Jerry Waxman, Author at Waxman Files

Marian McPartland (A Remembrance)

August 22, 2013 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

By Jerry Waxman

I heard the news this morning on the radio (NPR, of course) while driving to one of our field trips and it hit me hard. I couldn’t think about it much during working hours but when I got home I couldn’t think of anything else. I knew it was going to happen but it doesn’t prepare you for when it actually does happen. She was 95 and yet it suddenly doesn’t seem to be that old anymore, because to me Marian McPartland and her contemporaries ( Dave Brubeck, George Shearing, Billy Taylor and scores of others) are ageless. She and they have left us a musical and creative legacy beyond compare that will transcend generations. Her abilities as a player, composer and radio host are the stuff of legend.

She made her living in a business that was tough on men and even tougher on women. She did have the benefit to marry Cornetist Jimmy McPartland which opened some but not many doors for her. He was stuck in Dixieland and she was more oriented towards the emerging bebop expressions. Her contemporaries then included Mary Lou Williams and Hazel Scott. She learned her lessons well, started her own trio and for seven years practiced her craft at the Hickory House. Her career spanned seven decades of modern music and she filled every decade with something special. The last time I saw her live was in Fort Lauderdale in concert almost twenty years ago. The first time I saw her was in New York in a small club in 1960. I was eighteen and could drink legally. It was a real treat to drive the ninety miles from Philly to New York and go club hopping in those days and my buddies and I did it frequently.

Prior to the CD and MP3 revolutions, one of the pleasures of driving through rural areas (especially in the South) was not being forced to listen to the commercial stations. There was always NPR. I discovered her program, Piano Jazz, in 1979 on a family vacation to Florida and was hooked ever since. It was bound to happen because my dial was and still is always set to the extreme low end of the FM band which is where all of the real good stuff is. She always had remarkable guests and one of her greatest assets was her ability to not overshadow them and let them shine. She always played the straight man to the guest and the conversations were remarkable. Piano Jazz was the longest running cultural program ever on PBS, now in its thirty fifth year. She actually retired from the program in 2011 but it still goes on, and programs that originally aired in the 80’s don’t seem dated at all.

Her guests spanned the history of modern music and included famous musicians other than piano players as well as singers. Some of her more interesting guests included Willie Nelson, Elvis Costello and Boz Skaggs and those programs were equally entertaining as the ones with famous piano players. Some of her programs stayed with you. I remember Bill Evans giving a piano lesson on air on playing around the melody as though Marian were his student. I also remember Michael Feinstein talking about How Ira Gershwin detested what both Bunny Berrigan and Frank Sinatra did with his lyrics to I Can’t Get Started. Ira was very particular about how his songs were sung, which I found interesting, because his brother George marveled at his music being improvised. One program featuring MJQ co-founder John Lewis featured a duet on Lewis’s composition Afternoon in Paris which has a non-traditional chord change that she screwed up and you can actually hear it. She recovered well and the conversation afterwards featured Lewis explaining the change. It’s embarrassing because it’s the same kind of change that Thelonius Monk used in Round Midnight and Randy Weston used in High Fly. Oh well, that’s the beauty of one take live performance.

RIP Marian McPartland. Thank you for the countless hours of pleasure you gave us over the years. Thank you for your devotion to the arts and for your constant desire to keep the music relevant. Thank you for being (like me) a devotee of Alec Wilder who wrote this beautiful song: While We’re Young

Central Florida Unions Say No to the TPP

August 19, 2013 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

By Jerry Waxman

Remember that old 1956 movie, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where the giant seed pods were replacing real people with non human things that looked like people as they slept? Remember Kevin McCarthy’s frantic warning (“They’re here already! You’re next!”) as he bounced about in traffic? That movie was a thinly veiled warning against communism which was a very popular sentiment during the McCarthy (no pun intended) years. No need to be alarmed. Communism would never take hold here because we were a free people, free to choose how we lived…….or so we thought. More rightly, the movie has become prophetic because if we substituted the words “Multinational Corporatism” it doesn’t sound so horrible but it accomplishes the same goals. Guess what? Communism was never the enemy; totalitarianism was. We are about to experience totalitarianism of a different kind, a totalitarianism so absolute that even our government, at all levels, will be powerless to stop it. It’s called the Trans Pacific Partnership or TPP and our government wants us to be a part of it.

We’ve been asleep as a nation since Ronald Reagan’s election as president. That was the beginning of trickle down economics, union bashing, privatization and the consolidation of corporate power on a global basis. The economic elites see the billions of our tax dollars pumped into our highways, schools and other government services and they think to themselves that they need a piece of the action. Governments don’t make anything; they contract it out to builders, auto manufacturers, furniture manufacturers, clothing manufacturers, etc. Private industry already supplies the government with everything it needs but these people want more and our elected officials are willing to let them have it because we haven’t been holding them accountable. President Obama even alluded in his State of the Union speech to fast tracking the US efforts to join the TPP. Fast tracking is a method of escaping accountability in the US congress. The method failed on NAFTA during George H. W. Bush’s administration and NAFTA had to have a full hearing during the Clinton administration. The lessons learned from NAFTA and other free trade agreements should steer this country clear of any of those agreements in the future. I’ve written previously on the TPP in two articles, The Enemy Beneath, and You Have been Granted a Rare Privilege, the former about the dangers of the TPP and the latter about a forum in which Congressman Alan Grayson as well as other leaders spoke out. There’s no need to cover it again.

Jim Howe is a man on a mission. I first met him almost two years ago when he moved here from Midland Texas, where he was an activist, at about the same time that Occupy Orlando was starting up. He is a member of the Communications Workers of America local 3108 and his politics are decidedly progressive. He is active in the local Green Party and through his influence and efforts I got to spend a lot of time with the Green Party 2012 candidate for president, Jill Stein, who had a profound effect on me. Jim is a political activist first class and his mission these past 10 months has been to rally union and political opposition to the TPP. His efforts are starting to pay off.

