ONE SHOT A book review

One Shot by John Leary takes on all the major issues of the day–climate change, poverty, hunger, emigration, and more– and puts forth mankind's "one shot" at saving the world–forest gardens.  Leary is director of Trees for the Future which has planted millions of trees around the world and has innovated an approach to devastating deforestation and soil erosion in the most impoverished areas of the world. A forest Garden encourages small farmers in Africa to plant a ring of fast growing trees around their small 1-4 acre plots. Bushes keep animals from trampling crops and vegetables are planted under the trees. A wide diversity of trees and crops gives greater economic sustainability and the leaves from the trees fertilize the soil.  The trees trap the water into the earth interrupting the downward cycle of drought, deforestation, starvation.

Leary recites the bad news of the world that is probably familiar to most aware folks. He gives a good overview of the mess the world is in and all of us who have been freaking out about climate change and other environmental problems are receptive to the "One Shot" to solved these problems. What is novel about this book is not that it advocates forest gardens for impoverished countries but that he advocates a similar approach for Western agriculture. He mentions, but doesn't elucidate, the dilemma of large scale farms in the US, especially drought, soil depletion, and lack of biodiversity. I kept reading to discover what that change might look like in the US where mono crops and huge agri biz dominate. In the end I was disappointed although not surprised as Trees for the Future focus exclusively on farmers in the most distressed environments like Haiti, Africa, South America.

But what would Forest Gardens look like in Central New York? We have rapidly become an important agricultural  area with small farmers, innovative entrepreneurs, and government encouragement. One feature that Leary suggests is small farmers  taking charge of their own land and lives. It's hard to imagine giant corporate farms transitioning to more diverse crops but it is possible to conceive of family farms in upstate NY adopting some of these methods to overcome our own challenges in agriculture. Anyone have an idea of what that would look like?

           

ONE SHOT A book review Read More »

Public Art and Solar Innovation

The Southern Tier Solar Works sponsored a Workshop Sat. May 6th, featuring the Land Art Generator Initiative. After being inspired by all kinds of beautiful solar possibilities, we discussed ideas for the Victory Factory in JC which is that massive white building in Johnson City. What a productive discussion on renewable energy and public art as placemaking tools in Broome County with community organizers, JC planner, BU engineering professor, artists, and students! We also brainstormed some ideas to re-purpose the factory building into a mixed use renewable energy and art incubator including providing subsidized housing, trainings for local residents looking to jump into the workforce, workshops for the local youth, agriculture, and transforming the vacant lot into a sustainable, accessible, and inclusive public space. For more information, contact http://southerntiersolarworks.org/

Southern Tier Solar Works is a not-for-profit program dedicated to developing the solar industry through education and outreach to create jobs, energy savings, and a healthier climate in Broome, Chenango, Delaware, Otsego, and Tioga counties. They can help with residential solar projects and refer people to local solar contractors.

Public Art and Solar Innovation Read More »

TV greatly exaggerates abortion risks

Television plot lines greatly exaggerate the medical and psychological risks associated with having an abortion

Risk of complications and mortality is much greater on television than in real life

San Francisco – A new study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) that examines television portrayals of the health consequences of abortion finds that major complications are represented much more frequently on TV than in real life.

Among the abortion plot lines studied, 42.5 percent include a complication, intervention, or major health consequence, with five percent resulting in death. In real life, complications, which are usually minor, occur in only 2.1 percent of all abortions. The real morality rate for abortion is incredibly low, at just 0.00073% nationwide.

Researchers from Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), a reproductive health research organization based at UCSF, identified 80 television plot lines from 2005 to 2016 in which a character obtains an abortion. Their analysis, published in the journal Contraception, finds that abortion complications on TV are often extreme and life-threatening and lead to adverse consequences, including infertility, depression, and death. These plot lines sharply contrast with real life, where such outcomes are extremely rare. This research is part of ANSIRH’s  Abortion Onscreen program, which studies portrayals of abortion in American film and television and their effects on broader social understandings of abortion.

