, a Boulder-based psychotherapist and former champion tri-athlete, talks candidly about her own struggle with eating disorders and obsessive exercising, fearlessly confronting her own painful past as she tries to come to terms with American culture’s unhealthy fixation on self-destructive ideals of beauty and competitiveness.
There will be a discussion following the film.
Friday, March 12
7pm
Location: 1134 Wealthy
$3 suggested donation
Earlier this week it was announced that Regent Communications, the 11th largest radio conglomerate in the US, has filed for bankruptcy. The Grand Rapids Press reported on Monday that filing for bankruptcy will cause restructuring of the company.
Regent Communications owns five radio stations in the Grand Rapids market – WLHT-FM (95.7), WGRD-FM (97.9), WTRV-FM (100.5), WFGR-FM (98.7) and WNWZ 1410 AM. The Press article stated, “Day-to-day operations will continue without interruption and no changes will be made to senior leadership.” So, senior leadership will not be affected, but what does this restructuring mean for on air staff and other non-management workers?
According to the Future of Music Coalition, there has been a well-documented trend that as media ownership is consolidated and restructured that local radio stations have downsized their staff. The major consolidation in radio ownership began in 1996 after the Federal Communications Commission deregulated media ownership rules with the passing of the Telecom Act. Radio consolidation and restructuring continues to impact the radio broadcasting market, as is evidenced in the 2009 State of the Media report.
Like the Press article’s focus on Regent Communication’s ability to operate is framed as purely as an economic issue, an article on Media Daily News looks primarily at the radio company’s stock value.
Unfortunately, readers of the Grand Rapids Press are not informed about what the bankruptcy of Regent Communications means in terms of radio programming in Grand Rapids. Very little of the programming on Regent’s 5 area radio stations has any local focus. There are no local news programs, but there are syndicated shows like Bob & Tom. This is the failure of the news coverage on this issue in that it does not raise issues about how Regent’s radio stations are serving the public interest of West Michigan.
Michael Moore on the Democrats, Capitalism and Glen Beck
Here is a short video with Michael Moore on The Young Turks political talk show. Moore talks about capitalism, another financial collapse, the Democrats and Glen Beck.
This Story is re-posted from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
By Megan Tady
The real fight to watch isn’t on television—Conan vs. Leno, Olbermann vs. O’Reilly. Rather, it’s about television, and the future of online video—a fight that pits cable and content companies against consumers.
Instead of being glued to our favorite shows, we’d be wise to pay attention to the various battles, mergers and backroom deals happening between big media corporations who are trying desperately to cling to a sinking broadcast media model—and pull the public down with them.
Cable and broadcast companies see the writing on the wall, and it no longer spells “media empire.” Although a majority of Americans are still watching television—clocking in an average of five hours of viewing a day (Nielsen Wire, 5/20/09)—people are increasingly switching off the tube and using their computers and laptops to watch their favorite shows, as well as to find alternative programming. Options like TiVo and DVR have given us the blessed ability to skip over advertisements. And advertising companies are jumping ship, heading over to the Internet or simply not placing ads in a market that can no longer guarantee as many eyeballs.
Thanks to the Internet’s open platform, anyone can create and share video, meaning we’re no longer tethered to traditional media gatekeepers who decide what’s entertaining and who gets the spotlight. We’re also realizing that we can cancel our hefty cable subscriptions and still watch the Daily Show online—for free. It’s a Pandora’s box that media corporations are trying to sit on top of while the public wrenches the lid up from below.
These new trends threaten the old media model, and cable and broadcast companies are hatching various plans to keep their stranglehold on content, control and profit—all to the detriment of consumers. If they get their way, we’ll likely see higher prices, fewer choices, worse programming and a slow stifling of online video innovation.
Here are three developments worth paying attention to:
1. Time Warner Cable vs. Fox/News Corp.
The deal long accepted by the TV broadcasters and their affiliates was that they’d get free use of the public airwaves, and in return they’d give the public free programming—making their money by interspersing the shows with ads. With overall ad spending down in a tight economy, the networks have been looking for a new profit model—and enviously eyeing the cable companies’ ability to get audiences to pay money for the privilege of watching ad-filled TV (New York Times, 2/23/07).
Accordingly, News Corp’s Fox Broadcasting recently demanded that cable company Time Warner Cable (an independent company spun off by Time Warner in 2009) pay $1 per subscriber in exchange for delivering Fox programming to viewers. In response, TWC threatened to stop airing Fox altogether. The squabble erupted into a public showdown, with both sides creating ridiculous websites (KeepFoxOn.com, RollOverGetTough.com) hoping to pull consumers into their camps, and leaving those in TWC markets to wonder if they’d ever see American Idol again (New York Times, 12/29/09). In early January, the two companies came to a quiet agreement, not disclosing the details of the settlement (Boston Globe, 1/2/10).
