(Hank Bostwick of the Star City Harbinger blog asked local media types - should local elections be conducted without party designations? Read his question and my answer. At least one other respondant disagreed with my stand)
On Mar 23, 2009, at 4:24 PM, Hank Bostwick wrote:
> I can't put the question any plainer than that.
>
> Occasionally, the local buzz and banter is about the R's and D's after the names of City Council candidates in the Star City. Are they necessary? What purpose do those labels serve on a local level?
>
> Our sister City on the Parkway, Asheville, North Carolina, does not designate by party affiliation. For example, they hold an open nonpartisan primary which whittles down the number of Council candidates to 6 (from whatever number they begin with, depending on the number of interested candidates). Candidates are free to self-identify their partisan stripes. Parties do not endorse or select the candidates . . . the people do.
>
> I would LOVE an on-the-record statement about this issue. Should local politics be so partisan? Is one-party rule good for Roanoke? Or is that the wrong question entirely?
(my response)
Hank, what party labels do on a local level is supply a base of support for candidates. What's unfortunate is that many people will blindly follow the D or R label without looking closely at the candidate's record or platform....
Ideally, there should be no need for party labels at the local level, if people are really interested in electing the best person. I don't think electing a Republican supervisor or council member makes much difference once you start building support for state or national candidates.
But, again, its hard for some independent candidates to build that support base..... unless they are all independents and the playing field is fairer. Then perhaps you'd see business groups support certain candidates, civic groups others, environmentalists still others.
We all see what heavy partisanship has done at the national level as Congress tries to wade through the economic crisis. Politics has gotten in the way. Other localities - like the People's Republic of Salem - go the independent route.... why do we need labels for Supervisor (County) or City Council (Roanoke City).
We don't. But who will have the gumption to rock the boat? And would it bring more people into the process?
Gene Marrano
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
This didn't make it in the paper ...
(Wrote this little ditty on jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter. He's at Kirk Avenue Music Hall next week.. didn't make it in Roanoke Star-Sentinel,so here it is)
Jazz guitarist has always followed his own path
Since opening several months ago the Kirk Avenue Music Hall in downtown
Roanoke has provided an intimate setting for touring acts. Its all table and chairs, just over a 100-person capacity, the type of closeness that jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter likes. He’s at Kirk Avenue Music Hall (22 Kirk Ave.) on April 2.
A San Francisco area native now living in New Jersey, Hunter is known for playing custom seven and eight string guitars. He also learned much of his craft on the streets in places like Paris and Zurich. “I didn’t have the music school experience that most of the people I played with have had. I’m really kind of glad [because] playing on the street with all these really great musicians was really kind of learning music the old way,” said Hunter from New Jersey last week. “Thrown in the fire, you play all day long, under some pretty harsh conditions. It’s just a great training ground. It served me well.”
Hunter’s new jazz CD release is Baboon Strength. He’s always followed his
own path. “If I had a nickel for every person that’s advised me on how I should be playing music I’d have a whole lot more money than I did from actually playing.”
Baboon Strength is his first self-release after many years of recording on other labels. “It is probably one of the easiest records I’ve ever made. It’s been a great experience.” His custom guitars give him freedom and a different sound. “I just don’t think of music in those rigid terms. I think on a much wider scale.”
Hunter likens his extra-string guitars to a harmonic-melodic drum set, where he can play bass and lead guitar at the same time. “There’s a lot of space that I’m occupying and it also allows the music to move a little differently.”
A true jazz aficionado, most of what he likes is self-termed “fuddy-duddy” jazz, recorded before The Beatles, R&B and soul helped changed the popular music landscape. “Jazz [became] a lot less interesting to me,” said Hunter, who puts his own spin on the genre in any case. (listen to music samples at charliehunter.com)
Hunter prefers intimate spaces like Kirk Avenue Music Hall: “that’s the best kind of way you can play in my opinion. You’re right there and everyone’s in it together. There’s not that distance.” Go to kirk avenuemusic.com for more on The Charlie Hunter Duo concert (with Eric Kalb) on April 2.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Groovin' on a Saturday afternoon
Nothing profound to say, but haven't posted in a while. This past week I really enjoyed interviewing independent movie director John Waters via an ISDN line (whatever that is) from Baltimore. Made us sound like we were in the same room. He's the guy that directed Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, Crybaby. Used to work with the transvestite Devine, the big guy that dressed like a woman.
