20060407 Schaefer defends schools takeover

Schaefer defends schools takeover at Carroll meeting

Baltimore Examiner Carroll County Edition

Matthew Santoni, The Examiner

Apr 7, 2006 7:00 AM (4 days ago)

“Carroll County - Comptroller William Donald Schaefer defended the state’s takeover of 11 Baltimore City schools and fended off calls for more state funding of Carroll County schools Wednesday night at a meeting of the South Carroll County Democrats…

“The former Baltimore mayor and Maryland governor praised state Superintendent of Schools Nancy Grasmick as the “top-notch person in the country,” and chastised members of the state legislature who call the takeover politically motivated..."

Read the rest of the article here.

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Gordon Parks - An American Cultural Icon passes Away at 93

Gordon Parks - An American Cultural Icon passes Away at 93
April 5, 2006 By Kevin Dayhoff

A tribute to the life of a man, in which love, dignity and hard work overcome hatred and bigotry.

Last month on March 7, a cultural icon and one of America’s greatest artists, Gordon Parks, passed away at the too-young age of 93, in Manhattan.

Born in abject poverty, Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks came into this world on November 12, 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas, to a tenant farming family.

He was the youngest of 15 children. By age sixteen, at the dawn of the Great Depression in 1928, his mother died and he ended up homeless in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Kenny Irby wrote a poignant March 15, 2006 retrospective on “Poynter on Line” - “Gordon Parks: From Country Boy to Renaissance Man, A True Photographic Idol, IN MEMORIAM: 1912-2006.” In his essay, Mr. Irby called to our attention:

“Delores Johnson -- formerly with The Kansas City Star, now, with The Virginian-Pilot -- photographed Parks in April 2004, at what is believed to be his last extended photo session.

“Parks was the first black photographer to penetrate through racial barriers at Life magazine and many other agencies. During his photo session with Johnson, he recalled how some whites would not allow him to photograph them, how he was often turned away because of the color of his skin”.

There are many fascinating aspects of the Gordon Parks story, which spans many “revolutions” in the history of American public policy, scope and approach of government and social progress.

But, for an artist as prolific and accomplished as Mr. Parks, many folks are not aware of his name, although most are aware of his work.

Mr. Parks credits his mother with having a profound influence upon his life. Isn’t it so with many of us? She taught him that he could do anything to which he set his mind to do.

Mr. Irby reveals, “In one of (Mr. Parks’) autobiographies, "A Choice of Weapons," he says his mother "placed love, dignity and hard work over hatred, she always told me that I could do whatever little white boys did and that I had better do it better."”

Indeed, it was by his work ethic and his enormous talent that he escaped the chains of poverty or simply becoming another sad statistic of the Great Depression.

It is reported that he was famous for being a workaholic and a taskmaster well into old age.

In an excellent 2,700-word memoriam in the New York Times, Andy Grundberg wrote that Mr. Parks was a “photographer, filmmaker, writer and composer who used his prodigious, largely self-taught talents to chronicle the African-American experience.

“But as an “iconoclast, Mr. Parks fashioned a career that resisted categorization.”

For most of the 1930s, he supported himself by playing piano in a brothel, basketball and working as a busboy. It was in 1938, while working on the Chicago to Seattle train as a waiter, Mr. Parks noticed a discarded magazine with photographs from the Farm Security Administration, and became interested in photography.

In 1937, he purchased a “Voightlander Brilliant” camera, for $12.50 at a pawnshop in Seattle. He began free-lancing as a fashion photographer at local department stores in St. Paul, Minnesota.

It was here that he happened to take a photo of the heavyweight boxer, Joe Lewis’ wife, Marva Lewis. Impressed with the photo, she encouraged him to move to Chicago, where he gained attention doing a photo-documentary series of the poorer black areas of town.

In 1941, he had an exhibition of these photographs that earned him a fellowship from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation. The fellowship paid him $200.00 per month so that he could find photography assignments. That year, he joined the photographic documentation project of the New Deal’s Farm Security Administration, in Washington, D.C., as an intern.

At the age of thirty, Mr. Parks found himself working with photographers such as Marion Post Wolcott, John Vachon, Jack Delano, John Collier, Dorothea Lange and Russell Lee, under the direction of Roy Emerson Stryker.

The photograph for which he may be the most famous was “American Gothic,” which he took while he was with the FSA, in 1942. Mr. Grundberg, describes it best in his New York Times article: “it shows a black cleaning woman named Ella Watson standing stiffly in front of an American flag, a mop in one hand and a broom in the other. Mr. Parks wanted the picture to speak to the existence of racial bigotry and inequality in the nation's capital. He was in an angry mood when he asked the woman to pose, having earlier been refused service at a clothing store, a movie theater and a restaurant.”