At the recent AFL-CIO Central Labor Council meeting on August 14, during a hotly contested officers election meeting, Jim was able to get everyone to agree to sign on to an opposition resolution showing Central Florida labor’s stance on the TPP, prior to the elections. He also is active in Floridians Against the TPP and works closely with Public Citizen and the Citizens Trade Campaign. The Citizens Trade Campaign has crafted a letter to Congress with support from numerous groups to stop the fast tracking and the TPP itself. The letter itself hasn’t been updated since March, but Central Florida Labor was signatory to it even then.

Although it is not written about by the mainstream press in a large way there are several articles and actions popping up if you care to look for them. Most recently progressive blogger, Jim Hightower, wrote extensively and expressively on the subject. The one question we all ask ourselves is why the secrecy? How come there’s no real outrage? Are we so used to being ignored and abused by our leaders and corporations that we just meekly accept whatever crumbs we receive? Not where Central Florida Labor is concerned. With men like Jim Howe taking leading roles in keeping up the opposition this battle is far from being over. Howe wants everyone to know that the next planning meeting for action against the TPP will be held on Thursday, August 22 at 6:30 pm at CWA union hall, 2220 Edgewater Drive in Orlando. Be there, because if you’re not “you’re next!”

Six Not So Angry Women

August 3, 2013 by Jerry Waxman 1 Comment

By Jerry Waxman

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts……”

As You Like it by William Shakespeare

Prologue

I’m often fascinated by the way life imitates art, or how art reflects life in many ways. Shakespeare’s brilliant discourse on the seven ages of man and our pre-ordained existence is quite apropos to what has been happening in Florida as relates to the George Zimmerman trial. Let’s think in terms of how this whole experience would make a good (or bad) play and let’s call it The Death of Trayvon Martin.

Act I

Scene 1

At rise the stage is dark. The sounds of a struggle can be heard and then a gunshot goes off. Lights go up to reveal George Zimmerman holding a gun and Trayvon Martin’s lifeless body on the ground. Blackout.

Scene 2

This is the exposition scene. What we hear are disembodied voices screaming for an investigation until two characters appear on stage. These two members of the press will introduce all players in the drama and all timelines through their conversations until the March rally. Blackout

Act II

Scene 1

The Rally. All speakers including Sanford’s Mayor and Congresswoman Corrine Brown who came to his defense when the crowd turned ugly.

Scene 2

The Town Hall meeting in Sanford the following Monday

Act III

Scene 1

Events leading up to Zimmerman being charged with Second Degree Murder.

Scene 2

Again the press providing internet chatter from both Zimmerman and Martin supporters, complete with wild conspiracy rumors, racism comments, character assassinations and speculations leading up to the trial.

INTERMISSION

Act IV

Scene1

Jury selection

Scene 2

The prosecution

Scene 3

The Defense

Scene 4

Closing arguments

Act V

Judges charges, deliberations and verdict.

Basically this is just an outline. We can certainly judiciously edit the script down to perhaps three or even two very long acts, just using some pertinent dialog and edited speeches during the trial phase. Jury deliberations are another matter because there’s no archive of them, but the most important parts of this drama are the jury selection process and the judge’s charging of the jury. Why do I feel this way? That’s simple; the trial was a manipulated process weighted in favor of the defendant. This is not peculiar to this case. It’s just the way the self defense laws are written, exacerbated by the fact that any hard evidence in this case is weak. There were no reliable eyewitnesses that could actually point fingers, nor was there any forensic evidence that showed exactly what transpired. Only three things are indisputable: George Zimmerman carried a gun and got out of his car when advised not to and Trayvon Martin was walking home in the rain so he put his hood up. Since the judge disallowed lots of background evidence on both individuals there’s no way of knowing how the jury would have reacted. The judge and the prosecution both were determined not to make this trial about race, which is almost impossible, yet the defense constantly fed into their fears in summation.

The special Prosecutor, Angela Corey, is also to blame for overcharging Zimmerman. Even though many feel this was a racially motivated incident there was no hard evidence that could prove it and she knew that. She had just sent Marissa Alexander to jail for 20 years for firing a warning shot to keep her husband from beating her. Many experienced Jacksonville lawyers said that the case should never have been prosecuted. Corey also overstepped her bounds by overcharging Zimmerman with Second degree murder. No wonder Rick Scott appointed her; she was the perfect person to weight the trial in favor of the defense. All the state wanted to do is get this mess out of the way and none of Trayvon’s supporters could criticize her for doing exactly what they wanted her to do.

Since this is supposed to be a play, let’s look at the reactions. During the trial itself there were several witnesses whose testimony was at best vague. Compare that with the movie and later a play, Rashomon, which tells the story of three different very clear eyewitness versions of a murder as well as the victim’s version told through a medium. None of the testimony matches up with any of the others and all different stories are told from personal perspective. Basically, everyone’s testimony is given in their own self interest regardless of what is true. The crucible of the courtroom is the ultimate drama, but only if the evidence is so overwhelming or revealing that the jury cannot ignore it. The real drama here is in the jury’s deliberations and how they arrived at their decision. The best example of this is Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men which was first presented as a live TV drama in 1954 on CBS’s Studio One. Henry Fonda was so impressed with it that it was rewritten as a screenplay in 1957 that starred Fonda. It was also rewritten as a play in 1964.

It’s a pretty accurate description of how jury dynamics can work. In the original versions race does play a part in the deliberations as the defendant was described as Puerto Rican and referred to as “Those People”. Upon seeing the movie again a few weeks ago my reaction to the eyewitness testimony by an elderly white man that the defendant threatened the victim was imagined more than real because in the mid fifties that conversation would not have been in English. This jury was all white men and all native born save one European immigrant. Later versions would include mixed races including Ossie Davis, Dorian Harewood, Edward James Olmos and others, However, I digress. The jury deliberations bring out the attitudes and prejudices of all the members and how they react to new revelations until the final verdict.