Waters is also an artist, writer, producer and was even featured on The Simpsons as a cartoon character about ten years ago. A few days before that I spoke with best selling author David Baldacci, who will appear at the Roanoke Academy of Medicine Alliance dinner at Hotel Roanoke on April 4. I have the honor of introducing him as the emcee that night.
Baldacci writes spy and sleuthing page-turners that might not be to everyone's liking but he's had 16 best sellers in a row, has a big house at Smith Mountain Lake and was a good enough writer that he gave up his job as a DC lawyer to write full time. Not bad.
I think of all the folks I've had a chance to interview or listen to over the past ten years and its pretty amazing. It just makes life fuller and more interesting as well.
Etc: I like the World Baseball Classic, but that might be because I just like baseball in general. Some of the Americans and ESPN are whining that it should be played at another time of the year and maybe it should,like after the season.. but hey, the weather's getting better and its baseball!
Enjoy March Madness... I think my bracket is in worse shape than President Obama's.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Gentle sparring with the Star City Harbinger over a story I wrote
(Note: I wrote a story for the Roanoke Star-Sentinel about Melvin Williams, one of many candidates on the Republican side for William Fralin's 17th House District seat in the General Assembly. Excerpts follow .... then Hank Bostwick, an attorney and the man behind the "Star City Harbinger" blog, read into what I wrote - or didn't write. A little back and forth follows - along with a comment from Star-Sentinel publisher Stuart Revercomb. Pretty good reading! So is Hank's blog by the way)
(original Star City Harbinger post)
Whoever planned Republican Melvin Williams’ debut on the political scene last week owes that man an apology. Opening his campaign from the 17th District GOP nomination as the closing act to the “official” announcement of the de facto Democratic nominee provides a teachable moment in flaccid campaign kickoffs.
Williams‘ street-side message lost any resonance it might have had to the din of a day of dual announcements–after a weekend of speculation and chatter–following the previous Friday’s false start and a leaked message about a “possible” announcement from a mystery candidate. Amid the obvious confusion, The Roanoke Times gave his campaign only a few sentences in a larger piece about candidate possibilities.
The most significant press Williams’ received last week was in a piece by the Roanoke Star-Sentinel’s Gene Marrano (whose work we usually enjoy). Even that didn’t go well.
On the same day The Roanoke Times reported that the Roanoke region’s unemployment level dramatically increased last month, Marrano reports Williams as “hearkening” back to a special time without all those pesky things like unemployment insurance, or temporary assistance to needy families or . . . general anaesthesia:
[The pioneers that settled America] . . . they didn’t ask for a handout . . . there was no safety net for them.
This is simply pointless patriotic pablum. It has nothing whatsoever to do with anything. What it reveals, however, is that Williams wants to play the same old worn out rhetorical game with the same old “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” cliches.
Williams tacks on a measure of Compassionate Conservatism Redux to overemphasize the redundancy:
[He] said “yes, people do need help from time to time,” but he wants to see communities and faith-based organizations get more involved.
Again, maybe Williams didn’t read this article from The Roanoke Times noting that local faith-based food banks are begging for state aid.
Predictably Williams endorses what Marrano describes as the “hands-off approach from (sic) government . . . ‘that tradition that’s made America great.’” A significant majority of Americans believe that the sort of extreme deregulation of the financial markets (i.e., smaller government) embodied in a completely laissez-faire, hands-off approach to governance is one of the primary causes of the current recession. Williams would appear to wish to exacerbate the problem.
... (so on and so forth)
>>> 3 Responses to “SCH’s first whack at Williams”
1. Gene Marrano on March 16th, 2009 10:45 am
SCH writer: You misread my piece in the Roanoke Star-Sentinel on Melvin Williams. It’s not my place to add things that Williams didn’t talk about when he announced a run for the 17th House District seat.
I was not writing a column - if he wants to gloss over things like unemployment insurance, lack of help for needy families etc. in making a statement like this:
“Williams harkened back to the pioneers that settled America: “they didn’t ask for a handout…there was no safety net for them,” he declared during a news conference. ”
… then that’s his perogative. Readers can then make up their own mind about whether Williams is in denial or whatever
Conveniently, you also left out the comment I secured from Williams after the announcement, when he conceded that there is a time and place for government:
“There is a place for government when people have no other options Williams conceded, but the first option should be assistance from the communities.” He also works with defendants that cannot pay their child support, due to a lack of work or other conditions. “The government needs to be there at times,” said Williams, whose grandfather was a member of the House if Delegates in Maryland.”
