Archive for the 'news' Category
May 14th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
We’d like to graciously welcome readers of the Niagara Gazette who’ve found their way here today. Our site offers a lot of different content, including weekly columns by regular Americans, important info hidden on the back pages of newspapers and in under-the-radar magazines, daily photos of our beautiful world, reviews of books, magazines and movies, “How-to– tools, conversations with significant progressives, original video, and even some of the funny.
On the right sidebar, you’ll find our most recent Wednesday topic — Corn, from Ascorbates to Zein, which includes a simple four-part to-do list offering simple actions everyday folks can take to make progressive change happen. You’ll learn about some of the problems with corn (believe it or not, there are several) and you’ll see new ways that corn can actually help make our country a better place. (To check out our complete list of Wednesday topics, just click this sentence.)
If you’ve got any questions about our site or topics you’d like to see us cover, just drop us a line through our Contact page. We’d love to hear from you, and we promise to get back to you pronto. If you’d dig having a free bumper sticker, just say the word, and we’ll ship one your way!
Again, thanks for dropping by. And don’t forget to check us out on June 13, when we focus on simple solutions for the big problems facing the city of Niagara Falls.
April 20th, 2007 by Matt
This comes to us from Sojourners:
More than 155,000 women have done military service in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 16,000 of those women are single mothers, according to the Pentagon.
Yet another reason to truly support our troops. Yet another reason to support independent presses.
April 19th, 2007 by Matt
I’m in love with the United States Postal Service. I’m amazed that I can drop a postcard of a cow wearing galoshes in the mail up in my corner of Western New York, and two days later, my grandmother in Tampa can read about the wet weather she’s missing. I think the Postal Service is egalitarian in its current format: it essentially costs all citizens the same amount of cabbage to stamp a letter, regardless of their income or locale.
But the USPS is about to do something that will severely undercut the little guys and gals, particularly those who are independent publishers. As independent publishers ourselves, we feel a comraderie with the privately owned magazines and journals we subscribe to and read: Paste, Sojourners, The Nation, Utne Reader, and Consumer Reports, amongst others. So that’s why we’re going to ask you to take a minute or two and take some important action.
To quote The Nation:
America’s founders understood the First Amendment would be worth little without a postal system that encouraged broad public participation in America’s “marketplace of ideas.” Thomas Jefferson called for a postal service that allowed ideas to “penetrate the whole mass of the people.” Along with James Madison, he paved the way for a system that gave low-cost mailing incentives to small publications of information and ideas.
We seek to protect this. The USPS is upping their rates on July 15th. This, on its own, might not be a problem, but the mega media conglomerates, like Time-Warner and Hearst, are being given a hefty break. Smaller publications are going to take it on the chin for the big-wigs, potentially shutting down hundreds or thousands of “lesser” journals and magazines.
We’re not talking about a few bucks: this unbalanced postage raise will cost The Nation 500 grand each year. And this is impacting magazines on the left and the right (and in the middle). That’s why the National Review, American Spectator, and American Conservative are all protesting this postal hike too.
The public “commenting period” on this hike ends on April 23. Time is of the essence. Since you read this site, we know you believe your news and information shouldn’t only come from media titans. Since you value information and news from independent and smaller magazines, let’s all take some action.
Congress and the public weren’t let in on these under-the-table deals. Go to the Free Press website by clicking this sentence, and protest. Tell Congress to step in and stop this deal from being done. The odds are against us. But at Progressive Wednesday we don’t believe in odds: we believe in action.
April 18th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Write:
We know you live hectic lives, and so let us help you help others. While we always will encourage you to write letters to the editor of your own, we recognize that this can be a time-consuming and potentially daunting task. So, below you'll find a letter we've written, revised, and vetted over the past week. Feel free to copy, paste, alter, print, sign, fold, envelope, stamp, address, and ship this sucker off to your newspaper of choice.
Dear Editor:
April 27 is Arbor Day, a somewhat forgotten day celebrating trees, and celebrate them we should. Trees are like the lungs of our planet, inhaling carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen. They clean toxins from the air, and give us better air to breathe.
There are many things we can do to help the population of trees. We can plant trees ourselves — the National Arbor Day Foundation even offers free seedlings for a measly $10 membership fee.
