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 ragtime a tour of the tabloids and a roundup of this week's pop culture. Up next on the callee Crossley Show from gumshoe reporting the gossip rags. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying President Obama is

pressing Congress to act on his economic proposals and as NPR's Ari Shapiro reports Mr. Obama also issued a warning from the White House a short time ago about the threat Europe's shaky economy poses to U.S. recovery. President Obama says if the European economy goes down it could do serious damage here in the U.S. He warned that cutting alone will not create an economic recovery at home or abroad. What we want both for ourselves but what we've advised in Europe as well is a strategy that says let's do everything we can to grow now even as we lock in a long term plan to stabilize. Our debt and our deficit Republicans in Congress won't accept the spending that President Obama refers to as investments in the future. The president says you can imagine how much more difficult the situation is in the European Union where 17 congresses must agree on a plan. Ari Shapiro NPR News the White House.

Now shortly after President Obama's comments on the economy congressional Republican leaders fired back saying the fault lies with the administration's policies not Europe or House Republicans. As debate rages over who has the best options to help the economy grow the government is out with a new report that shows the country's trade gap shrank in April. NPR's David Mattingly says both imports and exports dropped from record level high set the month before. The numbers from the Commerce Department show a decline in the U.S. trade gap of nearly 5 percent. It shrank a little more than 50 billion dollars in April. Imports dropped more than one and a half percent but exports also fell as sales slowed for things like industrial machinery and commercial airliners. Ken Mayland is president of ClearView Economics. These figures are going to at least in. Nominal terms improve substantially over the upcoming months. The reason being says mail in the sharp drop in oil prices since April. Dave Mattingly NPR News Washington.

Well there is no hope of a Triple Crown in horse racing this year. I'll Have Another has been pulled from the running of the Belmont Stakes on the eve of the race because as trainer Doug O'Neill tells the Dan Patrick Show the horse has developed swelling in its left leg. I'll Have Another was heavily favored to become the first Triple Crown winner since 1978. When asked if the horse had run his last race O'Neal said quote If I had to wager I would say yes. At last check on Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 61 points nearly half a percent at twelve thousand five hundred twenty one. Nasdaq composite index gaining ground up more than half a percentage twenty eight forty eight and the S&P 500 up 6 at 13 21. This is NPR News. Good afternoon from the WGBH radio newsroom in Boston I'm Christina Quinn with the local stories we're following. Thousands of police officers from around the country join the governor and other dignitaries to remember a Springfield officer slain in the line of duty. Officer Kevin

Ambrose was laid to rest today during a funeral mass at St. Catherine of Sienna church in Springfield. A procession of an estimated 6000 out of town officers took 15 minutes to march past the church lined with hundreds of civilians. Ambrose was shot Monday responding to a domestic dispute by a man who then took his own life. Nearly a quarter of high school boys in Massachusetts reported symptoms of a sports related traumatic brain injury in the past year while more than six in 10 high school seniors who drive admitted texting behind the wheel. Those are two findings from a pair of reports released today on health behaviors of young people in Massachusetts. The reports looked at a range of activities from smoking and drinking to nutrition and sexual activity. The study found the percentage of high school students bullied at school was on the decline. Rates of alcohol and cigarette use also dropped with more students reporting smoking marijuana than cigarettes. In Rhode Island state and federal authorities are probing all financial transactions of former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's video gaming company the state U.S. attorney and the FBI are among those conducting the investigation into 38 Studios. The

Providence based company which laid off all its employees last month filed for bankruptcy in Delaware yesterday. The company owes one hundred fifty point seven million dollars its biggest liability is one hundred fifteen point nine million in debt from bonds backed by the state interest in fees to Rhode Island taxpayers are likely on the hook for some of that. In sports the Washington Nationals are in town to play the Red Sox with Felix Doubront on the mound and Stephen Strasburg starting for Washington. Scattered clouds in Boston right now with a temperature of 74 degrees tonight we can expect some showers and scattered thunderstorms with lows in the upper 50s Support for NPR comes from the Wallace Foundation a source of ideas for improving education and enrichment for children both in and out of school. Wallace Foundation dot org. The time is one of six. That afternoon I'm Kalee Crosley Today we're focusing on the stories that went under the radar this week. Joining me are Howard Manley the executive editor of the Bay State Banner journalist and media analyst Marcella Garcia also joins me in the studio. Welcome back. Happy to be here I

am great being back. So I heard Carol Johnson superintendent for a Boston schools. Howard talk about the grade that she would give the school's performance and how she thought it well yeah it was pretty good she said you know that we're we're we're doing better with. Things are moving along in the direction that I want them to move in and she's been here. But now you have this story on the front page of the manor about how Boston schools are out of compliance with a federal court order. Well that's true and it's not as harsh as it may sound. Some of these court orders or are vestiges of the old bussing days. And those numbers were based on the population that existed at that time so for example. It was required by federal law that there had to be maybe 25 percent black teachers in the school district. And so if you fell below that you were technically in violation. So again that 20 the number I'm using is not the exact number but they've slipped a little bit over the course of the last three to

