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Help Is on the Way, but Hunger Remains an Issue in Ohio

BY M A RT Y S C H L A D E N , O H I O CA P ITA L J O U R N A L

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hen Congress passed a $900 million COVID-relief package just before Christmas, it contained good news for legions of desperate Americans. But one of Ohio’s top advocates against hunger said it won’t be nearly enough.

Among its provisions is a fourmonth, 15% increase in benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But Lisa HamlerFugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Food Banks, said the increase in the program formerly known as food stamps would only prevent beneficiaries from sliding further into hunger.

“Food prices have been skyrocketing for everyone and we think this can get some folks back to level,” she said.

The additional benefits come at a time of mounting despair. HamlerFugitt said her group’s member food banks are seeing the heaviest demand in the 20 years the association has existed.

Also, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey estimates that at the end of December, almost 1.2 million Ohioans often or sometimes didn’t get enough to eat during the past seven days. That’s 10% of the state’s population.

Among other provisions in the relief package: - Expanding an electronic-benefittransfer program for families with kids missing school meals. Now it will also be available to families with kids missing meals in child care centers.

- $17.5 million more for the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which provides farm commodities to food banks and other nutrition programs for the poor: - Additional support for the Women Infants and Children (WIC) food program - More funding for Meals on Wheels But Hamler-Fugitt said the measures are woefully inadequate in the face of the current crisis.

“These are temporary,” she said.

“They’re extremely modest. A lot of it is just going to make up for rapidly rising food costs.”

But a measure not directly related to food will do much to ease the pressure on family budgets. The new COVIDrelief package provides $700 million to help struggling Ohioans with rent, mortgage and utility payments. The Household Pulse survey estimates that at the end of December, 624,000 Ohio families had slight or no confidence they would be able to pay the coming month’s rent.

“So many Ohioans are just months and months behind,” Hamler-Fugitt said.

She said food banks and other antipoverty efforts got a big boost from two other measures.

One was an extension of $2 billion in funding left over in Ohio from the CARES Act passed by Congress in March. The funding was set to expire at the end of the year.

Another is that Gov. Mike DeWine extended National Guard assistance at food banks until the end of March.

“We were completely freaking out because our volunteers have not returned,” Hamler-Fugitt said. “Our senior citizen volunteers are not going to return until we start seeing COVID getting checked and people being able to get vaccinations so they can protect themselves.”

She said that while the additional assistance is vital, policy makers also have to confront harsh realities both in the long and short term.

“A lot of the jobs in hospitality, retail, restaurants, food service; they are likely not going to come back. So what are we going to do long-term with education and training to prepare folks with new skills?” Hamler-Fugitt said. “Also, what are we going to do to wrestle COVID to the ground?”

DeWine Condemns Trump’s Riot Incitement, Praises His Judges

BY M A RT Y S C H L A D E N On Jan. 7, Gov. DeWine offered what might be his toughest criticism yet of President Donald Trump, after Trump incited a violent mob to storm the U.S. Capitol and stop certification of a vote that would remove him from office.

Yet the governor refused to withdraw his support from the president, for whom DeWine served as Ohio co-chair in the Nov. 3 election. Nor would DeWine say whether he thought Trump should run for another term in 2024.

Why? Because Trump made good trade deals and appointed conservative judges to the courts, DeWine said.

The governor also said he and his wife, Fran, were riveted and appalled by the recent events in Washington, D.C. After a year of raising doubts of the integrity of the election and months of making a bogus case against its validity, Trump lost scores of court cases attempting to overturn it. Then the president called state election officials directly and tried to cajole and threaten them into stealing the election on his behalf.

As those attempts to avoid being the loser failed, Trump called supporters to Washington on Jan. 6 for a rally just

before Vice President Mike Pence and Congress gathered in the Capitol to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win.

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani strode onto the stage and called on supporters to settle the election dispute through “trial by combat.” Decrying Congressional Republicans who were unwilling to throw the election, Donald Trump Jr. exhorted the crowd to “send a message to them: This isn’t their Republican Party anymore. This is Donald Trump’s Republican Party.”

Then Trump himself took the stage and incited the conspiracy-fueled mob to head to the Capitol.

“And after this, we’re going to walk down there, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down…to the Capitol and we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” Trump told the crowd.

“And we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.

Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”

The match lit, Trump went back to the White House, but the mob took the cue. They went to the Capitol, stormed the building and forced Capitol Police — who were badly outnumbered — to stop vote certification. They had to focus instead on protecting Pence and Congress.

For the next few hours people carrying Confederate flags and wearing Holocaust-celebrating T-shirts vandalized and looted the Capitol while essentially holding Pence and the entire Legislative Branch hostage. One replaced an American flag flying on the exterior of the building with a Trump flag.

Trump, who was reported to initially be pleased with the spectacle, issued a video and tweets with mild appeals to “stay peaceful” and “go home,” but Twitter removed several that repeated Trump’s false election grievances while saying he loved the mob of “patriots.”

At the same time, Trump resisted calls to order out the D.C. National Guard to reinforce the beleaguered Capitol Police.

Twitter later locked Trump’s account, saying he was inciting violence. One woman was shot and killed in the Capitol and three others died of other causes.

When congressional staffers rushed to save mahogany boxes containing the vote-certification forms from the mob, it was hard to see how this wasn’t an attempted coup.

During his COVID press conference, DeWine spent about 10 minutes outlining past disputed elections and praising erstwhile Trump supporters such as Pence and current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), before turning his attention to Trump.

He said that the president’s refusal to accept the result of the Nov. 3 election “has started a fire that has threatened to burn down our Democracy.”

“The speech that he gave preceding the march, that he gave to the protesters served only to fan those flames, encouraging the mob behavior

NEWS that ensued,” DeWine said. “(These) acts were shameful and all Americans must denounce them, even those Americans who feel — incorrectly — that Donald Trump won.”

But the governor wouldn’t concede that he and other Republicans should have done more to stand up to a president who had long refused to say he’d respect the results of an election that he lost.

Asked in September if he condemned that refusal, DeWine said, “I’m not going to condemn anything. I don’t know what’s in his heart or in his mind.”

DeWine added, “Whatever the situation, however hotly contested each race is, however riled up everybody is on each side — and we’ve had those throughout our history — when the results are in, people accept them.”

While the Ohio governor this time went further than he has in the past criticizing Trump, that criticism had its limits: He wouldn’t say whether he thought Trump should run again in 2024.

“Let’s get one person elected and in office first,” he said.

DeWine also refused to rescind his support for Trump.

“President Trump, I didn’t always agree with everything he did,” DeWine said. “But I thought he negotiated good trade agreements and by and large, I thought he was more aggressive for the United States. I liked the judges he put on the Supreme Court, the circuit courts, the district courts.”

DeWine diagnosed what problems plaguing American democracy resulted in the storming of the Capitol. But he seemed not to understand his connection to them. He said the rioters were “plagued” with the “disease” of not trusting the electoral system.

“They need to work the system,” he said. “They need to go back. They need to get back up and fight another day. Go fight another election. Go run people for office. They can run for office themselves. That’s what we’ve got to get back to. We’ve got to get back to trusting the system.”

But DeWine didn’t mention Trump’s relentless attacks on elections, courts and other democratic institutions throughout his presidency. He also didn’t mention his own, McConnell’s and other prominent Republicans’ refusal to call them out.