Landon Nordeman, in a May 1, 1997 paper written on Walker Evans and documentary photography, gives us an idea of the extraordinary fortunate consequence of the FSA photographic documentation project for generations of historians; in 1944, 270,000 negatives and 77,000 prints by FSA photographers was deposited with the Library of Congress in Washington.

The Farm Security Administration was discontinued in 1943, as the nation’s attention continued to focus on World War II. Mr. Parks transferred to the Office of War Information.

Numerous accounts recall, “One of his assignments was photographing the training of the first unit of black fighter pilots, the 332nd Fighter Group. Prohibited from accompanying them to Europe and documenting their participation in the war effort, Parks left in disgust…” (www.gale.com)

He resigned in 1944 and moved to Harlem in New York City and began free-lancing for Vogue magazine.

According to a biographical sketch by Sharisse Foster, “… He then shoots for the Standard Oil Photography project in New Jersey. It is here that he produces some of his most inspiring work including "Dinner Time at Mr. Hercules Brown's Home” (1944), and "Grease Plant Worker” (1946). In these images he depicts the industrial workers in small cities.”

After several years with Vogue, he was able to attract the eye of Life magazine. In 1948, he took a job as a photojournalist with Life that until 1972, took him all over the world, photographing everything from fashion in Paris to the slums of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to celebrity portraiture.

In 1963, he wrote an autobiographical novel, “The Learning Tree,” in which chronicled much of his childhood in Kansas. In 1969, he adapted “The Learning Tree” into a screenplay, wrote the musical score and directed the movie, by the same name.

It wasn’t until the late 1960s, that the baby boomer generation started to take notice of his work, mostly documenting the Black Panther movement and the struggle for civil rights.

But it was when he burst into the world of commercial Hollywood in 1971, with what many refer to now as “blaxploitation films,” that he gained the attention of the emerging pop culture of the children of the 60s.

Yes, this is the gentleman who in 1971 directed "Shaft," starring Richard Roundtree as the cool, black leather jacket-clad private detective.

The movie was released on July 2, 1971. I saw it in Greensboro (or Burlington – as one gets older the mind is the first to go) NC, where I witnessed much of the audience get up and leave the theatre not too long after the movie began…

Remember the music score was by Isaac Hayes? Wikipedia confirmed some old notes that the “movie was adapted by Ernest Tidyman and John D. F. Black from Tidyman's 1971 novel of the same name…. It won an Academy Award for Best Music, Song for Isaac Hayes for "Theme from Shaft". It was nominated for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score…. In 2000, the United States Library of Congress deemed the original film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.”

Mr. Parks followed this up with "Shaft's Big Score!" in 1972. What is little known is that originally, “Shaft” was written as a straightforward detective movie with a white detective.

However, with the huge success of movie, “Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song,” a few months earlier, it was quickly realized that the money was in the neophyte genre of blaxploitation movies and the film was quickly adapted.

Many of the younger readers became aware of this genre of movies when Samuel L. Jackson starred in a remake of the movie in 2000.

Mr. Parks continued to write books, do films for television, pursuing photography and even composing music right up until his death.

Seldom do contemporary artists exhibit talent in so many different ways. His legacy is that of overcoming obstacles with hard work, focus, perseverance and determination.

He was an artist with a profound social conscious, who never lost track of his responsibility to the public, from which he earned a living.

He set the standards high and served as an example for many of us, that life is not about excuses. It is about taking personal responsibility for our lives, rolling up our sleeves and just going it.

Mr. Parks life is a tribute that love, dignity and hard work will always overcome hatred. One wonders what he could have accomplished if he didn’t have overcome the barriers of hatred and bigotry. Wouldn’t it better if we lived in a world, in which love, dignity and hard work could utilize the springboard of an enlightened society where color, race, religion or ethnic background didn’t matter.

Dr. Martin Luther King said, in his famous August 28, 1963, “I have a Dream” speech, “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

In 1959, in “The Measures of Man,” Dr. King shared with us, “Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy.”

History has fortunately judged Gordon Parks by the content of his character and his choice “to walk the high road of beauty.” We have been fortunate enough to benefit from the content of his character and the beauty he left behind.

Gordon Parks is an inspiration for all of us, whether we are artists or community leaders or whatever role we wish to play in making our planet a better world.

Gordon Parks will be missed. May he rest in peace. God Bless.

Author’s note: On March 29, 2006, I wrote a tribute to Gordon Parks in The Tentacle. This memoriam expands upon much of that column, but takes advantage of not having a word limit.

