From West by Northwest.org Letters to the Editor More June Mail: "Mother of Sorrows" Story Response and An Open Letter to National Public Radio Listeners By Ronald Smith, Chuck Fager Jun 21, 2003 To: Maura McGoorty, West By Northwest.org Dear Maura: I was captivated by your piece about Mother of Sorrows, "A Christmas Story." Yesterday morning a repairman was working on our sink when I came down for breakfast. "This is Ken," Mary Ann said. "His wife went to Mother of Sorrows." We shook hands. Power grip. "She went to the high school?" "Yes." "I'm not sure that counts. They didn't' have a high school when I was there." "Ron was there during the War," Mary Ann explained. I told him that I had recently driven by Mother of Sorrows [or "Mother of Sorrows Institute" - "M.S.I." - as the old-country Italian nuns had named it when they founded the convent school for little girls in the early 1930's]. A sign on its fence suggested it had been turned into some kind of catering school. I knew the high school had long been closed. I had even heard that the Servite nuns had sold the property. Ken said the nuns were still there, but had turned the place into a school for troubled children. "They take in troubled children? When I went there you went in OK and came out troubled." I remember running into an M.S.I. fellow inmate in 1967, more than twenty years after we had left there. I asked him whether he ever tried to explain the place to anyone. He said he couldn't', and recounted a couple of unnerving aspects of the world we as children lived in for several years. There wasn't a minute I didn't think, "I want to get out of this dump, I want to go home." Well, Maura, you painted a fairly accurate picture. I would guess that the nuns were Mother Albertina (who was plump, pleasant, and ruddy), and perhaps Sisters Margaret, Veronica, Theresa, Donatella [saints to our parents; tyrants to us] or others whom I can probably identify. There may have been a Sister Virginia there by your time - she had graduated from M.S.I., joined the Servites, and by 1963 she was pursuing a graduate degree in Education at Loyola University. I had finished a long tour with the military and was an older student in law school there. She was a decent, intelligent, perceptive person, and remembered me from the early '40s. One day we stopped to chat, and I decided to challenge her. "When are you younger nuns going to clean that place up?" She knew exactly what I was talking about. She proceeded to reveal that there was a deep division between the old crowd of nuns and the new nuns. A few years later I learned that she had left the convent. I don't know where she is now. I could write at great length about the years I spent there, and indeed I have some notes here and there. But I am busy with other things now. I will be happy to write more, if you want. Maybe you want to just forget it. I can't. Anyway, you can peek at my work these days by going to www.reddogsmith.com and www.abacrimtrial.com. Thanks for the story, Ron Smith P.S. A newspaper columnist wrote a syrupy obit about Sister Annunziata perhaps a year ago. Forgive my failing to praise the poor departed soul, but Sister Annunziata was a religious zealot and an emotional bully. One of the funnier evenings of my life occurred when she and four other nuns showed up for my grandmother's wake in 1981. Dear fellow NPR Listener, Somebody named Sue sent me a copy of a letter she wrote a few weeks back, when the Iraq invasion was still all over the news. I set it aside for awhile. But with all the talk now about the FCC getting ready to give away the rest of the media to the megacorporations, it's back on my front burner. Sue's letter was directed at national Public radio (NPR), and its angry message was, in sum: "I QUIT!" Sue was horrified at how fully NPR had been absorbed into the rah-rah glorification of a pre-emptive, illegal war. For her this was not only a disgusting spectacle and an abandonment of journalistic independence, it was also the last straw. She'd listened for years, she wrote, getting attached to some of the star personalities, and writing many checks during those guilt-trip pledge drives. She had also tried to ignore a growing sense of unease over the increase of corporate funding and influence, as she clung to the image of NPR as the last bastion of reliable, independent, quality broadcast journalism in America. But all this collapsed for her in March, going down like a Baghdad office building. Despite all her loyalty and devotion, when the chips were finally, really down there, right before her ears, NPR had morphed into no more than a high-toned, self-important echo of the warnography-mad corporate media, cheering the illegal invasion and the cowboy empire like all the other embedded pups. This inglorious spectacle was finally TOO MUCH to take, she said. This was THE END. On first reading, my reaction to Sue's letter was, "Right on, sister!" I could almost see her smashing her station coffee mug collection, and tossing all those tasteful tote bags in the trash. Talk about shock and awe. I'd been feeling much the same way as Sue, although “ remembering NPR's similarly spineless performance during the first Gulf War “ I wasn't as shocked by it as she was. But maybe, I thought, this WAS the time to kiss NPR goodbye. For me too, it's been 30+ years and some coffee mugs and tee shirts, but maybe my listening hours would be better spent downloading oldies and tuning in foreign broadcasts on the net. That was my thinking, for maybe a day. Then, I had what felt like a better idea. And that's what this letter "mine, not Sue's “ is about. Here's the proposition: Instead of peace folks just being pissed off at NPR and stomping off in a passive-aggressive huff, why not turn the tables and make them work for US?? It can be done. With the FCC poised to