In fact, DeWine said, “Nobody cares more about the Constitution than Mitch McConnell.”

This about a Senate majority leader who waited six weeks to acknowledge Biden’s victory — later, even, than Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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These stories were originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal and republished with permission. Follow: ohiocapitaljournal.com or @ohiocapitaljournal.

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very year since 1976, Project Censored has performed an invaluable service — shedding light on the most significant news that’s somehow not fit to print.

Censorship in an authoritarian society is obvious, from a distance, at least. There is a central agent or agency responsible for it, and the lines are clearly drawn. That’s not the case in America. Yet some stories rarely, if ever, see the light of day, such as stories about violence against Native American women and girls, even though four out of five of them experience violence at some point in their lives — overwhelmingly at the hands of non-Native perpetrators.

“I wouldn’t say that we’re more vulnerable,” Annita Lucchesi, a Southern Cheyenne descendant and executive director of the Sovereign Bodies Institute, told The Guardian. “I’d say that we’re targeted. It’s not about us being vulnerable victims, it’s about the system being designed to target and marginalize our women.”

And the media erasure of their stories is part of that same system of targeting and marginalization. While journalists work hard every day to expose injustices, they work within a system where some injustices are so deeply baked in that stories exposing them are rarely told and even more rarely expanded upon to give them their proper due.

That’s where Project Censored comes in.

“The primary purpose of Project Censored is to explore and publicize the extent of news censorship in our society by locating stories about significant issues of which the public should be aware, but is not, for a variety of reasons,” wrote founder Carl Jensen on its 20th anniversary.

Thus, the list of censored stories that’s the centerpiece of its annual book, State of the Free Press | 2021, doesn’t just help us to see individual stories we might have otherwise missed. It also helps us see patterns — patterns of censorship, of stories suppressed and patterns of how those stories fit together.

This year, for example, among Project Censored’s top 10 stories, there are

I l l u s t ra t i o n : An s o n St e v e n s - B o l l e n

— senators’ fossil fuel investments. There are also two related to income inequality.

There are also further climate-change threads woven through these stories — a highlighted connection between the extractive fossilfuel industry and violence against Native women, as well as an unmentioned connection via Monsanto’s employment of FTI Consulting, which has been heavily involved in climate disinformation warfare.

The stories listed below are only part of what Project Censored does, however.

State of the Free Press | 2021 has chapters devoted to other forms of obfuscation that help keep censored stories obscured. So, if the top 10 stories leave you hungry for more, Project Censored has all that and more waiting for you in State of the Free Press | 2021.

MISSING PATTERNS IN CORPORATE NEWS Project Censored’s top 10 underreported stories of 2020

BY PAU L RO S E N B E R G

two about violence and victimization of women of color, including the role of media neglect: No. 1. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (introduced above) and No. 7. Underreporting of Missing and Victimized Black Women and Girls. There are similarities as well as differences between them, and

being able to see them both together in Project Censored’s list helps us see them more fully as distinct, yet connected, stories.

There are also three stories concerning the media itself; two climate-change stories about overlooked causes and risks; and a third has a climate-change component

No. 1. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls “In June 2019 the Canadian National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released its final report, which received widespread news coverage in the United States,” Project Censored notes. “U.S. corporate news outlets have provided nearly nothing in the way of reporting on missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States.”

That’s despite a problem of similar dimensions, and complexity, along with the election of the first two Native American congresswomen, Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids, who, Ms. Magazine reported, “are supporting two bills that would address the federal government’s failure to track and respond to violence against indigenous women (and) are supported by a mass movement in the U.S. and Canada raising an alarm about missing and murdered indigenous women and girls (MMIWG).”

Four in five Native women experience violence at some point in

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their lives, according to a 2016 survey by the National Institute of Justice, cited in an August 2019 ThinkProgress report.

“About nine in 10 Native American rape or sexual-assault victims had assailants who were white or Black,” according to a 1999 Justice Department report.

“Although the number of Native Americans murdered or missing in 2016 exceeded 3,000 — roughly the number of people who died during the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attack — the Justice Department’s missing persons database logged only 116 cases that year,” ThinkProgress noted. “The sheer scale of the violence against Native women and the abysmal failure by the government to adequately address it, explains why the issue was given such prominence during this week’s presidential candidates’ forum in Sioux City — the first to focus entirely on Native American issues.”

But even that didn’t grab the media’s attention.

There are multiple complicating factors in reporting, tracking, investigating, and prosecuting, which were explored in coverage by The Guardian and YES! Magazine, as well as Ms. and ThinkProgress.

“Campaigners, including the Sovereign Bodies Institute, the Brave Heart Society, and the Urban Indian Health Institute, identify aspects of systemic racism — including the indelible legacies of settler colonialism, issues with law enforcement, a lack of reliable and comprehensive data, and flawed policymaking — as deep-rooted sources of the crisis,” Project Censored summed up. “As YES! Magazine reported, tribal communities in the United States often lack jurisdiction to respond to crimes.”

This was partially remedied in the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, known as VAWA, but “it left sex trafficking and other forms of sexual violence outside tribal jurisdiction, YES! Magazine reported.”

The House voted to expand tribal jurisdiction in such cases in its 2019 VAWA reauthorization, but, Ms. reported, “The bill is now languishing in the Senate, where Republicans have so far blocked a vote.”

Another facet of the problem explored by YES! is the connection between the extractive fossil fuel industry and violence against Native women. The Canadian report “showed a strong link between extraction zones on the missing and murdered women crisis in Canada,” YES! noted. “It specifically cited rotational shift work, sexual harassment in the workplace, substance abuse, economic insecurity, and a largely transient workforce as contributing to increased violence against Native women in communities

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near fossil fuel infrastructure.”

“It creates this culture of using and abuse,” said Annita Lucchesi, executive director of the Sovereign Bodies Institute. “If you can use and abuse the water and land, you can use and abuse the people around you, too.”

Project Censored concluded, “As a result of limited news coverage, the United States is far from a national reckoning on its crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.”

No. 2. Monsanto “Intelligence Center” Targeted Journalists and Activists In its fight to avoid liability for causing cancer, the agricultural giant Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) created an “intelligence fusion center” to “monitor and discredit” journalists and activists, Sam Levin reported for The Guardian in August 2019.

“More than 18,000 people have filed suit against Monsanto, alleging that exposure to Roundup (weedkiller) caused non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and that Monsanto covered up the risks by manipulating scientific data and silencing critics,” The Hill summarized.

“The company has lost three highprofile cases in the past year, and Bayer is reportedly offering $8 billion to settle all outstanding claims.”

“Monsanto adopted a multi-pronged strategy to target Carey Gillam, a Reuters journalist who investigated the company’s weedkiller,” The Guardian reported.

This took place while also targeting Neil Young (who released a 2015 record, The Monsanto Years), and creating a massive, multimillion-dollar spying and disinformation campaign targeting journalists writing about it, as well as scientists and advocates exposing the risks its product posed. Creating a covert army of seemingly neutral allies to attack its critics was central to Monsanto’s strategy.

The Guardian’s report was based on internal documents (primarily from 2015 to 2017) released during trial.

They showed that “Monsanto planned a series of ‘actions’ to attack a book authored by Gillam prior to its release, including writing ‘talking points’ for ‘third parties’ to criticize the book and directing ‘industry and farmer customers’ on how to post negative reviews.”

