Media Bites – Froot Loops & Child Marketing
This week’s Media Bites takes a look at a recent Kellogg’s Froot Loops commercial, where children are used to market the sugar cereal as a healthy choice. We look at the actual ingredients listed in the cereal and discuss the growing trend of using kids to sell products, a theme that is explored in the documentary Consuming Kids.
The GR Press, Green and Grassroots?
On the front page of Sunday’s Grand Rapids Press the headline read, “From the Grass Roots: It’s Up to Advocates to Fund Green Initiatives.” The article by reporter Jim Harger tells the public that while the City of Grand Rapids is getting ready to finish up with its revised Master Plan, there is no money for some of its “Green” initiatives.
The first section of the article cites the new City Manager Greg Sundstrom who says the city has no money to implement the recommendations that came out of the Green Gathering meetings hosted by the City of Grand Rapids. Also cited in the first part of the article is one of the Green Grand Rapids Committee members Jack Hoffman. Hoffman thinks that the volunteers in this effort can create a “Green Power movement.”
The rest of article is a summary of the six areas that Green Grand Rapids has identified; bicycling, local water, local parks, the Grand River, urban trees and local food.
Bicycling is the first theme presented and the Press story tells readers that the demand for more bike paths has resulted in a Bike Summit and a local bike coalition, but there are no plans offered on how the City will become more bike-friendly. The section ends with City Planner Suzanne Schulz saying, “A design team that reviews all city street projects will make sure bicycles are considered.” Not exactly a clear commitment.
The section on Parks and Recreation cites Steve Faber, the Executive Director of Friends of Grand Rapids Parks. Faber states that for the City to protect the existing urban green space “This is going to take an investment from private and public dollars to make this dream come true.” The organization asks people to spend time in the parks, participate in park clean ups and to contribute money.
There are two sections that deal with water, one specifically for the Grand River and the other for local streams and water runoff. The focus of this section is on efforts to make the river more accessible for Kayakers and cites someone with the group Grand Rapids Whitewater. The group is focused on recreation and not on improving the water quality of the Grand River.
The other water section deals with contributing streams and storm water runoff. The West Michigan Environmental Action Council is sourced in this section, since the group makes local stream projects a priority. WMEAC does stream clean ups, education and some stream restoration such as planting trees near streams. Nothing was mentioned about the current condition of the streams and whether or not local industry contributes to contamination.
WMEAC is also the lead group for the urban forestry section. The article cites a member of the Urban Forestry Committee about the importance of protecting and expanding trees. “Green Grand Rapids wants the City to add 500 trees a year plus replace the ash trees that die.” However, there is no information about how this will happen and if there is any money available. The article does provide a link to the Save Your Ash Campaign, but that link does not include information on how saving trees or planting trees will be funded.
The last section to be dealt with is local food. The emphasis here is on the need to have more community gardens and local farmers markets. Some ideas are listed in the article but the only concrete plan seems to be to have a year-round farmers market downtown that is being spearheaded by a group called Grand Action. Grand Action was founded by local businessman such as John Canepa, David Frey and Dick DeVos. This “non-profit development group” was behind the construction of the arena and the convention center. Here the reporter doesn’t ask any questions about whether or not the effort to bring a year-round farmers market to downtown Grand Rapids would benefit the downtown business community primarily, particularly the friends of DeVos, Canepa and Frey.
While there is certainly a great deal to be done to make Grand Rapids a more sustainable community, the Grand Rapids Press needs to do a better job at investigating the claims made by such efforts as Green Grand Rapids in order for residents to be better informed about what is really being done in their name.
Workers to Talk About Factory Occupation This Tuesday
Several members of UE Local 1110 in Chicago will be in grand Rapids this Tuesday to speak about their historic factory occupation from last December.
260 workers occupied the factory of Republic Windows and Doors where it was announced that they would not only lose their jobs, but their severance pay as well. The workers defied the law and convention union practice and thought that an occupation of the factory was their only recourse. After nearly a week-long occupation, the company was forced to concede.
Members of the Republic Windows and Doors will share their story and show a documentary about the occupation at an event that is FREE and open to the public.
