Since Esther Armah and Felipe were shown the door (the sigh of relief is still audible), there has been a lot of speculation as to who might replace them. Mr. Phillips has hinted that it will be someone whose name rings a bell, but no names were tossed about, so speculation was rife and some rather frightening names rent the air.
This past weekend, saw something more tangible floated about, a name that was brought up at a recent staff meeting: Karen Hunter. The following is taken from Ms. Hunter's Wikipedia biography, the link is here,
The first two paragraph tells me that she may not be too keen on joining the WBAI roster—if she does, I bet it will be a brief appearance.
 |
| Karen Hunter |
Hunter served four years on the New York Daily News' seven-member editorial board. In 1999, she was a concurrent member of respective news teams that won the Pulitzer Prize and the Polk Award Prior to that she was the paper’s first African-American female news columnists; she joined the newspaper as a sports writer in 1988, then wrote features and business stories.
In January 2002, Hunter was appointed by the Hunter College administration as an Assistant Visiting Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies and presently is a Distinguished Lecturer at Hunter College. She also was a morning radio talk show host for three years in New York City.
Currently, we have Michael G. Haskins making a fool of himself each morning—he hit the nadir this morning (Monday Sept. 17), but he'll take it even lower, I'm sure.
Who would you like to see occupy that morning slot? Leave a comment.
Solomon, a wise man, made an interesting observation in the BlueBoard forum. I hope he doesn't mind if I echo it here. After reading a cursory report on the aforementioned meeting, I had noted that I found it surreal that Kathy "Helix Water" Davis, our lady of the Homeless Angels, commented on the marathon premiums. Here is Solomon's response:
I thought it was interesting that Kathy threatened to sue.
She would definitely seem to have a case because of how badly the layoffs were handled. If bai is paying Karen H or other replacement hosts even one penny it would be a gross violation of the contract with Esther. They can't just fire people who were in a union then hire people not in a union. Apparently Berthold was visibly upset and confused when he was told this by union legal reps. That man is fucking retarded. —Solomon
Here is a link to the minutes of the staff meeting:
Solomon, a wise man, made an interesting observation in the BlueBoard forum. I hope he doesn't mind if I echo it here. After reading a cursory report on the aforementioned meeting, I had noted that I found it surreal that Kathy "Helix Water" Davis, our lady of the Homeless Angels, commented on the marathon premiums. Here is Solomon's response:
I thought it was interesting that Kathy threatened to sue.
She would definitely seem to have a case because of how badly the layoffs were handled. If bai is paying Karen H or other replacement hosts even one penny it would be a gross violation of the contract with Esther. They can't just fire people who were in a union then hire people not in a union. Apparently Berthold was visibly upset and confused when he was told this by union legal reps. That man is fucking retarded. —Solomon
Here is a link to the minutes of the staff meeting:
Kathy Davis suing BAI for hiring non-union labor to replace fired union labor.
ReplyDeleteWith stuff like this, who needs drugs or alcohol?
Seriously, though, I agree that Ms. Hunter probably wouldn't take up any offer BAI or Pacifica made her, and not only becuase she's doing so many other things. Why would she want to board a sinking ship (the glimmers of hope provided by Andrew Phillips notwithstanding).
Also, what would Reimers and his friends do with a black woman who (probably) wouldn't allow them to dumb her down?
I think you are absolutely correct, this lady has too much going for her to get involved in WBAI as it stands today (albeit barely). It looks as if the union rule will make the decision, but why did this even get to this point? With Reimers in charge, even nominally, Phillips' efforts are made even more difficult—if not impossible. Every week brings to light at least one more reason to wonder why Pacifica keeps this man on payroll.
DeleteAs of the 12 September Staff Meeting minutes recently posted there's reference on Phillips' part to the fact that in a crisis situation the Pacifica National Board appeared to him to be 'asleep.'
ReplyDeleteNot a good sign.
I think that has been obvious to some of us, but hearing it from someone so close to Pacifica is discomfiting confirmation. The mere fact that Berthold Reimers has managed to keep his job through three years of gross mismanagement and neglect points to a serious problem on the Foundation level.
DeleteI’m inclined to agree.
DeleteI frankly don’t see any possibility of any meaningful salvation or resurrection from this situation barring the appearance of one or more magical angels.
This rarely happens.
~ Indigo Pirate
The angels are, I believe, homeless and incurably inebriated, having been force-fed paid-for-but-unshipped Double Helix water. Besides, there may be a conflict of interest issue—I am told Kathy Davis engaged some of them as expert witnesses in her upcoming case against WBAI.
DeletePerhaps, then, with apologies to that thar Rilke fella, not 'every angel is terrifying.'
Delete~ Indigo Pirate
Good Brother:
DeleteAngels don't exist. Rilke. therefore, is wrong: No angel is terrifying.
What is terrifying is that some people still believe in angels in the twenty-first century. as well as pregnant virgins, burning bushes, and schizophrenic messiahs who walk on water.
The Old Testament Hebrews were polytheistic Canaanites; Christians, fools who take seriously the second rate fairy tale of a hack whose nom de plume was Mark; Muslims, lame brained bumpkins who were grifted by a cunning goat keeper with a mean streak.
