MLK Day

MLK isn't a revered hero of mine, certainly not on par with Huey, Cesaire or Malcolm, however, this being his b-day I thought I'd throw up something of his that I read while in college. It's been that long since I read it, so, take it in the spirit of memory. I remember thinking it superior to his "I have a dream" speech and being impressed with it.

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LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL
April 16, 1963

MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

------- *AUTHOR'S NOTE: This response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray. the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings) was composed under somewhat constricting circumstance. Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly Negro trusty, and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to. leave me. Although the text remains in substance unaltered, I have indulged in the author's prerogative of polishing it for publication. -------

I think I should indicate why I am here In Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here I am here because I have organizational ties here.

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I. compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self- purification; and direct action. We have gone through an these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro .leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants --- for example, to remove the stores humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttles worth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained.

As in so many past experiences, our hopes bad been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self-purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves : "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct-action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic with with-drawl program would be the by-product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.

Then it occurred to us that Birmingham's mayoralty election was coming up in March, and we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run-oat we decided again to postpone action until the day after the run-off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct-action program could be delayed no longer.

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved South land been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken .in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?" The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor. will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

We have waited .for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God- given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six- year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you no forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may won ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the Brat to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal .law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I- it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful. Paul Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression 'of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

I hope you are able to ace the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's anti religious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fan in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "An Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely rational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this 'hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to 6e solid rock of human dignity.

You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At fist I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self-respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best- known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."

I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do-nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle.

If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble-rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black- nationalist ideologies a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or. unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides-and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist.

But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that an men are created equal ..." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we viii be. We be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremist for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime---the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jeans Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some-such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle---have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach-infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as "dirty nigger lovers." Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful "action" antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.

Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a non segregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.

But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative .critics who can always find. something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who 'has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of Rio shall lengthen.

When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leader era; an too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows.

In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious. irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, on Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious-education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Walleye gave a clarion call for defiance and .hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? l am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great- grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators"' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide. and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Par from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it vi lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom, They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jai with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.

I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham, ham and all over the nation, because the goal of America k freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation-and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if .you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.

It is true that the police have exercised a .degree of discipline in handing the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face Jeering, and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two-year-old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My fleets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They viii be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he k alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?

If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Un Chien Angeleno

"Fish" and I went to LACMA Saturday and caught the much hyped up Magritte show.



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The show itself was ok, but not nearly as good as the Magritte retrospective at the Hammer a few years back. LACMA clearly has a much larger marketing budget than the Hammer had, as evidenced by the ancillary stuff, like this archway reverse silhouette of the famous bowler/Magritte figure:





The exhibit itself was designed by Baldessari and I was curious to see what that would be like, but it was namby pamby stuff like clouds on the carpet and a ceiling scape of (the LA?) freeway labyrinth.

With that, I will say that it's always a great experience to see certain works up close. Magritte is far from my favorite painter, much less Surrealist - I find him too facile. But he does have his points; paintings like, "Empire of Lights," and "Domain of Arnhem," and "The Lovers," are pretty cool.

Then we walked - quickly - through their French/Italian collection and were bored out of our minds. On to some Picasso drawings and more boredom.

Afterward we went to the modern collection and while I couldn't snap pics in the exhibits I snuck one of this piece, one of my faves by one of my faves...



Score.

Fish had these VIP tix so we felt really important - no lines, no messin' with the little peeps. Oh, much like the Xmas party at the LA Country Club - which I WILL post about - all of the attendants were mud peeps. And, in true form, LACMA made them all wear bowlers! Couldn't snap any pics of them but if I go back, which I doubt, I'll try.



Yeah, that's VIP ya punk azzes.

I Wanna Monkey, but not Dane Cook's Monkey

This is for muh boy, MM.

=======================

"I was talking to this girl the other day, and she said, "All guys want is sex." And I go, "Look, finish blowing me, and we'll talk about this later." That's a lie. I just said that cause it's funny. She actually said that. She goes, "That's all guys want, Dane, is sex." I said, "Neh." I said, there are other things guys want besides sex, we're just a little embarrased to admit it. I'm putting it on the universe so that you can respect and understand us for who we are as men. For example, any guy here, more than sex, if they had the choice of sex or this thing, any guy here would rather be part of a heist. You know every time you watch the movie Heat, you think, "I wanna do that." You wanna be running down Main St. with an AK-47, yelling, "Where's the van? The van was supposed to be here." We want the guy on the computer who's like, "Dude, I need one more minute." "Where's the fucking van?" .... I wanna be a part of a heist, and I wanna get shot right here in the back of the leg. It stings, but it makes me look kinda cool. *gunshot* "Ah shit. I keep looking at the blood, going, "Nah, nah, nah, nah. Where's the van??!"

We wanna be a part of a heist, and there's something else we want, more than the heist, more than the sex, we'd love to have a monkey. A pet monkey. And people get mad; there's always that one anti-monkey guy in the area who's like, "Excuse me, I overheard you saying that you'd like to have a monkey, and that's a horrible idea. You do not want a monkey. " They're a monkey expert, and they start listing off all the reasons you can not have a monkey. "Let me tell you a few things, if I could. If I could just tell you a few things about monkeys. that you don't know before you jump to your conclusion. Ok, it's more than just bananas and dancing with toothbrushes, ok? First of all, they crap in their hands, and throw it around in a festive manner, in a celebration of monkey poop. They make faces that are unacceptable in human society."

And I hear these things, and I'm like, "That's why I want a monkey, all those reasons." I don't want a nice, little quiet monkey. I want an evil monkey, that I can dress in armor, give him a sword, have fights with him inside my place. How pumped would you be, driving home from work, knowing that somewhere in your house, there is a monkey that you are going to battle? That's awesome! You walk in. "AARRGGHHH (monkey noise)." "Monkey? You here? "AARRGGHH." "Where are you?" "ARRGHH, I'm in your closet." "Holy shit, you just talked!" "I know, I taught myself to talk." "This is incredibly odd." "I know, let's fight!" "OK."

This would be the ultimate. What if, after the heist, you jump into the van, and the monkey is driving the van! "Get in! We've got to go!" It makes me sad, cause I know it will never happen.

-Dane Cook

Lou Breakin' it Down

Lou: One of the things that's going on in this country is that there is an effort from both the left and the right, partisan republican and democrat, to obfuscate the reality. These are people who want you to talk about gay marriage, gun control, abortion, "under god" in the pledge of allegiance, the burning of the flag...

Charlie: ...you think that the politicians are using those issues to distract...

Lou: To distract, to divide, to push a wedge, between the reality that we need to influence and the issues that are on one end abstract and on the other not my business.


"Our political system is dominated by corporate America. The midterm elections that we've just completed cost an estimated 2.6 billion dollars. TWO POINT SIX BILLION DOLLARS, nearly all of that money provided by corporate America."

