Brainshrub.com - Social Issues

Mall Security Gone Wild

Paul -V- — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 10:20:19 -0500

An open letter to the management of the Coral Square Mall in Coral Springs, Florida.

To whom it may concern,

Friday afternoon your mall's security staff and I had a misunderstanding that resulted in an unpleasant situation for everyone involved.

First, to put into context what happened, you should know that I run the blog Brainshrub.com. A "blog" is a user generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news. (1)

One of the features of Brainshrub.com is a series called "The Brainshrub Bus Project", that reports on public transportation issues. Normally, the articles are about Asheville Public Transit in North Carolina. However, since I happen to be in Florida visiting family for Christmas, I was looking forward to critiquing Broward Country's transit system.

On Friday morning I had, what I thought at the time, was a brilliant angle for the next Brainshrub Bus Project: An article pointing out to shoppers that if they wanted to avoid the hassle of finding a parking spot at the mall during the holidays, they should park someplace a few blocks away, then hop on a bus for the remaining distance.

The Coral Square Mall, with its bus stop in front of the main entrance, would have made a made a perfect example for readers. For the story, I planned to take a picture of the crowded parking lot and the easily accessible buses.

No big deal.

Or so I thought.

Not wanting to wrestle with the parking situation for the photos, and thinking this would only take 90 seconds, I asked my mother to drop me off in front of the Coral Square Mall, drive away as to not block traffic, and then rendezvous in the same spot after I was done.

I snapped some pictures on a digital camera, about six in all, then waited for the ride home.

Within a few minutes, one of your security employees drove by in a mini-SUV and asked what I was doing.

Me: "Just taking some pictures for a writing project. I'll be gone soon."

Security guy in SUV: "You can't do that."

Me: "I'm in a public parking lot, these are public buses and I'm not doing anything wrong. Besides, I'm about to leave."

I thought that settled the issue, but a few moments later another security employee arrived on foot.

Security guy: "You can't take pictures."

Me: "I can take pictures all I want in a public space, but I'm done now."

Security: "I'm going to have to ask you to delete those pictures."

At this point, I'm thinking to myself: "In a pigs eye I will!" but instead I replied:

"That isn't going to happen."

Security guy: "I'll have to call the police."

Me: "You do that, but I plan to leave soon - so unless you are accusing me of a crime, I see no reason why I should wait around with you."

Now, the LAST thing I wanted to do was drag my mother into a silly squabble with a security employee. So I decide to walk off mall property ASAP.

What I didn't know was that on my way out, security stumbled upon my mother who was looking for me back at the mall, and told her that I was acting suspiciously and needed to be apprehended. They also got her phone and plate number.

When she picked me up about five minutes later, she said that mall security insisted that I go back and delete the pictures on the camera. Otherwise, they would call the police and track us down to the house.

Me: "WTF are you talking about? They can't do squat and are intimidating you. Let's go home."

Mom: "No, I've never been in trouble with the law before. I don't plan to now."

Me: "You aren't in trouble with the law! This is mall security; the worst they can do is chase teens around on their over-sized golf-carts."

Mom: "I'm not arguing, you are going back."

At this point I realized that she was genuinely concerned. Although I felt she was over-reacting, to make her happy I agreed to return.

Once back in the mall's parking lot, and under the watchful eye of a security employee who clearly did not understand what a blog was or why I wanted a picture of a bus stop, I deleted the images.

I thought that was that, but then the security employee insisted that I come with him into the mall, meet the police and fill a report. I wouldn't have done so, but again, I didn't want to stress out my mother - so I agreed. Once she drove away I followed the security employee to the mall, but refused to enter the building.

When the Coral Springs police arrived they were polite and professional - although they rolled their eyes a bit when the security employee explained what happened. It's not like the cops had anything better to do than file a report on a guy who wasn't accused of a crime and wanted to leave the property as quickly as possible.

The police gave me a written warning to stay away from the Coral Square Mall for three months, then sent me on my way.