Kaffy is Alaskan incarnation of the archetypical mountebank--like the authors of the bible,the Coran, the Book of Mormon, and Scientology.
Ahh, nothing like a thirty-five mile bike ride and a diatribe to make one feel better.
TPM
Now, now, I recognize that you’re jesting just the least wee tiny tiniest bit, so to compare a few thoughts in a similar spirit:
Delete‘Angel’ is, as we both well know, derived from our good friends the Greeks and the word ‘angelos’, which simply means ‘messenger.’ So... one may reasonably well interpret Rilke as, after all, speaking poetically after literally ten years or so in a paralyzing depression and physical ill health, which raises the whole semantic/philosophic snarl as to literal v metaphoric ‘truth’ (for which we may in turn merrily invoke ‘Quid est veritas’ a killer line in its context (in every sense) if ever there were one.
The notion that truth/beauty manifest is lethal is, to my mind, worthy of consideration.
As to mountebanks… some, in all cultures have been, of course, but I’m of that school of thought that feels (heaven help us) that most have probably been sincere. Not all, not all by any means, but the most dangerous, the most problematic, I suspect, largely sincere.
Sanity (whatever that might mean) being, of course, another question altogether.
Personally, I don’t worship in anyone’s church either figuratively or literally, but a think a mythos in which a god is willing to in some sense sacrifice himself for humans ain’t half bad. Not to mention the comic relief bit with mom and son at the Wedding at Canaan – good sitcom stuff, also not half bad. Or the ‘Lord, he stinketh’ bit with the Lazarus deal. Pretty good stuff.
Not anime level good stuff, perhaps, not FLCL-profound, but not bad.
The Truly Deep and Important Question though is: What kind of bike we talking here?
~ Indigo Pirate
“Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'hierarchies and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
DeleteI would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure, and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the call-note of my dark sobbing.
Ah, whom can we ever turn to in our need?”
Esteemed Pirate,
I don’t believe Mr. Rilke is writing about messengers here, whatever the etymology of the word.
Then again, I’m no expert on Rilke. I've read lots of his stuff, not The Duino Elegies, and although there are many short works I like, most of the time I’m lost. He makes my beloved Wallace Stevens seem like light reading.
On my cosmic balance sheet, religions have done exponentially more harm than good. And why believe in anything that’s not true?
And on other cosmic issues, we are talking about a Cannondale R300, made before Cannondale moved operations to China, by women welders in Bedford PA. I’m not patriotic, but value the USA metallic tag on the frame: it is a demonstration that the machine was made by justly compensated union workers. It’s blue, weighs less than 20 pounds, and when its aging owner gets a little help from the wind, will do 35 mph.
Getting back to the very difficult and elusive Mr. Rilke, these are 2 poems I do like. Do you know which appeared on the back of a Keith Jarrett album?
Flying
If I don't manage to fly, someone else will
The spirit wants only that there be flying.
As for who happens to do it,
In that he has only a passing interest.
Printemps
In winter the murderer
death enters the house;
it looks for a sister, a father,
and fiddles for them.
But when the earth is moving
under the spade in spring,
death runs in the streets
and waves at passers-by.
TPM
Esteemed Maven ~
DeleteSimply to compare: I read that passage somewhat differently, I think, with the angelic emblematic and derivative of the observation that ‘beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror’.
I, too, claim no expertise.
To my mind religions are simply one of many reflections of human needs, fears, desires, and obsessions – fears of the night, wonder at the mystery of it all, the arrogant and insecure desire to claim knowledge where there is only ignorance and uncertainty, the desire to have power over other ‘lesser’ folks – and I see few if any critical or fundamental distinctions between religions and secular belief systems such as Marxism or Extreme Reactionary Conservatism.
All tend to be in my judgement essentially matters of ‘faith’, however much ‘objective’ argument is advanced for and against them.
I share your enthusiasm for Stevens, having once presented a paper on Ovid titled ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at an Ovid’, the paper itself being in verse corresponding to Stevens’.
No idea on the album, please enlighten?
The Cannondale sounds wonderful. Haven’t ridden in years, ought to consider it again, perhaps a Brompton, no Cannondale I know, but handy for subways and the like.
~ Indigo Pirate
“Simply to compare: I read that passage somewhat differently, I think, with the angelic emblematic and derivative of the observation that ‘beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror’.”
DeleteRilke is difficult and different readings are a logical consequence of his complexity and obscurity.
“To my mind religions are simply one of many reflections of human needs, fears, desires, and obsessions – fears of the night, wonder at the mystery of it all, the arrogant and insecure desire to claim knowledge where there is only ignorance and uncertainty, the desire to have power over other ‘lesser’ folks – and I see few if any critical or fundamental distinctions between religions and secular belief systems such as Marxism or Extreme Reactionary Conservatism.”