"Let's leave the Constitutional authority where it rests and that's with the House of Representatives."

"Corporate America now has the largest share of our national income since World War II and our working men and women have the smallest share..."

"...half the (individual) bankruptcies in this country are caused by medical catastrophe... overwhelming medical bills. The 2005 bankruptcy bill was not influenced by corporate America, it was written by credit card companies. We've reached that sad a state."

"Forty years ago, there was something like 68 lobbyists in Washington D.C. Today there are 34 thousand."

--Lou Dobbs


These quotes alone are enough to get someone shot by the crazies in power these days.

The Ken Auleta piece is a prelude. There are some points that I take issue with Lou on, but in terms of mass media, Lou is spittin' knowledge like no one else save for maybe Olberman.

Pay attention to his take on the left, right, liberal/conservative distractions to the REAL issues facing us.

Keep goin' Lou.



Segment 1: Journalist Ken Auletta talks about his recent profile of Lou Dobbs in The New Yorker.

Segment 2: Lou Dobbs, host of "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and author of "War on the Middle Class".

Stay Outta da Bushes!!!

I don't know when it became de rigueur to shave the fro below, but it wasn't in the 80's - all you youngins just take my word for it.

Someone sent me a link to Clitical so me bein' the Innocent Lamb and all, I just HAD to look. Which then led to Feather Touch.

Somehow the 90's produced a bit of sanity, but I don't know where it started. Maybe being the porn cap of the world, the Valley* had something to do with it.

Whatever, lawn-mowing was here to stay - THANK GOD. Ladies, you just don't understand the true meaning and depth of the phrase, "carpet munchin'," unless yer a lesbo then god bless.

Somewhere in the mid-90's I met one of the few howlee gals I've been involved with. More a curiosity thing than anything else. Anyway, I'd be lyin' if I said that it was her bush that killed it but...

DAMN.

That first time I was stunned - In the semi-dark her kooch looked like a tumbleweed.

Remember, this was the mid 90's. I'd had earlier gfs that shaved.

Then there's man-scaping. Is that gay or something?** Damn.
====================

* The San Fernando Valley, a vast nether region/cultural wasteland, otherwise known as "lil podunk," cause while it's close enough to LA it's even more provincially vapid (if that can be said of an LA suburb) than LA.

** This is all old old old to Stern's fans. Shit, even ARTIE manscapes.

Pee Pee Be Gone Sustainably

Damn! Falcon Urinals rock da Palladium!

Some of you know about my interest in sustainability/green/community etc topics. They kind of mesh at some point with the bigger picture as everything does, but sweet virgin mother, I never thought it'd be pee pee I'd be writing about!

Truth of the matter is that I've been wanting to write about this for a while as "my" building where I do time on the plantation of the evil empire is fitted with Falcon Waterfree Technologies urinals. Suh-weeet!

The first time I wizzed in one of these babies I was like, "duh," cuz there's no flush handle. And I remember reading the Falcon label; "Falcon Waterfree Technologies," and thinking, "...?" What threw me off even more is that there's a snake inlet for plumbers nearby, so I even tried pushing that to no avail of course.



(Notice the snake inlets nearby?)

These things don't flush. Cause they don't use water. At all. Period.

No, instead Falcon does a filter and different kind of trap thing technology as opposed to the standard "s trap." Yeah, I know a thing or two about plumbing that's utterly useless when trying to impress broads - except when ya gotta fix something and be macho man with tools and they turn into the helpless damsel. In a French maid outfit. With stiletto heels. But I digress.

I'll post pics of our state of the art in pee pee stalls soon - those aren't exactly the kind of pics you obtain easily, if ya know what I mean. But then again, if ya don't ya betta axe sumbuddy. Note: Falcon's world hqs are here in LA. Yippee.


(Falcon orgy)

Falcon. Conjures up majestic images of a razor sharp predator, on the prowl for...

PEE PEE!!!

What does a falcon have to do with pee pee...? I dunno. I mean, look at their logo; is poor Mr. Falcon's head just peeking out above an ocean of pee pee?


Damn.

Raging Belly

Starting now I'm going to open up my personal life a bit more. This is so those out there can get a better picture of me but also because so much of what I write about are things outside of my life, so to speak. So, with a toe in the water, I'll begin by writing about one of my friends from UCLA, Dave. (For posterity, as of this writing the Bruins are number one. Collison, Afflalo, Shipp, Mata... under Coach Howland, after reaching the final last year AND losing Jordan Farmar [who's doing really well, thank you] to the Lakes...)

Some who know me may wonder, why with a friend and not close to home, like my daughter or brother?

The truth of the matter is that I've always been a private person, having grown up an only child. I've also been on the net since before it was GUI based, and I've seen the explosion of personal information taken in every which direction, good, bad and for the most part boring. So toe in the water and let's leave it at that for now. Maybe it just takes getting used to. We'll see.

So me and Dave go back to school days. I'll give more background info on him in future posts, because a little of that goes a long way and in one dose can be lethal. One thing we share in common; we're foodies. One more; as we get older, our metabolism... is... slowing... down.

Hardy fucken har.

Here's a recent convo:

me: Man, we had SO much grub left over from the office party I thought I'd give some to the security guard and the invisible mud peeps (mps) cleaning crew.

D: You mean the mud people as in brown persuasion?

me: Uhm. So first I ask if it's alright to give the mud peeps some food, and I get the word to tell them to just come on up. So, as I get my "alleviate privileged amerikkkan guilt quotient" temporarily sated, I gather up some cupcakes for the poor, downtrodden mps and make my way downstairs. But not before I grabbed a box of lemon cake.

me: I give the mps the cupcakes and tell them, "Tenemos mucho comida; Antes termine va al cuarto" - they smile and thank me and my quotient scale hits "F" for fulfillment. Of note, the security guard, an older brotha prolly in his 60's, looked down sorta derisively at the cupcake but nodded a thank you. Anyway, here's the rub: I kept the lemon cake.

D: [laffs]

me: But there was more, and they were going up there...

D: Well, I had this peach cobbler...

me: The fish place we went to that time...?

D: Yeah. So, I got a small one for myself and a large one for my sister (Sonia) and her used-car salesman chump, er, bf. (disclosure: I called him that, but Dave would agree. No, laff, then agree.)
I get home, chow down my cobbler, then settle in.

me: To "Command Center 3"? (in joke)

D: Yeah. So then Sonia comes home. I said, "hi."

[medium long PAUSE]

me: [Saw it coming before it left the station but laffing anyway]

D: [not missing a beat] Yeah I did.

me: [belly laff]

D: Then there was my protest.

me: Huh?

D: Well, yesterday I went to the local burger joint and got fish 'n chips - we've been there before. (Dave lives in a suburb of LA near JPL/CalTech, not exactly close to me) They gave me this MOUNTAIN of fries.

me: So you scarfed them?