Now that I've given my version of events, here is what I've learned from the experience:

I should have gone to the mall's office first and explained the Brainshrub Bus Project to a manager. In my defense, I didn't think a picture of a parking lot and a public bus stop would cause so much trouble.
In the face of perceived power - it's far more difficult to stand up for your rights if the people you care about are scared. It was only by bringing my mother into this situation that mall security was able to make me do something I was clearly within my rights to do: Leave the property.

This unfortunate situation wasted the time of your security staff, who could have been helping to direct traffic or watching out for shoplifters. It also wasted the time of the police and embarrassed your institution in front of them.

I bare no ill-will toward your mall's security. They were only doing their job enforcing what most shoppers would consider a ridiculous policy. They were never rude, only insistent. However, it wasn't as if I was screaming "Allah Akbar, hail Osama! Die capitalist American dogs!!!"

Rather than bearing a grudge, or suing your company for coercion, I'm just going to post the images I took when I write the next article for the Brainshrub Bus Project - then we'll call it even. (2)

Happy Holidays,

Paul -V-

ON EDIT 01/08/2007 @ 11:10 EST: (Here is the article I wrote about the parking and buses.)

Rather than a counterpoint, here is a great post about what people are allowed to take pictures of with their camera .

Tags: Coral Square Mall - Tragedy of the Commons - Photography - Mall Security - Rent-a-cops - Mall - Christmas - Bus - Public Transit

(1) Wikipedia

(2) It turns out that the camera had a backup on the memory card, so I didn't lose the images after all! :) Woot!

How to become part of the nobility

Paul -V- — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:45:38 -0500

Let's talk about economic exploitation for a moment. For the purposes of this post, I'm going to go with this definition:

The act of forcing people into selling their goods or services at less than what it costs them to produce - for the benefit of others.

All of us utilize society's economic system to exploit others. All of us.

When you wake up in the morning, you drink coffee from growers who are underpaid for their product. That's exploitation.

The shoes you bought were made from the sweat and suffering of non-union labor in 3rd world countries. If they protest, they end up dead. That's exploitation.

When you swing by McDonald's for lunch, the person handing you a bag of fries does not have the power to demand a wage that meets her basic needs. That's exploitation.

Your entire lifestyle depends on an economic system which provides you with a vast, silent, underpaid group of de-facto slaves who had to do your bidding - or starve.

So what can we do about it?

Many people who find this kind of exploitation reprehensible are given two choices: Either withdraw from society, or rebel against it.

I don't like either option. Caves are moldy and bad for my asthma, and Revolutions have a nasty habit of eventually killing the writers. (Read: me.)

Furthermore, it's better to use positive reenforcement rather than negative. If retreating or violence created positive social change, the world would today be run by cave-hermits and anarchist college students.

Instead, we simply need to re-introduce a concept into the the popular culture that makes people want to emulate more considerate values.

I propose that if Americans are going to act like a privileged class, we should bring back the concept of "Nobless Oblige". Nobless Oblige is the French phrase for "Obligations of the Nobility". Is the concept that, as a member of a class of people who benefit from an exploitative system, you have a responsibility to the people below you on the social ladder to be considerate.

It is an acknowledgment that most of the privileges you enjoy are a birthright - and you did nothing to earn them. You never chose to be born in the United States, you never chose to be born into a stable family, you never chose to be gifted with intelligence.

If you expect the underclass to serve you for the same reasons you enjoy your status, (ie: Birthright.) you have to at least make an effort to not abuse your status and stop supporting institutions that do.

This means that you avoid shopping at Wal-Mart, that you use public transit every once in awhile, that you refuse to ever cross a Union picket line, and, that you support policies and laws that treat the poor with dignity - even if it means that it will make the cost of a bag of fries go up by a few pennies.

If most people in the middle-class, not all mind you, started taking Nobless Oblige seriously, much of the worst aspects of the our exploitative system would whither away. And, as an added bonus, everyone would have a shot at joining the nobility.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: Noblesse oblige - Exploitation

Credits: Image above is an oil painting by Slater titled "McDonald's in Paris". You can purchase a print here.

Unemployed stealing from the unemployed

Paul -V- — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 09:30:22 -0500

Yesterday Barbara Bush Jr was robbed.

