WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley This is the Cali Crossley Show. Today we're hitting the rewind button on this week's news from the great lady's front pages to the stories on the small screen. And the reporting that went under the radar. It's a hyper local look at the news that was and wasn't. We'll be dropping in on online communities and alternative presses. For a look at the big stories from the small papers where today's neighborhood news becomes tomorrow's mainstream headlines. Well top of the hour venturing from the serious to the sublimely ridiculous with Greg time on tour of the tabloids and a roundup of this week's pop culture. Up next on the callee Crossley Show from the gumshoe reporting the gossip rags. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh a central Florida

judge is releasing George Zimmerman on $150000 bail as he awaits trial for the shooting death of an unarmed teenager. The former neighborhood watch volunteer apologized to Trayvon Martin's parents during today's bond hearing but Zimmerman maintains he shot the teen in self-defense. Investigators in New York City are spending a second day searching the basement of the building for answers to more than 30 year old abduction. Six year old Etan pates went missing in May 1979 as he walked alone for the first time to get to school. His disappearance grabbed national headlines and caused a sea change in attitudes about the protection of children. The confessed murderer unders Behring Breivik is detailing the elaborate preparations he made before setting out on a rampage of mass killing in Norway last year. NPR's Philip Reeves reports. Breivik told a court in all slow today that he studied attacks by al-Qaida. Many a horrified by Breivik slack of remorse in court. And now he's

reinforced that impression with an account of his meticulous preparations for the killings. Breivik said he studied each and every attack carried out by al Qaeda which he described as the world's most successful revolutionary movement. He said he read more than 600 bomb making guides and studied the Oklahoma bombing in which Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people 17 years ago. Breivik admits massacring 77 people mostly teenagers in a bombing and shooting rampage last year but denies criminal responsibility. He told the court he's basically a nice person who trained himself to stifle his emotions so he could carry out the attacks. Philip Reeves NPR News. A spokesman for the U.N. special envoy to Syria Kofi Annan says the United Nations is ready to deploy 300 observers to Syria as soon as the Security Council gives the go ahead. Lisa in Geneva reports the spokesman says it's critical to send the monitors with all speed to stop the violence. And a spokesman Ahmed Fozzy says the situation on the ground in Syria is not good.

He says the cease fire is very fragile and it has not put a stop to the violence. There are casualties every day there are incidents every day. And we have to do everything we can to stop what's going on. The killing the violence in all its forms. Seven unarmed UN observers are monitoring the troops. Fauci says the full advance team of 30 will be sent to Syria in the coming week. He notes preparations are underway for the arrival of the 300 observers. He says he hopes the Security Council will authorize their deployment in the next two to three days. For NPR News I'm Lisa shrine in Geneva. The Dow is up 106 points Nasdaq up 15 S&P 500 also up nine points. This is NPR News. And from the WG rock radio newsroom in Boston I'm Christina Quinn with the local stories we're following. The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search for a 2 year old girl who went missing while her family was visiting a Rockport beach. The state police are continuing the search today for Cali and

Harrison. Police say Cali three months shy of her third birthday was last seen around noon Thursday with her mother 4 year old sister and their dog on Long Beach. The family is from Gloucester. The Coast Guard said it used four boats and a helicopter to search 248 square miles of water before suspending its search. At about 11:30 this morning. US Senator Scott Brown says he will probably make public his tax returns for the last five or six years. The Republican told a Boston radio station today that he has nothing to hide. He did not indicate when he might release the returns. Meanwhile Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren said today that she would consider releasing more than two years of tax returns if Brown did the same. Maine Democratic State Representative Chuck Krueger tells the Bangor Daily News he's getting death threats over what he now calls a poor attempt at humor in a tweet about former Vice President Dick Cheney. He suggested Cheney should meet the same fate as former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Selectman in Mont Vernon New Hampshire have followed residents wishes and voted unanimously to rename a fishing spot that's been called a Jew pond since the one thousand twenty WMUR TV

reports the name will change to Carlton pond after one of the town's founding families. The Red Sox are getting ready for today's 1 100th anniversary of their first game at Fenway Park. They will face the New York Yankees this afternoon after pre-game ceremonies with Clay Buchholz as the starting pitcher and the Celtics are in Atlanta tonight to play the Hawks. The weather forecast for the remainder of the afternoon lots of sunshine with highs in the mid 70s tonight mostly clear and breezy in the evening then becoming mostly cloudy with areas of drizzle after midnight lows in the lower 50s. Saturday mostly cloudy with some drizzle in the morning then partly sunny highs in the lower 70s right now it's 74 degrees in Boston. Support for NPR comes from the Avis Family Foundation celebrating public media and their audiences who give to their favorite stations every year. This is WGBH. Good afternoon I'm Cally Crossley. This is the Cali Crossley Show. Today we're hitting the rewind button on the week's local news with a look at the stories that went under the radar. I'm joined by Howard Manley the executive editor of the Bay State Banner and Marcella

