Struggling to recover following my panel discussion gig at the European Parliament, my speech at the international school here in Amsterdam, and the last 3 days of nonstop ultimate frisbee filming during our gigantic tournament/circus known as Windmill Windup.
Thanks to all this, I was not able to meet up with my friend and thesis supervisor back in my University days, Mark Deuze. Mark was in the Netherlands visiting from his new home in Bloomington Indiana. You may recall his appearance on a previous podcast talking about trends in journalism. Throughout my “career” as a crusading podcast journalist, I’ve remembered alot of lessons that I learned during those school days, especially my many conversations with him. Just this past week at the EU, as I stepped off stage, several people came up to talk to me and often said “you seem to know your stuff” (referring to media and the media landscape). I thought to myself, well… Ive been milling over these issues for years, I do believe I know some stuff.
I digress, still not functioning at 100% after all these activities, but I wanted to post a link to Mark Deuze’s new book “Media Work” which focuses on exactly what it sounds like; the work of people in media and what is happening therein. Read the book and of course, subscribe to his blog.
In the 90’s there was the big collapse of coffee prices, and the millions of farmers whose lives were ruined while their story was barely covered in the mainstream.
Today I’ve been reading more and more about the collapse of tea prices in the last 10 years; ruining the lives of tea farmers in India. Between 1998 and 2004 the price of tea dropped dramatically, and now the major tea companies are buying each other up… once again.. leaving tea farmers to pick up the pieces.
It is yet another one of those stories we never hear about. We drink coffee, tea, expect dirt cheap prices, and put little more thought into how it gets to us.
This will be a topic for an upcoming podcast, just as soon as I get a hold of some people with some experience or knowledge related to this topic. In the meantime it reminds me of a recent post about the Development of India by Dilip over at Death Ends Fun.
The by-line of the article reads as follows:
In an effort to close a chapter in America’s history of race hate, Washington is bringing elderly Klansmen to justice for killings carried out up to 60 years ago
Well now thats just a bit misleading and well… wishful thinking. The part about closing the chapter on race hate I mean, and the Klan.
Nope… that book isn’t even close to closed. Yet the Guardian isn’t alone when it talks about the civil rights struggle and racial violence in the US in the past test. You hear it all the time; I wonder how teachers are teaching the children in elementary schools?
See the KKK isn’t past tense. It is alive. Not only that, I learned recently that membership is at its highest levels since the 70’s! Yes… we’re talking about a membership boom in an era where some people would like us to believe racism and violent groups like the KKK are all done.
What causes a boom? Well we can deduce that one. The two very popular issues that drive today’s bigots to violence and organized oppression against specific groups: xenophobia and homophobia. By focusing on those two issues, as the Klan has apparently, they can count on all the immigrant haters and the gay marriage oppenents… ready to dawn the sheets and burn some crosses.. or whatever their modern day methods are. (buy a congressperson and rig a local ballot?)
Oh and one final note to all my blue state-northeast friends. If you’re like me you’ve often had the illusion that our states are much more open minded and forward thinking. Well, for the record, the active and growing KKK chapters are located in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. So much for what I thought was my forward thinking state-of-birth.
Dillip just called me. He noticed my comments regarding his fantastic journeys through the south of the United States. Virginia..TEnnessee Mississippi.. Louisiana.. I can’t remember all the names. But I’ll not forget the words I read as he puts them up on his blog.
He called and told me he had heard I was coming to New Orleans as well. Which indeed.. the plan is in the works and It will happen. He told me he had gone down to the Bayou to visit fishing towns.. to see how people there were coping. As you can imagine.. some are coping.. many are not.
I mentioned the FEMA trailers… he said “I wish I had spoken to you before about this, I had to use the bathroom on one of those trailers yesterday.” Fortunately I think his health is fine. Beyond that.. his trip is just more inspiration for my own journey to see and report to you what is going on and why. Imagine that… a guy visting from India and a guy visiting from the Netherlands, I can only imagine all the other crazies like us wandering around trying to understand it all.
Ooh.. and today I read another interesting tale from NOLA. This time it involves musicians and the building of a new community in the 9th ward.. built for and by the musicians. NICE.
Last week, as I was doing the usual middle-of-the-night TV news network watching, the story of the train bombing aboard the Pakistan-India Friendship Express came up. Initially they called it a fire, and the details were few. I sat here, uneasy, as Im sure many observers did… that this was more than a fire and worst of all.. this was an attempt to break the peace process between the two countries.
It almost seemed typical. In my minds eye I could see India blaming Pakistan, and vice-versa.. then the train would be cancelled forever as would other travel links… and then it would be back to testing missiles and living on the brink of human annihaliation. As the next few details appeared on the television, I was already low on hope.
In fact that is NOT what happened. At least it doesn’t seem so, one week later. The Pakistani dictator-turned-president condemned the thing and vowed to keep working for peace. The Indian Prime Minister said the same. People mourned the tragedy, but in the news articles and editorials that I read, they didn’t call for blood. Which is some small way, seems encouraging.
Normally in the world, history repeats iself. Over and over. No lessons are learned, or at least, not enough lessons are learned by the people making decisions that can end or enhance human lives. Yet every now and then, I think we’re seeing an adjustment, a change. And in this case, I wonder if it isn’t a true change for the better… for peace between two longtime enemies.
The first installment of a series that i intend to further develop in the coming months, focusing on the pharmaceutical industry, especially their products; prescription drugs. In this series you will hear from researchers, doctors, lobbyists, consumers, and various other kinds of people involved in this complex world of making medication, forming policies about them, buying them, and prescribing them.
This first podcast, a longer one than usual, features two interviews with professionals in the research field:
My first guest, a returning voice on the Communique, he is Ed Vawter, PHD; he has worked for some of the biggest names in the business, as well as a consultant. I ask Ed about the current picture in the United States when it comes to the big drug producers, and we also get into Canada, Europe, Japan, even a bit of India.
My second guest, Jack Z, a longtime contributor to the blog, old friend of mine, and bio-chemist for a small company in the NY/NJ area. He and I will discuss what works well about the drug industry and what needs improvement. You also get to hear his experience working for a smaller company within the industry that includes so many big fish.