Thieves beat security to rob Bush's daughter

First Daughter Barbara Bush had her purse and cell phone stolen as she had dinner in a restaurant in Buenos Aires, Argentina, even though she was being guarded by a detail of Secret Service agents, according to law enforcement reports made available to ABC News.

It's ironic is that the thief was probably unemployed, or at least in-between jobs, just like Barbara.

I'm not condoning stealing, and if the mugger gets caught he should be punished appropriately. But let's remember that what separates most of us from a life on the street is genetic circumstance. Did you ever chose your parents, country or IQ?

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. In your prayers tomorrow I suggest you add two people: The thief who probably has a rougher life than any of us will ever know, and the Secret Service agent who was guarding Barbara.

I'll bet he's wondering if he'll even have a job by the end of the week.

Tags: Barbara Bush - robbed - nature vs nurture - Thanksgiving

Jokes and their context within class structure

Paul -V- — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 12:10:08 -0400

I got a call from a friend last night, and she told me a good joke. We laughed a bit, and then had an interesting conversation about how social context makes, or breaks, humor.

Here's the joke:

A wealthy man parked his brand new Porche in front of his yacht club, ready to show it off to his friends.

Just as he got out of the car, an truck passed too close and ripped the door off

When the police arrive the man does nothing except scream hysterically about how he just bought his car just a day earlier, and now it was totally ruined.

When he finally calmed down from his ranting, the cop said: "I can't believe how materialistic you are! Don't you notice that your left arm is missing from the elbow down? It must have been torn off when the truck hit you."

"Oh my God!" screamed the man. "Where's my Rolex?"

Now ask yourself: Why is this joke funny?

While you consider this question, here's another version:

A poor man parked the used 1983 Honda he just bought in front of his job at the Wal-Mart.

Just as he got out of the car, an SUV, passed too close and ripped the door off.

When the police arrive the man does nothing except scream hysterically about how he just bought his car just a day earlier, and now it was totally ruined.

When he finally calmed down from his ranting, the cop said: "I can't believe how materialistic you are! Don't you notice that your left arm is missing from the elbow down? It must have been torn off when the SUV hit you."

"Oh my God!" screamed the man. "Where's my Caseo?"

Is this second joke funny?

Personally, I don't think so because it's the story of a weak man getting kicked down, and being misunderstood by the police. Whereas the first one is about a vain man getting his comeuppance.

I'm curious what you think.

The dark irony and sexual innuendo of Disney fish nuggets

Paul -V- — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 06:45:28 -0400

This weekend I got drawn into the world of irony and soft-core pinups by a box of fish nuggets.

The adventure started in the frozen-food section of a local grocery store. Here's the package of fish nuggets in question, scanned into my computer and made into a jpeg:

The irony isn't just that fish people are encouraging you to eat their own kin, advertisers have been doing that for centuries; it's also funny to see Flounder, Ariel's best friend, look upon the fried carcasses of his brethren with such glee. He'd make any self-respecting cannibal blush.

Something about the image of Ariel dancing over the slaughter, flowers in her hair, tickles my darkest funny-bone.

You can almost hear King Triton telling Flounder: "So you see, if my daughter hadn't whored herself out to Disney, you would be on this plate too, my little yellow friend."

I was planning dedicate a blog entry to satirizing the way American Pride Seafoods depicted the Disney characters on the package. But then something else piqued my interest:

Take a look at the lower right-hand corner of the box. It reads: "FREE TATTOOS INSIDE".

Sure enough, there were two temporary-tattoos; one of Flounder and this one of Ariel here on the right. (I scanned the temporary-tattoo into the computer and enlarged it, that's why it may look a bit grainy.)

This pose looked familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then, while I was doing some *ahem* research on the internet... it occurred to me: A red-headed women with her legs in the air is one of the most common themes in old-school, soft-core pinups!

Here is a quick Google-search of three relatively family-friendly images. There were more, but they are NSFW:

I'm not saying that Disney is encouraging pre-teens to pose as future pinup models, or claiming there is some evil cabal of executives telling each other: "Let's teach little girls that their bodies have the same value as frozen fish. Bwhahahaha!"