Garcia managing editor of Elle planeta. Welcome back you two. Thanks for having us. Howard you wrote this huge piece and it's a story that deserves a lot of space about. The Charles Street A M E kerfuffle with one United Bank and the headline says from bad to worse and boy does it sound that way. Well beyond the kerfuffle I could tell you the problem started maybe four or five years ago when Charles Street borrowed about four million dollars from one United Bank. Now again the Charles Street is a historic black church when United is the largest black owned bank in the country. And so they gave this money to the church so they could build a community center. Well things went bad almost right away. Church now is in bankruptcy. It is also not paid when United as well as bunch of other creditors a ton of money. And this is all despite a public campaign by the church to demonize

who and no one really likes that. Like a bank. But in this particular case they extend it for me in dollars and in the grove whole neighborhood to build this community center. And so with the publicity surrounding the case and one unite it has its own sort of problems. The church is now in a lot of trouble. What makes it even worse is that there was a cosigner on this loan and that was their regional board of directors and they claim to have 65 million dollars and it is one of the reasons why the bank even gave the original 4 million dollars that 65 million for me. Well we can get our money back. Well the regional has not stepped up and this is despite four extents five extensions on the construction 17 18 foreclosure notices. 47 maybe 75 percent of the payments were made late and the pastor I mean just incredibly stands up in front of his parishioners and says you know we've

never missed a payment. And it's just the bank record tells a different story. All of this is in bankruptcy court so everybody can see these two black institutions airing it out in public. So the resolution is nowhere in sight right now. Well as you said all of those facts are horrific enough. I just want to point out one quote in the bank this is in the documents from one united which said that the the church is attempt to pay back their payment plan of twenty seven thousand dollars a month and now they all four million was shere. That's not particularly nasty among the lawyers in this particular case because. Yeah I mean you know for me and so what do you do. OK I'll just give you a dollar a month for the next 30 years I mean that that is how the book but worse than just not paying the money is to say in court which the church Charles Street Church did is

that they lit does this Monday even though they knew we couldn't pay it back. Yes it was their boy and it's a fraudulent loan and you know you know that you know look I had no debt or no first hand. I will come up with anything that you know I hate you because you gave me the money. You know we got to work this out to talk it all out. OK maybe two dollars over the next 30 30 years but no place this is. It was all in Barry's. Yes that was what I was going to ask you Marcel I mean this is getting to be I mean it's more than just a small thing with these two institutions it's a huge incident which is now called and Mayor Menino was in there that would hold or not let it go right because the Reverend as far as I understand is he the Reverend Gregory Reverend Gregory president of the Boston so the law committee will come to anyhow. It just looks bad all over and then to make things even worse as the headline says the community center hasn't even been built for which the

money was originally loaned for so it's so embarrassing for for you know the black community I hate to say how. No you know just cast a really bad light on on all these themes that we keep talking about for closure and you know. And then you have this incident that it's pretty unfortunate. Well and you would hate to be the next church to go to any bank and say hey I like to borrow some money because we like to improve our little soup kitchen or build a center. And no because the banks are going to say no we're not going to pay me back you're going to go to the public and tell me that I'm a bad guy. Yeah. So that's where sort of the lasting impact of this unless it's resolved fairly soon. Well let me ask this question about a lasting impact before we move on and that is for those that rushed into the breach as it were and beginning saying we support the church. Other ministers other churches Mayor Menino. What does that mean.

Well what it means is that they probably didn't know the extent of the payment history. There's a very easy political points to be made to to rally around a black church especially when the pastor is saying we never missed a payment. I don't know what they're doing. Well that's not what you're saying now. And that's And again it's collateral damage from a guy who just wouldn't admit that he messed up. And so. So it's like you were saying sorry earlier. Nobody really expects a bank the foreclosure on the church. But it's happening more and more nationally and not just locally but nationally because banks have said hey we have to foreclose on everybody else and you you're just another institution and we've got to get our money so what's happening now. Actually they have the money as in this case and that was the basic question which was you know if you've never missed a payment how could you be a foreclosure. Right. So something's going on I don't think that's the end of the story. Now moving over to you Marcella this is a really interesting case. I don't know if people will remember a few years back when there was this huge raid in Bedford by ice and New Bedford

and the rising you're much on five years ago so it's you know it's it's a long time. It was a lot of conversation even that point about the majority of people being women mothers and what's going to happen to the kids now who were born here who are citizens and their mothers are being kicked out. Well there's one particular woman who has had a station is about to be just deported but now she's not going to be. Talk about her story and then you know where the whole the reverberations from that ICE raid strike are. That's that's what's interesting about this story that five years ago you still you're still seeing or hearing about this raid which was one of the biggest that the ice has had conducted at the time and even now this woman a mother she suffering from postpartum depression had to or rather had an order to present herself and for deprecation on Wednesday but I did or have been supported by a group of local activists and groups they