“Fictional television portrayals have the potential to influence understandings of abortion. Our findings show that medical and psychological risks of abortion are greatly exaggerated on TV, which could lead people to believe falsely that it is dangerous for women,” said Gretchen Sisson, Ph.D., a sociologist at UCSF and the publication’s author. “Such misinformation might build support for existing policies that restrict access to abortion and those being considered at the federal level and in many states.”

According to the study, portrayals of dangerous abortions often take place in illegal settings. However, complications from abortion on TV are exaggerated for both illegal and legal abortions compared to real life.

For more information on accessing a copy of the study, “’I was close to death!: abortion medical risk on American television, 2005 – 2016,’” to interview Dr. Sisson, or to learn more about ANSIRH’s Abortion Onscreen program, contact Jason Harless at harless.jason@ucsf.edu or 510-986-8963.

Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), based at the University of California, San Francisco, conducts rigorous scientific research on complex issues related to reproductive health in the United States and internationally. ANSIRH provides much-needed evidence into active policy debates and legal battles around reproductive health issues. Please visit www.ansirh.org.

 

TV greatly exaggerates abortion risks Read More »

Waiting for Lefty Still Timely

The Bridgeport Herald Wages an Important Free Speech Fight by Andy Piascik

Originally published at the website of the Bridgeport Public Library.                                                                                                                                        
Rarely has an American play met with the kind of government opposition that Clifford Odets’ Waiting for Lefty faced in 1935. Mayors and police departments forbade the staging of the play in a number of cities and stopped performances mid-play in others. Audience and cast members were arrested for protesting police actions. The Bridgeport Sunday Herald rallied to the cause of the play after it was banned in New Haven and thus played an important and honorable role in defending free speech.

Clifford Odets was 28 years old and a member of the left-wing, New York-based Group Theatre ensemble when he wrote Waiting for Lefty. (1) It was the first of his plays to be staged when it opened in a Group production at the Civic Repertory Theater on West 14th Street in Manhattan on January 5, 1935. (2) Among those in the cast were Odets, Elia Kazan and Lee J. Cobb. (3)

Waiting for Lefty is often described as a play about a strike of New York taxicab drivers. While it is that, it’s more a penetrating look at the lives of a group of people who happen to be cab drivers as they cope with poverty and related personal, family and relationship problems at the low point of the Great Depression. The cabbies do discuss going on strike, and they also struggle with the risks involved, one of which is the fact that their union is controlled by racketeers violently opposed to any kind of independent labor action.

The drama in Waiting for Lefty was straight out of the front pages of newspapers throughout the country and thus resonated with audiences. In the months leading up to the play’s opening, there had been general strikes in San Francisco, Minneapolis and Toledo. Workers were organizing in great numbers and left-wing parties and organizations were stronger than in many years.

Waiting for Lefty’s run at the Civic was such a rousing success that it moved to Broadway in June, 1935. Because of great demand and in keeping with their philosophy of making plays easily accessible to the poor and working classes, Odets and the Group took the unusual step of approving productions throughout the country before the play’s Broadway premiere. In no time, labor unions and cultural organizations began staging Waiting for Lefty in dozens of cities and towns. Among them was a production by the New Haven John Reed Club’s Unity Players at Yale University’s University Theatre. (4)        

In at least six cities including Philadelphia, Boston and Newark, city officials either shut productions down after performances had begun or forced cancellation of performances before they could be staged. In Newark, the play was stopped in mid-performance and a number of audience members who protested were arrested. The stated reason in some cases was that the play was “Communist propaganda” and “un-American.” In Boston, profanity — use of the word “God-damn” was specifically cited – was the pretext.

The production in New Haven, meanwhile, won the George Pierce Baker Cup for first prize in the Yale’s annual Drama Tournament on April 11th. In response to the wildly enthusiastic reception, the Unity Players booked space at Commercial High School for additional performances. Several days before the first scheduled show, however, the New Haven Board of Education rescinded the agreement and Police Chief Philip Smith declared that the play was not to be performed anywhere in the city on the grounds that it was “blasphemous and indecent.” He added that anyone attempting to do so would be arrested.

The Unity Players brought together the American Civil Liberties Union, community organizations, and students and faculty from Yale, among others, and formed the New Haven Anti-Censoring Committee. They held rallies and meetings demanding that the city allow the play to be staged but Smith did not budge. Then the Bridgeport Sunday Herald got involved.