All I'm pointing out here is that the objectification of our food and our bodies is connected. Exactly how is difficult to explain, and I'm not convinced there is much we can do about it anyways.

Even if you think I'm a bit far-fetched to see a connection between a temporary tattoo of a Disney character, and sexual imagery; you don't have to be a sociologist to appreciate that an objectified pinup-image, that is supposed to be placed on the bodies of children, packaged with a processed meat product, has to have deep psychological and cultural implications.

I'm not making a value-judgement here. I'm just sayin'.

So go and buy your family a package of Disney fish nuggets. I can attest that they are tasty. The dark irony of the box's cartoons and the sexual innuendo behind the temporary tattoos is an added bonus. I suggest eating them with Beaver Brand tartar sauce.

What?

What???!!!

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: fish nuggets - Disney - American Pride Seafood - Little Mermaid - food - tattoos - pinups - innuendo

Related Articles:

Respect your food

Legal notices and credits:

This website is neither sponsored or endorsed by Disney Inc. or American Pride Seafoods. The Little Mermaid is copyright 1989 Disney International Inc., all rights reserved.
Book Pit Stop Nympho by Peter Keven, 1965. Cover artist is not known.
Picture of the sailor is titled First Mate by Peter Driben, 1953
Picture of the woman in the glass is titled Martini Miss by Mel Ramos, 1995

Immigrants don't need to speak English to learn American culture and values.

Paul -V- — Mon, 01 May 2006 08:00:39 -0400

To demonstrate how unimportant the English language is to transmitting our societies most cherished values, please listen to this short audio clip: (It's only :30 seconds long and "safe for work." For this to function properly, right-click the the MP3 icon and save it to your computer first.)

What language do you think that was?

Norwegian? Flemish? Swedish?

Bzzzz! Wrong!

You were listening to English - circa 1390 AD. Specifically, you just heard a few verses of "The Wife of Bath's Prologue" (lines 1- 8) from The Canterbury Tales, in the original Middle English of the period in which it was written.

Middle English was what the barons of Briton spoke when they banded together in 1215 AD and forced King John to sign what would become known as the Magna Carta; a document, written in Latin, that would lead to the concept of constitutional law.

Just because most modern Americans don't speak Middle English or read Latin, does not mean we can't appreciate the Magna Carta and the concepts that it has come to represent. We may not remember the language those feudal nobles spoke in the 13th century, but our society has internalized what they learned and achieved.

The same could be said for the ancient Greeks and Hebrews who wrote the bible, or, the Babylonians who carved the Laws of Hammurabi onto cuneiform.

The point is this: The most important aspects of a civilization transcend language. You don't need to speak English to respect the US Constitution and everything that makes this country great.

Rather than waste our energies on forcing a language onto new-comers, it is far more important to impart values such as equality, tolerance and freedom. The best way to do this is by example; not by legislation or insisting that the national anthem be sung in English.

Who cares what language Americans speak or sing 100 years from now? As long as they live free and let others do the same, the most important achievements of our culture will be preserved.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: Magna Carta - English - English only - immigration - language - United States

Credits:

The audio clip was from The Norton Anthology of English Literature.

The psychological and cultural metaphors of Spongebob Squarepants

Paul -V- — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 12:00:55 -0400

Spongebob Squarepants© is a popular cartoon on the cable TV network Nickelodeon. I've come to believe that the show is not only about an anthropomorphic sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea, but the entire series is filled with Freudian psychology and Jungian metaphors.

Go with me here, I'm serious.

Consider that the show takes place in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom©. Water is a powerful symbol representing life and purification. Large bodies of water usually represent the subconscious mind. The symbolism only starts there.

Freud proposed that the psyche was divided into three parts: The Id, the super-ego and the ego. Let's start by comparing the primary characters in the Spongebob Squarepants cartoon with each aspect.

The Id is primarily concerned with our primal needs such as food, sleep and sex.

Patrick Star© (Pictured left.), Spongebob's best friend, is mainly interested in food, sleep and his head is shaped like a penis.