Interesting. Marxism, when used correctly, is a tool of analysis, not an ideology. But how many tools are used correctly? As Nietzsche observed,
“...the cause of the origin of a thing and its eventual utility, its actual employment and place in a system of purposes, lie worlds apart; ...whatever exists, having somehow come into being, is again and again reinterpreted to new ends, taken over, transformed, and redirected by some power superior to it; all events in the organic world are a subduing, a becoming master, and all subduing and becoming master involves a fresh interpretation, and adaptation through which any previous “meaning” and “purpose” are necessarily obscured or even obliterated.”
(On The Genealogy of Morals)
“I share your enthusiasm for Stevens, having once presented a paper on Ovid titled ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at an Ovid’, the paper itself being in verse corresponding to Stevens’.”
Impressive. Would love to read it. Maybe in that café sometime with the ghosts of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and the others.
Doug Henwood is a big fan of Wallace Stevens. I believe he wrote his thesis on him
“No idea on the album, please enlighten?”
Jarrett did an album called “Flying” inspired perhaps by the Rilke poem
“The Cannondale sounds wonderful. Haven’t ridden in years, ought to consider it again, perhaps a Brompton, no Cannondale I know, but handy for subways and the like.”
I had to give up running because of my knees and feet. Riding now provides the cardiovascular exercise and the endorphins.
Do more than consider it. If you are in your sixties, it will keep you in shape mentally as well as physically. Biking in traffic requires complete immersion in the present. You're on the veritable edge of existence. One lapse and that pothole will get you or the idiot getting out of the car on the driver's side without looking.
TPM
[In some haste]
DeleteHave you seen Joseph Gordon Levitt in 'Premium Rush'? If not, you might want to give it a glance – nothing profound, simple popcorn chase flick, but lots of fun bike stuff.
Rode home from the Church through Central Park during the night of the 1977 blackout – surreal darkness and silence, the park loop empty as the city seemed to hold its breath – one of life's more interesting and better experiences.
Used to commute through traffic to the Flatiron (top floor, world's slowest elevators) – but it's been a while.
I'll have to seriously consider it.
~ Indigo Pirate
Is is anathema to wonder aloud if someone who is neither black nor a woman will ever be considered to host a prime time show on WBAI? Are any while male producer/hosts eliminated from consideration a priori or ex ante?
ReplyDeleteTPM
Yes.
DeleteHas been for many years.
As I was once told authoritatively by a station manager, it's literally impossible for a person of color to be biased or prejudiced, and it's literally impossible for a white person not to be biased or prejudiced.
So it's quite simple, really ;)
Any question as to this simple truth marks one in classic Orwellian terms as guilty as charged.
Politics being, of course, the death of thought by other means – in most if not all matters, not merely those relating to questions of race.
~ Indigo von Pirate
Esteemed Pirate,
ReplyDeleteThank you. I think I understand now.
Your sharp edged insouciance is matched only by Thomas Pynchon, whose new novel--BLEEDING EDGE, is wonderful. Not many people can do insouciance without being glib, smug, and off-putting.
TPM
Esteemed Maven ~
ReplyDeleteYou are too kind, sir.
I shall now withdraw to the nearest cave to contemplate as best I may the deeper meanings of the double integral and the foredoomed fall of crystal palaces amidst the ash and ruin of what we so arrogantly yet blithely term ‘civilization’, having put Bleeding Edge on my To Read list.
One moment, now, a little trouble about those white corpuscles…
~ Indigo Pirate
Suggested reading - "Materialism and Emprio-criticisim"
ReplyDeleteA white corpuscle once made me do push-ups while he stood on my back. He was angry and frustrated over having been passed over for a promotion that a black sergeant received. He was absolutely convinced that it had something to do with the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
ReplyDeleteAs for Rilke: I, too, claim no expertise in his work. However, having read a fair amount of it, and that of other poets--and having written some poetry myself--I know not to read poems--or anything else, for that matter--literally. Anyone over the age of twenty who tries to live by a literal reading of anything is, quite frankly, a fool.
That said, I think Rilke's figurative use of angels is lovely, if not crystal-clear. Wallace Stevens--whom I love--definitely is a walk in the park compared to Rilke. When I conducted workshops for kids with the Teachers and Writers program, I never used a Rilke poem. On the other hand, I often used "Thriteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," which third-graders loved.
Gotta go. My white corpuscle is calling.
Does that sergeant now design programming at WBAI? God the programs are awful Friday and Saturday nights. Music for inner city gangsters.
DeleteJustine. I also taught Stevens' poems to third graders. We read "Valley Candle", discussed it, and the kids did drawings to illustrate it.
My candle burned alone in an immense valley.
Beams of the huge night converged upon it.
Until the wind blew.
Then beams of the huge night
Converged upon its image,
Until the wind blew.
Where did you teach good sister?
Chris, pardon all of us for deviating so far beyond the topic of WBAI.
TPM
That's no problem, TPM, deviate to your heart's desire. It is refreshing to read intelligent exchanges, even if they are only tangentially related to the station we all used to love.
DeleteAs for cycling: You might want to check out my blog: www.midlifecycling.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteIs there a "latelife" supplement for 68 year olds?
DeleteI can do 40 miles, but I'm so slow!
TPM