What does this mean for consumers? Cable providers have long negotiated deals to carry cable channels like ESPN and MTV—largely owned by the same companies that own the broadcast networks—paying monthly fees that are passed on to subscribers in ever-increasing cable bills. As cable companies start to pay for over-the-air channels as well (programming that viewers could get for free just by turning off their cable and hooking up an antenna), don’t expect them to just eat those costs. The same day TWC announced its agreement with Fox, it also announced new rate increases (New York Times, 1/4/10).
With the consumer footing the bill, a natural question arises: Why can’t we just pay for the channels we want, rather than being subjected to these types of shenanigans? An a la carte cable system, where cable networks publish a per-channel rate card, would let subscribers pay only for the channels they choose, rather than being used as pawns in corporate negotiations. But both the networks and the cable companies enjoy the profits from having viewers as a captive audience with take-it-or-leave-it bundled cable packages.
An a la carte system, of course, would not necessarily prevent a similar situation from arising; cable operators would still have to pay broadcasters to carry their channels, and those costs would still get passed onto consumers. However, at least those extra costs would be for channels that consumers actually choose to purchase—not for ones they have had foisted on them whether they want them or not.
2. TV Everywhere
The unrelenting cable bill hikes, of course, only increase the attraction of online video. One way to keep consumers paying for TV content is to put barriers around it—which is exactly what cable, satellite and phone companies are conspiring to do.
They’ve launched a sunny-sounding plan called TV Everywhere, playing up the idea that consumers will get to watch their favorite shows anywhere they choose—that is, if they continue to pay for their expensive cable TV service. Companies like TWC and Comcast are making deals with content companies like TBS and TNT to Rapunzel their programming—locking it behind a paywall that only cable TV subscribers can access. The idea is to force consumers to keep their cable subscriptions if they want to view popular TV programming online (Washington Post, 1/4/10).
This also means that third-party online video companies trying to compete with the cable, satellite and phone monoliths will be unable to provide popular programming. Not just goodbye Hulu—goodbye to all the online video applications and original content we haven’t even imagined yet.
In January, on the heels of a report by the media reform organization I work for, Free Press (1/10), that examined TV Everywhere, consumer groups called on Congress and federal antitrust authorities to investigate the possibly illegal industry collusion happening to make the plan a reality.
Marvin Ammori, an assistant professor of law at the University of Nebraska, a senior adviser to Free Press and author of the report, said in a press statement (OC Watchdog, 1/7/10):
This is a textbook antitrust violation. The old media giants are working together to kill off innovative online competitors and carve up the market for themselves. TV Everywhere is designed to eliminate competition at a pivotal moment in the history of television. The antitrust authorities should not stand by and let the cable cartel crush Internet TV before it gets off the ground.
3. Comcast/NBCU merger
If you can’t beat them, take them over. That seems to be Comcast’s approach as it positions itself to take a controlling stake in NBC Universal, giving the cable company power over a major television network and film studio, while retaining its perch as the nation’s largest cable company and residential Internet service provider (L.A. Times, 1/29/10). NBCU owns NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Universal Studios, 27 local television stations and a handful of other properties.
This mega media merger would have disastrous repercussions for the public (Consumers Union, 1/7/10), giving one company the ability to determine what we watch and how we watch it. With Comcast reigning supreme, we can expect higher prices for cable and Internet service, fewer program choices and far less innovation. The company will be able to prioritize its own shows, leaving local and independent programs to wither. And if TV Everywhere doesn’t kill online video, this merger sure will; Comcast can force subscribers to pay for cable in order to watch NBC shows online, and withhold popular content from other online video sources and innovators (Connected Planet, 12/4/09).
But before the companies could fully ink out a deal, Congress (Pittsburgh Tribune Review , 12/4/09) and the Justice Department (L.A. Times, 1/7/10) announced plans to investigate the proposed merger, and the Senate and House held initial hearings in early February. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), who chairs the Senate antitrust committee that announced the hearing on the merger, told the press (Wrap, 1/20/10), “This acquisition will create waves throughout the media and entertainment marketplace, and we don’t know where the ripples will end.”
Demanding change
This is not to say that all online TV should be free. Or that cable and content companies shouldn’t be thinking about how to stay in business or change with the times. But all three of these recent developments show a disturbing trend toward stagnation and status quo. Forcing customers to retain their rising cable subscriptions in order to watch online TV, colluding to stifle video competition, and holding tight to old media models in which companies peck at each other for more profit (and pass costs down to consumers) means we’re being stuck with a dying dinosaur of a system, and paying a hefty price for it.
Throughout the 20th century, every democratizing revolution in media was co-opted by corporations that squelched its democratic potential in pursuit of profit. Will the same happen with online video and the Internet? Unfortunately, our media monoliths aren’t ready to evolve, and they’re prepared to sabotage content, creativity and innovation to avoid doing so.