Please understand the difference between a straight news, factual account of an event and an op-ed, blog or otherwise, where the writer throws his own two cents in.
GM
>>> 2. Hank Bostwick on March 16th, 2009 11:03 am
Gene,
Your comment is appreciated; however, it is a bit perplexing. How can one “misread” a report about a campaign opening? You weren’t writing an op-ed or an editorial. So what there is to “misread” is beyond me?
If Williams did not say the things you reported him as saying, then you should print a retraction; otherwise, it is difficult to tell where your beef is coming from.
If you don’t agree with the political spin I put on Williams’ comments, that is one thing, but “methinks thou dost protest too much.”
You chose to filter his comments and focus on the ones preferred by your readership. Our critique of those comments is fair game.
The fact of the matter is that your piece defined Williams in a way that we find problematic.
Remember: we have a progressive agenda. You write for a conservative weekly.
There are bound to be differences.
>>> 3. Gene Marrano on March 16th, 2009 3:13 pm
First of all, many of the writers and columnist for the Roanoke Star-Sentinel are not conservative. I’ll let you guess who is what. You might be surprised. Don’t jump to conclusions.
Secondly, you were asking me to interject into my piece more so-called liberal talking points, when that is not my place.
Williams defined himself. I did not do the refining. I filtered and focused on nothing; you are reading into it an agenda I do not have.
You sound like Robert Craig or one of the other conspiracy theorists (same boring, pedantic ones) that are always addressing City Council. Retraction? of what?
Nuff said, peace
GM
>>> Hank - I read both the piece and your and Gene's tit for tat and it seems pretty clear to me that for some reason you're trying to make it sound like Gene was somehow responsible for what the candidate said . . .
Seems to me he just reported the facts of the news conference straight up. Which was run along side two democratic announcements of similar scope and equal presentation.
All very strange.
- Stuart
PS And I am curious - what in your mind makes us conservative? Is it something we publish(ed)? Or perhaps didn't? Being a 99% local coverage publication we really don't get much into politics. Would love some clarification on where that comes from.
(original Star City Harbinger post)
Whoever planned Republican Melvin Williams’ debut on the political scene last week owes that man an apology. Opening his campaign from the 17th District GOP nomination as the closing act to the “official” announcement of the de facto Democratic nominee provides a teachable moment in flaccid campaign kickoffs.
Williams‘ street-side message lost any resonance it might have had to the din of a day of dual announcements–after a weekend of speculation and chatter–following the previous Friday’s false start and a leaked message about a “possible” announcement from a mystery candidate. Amid the obvious confusion, The Roanoke Times gave his campaign only a few sentences in a larger piece about candidate possibilities.
The most significant press Williams’ received last week was in a piece by the Roanoke Star-Sentinel’s Gene Marrano (whose work we usually enjoy). Even that didn’t go well.
On the same day The Roanoke Times reported that the Roanoke region’s unemployment level dramatically increased last month, Marrano reports Williams as “hearkening” back to a special time without all those pesky things like unemployment insurance, or temporary assistance to needy families or . . . general anaesthesia:
[The pioneers that settled America] . . . they didn’t ask for a handout . . . there was no safety net for them.
This is simply pointless patriotic pablum. It has nothing whatsoever to do with anything. What it reveals, however, is that Williams wants to play the same old worn out rhetorical game with the same old “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” cliches.
Williams tacks on a measure of Compassionate Conservatism Redux to overemphasize the redundancy:
[He] said “yes, people do need help from time to time,” but he wants to see communities and faith-based organizations get more involved.
Again, maybe Williams didn’t read this article from The Roanoke Times noting that local faith-based food banks are begging for state aid.
Predictably Williams endorses what Marrano describes as the “hands-off approach from (sic) government . . . ‘that tradition that’s made America great.’” A significant majority of Americans believe that the sort of extreme deregulation of the financial markets (i.e., smaller government) embodied in a completely laissez-faire, hands-off approach to governance is one of the primary causes of the current recession. Williams would appear to wish to exacerbate the problem.
... (so on and so forth)
>>> 3 Responses to “SCH’s first whack at Williams”
1. Gene Marrano on March 16th, 2009 10:45 am
SCH writer: You misread my piece in the Roanoke Star-Sentinel on Melvin Williams. It’s not my place to add things that Williams didn’t talk about when he announced a run for the 17th House District seat.