five years. And that raises an interesting question about the population of the schools being almost 80 percent minority and the population of the teachers who are less than that and so I think the overall numbers and I have to defer to my city councilor Charles Yancey who monitors this is system wide in terms of every department. And he says overall the school department is doing very well in terms of its diversity hiring there over the percentage. But in terms of black teachers and probably Latino teachers those numbers are below. But that's changing and this is where Carol Johnson is right. And when you look at the new hires that have been made over the last year that number is almost 45 percent minority so it's one of those things that it's catching up. But. Carol Johnson is making progress at least what Yancey said. Felix the Radio City Councilor Marcella noted that because we're talking about the lack of meeting the requirement for black teachers that when you look

at the numbers for Latino teachers in the hundred and twenty five schools 12 had no Latino teachers and 16 or more had no Asians. It's mind blowing I mean I'm glad the city council critics are against having his voice heard in this debate because of course this was not mandated by the by the court order but it's very important in a school system where 40 percent more than 40 percent of the students is Latino. How are you going to close the achievement gap and how are you going to deal with the fact that most of them or a large majority of them do not speak English and are immigrants. So I'm just very glad that he's voices being heard and is being represented in this debate and also Felix already has a background. His wife is in there. It's a teacher reason. I don't know it yet. So he knows what he's talking about when when talking about school and the Boston public school system so I'm I'm glad he's he's giving his input here and like Howard says it's something that it's slowly catching up. But we need to see more happening more

quick. And it's important to throw in on this point about. The whole idea of having someone that looks like you teach you. Yes it's about quality in the park right senses and all that. But there's always that something extra that comes with a person that understands the neighborhood that you walk in. That may be and part of this effort to close the achievement gap can unlock that moment of discovery for these young minds to go on to try to actually go to school and participate and get good grades. It's a good point to make because a lot of people have an issue with oh he's like the you know you need to hire him or just because he's Latino we need more. You know it's a matter of like Howard says having people identify with the people they're teaching and it gives it brings an extra quality in because an extra element of understanding the people that you're teaching so it's not better versus you know worse but but you need to bring that into into the teaching environment. Marcella do you think that it also impacts because you know the dropout rate is really a

critical issue in town among these populations. So having Latino teachers having black teachers just to really say listen. You can stay here right. Is that does that is that also. Absolutely it's a major factor because having role models looking like you and showing you this is how this is what you can achieve this is how you can do it. Let me got you through this process let me tell you what you can do let me tell you you can be that's major major major and it's this whole idea of expecting the most of the kids as opposed to just sort of tolerating whatever behavior they come in the school with. And so I know back in the day we had teachers that were not afraid to telling you what you had to do that day. Oh yes. I want to just bring up one more thing on this. This particular story and that's the black educators Alliance has stepped in to say that they are concerned about recruiting I guess the recruiting efforts have been stepped up and that they're collaborating with UMass Boston Wheelock College Teach for America all of those places but

the black educators Alliance are saying hey. We need to be particular about how we recruit. Well you have that and you also have the retention policy and then you just have the bureaucracy of the school says about that that was one of the more amazing thing is that it takes nine signatures to hire So yeah that was kind of amazing and you just look at that and but under that system they had even more blacks and Latino's as teachers before the new rules. It just seems that reform is overused word but it definitely needs some scrutinizing on the hiring practices. All right moving on. I think this is definitely under the radar story for me even though it's right out in front and that is that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology known around here is the MIT named a new president. OK. Well I kind of maybe knew that but I didn't pay attention Marcella to the guy's name or his background or whatever and this is a real big deal in the Latino community correct. Yeah MIT named its first not a native English speaker

and the first person to come from Latin America Venezuelan guy. And it was Major you're absolutely right it was completely under the radar here was reported that MIT names a new president but in Latin American made huge you know. It's the first time right. Yeah and this is a guy who's been in the in my team working in that institution for a while now. He was a pro boss and also he was the guy behind or was working in this project for a while in the X Project. The joint venture a joint online education venture with Harvard. So he has been he secure funds for that so he's been in MIT not in the front pages but now he's going to be the face of MIT as a president so that's huge huge huge. It's going to obviously in Latin America this was seen as a as like we were talking about teachers and the teenage students it's the same parallel you know you can you know in America you see people coming this far it's major It's really

amazing to be the oh so you know I mean literally kind of a big response to a look in the Latino community as well because there is a growing Venezuelan Committee here in Boston and and seeing Renaissance advance and not just me as well but Latinos you know major sole source of pride in the Latino community. So I think if you look at the major colleges. His hiring comes on the heels of MIT having the first woman president right. Fell right OK right yeah so her tenure was I don't know how long it was eight years old is almost a decade and so here you've got a business Whalen brother running MIT just you know science and technology that's just sort of defies what stereotype is and so that's just a positive thing. Deserve think a raise what 30 million dollars right for the online education venture with Harvard which it was also very good news in the new community as well as MIT you know you know MIT of course here in the U.S. has this aura of being