give the rest of the media away to Fox & Co, it demands to be done. Hear me out: It's all about those pledge drives, which we despise so much, but respond to with depressing frequency. I must know dozens of people who obediently "Make That Call," every year, sometimes more often. Sound like anybody you know . . .? And that's the key. NPR and its stations love it when you, and I, and Sue, and all our listener buddies send them our individual checks. there's no strings; all the money goes into the general budget pot, to be spent on whatever they want. But even with all that corrupting corporate money coming in, they still need our listener donations (that's why they never shut up about them). Okay. So what if, next time there's a pledge drive (and it won't be long) suppose that you and me and Sue and our buddies don't send them our individual checks. But stay with me, here, “ remember, I'm not talking boycott. Instead, suppose you and Sue and me and our listener buddies put our money together. Or to paraphrase Joe Hill, suppose we quit moaning and organize? That's right. Instead of ten or twenty of us sending $50 each, we pool our checks, and have $500 or $1000. (Or lots more really, if we talk this up; NPR listeners tend to run in packs.). And then we take that ONE check down to our local station. And rather than just dropping it on the fundraiser's desk, we tell them we want to be "underwriters" (That's NPR-speak for advertisers). Underwriters, as you know, get to be mentioned on the air, with a brief message. So with our money, we buy time for our message. Which could be something like: "All Things Considered is made possible in part by our town's local peaceniks, working to end militarism, repeal the patriot act, and revive independent critical journalism in America. More information on the web at: www.localpeaceniks.org" (Your wording, of course, may vary.) Several good things would come out of such an underwriting message: first, it gets heard on the air, which is more than happens now. (And the more money you and your friends can pool together, the more repetitions of your message you can get on the air, and the more it will get heard.) Second, the ones who will hear it most carefully of all will be the NPR folks. Trust me on this: Locally and nationally, they are very interested in where their money comes from. And you can trust this too: they respond to their contributors. Maybe not instantly; but before long. (The corporate funders figured this out years ago, by the way.) And third: you'll feel better. Why? Well, not only because your peace message is being heard, but also “go ahead and admit it,“ because NPR will be getting your money. I mean, face it: won't most of us who are so disappointed in NPR today eventually relent, start listening again, and pretty soon send in another check? (Truth: liberal guilt, the gift that keeps us giving, is a key feature of NPR's audience demographics.) Heck, I bet even Sue will end up sending in another check. But this just underlines my plea: If we're likely to drift back to NPR anyway, let's make our presence *count.* Once the FCC gives away the rest of the media to Rupert Murdoch, it may be our last hope! The mechanics are not complex. You don't need a new organization, or a lot of paperwork: Talk to your friends; pass along this email. Get them to talk to their friends. Put your money together. Write (or copy) a simple peace message. And then appoint a treasurer/spokesperson to deliver the check and get the message on the air. You don't even need your own website. Non-techies can substitute a URL for one of the national peace groups. And you don't have to wait til the next pledge drive either; the stations are *always* hungry for money. One further thought: It could happen that a given station management might balk at running your message. In which case, be ready to negotiate a little. But if they really get picky about airing ten seconds devoted to speaking up for peace, civil liberties and independent critical journalism, well, guess what? You've just learned something important about them. And in that case, keep your money. You can take it and prospect for another station. Or give it to a peace group. And then get on with downloading those oldies and searching for foreign broadcasts. Living without that NPR station will be LOTS easier to adjust to then. But this outcome seems unlikely. Call me pollyanna, but I predict that if enough peace-oriented listeners in enough local markets start pooling their NPR dollars, the network will listen and respond. It may not become a center of activist resistance; but it will get better, and we all know there's PLENTY of room for improvement. And to repeat one more time: For all its faults, NPR is about the only viable candidate left for the role of a genuine independent media voice in this country. So at least it's worth a shot. How much difference could this approach make? As far as money goes, the potential is HUGE. The American peace constituency overwhelmingly overlaps with the NPR audience; which is pushing twenty million or so. If only five per cent of these listeners pooled our donations, that would be a million of us or so; we're talking millions of dollars. And then we'd have the ears of all those NPR folks, for sure. So think this over. If you like the idea, pass it on, talk it up, and then DO it. Remember, this will be a locally-directed activity, nobody in Washington or New York will be telling you what to do, or dunning you with e-mail petitions or fund appeals. If this idea takes off, we can keep in touch on the net, and you'll HEAR the results. Sue, are you listening? Let's do it. Peace, Chuck Fager, Speaking for myself PS. If you and your friends try this out, which I hope you will, let me know. There's power in numbers! © Copyright 2000-2004 by West by Northwest.org