We can help stop the destruction of the rain forests — at EcologyFund.com, folks can make a few simple clicks of the mouse and help save rainforests and the animals thriving in them.
But there's a third, very easy thing we can all do: we can recycle paper products. I encourage everyone to take another look at this fine newspaper. Learn from its stories. Mourn its obituaries. Chuckle at its comics. Then, my fellow readers, please recycle it.
Sincerely,
You
March 3rd, 2007 by Matt
If only we could all be as strong as the Associated Press:
The Associated Press decided to give up a major vice last week: its addiction to stories about Paris Hilton. In the past year, Hilton has appeared on the wire an average of twice a week.
The wire service’s entertainment editor Jesse Washington sent a memo to staffers on Feb. 13 that said, barring any major events, the AP would not run any mention of Paris Hilton on the wire.
Before Hilton, I thought that the person who’d made the most out of the least talent was Jimmy Buffett (I mean, I don’t even like margaritas). This section of the press should be applauded for erasing the name of the woman named after La Ville-lumière who shall not be named again here (at least after this post) any time soon.
The press, even the entertainment press, has an obligation to the culture, whether they like it or not. Thomas Jefferson put the importance of a strong and responsible press this way:
The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
More and more, I think Jefferson would replace “newspapers” with “citizen journalists,” but this move by the AP is, in all honesty, a step in the right direction.
So what should we do in response to this editorial decision? Why, send the AP an email at info@ap.org.
Feel free to copy and paste mine, which went like this:
Dear AP:
Thank you for pulling Paris Hilton from your wire reports. You’ve made Thomas Jefferson a little prouder, and Paris Hilton a little poutier — two good things that go good together.
Feeling French,
Matt Zambito
I simply couldn’t stomach a photo of Ms. Hilton, so I thank
February 21st, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Read:
Adopting Election Day as a national holiday and banging out a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote seem like two it's-about-time steps in the right direction.
There's got to be more we can do to help out so-called “third parties– and their very qualified candidates. Third parties deserve a greater voice in our country, and having more voices, more opinions, and options seems incredibly American to us. Two-party domination seems a bit archaic, a bit undemocratic.
There are several suggestions out there for ways to change the ways we vote and the ways third party candidates get treated on ballots. These ideas include:
We'll be returning to the topic of election fixes in the future, and we're curious what your thoughts are about each of the various options. After you read about each, let us know what you think by leaving a comment or by contacting us. Let us know which you prefer, which you have questions about. Your comments will help us decide which ones to support down ye ole road. So, thanks in advance.
To learn more about Progressive Wednesday, just click here, here, or here.
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February 13th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Do you really need us to suggest checking out the best of the best — the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and Washington Times and Chicago Tribune and L.A. Times and St. Petersburg Times? We thought not. So make some progress, baby, and allows us to make a trio of recommendations:
1. Your local newspaper or papers rock in their own local way. This probably falls under the category of “Duh,” but humor us. To help progressive causes, reading your local papers seems key to us. If you can’t afford a subscription, most papers have websites these days with the majority of the content available online. Because we’ll be suggesting typing up letters to the editor on specific subjects, an awareness of the style and content of the opinion page in your hometown Picayune, Chronicle, Journal, Post, Echo, Gazette, News, Observer, Herald (you get the idea) will help.
2. Getting a flavor for other areas of the country seems like a good move to us; we read parts of five newspapers each day to find interesting progressive news for y’all (and us, too). Maybe read a few articles online from one newspaper not from your time zone. Here’s one we give mad props from each general area of the country:
There’s always a special place in our hearts for the Buffalo News, Niagara Gazette, Niagara Falls Reporter, and Art Voice — the four newspapers available in Western New York. So, if you’re pining for the 411 of our rather snow-soaked area, check those suckers out.
3. You might be wondering: Where, pray tell, might I find a rather complete list of newspapers throughout this red, white and blue land of ours? Well, my friend, the website 50 States, in addition to cataloguing the various state birds, mottos, and trees, also has an exhaustive compilation of the places where you can find the news that’s fit (and sometimes, you know, rather unfit) to print. Check it here.
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One last thing: please, please, please feel free to forward us links to interesting articles and snippets that demonstrate progressive successes through our Contact page. We appreciate it big time in advance.
1 We of the Blizzard of ’77 hear that the Southwest has a “dry heat.–
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