Vegucated

WMNF presents Vegucated Wednesday, August 15th at 7:30 p.m. at the Roosevelt 2.0. 

My Friend Mark Nash

I’ve known Mark Nash for seven years. We met as volunteer producers at TBCN, the local community access TV station.  

Hillsborough County broken down by districts. 

He’s been involved in campaign work I think at least as long as I’ve known him. Now he’s running for public office himself.  


I'm of the general opinion that local politics is where change really begins, and lots of the people I encountered at Mark's campaign kick off Friday in Riverview agreed. 

Volunteer Joan Williams checks party goers in. 

With local-minded ladies Jen Greenfield, a social media coach, and Michelle Kenoyer.

Angie Angel, the past president of the East Hillsborough County Democratic Club with two former Florida gubernatorial candidates, former Florida CFO Alex Sink and husband Bill McBride.

I thought my education was lacking since I had just one semester-long civics class in 8th grade. Tom Morgan (no relation), Vice President of the College Democrats at USF, said Florida public schools don’t even have that.  

“I had no idea of the difference of the political parties,” he said. So I was curious – how did he get enmeshed so young? 

Tom explained that he started at USF as a history major during the 2008 election cycle. But he became so interested in the excitement of the election and his American government class that he switched his focus to political science. 

He’s currently pursuing his master’s and hopes to go on to earn a Ph.d. 

Grace and Charles McComas of Seffner are busy volunteers in their town’s library and community alliance. But that wasn't always the case. 

Grace said that as “a mother, a nurse working nights all my life,” she didn’t have time to be involved until her retirement. Now land use in Seffner is among their top priorities.  

"People don't usually get involved until it affects them,” said Charles, who is retired from MacDill AFB. 

“You can't remake wetlands,” Grace said. “God made the wetlands. You can't move them. We have to protect them." Grace is supporting Mark because she said “He can see the future but also what we have to preserve." 

Political consultant Victor DiMaio and Julie Jenkins.

I have great pride for my friend and his goal to represent his district, but you don't have to befriend your public officials in order to get to know them before or after the race. 

All you have to do is pay attention, maybe ask a few questions. What better way to hold them accountable? They can't do their job if we constituents don't do ours. 

Human Rights in Our Own Backyard

I often rave about the great stuff going on at Eckerd College. But last weekend after all my years here (seven to be exact), I finally found my way to the University of Tampa. 

I caught the tale end of Human Rights Day, which featured UT instructors Chioke I'anson (also a Free Skooler, fellow WMNF'er & friend), and Drs. Bruce Friesen & Marcus Arvan.

Dr. Friesen covered the Kony 2012 video drama, highlighting its major problems. He ultimately, however, gave credit to the process, saying “as long as we get students exposed," he could get behind the work. 

Dr. Arvan disagreed. "We’re making our judgements from afar. It’s the people on the ground that know the needs.” 

Citing a lack of accountability and white savior complex of the organization behind the Kony video, Adjunct Prof I'anson, who has spent several summers in Uganda, argued that “Everything about Invisible Children is bad,”  

Last month he sat on an NYU panel with the IC and said they avoided answering all of his questions. He added, "Their videos do not transcend race but plays up racist predisposition." 

One solution I'anson offered was alternative narratives, that is, letting the Ugandans speak for themselves. 

UT senior Jasmine Eggestein, majoring in criminology, specifically human trafficking & cyber security, and junior Shelly Santos, a criminology major focusing on child protection attended the day's events. 

Giselle Rodriguez of the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking spoke earlier in the day about child exploitation. 

During Friesen's Kony 2012 discussion, she said “A lot of what they talked about has happened here in the US," in terms of gang initiations and other forms of violence and exploitation. 

Friesen added that human rights definitely starts at home. 

Community News

I met Bill Sharpe in 2006-ish through the local blogging community. In the years that followed, the more I was out & about looking for stuff to write about (or just living the good life), the more I saw Bill. 


He published the South Tampa Community News & last year launched the Tampa Epoch in response to the ban on panhandling. 


The Epoch benefits our homeless & near-homeless neighbors. It received considerable coverage from the local mainstream and alternative press and blogs.  


"I'm doing the right thing," Sharpe said on Rob Lorei's Radioactivity call-in show late last year.


Bill passed away earlier this month. Again all forms of media in Tampa Bay covered his work, life and death. The local circles on social networking sites continue to rattle with condolences. Both online and off, this is a community at its finest. It's unbearably sad, however, that we're one citizen less.


Celebrate Bill Sharpe Tuesday, April 17th at 5 p.m. at the Hyde Park United Methodist Church, and after 6 p.m. at MacDintons. 

2011 (Prison) Reading List

Last year I compiled the list of books I sent to my incarcerated younger brother. 

I liked Pelzer's healing attitude and his inspiring ability to move forward.

Having not spent a lot of time with him as an adult (he went in at 21 while I was living on the West Coast), it's great watching his literary tastes develop. 

All Ned Vizzini's books should be required reading for young men who've ever identified with Pearl Jam songs.

I send him several a month, or as many as I can afford. He's become quite the voracious reader. 

I tutored a high school freshman for a couple of months and delved into YA fiction for the first time in my own life. So many beautiful books, my whole world opened up, too.

When I started sporadically sending my brother books a few years ago, I had yet to become an avid reader/savvy county library employee.

