MotherJones SO93: Mojo Updates
|
|
Warning: violence ahead. Judging by the bulge in our mailbag, our stories on media violence ("Honey, I warped the kids" and "Passing the buck in Tinseltown," July/Aug.) touched many a frayed nerve. Hollywood, meanwhile, broke into the headlines by offering to place warning labels on its particularly violent programs, thereby heading off any congressional move toward regulation. Given that this is show biz we're talking about, it's possible these labels will only act to attract young viewers, not repel them. But at least, for the first time ever, network execs are on the record admitting that their violent shows can cause damage--and that's a move in the right direction.
Friends in the forest. Our investigation into wildland arson in the Pacific Northwest ("Firetrail," Mar./Apr.) may have helped end the bitter feud between loggers and environmentalists in Hayfork, Calif. Specifically, Nadine Bailey, a loggers' advocate whom we interviewed extensively for our story, and "forest activists" have come together to propose forest-management techniques for the area. On October 1, Congress will vote on the Hayfork proposal and also on Rep. Mike Synar's (D-Okla.) bill that would eliminate the rewards of illegal timber harvesting.
--Emily L. Gest
Till kingdom comes. Our Nov./Dec. 1990 issue reported on religious right leader Jay Grimstead's grand vision to establish Kingdom College ("Wildmon Kingdom?"), "a Christian 'green beret' training school," in San Jose, Calif. This past summer, Grimstead revealed a new plan to move his ministry, the Coalition on Revival, to Colorado and launch Kingdom College in Colorado Springs, birthplace of the state's anti- gay Amendment 2, by fall 1994. Grimstead's June correspondence to COR donors announced his intentions to explore a twenty-five-year program to rebuild the nation "upon the Biblical principles [of] our founding fathers and the Puritans of the 1600s." Grimstead expressed excitement over his group of "fellow reformers who are sold out to King Jesus . . . and who will be willing to die to accomplish our mutual goals." Meanwhile, Fred Clarkson, author of the MoJo piece, has coauthored an activist guide, Challenging the Christian Right. For a copy, call (413) 274-3786.
--Michelle Cottle Sands
HELLRAISERS MAKE NEWS!
Dr. Delta goes to Washington. Our Jan./Feb. heroine, L.C. Dorsey, director of the Delta Health Center in Mound Bayou, Miss., was chosen to serve on President Clinton's health professional review group, which reviewed proposals generated by Hillary Rodham Clinton's task force on health-care reform. "Aside from being a mama and a grandma, this is the most important thing I've ever done," Dorsey says. "If we could get half the proposals passed, we could take a lot of misery out of people's lives." The Crusader. Activist Diane Wilson, the Hellraiser in our most recent issue, will be hitting the airwaves in a big way this September in Disney's new prime-time TV newsmagazine, "The Crusaders," and in the PBS series on American labor, "We Do The Work." Wilson, who lives on the Texas coast, notes, "It's very isolated here, and the politics are not in my favor. The media has been my strongest ally."--Anthony Lin