In addition, Monsanto paid Google to skew search results promoting criticism of Gillam’s work on Monsanto, and they discussed strategies for pressuring Reuters with the goal of getting her reassigned. The company “had a ‘Carey Gillam Book’ spreadsheet, with more

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than 20 actions dedicated to opposing her book before its publication.” They also “wrote a lengthy report about singer Neil Young’s anti-Monsanto advocacy, monitoring his impact on social media, and at one point considering ‘legal action.’”

The entire pool of journalists covering the third trial was also targeted in a covert influence operation, Paul Thacker reported for The Huffington Post. A purported “freelancer for the BBC” schmoozed other reporters, trying to steer them toward writing stories critical of the plaintiffs suing Monsanto.

Their curiosity aroused, they discovered that “her LinkedIn account said she worked for FTI Consulting, a global business advisory firm that Monsanto and Bayer, Monsanto’s parent company, had engaged for consulting,” and she subsequently went into a digital disappearing act.

“FTI staff have previously attempted to obtain information under the guise of journalism,” Thacker added. “In January, two FTI consultants working for Western Wire — a ‘news and analysis’ website backed by the oil and gas trade group Western Energy Alliance — attempted to question an attorney who represents communities suing Exxon over climate change.”

And FTI wasn’t alone.

“Monsanto has also previously employed shadowy networks of consultants, PR firms, and front groups to spy on and influence reporters,” Thacker wrote. “And all of it appears to be part of a pattern at the company of using a variety of tactics to intimidate, mislead and discredit journalists and critics.”

“Monsanto officials were repeatedly worried about the release of documents on their financial relationships with scientists that could support the allegations they were ‘covering up unflattering research,’” The Guardian noted.

At the same time, they tried to attack critics as “anti-science.”

“The internal communications add fuel to the ongoing claims in court that Monsanto has ‘bullied’ critics and scientists and worked to conceal the dangers of glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide,” it summed up.

“Monsanto’s campaign to monitor and discredit journalists and other critics has received almost no corporate news coverage,” Project Censored notes.

A rare exception was a June 2019 ABC News report which nonetheless “consistently emphasized the perspective of Monsanto and Bayer.”

No. 3. U.S. Military — a Massive, Hidden Contributor to Climate Crisis

It’s said that an army travels on its stomach, but the Army itself has said, “Fuel is the ‘blood of the military,’” as quoted in a study, “Hidden Carbon Costs of the ‘Everywhere War,’” by Oliver Belcher, Patrick Bigger, Ben Neimark, and Cara Kennelly, who subsequently summarized their findings for The Conversation in June 2019.

The U.S. military is “one of the largest polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more climatechanging gases than most mediumsized countries,” they wrote.

If it were a country, it would rank as “the 47th largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.”

Studies of greenhouse gas emissions usually focus on civilian use, but the U.S. military has a larger carbon footprint than any civilian corporation in the world.

“The U.S. military’s climate policy remains fundamentally contradictory,” their study notes.

On the one hand, “The U.S. military sees climate change as a ‘threat multiplier,’ or a condition that will exacerbate other threats, and is fast becoming one of the leading federal agencies in the United States to invest in research and adoption of renewable energy (but) it remains the largest single institutional consumer of hydrocarbons in the world, (and) this dependence on fossil fuels is unlikely to change as the USA continues to pursue open-ended operations around the globe.”

While the military has invested in developing biofuels, “the entire point of these fuels is that they are ‘drop-in’ — they can be used in existing military kit — which means that, whenever convenient or cheaper, the infrastructure is already in place to undo whatever marginal gains have been made in decarbonisation.”

Things will only get worse.

“There is no shortage of evidence that the climate is on the brink of irreversible tipping points,” the study notes. “Once past those tipping points, the impacts of climate change will continue to be more intense, prolonged, and widespread, giving cover to even more extensive U.S. military interventions.”

Understanding the military’s climate impact requires a systems approach.

“We argue that to account for the U.S. military as a major climate actor, one must understand the logistical supply chain that makes its acquisition and consumption of hydrocarbon-based fuels possible,” the study states. “We show several ‘path dependencies’ — warfighting paradigms, weapons systems, bureaucratic requirements and waste — that are put in place by military supply chains and undergird a heavy reliance on carbon-based fuels

by the U.S. military for years to come.”

Data for their study was difficult to get.

“A loophole in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol exempted the United States from reporting military emissions,” Project Censored explains. “Although the Paris Accord closed this loophole, Neimark, Belcher, and Bigger noted that, ‘with the Trump administration due to withdraw from the accord in 2020, this gap...will return.’” They only obtained fuel purchase data through multiple Freedom of Information Act requests.

Finally, by way of conclusions, Project Censored stated: Noting that “action on climate change demands shuttering vast sections of the military machine,” Neimark, Belcher, and Bigger recommended that “money spent procuring and distributing fuel across the U.S. empire” be reinvested as “a peace dividend, helping to fund a Green New Deal in whatever form it might take.”

Not surprisingly, the report had received “little to no corporate news coverage” as of May 2020, beyond scattered republication of their Conversation piece.

No. 4. Congressional Investments and Conflicts of Interest Exposition, political corruption and conflicts of interest are age-old staples of journalism. So it’s notable that two of the most glaring, far-reaching examples of congressional conflicts of interest in the Trump era have been virtually ignored by corporate media: Republicans’ support for the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and bipartisan failure to act on catastrophic climate change.

“The cuts likely saved members of Congress hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes collectively, while the corporate tax cut hiked the value of their holdings,” Peter Cary of the Center for Public Integrity reported for Vox in January 2020.

It was sold as a middle-class tax cut that would benefit everyone.

“Promises that the tax act would boost investment have not panned out,” he noted. “Corporate investment is now at lower levels than before the act passed, according to the Commerce Department.”

Once again, “trickle down tax cuts” didn’t trickle down.

“The tax law’s centerpiece is its record cut in the corporate tax rate, from 35% to 21%,” Cary wrote. “At the time of its passage, most of the bill’s Republican supporters said the cut would result in higher wages, factory expansions, and more jobs. Instead, it

was mainly exploited by corporations, which bought back stock and raised dividends.”

Buybacks exceeded $1 trillion for the first time ever, the year after the cuts were passed, and dividends topped a record $1.3 trillion high.

The benefits to Congressional Republicans were enormous.

“The 10 richest Republicans in Congress in 2017 who voted for the tax bill held more than $731 million in assets, almost two-thirds of which were in stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other instruments,” which benefitted handsomely as a result of their votes that “doled out nearly $150 billion in corporate tax savings in 2018 alone,” Cary noted. “All but one of the 47 Republicans who sat on the three key committees overseeing the drafting of the tax bill own stocks and stock mutual funds.”

“Democrats also stood to gain from the tax bill, though not one voted for it,” he wrote. “All but 12 Republicans voted for the tax bill.”

Two special features deserve notice.

First is a newly created 20% deduction for income from ‘pass-through’ businesses, or smaller, single-owner corporations.

“At least 22 of the 47 members of the House and Senate tax-writing committees have investments in passthrough businesses,” Project Censored noted.

Second was a provision allowing real estate companies with relatively few employees — like the Trump organization — to take a 20% deduction usually reserved for larger businesses with sizable payrolls.

“Out of the 47 Republicans responsible for drafting the bill, at least 29 held real estate interests at the time of its passage,” Project Censored pointed out.