Tuesday, October 27
7pm
GVSU Downtown Campus – Loosemore Auditorium
WOOD Radio Posts News Story that Promotes Station’s Programming
On Friday, WOOD Radio News aired a story the essentially promotes some of the syndicated shows the Clear Channel owned station hosts.
WOOD Radio reporter Rod Kackley, using an October 22 story on Politico.com, interviewed GVSU political science professor Erika King. Kackley wanted King to respond to the Politico story which made the claim that the “flamboyant rhetoric and angry tone” of talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck could be a liability for the Republican Party.
King thinks that people who tune in to listen to Limbaugh, Beck and others will not negatively impact financial donations to the GOP. “Those are people who frequently listen to the talk radio and television shows, and really are enthused and fired up by those commentators.”
This comment by King is followed by other comments, which downplay the issued raised by the Politico article and focuses instead on partisan strategy. “For half of the election campaign you really need the base. For the second half of the campaign, the general election, you need to reach out beyond the base.”
The issue that Politico was raising has to do with the ongoing and consistent incendiary language used by talk show hosts like Limbaugh, Beck and Michael Savage. Researchers like Rory O’Connor have documented the content of numerous syndicated talk show hosts and have concluded that they engage in “hate speech.”
So not only does WOOD Radio news avoid discussing a serious issue like hate speech, they use the story as an opportunity to promote their own programming.
Climate Justice Day in Grand Rapids
On Saturday, about 60 people gathered in Rosa Parks Circle to be part of an action in conjunction with International Climate Justice Day. Students from several colleges brought people together to be part of the international 350 Campaign.
People gathered in rainy weather and listened to music and several speakers. One speaker was a student at Kendall College and belonged to the Green Council. Another student from GVSU was the event host. She said that she would be a youth delegate at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen in early December.
A woman from the West Michigan Environmental Action Council also spoke, but didn’t have much to say about climate change other than their organization was distributing energy efficient light bulbs. The only speaker to address the major causes of climate change was Lee Sprague, an organizer with the Sierra Club.
Sprague is working on a campaign to prevent the construction of eight new coal-fired power plants that have been proposed in Michigan. So far organizing efforts have prevented two of the plants from being built. The Sierra Club organizer said that 40% of the carbon emissions in the world are created from the burning of coal. Sprague also asked those in attendance to go online and counter the messages of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), a coal industry front group.
Once the speakers were done people marched over to the Calder Plaza so they could participate in forming the numbers 350 with their bodies and bikes. This picture would be shared with activists around the world as past of the 350.org campaign.
After most people went home a group of 13 people participated in a Critical Mass bike ride from downtown Grand Rapids to Consumers Energy near 36th street. The bike ride was designed to draw attention to one of the main polluters in the area, Consumers Energy, which distributes electricity that was generated from a coal-fired power plant. Those who organized the bike ride and banner drop talked a bit on camera about what motivated them to take this action.
Kalamazoo Peace Week Features Phyllis Bennis
Phyllis Bennis, with the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, spoke at Western Michigan University last night. The occasion for her talk was the 28th annual Peace Week Celebration that has been taking place on campus in Kalamazoo. The focus of the night was on the US Occupation of Afghanistan.
Bennis began her talk by saying, “9/11 was a crime against humanity, but it was not an act of war. No nation attacked the US.” She continued by acknowledging that this war that began 8 years ago is called the “Good War,” even though it was never that. “After 8 years, it has now become Obama’s war,” Bennis said, “What he has called a war of necessity.” Then Bennis pointed out that those of us in the peace movement can’t claim he didn’t tell us, because he said during his campaign that this would be the war he would focus on.
Bennis criticizes the fact that 21,000 troops were sent by the Obama administration earlier this year before they determined a strategy. “Now they are discussing a strategy, but it is narrowly focused.” The author/speaker said that within the current strategic discussions there are two main options are: 40 – 80,000 additional troops or maintain the current 68,000-troop level and use more un-manned drones. Gen. McChrystal, Obama’s top military advisor on Afghanistan, is advocating a troop increase to engage in a major counter-insurgency campaign. McChrystal is saying that while we need to “win hearts and minds,” we also have to hunt down and kill the terrorists.