the institution along with Harvard as well and we're home to that here in Boston but you know America is this community. Yes OK you know it is your right. Yeah I am like the easing as something that you just dream about. And this is what Hillary was talking about like this is one of his dreams and he made it. Coming from Venezuela. So it's amazing it's good news definitely. Well that's it will be interesting as we see the interesting mix as Howard pointed out in the leaders around the region really. Presidents of universities. All right. Howard rock Sperry's groups are trying to get a cultural district and square and Grove Hall. I didn't realize that there were certain kinds of parameters around how a culture district comes to be. I didn't know this until I had the story from Kent Cooper comes up with these. And right now it's just in the

planning stages but there is a cultural district designation that maybe there are three or four in the state right now that usually include like the Museum of Fine Arts and all that sort of stuff. And Roxbury there are some culture. We don't know if it's a contiguous. Geography because if you could go to one sort of place where the African-American Museum is it's way away from the square. So I don't know if you want to put some of those places in between the square and the museum as a cultural district but there are talk about all this. It's important to note that there's no state money attached to this. This is just a designation. I think it's a good preemptive strike for the future of Dudley Square as they're building and rebuilding all these new Ferdinand building and all that so I think it's a good move to start the discussion now and just see. And it's a great PR opportunity view of you if you ask me because really this is a

potential amazing opportunity for some businesses to to get together and say hey this is what we have here and even I I went to the African-American Museum What is it called the Museum of the National Center of African-American artists right. You have a few years ago a couple of years ago they held an exhibit I think it was called meeting and it was about the minicon Republic Dominican Republic art and some of the tea you know it was me. It was also a big big exhibit it was came from I don't know from New York. So for the first time ever I went to the center and I was impressed and I was in present this thing exists that I didn't know about. So imagine ways right. You know I know what you know what I had right in terms of public relations to you know bring more people to the Roxbury So I think it's a great opportunity. To be somebody has to take that and run with it right. It definitely would have an impact on tourism because some people come to the city and they're looking for those designated districts right. I don't know if it's going to be a district per se but I know in Cambridge you have different houses were example W.B. Dubois his

house where he stay when he was a freshman is on Spark street there's a little plaque in front of the house that I mean well I don't know but it's nice to know when you're walking around. Same thing and Roxbury you have a place where Martin Luther King preached. You have where Malcolm X hung out at a minimum plaques are definitely warranted. And people don't know about it right. It's huge. Any time anyone is talking about culture in Roxbury we love that. We should note that your piece quotes extensively Derrick Lumpkin who's the executive director of Discover Roxbury and discover Roxbury sponsors guided tours in Roxbury open studios so they're already on the path of trying to bring rifle's attention to the cultural aspects of the area so that's a good thing. All right much more to talk about. I'm Kelly Crossley and we're talking about the stories that went under the radar with journalists and media analyst Marcella Garcia and Howard Manley of the Bay State Banner. You're listening to WGBH Boston Public Radio. This program is made possible thanks to you. And the Boston speaker series

bringing to Boston national and global figures from around the world. The series returns to Symphony Hall for seven evenings. More information online at Boston speakers series dot org. And SNH construction. Up until about five or six years ago we didn't do much marketing at all. Doug Hanna partner but we found the value in getting our message out there and more specifically getting our name through WGBH radio. You know we just respect WGBH as an organization. Always have to learn how WGBH can benefit your business. Visit WGBH dot org slash sponsorship. So you're asking for how much money initially 35000 and how much rain did you get. Oh five hundred fifty thousand. I'm Karen Miller from websites like Kickstarter where individuals pool resources to fund big projects to companies like in a center that are open sourcing problems to be solved. We look at the power of crowdsourcing on innovation.

Saturday morning at 7:00 here on eighty nine point seven WGBH had the name of the activity. The next. Scene is like Mia break their gifts down into monthly installments that automatically renew that helps. Eighty nine point seven plan better and better plans means fewer fundraisers. And that's why males responsible for this hour of programming coming to you fundraiser Craig thinks may ask. Yeah yeah. Joining me by supporting eighty nine point seven this is Dana online WGBH dot org. Ramp up. You threw the first ball. Now it's Fenway Park. Her first ball out ever ever. 100 years of legend and history of Fenway Park. Fridays on WGBH is MORNING EDITION. I'm Cally Crossley. If you're just tuning in we're looking at the week's news local news that went under the radar. Joining me to talk between the headlines are Howard Manley the

executive editor of the Bay State Banner and Marcella Garcia a journalist and media analyst. So Howard again in the banner you've got an interesting piece about an election reform package that has already passed in the state house I'm under the radar for me. I didn't know there are so many different things that are going on in terms of not only locally but nationally in terms of protecting border right. And it seems that it gets lost in all these partisan discussions but meanwhile there's a little bill that passed in the state house legislature that has a number of different components. Probably the one most interesting one is that when young kids register for their license they can fill out their registration for voting and they'll be permanently entered into the system and they can sort of do that. But anything that increases the efficiency the other part that the mass boat people were talking about was the sort of audit that they would do after every election to make sure that in specific precincts and in different elections