As to the second major conflict, “Members of the U.S. Senate are heavily invested in the fossil fuel companies that drive the current climate crisis, creating a conflict between those senators’ financial interests as investors and their responsibilities as elected representatives,” Project Censored wrote.

“Twenty-nine U.S. senators and their spouses own between $3.5 million and $13.9 million worth of stock in companies that extract, transport, or burn fossil fuels, or provide services to fossil fuel companies,” Donald Shaw reported for Sludge in September 2019.

While unsurprising on the Republican side, this also includes two key Democrats. Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware is the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee. He has “up to $310,000 invested in more than a dozen oil, gas, and utility companies, as well as mutual

funds with holdings in the fossil fuel industry,” Shaw reported.

But his record is not nearly as questionable as Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who “owns between $1 million and $5 million worth of non-public stock in a family coal business, Enersystems,” and reported earning “between $100,001 and $1 million” in reported dividends and interest in 2018, plus $470,000 in “ordinary business income,” Shaw reported.

His support for the industry was significant: Manchin was the only Democrat to vote against an amendment to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling in 2017, and he was one of just three Democrats to vote against an amendment to phase out taxpayer subsidies for coal, oil, and gas producers in 2016. Manchin has also voted to approve construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, expedite the approval process for natural gas pipelines, and override an Obama administration rule requiring coal companies to protect groundwater from toxic coal-mining waste.

While there has been critical coverage of 2017 tax cuts, this has not included coverage of lawmakers’ personal profiting, Project Censored noted.

“In addition, despite the significant conflicts of interest exposed by Donald Shaw’s reporting for Sludge, the alarming facts about U.S. senators’ massive investments in the fossil fuel industry appear to have gone completely unreported in the corporate press.”

No. 5. Gap Between Richest and Poorest Americans Largest in 50 Years “In public health, decades of research are coming to a consensus: Inequality kills,” DePaul University sociologist Fernando De Maio wrote for Truthout in December 2019.

Even before COVID-19, his research added fine-grained evidence of broad trends highlighted in three prominent governmental reports: The gap between rich and poor Americans had grown larger than ever in half a century, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 annual survey, with dramatic evidence of its lethal impact: People in the poorest quintile die at twice the rate as those in the richest quintile, according to a report by the Congressional General Accounting Office (GAO). And this is partly because job-related deaths are

increasingly rooted in the physical and psychological toll of low-wage work, as opposed to on-the-job accidents, as documented by the United Nations’ International Labor Organization.

All these conditions were made worse by COVID-19, but they could’ve been seen before the pandemic struck — if only the information hadn’t been censored by the corporate media, as Project Censored noted: “As of May 2020, Project Censored has not been able to identify any corporate news coverage on the GAO or Census Bureau reports on inequality and premature mortality, or on the ILO report about work-related illnesses, accidents, and deaths that take place when workers are off-duty.”

The August 2019 GAO report was based on health and retirement surveys conducted by the Social Security Administration in 1992 and 2014, looking at those between 51 and 61 years old in 1992, and dividing them into five wealth quintiles. “(T)he GAO found that nearly half of those (48%) in the poorest quintile died before 2014, when they would have been between 73 and 83 years old. Of the wealthiest quintile, only a quarter (26%) died,” explained Patrick Martin, writing for the World Socialist Web Site.

Death rates increased for each quintile as the level of wealth declined.

It’s at the level of cities and communities “that the most striking links between inequality and health can be detected,” De Maio wrote. “At the city level, life expectancy varies from a low of 71.4 years in Gary, Indiana, to a high of 84.7 in Newton, Massachusetts — a gap of more than 13 years.”

And at the community level, “In Chicago, there is a nine-year gap between the life expectancy for Black and white people. This gap amounts to more than 3,000 ‘excess deaths’” among black Chicagoans, due to “heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and kidney disease. All of these are conditions that an equitable health care system would address,” he concluded.

“The poorest Americans are also more likely than their rich counterparts to face illness or premature death due to the inherent dangers of low-wage work,” Project Censored noted.

“In 2019, you no longer have to hang from scaffolding to risk your life on the job,” María José Carmona wrote for Inequality.org. “Precariousness, stress, and overwork can also make you sick, and even kill you, at a much higher rate than accidents.”

She reported on an ILO story that found that less than 14% of the 7,500 people who die “due to unsafe and unhealthy working conditions every day” die from workplace accidents.

The greatest risk comes from “increasing pressure, precarious

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contracts, and working hours incompatible with life, which, bit by bit, continue to feed the invisible accident rate that does not appear in the news,” Carmona wrote. "The most vulnerable workers are those employed on a temporary or casual basis, those subcontracted through agencies and the false self-employed. ILO data shows the rate of accidents for these employees to be much higher than for any others.”

As of May 2020, Project Censored has not been able to identify any corporate news coverage on the GAO or Census Bureau reports on inequality and premature mortality, or on the ILO report about work-related illnesses, accidents, and deaths that take place when workers are off-duty.

No. 6. Shadow Network of Conservative Outlets Emerges to Exploit Faith in Local News In late October 2019, Carol Thompson reported in the Lansing State Journal that, “Dozens of websites branded as local news outlets launched throughout Michigan this fall...promising local news but also offering political messaging.” The websites’ ‘About Us’ sections “say they are published by Metric Media LLC, a company that aims to fill the ‘growing void in local and community news after years of steady disinvestment in local reporting by legacy media,’” Thompson wrote.

But it soon emerged that they weren’t filling that void with locally generated news, and the 40 or so sites Thompson found in Michigan were just the tip of the iceberg.

A follow-up investigation by The Michigan Daily reported that “Just this past week, additional statewide networks of these websites have sprung up in Montana and Iowa,” which was followed by a December 2019 report by the Columbia Journalism Review, revealing a network of 450 websites run by five corporate organizations in 12 states that “mimic the appearance and output of traditional news organizations” in order to “manipulate public opinion by exploiting faith in local media.”

All were associated with conservative businessman Brian Timpone.

“In 2012, Timpone’s company Journatic, an outlet known for its low-cost automated story generation, which became known as ‘pink slime journalism,’ attracted national attention and outrage for faking bylines and quotes, and for plagiarism,” Columbia Journalism Review’s Priyanjana Bengani reported. Journatic was later rebranded as Locality Labs, whose content ran on the Metric Media websites.

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“The different websites are nearly indistinguishable, sharing identical stories and using regional titles,” Michigan Daily reported. “The only articles with named authors contain politically skewed content. The rest of the articles on the sites are primarily composed of press releases from local organizations and articles written by the Local Labs News Service.”

“Despite the different organization and network names, it is evident these sites are connected,” Bengani wrote.

“Other than simply sharing network metadata as described above, they also share bylines (including ‘Metric Media News Service’ and ‘Local Labs News Service’ for templated stories), servers, layouts, and templates.”

Using a suite of investigative tools, Columbia Journalism Review was able to identify at least 189 sites in 10 states run by Metric Media — all created in 2019 — along with 179 run by Franklin Archer (with Timpone’s brother Michael as CEO).

“We tapped into the RSS feeds of these 189 Metric Media sites” over a period of two weeks, Bengani wrote, “and found over 15,000 unique stories had been published (over 50,000 when aggregated across the sites), but only about a hundred titles had the bylines of human reporters.” That’s well below 1% with a byline — much less being local. “The rest cited automated services or press releases.”

“Their architecture and strategy is useful to understand the way they co-opt the language, design, and structure of news organizations,” Bengani explained.