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA.
He may reached at kevindayhoff AT gmail.com or visit him at www.westminstermarylandonline.net

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20060405 Gordon Parks

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Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoffart.com/ Blip.fm: http://blip.fm/kevindayhoff_soundtrack Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://www.westgov.net/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/kevindayhoff Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1040426835 Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems: http://kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/

Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoff.com/ (http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/) http://www.kevindayhoffart.com/ New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/

20060405 Omnibus Rolling Blackout Acts of 2006

20060405 Omnibus Rolling Blackout Acts of 2006

April 5, 2006 By Kevin Dayhoff

In my Tentacle columns of April 4^th, 2006 and April 5^th, 2006, I referred to the “recent surge of Maryland General Assembly legislative initiatives in response to the end of the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company’s electric rate price freeze … as the “Omnibus Rolling Blackout Acts of 2006.”

Much is left to be accomplished with the time remaining in the tumultuous 421st legislative session of the Maryland General Assembly - now mercifully measured in days.

Although, for many, the 421st legislative session cannot end soon enough.

To borrow some ideas as to how to explain the bizarre 2006 session, I am reminded of a series called the “Carnival of the Clueless,” written by a freelance writer, Rick Moran.

If Mr. Moran were to be aware of the Merryland General Assembly’s operatic 2006 session deliberations and decisions, he would have a field day.

Special segments would feature the “vote early and vote often” initiative; Wal-Mart; “let’s change any law that happens to not suit us at the moment” and now, “how to cause a problem and then blame anyone else but ourselves.” A bonus feature would highlight, “how to bankrupt a public utility and encourage it to take their jobs, headquarters and business to Florida.”

My April 5^th, 2006 Tentacle column explained:

“Members of the Maryland General Assembly’s leadership deserve a lifetime achievement award for ducking their responsibilities, scapegoating and obfuscating the truth in their response to the rate caps coming off Baltimore Gas and Electric as a result of the 1999 electric deregulation legislation.

“The legislative proposals, the “Omnibus Rolling Blackout Acts of 2006,” that have arrived at the governor’s desk, do nothing to address the problem of consumers facing a huge increase in their electric bills after July 1.”

It would appear that every year, the Maryland General Assembly (MGA) needs to prove to any investor owned company that anything that can possible be regulated (read, most anything that moves) in the State of Maryland is not a good investment.

One wonders that unless the MGA wants to spread its span of control across state lines and start regulating electric generation costs across the country, at some point in time, where is Maryland going to get its electricity and at what cost.

As businesses, jobs and stockholder capital continues to flee Maryland, where is the money going to come from to provide jobs for Marylanders, increase tax base – and with respect to the current cost of electricity for consumers, the power plants necessary to bring the cost of electricity down.

Forget about analogies of this august body’s cluebat populism being an opera, the machinations over the ramifications of Maryland’s California-style electric deregulation have become the stuff of an epic poem written by Franz Kafka.

If the Maryland General Assembly has its way, the sad sorry saga of how it managed to cause a problem, for which it now portrays itself as heroically punishing the victim of its folly, will be recited for the rest of millennium around the glow of candlelight.

The problem has been unfolding for almost seven years. However, just a month or so ago, as the impending reality of the rate caps coming off finally descended on the MGA; the first response by the Maryland Democratic Party was to air commercials - for battery powered radios - all across our great state that it was all Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich’s fault.

Huh? In 1999, Governor Ehrlich was not a member of the MGA.

In anticipation of this rolling black out coming our way, the Maryland General Assembly’s response has been to hold inside-baseball hearings on mythological allegations involving Governor Ehrlich’s personnel practices – at a cost of $600,000.00 and counting.

Perhaps if one tenth of the efforts to play partisan politics had been spent on addressing the issues, instead of synthetically inventing problems and making up Maryland law as they went, we wouldn’t find ourselves lighting candles to fight off the impending darkness.

In January - while the MGA was playing let’s stick it to Governor Ehrlich and Wal-Mart -the Governor was already hard a work, in anticipation of the challenges foreseen with the rate caps coming off this coming July.

In February, the governor wrote the PSC asking for a plan to protect consumers from an abrupt rise in electric rates. The PSC developed a plan that quickly got lost in the high weeds of manipulative partisan gotcha politics.

In an article, “BGE: Cap on rates may force bankruptcy,” in the Baltimore Business Journal (BBJ) on February 17, it is reflected that the Governor “wrote a letter to the Maryland Public Service Commission asking the state regulatory agency to develop a plan to give BGE customers relief from sudden price increases expected next summer.”

The Governor was reported to have written, "Unfortunately, wholesale electric supply market prices are at historic highs just as BGE's rate freeze is about to expire.”