One pivotal point in the movie involves Juror #8 (Henry Fonda). Juror #8, who was the lone not guilty voter, is discussing the murder weapon and showing that knives of that kind could be purchased anywhere. The script doesn’t reflect that part of the judge’s instructions to the jury is “not to play detective” and stick to the facts as presented. I’ve served on juries and have been told by the judges not to visit the crime scene or look for my own clues, so that struck me as odd, but it is critical to the outcome of the verdict because several jurors were led to believe that only the defendant had a knife like that. I also agree that a juror should be a detective as much as possible if they are truly seeking justice. Through steady logic Juror #8 convinces several others that there is reasonable doubt (especially for first degree murder). Eventually, Juror #8 and the converted jurors start convincing the others that their preconceived biases are standing in the way of a just verdict. The result, of course was not guilty.

According to reports on the Zimmerman jury the original vote was three for acquittal, two for manslaughter and one for second degree murder. But let’s look at the jury. Five white women and one of mixed blood hardly consists of a proper jury of one’s peers but under Florida law anything less than a capital case allows it, and the defense took full advantage of that fact. Perhaps one African American male on that jury might have made a difference but the defense never would have gone along with it and it never looked like the prosecution even cared. In summation, Mark O’Mara asked the jury to use their common sense and NOT connect the dots and they bought into it. It seems proper that people with common sense would connect the dots in seeking a just verdict. It was a setup for his pursuit of selling them the fear of the other. Let’s call it discrimination rather than racism because in Zimmerman’s mind Martin did not look like he belonged in that neighborhood. Juror #B37 bought into the scenario as did two others. Juror #B29, the lone non white did not.

During deliberations she was persuaded finally to vote unanimous for acquittal for the most part based on the judge’s instructions. That’s an absolute cop out. She should have hung the jury. If her heart tells her he’s guilty then she should have stood by her guns (no pun intended) no matter what the judge said. It’s not a crime and she can’t be prosecuted for it and she could have thrown the whole mess back to the state, which is where the mess deserves to be. If Zimmerman had been convicted on any charge he would automatically appeal the decision anyway, but at least for the time being he would not be free to come and go. Had that happened perhaps a more representative jury would be deciding Zimmerman’s fate in the future.

Epilogue

We all watched this drama unfold. Some of us watched all five acts and some of us only watched parts of the trial on the periphery. All of us have opinions based on what we either know or believe. Was the verdict just? Was the trial fair? Do society’s discriminatory attitudes play a part in this? If you think things are wrong how do we go about fixing them? A.R. Gurney, in his brilliant satire, The Fourth Wall states that plays don’t change the world. Well, don’t you believe it. Shakespeare, Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw and a host of others have been changing the world, in tiny increments since the dawn of drama. Plays arouse our curiosity. They are not intended to provide answers; they are intended to raise questions. The answers have to come from us.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare Act IV, Scene 1

The Time Is Now

July 30, 2013 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

By Jerry Waxman

The Time is now, and not tomorrow, to find that we can cure our sorrows…….

The Time is Now© by Jerry Waxman 1960

It’s the first line of a song I wrote 53 years ago on the death of Billie Holiday. I never finished the lyric. Perhaps someday I will. What’s that got to do with the subject matter at hand? Very little, but it is the right title, and while we’re on the subject it has a lot to do with what’s going on in our country. Billie Holiday’s untimely demise was the result of her lifestyle, true enough, but the establishment’s treatment of her had as much to do with her dying as it did with Trayvon Martin’s death, as well as the plight of Walmart and all minimum wage employees being considered interchangeable and throw away people.

Recently in Orange County Organize Now sponsored a petition drive to get paid sick time on the ballot, which was successfully quashed by unscrupulous maneuverings in County Commission chambers with a lot of help by the Chamber of Commerce. The State of Florida got into the act by passing a law preempting local government control of the issue and was signed by the governor, whose name makes me too nauseated to mention. Item in last week’s news: Measles discovered in Orange Co visitor from UK. What restaurants or tourist attractions did this person visit? Did your food server serve this person? Lots of questions; few answers. But wait! There is someone on the scene who wants to do something about it, and he wants to do it now.

Monday evening, July 29 at 6:00 PM Congressman Alan Grayson (D Fla. 9th Congressional District) held a packed town hall meeting at Barry University School of law, where the crowd was well over 200 people and not an empty seat in the room. The overall subject was workers rights. In his discussion of the minimum wage he wanted it raised to at least $10.50 an hour from its current $7.25 per hour. “I want America to be number one not just in military spending, not just number one in the number of people incarcerated, but number one in wages, number one in benefits and number one in a strong middle class” said Grayson, and he backed up his statements with facts and figures that show that businesses would not suffer, as well as the economy would actually improve. Citing a history of the minimum wage, Grayson proved that the age old argument of lost profits is bunk, pure bunk. He was backed up in his statements by Political economics professor Jeannette Wicks-Lim of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Dr. Wicks-Lim showed through graphs and charts the impact of the minimum wage dating back several decades. Here’s the video of his speech.

Grayson, in a humorous moment of self deprecation played up the story that Salon.com has named him the most effective member of Congress, citing that he has had more amendments passed (5 out of 20) than any other member on either side of the aisle. This is not the bombastic and outrageous Alan Grayson 1.0 of 2008. This new Alan Grayson 2.0 is almost statesmanlike in the way he talks and deals with people, and he has managed to find allies across the aisle who have helped him get his amendments passed. Nor does he just follow the party line; he is fiercely independent He has written the White House of his intentions to vote against any bill which would cut Social Security and Medicare and under no circumstances would he support chained CPI. He also defied the White House in demanding to see the documents on the Trans Pacific Partnership, which the White House supports and wants to fast track. The public Alan Grayson is getting close to the real Alan Grayson which was not the case four years ago. Yes, he is wealthy and it is no crime. He took a phone business public and profited by it. Something his opponents advocate yet resent him for. His parents were teachers at a time when teachers were not well paid, so he knows the plight of the middle and lower classes and he has the fortitude to stand up for them.