For Bennis, having an exit strategy is not enough, because there needs to be a plan for massive reparations – for all the destruction the US occupation has done. And this cannot be done while the US is occupying the country. She says that early on there was a major bombing campaign, in 2001 and early 2002. One of the weapons used were cluster bombs, which are bombs, which when explode send out thousands of smaller bomblets. Many will not explode and remain on the ground as mines, which civilians and particularly children are at risk of picking up. The US has still not signed on the international ban on cluster bombs.
Thousands of people were instantly turned into refugees because of the US bombing in 2001-02. The only response by the US government to this humanitarian crisis was the airdrop food, which was essentially a photo op, according to Bennis. The food packages were only in English, Spanish & French and they were also yellow, which made them look a lot like the cluster bombs. The speaker said that the military would not change the color of the packages because “too many of them were made and had to be used.”
Bennis went on to says that 54-57% of the US population is now opposed to the US occupation of Afghanistan, according to recent polling. There has been a 10% drop of public support in the last month alone. “Yes, he promised escalation, but we need to tell the administration that the occupation will not work and the human cost is too great.”
Bennis also said that part of the counter-insurgency strategy is to get the people to support the local government. The problem is that the US has been backing Karzai, who is a “thug” and “corrupt.” Karzai is often referred to as the “Mayor of Kabul,” because he doesn’t really control much else of the country.
Another justification for the US occupation Bennis said, was that the US needs to be there to save the women of Afghanistan. But this is a myth, since the very misogynist sectors in Afghanistan are remnants of the Mujahideen, that the US trained and funded in the 1980s. The worst could be Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who as a student through acid on a woman’s face to voice his opposition to women in the university. These are facts that women’s groups like RAWA and the Afghan Women’s Mission continue to point out.
Bennis continued by saying that US troops deaths have increased and Afghani deaths have in the tens of thousands. “In addition, the monetary cost of the war has been tremendous.” Phyllis gives the breakdown of how much money has come from Kalamazoo to fund the war in Afghanistan, based on the data provided by the National Priorities Project. “Money could have been spent on health care and education, but instead it is to fund this brutal war,” Bennis said.
Then there is the amount of money that has been committed to Pakistan as part of this war. The Obama administration bragged about sending $7 billion in humanitarian aide, but failed to mention the $100 billion sent for military purposes.
Bennis said, “We need an exit strategy, which means a couple of things. There needs to be real diplomacy, which involves the surrounding countries, like Iran and China.” Those governments have to have something to say about what happens in Afghanistan, so there really needs to be a regional strategy. Bennis also said that the impact of the US policies in Iraq and its support for Israel also impact how these regional countries view the US. “Ask people who saw US made and US supplied weapons bombing Gaza earlier this year. The planes, the helicopters, the bombs, the white phosphorous, are all from the US. So how do you think those people view the US?”
Bennis points out that both the outgoing Bush administration and incoming Obama administration have promised $30 Billion to Israel. Obama has asked for a freeze to Israeli settlements, several times, but Israel has consistently said no and has said they don’t feel pressured by the Obama administration. “These are the things that we have to think about when dealing with the war in Afghanistan, because the rest of the world thinks about this.”
“There are some legislative bills pending, which are calling for an exit strategy before doing anything else, but those members of Congress who are calling for this have not been included in the discussion with the administration on the Afghanistan strategy,” said Bennis. “We need to get the US out of Afghanistan and to pay massive reparations for the damages done. We need to speed up the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, we need to stop US support for Israel. This is the task of the US Peace Movement.”
The Perfect Storm Election of 2010
A lot is up for grabs in 2010. At least that’s what Bill Ballenger, Michigan’s “crown prince of pundits” and editor of Inside Michigan Politics, said Wednesday evening at a Progressive Women’s Alliance meeting.
It only happens once every 16 years, that rare occurrence when there’s an opportunity to reevaluate the very constitution of Michigan. 2010 is that year. In the past, change has been voted down 3-1. Yet Ballenger believes this margin may be closer this time around.
