Studio 1A listens to Marianne.
May 15, 2019
FDR: “The presidency is not merely an administrative office, that’s the least of it. It is preeminently a place of moral leadership.”
Foresight 2020: Marianne Williamson
“There are 22 Democratic candidates running for president in 2020. Marianne Williamson is one of them.
She doesn’t have any previous political experience, but the author and motivational speaker does have a large following on social media and has advised Oprah.
And she’s gaining traction. Williamson recently qualified for the first Democratic debate by garnering at least 65,000 individual campaign donors.
Speaking to FiveThirtyEight, Williamson’s communications director framed “the unusual nature of Williamson’s candidacy as a strength. “We’re different. We know that and we embrace that.’”
Williamson has made action on climate change a key part of her campaign platform.
Here’s her position, summarized by the PBS NewsHour:
Williamson believes action is needed to address climate change, and she has said she supports appointing a “world-class environmentalist” to head the Environmental Protection Agency. She supports halting all new fossil fuel projects, and restarting the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. Williamson would also place a temporary ban on new oil and gas fracking, and invest in electric vehicle production and high-speed trains.
She also supports reparations for slavery.
When a student asked her about her political experience during a CNN Town Hall here’s how she responded:
You know, the — the Latin root of the word “politeia” doesn’t mean of the government. It means of the people. And I think our political establishment has gotten too far away from the people.
We have a political establishment that doesn’t get to the heart of the matter, doesn’t speak to what’s really wrong. Politicians don’t really get down and talk about what’s really wrong, even though they know it. And because they don’t talk about what’s really wrong, they don’t get to what can really be made really within us./p>
So in a way, for me, I challenge the idea that people whose careers have been entrenched in the same limitations that are endemic to the system that got us into this ditch are the only people we should possibly consider qualified to take us out of the ditch. I challenge that, and that’s why I’m running./p>
We speak to Willamson about her long-shot status, her policy priorities and more.”
Host Joshua Johnson.
https://the1a.org/shows/2019-05-15/a-conversation-with-marianne-williamson
[34:27]
She’s 12. She’s a journalist. And she’s remarkable.
12-Year-Old Crime Reporter Gives Commencement Address at West Virginia University Media School
The Daily Beast
Audrey McNamara
“Her speech moved on to some of the journalism lessons she’s learned throughout her young career. Hilde Lysiak reminded graduates to “keep your ledes tight… talk to real people,” and “trust no one.” “And most importantly of all, stay laser focused on the truth,” Lysiak said. “If you do these things, I believe that history will look back on this moment not as the last dark days before the profession of journalism died, but as the new beginning.”
On her Orange Street News website you can read and listen to Hilde Lysiak’s full commencement speech. Here are a couple of excerpts:
Talk to Real People
Politicians and law enforcement can be great sources of information.
But my best stories never came from a press release — they came from biking down my main street, knocking on doors, and talking to the real people.
Who are the real people?
These are the small business owners. That group of old people who hang out at the coffee shop. Or just that nice neighbor man who is raking leaves.
It is here, buried in the nosey lady next door or at the church dinner, where the real nuggets of gold can be found.
Real people have real stories.
And if you take the time to listen, you would be amazed at what the real everyday people know.
[…]
Look — readers are smart. More often than not when given the right facts they will come to the right conclusions.
That’s the power of the truth. The power of facts.
And THAT is the REAL super power of a reporter.
Which leads me to my next point —
9) Don’t Mix Politics and Reporting —
Look — I believe the future has never been brighter for reporters.
Think about it. Has there ever been a time when more people wanted or needed the news more than at THIS very moment right now?
Because of the internet, people from all around the world can access information anytime and anywhere and all from the screen of their smartphone.
This isn’t a good thing.
This is a great thing.
Each one of these people is a potential subscriber to the Orange Street News.
Oh but I know what the skeptics all say, that newspapers might get online readers, but they don’t make money anymore.
To answer that claim, I’d like to point them to the only newspaper that exclusively serves the people of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.
I’m proud to say that the newspaper I’m the publisher of, the Orange Street News, DOES make a profit. And I do this while also publishing all my stories online for free and without accepting paid a single dollar in advertising. In fact, my print subscribers are enough for me to pay for all of my expenses including printing along with a few upgrades.
Full speech:
Orange Street News
Facing risk, again.
Mark Nepo:
When resisting the flow of inner events suddenly feels more hurtful than leaping toward the unknown.
Yet no one can tell us when to leap.
There is no authority to bless our need to enter life but the God within.
As spirits in bodily form, we have the chance to tighten and bloom more than once. But even spirits, if turned in on themselves enough, may grow accustomed to being closed.
Unlike roses, however, the human chamber can be shut down for years, and still, it takes but one break from the true center and we will flower.
It has always amazed and humbled me how the risk to bloom can seem so insurmountable before hand and so inevitably freeing once the threshold of suffering is crossed.
We can flower in an instant, as soon as the pain of not flowering and not loving become greater than our fear.
Strangely true.
The New Yorker
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.
-Mark Twain