I sent only a handful of do-gooder books & mags I was familiar with: To Kill A Mockingbird, Utne Reader and Yes! Magazine. 

This pick was inspired by a story I did for WMNF on USF's children's mental health research conference

Sadly my bro told me early on that he preferred Cosmo & Country Weekly, and was bored by anything journalism related. 

Sorry Mr. French, I tried.

Take another little piece of my heart now darling. 

The only book I've been able to find on the topic of reentry.With millions of imprisoned Americans, you'd think the free market would be teeming with this stuff. 

It reminded me of us as kids, when we'd play school. I'd lock him in my room until he finished the homework I assigned. (Yes, I feel very guilty about being one of the reasons he's locked away now.) 

And its sequel The Sea of Monsters

I'm happy to report that my pedagogic skills have dramatically improved since I was 8.  

And its sequel. He ate them up! Finally I succeeded in my effort to make him like journalism, or at least know its struggles.

Now I want to be sure he's engaged and entertained by what I send. He needs an escape as well as an education. 

And as always, many thanks to Inkwood Books for accommodating my need to do something in a situation where I otherwise have no power. 

Few other stores are willing to ship books out for me, as required by the FL department of corrections.

He La was my pick of the year, yet I can't believe he liked it! My bro said he paced himself to stop from reading too quickly because he enjoyed it so much.

I'd like to give him & Rebecca Skloot a big ole hug now. After nine long years away, 2012 will be the last (prison) reading list I'll have to compose. Let's hope & pray for no encore.

Community

Do you know what it takes to recover from childhood sexual trauma? I don’t, because I’m not there yet. 

Last month, just shy of two years into my weekly therapy sessions, I asked my counselor how much longer it would take until I got better. When she informed me that healing is a lifelong process, my heart split open. I felt like I’d been handed a life sentence.

Of all the causes I’m willing to take a stand for, and there are a lot, I don’t want this to be one of them. I want to be out there saving dolphins from discarded fishing nets or teaching overweight kids how to eat healthfully.

Child sexual abuse is too ugly, or as media folk say, the polar opposite of a sexy issue. It’s horrid, and I didn’t ask for it. But it’s one of the heavier cards I’ve been dealt.

How children are treated and what they learn early on forms their thinking and sets their standards for life. For example, take learning a second language. It’s more than a skill or additional avenue for communicating. Studies show that “bilingualism exerts systematic effects on cognitive performance” in children and even protects “bilingual older adults against the decline of those processes in older age.” The brain develops differently in the heads of bilingual children.

I've seen this for myself. By the time I was 10, I had spent at least half my life in Germany. I wasn’t taught a lot of German in my American schools, but the German vocabulary I have now remains from those elementary days, not the four subsequent years of high school German class, of which I retained nada (or nichts, but now I’m just showing off).

I can count as quickly in Deutsch as I can in English. Meanwhile, I’ve been studying French for the past few years and still can’t count past 30. German, or at least German numbers and colors, are tattooed inside my brain forever.

And so are feelings of insecurity, guilt and abandonment. If I can’t remove from my being the bit of German I learned over 25 years ago, how will I ever recover from not being protected as a child? It stares at me in the mirror like my ears, nose and teeth. I see it in every child and adult I meet, wondering if he or she endured this too.

I lost something before I was old enough to know I ever had it – a whole self. On days when terrible things headline the news, I’m not sure I’ll ever have it back.

I write about this because I hadn’t told anyone about what had happened to me when I was little. It took me decades to find my voice. Some kids are braver than I was then, and they speak up. Or the crimes are discovered as they’re occurring.

Either way it’s the responsibility of adults to prevent it, or if not, take charge and hold the offenders accountable. The Penn State mess is inexcusable, unforgivable. It turns the character & community building of sports into a farce.

Some days I forget there's anything to be thankful for. But little things, like this column by Eric Wilbur of the Boston Globe, remind me there's a lot of people on my team. I'm thankful for that.

Good Days and Bad Days

Last week after reading about Florida's new budget cuts, I could only see the waves of impending suffering pounding down on the state's most vulnerable citizens.

The Florida Department of Elderly Affairs then fired Brian Lee, who was the director of the state ombudsman program, which investigates complaints against assisted living facilities (ALF's) and nursing homes. As a former volunteer ombudsman and nursing assistant myself, I have seen first hand the harm done to the elderly when there is no one to hold these facilities accountable.

For a recent editorial by current ombudsman Pam Anderson, click here and scroll down to the letter entitled "Facilities need watching".



That's one of the challenges of fighting the good fight: the little guy often loses when pitted against massive Goliaths backed by big business, money, media, and power.


As a sensitive individual (and I know lots of us are out there!), some times I wish I could either turn off my need to care so much. Or at least finally fill that Xanax prescription I was prescribed long ago.


But I don't want to feel less, I want to be empowered and do more. Work more efficiently. But unless you do that kind of activist work every day, it's easy to lose focus or focus on failure.


Which is why I interviewed Hannah Sassaman last week for 88.5 WMNF. Here's a gal who has made it her job to fight the good fight against corporations who want to own everything and deny the public airwaves to the public. She spoke about how everyone can be an advocate and activist, and addressed some tools, like grass roots lobbying.

We have so many options as citizens: we elect our representatives, and we have to tell them when what they're doing is not in our best interests. The worst thing to do when you're having a bad day is to do nothing at all.