(This will be my last post until after the Easter/ Passover Season!)
Have you ever called a newspaper or tabloid to give them a Tip on a Hot News story?
Last week I encountered what I considered to be a very newsworthy local story with national and international interest.
I met someone who was a few days into a HUNGER STRIKE for a social justice cause. He had written a book too - about human trafficking - though his hunger strike was to protest the President of the United States, President Obama, from recognizing the newly (corruptly) elected Armenian who has some human rights violations on his resume.
The HUNGER STRIKER was my kind of human being.
I realized this: I have been the FAN of so very many MUSIC MAKERS and WRITERS. I've co-author a blog about music of a certain era with Wes Bryan since 2007 !, and I'm the first to read the latest bios/memoirs books and about music makers.
But what I really admire - my heroes and heroines - are always people who STAND FOR SOMETHING. I actually admire people who STAND FOR SOMETHING even when the something is not something I agree with than people who DON"T STAND FOR ANYTHING. (Example. As a kid I was a total Beatles FAN but my HEROINES were Leaders of the Feminist Movement.)
(To meander here amoment, I recall a College class I took about poetry during which the question of separating a human being from the work came up. It seemed to be that Literature expected the work and the person to stand alone. Thus you could get a Doctorate in Literature Deconstructing someone else's work without ever Interviewing them. I had enough Journalist in me to be very bothered by that.)
So, I decided this man needed some press as he weakened. I sent two e-mails to local television news programs, one of which got an automated "Thanks!" message. Then I called three local news providers. The only live person I encountered was at a community college news paper where a man was said they would "Look into it."
The absolute worst was when I called Fox News. The man I spoke to was condescending, impatient (even though I had written out what I wanted to report in one small paragraph).
I said "How many people actually sit inside an RV and HUNGER STRIKE to make a point to a U.S. President?" This Fox news guy didn't even fake he cared. He answered a few other calls coming in, and if he wasn't the tip line, he sure wasn't transferring me to one. He said, "It doesn't matter because I have no one to send out to cover that."
On my way home I was hungry. On my way home I was concerned about my fat gut rather than HAVING MORE GUTS!
As I pondered what I might cook for dinner, I wondered what it must be like to go several days without food. Lately it seems I've been so afraid to feel hunger pangs that I eat before I can feel them.
I hoped this man had done his research and taken medical science on how to HUNGER STRIKE into as much consideration as inspiration by others who have done so. I started thinking that I WANTED HIM ON NATIONAL NEWS if only so HE COULD EAT AGAIN!
And I was glad I had left the Journalism program I was in years ago to Major in Creative Writing instead.