I was not writing a column - if he wants to gloss over things like unemployment insurance, lack of help for needy families etc. in making a statement like this:
“Williams harkened back to the pioneers that settled America: “they didn’t ask for a handout…there was no safety net for them,” he declared during a news conference. ”
… then that’s his perogative. Readers can then make up their own mind about whether Williams is in denial or whatever
Conveniently, you also left out the comment I secured from Williams after the announcement, when he conceded that there is a time and place for government:
“There is a place for government when people have no other options Williams conceded, but the first option should be assistance from the communities.” He also works with defendants that cannot pay their child support, due to a lack of work or other conditions. “The government needs to be there at times,” said Williams, whose grandfather was a member of the House if Delegates in Maryland.”
Please understand the difference between a straight news, factual account of an event and an op-ed, blog or otherwise, where the writer throws his own two cents in.
GM
>>> 2. Hank Bostwick on March 16th, 2009 11:03 am
Gene,
Your comment is appreciated; however, it is a bit perplexing. How can one “misread” a report about a campaign opening? You weren’t writing an op-ed or an editorial. So what there is to “misread” is beyond me?
If Williams did not say the things you reported him as saying, then you should print a retraction; otherwise, it is difficult to tell where your beef is coming from.
If you don’t agree with the political spin I put on Williams’ comments, that is one thing, but “methinks thou dost protest too much.”
You chose to filter his comments and focus on the ones preferred by your readership. Our critique of those comments is fair game.
The fact of the matter is that your piece defined Williams in a way that we find problematic.
Remember: we have a progressive agenda. You write for a conservative weekly.
There are bound to be differences.
>>> 3. Gene Marrano on March 16th, 2009 3:13 pm
First of all, many of the writers and columnist for the Roanoke Star-Sentinel are not conservative. I’ll let you guess who is what. You might be surprised. Don’t jump to conclusions.
Secondly, you were asking me to interject into my piece more so-called liberal talking points, when that is not my place.
Williams defined himself. I did not do the refining. I filtered and focused on nothing; you are reading into it an agenda I do not have.
You sound like Robert Craig or one of the other conspiracy theorists (same boring, pedantic ones) that are always addressing City Council. Retraction? of what?
Nuff said, peace
GM
>>> Hank - I read both the piece and your and Gene's tit for tat and it seems pretty clear to me that for some reason you're trying to make it sound like Gene was somehow responsible for what the candidate said . . .
Seems to me he just reported the facts of the news conference straight up. Which was run along side two democratic announcements of similar scope and equal presentation.
All very strange.
- Stuart
PS And I am curious - what in your mind makes us conservative? Is it something we publish(ed)? Or perhaps didn't? Being a 99% local coverage publication we really don't get much into politics. Would love some clarification on where that comes from.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Gonna be a "Creative Connector" ??
I was pleased to be chosen as one of 30 Creative Connectors for something called the Roanoke Creative Communities Leader Project. Wherein we will workshop for two days at the end of March, then look for ways "to make Roanoke "a more authentic and prosperous region" That's what the e-mail said anyway.
Its a concept based on writings by urban planning guru Richard Florida. We'll look at the 4T's - technology, talent, tolerance and territorial assets, then come up with a framework to "further the community's economic growth and quality of place"
Stay tuned....
Its a concept based on writings by urban planning guru Richard Florida. We'll look at the 4T's - technology, talent, tolerance and territorial assets, then come up with a framework to "further the community's economic growth and quality of place"
Stay tuned....
Monday, March 2, 2009
Hatin' on the arts?
A writer acquaintance of mine (Lisa Solod Warren) just posted something to Huffingtonpost.com on the typical Republican stance when it comes to funding the arts. Give it a look.
Personally, I think the arts and the NEA have always been a punching bag for Conservatives and Republicans, despite the fact that they are taught in schools all the way through college - and create plenty of jobs. That's one thing arts supporters could so a better job of - explain just how support the arts makes economic sense. Towns like Roanoke and Charlottesville have hitched part of their wagons to the arts.
see link (paste into browser): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-solod-warren/why-do-repubicans-hate-ar_b_168443.html
Personally, I think the arts and the NEA have always been a punching bag for Conservatives and Republicans, despite the fact that they are taught in schools all the way through college - and create plenty of jobs. That's one thing arts supporters could so a better job of - explain just how support the arts makes economic sense. Towns like Roanoke and Charlottesville have hitched part of their wagons to the arts.
see link (paste into browser): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-solod-warren/why-do-repubicans-hate-ar_b_168443.html
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