D: Well, I got about half way through them, then I said to myself, "Damn, I'm only half way through. This is gonna get serious." (NOTE: One thing I didn't mention; Dave's 6'3" and, well, as his peeps say, he's big boned-ed).

me: [small belly laff]

D: So I plowed down to the last three fries and left them.

me: Huh???

D: Yeah - those were my "protest fries."

me: [bigger belly laff] And I suppose you had a "protest Coke" along with that?

D: Horchata. Yeah, I went and got a refill then went home. Walked in the house and threw it away.

me: Huh???

D: My "protest horchata."

The Way it Was: Homage to Ahmet Ertegun

A legend left this world 12/14/06.

As with my earlier paean to Bill Graham, Ahmet Ertegun is the last of a dying breed. Like Pike Bishop's Wild Bunch, the very underpinnings of history are moving beneath their feet; "Those times are closing fast."

Ertegun had that nurturing ability when it came to artists, what in the business is a lost art; development. That art is gone because the economics of today's music oligopoly obliterate the human touch and replace it instead with spread sheets, value maximization and all of the attendant ilk. But it was Ertegun who - along with older brother Nesuhi and (fellow legend) Jerry Wexler - instilled that nurturing spirit into their baby, Atlantic Records.

Press junkets and photo ops - those are the stuff of today because they "maximize value," much as a developer trashing a single-family home and erecting a condo.

Ertegun - like Graham - was passionate in his diversity; from blues to his first love, jazz and on to some of the biggest names of 60's and 70's rock. Of note, he always contextualized those genres as "black American music."

He could have had all of the privilege his lineage afforded him; his father was the ambassador to his motherland, Turkey. But his older brother would hold sway, and as a young man, in a foreshadowing of his sensibilities, Nesuhi was known to have hung around Breton. It would also lead to Nesuhi exposing a young Ahmet to "race music."

Ertegun saw Nat Cole play before he became "King" and knew who the demi-god Art Tatum was despite the master's public obscurity. Hearing Clapton for the first time playing live but not immdediately seeing him, he knew ... he also felt the same way about Page when he got the fledging post-Yardbirds nascent Led Zep's demo. Thus, two of the three British blues-based rock guitar gods (the third was Beck) went to Atlantic and made history.

Today, Tower records goes bankrupt and the music oligarchs throw up their hands at the burning of Rome. "Downloading is killing us," they say. Maybe. But is it just a coincidence that as a kid I'd listen to records and pour over liner notes, read "Down Beat" and "Creem" and "Rolling Stone" (when it was worth a plugged nickel), and be enthralled? Music seemed to be about more then, and something, dare I say it, was in the air. And Ertegun was an integral part of that spirit.

The air in today's room is putrid.

Open the windows. Ahmet Ertegun has left the room.

Hanky the Terrorist, Uncle Scam and Mega Media

A week or two ago I was watching Charlie Rose and he had that basset hound Henry Kissinger on, and the inevitable "Iraq question(s)" come up. The parallels; escalation, insurgency, civil war...

But it's absolutely amazing how Charlie can be so off point and more, a softballer. I mean, he's the ONLY talk show that will guest Chomsky, which just goes to show how deep the "Jewish mafia" runs in mega-corp controlled mass-media. Btw, for anyone who doubts the Janus faced history of Jews in Hollywood, just read Gabler's, "An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood." Jesus Christ (how's that for irony?), I thought my peeps were fucked up in terms of self-image. It cracks me up - wryly, of course - how, whenever I speak on a panel or at a seminar, inevitably I meet up with wide-eyed film students, hoping against hope that theirs is the lucky lotto number....

Shudder.

These poor kids - they spend tens of thousands of dollars on a film school "education" but can't tell you who this is...


let alone this dude


and god send money should they know who THIS is...


...cause I'll need a Costco sized bundle of tp to wipe my ass from the shock shit.

So. Charlie "sometimes on point" Rose has Henry, "I systematically TERRORIZED millions of mud people got a Nobel Prize out of it and some fat ass speaking engagements," Kissinger on. Asking the Iraq questions. The parallels.

THE PARALLELS???

I got your parallels, hanky, ya punk ass beeeatch, hiding behind your rat-bastard nixonian presidential seal while pushing buttons that terrorize; how about some donkey balls parallel to your chin muthaphuka??? How about THIS for a parallel, that you ILLEGALLY and sytematically TERRORIZED millions of Asians via the TET fucking offensive, you putrid piece of regurgitated bukake?

"The terrorists," "the war on terror" ... Parallel this: We're the laughing stock of the world because of this embarrassment of an administration.

Just as with the nixon administration.

I think this is the great trick of uncle scam; the games he sets up are basically elementary - taking a page from Goebbels and another from Bernays while being later deconstructed by Herman & Chomsky:

1. Control messaging via mass-media. Check.

2. Make sure the freeways that govern access to political power are constantly jammed with over 30,000 lobbyists, each wtih a man purse of laundered money. Check.

3. #2 also serves another purpose; it effectivly cuts off the .000001% of the riff-raff mud peeps that have a smidgen of power.

3. Have an endless supply of diversions - concocted or not - that mis-direct the laity and can be amply farmed out to #1. Check.

4. Liberal (in the conservative sense of that word) mentioning of buzz words/phrases; "freedom," "democracy," "America loves freedom," "war on terror," etc., while making Hegel twist in his grave by antithetically citing "the enemy," and that, "they're jealous of our freedom."

5. Lather, rinse... you now the drill.

It goes without saying so I"ll say it; sell-outs like this reprobate


not to in any way be corn-fused with THIS dude


are a necessary part of uncle scam's equation as well.

It's one of the most energy-sapping things to watch, the way these devils run their games.

I'ts also hard to critique when most of us are so self-involved with our own personal crap, because while the game is basically fundamental, it's macro. And we're not trained to think macro, much less long-term, much much less, critically, much much much less analogically.

For ONCE I'd like to see our mainstream journalists grow some nuts - JUST ONCE, so that I can have a smile fest for a minute just watching human puss sacks like Kissinger squirm in his grease. This is why Howard Stern, despite ... well, you know, he's Howard, it's why things like sending Stuttering John out to completgely deflate pompous celebs were fucking brilliant. Sasha Baron Cohen ain't got nothin' on Stern.

For someone like me, born in Hollywood (Kaiser, right on Sunsent), mass media's in my DNA. Just not in the, "I'll-degrade-myself-to-sub-species-level-AND-eat-mega-corp-conglomo-mierda-to-even
have-what-I-think-is-a-shot-at-working-FOR-FREE-on-your-plantation," sense.

Hanky, do humanity a favor; shove a burnt weenie sandwich up yer butt so that weasels rip your flesh to get at it.

Allusions and wordplay in this post: At least two. I think. (I'm particularly proud of the last one...)