wrote letters to Senator John Kerry and their representatives who advocate on their behalf with ice and she was granted a stay. So you know what does that mean. She's not a criminal she's a mother. Her kids were born here. She was working as all of those other mothers and the thing about it is that that raid in particular put in a brought to the light what I was doing which was separating families even now five years after. How can you support a mother and leave her kids here just like it doesn't make any sense. One quote says it all from her. She's saying it just makes you wonder whether these people have a mother and they really brings home the idea of how can you not think about the human aspect of what the protections mean and what the protections bring. And you have to. Understand or remember rather the context right now we descend ministration has reported record number of people and this comes after a few months ago President Obama had

announced that he was going to review all these cases and not the port anybody with a criminal record. Needless to say she doesn't have a criminal record. So where is the fall down their house. Because it would be easy to see that she doesn't have a criminal record or that some of the people that might be up for deportation don't have criminal records. Why is that confusing about who has a criminal record. Because she was already detained five years ago when when you were detained without pay. You know you're She went I don't know if you remember like to to to talk a little bit about then this is five years ago she had just come to this country working in this factory Michael Bianco knew about four. They detained all this and then immediately like this is what happened at this rate immediately they flew everyone to a facility in Texas in Houston Texas. And so they were going to deport him. So that's the case in her record that's not a criminal violation is just a civil violation so you know she went to a lawyer bit of a blind so that her deportation kept like you know putting kept pushing back and finally she had to be deported this week. Right so. Then

again supported by Senator Kerry and other organizations she was granted Congressman Barney Frank to his right. Right. The Globe wrote this story and he was and his quote was also very. Again it's what's on people's minds. You know who who gets affected by her staying here like Who is she harming here. What crime was she did she commit and so it just brings all these questions to the surface again and and the other thing is five years after this raid we're still hearing and seeing about all these problems that they you know they don't seem to and have no end in sight. So I just want to say for the record before you speak that when you say you know what crime is committed a lot of people are listening saying well she's here not without papers and that's a crime. So we're talking about within the context of the crime of being here. With undocumented there are layers of how their IAS non citizens are treated. And this was one in which it seemed anyway that the

employer which is where that some of this a lot of the directed was it was not directed at the employers directed at the people and then it caused a ripple effect of now looking at who the workforce were mostly women. A lot of disconnect from their families now were going to do with kids who are left behind with no family. Somebody's got to pay for that so it's a whole 90 Irishness The other thing is being undocumented here and there's a lot of misinformation about that I'm not a lawyer but I know that being undocumented in this country is a civil offense which is different than how did I know right. So again I'm not a lawyer but there's a lot of misinformation that's obviously contributing to the demonizing of immigrants in this country. Well one of the things I remember I mean it was five years ago and at that time was one of the largest sweeps. Well folks with the federal agents and your writing are women. Mostly women. And then I remember that store that company Bianca and what do they have they had a government contract to make for the military to make backpacks. And so here you have the service that's needed and

most of these folks have legitimate Social Security numbers. And at the time the open question is why are you going after the mothers in the doors. Why not go after the corporations big time. And also these folks that are perpetuating this in a legal way and then you have not seen or maybe correct me if I'm wrong what has happened to the owners here Yako what has happened to these folks. That's right they know the factory was closed and it doesn't exist anymore and but that's a good question. They probably have to pay a fine to the government but. But yeah they're also at fault that they were also profiting probably paying a lot of you know low wages to them because it's cheap labor. So that's actually a good story to figure out what happened to them. Well and if I could be the small voice for some corporation that I know about Bianco but some have said quite frankly remembering the farmers in Vermont who are most of their workforce are undocumented and they said OK you find me somebody to come milk these cows right.

And they're very open about it. So to their credit there. How do you know that I recognize that a lot of their successes and their profits come because they have this forces labor force that they wouldn't be able to have access to if they were here. Here it's going to be dealt with. I'm Calgary was late and I know man we're taking a look at this week's local news with the Howard Manley of the Bay State Banner and Marcella Garcia of El Panetta. You're listening to WGBH Boston Public Radio. Funding for our programs comes from you. And Hannaford in Dumas commercial printers offset in digital printing finishing and mailing from one source you can find more information at Hanaford Dumas dot com or by calling 8 6 6. Quote HD. And Merrimack Repertory Theatre presenting the mysterious new drama ghost writer by Michael Hollander running April 19th through May 13th.