Founded in 1805 and located at 200 Lafayette Boulevard, the Herald’s motto was “No Fear, No Favor – The People’s Paper.” The paper first reported on the controversy in New Haven on the front page of its April 14th edition. In that same issue, it ran a glowing review across three pages of the New York production of Waiting for Lefty by Leonardo Da Bence. In the April 21st edition, in response to the continuing ban in New Haven, the Herald’s editors printed the play in its entirety. Also included was a lengthy introduction that included criticisms of Chief Smith and that concluded that the Herald’s intention was to give “its readers an opportunity to judge for themselves.”

Though based in Bridgeport, the Herald had influence well beyond the city. It published editions and special sections for areas throughout the state including a New Haven edition that was available on newsstands in that city. (5) Among its criticisms of New Haven officials, the Herald noted that the city had granted space to an avowedly fascist organization for a meeting at a public school simultaneous to the banning of Waiting for Lefty.

In its edition of May 5th, the Herald reported the results of a poll of readers in which it stated that respondents in favor of the staging of Waiting for Lefty in New Haven outnumbered those who supported the ban by 10 to 1. The Herald regularly featured a Letters to the Editor section that often extended over several pages and one letter from Allen Touometoftosky began as follows: “Long live the militant, truthful Bridgeport HERALD! Long live ‘Waiting for Lefty!’”  

With the groundswell of protest growing, Chief Smith and the City of New Haven finally relented. The Unity Players were allowed to reserve the Little Theatre on Lincoln Street several blocks from Yale and performances of Waiting for Lefty began there on the evening of May 9th. The play was received much as it was around the country by enthusiastic full houses, without incident or further police interference. (6)

While Waiting for Lefty has never been revived on Broadway, it remains popular in local theaters and union halls. It has played many times in Connecticut over the last 72 years including a production by The Connecticut Repertory Theater that ran earlier this year in Storrs. When the play was most recently done in New Haven in 2012 by the New Haven Theater Company, some newspaper commentary recalled the controversy of 1935. (7)    

The Bridgeport Herald, meanwhile, published until 1974. It is remembered with a degree of fondness by older Bridgeporters and was the subject as recently as 2015 of a panel at the Fairfield Museum and History Center. (8) It should also be remembered for the important role it played in a free speech fight 82 years ago.

                                                                  Thanks to Danielle Reay of Yale University for research assistance
1.Clifford Odets (1906-63) was best-known for his plays Awake and Sing (1935) and Golden Boy (1937), in addition to Waiting for Lefty. He also wrote a number of Hollywood screenplays, most notably None But the Lonely Heart (1944) and Sweet Smell of Success (1957). The lead character in the Coen brothers’ 1991 movie Barton Fink was inspired in part by Odets.
2. Real Life Drama: The Group Theatre and America, 1931-1940 (1990) by Wendy Smith is the best account of the story of the Group Theatre. The Group also had deep Connecticut ties; see, for example, my article The Hills of Connecticut: Where Theatre and Life Became One posted, among other places at http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/01/the-hills-of-connecticut-where-theatre-and-life-became-one/
3.Among the Group’s members were actors Phoebe Brand (1907-2004) and Morris Carnovsky (1897-1992), who married and lived for many years in Easton. Though neither appeared in Waiting for Lefty, both had distinguished theater and film careers interrupted by many years of being blacklisted because of their political affiliations. Carnovsky in particular was a long-time fixture on Broadway and at the American Shakespeare Theater in Stratford.   
4.The John Reed Clubs were named after the American journalist and revolutionary John Reed (1887-1920) best known for his eyewitness account from Russia in 1917 Ten Days That Shook the World. Reed is the subject of the 1981 movie Reds.
5.Because of the involvement of the Bridgeport-based Herald in advocating for the showing of Waiting for Lefty, some accounts mistakenly refer to the controversy as having occurred in Bridgeport rather than New Haven.
6.Also featured during Waiting for Lefty’s run at the Little Theatre were modern dance performances by Miriam Blecher (1912-79) and Jane Dudley (1912-2001). Dudley in particular was a trailblazer of modern dance who featured themes of social protest in her work. She was for many years a leading force in the New Dance Group and a teacher at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance.
7. http://patch.com/connecticut/westport/museum-after-dark-remembering-bridgeport-herald-0
8.See, for example: http://scribblers.us/nhtj/?p=2675
The controversy surrounding Waiting for Lefty is covered in a number of books including Censorship of the American Theatre in the Twentieth Century (2009) by John Houchin; Banned Plays: Censorship Histories of 125 Stage Dramas (2004) by Dawn B. Sova; and Censorship: A World Encyclopedia (2002) edited by Derek Jones.
Bridgeport native Andy Piascik is a long-time activist and award-winning author whose novel In Motion was recently published by Sunshine Publishing (www.sunshinepublishing.org). He can be reached at andypiascik@yahoo.com.