that everything was as efficient as it could have been. So that's a kind of a good response of government to the basic responsibility that we all have which is the vote some of the stuff that is a part of this. Bill really speaks to what they're calling modern honors modernization. OK that's easy for me to say. OK so it's your fault but yeah it's easier for people to register to vote. Increasing the security and integrity of the vote counting process that you just talked about and then trying to get these new young voters I just want to clear that your piece makes clear that when we say young voters we're talking 16 and 17 year old. Right. You know not like 20 and 20 for now. Yeah I mean it's significant to have people as young as 16 17 year olds involved in the in the voting process is what this bill will do is they will this will allow them to pre register to vote so that when they turn 18 they will be automatically registered and that's sufficient suspicion as we

were seeing So any any bill that does it it's major Now this has to be passed in the Senate still and signed by the governors Bill probably that's why we haven't really read anything about it but. But it's it will be it's hard to believe that you say that it's the. The most significant reform to this law in 20 years like my vote says and I shadow tomorrow's vote because this is an organization that has been working for grassroots I'm grinding it out make it a little incremental improvements to your voting experience and also on behalf of minorities and you know voters and black voters so. So great. Well here's the thing about it that I find this very interesting at this is this past in the house with virtually no upset given the political tension around voting process I mean Marcella to you as you know Florida Governor Rick Scott is on the hot seat right now for having introduced this purging the rolls of people who allegedly are fraudulent or whatever. And you know he's been told by the Justice Department to stop that

when they looked at speaking of audits the numbers that were the people who had been purged most of them had a Latino vote. I am like no kidding. Yeah exactly and this is why I wanted to give a shout out to manage people because they really are taking care of or making sure that Latino voters and black voters aren't not only discriminated but really that they could participate in the in the in the voting process and this is just one of the things that they're working on and going to that to that point man's vote I think for a lot for the longest time has been pushing a legislation that would allow voting they really would say Right right right straight you know it's Minnesotans have forever right. Yeah. Yeah right. Which would obviously eliminate a lot of the barriers that Latino voters have because as we all know Latinos have a higher rate of mobilization they move very much more frequently than other voters so they don't get you know for

it's just another barrier to vote and these would be eliminated with the same day registration so. I'm so glad that this organization again is working on minorities behalf so that we don't have that situation in Florida and the other main one that really gets little credit over the years has been just the I guess is the term for transliteration with a voter ballot to translate into different language yes. So that's more inclusive we want to encourage people to vote even if you don't speak English all that well. But please let me remind you not only for Latino voters that was I mean I try to Chinatown thing right. And again and happening in Florida also is that Governor Scott eliminated pre-registration. I mean same day registration that just went away. So there's a lot of that and the neighbors very close here in Rhode Island have passed a voter I.D. law. So this is interesting to me that this bill has passed and we haven't heard much pushback which I

think you know for some of the components of it are very controversial in writing out to the country right now. I got to live in Massachusetts just saying All right well it's not clear what is supposed to come to the Senate or when it will get right. But I you know I assume that we'll hear something from adults and keeping an eye on it. Right. All right Marcella. Now some months ago we talked about and I even did a huge follow up piece. After an article was written about Lawrence heist Lawrence the city of Lawrence and all of its issues and Boston magazine became a big to do lot of controversy and now a piece in The New York Times actually written by someone who worked at WGBH just did good so she knows the story well. Just in a larger context reflecting back some of what was in that article some of what but what I found very interesting is that the groups of people who were angry about the characterization of the city have now moved on to start implementing some things

right to change the regime but I think the present right yes which is what was interesting about this story because when I saw the headline and this is something that kind of flew under the radar because the story has been desperate for a couple of weeks more a lot of money so yeah. Right so I was I will what is this go to what is this story going to bring to the discussion right now but it's exactly that group we are in Lawrence and state definitely active definitely. This cited I guess in staying nonpolitical and just moving to changing the perception in the focus of Lawrence being a density as the Boston magazine article portrayed them and they have been actually doing things one of the things that I learned about that was not definitely reported in the Lawrence media or the state media is for example the cash mobs that they're organizing to help some of the local businesses a stager Cashmore way in which they were inviting residents and people from neighbor neighborhood towns to just go to these hardware store and buy in.