For more information you can visit Merrimack Rapp dot org. That's Merrimack rap dot org. And from members of the Ralph Lowell society these most generous annual contributors lead the way in sustaining WGBH as a public media resource available and free to all. WGBH dot org slash Ralph lol. OK are you ok. I mean. That he said Carter wrote that notorious speech and a beloved book about Cherokee life. Most people simply could not imagine that a former Klansman and this person couldn't have written this book The Education of Little Tree and its author's double life today on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. This afternoon at 4:00 here on eighty nine point seven WGBH. These days a dollar can go a long way. Downtown Boston the streets of Baghdad just north of Tulsa a scenic mountain village in central Greece give responsible journalists to find the tools to tell the world

stories. All it takes is a few minutes and a dollar a day. As a member of the WGBH leadership circle people are celebrating in the street through the wrong people. How far a dollar can take you. Visit WGBH dot org slash leadership beginning Monday April 23rd WGBH rides the team with a full week of focus coverage some of the many stories about how the MBT effects how and where we live. Next week here on eighty nine point seven page. I'm Cally Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in we're looking at the week's local news that went under the radar. Joining me to talk between the local headlines are Howard Manley the executive editor of the Bay State Banner and Marcella Garcia the managing editor of El Plata. So how would you have a huge piece based on a book by Michelle Alexander who will be in town this week speaking about this

book. The interesting thing about it before you talk about the essence of it and why you've written such a large piece is that this is an old book by publishing standards has been out awhile but the subject matter and her book is called The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness has sort of picked up and gotten more and more attention as people started looking at their local situations and comparing it to what she gathers in a book. This Officer Alexander the book is just very very statistics oriented. And it makes these conclusions that some people will be a little upset about but. It's hard to argue against that. The first thing is that we have become and we as in America has become a nation of locking people up. And one of the things that's a big number here is that 20 years ago maybe three hundred thousand people were locked up. Now that number is 2 million. So most of those folks are

busted and are in jail because they are caught with their nonviolent drug offenders. So the prison population is swelling on these nonviolent folks. But the cost of all this. It's into the billions of dollars when it costs one inmate in a state system like here in Massachusetts. Forty thousand dollars you have a budget problem that's never there's no brakes on it because no one is going to say be soft on crime so long as there's locking up people there's going to be a cost. And one of the things that's coming out of all this research is that folks are starting to look at the budget numbers. Look if we're spending all this money to lock people up we're not getting any return on the investment. So what can we do. And that's when sort of the drug rehab programs come up. These sort of work programs. That may alleviate folks who are not only caught up in a system but can't find their way once they get out. So it's funny too because the emails that we've gotten on this story really get into the not the issue it's

an issue but it's not the issue and this is what is sort of the alarming thing and this is sort of detracting from the real debate about the cost of the criminal justice system is that what are black people more violent. Everyone says that blacks and Latinos are out doing all these crimes they should be locked up more and there's no wonder that the crime rates have gone down why because we've been locking up all these people. That's not what the issue is the issue is about the cost. What are we getting for that money. Well the other issue Marcel is also back to as we saw in the ice story the separation between nonviolent and violent folks. And the point that she was making in her book one of the points she's made to many but I'm just to stick with that one is that a lot of people are taking up space in institutions who are nonviolent criminals now. Don't get me wrong I don't want to run into a nonviolent criminal either. But the point is that overall that's not what the point of the prison system was it was really trying to get those people and deter the violent ones and lock them away from the rest of us. Yeah.

And if I can just say I know this is just one aspect of it but immigration for example it's a it's a business. You know there's it's government the government is giving out these contracts to corporations to have prisons to detain immigrants for example and is just a big business you know that you say we're not getting a return on the investment of locking people up at least these people are so you know what I mean like the people that are the corporations rather than that are detaining all these people really when you have all of these numbers these huge numbers I mean 2 million. That is insane you know that somebody has to be gaining. You know some out of this so I get in the case of immigration. That's one of the stories that has been largely largely under reporting Arizona in Texas even in Miami. There have been all of these prisons opening up and yet it's individual private corporations are making money and it is really like just keeping people there waiting to get the port it's safe and maybe 50 years ago you had this great fear

under President Eisenhower about the military industrial complex but now what you have is this prison industrial complex which is benefiting from these unjust unreasonable sentencing laws which even to this day for example I'll give you one that's right before the Supreme Court right now and this is this debate which is really not a debate over crack versus powder cocaine. It's the same drug. But yet if you have a crack which is mostly used by Blacks and you know you're going to get three times five times the amount of sense. So this was overturned by the Congress two three years ago but now they're debating it and then these people have been released. Whether that bill I mean that law is retroactive from when the first sentencing was done. And so you get all this. And so meanwhile there's another several hundred thousand people just locked up waiting to go with those skills and this is where the caste system comes in this is the major point of our book. What you say that you are a convicted felon. It's it's very very very difficult to get housing to get a job. So you can't feed

yourself you can't house yourself. So you just go back and just keep going back and back and back. It's just like immigration reform to get real honest conversation about prison reform and sentencing guidelines in a political year. It's just not going to happen. Yeah I think the one thing that her book has highlighted is that because it seems you know maybe above our heads in a way we think OK nationally I see this just as you see what she's saying but what she's broken down is that it manifests itself in laws local laws. So here in Massachusetts we're talking about three strikes here in Massachusetts we're talking about some of the rules. Well the stand your ground that's one. But also in schools in high schools where kids if they mouthed off to the teacher you know back in our day the teacher would just march you down to the principal and or yank you called your call your parents that was that. But now they call the police. It's a liability question first. There are other reasons why we can't get into it now. But the bottom line is that begins a trail of leading to up