Other themes that Grayson touched on were the Walmart firings of employees who stood up for their rights and paid vacation days. Two of the fired Walmart employees, Lisa Lopez and Vanessa Ferreira both spoke on their actions and firings. Grayson also noted that among all of the industrialized countries of the world the US was dead last in vacation days. Noting that countries like Germany who has one of the best economies in the world not only pays much higher wages than we do, but also gives almost a whole month of paid vacation days. Grayson also noted that, by law, big corporations in Germany must have at least two workers on their boards of directors.

During the question and answer period Grayson took and addressed questions on Florida’s failure to adopt the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicaid. He also took questions relating to the County Commission paid sick leave fiasco, wage theft and his refusal to allow privatization of TSA security personnel at Orlando’s airport. here’s the complete video of the Q & A. Considering the evolution of Alan Grayson from 2008 through now, I can’t wait for Alan Grayson 3.0 to be introduced.

It’s Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature

June 11, 2013 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

It’s Alive!! It’s Alive!!!!!!

By Jerry Waxman

Science does have its drawbacks. One of them is how we view scientists themselves. For several generations, because of science fiction stories, comic books and popular movies there is a perception out there of the “Mad Scientist” such as The Invisible Man, or Captain Marvel’s evil Dr. Sivana, or whatever evil scientists is working for Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon, or any one of hundreds of misguided souls in fiction. We have to admit it is fun watching good vs. evil play out. One of the best sci-fi movies in the 50’s, Them!, dealt with giant ants that were exposed to atomic radiation as a result of atomic testing in the American Southwest. Since the scientists working on the Manhattan Project were only dealing with the immediate needs of WWII, there was no research dealing with the long term effects of radiation. Let’s face it though, there’s nothing mad about science. To deny that technology as a result of scientific research has benefitted us beyond even our founding fathers’ expectations is willful ignorance beyond belief, or just plain stupid.

Scientists by their very nature are looking for ways to improve our lives by coming up with labor saving devices or life saving medications since Ben Franklin experimented with lightning and Isaac Newton and Galileo explained their theories of gravity and the universe, or Louis Pasteur defying the medical wisdom of his day. Scientists do not start out to do evil. How they end up doing so has more to do with human nature than science. Science is only a tool to be used. Unfortunately it has also been usurped by the greed factor in human nature, and it is the one thing about humans that has not changed in the thousands of years we’ve been on the planet.

When John Francis Queeny founded Monsanto in 1901 doing harm was the farthest thing from his mind. He had been in the pharmaceutical industry for three decades and his father in law, Emmanuel Mendes de Monsanto, was a wealthy investor in the Caribbean sugar industry. The result of his first product was the sugar substitute, saccharine. Over the years Monsanto went through a metamorphosis dealing in industrial chemicals, but also pesticides like DDT, which when introduced was looked at as a miracle for farmers. It took generations for the long term harmful effects of DDT to show up resulting in the pesticide being banned in the USA in 1972.

Over the years Monsanto, as a result of both mergers and acquisitions grew and changed its product lines, again, not with evil in mind, and there were some definite winners- L-dopa, a new process for acetic acid, Astroturf and light emitting diodes. There were also those that did as much damage as they did good, Agent Orange being one such product. The analogy about The Manhattan Project is apropos because Charles Allen Thomas, President of Monsanto from 1951-1960, and Chairman of the Board from 1960-1965 was asked by Gen. Leslie Groves to co-direct the project with Robert Oppenheimer. Thomas refused, however he did conduct research on the project from his Monsanto laboratory and did contribute to the making of the atomic bomb. It took several years before the law of unintended consequences caught up with atomic research and the arguments about its good vs. bad are still going on. So it is with Monsanto.

During the decade of the 80’s the Monsanto started selling off its chemical and pharmaceutical businesses and got into biotech research, which had a different business model developed by Genentech. Under this model the biotech company invests heavily in research and development in order to attain biological patents on its products. The investments are recouped through rigid monitoring and enforcement of those who use the patented product. Monsanto elevated this to an art form, especially when you consider that the company either owns or controls most of the crop seed production in the world, and it has been patenting its GMO seeds now for over twenty years. It also produces the herbicide Roundup, which allows farmers to grow more crops in the same space. This is where the current controversy begins.

As a company that does agricultural R&D it has every right to come up with new products which benefit farmers and by extension, us. We, in fact encourage such endeavor. If that research, however, has not looked at the long term effects of product use then that’s a mistake that has to be corrected. It seems, just as in The Manhattan Project, that too many companies, in order to maximize profits, rush products to market without fully testing or disclosing the harmful effects of their products. There’s a reason why the pharmaceutical industry has to disclose lots of information in their advertising about the risks of taking their drugs. There’s no such restriction on Monsanto or any of the food brands that use their GMO seed products. Why? Because Monsanto lobbies very heavily to keep it that way. Monsanto also has the clout to keep reports detrimental to their claims from being published. It doesn’t make sense that all of these food companies who have to label their ingredients with percentages of fats, salt sugar and other things that consumers need to know aren’t willing to add a statement about GMO content in their labeling. It seems that when you’re playing around with nature and creating in essence Frankenfood we should have some say in the matter of whether we should be buying it or not. It should be our choice. Otherwise it creates suspicion and distrust and we don’t need any more of that than we already have.