The owner of the store reported that they were selling three times the rate of a normal day so that's that's new to me anyway you have about a city that's was condemned as being condemned. And the exact quote was most godforsaken city in Massachusetts right. Oh then I guess we were right. Yeah exactly and then this story also called Ellis Island the Merrimack Valley. Again you know tell us you know about the history of immigrants coming to the city and now it's 73 almost even three percent Latino. So it's a great it's about the great things happening in Lawrence and and yes the Boston Magazine article was completely true. You know some might say as we argue here that he was probably one sided but there were good things to be said about Lawrence and in fact there's a lot of stories that have to be reported I found out about this youth this youth led effort called What's good in the hood and it's

completely social it's based Internet base only like you in English in its first second third generation Latinos high school students it's about this young woman that want to social entrepreneurship or working with the money she decided to fund the newspaper that would just cover positive stories about Lauren's well so it's they have a tumbler site and they post pictures they post you know videos and so that to me that's the great story about we are Lawrence where the whole movement. Do you see youth getting involved in the fate of the city and you see them reporting on the news and what's good in the hood literally. So hopefully we'll see some stories like that being reported in the media because ultimately we just want that to advance in the schools to the school system by the way it was just the same way that the New York Times article was published in late May. It was announced at the you know how the school system in Lawrence was placed under receivership. They the state commissioner of education and the receiver Jeffrey Riley announced a turnaround plan for the

schools. So I guess that's also news under the radar. Yeah but it shows you that it's advancing right moving in the right. What I think also if I may. However it seems to me that there were these kinds of stories and efforts that Marcella has articulated. There is an effort to separate what the mayor and all his issues from the city and the people. Well that's exactly right and it's the only strategy that you can have because in his tenure and it was just praised all around when he was elected the first Latino and Lawrence in a city that 73 percent. Do you know and he has not been effective leader in solving some of those chronic problems namely crime. Namely the education system and the economic base now to the extent that he could do that in three four years. But it doesn't help when you're under indictment. Yeah I know you got crazy recall efforts that almost landed but all of you know so you have this

whole so I don't know how long he can last in that particular job given the pressure that he's under for reform by the citizenry. And I remember when the Boston Magazine story came out it was like how you if you live in Lawrence you can't let somebody come in your neighborhood and just say anything about the most God forsaken place in Massachusetts. I think that you know to your point about not involving or not getting political You can argue that you cannot separate politics from this citizen citizen driven effort as the Eagle Tribune the local paper put it in the Tauriel they were literally calling out the we are Laurence we're by staying a political How can you not be more political and say well you know because it's definitely tied to the fate of the city who is the leader of the city who's going to lead who are you proposing. And so that's a debate that's there. Yeah and Wright is going to continue but unless we see a recall effort

that you have to obviously hear discussed there's some real efforts being made to. You know oust mayor Lynn do you own less that's resolved. You cannot talk about what's coming next politically for the city. You're listening to eighty nine point seven WGBH an online of WGBH dot org I'm Kalee crossing we're talking about local news that went under the radar with Howard Manley of the Bay State Banner and journalist and media analyst Marcella Garcia. Final button on the Lawrence. We are Lawrence effort. They are using conventional public relations efforts they've got a public relations guy get now involved Welling tearing his efforts to turn this thing around so these people are fired up as the right to bar from Barack Obama. You know so you know maybe. That's OK I'm just saying that just firing back I know I'm doing all of that. OK so Marcello I just can't let you go without noting that

Chad I think is just being kicked off the Patriots roster and I don't the reason I throw it to you is because I think a lot of people don't know that he changed his name from Chad Johnson to Chad Cho Sinko because he was in honor of his panick Heritage Month and he was giving tribute. He's such an interesting character and it's so sad to see him go not only because he brought this kind of like interesting persona to the game he was so active on Twitter. I cannot even tell if he was not ready for police. Nobody knows either. Right right. But remember how we talked about here when he came when he first was signed on how the only the only Latino player for the Patriots I don't evn and this gave him the name the number of because it was his and so 85 remember he wanted to have the 85 number to go with his last name so

I don't know the man that gave it to him and you know he gave it up I wonder if he's going to have it back now. I don't and like I said he brought an interesting personality to the Patriots although on the field he really bugs me something about the playbook I don't know what exactly it was but yeah well you know but it was interesting you know I thought it was interesting they are going to like interesting character so there you have it. Well right. Just had to make sure I got that brother Chad and we'll figure out what's going to happen to him. I mean what are you ok. Yeah definitely. Thanks you too. All right thank you Kelly. We've been talking news with Howard Manley executive editor of the Bay State Banner and Marcella Garcia journalists and media analyst. Thank you both for joining us from local headlines we turn to the latest pop culture headlines you're listening to the Calla Crossley Show on eighty nine point seven. WGBH. This program is on WGBH thanks to you. And Greenberg Traurig an

international law firm with offices in Boston and more than 30 other cities worldwide addressing the complex legal needs of businesses from startups to public companies global reach local resources law dot com. And Bank of America. We know WGBH is important to our customers. Bob gallery Massachusetts President Bank of America our commitment to Boston is a strong now as it's ever been in our commitment to WGBH is as strong now as it's ever been. And I think that matters to our clients and to our associates. We look forward to working with WGBH for many years. To learn more visit WGBH dot org slash sponsorship. Let me ask a question. Why does this keep working what I thought I believed. What were you thinking when you saw it probably you know literally. Why are you there. What if you were going to get is or something about their brain. Why why why why would I

