Radio Update
"Objective Journalism"
Madonna
Media Life

Sadly, WXYC 89.3FM (student station of UNC-Chapel Hill) decided to drop its carriage of Pacifica Evening News, which had been on every weekday for 5 years. Cost of subscription was too high, according to folks at the station. Although I offered to help raise the funds - if the station could come up with at least one volunteer to coordinate the effort on WXYC's end - there was no response, unfortunately.

Back in 1991, the final push to get it on the air had been greatly assisted by Bob Sheldon, the founder of Internationalist Books. I hope that as he gazes from radical heaven, he is not judging Chapel Hill's political prospects solely by counting this pitiable collapse of its sole daily progressive radio program.

Word is that WXYC will seek other less expensive (and less up-to-the-minute) political affairs discussion. They need to hear your support. Radio Nation is still airing at 4-5pm and Northern Hemisphere Live at 5-7pm, both on Sundays.

Fortunately, WSHA 88.9FM (Shaw University, Raleigh) still broadcasts Pacifica every weekday evening at 6:30pm.

Always worth the purchase of a $150 shortwave radio, Radio for Peace International is broadcasting these days at 6.205, 7.385, and 15.050MHz. Our own PR expert Jeff Saviano called up the station in Costa Rica and, through the magic of a modern 800 number, announced information about The Prism live worldwide. We actually got one letter of inquiry from Illinois. The Prism's reach is global! (Somehow there are still plenty of people locally who have never heard of us). Stay tuned.

In the initial coverage of the January 17 bomb explosions at an Atlanta abortion clinic, did anyone notice reference to "terrorism," or any word deriving from "terror"? I didn't, nor did friends. Such restraint contrasts with the generous use of "terrorism" in connection with Flight 800 and with the Tupac Amaru hostage situation in Lima, Peru. It took clinic bombings in Tulsa and D.C. within the next six days to move Clinton and Gore to do some tough-on-terror posturing.

A NYTimes wire service report (Jan. 24) on the investigation into the Atlanta bombs referred to "homemade terrorist devices." That report, like many others, provided no elaboration on the pattern of long-time and frequent violence by anti-abortionists at clinics.

The clinching question is whether our guardians at the Justice Department have stiffened their resolve by investigating whether the long-standing and widespread violence constitutes, at least in part, organized domestic terrorism - by individuals or perhaps organizations. A grand jury inquiry was dropped in 1995 and a case-by-case approach is currently in place. NC NARAL told The Prism that the clinic terrorists are often the same people involved in violent racist and militia groups. Meanwhile, the Justice Department and media terrorism "experts" promote repressive anti-terrorism legislation based on dubious threats from official foreign enemies, imaginary environmentalist extremists, and so on.

Your roving reporter was on site in Clearwater, FL, during the Christmas Holiday, where media phenom The Madonna appeared on the side of a financial building on Route 19, the main thoroughfare. The iridescent outline of Madonna and Child now appears adjacent to the heavily traveled route, disrupting traffic and forcing police to set up barricades. Thousands of pilgrims and TV news vans have flocked to the humble parking lot.

Never mind that you can't pay the mortgage on the trailer, your spouse is leaving with more than half the Elvis memorabilia, you've been terminated from your minimum wage job at Publix supermarket...all is healed, all debts forgiven through the intercession of this sign from the Sublime Master of all Malls and Franchises. Pious people from near and far are gathering to witness the miracle.

Some humbugs have dismissed this as a mere discoloration on the tinted windows. Indeed, some in Clearwater told us, "God doesn't do windows."

But a reporter from The Prism saw and believes. After all, there is good reason these days for the multitudes to contemplate the sides of bank buildings.

I will always be grateful to the Raleigh News & Observer for carrying it. There in the Jan. 9 Metro section was a full two-page paid advertisement. It was the text of an address from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon - you know, leader of the Moonies - given at the inauguration of a new newspaper in Argentina called Tiempos del Mundo. The words "are not concepts of one man's thinking. Rather, they are a direct revelation from God especially for this age."

"This is not a joke." And that's true here, too. I kid you not. He got right down to the meat and sweet-potato pie of the problems: "There is something that you do not know. You do not know what makes man man, and woman woman. The answer is: the sexual organs."

And further below the belt:

"When we are born as a man or woman, who is the owner of our sexual organ? Actually the owner of a husband's sexual organ is his wife, and the owner of a wife's sexual organ is her husband....Every man thinks his sexual organ belongs to himself, and each woman thinks her sexual organ is her own. That is why the world is perishing."

Wait, there's more:

"You may think it rude if I share this with you, but I would like to give you some examples. You use the bathroom each morning. When you defecate, do you wear a gas mask? This is not a laughing matter but a serious one. If you are near someone else defecating, you will quickly move a good distance away. But when you smell your own feces, you do not even notice it. This is because that fecal matter is one with your body. Therefore, you do not feel that it is dirty."

Of course, I can't really do the Theology of the Domestic Throne justice in such a small space. Go look it up yourself. Still, I can't resist offering a few more pungent nuggets of Moon's wisdom:

"Wherever you may go, please try to spread Reverend Moon's message through television or other media. You will never perish. What force can turn around this world of Hell? It is impossible to achieve this unless our sexual organ is used in accordance with an absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal love. God is the original owner of the sexual organs."

Moon closes by inviting each of us to "participate in the next marriage blessing of three million six hundred thousand couples...."

So why I am citing religious revelation in the Eye on the Media column? Just to record that in this world of Hell, the Moonie-owned Washington Times is cited often and its journalists comment regularly on National Public Radio, that paragon of "leftist media" propaganda generously supported by many progressive-minded folks here in the Triangle (notwithstanding its lack of regular left commentators). Recall too that the Washington Times was Ronald Reagan's favorite paper. He often cited its fabulous anti-Sandinista stories in his speeches, bravely disregarding the peril to his credibility.

Moon's media empire is burgeoning as we speak. It includes fare such as Insight and World & I, very slickly produced magazines (with mainstream journalistic hirelings) which are commonly found at large-scale magazine racks where an Extra! or Covert Action Quarterly may not often be found.

And as he mentions:

"Youth in the former Soviet Union also saw and learned what Reverend Moon is doing. Living in an ideological vacuum, they are now equipping themselves intellectually with a unification [Moonie] perspective through comprehensive ethics texts in middle schools, high schools, universities and even in prisons. Three thousand six hundred schools in the former Soviet Union are using such texts."

Moon, who has been linked with the Korean CIA, and who made much of his fortune through munitions plants, has tons of money to spend for his divine organs, worldwide.

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