Democracy Now!

Last night OLGS and I went to hear Amy Goodman, doyenne of the community radio show Democracy Now!, speak at a fundraiser for local Twin Cities Pacifica radio outlet KFAI. Amy was really, really, articulate, and a great storyteller. She was pushing a new book, Static, and told lots of tales from that book and from the radio show. Despite her Harvard education, or maybe because of it, she speaks in a way that is accessible yet still moving and compelling. Politicians, take note.

What bothered me about the event was not the speaker, but the audience. Everyone--about 500 people--had grey hair, pot bellies, and hearing aids. Where were the young people? One could say that they were not able to afford the $10 admission charge on a Friday night, having better stuff to do.

The other thing, of course, is that people under 35 are not radio people, whereas we geezers are. But Democracy Now! streams on the web, is available on public access cable, and on Link TV--all outlets which are available to the folks who should be our leaders in the very near future.

Does this mean that young people don't care? That they are so disillusioned by our current political disaster that they tune out, or, at best, act locally? Anyway, Amy was preaching to the choir, to people who already agree with her, and not to the people who should be hearing her. Are aging hippies, old potsmokers, and granola crunching types the only ones who care what is happening to our country? Say it ain't so.

Back to school

Another year has come and gone. I measure the passage of time by the turning of the year in September, rather than in January. From early childhood on, my calendar was the academic one. But there are lots of other ways of marking the passage of time and the changing seasons. There are religious calendars, and until the industrial era (sort of), the Gregorian calendar followed the Christian one, with the beginning of the year, or its end, somewhere around Easter, depending. There is the fiscal calendar, which begins in July or October or January, depending. The Jewish New Year takes place in September or October, depending. Chinese New Year, the Hindu New Year, and other festivals marking the new year take place sometime in January. It depends.

Here in flyover land, and mandated by state law, public schools cannot start until after Labor Day, when the State Fair is over and all the resorts have closed for the season and there is no longer any need for cheap, teenage labor. But private schools, whose students apparently don't need to work at the State Fair, usually return before that sacred date. Of course, there are places in the US--Aroostook County, Maine, for example--where school starts at the beginning of August and then stops so that all available hands can work the potato harvest or bring in the hay or whatever. And then it restarts again, and kids return to the classroom, or become fishing guides, or drop out. Depending.