question the answer. Radiolab Saturday afternoon out to. Him has gone into extra. Bits when sought after gift certificates home electronics even patriots to. Even land incredible getaway to Chicago to make up for any other JetBlue destination. Every morning bit helps you get out of the car. It's time for Extra. Oxygen. WGBH. Two heads are better than one. How about a hundred or a thousand. I'm Karen Miller. This week on the investigate the power of crowdsourcing. Saturday morning at seven point seven. It's rag time. A look at popular culture the salacious the

ridiculous and everything in between. But this being public radio will conduct our review with the help of some highbrow analysts are pointy head Poobah of pop culture Thomas Connelly and Rachel Reuben Thomas Connelly is a professor in the Department of English at Suffolk University. Rachel Reuben is the chair of the department of American studies at UMass Boston. Welcome you to. Happy Friday. Yeah it is Happy Friday and so beautiful day too. It's going to be a beautiful day for a lot of kids assume because Disney has decided to take a bold step to not sponsor its programming of which there is a lot with junk food. No more. Let's first hear what Disney has to say because Disney has taken a page out of Michelle Obama's book. Titled Living happily feeling happy and. Sometimes that means you can try something new. There's a world of food out there so let's eat. Today we're here with celebrity chef

Michael Simon and best selling author Daphne eyes. And we're going to learn how to make an easy watermelon line cops can't wait. There you have it Rachel. Are you impressed. No I didn't you know I don't think they did a cost benefit analysis right let's not kid ourselves. But I do think it is a step in the right direction and next I would like to start thinking about all the princess stuff they're putting into girls and boys minds. Well let's connect all the dots because I think some people look at that as just strictly you know government regulation versus a private company story. And when we're looking at it in terms of pop culture the impact that Disney has made cannot be overstated Absolutely. Yeah I mean this is like the company for which you know the the the the expression halo effect might have been invented. So even the fact that if they just ripped take away all of that junk food programming knowing that kids will not have that facing them every

time they enter into the Disney World and as I said it's extensive. I think you know it can it's a can be a little Michelle Obama like. Anyway yeah I guess one of the great conspiracy theories is the supposed secret meeting that took place between Disney Microsoft and McDonald's in which they were going to divide up the entire. World and provide every possible human need this kind of up and that. But you know for years conglomerates have been getting into you know green food and you know supposedly organic food and it's incredibly profitable. So you know I don't think this is so much you know the government at work as you know the hand of the market and you know benevolent or malignant. I hope that it will have a good effect that you know kids watching their shows although you know frankly I don't see any benefit of watching Disney shows. Sorry.

Yeah OK I think the overall impact if anybody is to be saved from you know eating fistfuls of corn syrup and processed you know flour then there will be some small good effect. Well I think if I'm going to say that I think it'll be larger than small in this way because when they merchandise their stuff the food that they're little characters eat you know was often junk food that you know goes away now. So you have a double hit not only do you have the straight out ads gone away but all the sort of merchandising connections go away too. I hope at least there's also some confusion some people think that it's the parks that aren't going to be serving junk food anymore. Oh I see. Oh I heard there were some English people on a BBC program talk about how excited they were to finally be able to eat healthy at Disney World and it's as you mentioned it's the Disney the whole Disney World. The family park that this will have an impact so I think you have a point. Yeah and actually it's the focus is definitely on the ad so since having dealt with my friend's child who knew the name of the

princes and all of the details six months before the movie opened I don't know how they know they market it. Oh yeah got to take that away. You know she knew what food difference as a that Princess is picking up on junk food in the exact dryer that's right. This Say what you will and I may be cynical or whatever and the green thing I think is an important one. By the way we should mention that it doesn't go into effect until 2014 2015. So there's a couple years in there between. But even one of their spokespersons which I thought was interesting said with our new guidelines some of our current material that we have said is healthier actually wouldn't fit. So that's pretty interesting I mean it's pretty big no operation will say we lost a great one this week of Fahrenheit 451 author Ray Bradbury died at 91. I just love this piece about him. He never used a computer or wanted to or drove a car and yet he was writing me to even avoid airplanes and felt very late in his life and I think this this. Sums

up what makes Bradbury the extraordinary figure that he was and unfortunately is very much of a lost era. Very much a humanist science fiction writer who is primarily concerned with the impact of other worlds or other forms of technology on the human being rather than getting primarily caught up in the other or the machine. People like Isaac Asimov and others who even were older than he is seem to be much more interested in that. Even if you go back to the Czech writers considered one of the first of these kind of cattle chopping he was writing about the dehumanization but Bradbury is essentially. Domestic and eager for people to reap the pain of their their flesh and blood it will you know that's an interesting point what do you think Rachel. Well he's he's right. It is true his fiction is very very dark and he actually rejected the term science fiction. So I think it's probably better to say