Mark Cuban on Customer Service

This is great. Should be required reading for every company

Success and Motivation - Connecting to your customers

Nov 7th 2006 1:09PM

I have a couple customer service sayings I tend to over use. I dont usually speak them outloud. I usually say them to myself as a reminder to always put our customers, in any business first. "Treat your customers like they own you. Because they do." "You have to re-earn your customers business every day" and one that came from YAHOO, which I thought was brilliant. When asked what Yahoo stood for, some folks there responded "You Always Have Other Options".

I personally think that the only way you can connect to your customers, is to put yourself in their shoes. For me personally, if I can't be a customer of my own product, then I probably am not to do a good job running the company. When I go to a Landmark Theater, I don't call ahead and tell them Im coming and ask for special treatment. I stand in line and pay for my ticket like everyone else. I get my popcorn and Diet Coke like everyone else. I get my seat like everyone else.

With the Mavs, I sit in a seat that is for sale to the general public, Its a great seat next to the bench, but I also make sure that I sit in the very top row behind the baskets, our $2 dollar/10 dollar seats during the season as well. Same routine. Im not surrounded by security. I dont get special anything. If the Nachos are slow and the beer is warm, I know it and the people sitting around me also let me know.

Its interesting to watch different CEOs of different companies and how they deal with the issue of making customers happy. You can tell the ones that don't trust their products or services. They travel with big groups of people. There are advance teams to make sure everything is perfect. They bring security to places where their customers are families and kids. They protect themselves from any possible interactions, whether direct, phone or email by having secretaries filter everything, and they respond with formletters or assistants, if at all.

I dont know how they do it. I make my email available to everyone and anyone. Not only that, and more importantly, I make sure that all the customer service emails get forwarded to me. If someone is complaining, I want to know what about, and I want to get it fixed quickly. The best focus groups are your customers telling you what they think. No company is perfect, but the CEO who doesnt listen to direct feedback from customers will not take the company as far as it can go.

But it gets worse from there for CEOs that don't communicate with their customers. There used to be a saying that happy customers might tell one person, but unhappy customers tell 20. In the internet age, one happy customer might make a note in their blog or forward an email. An unhappy customer, starts a blog, writes about how unhappy they are, takes out an ad on search engines to let people who are looking for the product know how made they are, starts an email forwarding chain asking people to boycott the product, does a Youtube video about it and games Youtube to make it one of the top 10 most viewed videos.... You get the picture.

IN this day and age, its a lot easier to proactively communicate than to react.

More on Albert Cullum: Letters

select letters from viewers and students from the ITVS site ...

6/20/06
Ken Ramirez
Bethesda, Maryland

I was one of Albert Cullum's students at Midland School in Rye, New York. My life was changed forever. I grew up a fearful and unhappy boy with very little to feel good about. I stuttered constantly, was awkward and introverted, and felt the future offered nothing.

Al Cullum changed all that. He taught me that there was a world of greatness, creativity, and beauty just waiting to be experienced. Every thing Al touched was magical, be it history, math, poetry, or art. His classroom hummed with joy and excitement. Every subject was treated with contagious creativity. We solved math problems in King Tut's tomb, raced around the room solving geography problems, read great poety to our peers, guessed the names of masterpieces of art and I'm not even scratching the surface.

Al's lunch breaks were taken up with batting balls to us. Instead of commuting home 30 miles to New York, he stayed after school three days a week in referee the street hockey games he had organized. He accepted my parent's invitation for dinner one night and stayed to watch my little league baseball game.

I went on teach English nine years in the public schools, and I marvel at the man's dedication, creativity, and energy, not to mention his love.
Al made me feel special long before Mr. Rogers came along. So much of what I am and what I value comes from that man who trekked to the suburbs every day for what must have been a small compensation.

I logged on to the computer tonight because I have been thinking about Al recently, and I wanted to thank him for what he did for me. I was saddened to find out that he had passed away, but I was delighted to see that this wonderful movie had been made, and that many of my former classmates felt the same way about him that I did.

We give a lot of lip service to teachers, but we pay them little and bestow a marginal status on them. I don't teach anymore, but my daughter is now the same age I was when I met Al, and I truly cherish these wonderful people who inspire and care about her just like Al did for us.

I am very fortunate, and I know all of Al's former students are too. Rest well, Al, your life was well spent.

====================

11/21/05
Sam Leary
Chesapeake, Virginia

I just viewed the film "A Touch of Greatness" in a class for gifted certification. Dr. Cullum reminded me of another "gifted" teacher I encountered early in my career. He believed students learned through all their senses and taught history in a most unique manner. Students hid under desks as the bombs (books)rained down on helpless Londoners (students)during the Battle of Britian; air-raid siren blaring (he was very good at sound effects). He never sent a student to the principal as they almost worshipped him as their leader. He was a performer in his classroom who knew every child and found a way to get the best from each one. His school became his life. Every afternoon, he was in the gym playing basketball with the kids no one else could tolerate. He too, incurred the rath of his fellow teachers who could not or refused to form the kind of relationship he forged with his students. They found ways to demean his accomplishments to the point that he did not socialize with them in the lounge, but was happy to hold court in the student cafeteria with his loyal subjects. In the end he did very well and I feel was rewarded for his service to young people; he retired after touching many lives and today lives very, very comfortably with an inheritance bequested by two wealthy spinsters whom he cared for many years. Mr. Holloman, you truly made a difference.

========================

9/19/05
Ron Fisher, Ph.D.
Atlanta, GA

Albert Cullum reminded me of my freshman (high school) teacher who honored the 55 students in each of the 4 sections of his English class (Catholic prep. school) by having us read Shakespeare instead of studying grammar, 1960-64. He got in trouble because we didn't do well on the standardized grammar tests. However, I learned about human nature, and I learned to think critically, as Albert Cullum taught his fifth-graders. A few years later, having dropped out of college because I found it boring, I talked my way into a teaching position at my h.s. alma mater in San Francisco, teaching four sections of English. In addition to teaching Shakespeare, I offered a writing seminar to all interested students during their (and my) lunch hour. I was told by the principal to desist, that lunch time was for athletics. So, flying under the radar, I moved the class to my apartment on Saturdays.
After pursuing a Ph.D., I found that my goal of infecting college students with my love of literature and creative writing would "get in the way of your being tenured."
I abandoned teaching--in the classroom--and became a personal and career counselor, getting a Ph.D. in psychology but always believing I learned most about human nature not from Freud but from Shakespeare and my h.s. English teacher, Mr. Franxman.