Automation can make them seem far more prolific than they really are, and can help build credibility.

“Potentially adding to the credibility of these sites is their Google search ranking: in the case of some of the websites set up in 2015-2016, we observed that once sites had gained ample authority, they appeared on the first page of Google Search results just below the official government and social media pages.”

So the sites aim to fool people locally about the source of their “news,” and Google helps fool the world.

Although The New York Times did publish an article in October 2019 that credited the Lansing State Journal with breaking the story about pseudo-local news organizations, Project Censored notes that “Corporate coverage has been lacking...The Columbia Journalism Review’s piece expands on the breadth and scope of previous coverage, but its findings do not appear to have been reported by any of the major establishment news outlets.”

No. 7. Underreporting of

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Missing and Victimized Black Women and Girls Black women and girls go missing in the United States at a higher rate than that of their white counterparts. And that very fact goes missing, too.

“A 2010 study about the media coverage of missing children in the United States discovered that only 20% of reported stories focused on missing Black children despite it corresponding to 33% of the overall missing children cases,” Carma Henry reported for the Westside Gazette in February 2019.

And it’s only getting worse.

“A 2015 study discussed in the William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice found that the disparity listed in the 2010 study between the reportage and the reality of missing Black children had increased substantially,” Project Censored noted: 35% of missing children cases vs. just 7% of media stories.

That discussion appeared in a paper that made two other pertinent points. First, that Black criminal perpetrators are over-represented in the media, while Black victims are underrepresented, and second, that “because racial minorities are identified as criminals more often than not, nonminorities develop limited empathy toward racial minorities who are often perceived as offenders.”

Non-minorities in the media are obviously not exempt.

“Media coverage is often vital in missing-person cases because it raises community awareness and can drive funding and search efforts that support finding those missing persons,” Project Censored noted.

It went on to cite an illustrative extreme case: In October 2019, “The Atlanta Black Star shed light on perhaps the most prolific offender against Black women and girls in recent history, Jason Roger Pope, who has been indicted on charges relating to human trafficking and child sex crimes,” Project Censored wrote.

“Pope, a white South Carolina promoter and popular disc jockey, better known as DJ Kid, has made claims suggesting he may have participated in the trafficking, assault, and/or rapes of nearly 700 African American girls — primarily underaged — right up until his arrest in August 2019.”

The arrest didn’t come out of the blue.

“Pope has police records going as far back as 2011 relating to sexual misconduct with minors. Yet outside of a few local news outlets, the corporate media has been silent on Pope’s crimes.”

Black people are also overrepresented as victims of sex trafficking, according to statistics from Human

Trafficking Search: They account for more than 40% of confirmed victims compared to 13.1% of the population.

While there is some coverage from small independent sources, “this gap in coverage of missing Black women and girls has gone widely underreported,” Project Censored noted.

It cited two exceptions (one from ABC News, another from CNN).

“But, broadly, U.S. corporate media are not willing to discuss their own shortcomings or to acknowledge the responsibilities they neglect by failing to provide coverage on the search for missing and victimized Black women and girls.”

No. 8. The Public Banking Revolution The year 2019 marked the 100th anniversary of the United States’ first publicly owned state bank, the Bank of North Dakota (BND), and in October, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Public Banking Act, authorizing up to 10 similar such banks to be created by California’s city and county governments. In response, the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles both announced plans to do so. It was the culmination of a decade-long effort that began in the wake of the Great Recession that’s also been taken up in nearly two dozen other states.

Beyond the benefits North Dakota has reaped in the past, such banks could have greatly assisted in responding to COVID-19’s economic devastation, and could yet help fund a just transition to a decarbonized future, along the lines of a Green New Deal.

Yet despite California’s agendasetting reputation, Project Censored reports that “No major corporate media outlets appear to have devoted recent coverage to this important and timely topic.”

“The Bank of North Dakota was founded in 1919 in response to a farmers’ revolt against out-of-state banks that were foreclosing unfairly on their farms,” Ellen Brown, founder of the Public Banking Institute, wrote for Common Dreams. “Since then it has evolved into a $7.4 billion bank that is reported to be even more profitable than JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, although its mandate is not actually to make a profit but simply to serve the interests of local North Dakota communities.”

“The state of North Dakota has six times as many financial institutions per capita as the rest of the country, and it’s because they have the Bank of North Dakota,” Sushil Jacob, an attorney who works with the California Public Banking Alliance told The Guardian.

“When the Great Recession hit, the Bank of North Dakota stepped in and

provided loans and allowed local banks to thrive.”

As a result, “North Dakota was the only state that escaped the credit crisis,” Brown told Ananya Garg, reporting for YES! magazine. “It never went in the red (and had) the lowest unemployment rate in the country, the lowest foreclosure rate at that time.”

“There are two ways in which a state bank can fund state investment for a greener future,” Eric Heath wrote in an op-ed for The Hill. “First, the bank can provide loans, bonds, and other forms of financing for investments to the state government and private organizations on better terms than those available in regular markets.”

Some such projects might not even be considered.

This is not because green investments are unprofitable, “but because their profits slowly accumulate and are widely shared across a community,” Heath explained. “Second, a public bank will improve a state’s fiscal health.

By holding state deposits as assets, the bank’s profits can be returned to state coffers to fund direct state investment.

Additionally, the activity of the state bank — which will prioritize investing state assets and extending credit within the state for the benefit of the state — will improve the state economy,” just as has happened in North Dakota.

A new surge of interest in public banking came out of the Standing Rock movement’s Dakota Access Pipeline protests. While individuals could easily withdraw from doing business with fossil-fuel-financing banks — Wells Fargo, in this case — governments have no such similar options to meet all their banking needs.

In short, “From efforts to divest public employee pension funds from the fossil fuel industry and private prisons, to funding the proposed Green New Deal and counteracting the massive, rapid shutdown of the economy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, public banking has never seemed more relevant,” Project Censored wrote.

It’s a time-tested practical solution the corporate media refuses to discuss.

No. 9. Rising Risks of Nuclear Power Due to Climate Change As early as 2003, 30 nuclear units were either shut down or reduced power output during a deadly European summer heatwave in Europe.

But almost two decades later, the corporate media has yet to grasp that “Nuclear power plants are unprepared for climate change,” as Project Censored notes. “Rising sea levels and warmer waters will impact power

plants’ infrastructure, posing increased risks of nuclear disasters, according to reports from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Truthout from September 2019,” they explain. Yet “tracking back to 2013, corporate news media have only sporadically addressed the potential for climate change to impact nuclear power plants.”

“Nuclear power is uniquely vulnerable to increasing temperatures because of its reliance on cooling water to ensure operational safety within the core and spent fuel storage,” Christina Chen wrote for NRDC. In addition, Karen Charman, reporting for Truthout, noted that “nuclear reactors need an uninterrupted electricity supply to run the cooling systems that keep the reactors from melting down,” but this will be “increasingly difficult to guarantee in a world of climate-fueled megastorms and other disasters.”

Sea level rise — combined with storm surges — represents the most serious threat. That was the focus of a 2018 report by John Vidal of Ensia, a solutions-focused media outlet, which found that “at least 100 U.S., European, and Asian nuclear power stations built just a few meters above sea level could be threatened by serious flooding caused by accelerating sea-level rise and more frequent storm surges.”