The SuperEgo is the analytical, self-criticizing part of your personality. It is constantly trying to control your immediate environment with judgments about right and wrong.

Note that Squidward Tentacles© (Pictured right), Spongebob's neighbor, is a hyper-analytical creature whose rectangular eyes cast judgment on everyone around him. Like the SuperEgo, he thinks of himself as an artist, but his work is entirely self-absorbed and therefore only appreciated by himself.

The Ego is your creative self, attempting to find balance between primitive drives, morals and reality.

Spongebob Squarepants (Pictured left) is an idealized version of what an enlightened Ego can be like. He is playful, innocent and perfectly at peace with who he is.

The key to understanding most of the hidden meanings behind the cartoon is to stop thinking of these three primary characters as individuals - they are actually three aspects of the same being. Consider: All three are invertebrates; All three either work, or have worked, at the Krusty Krab©, and; All three live on the same street:

Note the order of the houses, from left to right:

Patrick's primitive rock house, Squidward's analytical statue house, Spongebob's playful pineapple house.

Id. SuperEgo. Ego.

The symbolism couldn't be more obvious.

Most of the other characters in the Spongebob Squarepants cartoon are metaphors of cultural archetypes. For the sake of time, let's focus on only one character: Sandy Cheeks©, the land squirrel.

Sandy was introduced into the series with the episode titled: Tea at the Treedome. Spongebob meets her while she battles a giant clam. This is a clear reference to Botticelli's painting The Birth of Venus.

Have you ever considered why an air-breathing red squirrel would want to live underwater?

Unlike Venus, the Roman Goddess of idealized feminine love and beauty, Sandy is still wrestling with her sexuality and gender role. Unlike the stereotypes of what women should be like, Sandy is adventurous, scientific and athletic. Perhaps she has chosen to cut herself off from her air-breathing brethren because she felt held back?

Spongebob and Sandy both enjoy karate and they become fast friends. It is possible that karate is a metaphor for sex?

Or perhaps I've been thinking about this too much?

In any case; I suspect one of the reasons for the wide appeal of Spongebob Squarepants, is that the creators of the show use symbolism and icons in such a way that the cartoon becomes instantly understood on a subconscious level.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: Spongebob - Freud - archetypes - symbolism - psychology - cartoon - Nickelodeon - The Birth of Venus - metaphors

Credits:

First Reformed Church of Spongebob Squarepants (For inspiration.)
Wikipedia (For research.)
Jared's Spongebob Website (For the comprehensive picture gallery.)

Legal notice: This website is neither sponsored or endorsed by Viacom International Inc., Nickelodeon, or Steven Hillenburg. This website is not affiliated with Viacom International Inc., Nickelodeon, or Steven Hillenburg. Spongebob is copyright 1999 Viacom International Inc., all rights reserved. Nickleodeon, Spongebob and all related titles, logos, and characters are trademarks of Viacom International Inc.

Due to the above paragraph, the normal Creative Commons license I use for all my other work does not apply to this page. Sorry about that, but I'm no no mood for a tussle with Viacom's lawyers. I've used "Fair Use" for this blog entry.

Examples of Democrats altering pictures

Paul -V- — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 08:00:28 -0400

Back in June of 2005 I wrote: Examples of Republicans Altering Pictures. In it, I compiled recent examples of Republicans and conservatives altering images, or taking them blatantly out of context, to mislead the public and advance a political agenda.

From reading blogs where the essay was discussed, I've noticed that when rank-and-file Republicans are faced with the numerous examples of PhotoShopped chicanery from within their own party, they almost always counter with comments such as: "Well I'm sure I could find lots of examples of Liberals altering pictures."

While Tu Quoque is a poor way to justify unethical behavior, it is true that Republicans have no historical monopoly on underhanded tactics.

Therefore, as a public service, here is a compilation of examples of Democrats and Liberals who have altered pictures in order to mislead the public and advance a political agenda. Brainshrub.com is a progressive blog, but I strive to be fair.

Exhibit A: As part of a recruiting advertisement, Code Pink PhotoShops image on their website to imply Muslim protesters are members of their organization.