to the prison. Right nonviolent but yet there you are with a record and you have a record right when you end up in this scenario so this is something that is becoming increasingly people are paying attention to when and as I mentioned this book was out two years ago right. Kind of nothing happened. And then our show now people are looking at it and talking about it so that's that. Got to go to this is both local and national Marcella. President Obama and Mitt Romney both have ads out appealing to the Latino community. Right. And in conjunction with that Mark Rubio who is from Florida representative from Florida has now putting together a bill to address immigration reform some of the issues we raised before story about ice. Now this all comes together because there's a huge and we've talked about it here. We know what the numbers are in Massachusetts right. A lot of Latino voters at stake. Right so obviously now that Mitt Romney within the last couple weeks has already

rather emerged as the defacto Republican candidate. Now they're looking at the states and saying where are we going to be battling in six states have emerged as a Latino battleground states and Calif Colorado Nevada Florida. North Carolina New Mexico. So all of these states are being targeted by Republicans and Democrats Obama came out with a couple of Spanish radio ads as well as the Republicans now. Yeah obviously. What stake is the Latino vote. And he will make make a difference obviously where the difference is Brady. We know that Obama still has a lead rather in the latest poll versus Romney among the Latino vote but in different states he might make a difference. So then within this context Rubio comes out because he's being being touted as the or one of the kind of presidential nominees right.

Yeah so one of the issues are national or rather we've talked about here the DREAM Act right. Right. So Rubio comes out saying well I have my own version of the DREAM Act. We can give all this students the dream the original dream is giving a path to citizenship to students or rather teens who have come that were brought here by their parents but were raised here went to school here have a high school diploma so that they can go on to how they want to sort of military action right so they will be granted citizenship now Ruby saying it wouldn't last but it never really never passed. Yeah yeah so it was floor it was never passed but now Rubio is saying well my own dream. Oh he has been obviously opposed to this as well as Romney his version. It's the same except there wouldn't be citizenship for them. So you would be creating a different class or rather you would be granting them permission to stay but you're not giving them citizenship.

So you're like a guest stay. Yeah I don't know who they were probably getting a green card which is the residency but it's not clear where they would be illegible for citizenship years later and you have to remember that all of these kids consider their country the United States. They don't even speak Spanish don't even speak whatever language you know they consider themselves they're from here. So if you're not giving them citizenship I think that is huge and I think this is one of the things that's going to come up in the campaign because. It what's happening the Republicans just realize that they have to have something for Latinos they have to. They cannot continue doing the anti immigrant or touting the anti immigrant rhetoric anymore so that's why they came up with this dream. You know quasi DREAM Act but then again the question at hand is how can you not grant them citizenship if they consider his home country to be the U.S. He grew up here and now of course what people are thinking is you don't want to give him citizenship because they can vote that way.

Well the bottom line though is if this Mark Rubio is very popular he's a potential vice presidential candidate for the Mitt Romney's ticket and it's coming from him. Right so it's set to sell a plan coming from a Latino senator. Who is Republican right really important in this discussion right now. Yeah and to your point he's really but he is really popular among Republicans but he's not that popular among Latinos and even Republicans Latino Republicans. You know from Roy you can call the Latino Republican stablish and people like former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales he was here last weekend in Harvard and he offered his own opinion on where Michael to me he said he wouldn't be a good vice presidential candidate he said but did he like this plan. No. He does coming from a Republican you know and he said you know maybe the idea of having a Latino vice presidential candidate might work but he probably said maybe the governor of New

Mexico sodomite Athena's who's soul so actually pretty hard on it on immigration he said well maybe she would be a better candidate Michel to me and I think that's saying a lot. Well I think that this may Howard give Mitt Romney somewhere to land though on an immigration platform if he decides to embrace it it's not quite done. Marco Rubio still working on it but you know I remember when when any Republican effort to do it. Well OK there's a lot of people. More interested in Marco Rubio. And it's going to get very interesting. They have to decide this is what they're realizing they're really have to do something to to attract the Latino vote or at least to appear less hard on Gration Marcello while you're talking I do want to mention that there was a huge rally last week with about a thousand immigrants an annual immigrant Day celebration. Certainly was unaware of this total event even took everyone by surprise. A group of local immigration groups they

organized the annual immigrants they just celebrated and it's really rather it's in the book is the day it's they invite immigrants to go to the statehouse and talk to legislators every year. This has been gone for like 10 14 years. And you know a couple of hundred people show up at this year almost a thousand people showed up. There was a line outside the steakhouse and that was I think it's I think it's just pretty remarkable. Yes it's an election year but but still there's this interest and local immigrant community to get involved and to get to engage their legislators in the issues that they care about so what they did is that they held legislative meetings with aides with representatives with senators and they just talked about issues and I think even the mare fact of going to stay home is already a huge deal and a thousand people that's that's pretty big I hadn't heard a thing about it I say. I will note this speaking of politics and immigration and immigrants. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren spoke at the gathering. OK. So there is

some concerted effort at least on her campaign committees part to pay attention to this vote. Right. Howard quickly. Interesting program. You're celebrating a 10 year history right. Boston that program like you said is 10 years old. It's in the public schools it's a great great great thing because it even though we maybe as a society writing more e-mails and texts you know we really are not conjugating verbs and putting I think not. So this program is good in the sense that it helps public schools students. It also helps writers that from the public and it also teaches teachers how to grade and give papers at a little bit more effective for the students of all ages and so 10 years in the making and it's a legacy of something that you know found out when they put out to review a book I forget this book I'm having a senior moment.