There have been more than 20 incidents of flooding at U.S. nuclear plants, according to David Lochbaum, a former nuclear engineer and director of the nuclear safety project at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“The most likely (cause of flooding) is the increasing frequency of extreme events,” he told Vidal.

Yet in January 2019, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) decided to weaken staff recommendations to reassess the adequacy of hazard preparations. In dissent, Commissioner Jeff Baran wrote that the NRC would allow power plants “to be prepared only for the old, outdated hazards typically calculated decades ago when the science of seismology and hydrology was far less advanced.”

“As of September 2019, 444 nuclear reactors are operating in the world, with 54 under construction, 111 planned and 330 more proposed,” Charman reported.

“Many of the world’s new nuclear plants are being built on the coasts of Asian countries, which face floods, sealevel rise, and typhoons,” Vidal wrote.

“At least 15 of China’s 39 reactors in operation, and many of the plants it has under construction, are on the coast.”

“Nuclear stations are on the front line of climate change impacts both figuratively and quite literally,” leading climate scientist Michael Mann told Vidal. “We are likely profoundly

underestimating climate change risk and damages in coastal areas.”

No. 10. Revive Journalism with a Stimulus Package and Public Option In late March, Congress passed and President Trump signed a $2.2 trillion coronavirus rescue package, including direct payments of $1,200 per adult and more than $500 billion for large corporations. Before passage, Craig Aaron, the president of Free Press, argued that a stimulus package for journalism was also urgently needed.

“In the face of this pandemic, the public needs good, economically secure journalists more than ever,” separating fact from fiction, and holding politicians and powerful institutions accountable,” Aaron wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review.

Aaron’s organization, Free Press, placed journalism’s needs at $5 billion in immediate emergency funds, “less than half of 1% of a trillion-dollar recovery package” and asked that “Congress put a foundation in place to help sustain journalism over the long term.”

Aaron presented a three-pronged plan: First, “Doubling federal funds for public media,” not for Downton Abbey reruns, but “earmarked specifically for emergency support, education, and especially local journalism.” For example, “The Los Angeles Unified School District teamed up with PBS SoCal/KCET to offer instruction over the airwaves while kids are out of school, with separate channels focused on different ages.”

Second, “Direct support for daily and weekly newsrooms,” which have lost tens of thousands of jobs over the past three decades. “Direct, emergency subsidies of say $25,000 per newsgathering position could make sure reporters everywhere stay on the local COVID beat,” he wrote. “Just $625 million would help retain 25,000 newsroom jobs.”

Third, “New investments in the news we need...for a major investment in services that provide community information (and) to support new positions, outlets, and approaches to newsgathering, (which could) prioritize places and populations that the mainstream outlets have never served well.”

Arguing that a “resilient and community-centered media system” is necessary to get through the pandemic, Aaron concluded, “Now is the time to act. We need significant public investments in all corners of the economy, and journalism is no exception.”

In an article in Jacobin, media scholar

Victor Pickard advanced a more robust proposal, for $30 billion annually (less than 1.4 % of the coronavirus stimulus package, Project Censored noted).

“On the question of cost, we must first remind ourselves that a viable press system isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity,” he wrote. “Similar to a classic ‘merit good,’ journalism isn’t a ‘want,’ but a ‘need….Democratic nations around the globe heavily subsidize the media while enjoying democratic benefits that put the U.S. to shame.”

Writing for The Guardian, just after the McClatchy newspaper chain bankruptcy was announced in February, Pickard noted that, “For many areas across the U.S., there’s simply no commercial option. The market has failed us.” And thus, “With market failure, journalism’s survival requires public options.”

The need was fundamental.

“All foundational democratic theories — including the first amendment itself — assume a functional press system.

The fourth estate’s current collapse is a profound social problem.”

And he suggested a broad range of funding possibilities: “We could raise funds from taxing platforms like Facebook and Google, placing levees on communication devices, and repurposing international broadcasting subsidies. Other sources include spectrum sales and individual tax vouchers. We could leverage alreadyexisting public infrastructures such as post offices, libraries, and public broadcasting stations to provide spaces for local news production.”

“While corporate news outlets have reported the ongoing demise of newspapers and especially local news sources, they have rarely covered proposals such as Aaron’s and Pickard’s to revitalize journalism through public funding,” Project Censored wrote.

Paul Rosenberg is an activist turned journalist who has written for the Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post, Al Jazeera English, Salon.com, and numerous other periodicals. He’s also written more than 300 book reviews. He has worked as an editor at Random Lengths News since 2002.

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WALK THIS WAY FOOTWEAR FROM THE STUART WEITZMAN COLLECTION OF HISTORIC SHOES

February 27–June 6, 2021

Advance tickets available now at taftmuseum.org

This exhibition has been organized by the New-York Historical Society.

EXHIBITION SPONSOR

The Sutphin Family Foundation

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SEASON FUNDERS

OPER ATING SUPPORT

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EXHIBITION SUPPORT GENEROUSLY PROVIDED BY

View all sponsors and funders at taftmuseum.org.

ABOVE: Seymour Weitzman (1910–1965), designer, Mr. Seymour (founded 1950s), maker, Pointed-toe Lace-up Pumps, about 1964, suede and grosgrain ribbon, Stuart Weitzman Collection, no. 269. Photo credit: Glenn Castellano, New-York Historical Society

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JOIN US FOR CINCINNATI WING WEEK JANUARY 25-31, 2021

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ARTS & CULTURE

Still from one of the The Oliveros Response Project film’s, with pianist Brianna Matzke (right) P H OTO : P ROV I D E D / B I Z YO U N G

Deep Listening, Original Responses Cincinnati pianist Brianna Matzke’s latest Response Project blends art, music, film and meditation with local historic sites

BY K AT I E G R I F F IT H

W

ith the delicate skim of fingers over piano keys or the soft stroke of a paint brush, an artist creates an image or sound. For the creator and consumer, this cohesive bundle of notes or abstract mix of color might evoke emotion from which new ideas or conclusions are drawn. In an effort to explore this practice, local Classical pianist and music professor Brianna Matzke created The Response Project.

A University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music alumna, Matzke commissions artists and composers to “respond” to existing artworks or ideas.

She provides a platform to share the

responses, which materialize through various mediums including playing the compositions herself.

“I’m interested in how each individual artist responds so we can learn about their particular vantage point,” Matzke says. “When you’ve taken multiple responses to the same idea or artwork, you start to get a bigger picture about that artwork. Really, it becomes a sum greater than its parts.”

Since its inception in 2014, The Response Project has produced concerts, short films, art shows and interpretive dances, to name a few.

These installments introduced artistic interpretations of themes such as

“Something is Happening Here,” a look at Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited; the phrase “On Behalf,” inspired

by Killer Mike and Stephen Colbert asking composers to write on behalf of a person, thing or idea; and the controversial composer Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Mikrophonie 1.

Debuting throughout January, the fourth iteration of The Response Project challenges the way we consume and create art, this time using late American composer Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations and deep listening concept as the activator.

Five composers (Evan Williams, Tina Tallon, Nate May, Charles Peck, Jason Charney) and five visual artists (Joomi Chung, Samantha Parker Salazar, Christian Schmit, Samantha Haring, Ryan Strochinsky) were prompted, and their responses guided the vision of the project.

Matzke notes that Oliveros was a groundbreaking composer in a few arenas. She is remembered for her role in pioneering and orchestrating experimental music and also

popularizing the practice of deep listening.