Source: Publius Pundit blog

"Unbelievable. Code Pink, an anti-American, anti-Iraqi-freedom, anti-Iranian-democracy full-Sandalista nuisance group, has taken to photoshopping photographs of Iranian freedom babes brave enough to protest against the monstrous mullahs of Iran, and used their beautiful images as recruiting tools for their own odious, anaphrodisiac cause. This cause just happens to be cut-and-run from Iraq, so that mullahs will be free to oppress women in ‘peace.’ That’s Code Pink’s cause! It is so disgusting!"

Notes: For the record - I love Code Pink. They are a wonderful organization that works tirelessly for human rights and justice. It breaks my heart to have to post this as the first example.

Not only is this photo misleading, but why did they have to make the girl look like a gopher?

Exhibit B: In a political ad about the consequences of the Bush Administration's lies about Iraq, MoveOn.org used a picture of British troops and altered it to imply that they were American soldiers.

Source: The Opinion Journal

"These are not your normal everyday U.S. soldiers though. If you look at the frame they are actually British soldiers. One is in shorts (we don't have shorts as a normal combat uniform) and the others are all clearly wearing British pattern fatigues. So, my point is that these [turkeys] pretend to argue on my behalf and bash the president in the name of my crying wife, and they don't even know what an American soldier looks like! Anyway, it really [ticked] me off."

Notes: MoveOn could have shown Smurfs in that line, and it wouldn't have detracted from the truth that over 100,000 troops really couldn't come home for Thanksgiving due to the lies of the Bush Administration.

The photo of the British troops was probably a simple mistake. As a civilian, I wouldn't recognize British pattern fatigues if you promised me the Queen's crown.

On the other hand, why the did the director see a need to photoshop the pants unless s/he didn't think there was something to hide? Therefore I have to agree with critics that this is an example of an unethical alteration.

Exhibit C: Michael Moore fakes a headline for his movie Farenheight 9/11.

Source: MooreWatch.com

"Let’s recap. On December 5, 2001, a letter to the editor entitled “Latest Florida recount shows Gore won election” was published in the Bloomington, IL Pantagraph. Then, almost three years later, Michael Moore, in his attempt to show that Bush “stole” the election, takes this letter to the editor and digitally manipulates it to appear as if it was a Pantagraph headline written on December 10, 2001."

Notes: At the time, MooreWatch.com acted like they had found live footage of Osama Bin Ladin giving Michael Moore a lap dance. However, I don't see the big deal here.

As I remember the documentary, the point of this part of the film was to show how the trauma of 9/11 made it possible for the public to ignore news that new evidence of Gore's victory in Florida had surfaced in December of 2001. The specific date was not important. Besides, it's only a five day difference and the original looks so messy that it's no surprise that Moore decided to generate a newsprint of his own. Other than the date, the text of the headline and story were not altered.

Although I disagree with MooreWatch's opinion that Moore did something wrong; this is, technically, an example of an image that was altered by a Democrat, and, it gave misleading information.

Conclusion: After days of searching, this is all I could find as examples of Democrats or Liberals altering images for political gain. This is not to say there aren't other cases - it's just that I couldn't find them in time for this post.

While the examples I've posted here aren't as serious as what we are used to from the right-wing, this does not justify altering images to mislead people. Honest communication is a core Liberal value.

The nature of the blogosphere being what it is, I'm sure that conservatives will be more than happy to point out anything I've missed. In which case, I will gladly post them here or provide links to the full story.

A quick reminder - Comments for all posts on Brainshrub.com are closed after 30 days. So if you know of an example after May 12, 2006, or would like to correct information posted above, please feel free to email me.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: photoshop - Democrats - Liberals - Alter images - politics

First-ever Brainshrub.com Open Thread

Paul -V- — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 08:00:17 -0400

Let's try something new today.

Welcome to the first-ever Brainshrub.com "Open Thread."

Write whatever the heck you want in the comments of this post. Say hello to each other, flirt, post a rant, make loud belching sounds - whatever.

Let's see what happens.