Dr. Lynn Unruh lecturing on GMO foods

On Saturday, June 8 the First Unitarian Church of Orlando, sponsored by the Florida School of Holistic Living and the Homegrown Local Food Cooperative and the church’s Green Team hosted a lecture, Genetically Modified Foods: From Frankenfoods to Frankenpeople? The lecturer was given by Dr. Lynn Unruh, PhD, a professor of Health Management and Informatics at UCF. Dr. Unruh is also a registered nurse. Through film and a slide presentation, Dr. Unruh discussed the extent of genetically modified food in the American diet, and what is thought to be a risk to human health and future food production. She also discussed policies to curb the presence of genetically modified organisms in our food, such as legislating mandatory labeling of GMO in the state of Florida as well as elsewhere. After discussing the types of plants that have been genetically modified Dr. Unruh held up supermarket products that contain these plants. She also discussed how all the research that supports Monsanto’s position is funded by groups, such as the Hoover Institute that are sympathetic to them. Opposing research is either blocked or ignored by both regulating agencies and food manufacturers. Dr. Unruh then presented a video that interviewed scientists, doctors and farmers who believe that GMO products are a likely contributor to human or animal illnesses.The far reaching effects of Monsanto’s products are also believed to have contributed to crop failures in certain kinds of cotton which bankrupted many farmers, especially in India, and caused many of them to commit suicide. There is also some evidence with many of the chemicals used in Roundup, which are getting into the food supply and into the ground water. This could cause huge environmental problems in the future, and no official agency appears to be involved in figuring things out. The group was especially interested in the campaign for mandatory labeling One of the groups mentioned was Food and Water Watch Here’s the link to their website.

On the consumer end it’s just not that easy to buy non GMO food at your local supermarket. Here’s a partial list of the brands that are regularly using Monsanto products: Aunt Jemima, Aurora Foods, Banquet, Best Foods, Betty Crocker, Bisquick, Cadbury, Campbells, Capri Sun, Carnation, Chef Boyardee, CocaCola, ConAgra, Delicious Brand Cookies, Duncan Hines, Famous Amos, Frito Lay, General Mills, Green Giant, Healthy Choice, Heinz, Hellman’s Hershey’s Nestle, Holsum, Hormel, Hungry Jack, Hunt’s, Interstate Bakeries, Jiffy, K.C. Masterpiece, Keebler/Flowers Industries, Kellogg’s, Kid Cuisine, Knorr, Kool Aid, Kraft/Phillip Morris, Lean Cuisine, Lipton, Loma Linda, Marie Callender, Minute Maid, Morningstar, Mrs. Butterworth, Nabisco, Nature Valley, Ocean Spray, Ore-Ida, Orville Redenbacher , Pasta-Roni, Pepperidge Farms, Pepsi, Pillsbury, Pop Secret, Post Cereals, Power Bar Brand, Prego, Pringles, Procter & Gamble, Quaker, Ragu, Rice-a-Roni, Smart Ones, Stauffers, Schweppes, Tombstone Pizza, Tostinos, Uncle Ben’s, Unilever, V-8.

It is especially disturbing since Unilever is not an American owned company but it owns iconic Brands like Ben & Jerry’s, Breyer’s, Lipton, Hellman’s, Ragu, Knorr, Klondike, Good Humor and Promise among others. These are just the products that have been in the spotlight. Who knows what other brands are involved. Supermarkets are also selling their own brands, and yet we don’t know who is supplying them. What’s worse is that the cooking oils on the shelves, especially those made from soybeans, are not represented on this list, but the owners of those brands, Con Agra Procter & Gamble and others are. The J.M. Smucker company does not appear on the list yet some of their brands do including Pillsbury and Hungry Jack. Crisco is also a Smucker brand. The bottle of Crisco oil in our pantry says that it was made 100% from soybeans. According to Wikipedia, Smucker was a heavy contributor in 2012 to a $46 million dollar political campaign known as “The Coalition Against The Costly Food Labeling Proposition, sponsored by Farmers and Food Producers”. So, what’s up with that? If it’s Smucker’s isn’t it supposed to be good? How do we know if we don’t know what’s in it?

Are we talking evil here? No, we’re not. We’re talking corporate mindset, which protects overhead, inventory and profits over people. Even if they’re wrong in their thinking they’ll protect their profits first, and let’s face it, they buy the best legislators they can for insurance. The law of unintended consequences will produce adverse results in due time. Remember that scene in The Bridge over the River Kwai where Alec Guinness has his “Oh My God, What Have I Done” moment? Perhaps it will happen in corporate America. After all, Victor Frankenstein didn’t intend to create a killer.

Chasing Jill Stein

June 6, 2013 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

By Jerry Waxman

Sometimes fate can fall into your lap when you least expect it. During the presidential campaign season I not only advocate for various causes, but I tutor and manage progressive candidates for low level elective office from Circuit Judge to Soil and Water and City or County Commission seats. I knew of Jill Stein only casually when she was nominated by the Green Party thinking to myself “Oh well, another name on the ballot,” but she really piqued my interest when she and her running mate, Cheri Honkala, were arrested for disturbing the peace at Hofstra University protesting the presidential debates on Oct.16. Two more arrests happened in quick succession during the heart of the campaign. She was again arrested in Texas on Oct. 31 for trespassing while bringing food to the Keystone XL pipeline protesters. She and Honkala were arrested again on August 1 in Philadelphia during a sit-in protesting Fannie Mae foreclosure policies. Crazy, said I. In the heat of the election, where she needs every vote she can get she goes out and gets arrested three times! I wish every candidate had that kind of courage. Images of Eugene V. Debs crossed my mind. Stein is a natural successor to Ralph Nader and her thought processes are very much in line with his, without the hard edges. With all due deference and respect to Nader, he could be hard to take. Stein has plenty of charm and charisma and when you are in her company she makes you feel special. What she lacks are people who will vote for her and her Green Party.

A little more than two months ago Jim Howe, a labor and Green Party activist whom I met during Occupy Orlando asked me to cover the Anti TPP rally in Tampa which I did and I wrote an article on it called The Enemy Beneath. There was also another planned rally in Orlando in May. During this period of time Howe asked me if I would like to meet and interview Jill Stein, who would be at the Florida Green Party conference May 25, 26 & 27. I immediately answered “Of course I would!” So, I started reading up on Jill Stein’s history from every resource I could find. Most of what I found is readily available on line and I needn’t go into it, other than the fact that a life threatening condition changed her into a nonpareil activist, and eventually caused her to run for elective office. In the interview she describes that incident in an almost hilarious way. After doing the research I had a pretty good idea what she was about but there were some gaps that I wanted filled so I was really looking forward to it. Howe informed me that I was scheduled for a full hour at 9:00 A.M. Saturday morning. I thought that was terrific; I could drive over Friday evening, get the interview and get out of Tampa early.

