A “White Christmas” in the Philippines
H/T @rawkaFELa via ThinkProgress.org
Tagged: Corporate Media RSS
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thaswassup
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thaswassup
Mount Vernon council distances itself from honor for talk-show host
By Erik Lacitis
Seattle Times staff reporter
MOUNT VERNON — On Wednesday night, the City Council of this town of 32,000 distanced itself from Mayor Bud Norris, who plans to give the keys to the city to talk-show personality Glenn Beck on Saturday.
The seven-member council unanimously passed a resolution proposed by member Dale Ragan that stated, “Mount Vernon City Council is in no way sponsoring the Mayor’s event on September 26, 2009 and is not connected to the Glenn Beck event in any manner.”
The resolution came after two dozen people who had signed up for the public-comment part of the session spoke in often emotional language to oppose honoring the controversial talk-show host.
Beck, who just made the cover of Time magazine, was in the news recently for labeling President Obama a “racist,” a statement that brought a boycott of dozens of advertisers from his Fox TV show. He is recognized as a polarizing figure.
“This man has done nothing for the City of Mount Vernon and its citizens,” said Rhonda McDonald, of Mount Vernon. “If you want to give a key to the city, give the key to the chief of police.”
Earlier in the evening, Police Chief Ken Bergsma had been honored by the town’s Kiwanis Club for his many community efforts, such as fundraising for playground equipment.
During Wednesday’s meeting, the council was presented with a petition bearing more than 16,000 names from those opposing the honor to be bestowed on Beck at the sold-out, $25-per-person event at McIntyre Hall in Mount Vernon.
The petition was an online effort by Fuse, which describes itself as a Seattle-based “progressive advocacy group.”
But the petition didn’t have 16,000 verified names, its director Aaron Ostrom acknowledged. Anyone could type in any name, and residence and sign as many times as they wanted.
The mayor also cleared up a story that had gone viral on the Internet, in which supposedly only one media pass had been given out to the Saturday event.
That was not the case.
There will be five press passes, Norris said. He said he hasn’t quite figured out how they will be doled out, though.
“Maybe some kind of drawing, maybe we let the media people decide among themselves,” he said.
Norris said the story about limiting press access was due to “the way I interpreted what they [Glenn Beck's representatives] had to say. Something was lost in the translation.”
Most of those speaking before the City Council on Wednesday night were Mount Vernon residents, with some “non residents.” Someone from Anacortes was considered an out-of-towner.
It was a colorful evening, with orange T-shirts bearing the legend: “HATE IS NOT A MOUNT VERNON VALUE” sold for $5 each by Nancy Hoffman, 56, a retired Mount Vernon teacher. She said she was selling them at cost.
“We really need to talk civilly again,” she said. “Glenn Beck agitates people so they can’t talk in civil terms.”
Norris said he has had no second thoughts about presenting Beck with the key to the city.
He said he simply wanted to honor someone who grew up in Mount Vernon and now is on the national stage.
About the key, Norris said, “It’s a key that fits nothing.”
He said it’s actually a plaque with an embossed key, which he estimated cost $50 to $80 from a trophy shop.
The council meeting filled up a courtroom where it was held, and the total attendance of some 100 people spilled into an adjoining room, where people could watch the proceedings on a screen.
Usually, said Eric Stendal, an aide to the mayor: “We have more staff than people showing up.”
HERE’S YOUR WELCOMING PARTY, BECK! Although, the key looks like a penis with feet…which he should still receive anyway!
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thaswassup
See Baby Discriminate – Kids as young as 6 months judge others based on skin color. What’s a parent to do?
By Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman | NEWSWEEK
Published Sep 5, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Sep 14, 2009
At the Children’s Research Lab at the University of Texas, a database is kept on thousands of families in the Austin area who have volunteered to be available for scholarly research. In 2006 Birgitte Vittrup recruited from the database about a hundred families, all of whom were Caucasian with a child 5 to 7 years old.
The goal of Vittrup’s study was to learn if typical children’s videos with multicultural storylines have any beneficial effect on children’s racial attitudes. Her first step was to give the children a Racial Attitude Measure, which asked such questions as:
How many White people are nice?
(Almost all) (A lot) (Some) (Not many) (None)How many Black people are nice?
(Almost all) (A lot) (Some) (Not many) (None)During the test, the descriptive adjective “nice” was replaced with more than 20 other adjectives, like “dishonest,” “pretty,” “curious,” and “snobby.”
Vittrup sent a third of the families home with multiculturally themed videos for a week, such as an episode of Sesame Street in which characters visit an African-American family’s home, and an episode of Little Bill, where the entire neighborhood comes together to clean the local park.
In truth, Vittrup didn’t expect that children’s racial attitudes would change very much just from watching these videos. Prior research had shown that multicultural curricula in schools have far less impact than we intend them to—largely because the implicit message “We’re all friends” is too vague for young children to understand that it refers to skin color.
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Fox’s Glenn Beck: President Obama is a racist
NEW YORK – Fox News Channel commentator Glenn Beck says he believes President Obama is a racist.Beck made the statement during a guest appearance on the “Fox & Friends” morning show. He said Obama has exposed himself as a person with “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”
His remarks came during a discussion of Obama’s reaction to the arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Gates is black and was arrested for disorderly conduct by a white police officer over a misunderstanding about a break-in at Gates’ home.
There was no immediate response from the White House.