Tiny community radio station out-produces big public radio stations with Perl and dedication

Paul -V- — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 12:30:29 -0500

WPVM, a tiny radio station in Asheville, NC, has used technology to trump the entire public broadcasting industry in such a profound way - that I don't think they know what they've achieved yet.

On a shoe-string budget of $53,269, and run almost entirely by volunteers, WPVM currently broadcasts 31 locally-produced programs. This is far more than what most public radio stations, with more funding and significantly larger markets, air.

To those of you who are reading this outside the United States, and therefore may not understand why this is a big deal: These days American public radio isn't that "public". Most stations are only de facto subsidiaries for a handful of production houses such as NPR or PRI. Local voices have been effectively locked out of public radio.

WPVM has burst the myth that local voices can't be as professional, or prolific, as outsourced programming. To put this achievement into perspective, I compiled a list of the top ten radio markets in the United States as of the Fall of 2005 according to Arbitron. I called or emailed each public radio station and asked them how many programs they produced locally.

Here are the results:

City	Station	Number of locally produced shows.
New York, NY	WNYC	10 15
Los Angeles, CA	KCRW	36
Chicago, IL	WBEZ	25 (This number includes shows produced at sister stations WBEW and WBEQ)
San Francisco, CA	KQED	7
Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX	KERA	2
Philadelphia, PA	WHYY	5
Houston-Galveston, TX	WUHF	5 (They also have 12 news segments a day.)
Washington, DC	WETA	1
Detroit, MI	WDET	Unavailable (No one at the station would tell me and emails were never responded to.)
Atlanta, GA	WABE	8

That's right: A low-power station in a city with a population of less than 80,000 broadcasts more locally produced programming than New York, San Francisco and Washington DC public radio - combined!

Remember, these are the top radio markets with budgets in the millions of dollars. In medium-to-small markets, the closest listeners get to locally produced programming is perhaps a few late-night music programs. For example, the nearest major market to Asheville is WFAE in Charlotte, NC - and they only produce one talk show.

I have nothing against syndicated programs such as All Things Considered and A Prairie Home Companion - but where are the local voices? How can "public" radio get away with so much pre-packaged material, and yet during the fund-drives turn around and claim they are catering to their communities?

It would be as if McDonald's claimed that the Big Mac reflects local cuisine.

WPVM, on the other hand, is a community-run station that has made a commitment to its region despite numerous obstacles.

Lack of corporate sponsorship?

No problem. Along with the bi-annual fund-drives, a non-profit ISP called Mountain Area Information Network was set up to sell internet access to citizens, the funds raised are pumped into supporting community-run media like WPVM.

Weak signal?

No problem. Along with live-streaming, WPVM has gotten into podcasting content in a way few other stations have done. Station manager Jason Holland taught himself Perl in order to automate the process of shows getting podcast. When I interviewed him for this story he said:

"I modified a piece of freeware called MP3 VCR, which is a kind of TiVo for radio. It saves audio onto the hard drive with a title and date. Then my own software will take this file and prep it for a podcast.

The beauty of the system is that non-techie volunteers can podcast content - and I don't have to do anything. All the DJs have to do is focus on their own show. The software takes care of the rest.

Best of all, if something doesn't work the program emails me."

Go ahead and visit the WPVM podcast page and compare it with your own local public-radio station. Heck, for that matter - compare the variety and quality to commercial radio!

Why is most public radio so bereft of local programming? Why is WPVM the pioneer instead of more fully-funded stations?

In my opinion, it boils down to corporate sponsorship of public radio. Most station managers are not willing to risk their jobs with shows that may not be as polished as what professional production houses or special interests can offer them. It's easer to pick up corporate sponsorship with a-la-cart programming from NPR, PRI or the BBC.

Now ask yourself: If WPVM can do this with $53,269 - imagine what your local public radio station could do if you demanded it.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: public radio - NPR - PRI - WPVM - podcasting - community radio - independent media - PERL

UPDATES:

(3/28 @ 10am EST) I received an email that WNYC produces 15 local programs.
(3/29 @ 11am EST) 3rd paragraph on this post was added to clarify for international readers.