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft agley”—Robert Burns

There was a Green Party get together in a coffee house Friday night where the main speaker was talking about the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to it because I spotted my friend Billy from Occupy Tampa who traveled to DC with me in December 2011 and got arrested on the Supreme Court steps. I spotted Jill Stein across the room and eventually made my way to her, but not before I had made a comment on a question to the speaker about the impact that the J Street lobbyists are beginning to have. When Jill and I finally met she thanked me for my J Street comments. I told her that I was looking forward to the interview in the morning. Unfazed, she asked me “What interview?” It seems that everyone who arranged the interview neglected to inform her about it. After conferring with the Green Party Coordinator, Friedmann Buschbeck, who was her official escort for the event, we agreed that the interview would take place a little later in the day, and we may not get a full hour.

That meant that I had to alter my schedule. I had to attend the conference, which I did and at the same time I could record Jill’s remarks to the attendees, do the interview and perhaps get to see a friend, Bill Bucolo, in St. Pete who is heading up a statewide environmental caucus for the Democratic Party. No such luck! She didn’t show up until 11:00 and went right into her hour long presentation. I did make a lunch date with Bill in St. Pete because Friedmann and I agreed that we would do the interview after the March against Monsanto, around 4:00. Here are the three videos of her presentation. Here also is another video of Jill at the March Against Monsanto.

During lunch Friedmann called to say there was a change in plans and that they would be coming to St. Petersburg to give a talk at the History Museum at 7:00. So, there I was stuck for a few hours and I’d have to wait until the speech was over. After a full day of events and speechifying I’m wondering if she’ll be in any condition to do the interview. When she finally arrived she looked as fresh and perky as she had in the morning and I was just hoping she’d be in the mood after the event.

Friedmann and I agreed that the interview would take place as soon as the program was over. There were a few other speakers before her, and by this time a capacity crowd had assembled, including another friend, Jay D. Alexander, who occupied Washington D.C. with me. Jay ran unopposed for local office and is now an elected official in St. Petersburg. Jill’s speech was too long to get in one take so here it is via part one and part two. Here’s the video of her Q&A.

Finally, at approximately 9:15 that evening after a very short break we got to do the interview. Twelve hours late but well worth it. Before we turned on the camera I complimented her on her stamina and commented that her unflappability and poise when talking and answering all sorts of questions reminded me of some of the best con men in the business selling time shares or shady securities. I meant it in a good way and we both had a chuckle. She revealed things about herself that are not generally reported. She talked about her life as a child. Her very middle class existence, and even though she graduated from Harvard, she originally started out at Radcliffe, which gave me a lot more to work with. She took a year off before going to Harvard Medical School to become a professional musician, but she gave it up because she found it too difficult. We talked about her poetry, her favorite books and she revealed that she’s not the reader in the family; her husband is. I had wrongly assumed that Don Quixote was her favorite read. What she did reveal was that although she is technically adept, she has the soul of an artist. Here’s the complete interview and it’s well worth the look.

The interview is over and we’ve all been invited to a party. Now I know that I’m not going back to Orlando that night. It also gave me a chance to catch up with Jay, who is still trying passionately to restart the CCC, and has lobbied Congress incessantly about it. At the party Jill said her goodbyes and we hugged in the way that long lost friends do. I felt tired, of course, yet giddy about the whole experience.

Senior Power

June 5, 2013 by Jerry Waxman 1 Comment

By Jerry Waxman

If you’re watching certain TV programs that treat grandma and gramps as doddering old folks then you need to read this. If the TV commercials that tout the new painless lubricated catheters via Chuck Woolery, or Joe Theismann hawking his new prostate pills, or Wilford Brimley with his sundry products, Fred Thompson or Robert Wagner begging you to reverse your mortgage are too much for you to endure, then this is also for you, if only to make you aware that seniors today are not as gullible as marketers would portray them. These new pitchmen are the next generation of senior snake oil salesmen after Art Linkletter and Arthur Godfrey, Joe Weider and Jack LaLanne. Just think what it will be like when Justin Bieber and Angelina Jolie start doing it in 50 years. The pitch won’t change a lot, but the products and their paid shills will. Seniors have always been ripe prey for swindlers and charlatans. Fortunately, there is a cure for this. It’s called factual information.

The Florida Alliance for Retired Americans is located in Wellington, Florida. Its president, Tony Fransetta has built the organization’s membership to 200,000 over the years, and no grass grows under his feet. Fransetta, at age 78, keeps up a pace that people half his age would be envious of. The same goes for his board members, who attended the 2013 Annual Convention and Board meeting on June 3^rd and 4^th in Orlando. The Alliance is made up of mostly retired union members, so they have a united purpose.

Just like any annual board meeting, the agenda called for reports from the president on down through officers, committees and clubs. Old business was discussed and future meetings planned. Since this was a convention of seniors and former union members and activists there were several guest speakers dealing with diverse issues that affect seniors. One of the event sponsors was Humana and their reps Barbara Wagner and Sherri Johnson spoke on health care. Many Central Florida state legislators spoke including State Representatives Linda Stewart Dist. 47, Randolph Bracy, Dist. 45, Victor Torres Dist 48 and Karen Castor Dentel Dist. 30. State Senators included, Darren Soto Dist. 14 and Geraldine Thompson Dist.12. Also speaking was Susannah Randolph, District Director from Congressman Alan Grayson’s office. Notably absent were any officials from either the City of Orlando or Orange County Government. Strange too, because the city operates several senior centers that would greatly benefit from an alliance with FLARA. Well, unrealistic soccer stadiums and creative villages are much more important than playing around with old people. It’s also strange that Property Appraiser Rick Singh didn’t attend either since he publicly announced a month ago at May’s County Watch meeting that he was aggressively reaching out to seniors to notify them of the tax breaks they qualify for and that there were employment positions open for just that purpose.