But anyway he got all these responses is that who we really got to improve our writing and so that's how that started. It's been a good friend of mine from the Boston Globe is over there putting up that newspaper that they do Rick Kahn which is amazing. Yeah. Teens and pre-teens are really teens imprint I think is one of the best kept secrets I've never heard of them before I just. It was a magazine and it's made obviously supervised by them by and edited by Rick can. At the globe it's all this youth it's all these teens from the Boston public and the think that I like every time I see them I see I see women. I see you know young women I see black women and I see Latino it's so diverse and it's so multicultural that I love it I just got it two weeks ago I think it might be maybe quarterly or it's in a month. You know I think it's a quarter of you got it two weeks ago and it's women writing poetry or writing about contraception or writing about pharmacy it's just it's really really nice and that's what I like the most about this program is really the best kept secret in Boston.

Yeah. We should mention that it's inside Boston English High School I guess is one of the locations and it's got quite a right wide reach. Just I'm amazed there's a lot of talent a lot of a lot of talent there's a lot of stuff going on in Boston you just don't know right. I have even published by some of the girls at all remember when I was in print so it is really a good source of talents for us. Community newspaper so well it wouldn't be a day and we can review if it were not time to talk about the new boss and what we had. Hello thanks. Does the lawyer also do not spot you're saying Yeah that is because all of a sudden you realize that all these new places Latino restaurants were just popping up in summer and we're like what is happening in Somerville. Yeah a couple of restaurants opened the painted Boudreaux actually it's an American shop and really interested in the Dino food in particular in the Mexican because he'd been

working with Latino cooks and chefs in their kitchen. So he became interested because he was working alongside them so they taught him a lot of things and he decided to do a Mexican restaurant paint a little in summer but then we did a survey which is it's a pretty interesting concept is a fusion. You know originally from Spain but they are offering Papas with a fusion Latino cuisine so that you would have a Puerto Rican division of gloom in the you know the papa version and it's a Puerto Rican woman and sorry an Argentinean woman and a Colombian chef and then there's a Mexican chef opening up which is a mic rather he will be using Mexican techniques to cook meat. So it's all pretty. And then in the process of reporting the Summerville you know being the new hotspot from the scene we found out about this couple of shots from what the man who opened up a

sushi restaurant which is. Yes. Yeah that's pretty amazing. That's pretty amazing to get all the details. I know I'll be visiting them I say that right now. Thank you so much for the restaurant report card so I brought you back a story we've been talking news and restaurants with Howard Manley executive editor of the Bay State Banner and Marcella Garcia managing editor of thank you for joining me thank you counting from local headline news we turn to the latest pop culture headlines. You're listening to the Calla Crossley Show on eighty nine point seven. WGBH. With. WGBH programs exist because of you. And the Boston Pops led by Keith

Lockhart and joined by many exciting guests paying tribute to a wide range of American musical genres Broadway film gospel and more. May 9th through June 16th Boston Pops dot org. And Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston featuring an African violet show on April 21st and 22nd with thousands of blooming plants on display and for sale. More information online at Tower Hill BGT dot org. And inside Fenway Park an iconic 100 go behind the scenes of the iconic red sox and relive the legacy of the historic ballpark. Don't miss inside Fenway Park. And icon at 100 Friday at 10:00 on WGBH too. On the next FRESH AIR we hear from Mira Bartok author of the memoir The Memory Palace about her relationship with her mother who was schizo phrenic violent and for many years homeless. Last month the book won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best autobiography. Join us.

This afternoon to eighty nine point seven. What did Romeo and Juliet really shop like more than four centuries ago. Become a WGBH sustainer and everything you hear and refuse the name will sound a little bit different. Be still my haven goddess. That's because sustainers break their support down into monthly installments that automatically renew you. You set the amount and every month your support helps eighty nine point seven stay connected and reduce on air fundraising. Become a sustainer online at WGBH dot org. Next week on eighty nine point seven WGBH focuses on the NPT a Budget cuts are forcing riders to dig deeper. But we want to know how you might change the team. Share your answers at news dot org. It's Bragg time a look at popular culture the salacious the

ridiculous and everything in between. But this being public radio we'll conduct our review with the help of some highbrow analysts. Our pointy head Poobah us of pop culture Thomas Connelly is a professor in the Department of English at Suffolk University and Rachel Reuben is the chair of the department of American studies at UMass Boston. Welcome to you too. Hello again now. A lot of musical legends lost this week. I think the biggest shock to the system right away earlier in the week was the world's oldest teenager. He Dick Clark the host of American Bandstand set. The Philadelphia way we're going to drop in on all the music. We're going to swing in the ground. There's a clown in the ring in the middle and out of the room. It's.