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8/12/05
Muffy Mallory
Orinda, CA

My family left Rye in the middle of my 4th grade year at Midland School in the late 50's. One of my good friends was Steve Lawson and that connection (long severed, now reconnected) led me to this wonderful film. I have been haunted by it since watching it, twice. My older brother Peter had Mr. Cullum which is why I knew him as well as I did. Peter is 60 and talked about Mr. Cullum all the time. We had him to dinner at our house a number of times and I recall my parents embracing him and, I am guessing, his techniques. I was shocked to see that he was an outcast. I have few regrets in life but I can add to that short list this one: that I didn't have the opportunity to be taught by such a great man. What I do recall, however, was how proud I was in 2nd grade to have gotten published in the Chatter Box. I still have the issue, in fact.

Nothing in recent memory has produced such excitement in me as much as this film. My partner is on the board of a small school in San Francisco and he enjoyed the movie so much that he is going to share it with the head of the school. I intend to share it with as many people as I can as well as with my three siblings, all of whom recall him. Al Cullum was surely a man ahead of his time. Thank you for making this film.

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8/2/05
Mary S. Bahr
Baltimore, MD

Being a creative person, I am SO impressed by Albert Cullum specifically in that he was confident in knowing he was uniquely different and not afraid to express what came from a deep place within him. Teachers can be well educated and trained, but they don't ALL have that unique, inner freedom and special spirit, which makes for greatness. How can children be truly taught and transformed without such greatness as a role model? Children can discern the types of hypocrisy. Two examples of my grade school life: in 8th grade, the school librarian was more than livid when I told her I had just read "Rebecca" [Daphne DuMaurier] and thought it was so good that the school library should get their own copy. And, on the other hand, my 7th grade science teacher taught really fun classes and, therefore, I told my parents that science was my favorite subject and that what I learned most was why he painted his house black (an oddball personal story he would always talk about). Needless to say I also failed science. I am a post-grad from an art college where there was a freedom of expression along with discipline of craft, but I learned more to discern the good, innovative teachers from ones I likened to be "ingenuine puppets with a reputation to uphold." The best influence on my development was my father - who didn't "teach" me as much as be a role model in what, as a man, who was a fine arts painter, truly valued and acted on with a deep well of great spirit. And his college students gravitated towards his genuiness. He and Mr. Cullum, I think, would have liked each other.

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3/2/05
Gideon Ansell
Boston, MA

Watching this film left me teary, exhilarated, sad, and a little bit more hopeful than before. Al Cullum was my teacher at Midland School in the early-to-mid 60s and I was fortunate enough to be in two productions of his (in fact I'm in some of the archive footage film and that's me in the picture on the right of "The Teacher" page of this site.) As with his former students featured in the film, his effect on me continues to this day. Over the years I've frequently related stories of Mr. Cullum and credited him with fostering so many of the life choices I made and core principles I hold out to my kids.

Simply put, Mr. Cullum had the most profound impact a teacher can have on a student. By being who he was, he made us understand that art mattered, that we mattered, that there was truth, compassion, and beauty in the world, and that we shouldn't be afraid to embrace them. That sounds like a lot to load onto a fifth grader, and of course I didn't realize any of it explicitly at the time. All I knew was that I loved being in any classroom or after-school actively with him. Thanks to this movie, though, I was able to see from an adultís perspective the effects of Mr. Cullum's philosophy and practice of teaching on us. Our interest in, and excellent retention of, normally dry subject matter like vocabulary and grammar was astounding. Our desire to learn and participate was impressive. Most importantly, the performances he drew out of his kids, by simply letting us know we were up to the task of understanding the characters we were portraying, were profound.

I do have to say that even at the time I was amazed that Mr. Cullum was allowed to get away with half of what he did, and as the years pass and my observation of institutional conservativism and myopia increases, it amazes me even more. In retrospect it makes me even more astonished that I was able to have those important years with Mr. Cullum.

As a final note, my reaction was not just misty-eyed nostalgia working its way on me forty-odd years later. My wife is a theater arts teacher, and my daughter is a theater major at a public performing arts high school. Both of them were enthralled and touched by the film. It showed me that Al Cullum's loving and honest approach to teaching transcends time and place and can be a touchstone for new generations. I'm hopeful that this film can jump-start a few teachers to approach the process in a new, more thoughtful, and exciting way. Even in the face of "No Child Left Behind" bureaucratic nonsense.

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1/21/05
Katie Kemple
Arlington, VA

I watched this program on a snowy lunch break at home yesterday. Though I am a fan of Independent Lens, I was not prepared for the beauty I beheld in this film. The footage of children performing Shakespeare and other great works, made me laugh, but then, it made me cry too -- not from sadness, but because their movement was so pure. Teachers like Cullum don't touch ones life everyday, but through this documentary, he was able to touch more lives even after his death. It was some of the most inspired footage I have ever seen. Thank you for making this available to audiences around the country.

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1/21/05
Lisa Gibson
Tyngsboro, MA

I was blessed to have Professor Cullum as my teacher while at Stonehill College. At an age in which one is bordering on adulthood and told to "grow up" and "act your age", he taught us that it is ok to loosen up, have fun, and understand what it is to be a kid again. Through this authentic play-making, he helped us express our creativity at a time in our lives in which conformity to our peers and the rules of adulthood are becoming key. He gave me a sense of confidence and freedom that is rare in the classroom.

I hope that he knows what a difference he made in so many lives. I regret that I did not have the opportunity to thank him.

One wish is that the program could be shown in the Boston area at a more watchable prime-time hour. I'd watch a program of this quality over "The Bachelor" for instance anyday.

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1/18/05
Charles E. Walton, IV
Birmingham, Al

Something woke me from sleep last night in my hotel in Roanoke,Va. at 4:00 am. The television was on and it was playing this incredible story. I was so moved I tried to buy it last night to show everyone I know. I only wish there could be a "Mr.Cullum" in spirit in each school. I am too much of a realist to even wish. This film at least validates the efforts of the ones that still try. Reading your talkback section was a self portrait of my ugly face. I was a disruptive class clown trying my best to undermine the class for my troubled attention needs. I have not stopped thinking all day -what if.....what if, I had been lucky enough to have been exposed to such knowledge and influence. One can only imagine how, not just the class clowns like me but the troubled students and the truly gifted could change the world with the gifts this man gave. I am in awe.

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1/18/05
Estelle Haferling
New York, New York

Joy to the world. Joy from a child. This man Albert Cullum understood the core of the human spirit. He was not afraid to be himself and to help others freely express themselves. I don't think humiliation or embarrassment were part of the story in his classes. You did what you did and learned from it.

This wonderful documentary reminded me of the production of the school play "Islands" which was made in Maine and which had a staging on Broadway in 2001. We here so much about the big deal heroes. Mr. Cullum is surely one of the special people and his students were so lucky to have been in his class.

It doesn't have to be school where soul murder occurs (definition: stealing the joy of a person). The workplace is all too often the deadly setting for adults to play out the loss of joy; for mediocre bosses to strip the joy and spirit of workers. Please show this superb documentary again. I smiled throughout and experienced such joy. Thank you, thank you so very much.