Waiting for Lefty Still Timely Read More »

Call for Entries: Environmental Photo

Call for Entries: Joyce K.L. Smith Environmental Photography Competition
Deadline: May 26th
 
The Broome County Environmental Management Council (EMC) invites amateur photographers to submit photographs for the 2017 Joyce K.L. Smith Environmental Photography Competition, By Friday May 26th.  Rules and entry forms can be found at www.gobroomecounty.com/emc.  Entrants may submit up to three photographs in three categories.
 
This marks the 17th year of this long-running competition and exhibit to raise awareness about the beauty of Broome County’s natural environment. A panel of professionals will give awards for the Best-in-Show, Best Themed Photograph, Best Submission from a High School Student and one winner and several honorable mentions from each category. Winning photos will be printed and mounted for exhibit at the Broome County Arts Council Gallery (81 State Street, 5th Floor, Binghamton) for the month of July, with an opening reception during First Friday on July 7th starting at 6pm.
 
Any questions can be directed to blucas@co.broome.ny.us or 607-778-2375 (M-F 8am-4pm).
www.gobroomecounty.com/emc
www.facebook.com/broomeemc
 
Photo credit
Laurie-Ann Platt, Conklin, NY
First Place – Natural Landscape, 2010
"White birches at Dorchester Park"

Call for Entries: Environmental Photo Read More »

Tax Day Rally

About 200 people attended the Tax Day Rally. It was one of hundreds across the country and in Washington DC, protesting the Republican/Trump plans for a budget and tax policy. Protesters also demanded that President Trump reveal his taxes, especially because of his foreign investments and entanglements. Citizen Action schedule of events in next story below. May 6th is the next Indivisible meeting at Endicott Library. See FB page for more details.

Photo by Patti Schwartz, from Indivisible Binghamton Facebook page.

Tax Day Rally Read More »

Another Resistance Resource: Stay Woke!

https://www.ourstates.org/#pressure

The Resistance is everywhere! and there are more and more digital tools to help!  The latest is an interactive map that highlights actions in the states on six different issue areas from voting rights to reproductive rights. Other tools include text to fax and 5calls.org which nudges your friends to call their representatives. see more here. 

These do not replace phone calls and visits to Congresspeople, but help people organize and access information and resources.

Local groups include Citizen Action's Join the Resistance and Indivisible Binghamton. Get involved!  It beats dispair!

Another Resistance Resource: Stay Woke! Read More »

Vote Smart Opens National “Facts Matter” Research Center

Des Moines, April 6, 2017 — Seventeen universities competed and Drake University, located in the center of the nation and in a state that is ground zero every Presidential Election, was selected by Vote Smart for its new Facts Matter Research Center.
 
The center is being designed to grow an unparalleled database of public records on over 100,000 past, present and future politicians, and to forge new interactive systems for handheld devices that defend each citizen’s access to the facts on any issue and on any politician of interest.
 
Vote Smart is hosting an opening celebration on April 10th from 5 pm – 7 pm in their new Des Moines office to commemorate a new partnership with Drake, an outstanding civics learning institution that is providing the offices needed to house 50 of its interns each semester to defend every citizen’s right to know.

To view a short video about the bi partisan Vote Smart project go here: http://votesmart.org/

Vote Smart Opens National “Facts Matter” Research Center Read More »

Scroll to Top