Not some. Thomas thing right now that was a song that a lot of people knew very well. Yes yes. I don't have such great memories of American Bandstand because for me it meant definitively no more cartoons but it seemed like it was always around and Dick Clark's been everywhere my whole life. But I mean for me watching him the most was the pyramid that 10000 $25000 $100000 gave him and then I remember when he took over the New Year's Eve show from the flacking Guy Lombardo orchestra but what to me is interesting about him is that you know America's oldest teenager he really is the living embodiment of the total marketing and consumer orientation of the whole pop culture economy toward teenagers. And he cashed in on this year after year after year and you have to give him credit for it. I know you know not everybody is you know

admires him and loves him for his creativity. But as in terms of a business man and recognizing how to manipulate trends and keep himself in the forefront of them or to maintain the waves he's without peer. Right so I thought he was creative in this way in that he seemed to be a step ahead of the rest of us in recognizing musical artists who would later turn out to be quite large in our pop culture. Yes you know he was very very good on that I mean but it was a mess in a couple of pop music's great moral issues. And the first is about race. We have a lot black music out on the show he definitely got it out of the circulation. But black teenagers have a really hard time being on the show and this is a contradiction that John Waters skewers in his movie Hairspray. So if you think about his nickname the oldest teenager it really becomes clear that this relatively new category of teenager was defined as white in the public imagination for quite some time. And one thing Motown Records

was able to do that was so important was put black teenagers into the main story. And then of course there was the payola scandal which almost derailed his career which record companies were bribing radio stations to play their record. And he he didn't have his career wrecked because he does. Fight a pun against a bunch of other people in consultation or in a record company. So you know he had been there for a long time but have separated for better and for worse shepherded rock'n'roll through several generations of changes. He was 82 when he died. We should say that he created New Year's Rockin Eve he created the $25000 Pyramid is creating these things on the side. And I would say that by default he ended up helping Don Cornelius create Soul Train We lost Don Cornelius earlier this year but because of your point Rachel about the black teens not being able to be on the show Don Cornelius created then the fabulous Soul Train where black teenagers were the stars the show. That's right. Yeah. So I you know it's a It'll be a moment and I'm I think Ryan Seacrest is poised to sort of take over

where Dick Clark left off because he's been building an empire production empire and he's also been the co-host of New Year's Rockin Eve so I imagine he's the next oldest teenager if you will. All right. Another icon we lost just a day ago. That's Livan helm Livan Helms is on drum in this classic performance of the band and that was a group he was with and this is called I shall be released. This. Week. That's the 1967 track I shall be

released. Written by Bob Dylan with Richard manual singing lead vocals and Rick Danko and Livan helm who just died at 71 in the chorus. Rachel Livan helm was drummer singer consummate musician and well-loved through much of music's finest. I mean I'm an actor and an actor that's right. But I'm yeah don't everybody think he was a really good guy you know and rock critic. John Carroll said of him he's the only drummer who can make you cry and I love that. But but he was also really a wonderful Focalin and I'm glad you played the band because when people talk about the band you know generally Robbie Robertson got the scene at the center of it but I think it was all about leaf on a hill thought that that band where they wanted to go was a creative vision and it was great in movies as I said he was a coal miner's daughter and the right stuff and then in his solo career I just was thinking of how to put my foot in really trying to put dirt on his songwriting.

He wanted to get boys in the in there into the pop music world class in a region you know that are important and can be overlooked. TOM Well it's interesting that people keep talking about. Martin Scorsese's documentary The Last Waltz as you know the greatest concert film ever made and there's been a lot since his death there's been a lot of tributes paid to his particular performance as a singer and how moving it is just to watch him as he really is living each word of the lyrics that he's singing. And again I grew very tall. And what you said about his being it's so unusual that a drummer would take this position. And it's also interesting that the discussions around you know with the person and the person problems among the personalities of the musicians in the band and issues with Dylan he's really a summation of everything that was great about you know 60s rock and also a lot of the problems that it encountered as you know the decade wore on and even into the 70s and later well as we said with Dick Clark and leave

on him died just recently. But this week an artist who's been dead a long time must be brought back to life by technology to pack the iconic rapper. And here is a song that he's known for that was sung at through a hologram at a concert called Coachella. This is hail mary the track that two packs hologram saying at last week's Coachella. It's promising. This is. Great. OK so that's Tupac you're thinking to yourself he's been dead for quite some time. He was brought back to this holographic