TAKE ACTION
Get more information on these issues and learn how you can take action:
The Obama administration has continued a policy by refusing to sign on to an international treaty that would ban the use of landmines. This is a policy that was begun under Bill Clinton and continued throughout George W. Bush’s two terms.
The treaty current has 156 countries signed on, including Russia, China and India. According to writer Conn Hallinan, “The 1999 treaty bans the stockpiling, production, or transferring of anti-personal mines that caused over 5,000 casualties last year, one third of them children. More than 70 countries are infested with them.”
Hallinan also writes that the Obama administration refuses to endorse the treaty to ban cluster weapons.
“A total of 103 governments worldwide have signed the agreement, but ratification is still working its way through various legislatures and parliaments. Some 30 nations have ratified it, however, elevating the treaty to the level of international law.
The U.S., Russia, and China are the major producers of cluster weapons, and they are stockpiled in at least 77 countries. A number of countries, including Japan and Australia, have destroyed their stocks.
Cluster weapons have a high failure rate—30 percent is not unusual—and the unexploded bomblets lie in wait for unwary civilians. Some 90 million cluster weapons were dropped on tiny Laos during the war in Southeast Asia, and the weapons continue to kill and maim between 100 and 200 people a year.”
According to the US Campaign to ban landmines, “The U.S. has not used antipersonnel landmines since 1991, has not exported them since 1992 and has not produced them since 1997. However, the U.S. currently maintains a stockpile of 10.4 million antipersonnel landmines in U.S. arsenals.
U.S. participation is important to the universalization of the treaty. Even though landmine use has been significantly reduced worldwide, a few countries refuse to join—and even continue to use landmines—under the cover that they will not join if the U.S. has not joined.”
The US Campaign to Ban Landmines is asking people to contact the White House and urge the Obama administration to sign on to the treaty.
Love Your Body Event at GVSU
Last night about 100 students attended an event at the GVSU Allendale campus hosted by the Women’s Center. The event included a screening of the documentary Beauty Mark, followed by a discussion with 3 panelists.
The documentary, produced by the Media Education Foundation, is an investigation of the social construction of the beauty norm in the US. Filmmaker Diane Israel looks at this issue by examining her own personal struggle with not being comfortable with her own body. (The film is available locally at the Bloom Collective)
After the film there was a discussion with Julia Mason with the Women & Gender Studies Department of GVSU and Gail Hall, a local therapist who works with people struggling with eating disorders. GRIID was also invited to sit on the panel and talk about what role the media and popular culture plays in this issue.
There were not a lot of questions from the audience, in part I suspect, because the film challenged all of us to come to terms with the issues around body image. All of us, no matter what our backgrounds are, are confronted with the pressures to not accept our bodies they way they are. The culture projects a desire to achieve physical perfection, quite often a perfection that is very homogenous.
In addition, the mass media perpetuates this quest for perfection by presenting us with socially constructed images of beauty that are literally manufactured. The Dove Foundation’s video entitled Evolution, wonderfully illustrates how beauty is manufactured in today’s media world.
One of the things we discussed last night after the film, were the consequences of the social, cultural and media pressures to look a certain way. One of the main consequences of these pressures is that people develop eating disorders. According to the Eating Disorders Coalition roughly 11 million people in the US suffer from eating disorders and that anorexia is the third most common chronic illness amongst adolescents.
Gail stressed them importance of talking with friends who we suspect have an eating disorder, but to do it with compassion and in a non-judgmental way. “We need to see that over coming eating disorders is not a one time decision, but a process that can takes years.”
In fact, GVSU Women’s Center hosted another session on just this topic, how to approach someone you think has an eating disorder. This session, like the film, was part of a week of activities that the center has organized around the theme of Loving Your Body. The Center also provides online resources and an ongoing opportunity for students and faculty to feel like they have a safe space to come and talk about these issues and get the support they need to become a better person.
This article comes from the Center for Media & Democracy.
The pro-health care reform group Health Care for America Now has released a study that contradicts insurance companies’ claims that their recent, exorbitant rate hikes were driven by increases in the cost of medical care. The study shows that over the last eight years premiums have almost doubled, while medical inflation only increased by 40 percent.
HCAN found that insurance companies are raising their rates more than 20% faster than the amount they are paying out to doctors, and twice as fast as their underlying costs of medical care are rising. In short, insurance companies are hiking premium prices much more quickly than their costs are increasing.
HCAN also found that insurance companies are spending the extra money on perks. For example, Anthem spent $27 million on 103 executive retreats to locations like Hawaii in 2007 and 2008 alone. From 2000 to 2008, insurance companies spent $716.4 billion of their premium dollars on administrative costs, salaries for their CEOs, and investor profit — practically enough to fund the entire health reform bill.