Featured speakers covered a range of fields including health care management, Social Security and oddly enough, buying American products from American companies plus environmental concerns.

Buy! Oh noble buyer, buy your merchandise from me!

(Bazaar of the Caravans, from Kismet by Wright & Forrest)

Oh, if only it were that simple. Today there are hundreds of retail outlets and thousands of manufacturer brands available. Isn’t the free market wonderful? Sure, if you don’t care where your money goes. American retailers for the most part are not buying from American suppliers, so a large part of their buying power is going to businesses outside the USA. What’s worse is that many American made products are not owned by Americans, which means that the profits don’t stay in the USA; they go into the pockets of foreign owners, which means that those profits are not taxed here. It’s going to get even worse if The United States foolishly signs on to the Trans Pacific Partnership, but that’s another story.

Roger Simmermaker has written two books, My Company ‘Tis of Thee and How Americans Can Buy American, on how to buy things that are made in this country. He regularly sends out e-mail alerts on products. His company is called Consumer Patriot Corporation. Here’s his website, www.howtobuyamerican.com, and you can sign up for his newsletter and buy his books through it. Roger actually is employed by a government contractor and this is not how he makes his living, however, he is passionate about buying American and this is his passion. In his books he cites over 2400 products that are made here and the list is growing. Even this informed audience was shocked to learn that soaps like Lever 2000 are owned by a British and Dutch consortium. Heinz has recently been bought in part by investor Warren Buffet, but 50% of Heinz is foreign owned. Who knows what will happen there. Do you like Budweiser, Coors or Miller beers? That’s nice. Busch Brewing, Miller and Coors are now owned by a Belgian Multinational and a couple of Brazilian billionaires. As Simmermaker explains, if all the foreign owned American companies were actually paying taxes on their profits we would not have the revenue and debt problems we now have.

When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame, one hasn’t got time for the waiting game.

(September Song, from Knickerbocker Holiday by Kurt Weil and Maxwell Anderson)

The most compelling speaker at the event was Laura J. Feldman, Grassroots Manager of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare. She has a great sense of humor and knows her subject intimately. It’s almost impossible to blurb or sound byte what she said, so here’s the video of her presentation. Unfortunately, people kept bumping into the tripod so the video is a little shaky. What Ms. Feldman pointed out is that what you don’t know can definitely hurt you.

The shadows sway and seem to say tonight we pray for water, Cool water. And way up there He’ll hear our prayer and show us where there’s water, Cool Water.

(Cool Water by Bob Nolan with the Sons of the Pioneers)

Adrienne Katz from the Orange County League of Women Voters gave a presentation on the water crisis that’s facing Florida. The League is right now working on a petition drive to preserve Florida’s water and land conservation heritage. Katz gave a brand new audio-visual presentation on how fragile our eco-system and especially water really is. Seniors need to know these things because the quality of our drinking water affects their health.

What came out during these presentations is that too many seniors pay too little attention to issues that affect them. They accept what the corporate media tells them and once these myths are in their minds it’s awfully hard to get them to see the truth. A group such as the Alliance, which has millions of members nationwide is constantly striving, through lobbying and information sharing, but they need to get more members who will be involved. After all, who is going to protect us from Pat Boone?

“You Have Been Granted A Rare Privilege”

May 22, 2013 by Jerry Waxman 2 Comments

By Jerry Waxman

“You don’t tug on Superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger
And you don’t mess around with HIM”

Secretary: “The directors of the Thatcher Memorial Library have asked me again to remind you Mr. Thompson,”

Reporter: “Yes, but……”

Secretary: “of the conditions under which you may inspect certain portions of Mr. Thatcher’s unabridged memoirs.”

Reporter: “I know, but…….”

Secretary: (into phone) “I’ll bring him right in. Under no circumstances are direct quotations from his manuscript to be used by you.”

Reporter: “I’m just looking for one…….”

Secretary: Mr. Thompson, you will be required to leave this room at 12:30 promptly. You will confine yourself, it is our understanding, to the chapters in Mr. Thatcher’s manuscript regarding Mr. Kane.

This little scene from Citizen Kane, largely overlooked, is a frightening reminder of the power that certain people have to restrict information from being put out to the general population. Information that can be vitally important yet reveal secrets that can be embarrassing.

On Saturday, May 18 Floridians Against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, along with Central Florida AFL-CIO and the Communication Workers of America held a forum to discuss the negative impact that the TPP would have across the region as well as the rest of the country and it’s not pretty. In my last article on the TPP, The Enemy Beneath, These dangers were well spelled out along with some compelling videos of speakers at the last gathering in Tampa. I need not repeat them here since the several speakers did an excellent job of representing their positions.

Lorraine Tuliano, head of Central Florida’s Central Labor Council for the AFL-CIO explained how the middle class and working families are affected by these “Investor State” trade deals. Marjorie Holt of the Sierra Club spoke about the effect that “Fracking” and other procedures would have on our fragile environment. Steve Wisniewski, President of CWA Local 3108 spoke about the lowering of standards that the TPP would allow for. Activists Jim Howe and Cherie Faircloth presented a statement from Public Citizen Global Trade Watch stating how harmful the TPP is as it is shaping up. Tim Murray of Organize now was a featured speaker admonishing the assembled group to become active because our elected officials need to hear from us constantly.

