Thursday, March 24, 2005

Say it ain’t so

Nightline is 25 tonight and rumors abound:

Doubt hangs heavy over tonight’s landmark broadcast...The gossip mills are working overtime in those august centers of broadcast journalism, New York and Washington, D.C. Is ABC about to say good night and goodbye to the acclaimed weeknight series?

Will Koppel be swapping jobs with former Clevelander George Stephanopoulos, anchor of the ABC morning news show “This Week”? Is the 30-minute “Nightline” going to be revamped, emerging in a younger and hipper hour format?

Does ABC want the late-night time slot for an entertainment show that will be more appealing to the 18-to-49 age demographic that advertisers most prize? And even if the newsmagazine survives in some form, is this the end of the “Nightline” for Koppel?

You all know how much I love the show and would hate to see it go.

Scots bishops OK re: Gay Episcopal Priests

The Guardian:

The bishops of the Scottish Episcopal church yesterday defended their admission that they ordain gay clergy as their stance threatened to exacerbate divisions in the worldwide Anglican communion.
...

The church’s March 4 statement that a relationship with a member of the same sex is not “a bar to the exercise of ordained ministry” was only taken up in the Scottish press and then by the BBC yesterday.
The statement added that the church sought to be welcoming and open to persons of homosexual orientation.

See also UK.Gay.com. Via AMERICAblog.

Hyundai & XM

The company is hungry; like Honda in the early years. Via CNET:

Hyundai Motor plans to offer XM Satellite Radio as standard equipment on all U.S. models by 2007, the automaker said Wednesday. Hyundai will include the service on three models for 2006: the Sonata, the Alantra and the Santa Fe. “We’re the first car company” to make it available on all models, said Hyundai of America CEO Bob Cosmai.

My Hyundai has been good to me; 90,000 miles and nary a service call. Given that I can’t afford this, I want the new Sonata.

Protest protocol

Much as I do agree with the critiques of Chris Bowers and Jeffrey Feldman, I come away asking, like Barrie did after reading my post, “Ok I’m with you but what do you envision for an effective protest?”

Then I remembered ACT UP NY in the late 80s. For me that’s the gold standard. They got media coverage, changed laws and saved lives. Feldman points to the “Pink Slip Protest” organized by the People for the American Way at last year’s Republican Convention in New York and proposes:

These three changes seem to be crucial to the new era of progressive politics: 1. Protest Economics first, then foreign policy.
2. Stage a protest that uses the motion of the viewer, rather than a march. 3. Think in images of individuals, rather than photos of faceless crowds.

I agree. But still, after a day or so of mulling it over I want to come out in favor of the good old-time venerable big-time inclusive protest march. I watched the one up Eighth Avenue (also during the Republican Convention) on C-SPAN here in Georgia while talking on the cell phone to friends who were marching in it. It was everything we criticize but I was glad to see it on TV. It looked great!

I don’t want to let the values voters pull the Democratic party to the center and I don’t want to let effective conservative actions make ours more autocratic. The protest march has a distinguished heritage. They’re inclusive and democratic and diverse and tolerant. So they’re unfocused, who cares? Gay pride events have a long history of that. I’ve grown to like it.

None of that negates the call for other, innovative, possibly even more effective actions. These times may indeed call for ACT UP-style “non-violent direct action, often using vocal demonstrations and dramatic acts of civil disobedience.” I look forward to seeing more young passionate and committed progressive activists. Discussions like this are good for grooming them. Creative action will come, has come: look at all these bloggers.