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1/18/05
chicago, IL

I only saw the tail end of the program (about 20 minutes). I was struck by one of the teachers saying that, essentially, one cannot be an innovative teacher without incurring the wrath of the incompetents, the mediocre, and/or the indifferent teachers/administrators. As a former substitute teacher for the Chicago Public Schools (about 3 months in toto), I found that to be absolutely true!

It seems I have a natural knack for teaching EMH students. At one school, I subbed for a special education teacher. When the 'retard' students actually began to learn, to understand what I was teaching, the teacher's aide stopped me. Mid-sentence! She had already told me that the students were essentially unteachable and here I was putting her to the lie. And she wasn't having it! I remember we were reading about electrical conductivity. The book said that rubber did not conduct electricity well (I think I'm remembering correctly). The students were frowning or looking at me blankly. I used as an example, the rubber boots that firemen wear so that when standing in water, they won't get shocked by any loose live wires. It was more detailed, but the upshot was that the students' faces ALL lit up and they watched me now avidly instead of passively. They were learning! The aide saw what was happening and put a stop to it.

At a Chicago public high school for the retarded, after 2 days of subbing, I became the talk of the school. One student who never talked to teachers was talking to me (interestingly, it so upset her when she realized this - it was her one claim to fame - that she moved to another desk on the far side of the room away from me). I never sat behind the desk; I was on the move and interacting personally with every student. I treated and talked to each student as a student, not a 'retard'. It turned out I had a particularly difficult class. Teachers would peek their heads into my room to see what was going on because my room was never that quiet. Gratifyingly, almost every teacher appreciated my efforts - and success! - with the class. On the 3rd day, however, the principal dismissed me. The clerk in the office hid her head in shame, embarrassment, commiseration, whatever, when I signed out for the last time. It turnedout that having heard about the wunderkind sub, the principal felt that I was 'over-reaching' myself in that I dared to control a class that was considered incorrigible, through kindliness, dedication, and belief in the students' abilities to learn. That the students were responding AND LEARNING he considered an affront. I was a sub, not a REAL teacher (the reason I was given for the dismissal was that the regular teacher was returning early from vacation, the next day. It was not true, but as my work spoke for itself, he had no other option except to lie about my performance. Which, thank heaven for small favors, he did not).

I have not, and do not anticipate subbing ever again. The mediocrity and 'don't rock the boat' status quo (thankfully, at the EMH high school, this was not the case with most of the teaching staff, just the affronted principal, which incidentally, I never even met) are enough to drive innovative teachers with a drive to excel at all they do, away.

My sister is a certified teacher in the public school system. When I told her of my experiences, she was not surprised. An innovator herself (2 of her former elementary students who became honor society students in high school, independently and unaware of the other, nominated her for a Golden Apple award - usually only ONE student nominates a former teacher), she was disgusted but, having paid the price for her own excellence, understood perfectly the intimidated, status quo mediocrity behind the aide's and principal's efforts to thwart my reaching the minds of the students.

I, too, am finally NOT surprised. My first few years in public school were a total learning experience. My family moved and at the next school, I was INNUNDATED with uncaring, unresponsive, disdainful and medicore teachers. My high school educational experience was so dismal that I remember thinking in my sophomore year that I had better graduate fast before I became 'dumber and dumber' (in 8th grade, I was reading at a 12th grade level; in 10th grade, I dropped 2 levels in reading to a 10th grade level). As a substitute teacher, I saw how the system keeps its children's minds passive, inactive and oftentimes uninvolved and disinterested in the learning process. It does this through chaining to standardized methodology, any of the teaching staff's creative and innovative approaches to teaching individual as well as groups of students. This approach works fine for the unenlightened, the barely competent, the disinterested teacher. It stifles, frustrates, and eventally drives away the gifted, the strivers for excellence in teaching.

The Indie program - what I saw of it - was excellent. Will it change administator and/or teachers' attitudes toward maximizing students' learning potential? I doubt it. The mediocre, the incompetent, the just plain mean and petty not only out-number the dedicated and gifted, they are in charge of the system. Thanks for this opportunity to vent.

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1/18/05
Spike Dolomite Ward
San Fernando Valley, Cali

What an inspiration: "A Touch of Greatness" and Albert Cullum. As an arts education activist, I couldn't agree more with everything I saw and heard in this film. I'll be ordering many copies of this film to distribute to schools in the San Fernando Valley.

I started a nonprofit 5 years ago to fill a void that has been present in public education for an entire generation: the absence of the arts. We are in the Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the worst districts in the entire country. To date, this nonprofit provides services to about 4,000 students (two comprehensive arts education programs in two Title I elementary schools, and supplemental support to several other elementary schools with supply donations, field trips, and cultural assemblies. We also donate art and music supplies to middle and high school art departments to take the burden off of teachers who are expected to purchase supplies out of their own pockets or fundraise to do their jobs.)

As an activist, I believe to the very depths of my soul that the arts are absolutely critical to a well rounded education. In my experience over the past five years, I have seen many children pulled up out of the where they have suffered with labels such as "ADD," "learning disabled," "behavior disorder," or "too dreamy." Through the arts, these kids are finally being given a chance to succeed at school. They have become visible, comfortable and respected.

Sadly, though, with the No Child Left Behind Act and standardized testing, these kids can not be assessed creatively by their teachers. If they don't fill the bubbles in just right on these ridiculous tests, then they don't get rid of their labels. Teachers have been forced to marginalize their classrooms by separating the kids who are not easy to teach from the rest of the class by assigning these labels. If they can be assessed with any sort of disability, then they go into a special file where the teacher no longer has to be fully responsible for teaching them. And the schools don't have to worry about their test scores bringing down the school's test scores. That's what education has been reduced to. Not only does public education deny children a well rounded education by teaching the arts, but it also gives up on creative kids. They are outcasts, misunderstood, and too much work for classroom teachers who don't have enough time in the day to prepare their kids for the next test. Teachers can no longer be creative in how they teach. Everything is scripted for them and they are under a tremendous amount of pressure to make sure that their kids test well in the spring. And those kids who are, and always will be, easy to teach, well, they're public education's little soldiers. If we can marginalize every kid who doesn't test well, then our school will get a good report card. Thanks, George Bush!

We need the arts to save the kids who have fallen through the cracks. At-risk kids need the arts so that they can safely express themselves. We need the arts to challenge the good test takers to climb outside of the box to explore the limitless possibilities that lie outside of the box, those possibilities with no one right answer. We need the arts to restore creativity to teaching as a profession. Where would we all be if Einstein's mom was told that he had ADD and needed to be medicated? Sitting in the dark, that's where! Great test takers are not always great thinkers!

I totally agree with Mr. Cullum's comment about public education being the cancer of mediocrity. As a parent, I'll be pulling my kid out of public education after this school year.

As sad as it is to lose such a man as Albert Cullum, he lives on in his students, his work, and this film. I'm going to order a box of them today!