Published in 1971, Sonic Meditations was a result of Oliveros’ break from and return to performance. In her respite, she focused mostly on single notes of an accordion, long and constant sounds that enhanced her look inward and stimulated the act of concentrating. Oliveros became a master of mindfulness, a complex idea that becomes approachable with music as a catalyst.

“Sonic Meditations are not compositions in the traditional sense.

There’s no notated music; it’s just text and it’s meant to be very participatory,” Matzke says. “There’s really no delineation between the audience and the performer. The hope is for everyone to deepen awareness of their body and their breath, their sense of listening actively, listening not only to the musical sounds but to all other sounds both inside and outside of you.

Ultimately (Oliveros) wanted listening to become an openness and awareness

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FROM PAGE 33

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that can lead to compassion, greater self-empowerment and really positive social change in the long run.”

Matzke says she chose Oliveros as the subject because it seemed people’s ability to listen was lost in the commotion of 2020. In the new year, The Oliveros Response Project will premiere four short films and an art show that not only enact deep listening through brand new compositions but also explore the way history and place relate to the experience.

Produced by local filmmakers Biz Young, Jason Nix and Andy Gasper, the films will debut musical responses performed by Matzke, percussionist Chris Graham and Classical ensemble concert:nova. But it’s not just a concert series.

Four beloved and historical Cincinnati buildings were chosen to house the performances featured in the films. Acoustics and historical significance were among factors considered in the selection process, which boiled down to performances taking place in The Imperial Theatre Mohawk, the Kauffman Brewery tunnels, the King Records building and the Emery Theatre.

Concert:nova’s website (concertnova. com) will host each film on Jan. 7, 14, 21 and 28, respectively. They will live there and on The Response Project Facebook page (facebook.com/responseproject) thereafter, Matzke says. Viewers can also sign up for a Zoom discussion with the artists and performers after the show. Three of the four short films include a guided meditation led by Troy Brosnick of The Hive, a center for contemplation, art and action in Cincinnati.

“Oliveros was really into acoustics and how music sounded in different spaces, also how music reverberates throughout history and how history can reverberate within a space,” Matzke says. “The music that’s performed in each of those spaces is specifically curated to that space and the meditation is reflecting on the music, the history (of the building) and how they speak to each other.”

The Cincinnati Preservation Collective was a key factor in selecting and securing the locations. Amy Conroy, CPC board member, said their collaboration helps bring awareness to the importance of preserving history and how impactful community participation can be.

“Historic spaces have so much detail and reverence,” Conroy says. “This theme of places that deserve to be listened to was really the highlight of the whole thing for us.”

Even with the right resources to recruit these locations, Conroy said

securing King Records was the most trying. Also, establishing locations in different neighborhoods was important, as central downtown is typically heavily in focus. Conroy is excited to see how the music captures the space and expects viewers will gain a deeper sense of connection to their community.

Matzke’s intended audience is anyone who is interested in something new, she says. She hopes listeners will reflect on a piece of history that may exist in their own community, how it resonates with them, and how it relates to space and sound.

When this iteration was conceived, Matzke imagined a live audience, too, but COVID forced the final product to take a different shape. Fortunately, the only aspect that suffered major consequences was in-person workshopping with composers and musicians, she says.

In addition to the films, Camp Washington’s The Welcome Project — a program that benefits marginalized and at-risk refugees and immigrants — will host an art show from Jan. 9 to Feb. 27. Curator Katie Baker carefully selected the five visual artists previously mentioned. Drawing and most art forms are about paying attention, she says, an attribute that seamlessly relates to deep listening.

“I was looking for a sensitivity in their work,” Baker says. “Where their practice is about being present and reacting in a way that requires a certain amount of quietude and understanding.”

Artist Chung coiled hundreds of yards of wire — sculpting an image of swarms of buzzing insects — creating movement and a sense of animation dependent on the physical space. And Haring’s paintings address the nature of loss and the inherent duality of absence and presence, according to the Response Project’s website.

The result is tangible through this arm of the project as it creates a different avenue of connection for viewers to follow. The integration of various art forms has been an asset to the success of The Response Project, turning abstract themes into approachable ideas with concrete exhibitions. Matzke hopes that, COVIDwilling, she will eventually be able to tour the music like projects past and produce CDs or hard copies of performances in the future.

For more information on The Response Project and to view the films from The Oliveros Response Project, visit theresponseproject.org.

CLASSICAL

Cincinnati Pops’ ‘Broadway Forever’ Features CCM-Trained Singers, Including Native Jessica Hendy

BY R I C K P E N D E R

Cincinnati Pops conductor John Morris Russell appreciates musical theater talent trained at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music.

“The road to Broadway comes through Cincinnati,” he says. “It’s totally cool.

Sometimes when I’m guest conducting somewhere else, CCM comes up in conversation.”

He’s tapping that impressive talent pool for Broadway Forever, a Cincinnati Pops performance to be streamed online 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 23 and repeated the next day 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 24. These concerts will be the first Pops Music Hall performances with audiences — just 300 people each day, socially distanced — since Morris conducted American Originals: The Cincinnati Sound in early March 2020.

Russell’s headliner this time will be Cincinnati native Jessica Hendy, who became a Broadway regular soon after her CCM graduation in 1993. She made her Broadway debut as Grizabella in the long-running original production of Cats; she repeated the role in the show’s Broadway revival in 2016-2017 — the only repeat performer from the original.

Hendy graduated from Cincinnati’s St. Ursula Academy, which did not have a theater program at the time. During her high school years, she performed in shows at St. Xavier High School as well as local community theaters.

A permanent resident of New York City, she’s back in Cincinnati regularly to visit her parents at their home in Cleves. In fact, during the pandemic, she sheltered with them and her son Beckett for five months. Local theater fans will remember Hendy’s performances at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati in The Great American Trailer Park Musical (2008) and Don’t Make Me Pull This Show Over (2009), as well as her award-winning turn in next to normal in 2011 (reprised in a summer production in 2012).

Making use of the performance vacuum during the pandemic, Hendy has been writing the script for a onewoman, autobiographical musical, With Beckett, about her resilient journey through love and loss that includes the challenges of performing and parenting.

Her collaborators are veteran composer Richard Oberacker (another CCM alum, whose recent show, Bandstand, had a Broadway run) and lyricist Robert Taylor; workshops of the show have been staged by Richard Hess, longtime acting and directing professor at CCM. When she’s not performing in concerts — earlier this month she sang with the Detroit Pops — she’s been working with her team to propel the project forward using an IndieGoGo crowdsourcing campaign to fund a fulllength concept album.

Also supporting Hendy’s production is Ensemble Theatre’s producing

artistic director D. Lynn Meyers as part of the theater’s commitment to creating and debuting new work.

“It’s thrilling to know the concept album for this show will be released this spring,” Meyers says. “We look forward to the day when we can all return to the theater safely and our audiences will be able to experience remarkable stories like With Beckett live.” (Donations to the studio recording IndieGoGo campaign can be made at indiegogo.com/projects/ with-beckett#.)

Hendy performed at Music Hall in April 2019 with the Pops and Russell for The Wonderful Music of Oz. That production, featuring music from movies and stage shows, was masterminded by Scott Coulter, another 1993 CCM alum who now runs Spot-On Entertainment in New York City.