speculative fiction because he did work in a whole lot of different you know sub genres of that. And yes he was he was very you know he was very worried about the what it meant to have these two superpowers with nuclear capacity. You know in 1950 he was very worried about what unchecked market would mean and what colonialism would mean. So I do think it's true that he wanted people to retain their humanness and for that reason. So it's a hard line to draw for that reason he did reject things that he felt could bring that dystopian imagined future closer. So for example that he said that about the Internet. That's why he didn't want to have anything to do with it. And I don't think any of his books ever appeared as e-books because you know so I mean it is nice to think of that as an optimism. You could also think of it as a pessimism and I I just remember you mention Fahrenheit 451 and I do think that's what he's most remembered going to be most remembered for. But for me it was the Martian Chronicles and the stories in there I

just remember where I was when I read them as a kid and sort of figured out what they meant. You know politically and historically they were deep. I've never recovered from reading The Martian Chronicles it instead of shooting you can't think what a dark and deep. I just want to note that it wasn't until last year at the end of last year 2011 that he and his publisher you know pressed him about the book and he finally let Fahrenheit 451 be any book can't burn it if it's an e-book. Yeah I guess that's true. There you go. So I have to say that I'm always fascinated in the political world about the non-denial denial and so here we have in our world of pop culture a giant medical institution coming forward talk denied the existence of you know people that are fictional anyway. It's all about zombies and. The CDC came out to say really there are no zombie apocalypse. It's not happening it's not happening here in the sense they're saying this it must be

true. You know it's a cover up. Exactly. Well clearly the CDC has never taught in 8 o'clock in the morning class. All right I got to let Stephen Colbert tell us what his take is on this so he is still going to call there talking about zombies cannibalism is the hot new trend. Folks there is a terrifying new name for this horror the zombie apocalypse. The possibility of a zombie apocalypse like he sees them will soon be the only exist that don't know me. So. It's worse than we thought. Folks there are undead and after our chops. OK so the CDC the Centers for Disease Control had to issue an official reassurance that there was no zombie apocalypse. I here's the quote The CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would

really animate the dead or one that would present zombie like symptoms. Where have we gone to. Well it's also been a spike at last year some time there was when it was a prank or something serious twenty something at the CDC. You really believe that zombie apocalypse was imminent. That it's a response to that that went something from the CDC that went viral. But I mean it's even on Game of Thrones now you know zombies are emerging out of the snow is zombies are all important right now and it's such a troubling thing these copy cat horrific crimes that have taken over the headlines are also I think part of the impetus for this that people are reading about how many real crimes of cannibalism and dismemberment that perhaps some of the CDC felt it was necessary to allay the panic. But you know. Since when is you know a fictional or imaginary creature reported on by a government agency.

I don't know to Tom's point Rachel. Some suggest that people are you know worrying about the zombies because of their other fears. I think that's why I think that's true I mean I guess you could say that government agencies have always been reassuring us that people haven't landed from other planets who you know have it in for Earthlings. But I do I think that this is you know I mean I don't think we have to take it literally. For it to be a serious concern that people have and you know we are on the tail end of a you know a whole lot of years of zombie focus and then if you add sort of vampires into the mix you realize hey we're using it we're using culture to keep telling ourselves stories about consuming that dangerous consumption. You know and so it's hard not to see both the zombie craze and the vampire craze as people worried that consumerism has gotten out of hand and they know that the enemy was and that the deadening of you know getting back to Bradbury that the deadening of our human traits and you know that these these Filon from these demons being among us and we were not realizing it.

I mean also. If you have a flesh eating bacteria disease. Yeah that cow disease that's really there I did not think to be afraid. Right but keep in mind too that George Romero's first zombie movie was set in a shopping mall. Well interesting. We lost Richard Dawson this past week. And Richard Dawson was the former host of The Family Feud one of his that trademarks was kissing female contestants The Here's Richard Dawson explaining that he came up with this tactic after a nervous young girl clammed up on the show when he asked her to name a green vegetable you can eat raw Dhamma do something that my mom would do to me whenever I had a problem. And he and I would like this like kissed her on the cheek. Look just like asparagus. It was he was funny and nice. You know some in the veneer and the way I totally the end of an era that is what I mean despite the relevance by the way you know the Wu-Tang Clan saying I something like I start more few woods

then Richard Dawson in the line. That's with us. But you know there was actually his kissing of the female contestants was considerably more lascivious then that little clip would indicate unless you think too hard about asparagus. And so I do think that his passing does represent the end of an era you can't quite get away with that anymore. At the same time it MEMBER It was like this huge scandal because he made a few tame jokes about Nixon on television which I think now you could get away with more. So the you know there are just you know even his peers the Hogans Heroes sort of what what launched him a comic show about how funny it is in a Nazi prison camp that also seems like something that we're not doing right now. So definitely I think marking a generation of television that's passed the other not the producers but I can remember watching Dawson and thinking this is the most cynical snarky guy I've ever seen on TV I didn't think anything he was doing was anything he was doing were sincere and then at the end of it. Kerry

