The endangered culture of books, truth-based journalism and public broadcasting burned brightly Wednesday night as a rainstorm rumbled outside in Midtown Atlanta. In a warm homecoming event at the Atlanta History Center’s Margaret Mitchell House, ...
‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

 

Author Steve Oney enthralls admirers of “ On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR” and more...

Author Steve Oney enthralls admirers of “ On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR”

The endangered culture of books, truth-based journalism and public broadcasting burned brightly Wednesday night as a rainstorm rumbled outside in Midtown Atlanta.

In a warm homecoming event at the Atlanta History Center’s Margaret Mitchell House, author Steve Oney captivated a full audience gathered in appreciation of his comprehensive history of National Public Radio, “ On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR.”

The Georgia native in a conversation with esteemed TV anchorman John Pruitt discussed his challenges in writing the book and told engaging stories about famed NPR journalists. 

Oney in the centerpiece of the evening recalled one of the book’s most compelling chapters, the poignant career of the late Anne Garrels, NPR’s heroic Iraq War reporter who left the network after a psychological breakdown.

A longtime writer for Los Angeles Magazine, the University of Georgia Grady School of Journalism graduate began his career writing for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Sunday magazine.

He’s the author of “And the Dead Shall Rise,” the definitive account of the Leo Frank lynching case.

Old friends, former journalistic colleagues and admirers greeted Oney to the renovated apartment where Mitchell wrote “Gone With the Wind.”

As Oney noted, she also wrote for the then Atlanta Journal Sunday magazine, no longer published.

Oney in decrying GOP plans to end funding for NPR said he believes the radio network makes Americans less lonely.

Members of his audience felt that way as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas Friedman unveils how Trump bill a win for China on energy

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman is reaching new heights in exposing the second Trump administration’s disastrous policies.

In a column published Tuesday, Friedman thoroughly analyzes how Trump’s monstrous spending legislation will place China ahead of the United States in renewable energy production.

Trump’s act will cripple the development of wind and solar energy, which has made significant gains in this country in recent years, Friedman said, and encourage the use of coal and natural gas, leading to further climate change devastation.

China is boosting renewable energy and electric vehicle production, Friedman said.

The legislation’s dismantling of the U.S. renewable energy industry has received less attention than major cuts to Medicaid, tax giveaways to billionaires and huge funding increases to imprison and deport mostly law-abiding immigrants.

Friedman persuasively argues that the legislation also gives China control over the world’s energy future.

      
 

Ringo Starr on 85th birthday seeks outpouring of peace and love

Ringo Starr for his 85th birthday Monday asks his millions of fans to send messages of peace and love at noon.

Continuing his amazing post-Beatles superstardom, Starr rocks on, making records and performing before huge audiences. 

While his drumming set the foundation for the Beatles’ sound, Starr largely left the songwriting and singing to John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison.

In the years since the group’s breakup and the deaths of Lennon and Harrison, Starr has received rising acclaim as a solo artist, with a number of hit records and popular tours.

He’s emulated the success of his fellow Beatles survivor McCartney, the group’s main creative force along with Lennon, killed by a deranged fan in 1980.

Each birthday, Starr invites his followers to give offerings of peace and love to the universe, by thoughts, social media messages, prayers or private writings.

As his Beatles mate Lennon sang in his song “Imagine,” skeptics might think Starr a dreamer.

Yet millions imagining peace and love together might make a positive difference for the world. 

 

 

 

 

 

Independence Day renews faith in America

Halfway to Christmas, Independence Day is also packed with memories.

Fireworks displays in different cities. Cookouts. Parades big and small. Reading the Declaration of Independence each year.

I’ve spent the Fourth with family and friends, many of them gone. Once again, I’ll remember them.

A beautiful red rose on my kitchen counter will brighten my holiday.

The flower was given to me by a young cashier at a neighborhood supermarket, one of several acts of kindness this week that buoyed my faith in America.

      
 

Trump police state advances with Alligator Alcatrez

Sickening that an American president exults over a concentration camp that will cage human beings in a scorching swamp.

The leering Trump visited his beloved Alligator Alcatrez in Florida’s Everglades on Tuesday along with the abhorrent Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis.

While crippling education and social services in Florida, DeSantis rapidly built the prison in the environmentally fragile Everglades.

Trump, who relentlessly insulted DeSantis when they were presidential campaign opponents, praised the obsequious governor for throwing together the ramshackle prison that will hold up to 5,000 immigrants rounded up by Noem’s masked ICE agents.

Prison funding will be covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

After FEMA budget cuts, hurricane-susceptible Florida might find federal disaster relief money less available than dollars for Alligator Alcatrez.

The monstrous Trump bill passed by the Senate this week in a disgusting charade of GOP cynicism slashes Medicaid yet awards billions to Trump’s vendetta to arrest and deport millions of immigrants.

A web of prisons will rise across the nation, Trump promised. 

That sounds like Hitler’s network of concentration camps.