Democracy Now! Goes to Haiti

Manno singing in Miami
photo by Sharif Kouddous

This is Manno Charlemagne singing at the Tap Tap Restaurant in Miami. Sharif took this photo on his way to Haiti with the Democracy Now! crew. They will be reporting from there tomorrow.

Manno did the music for the film Bitter Cane, which I made in 1983 along with Pennee Bender and Kim Ives. Manno watched all of our interviews then used the words from the interviews in the music he sang for the film. I don't think there are too many documentaries which have that quality of sychronized music track! For a while Manno was Mayor of Porte au Prince (during the Aristide years.) To get a copy of Bitter Cane, go to http://www.deedeehalleck.org/store.html

This is the hotel room where the Democracy Now! staff (Elizabeth, Sharif, Amy) are staying in Haiti!

The Last Televangelist

The Church of Stop Shopping series,
The Last Televangelist
begins on Thanksgiving Day

THURSDAY THANKSGIVING NOV 27 2P M
SATURDAY NOV 29 8:30AM, 7:30PM
SUN NOV 30 2:30PM
THURS DEC 4 6PM FRI DEC 5 2:30AM 2PM

The series will be available each week on the Dish Network's FSTV Channel 9415
CALL YOUR LOCAL ACCESS CHANNEL AND ASK THEM TO DOWNLINK FROM THE DISH NETWORK'S FREE SPEECH TV CHANNEL.
IF YOUR ACCESS CENTER SHOWS DEMOCRACY NOW, THEY CAN DOWNLINK THE LAST TELEVANGELIST-- IT'S THE SAME SATELLITE CHANNEL.

Reverend Billy on Fox:

Rights of Way Give Away

Georgia has just passed in both houses a bill which virtually eliminates local control of public rights of way. The telecom giants have been pushing this hard. One rep counted 47 lobbyists from ATT who had been pursuing her. This is happening in many states: the telcoms want to deliver video, but without the public interest safeguards and equity that cable has been forced to give. Cable access has been an important resource for many communities, with channels and funding for educational, government and public access. Up to now Atlanta has had a good public access: The Peoples Channel. It is these "PEG" channels which have enabled Democracy Now with Amy Goodman to have a wide audience across the country. Without airtime, this resource will probably disappear.In the future they will probably have to share one channel with the other PEG entities: government and education. State by state, access to local media has been getting harder as the suits call the shots in state legislatures. In Georgia they won for now. This means less air time for community members and less funding for the media centers that train and host neighborhood media. One of the consequences of this sort of legislation is that mayors and city councils lose the power over their own infrastructure. For example ATT will need to set up "street furniture" to house the computer equipment necessary to convert signals to video. Or they can put any man hole anywhere and paint it. The corporations can now control the municipal rights of way. See www.saveaccess.org for some potential scenarios. The bill is at http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2007_08/search/hb227.htm it is euphemistically entitled "Consumer Choice for Television Act". It should be called the Public Rights Give-Away Bill.