comes out you Mr sweetness and light I was just you know a lovey Davi encourager of people he married one of the contestants. But it's interesting to me how in retrospect he's remade himself as the dear you know British chap and yet I remember him as the host of the running man that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie which really was a Dawson playing himself in sort of a Hunger Games game show ahead of its time with adults going to the jungle to you know kill each other at Dawson searching with the wood and the film had a very appropriate ending for wow the whole side of him you know I just didn't know about but that's that's interesting perspective in any case. He's gone and that is definitely an end of a certain kind of entertainment at least for this moment. So Oprah has decided to bring back something old something tried and true. So here's what was happening I was reading this book as a book as a real book holding up the book and I was on the edge of my seat reading the book and I was like where is the Oprah Winfrey show when you

need to announce and tell everybody about this book. I need the book club. So I created Book Club 2.0 for this book Wild by Cheryl Strayed. It is just. A while raw a bit of a read. OK so there you have her excitement her enthusiasm for your back to the book club as you know was a huge success on The Oprah Winfrey Show and now it's going online. Certainly marrying with the times of social media. Do you think it's going to be as successful. Not at all the crucial thing is no more Oprah show. She has no definitive platform anymore. You know she can issue e-mail alerts. She can you know appear here and there on television but not having a regular television show and the dismal performance of her own network really makes this seem like a desperate ploy to get herself back on top but without really going the distance of you know bringing back putting herself back in front of

the public all the time I mean there's been National Enquirer stories about how the board of W.A. is throwing her out and the chief you know. Drowning yourself in tequila. You know I don't take that for what it's worth but this is absolutely not going to. It hasn't worked so far and also it's different in that she's pushing you know the e-books the Kindle and the things which again her it's contradicting her moving toward a limited demographic of people in middle age or early senior citizenship who may not embrace the ebook the way that she wants them to it just it just seems a flawed technique and doesn't bode well for her future. So Rachel you don't think that it is a way for her to embrace two of those demographics the older people that who like books presumably and the young people who want to be online. I think I mean the older by the way the older people who like books particularly women older women those are the ones who read books. You know they read books overwhelmingly more than men or more than

younger people. So you know even if it is that demographic I don't know it could work I mean it's completely fascinating to me. And you know she's she's got people to read Faulkner So I sort of feel like I'm coming in with like a lot of sort of confidence in her ability to put that over and. It's but it's fascinating to me too is just this reminder if it does work we'll be reminded that tastes how tasty gets constructed. You know and that it isn't an absolute thing and that the sort of hierarchy of it is determined by these sort of outside factors. I'll be watching with interest. But she couldn't our last two choices of The Tale of Two Cities inverted. Patients by Dickens didn't it didn't work. And so there's there's some thought that the old Book Club 1.0 was done anyway so this is further evidence that this man work well when she first did it I loved it because she would invite the author in and invite readers and they would have a discussion around a dinner that was fascinating to me I love though this should change the format of it I didn't like it so so much. So

maybe still I don't know how you do that online but I have to say that I think she did very well with one of those new age guys that she loves and put him online and it went crazy and that was of course she did every show as Tom points out you know but it was all online and it's what I do remember and I go around you know all over the trolley and out on the train I mean I've got a droid unary and it's interesting. It's just really interesting to see it like reading the act of reading has been so radically redefined and you know be interesting to see how this you know how this shows those changes. All right so fond memories of the drive and if people don't are listening they don't know what that is. So it's a movie you drove in in your car and it was on the big screen and you had your whole family and you you know ate popcorn or bed other bad food and it was a real interesting time so this is the seventy ninth anniversary. And I didn't know until now Rachael that it was the brainchild of a chemical company magnate Richard Im Hollingshead Jr..

Completely fascinating to you because you would get in your car you would drive to the movies it's now sort of you know covered over with this now stuff in a style just that we don't really choose to remember that the movies were bad they were mostly B movies a horror movie than exploitation movies and the sound was terrible you know. But it was more it was about something else right you could sort of drive somewhere and not ever even have to get out of your car. Well it was also family oriented You got what 15 seconds. I thought Dr Zhivago and Cleopatra large of Arabia the drive and I for the first ten years of my life of the drive and I didn't go to one into a movie till I was 11 years old. And you did have to get out of the car to go to the concession. But it really is I wasn't right about I don't know why. I mean I think that's why people still do it and why it will continue to exist people want to live in their cars. All right well thank you very much Tom Connelly and Rachel Reuben for joining us for another edition of ragtime. You can keep on top of the Kelly Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley follow us on Twitter. Become a fan of the Kalak Rossley show on Facebook. Today Show was engineered by Alan mess

produced by Chelsea murders. Will Rose lip and Abbey Ruzicka power in turn. Is Sloan Piver the Calla Crossley Show is a production of WGBH Boston Public Radio. We were. With. The but. Where.