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1/14/05
Leslie Neidig
Louisville, KY

My 16 year old son Cody actually sat down and watched this documentary with me. He took a break from his computer games to get a Coke. Cody usually takes a minute on his way back to the computer to sit down and give me a hug and then off to gamerland he goes.

Not this time.

He actually sat down and watched a black and white documentary. Then Cody said Albert Cullum was cool.

For me to say I loved this story is an understatement and nothing compared to being called cool by a 16 year old boy in 2005.

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1/14/05
Shawna DeRice
South Portland, Maine

I am one of Professor Cullum's students. I feel very priveleged to have spent my college years learning from such a wonderful man. I graduated a year before he passed away. Right up until the end he was inspiring education majors to remember that learning is not measured by tests, but by the interest and involvement of the students. I was very happy to see this video and can remember him telling us about it. The world has lost an irreplaceable tresure.

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1/13/05
Betty Stroup
North Pole, Ak

George Bernard Shaw (also mentioned by Albert Cullum in your video) is quoted as saying, "What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child." I have that hanging in my class as a constant reminder to me of how I should teach. Albert Cullum exemplified this philosphy in an exceptional and extraordinary way. He had a gift and I'm not sure one can teach that at a university but I'm trying. Viewing this video will be added to my syllabus as a requirement by my university students. I should add that I also teach 2nd and 3rd. grades (looping) in a public school system and this is also how I love to teach; as an inquiry based constructivist. My class is always noisy and there's a lot of learning going on within its walls. No doubt Mr. Cullum enjoyed going to work every day he taught just as much as his students loved coming to his class. I know I do!

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1/13/05
brandon nemeth
overland park, KS

from flipping the channels trying to fall asleep, i found something that grabbed my full attention. this film should be shown to all teachers and to those with asperations of teaching too. being just out of high school, i know what is like when someone isn't having fun when they teach, and if "you aren't having fun, no one is", right? this film has definatly inspired me to become a better person with a young soul.

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1/13/05
Queens, NY

I watched your program about Albert Cullum TWICE. I am a little younger than the students profiled in the program but I literally cried at the end because I know the world would be a much better place with more innovative teachers like Mr. Cullum. When I was in the 4th grade I had a creative teacher who thought outside of the box and she clashed on a regular basis with some parents but mainly the administration. They wouldn't let her use her gifts to teach us in wonderfully inventive ways. Eventually she left because she wouldn't comply with their wishes to conform and return to the same old boring method of memorizing facts & figures. I fear with the emphasis on testing, we squelch any opportunity for teachers like Mr. Cullum to inspire the next generation and for that we all lose out.

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1/12/05
David Powell
Hendersonville, TN

Last night, my son and his girlfriend has just finished watching the reality series "The Biggest Loser" when they turned to our Nashville Public TV station and started watching "A Touch of Greatness" whereupon I joined them, and we all found ourselves captivated by this captivating program. I have been a teacher for 38 years and, in all modesty, have considered myself a pretty good high school English teacher, but suddenly I felt myself beginning to pale when compared to Albert's majestic teaching. His comments about American education are, whether we like it or not, right on the money. This film should be required viewing for every teacher training program in America if not for every current teacher. So many school districts have slogans about focusing on the child when, in fact, they focus on state-mandated compentency testing that now seem to validate their existence in the public eye. Albert Cullum took a risk and focused on the children, and, in doing so, was one of "America's Biggest Winners."

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1/12/05
jane
shirley ny

I had the misfortune of attending a private, catholic grade school. We had to look alike (uniforms) and any kind of talent or uniqeness you had was extinguished. I now wonder how different my life would have been if I had been encouraged to be myself.

I feel cheated out of my childhood.

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1/12/05
Regina McCarthy
New York, NY

As one looks around education today I think, where is the joy? I was inspired, renewed and reminded why I have chosen this noblest of professions when I saw this show on Albert Cullum. He was so on target in what he said about teacher preparation. I taught in the 'great reform' movement of Open Ed.back in the early 70's. It was our passion and joy for years...and they, the system, fought us all the way. Ironically, many of the things we did then are standard practice, and teachers are now being strong armed into using some of those methods??? What's wrong with this picture?

Yes, Yes, yes, we need to re-inspire those college kids we teach, they are dead in their souls!!! Life is joyful and an adventure in learning....and those that feel that way should teach. Unfortunately, standardardization and testing in schools today is deadening. I do however support standards, because they are guidelines for what is important...but they are just that, guidelines, not edicts as they are used in schools today.

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1/12/05
Susan
Cheshire,CT

It was interesting to me to read how many people had tears in their eyes as they watched A Touch of Greatness. I think it was because Albert Cullum allowed us to see what a simply beautiful thing learning can be. The love and joy that his students were experiencing shone through the television screen. Perhaps we were mourning a missed opportunity to experience our own greatness. Or one for our children to experience theirs. I wonder how many children of all backgrounds and possessing all kinds and levels of ability could be "saved" with a teacher like Mr. Cullum.

Thank you for a truly wonderful film.

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1/12/05
Ann Stanton
Montpelier, VT

I was inspired by both the film and others' comments. I teach in a "university without walls" situation, highly influenced by Dewey and I get to use an individualized creative approach with each adult student. It is a truly wonderful way to work. I can't imagine what it must be like to "teach to the test" and the other nonsense nowadays. My institution, Vermont College of Union Institute and University, has a teacher licensure program that follows Dewey's model and philosophy, for anyone who wants to follow up on these ideas.

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1/12/05
Sharleen Leahey
Somerville, New Jersey

After watching "A Touch of Greatnesss" I could not stop the tears flowing from my eyes. I have rarely been so touched by a documentary. I immediately called my daughter who just started teaching second grade in New York City. The most disturbing discovery she made was the removal of art and music from the new curriculum. I think every school administrator should see this program. We need to change direction and Albert Cullum's legacy should be a major signpost.

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1/12/05
Eileen Boland
Barton, Vermont

I am the director of after-school programs at seven rural schools in northeast Vermont. I was glued to the television last night - the film was beautiful - the man extraordinary.

In this age of rigid attention to skills and scores, I have been looking for a way to illustrate the potential of after-school programs to engage, excite, and liberate students. Sharing the film with our staff will provide that spark.

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1/12/05
Paul Seif
San Francisco, CA

As the last seconds of "A Touch of Greatness" pass before my eyes (eyes filled with tears of gratitude and mourning for Albert Cullum) I can hardly believe what I have just seen and I feel so lucky to have watched this documentary.

I am moved beyond telling and I feel like Albert has allowed me to share in the same expansion of experience and learning as his students decades ago. He has touched me deeply.

His spirit is completely the human spirit and his courage and natural passion, his willingness to love and hold his children sacred, sets a standard for all of us to honor.

