09.03.08

An open letter demanding news coverage of the Republican National Convention

Posted in law, links, outrage, patriotism, politics, violence at 11:15 am by Hanne Blank

This is the text of a letter I have just sent to Matthew Baise, Editor of the Baltimore Sun.  I encourage those of you whose local newspapers or TV news outlets are similarly not covering the frightening and extremely violating events going on around the Republican National Convention in St. Paul to write a similar letter to the relevant editors.

Dear Mr. Baise,

Where is the non-canned, not pre-vetted, coverage of the current events taking place at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota?  By which I mean to ask, where is the actual journalism, the reportage on what is actually physically happening on the ground–I believe such things used to be called “current events”– in the Twin Cities?

I have been following the Sun’s coverage of the RNC with deepening dismay, because the most politically significant story of the entire convention is going unreported–as far as I can tell– in the Baltimore Sun.  Certainly the Sun has paid ample attention to the distraction of Gov. Susan Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy, on which I am utterly sure the continued security and safety of the American people does depend.  But where is the coverage, any coverage at all, of  the police-state style crackdown and intimidation of protesters and protest groups who are being systematically harrassed and deprived of their Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly?

Oh, that’s right.  It’s not there.

I had hoped I could expect more, and better, of a paper of such august reputation as the Baltimore Sun, but apparently you are editorially and journalistically unaware that these things are going on in Minnesota right now (an explanation I prefer to thinking that any major daily newspaper could simply fail to care about the Constitutional right to freedom of speech!).

I hope that you will agree with me when I say that I think it is worth the Sun’s time to report on events like:

  • pedestrians being arrested without cause whilst walking down St. Paul streets, and not even being read their Miranda rights
  • nonviolent protesters  and others (including Donna Brazille, Chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Voting Rights Institute) being gassed with pepper spray
  • anti-poverty workers having their facilities raided without a warrant, by officers who do not have legal jurisdiction to perform such investigations

Please allow me to provide you some links with which you may relieve your ignorance of the events unfolding, and to which you might usefully point your reporters as a starting point for some meaningful coverage in the Sun.

When any person or organization, overtly or covertly, co-opts federal, state, and local law enforcement to perpetrate Soviet-style crackdowns on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly here in the USA, it should not only be covered extensively in the news media, but condemned strongly by any news media that has not already been bought and paid for by the forces of repression, as well.

I look forward to seeing at least cursory coverage of these ongoing events in the Baltimore Sun, if not the more in-depth coverage that such profoundly disturbing events surely deserve.  Please notify me when this coverage will begin to appear.

Sincerely yours,
Hanne Blank

You know what to do, folks.

Credit where credit is due: thank you to K.L. for links.

10.04.06

What you and I can do

Posted in helping, violence, writing at 8:07 am by Hanne Blank

I have learned that the elders of the Old Order Amish community in Barts Township, Pennsylvania, have set up two funds in the wake of this week’s tragedy in Nickel Mines. the Nickel Mines Children’s Fund, and the Roberts Family Fund, for the Children of the Roberts Family.

The Roberts Family are the children of the gunman, who have been left without a father and with a horrible and confusing legacy; I think that the fact that the Amish elders have established this fund in their name speaks volumes.

My sense of what the Nickel Mines Childrens’ Fund will do is to help defray hospital, rehabilitation, and burial expenses for the child victims. Amish do not purchase health insurance, nor do they accept government assistance, which means no state or federal health care coverage either. A number of children from this community are being treated in state-of-the-art pediatric trauma centers and hospitals. While certain corporate organizations are reported to be contributing funds for their medical treatment, other assistance will certainly be needed.
Contributions to either or both funds should be sent to

Nickel Mines Children’s Fund or The Roberts Family Fund
Coatesville Savings Bank
1082 Georgetown Road
Paradise, PA 17562

For those wishing to send non-monetary gifts or condolences to the community, these may be mailed to the Georgetown United Methodist Church, 1070 Georgetown Road, Paradise, PA, 17562. Amish elders will pick up mail and items there and distribute them to the families. (Note: If you’re wondering why this was not set up at an Amish church, it is because Amish do not build churches, they hold worship in the homes of community members on a rotating basis.)

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Donations of a different sort are being accepted in memory of the brilliant and much-missed author of speculative fiction John M. “Mike” Ford, who passed away on September 25. A long-time friend of the Minneapolis Public Library, friends and family have worked with the Library to set up the John M. Ford Endowment Fund.

Click here for information on donating to the John M. Ford Endowment Fund of the Minneapolis Public Library.

Mike was the longtime partner of a very dear friend of mine, who has been much cheered to know that the man she loved for well over a decade is being honored by something that would have meant so much to him. If you care about reading and books and libraries and learning and public access to information, I encourage you to donate. (Even if you have no idea who Mike Ford was and have never read his books. Slide them a few bucks. Then go poke alibris.com and find a couple copies of Mike’s books. You won’t regret it.)

10.03.06

Dying with Indignity, or, Watch Where You Point That Thing, Bucko

Posted in culture, outrage, violence at 7:20 am by Hanne Blank

Jeez. Turn your back for one High Holiday and the whole country goes straight into the proverbial handbasket. I’ll have more to say about the whole Foley/IM-gate thing later on, since a lot of those issues are ones I have been working with intensively for several years, but for the moment I need to vent about something else, on behalf of people whose voices and opinions will never appear in a forum like this one.

My heart aches a lot, today, for the families of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Having spent a reasonable amount of time around an Amish community during one period of my adolescence, I am particularly outraged at anyone who would take their personal need for violence and revenge to the people who, of all the communities in the United States, participate perhaps least in such ugliness themselves. I’m also angry at the news media for their usual frenzied carrion-eating behavior over the incident. And by that I mean “much more so than usual,” because in this case, it is clear that they are opportunistically violating the normal boundaries of Amish culture just to satiate the insatiable voyeurism of the American media consumer.

What those photographs cannot tell you, because of the simple fact that the photographs themselves exist: most Old Order Amish will not, for reasons having to do with the community’s religious ideals of modesty, agree to be photographed. I cannot think that they would suspend their disagreements with being photographed now. Read the rest of this entry »