technology as I've said at this huge music festival it was the festival is pretty much over. I mean they were at the end of it and then they all of a sudden two pack appears I'm using air quotes now on the stage at a festival called Coachella. This was put together by Dr. Dre and current rapper and people were stunned just so everybody knows his mother afine Chicago or pecks mother approved of this and is happy to see people see his music again and respect him and everybody who was there Rachel says it was just as though he were standing on the stage. And they think that that's a bad idea. Rate of a little bit is sort of an extension of you know people have been singing duets with people you know dead musicians for some time. But if if if if if you can have a hologram perform then why do you need to have live musicians at all. I mean I'm I'm sort of waiting for that and I'm afraid that live music is going to change from meaning something about the performer to the rare

occasion when people come together to listen to the same thing. You know because we now have headphones on all the time and music is so individual. So imagine you know why would you go see a new musical act when you can be Elvis or you can see Bob Marley right and so you know it. There's a line here and I don't know which side is going to end up on between you know respect and and admiration for Tupac of for a musician who has died and sort of letting that happen. Curse the president and you can say. Like today it's all garbage you know. I'm going to go out to a concert and it's going to be you know somebody who was really really great. Tommy I should mention that this is James Cameron's visual production house called Digital Domain. He of Avatar and now Titanic the reading and to hologram imaging companies avi concepts and a UK based musician systems. Well I think this is very appropriate since what we're really talking about is a slight variation on

19th century technology. This is a reworking of something called Pepper's Ghost which was used in the 1900 to show Ghost on stage through reflection. Also I did this in 1960s head in a musical called time but Cameron of course trades on Neo melodramatic conventions and so forth so I think this is perfectly appropriate he's doing this but I think it's everything old is new again here you know bringing back from the dead I mean this is just a new twist on tribute performers I mean to to pick up on what Rachel was saying and it really is. It makes us question what is going to happen to live performance when you can really only hear the songs you like sung by the singers of the past who you really like. You don't have to take any chances you know. It's like what's happening to bookstores. There won't be any musical browsing anymore it will always be the right you know the quote unquote right performance by the quote unquote original performer and with regard to being in the same place watching a musical performance there are a lot of people who have been pushing for the sort of next

Netflix concert situation so you're in your house with your preferred two or three people or alone you're not out in a big stadium so that all of those things are coming together to make some of that there. I do want to say just to lighten it up a little bit. Kanye West made a tweet about this performance that was just hilarious. What was that. Picking up on his language from when you know his infamous interruption of Taylor Swift. He said to Pac I'm happy for you and I'ma let you finish but Obi-Wan Kenobi was one of the telegram. That's Read again. I love this guy. This is as I've said seems to be the week of legacy and legend and icon this and what better to note that bossa nova turns 50. And here's one note some with S. Truett Gilberto and Stan Getz. Let me just listen to that all the time I found it very fascinating

that while we're celebrating bossa nova speech that the the album that kicked off the 50th anniversary Stan Getz and Charlie bird's album jazz Samba they said is not really true but it's jazz. Yeah this is it's a complex form and some people might remember Steven 80s blame it on the Bossa Nova I mean this really runs the whole spectrum it was the roots of this kind of Brazilian pop of course came to America through common around a lot of the people associated with her her her band then went on with the cultural Beeman Gilberto Gilberto to make it something that people could be aficionado but also just you know kick back to I mean it really is a range and I think that's why people are just so happy to hear it and also you can listen to it and take it very seriously. Yeah. Rachel Well I mean he was in the bottom no popularity was it wait for the hit parade. Do you sort of have a piece of the last thing that. And so popular in the United States since the 1930s. But what I think is really interesting is that had been

mostly Cuban as a Desi Arnaz orchestra so forth and you know the media changed to the 1950s very profoundly for Americans. So this was kind of a neat solution where you had the Latin music not Cuban anymore it's located mostly in Brazil but also for people of a certain social position you know especially white suburbanites. This was a sort of move forward towards the 1960s sexual liberation if you hurry Como could sing Papa loves Mambo I mean you know that's a very good point. One one second answer from you to a lot of actors and musicians visited Congress for arts funding to to hope to get some more in a week when we've lost so many and are highlighting something as fabulous as bus Innova. Any chance that they'll be heard. Well I'm complot Alec Baldwin for having the guts to ask for a billion dollars not just a few million but you know that's Alec Baldwin over the top as usual.

And you say no then OK. OK Rachel then I would say for best use of celebrity I've seen in a long time during the Great Depression making our well-considered work. Lot of those jobs are seen as an economic problem to be and I wish we could go there again. Well it didn't get much attention so we'll see if we're not able to do whatever year. I know but still. Yeah thanks to you both. Professor Rachel Reuben Professor Thomas Connelly thank you for joining us for another edition of ragtime. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash Kelly Crossley follow us on Twitter. I've become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook. Today Show was engineered by Alan Mathis produced by tell seamers will Rosalynn and Abbie Musica the Calla Crossley Show is a production of WGBH Boston Public Radio.