Meanwhile WBAL reports on March 24, that Public Service Commission (PSC) chairman Kenneth Schisler “is dismissing claims by some lawmakers that they were blindsided by BGE's plans to raise rates precipitously when price caps come off in July. WBAL News has obtained records that show numerous conferences and meetings between PSC agents and lawmakers over the course of several months last year. At least 20 briefings or meetings are documented by the PSC.”

Instead of pursuing win-win solutions that will provide electric rate relief of consumers, all the while, maintaining the financial stability of the utility companies, most the of the hot air coming from the Maryland General Assembly has been political spin, in an attempt to re-write history.

In 1999, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, consumer activists and environmental advocates did not embrace Senate Bill 300, the “Electric Utility Industry Restructuring Act.”

Then-Gov. Paris N. Glendening was skeptical to the point that he threatened a veto. In the end, it passed by such a bi-partisan majority that it was veto proof.

Writing for The Tentacle on March 17, Delegate Richard Weldon (R., Frederick and Washington Cos.) identified the main protagonists of the legislation accurately and succinctly: “Speaker Michael Busch (D., Anne Arundel) was then the chairman of the Economic Matters Committee. The bill was co-sponsored by the two most powerful members of the Maryland Senate, President Mike Miller (D., PG) and Sen. Thomas Bromwell (D., Baltimore Co.). Senator Bromwell chaired the Finance Committee, the committee that deals with utility regulation in the Senate.”

To make matters worse, in 2000 the MGA required Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) to divest itself of its power plants and forced the utility to sell electricity on the national open market – where, incidentally, it could sell it for higher prices as the price of power plant fuels continued to skyrocket. Read Jay Hancock’s March 12 article in the Baltimore Sun: “Maryland, Michigan take diverging paths in deregulation.”

In an article, “BGE: Cap on rates may force bankruptcy,” in the Baltimore Business Journal (BBJ) on February 17, Wayne Harbaugh, Baltimore Gas and Electric’s (BGE) manager for pricing and regulatory services was quoted: “Our residential customers have been enjoying six years of price freeze service as electricity prices have been ramping up elsewhere in the country….”

In the same Baltimore Business Journal article, Kenneth W. DeFontes Jr., president of BGE, shed some light on the issues by saying “that much like a gas station owner shouldn't be blamed for higher fuel costs, high power prices are out of BGE's control.”

Isn’t it odd, that it has been inadequately reported that the PSC followed the 1999 deregulation law in overseeing the 72 percent rate increase by following regulations that “were (subsequently) approved by the Democratic-appointed members of the PSC and the Democratic-appointed People’s Counsel…,” according to Barry Rascovar writing in the Gazette on March 31.

Isn’t it odd, that in the March 18 front page story by the Baltimore Sun, detailing an in-depth review of PSC chairman Shisler’s emails, that the Sun was not able to “discover” that the chairman had been working on the impact of the rate caps coming off and keeping lawmakers informed.

For context, one wonders why the political writers of the Sun has never looked in depth to the money trail, emails and correspondence between liberal lawmakers and Giant Food or the unions that essentially wrote the Wal-Mart legislation.

At this time, after sine die next Monday, April 10, the leadership of the Maryland Democratic Party will all stop by the local hardware store and buy an electric generator.

Once they are home, they will develop even more misinformation by the glow of candlelight and the political writers for the Baltimore Sun to repeat as fact.

The political writers at the largest newspaper in Maryland are doing what they can to be the Web site for this sordid political blame game. This is a gross disservice to citizens they serve, who ultimately will have to pay for partisan politics trumping substantive leadership.

Apparently, it is just a rumor that the Maryland Democratic Party will soon be rolling out a new line of candles for this summer’s campaigning.

Forget the candles, it has been reported that rolled-up old newspapers burn brightly and provide a good source of populist artificial heat. It’ll get ya through the night, but in the morning it will back to cold reality.

In the end, all hopes that the MGA will provide a win-win solution the impending rise to the cost of electricity have resulted in a blown fuse. The governor must veto the current legislation on the table that will ultimately bankrupt the electric utilities and provide no relief to electric ratepayers.

Writing in The Gazette on March 31, Blair Lee nailed it: “But instead of working together, the incumbents are playing a risky game of political ‘‘chicken” with one eye on the clock and the other on the precipice.”

Playing chicken with an increased cost of electricity is not viable for either party in the context of the higher gas prices, mortgage costs, heating oil and property taxes - and growing voter intolerance to all the inside baseball childish bickering.

As the lights go dark on the Merryland General Assembly, the lighters held high in the air are not in honor of Bob Dylan, but rather by members of the leadership of the Maryland General Assembly trying to find their way out of a dark building.

Once again, we’re depending on Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich to come through for the citizens of Maryland.

Electric Deregulation

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA.

E-mail him at: kdayhoff AT carr.org

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