In a cynical world, in our wealthy nation with almost twenty percent of its children living in poverty, Albert's legacy is simple- tap into your humanity, remember your youthful curiosity and act! If we truly cared about each other as Albert did his students we would indeed act boldly to improve our world.

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1/12/05
Cindy Noland
Austin, TX

The student of Albert's who grew up and became a teacher remarked that certain populations of students were being prepared to be fry-cooks. At the school where I taught 6th grade, I used to say they were being prepared for the jail down the street. Always in trouble for my classroom being loud and kids not being in their seats, facing the front and only listening, my school failed to certify me as an alternative teacher certification candidate. They considered teaching methods putting the children in charge of their learning to be failures. The focus there was on walking in straight, silent lines down the hall and passing those ever-present tests.

I've read that there is an ever-present tension in the fight for public school pedgogy between the creatives, who constitute 1/4 of the teaching population, and the traditionalists, who make up the other 3/4. It's amazing we accomplish as much as we do, considering the odds are always against us. Keep up the good fight, teachers, for the sake of our kids and the sake of our future.

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1/12/05
Eddie
Miami, Fl

That was the most beautifully inspirational thing I have ever seen.

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1/12/05
Jacqueline Ancess
New York, NY

This is the authentic no child left behind.

Oasis: The Genius of Albert Cullum

My latest email blast...

"I believe that education on the national level is a cancer of mediocrity."
-Albert Cullum

Independent Lens & ITVS did it again.

I have always rebelled against compulsory education the way I was exposed to it. In a nutshell, it's boring, lifeless and dull. I've seen the creativity of good kids slowly snuffed out of them, year by year until they've none of it left save for some remnant that lies dormant, like a recessive gene.

One of my favorite topics for table talk is education. I like to find out from others out of all the teachers in their life how many they felt really cared about the kids and went beyond the mundane. The average is usually around 3 at most.

I don't say this often, but this film was great - parts of it soared with inspiration.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/touchofgreatness

Also, kudos to PBS for consistently distributing this series, one of the few mass-distribution homes for cutting edge filmmaking.

A "New" Spin on Mass Media Conglomeration

check this out. newspapers are now jumping onto the citizen journalist bandwagon.

whoopee friggin' DOO.

newspapers are no different from any of the other mass media merchants in that they don't get it or they can't execute efficiently.

they don't get it - meaning, isn't the fact that this story is only appearing NOW, in 2006, proof enough??? mass media news simply can't seem to pry open their minds and look around at the paradigm shift occuring at this very moment in the music industry. they can't think, let alone see, analogically, therefore they can't draw lessons from it.

they can't execute efficiently - mass media, by definition, must carpet bomb on a large scale in order to cut operating expenses. (thus, the stereotypical centralized news source - a national desk - that farms out to its local channels.) this is one of the dynamics i talk about to indie filmmakers, that because big studios are over-concerned with mass market capture, the only approach that makes sense for indies is to target a niche market that's being ignored or under-served by the studios.

that last principle applies to any industry dominated by mega corporations.

anyway, this latest attempt to co-opt grassroots appeal is anything but new; after all, how long has "america's funniest home videos" been around???

-jp


Gannett To Change Its Papers' Approach

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 7, 2006; D01

Gannett Co., the nation's largest newspaper chain, is radically changing the way its papers gather and present news by incorporating elements of reader-created "citizen journalism," mining online community discussions for stories and creating Internet databases of calendar listings and other non-news utilities.

The McLean company has 90 newspapers, including USA Today, the nation's largest. Like all major newspaper firms, Gannett has watched circulation and advertising revenue slide over the past decade, as readers turn to television and the Internet for news and information.

Gannett is attempting to grab some of the Internet mojo of blogs, community e-mail groups and other ground-up news sources to bring back readers and fundamentally change the idea of what newspapers have been for more than a century. The attempt to involve readers in news-gathering is part of a larger plan that also calls for Gannett to merge its newspaper and online operations into single units to speed delivery of news and improve its offerings to advertisers.

At Gannett's Des Moines Register, for example, editor Carolyn Washburn has moved desks to re-organize her newsroom. She created a Data Desk to build reader-searchable databases on topics from restaurant listings to a recent mumps outbreak. Though USA Today will not undergo a similar overhaul, it has merged its newspaper and online staffs.

Gannett's ideas are shared by a growing number of people in the industry who believe that news organizations have driven away readers by becoming too imperial, too distant and not fast enough to respond to reader needs and desires.

While other newspapers, including The Washington Post, have aggressively expanded their online presence or merged it with their print newsrooms, Gannett's move is the industry's first wide-scale overhaul, in name and purpose.

"It's pretty big," said Michael Maness, Gannett's vice president of strategic planning. "It's a fairly fundamental restructuring of how we go about news and information on a daily basis."

The most intriguing aspect of Gannett's plan is the inclusion of non-journalists in the process, drawing on specific expertise that many journalists do not have. In a test at Gannett's newspaper in Fort Myers, Fla., the News-Press, from readers such as retired engineers, accountants and other experts was solicited to examine documents and determine why it cost so much to connect new homes to water and sewer lines. The newspaper compiled the data and wrote a number of reader-assisted articles. As a result, fees were cut and an official resigned. Maness called it a "pro-am," approach, referring to a golf tournament in which professionals play alongside amateurs.

"I am very impressed with the Fort Myers" experiment, said Jay Rosen, a New York University journalism professor. "If that becomes the direction at a lot of Gannett papers, we could learn a lot from that."

Elements of Gannett's plan are seen elsewhere.

Rosen recently founded the Web site NewAssignment.net, which bills itself as "an experiment in open-source reporting" and is being partly funded by the Reuters news agency. Another Web site, NowPublic.com, claims of 31,000 citizen reporters in 130 countries who post news, photos and video to the site. NowPublic reporters were active in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

Gannett has been testing its new system at a few of its newspapers since July. Now, all of the company's newspapers are being urged to make the transition quickly.

Changes began with newsroom labels. Newsrooms divide coverage by traditional topics, such as national, foreign, local, features and sports.

Gannett's plan renames the newsroom an "Information Center" and divides it into seven areas: public service, digital, data, community conversation, local, custom content and multimedia. In a memo to employees Thursday, Gannett Chairman Craig Dubow said the company's news will be "platform agnostic," meaning it will be delivered however the reader desires -- on paper, on the Web, on a mobile device and so on.

Faced with declining average daily circulation since 1987, newspapers have been struggling to reinvent themselves and stay relevant. Before the Internet, many newspapers tried to look brighter and less staid, following the lead of USA Today, as a flurry of redesigns swept the industry. More newspapers began using color photographs, colored boxes and other design devices, and articles became shorter. Circulation did not improve. Now, newspapers look to the Internet.

Gannett's stock peaked in spring 2004 at more than $90 a share, but steadily declined to $52 a share during the summer. The stock has been rising since, closing yesterday at $58.77 a share, up 75 cents.