- It only happens once every 16 years, that rare occurrence when there’s an opportunity to reevaluate the very constitution of Michigan. 2010 is that year. In the past, change has been voted down 3-1. Yet Ballenger believes this margin may be closer this time around.
- 2010 is also a census year, which will lead to redistricting, offering Democrats a key chance to get better districts.
- All 4 of the constitutional officers (Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State) will be on the ballot, and there will be no incumbents.
- 2 seats out of the 7 on Michigan’s Supreme Court will be open. As the Federal Supreme Court nominations have shown, Supreme Courts are rarely nonpartisan. Democrats will have a chance to gain more control of the Supreme Court.
- The Republican control of the State Senate may end after 26 years of control. Ballenger predicts Democrats have a good chance at taking the 4 seats needed to do so.
Ballenger is known as a political predicator, and a good one at that. When asked about the gubernatorial race and who to keep an eye on, Ballenger had encouraging words about current Speaker of the House Andy Dillon. While Dillon hasn’t declared whether he will be running, Ballenger thinks he would make an excellent general election candidate. Although Dillon is a Democrat, he is often seen as more nonpartisan on a lot of issues. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate, John Cherry, has a good chance of winning the Democratic primary, yet Ballenger believes he is too closely linked to Gov. Granholm, who has been receiving a lot of flak lately. The filing deadline is in seven months, plenty of time for many upsets and surprises in the political arena.
Ballenger said if Democrats maintain the Governorship and win the Senate, they will really be in the driver’s seat in Michigan. However, Ballenger continually emphasized that this will not be possible without the help and determination of such groups as the Progressive Women’s Alliance.
Media Bites – Music Video “Kiss With a Fist”
Broken jaws, black eyes, a burning bed . . . these are some of the images Florence and the Machine sing about in the alternative music hit, Kiss With A Fist. But, what are the realities of teen dating violence? Watch this deconstruction of the music video to find out.
Report from the DC Immigration Rally
Last week we posted a story about an immigration rally and send-off for people going to Washington, DC to promote comprehensive immigration reform. A member of the Michigan Organizing Project (MOP) wrote this summary of what took place on that trip.
Last week, a group of 52 people from Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Sturgis traveled 24 hours, to Washington, D.C. and back, to tell our congressmen in Washington that it is time for comprehensive immigration reform NOW.
Beginning with a meeting at Garfield Park in Grand Rapids, a diverse group including college students, immigrant families, and the press gathered to send off the travelers. We heard the stories of families that have experienced the incredibly negative effects of the current immigration system, and with the blessings of five different pastors, we began our “pilgrimage” to the capital.
Upon arrival, we went immediately to the office of Representative Fred Upton to ask for a clarification of his position on comprehensive immigration reform. We are very pleased to report that his staff member, Deke Thompson, affirmed that Representative Upton definitely supports comprehensive immigration reform.
We continued on to the office of Representative Vern Ehlers. Although our meeting there was not as positive as the meeting with Upton, it seems that Representative Ehlers is also in agreement with the necessity of immigration reform.
We finished off the day by gathering with hundreds of people from 26 different states at the Church of the Reformation. From there, all of the groups that had gathered marched together to the west lawn of the Capitol building of the United States.
At the Capitol, various congressmen, families, and individuals shared their stories and their commitments to comprehensive immigration reform. Perhaps the most exciting part of the rally was when Representative Luis Gutierrez of Chicago spoke, committing to introduce an immigration reform bill in Congress before the end of this year. Si se puede!
We returned that night, tired, but encouraged, with the sounds of our chants and the memory of the unity we had witnessed in our minds and hearts. Friends, we have achieved much in the fight for comprehensive immigration reform. However, we still have lots of work to do. Without the support of everyone, we will not achieve the reform that we so want and need.
We urge you to take action now, in any or all of the following ways, to help advance immigration reform and let our government know that we mean business! Join the Reform Immigration for America text network. All you need to do is send a text message with the word “unity” in English, or “unidad” in Spanish, to the number 69866.
Visit the Reform Immigration for America website at www.reformimmigrationforamerica.org to email your congressmen, send them faxes, and sign up to receive action alerts via email. Call your congressmen personally and tell them that you want comprehensive immigration reform!
Si se puede! Yes we can!