Special guest speaker of the evening was Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida’s 9^th district, who is one of but a handful of legislators that are aware of the TPP and its potential damage as well as the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreement. He spoke off the cuff without notes for about twenty minutes in a very relaxed erudite manner about what is happening with these FTAs and what he and others are doing about it. That little scene at the Thatcher Memorial Library is a grim reminder of what he had to go through after several attempts were made by other members of Congress including Sen. Jeff Merkley to see documents referring to the TPP and were denied access. Grayson was successful in getting permission to see exactly one document in his office in early June with the provision that no one on his staff can be there and that he can’t take any notes and he only has a limited time in which to view the document. Obviously these people don’t know who they are dealing with. He is a fierce debater and doesn’t suffer fools at all. This was not the “Don’t get sick” bombastic Alan Grayson. This was the scholarly, surgical Alan Grayson that completely eviscerated conservative pundit P.J. O’Rourke nationally on Bill Maher’s Real Time.. He can also dust it up with the best of them. At a health care rally several years ago I witnessed him go head to head with a Tea Party activist who wisely chose not to duke it out physically. Good thing too because besides being deceptively tall he has an enormous reach that most heavyweight boxers would love to have. Here’s the complete video of his anti TPP speech. After the speeches there was a question and answer period where several of the topics discussed were more fully covered.

The sixteenth round of talks is underway in Lima, Peru going on from May 15 through May 24. It is too late to do anything about the current talks; however there will be more talks in the future. At the moment Japan is negotiating to join and my sources (who for the moment must remain unnamed) tell me that too many unions are leaning towards accepting the TPP. There are some political benefits to be had in the short term, so they are sacrificing the American worker and America’s loss of sovereignty for some selfish gains. That’s unconscionable.

Monica Ratliff Wins, Beats Billionaires!

May 22, 2013 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

Monica Ratliff Wins, Beats Billionaires!. Yes, this can be done!

Dewey Defeats Truman

May 17, 2013 by Jerry Waxman 2 Comments

( Pigging Out With Koch)

By Jerry Waxman

In case you haven’t heard the news, the Chicago Tribune reported that headline the day that Truman won the election in 1948. Their track record has been about as accurate ever since that date. The great and iconic columnist Mike Royko went to work for them in 1984 only after Rupert Murdoch bought the Chicago Sun Times. Some of Royko’s choicest criticisms against Murdoch were “No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in a Murdoch paper” and “His goal is not quality journalism. His goal is vast power for Rupert Murdoch, political power”. It’s amazing how something said 30 years ago is still relevant today. Current Tribune ownership couldn’t possibly be more right wing than Murdoch so why is Chicago still in the hands of the Democrats? Could it be that Murdoch’s and Sam Zell’s message just sucks? That may not be a scholarly treatise but you can bet that it’s pretty accurate. Cities like Philadelphia have recently witnessed the demise of a formerly great newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, bought by Moses Annenberg in 1930 to take advantage of his racing sheet empire, but elevated by his son, Walter and again by the Knight organization over the years. McClatchy bought it from the Knights and then sold it to a group of conservative businessmen who in their own Charles Foster Kane egos thought it would be “fun to own a newspaper.” P.S. They are in receivership.

So, let’s say that you had a couple of billion dollars just lying around and your candidates nationally had just been whupped in the 2012 elections after you and your allies had spent a gazillion dollars trying to get them elected. What would you do? Well, it might be “fun to own a media empire”, especially at fire sale rates; after all, the price mentioned is approximately 15% of what Sam Zell originally paid for it. For Charles and David Koch the sale is mere pocket change. They wouldn’t even miss it if the enterprise failed, and they would make more money by giving it to Mitt Romney to liquidate. Business people look at bottom lines. Forgetting what it costs to buy, the day to day costs of running that media empire would be dear. It would take years to make things profitable if that’s even possible. They are better off just buying out all the advertising space in all of the enterprises and spreading their message that way. No muss, no fuss, plenty of coverage.

Many people in Central Florida are very concerned about this because the Tribune Corp owns the Orlando Sentinel, the region’s only print daily, and fear that a Koch takeover could spell doom and gloom in the region and cancel any hope of objective journalism in Central Florida, yet the conservative element is hoping and praying that they will. Upon hearing the news blogger Tom Tillison posted on his Facebook page “Be still my beating heart!” Yet, West Orlando News Online publisher Keith Longmore, a true progressive, thinks that this could be the best thing to happen for his publication.

Florida Watch Action head, Amy Ritter, is quite upset about the possibility of a Koch Bros. takeover and organized a protest Thursday afternoon, May 15, at the offices of the Orlando Sentinel. Approximately 30 protesters waving signs showed up. Prior to the organized protest several members of the Sentinel staff came out to say hello, but were completely silent on the issue. Similar demonstrations have taken place in cities like Allentown, Pa., Chicago and Los Angeles where Tribune papers are. In Los Angeles, many staff members threatened to quit if the sale went through, but L.A. is a big media town with many more opportunities than Orlando. This is an extremely small media market, and you don’t want to lose your job here. We did manage to espy Scott Maxwell, Mark Schlueb and Dave Damron, but they were nowhere to be found once the protest started. Other members of the press were there and recorded the event, however, no broadcast or cable stations were present. As far as I am aware the only videos taken were by yours truly and Tom Tillison.

(Left to right Tom Tillison, BizPac Review, Billy Manes, Orlando Weekly, Mark Schlueb and Scott Maxwell of the Sentinel)

Ritter addressed the crowd of about fifty voicing her concerns about the Sentinal turning into a propaganda machine for the Koch Bros narrow Tea Party type views Other speakers included Sue Casterline, a subscriber for over 30 years, who will cancel her subscription if the Koch’s buy the paper, Holly Fussell, a Rollins College student, who uses the Sentinel for research and she fears that her information will be tainted by Koch ownership and Melissa, another concerned student who echoed Casterline’s and Fussell’s concerns. Ritter then ended the gathering with a chant and encouraged everyone to wave signs at rush hour traffic.

Ritter states that there will be other actions and that the community at large needs to know what’s happening. The Sentinel can’t comment on it and the Koch Bros. will not comment on a pending sale. A spokesman for the Kochs said that they invest in a lot of business opportunities and that the Tribune Company is just one. That’s all well and good, but I don’t want to wake up one morning and find out that Dewey won in 2014. Do you?