He and Hendy have a history: After graduating from UC, they rented a truck and drove to New York City together to pursue their theater careers. They shared a fourth-floor, one-bedroom, walk-up apartment, sleeping in bunk beds. Today Coulter and his partner are uncles to Hendy’s son.

Coulter’s personal career has included a lot of cabaret singing, but through Spot-On, he’s provided employment for singers and actors, many with CCM credentials. Russell has come to rely on Coulter.

“He’s created a network of extraordinary young singers,” Russell says. “(Coulter) has such a way about him. He brings people together who love singing and this art form. Every time I work with someone from him, I know this will be an exceptional and inspired performance.”

Coulter has assembled a trio of talent, including Hendy, for Russell’s Broadway Forever concerts. Melvin Tunstall III, a 1998 CCM grad, has performed on Broadway in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, as well as productions in Canada and Europe.

Also on the bill is Veronica Stern, currently a CCM senior.

Russell is excited to work with all three, especially when he recalls other young CCM talent who have made their professional debuts with the Cincinnati Pops. In December 2020, the streamed Holiday Pops program featured Nikki Renée Daniels, a star of 10 Broadway productions since graduating from CCM in 2001. As a student, she performed with Russell in the Cincinnati Symphony’s Home for the Holidays concert at the Taft Museum of Art in 2000.

For this program, Russell will provide Stern her professional debut.

In 2020 she was a finalist in “Give My Regards,” Spot-On Arts Academy’s national singing competition conducted virtually. Coulter conceived the program before the pandemic but launched it virtually when it

became clear that in-person opportunities would be limited. Young performers can be mentored by professionals.

Hendy viewed Stern’s audition video and says she’s excited to perform with the talented young singer. “Her voice is gorgeous,” she says.

Russell’s program will include some memorable Broadway melodies, especially the orchestral piece “Three Dance Episodes from On the Town,” composer Leonard Bernstein’s 1944 Broadway debut. The pandemic has required Russell to be creative with how many musicians can perform, masked and socially distanced, on Music Hall’s stage.

“We’ve found a lot of awesome pieces that require a teeny bit smaller orchestra — maybe a bit more like Broadway theaters,” he says, anticipating 35-40 players, about half the usual Jessica Hendy Pops complement. For the P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY T H E C I N C I N N AT I P O P S Bernstein piece, Russell is adding a small wind section will include a finale fitting to evoke the and a saxophone player: “It’s a Jazz optimism many people yearn for in band with strings. Each of Bernstein’s 2021. episodes is an absolute jewel.”

Looking to the future, Hendy has With the musicians placed around put time and energy into her onethe stage, some room will be reserved woman show and fundraising for for the singers, who will mostly perform its studio recording. But she’s also solo — another safety precaution, since making the rounds with orchestra singing has proven to be a superconcerts. She’s been part of another spreader of the coronavirus. Hendy will Coulter-assembled production, Music sing the heart-rending “Memory” from of the Knights, which features songs Cats, a song she’s performed many

by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sir Paul times on Broadway. She’ll also perform McCartney and Sir Elton John. “I’ve the rousing “Defying Gravity” from performed it all over, California, Wicked.

Canada, Mexico. It’s a good one,” she Admired for her vocal range, Hendy says. loves to pour all her energy into such She’s proud to be one of those numbers. As Amneris, the crafty successful CCM alums that John Morris Pharaoh’s daughter in the original Russell loves to include in his lively Broadway production of Aida in 2003Cincinnati Pops concerts.

2004, she recalls, “I got to belt my face “It’s great fun to be back in my off, and I had amazing costumes.” hometown,” Hendy says. “My Hendy loves opportunities to sing family hopes to be able to come to a with symphony and pops orchestras. performance. It’s a ‘bucket list’ thing to “I’ll perform whatever they want me come back to Cincinnati and perform to sing,” she says. “Whenever I get a — more exciting than anything else I get chance to sing with an orchestra, holy to do.” cow! I jump at it.”

She appreciates the ebullient Broadway Forever, performed Russell’s leadership. “He’s so positive, by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra and he sets the bar really high,” she says. and conducted by John Morris “He’s very fun to work with.”

Russell, will be presented at Music Tunstall will sing “This Is the Hall on Jan. 23 and 24. For safety Moment” from Jekyll & Hyde, “Can’t reasons, socially distanced seating Take My Eyes Off of You” from Jersey is limited to 300 for each concert.

Boys and, one of Russell’s favorites, “The Impossible Dream” from Man of La For tickets, call 513-381-3300 or Mancha. go to cincinnatisymphony.org. You “There are certain pieces of music can also watch the livestream at that help us all get through hard times, cincinnatisymphony.org, and they are significant for everyone,” facebook.com/cincinnatipops or the Russell says.

Pops’ YouTube channel.

All three singers will come together for the last set, which Russell promises

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FOOD & DRINK

Elm Street Social Club offers a slew of sandwiches to-go P H OTO : E L M STREET SOCIAL CLUB

Retro To-Go Over-the-Rhine’s Elm Street Social Club is a deli offering nostalgic vibes and food for carry-out

BY SA M I ST E WA RT

I

magine if a deli and a bodega were joined in holy matrimony to create a place that serves Italian subs wrapped in butcher paper and breakfast sandwiches after 11 a.m. Maybe you could grab a black coffee, too, and a scoop of ice cream for dessert. That place exists and it’s called Elm Street Social Club (ESSC).

It’s the collaboration of three culinary transplants: Jordan Anthony-Brown, Mikey Fabian and Willa Pelini, who became friends working in Washington, D.C.’s food scene.

Jordan moved to Cincinnati from D.C. at the beginning of 2020 to

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open his initial project, The Aperture, located in the Paramount building in Walnut Hills. In optics, the aperture is the mechanism that lets light in. In Walnut Hills, The Aperture will be a place where guests “feel warm and illuminated,” Anthony-Brown says, “but the experience will be a balanced one.” He plans to focus on mezze-style cuisine — vegetable-centric dishes that flow from light to heavy in order of service.

But after COVID hit, he decided to put The Aperture on hold.

“It’s a pretty ambitious project,” he says. “It’s going to require our full

J A N U A RY 2 0 2 1

attention.”

Instead of opening a full-service restaurant in the midst of a pandemic, he decided to pivot his energy to something simpler that could operate in a to-go only environment. In June, Anthony-Brown got wind of an opportunity to run a pop-up out of the now-defunct Social OTR space and went for it. By the time ESSC was taking shape, Anthony-Brown’s wife was due to have their first child.

“I was still trying to gain some momentum, get the word out there, but I was about at my capacity,” he says.

While he was spinning several plates in Cincinnati, Fabian and Pelini were overworked and underpaid in Washington, D.C. “At that time I talked to Jordan every day of my life,” says Fabian, now the culinary director at ESSC. “I knew (his wife) was pregnant. I knew he was

trying to start a restaurant. One day Willa said, ‘We should go to Cincinnati, see if Jordan needs help.’”

Within two months of making their minds up, they were driving from D.C. to Cincinnati to start this new chapter with Anthony-Brown.

As they were preparing for ESSC to officially open in September, the crew asked themselves, “What does the community need?” In a time when the weight of daily life feels unreasonably heavy, people have been seeking out comfort. ESSC responded to that need by washing their brand in nostalgia. All the sandwiches are named after 1980s movie references, there are fuchsia streamers in the window that give off a prom-in-the-gym vibe and they shuffle a 16-hour playlist spanning two decades, from the ’80s to the turn of the century.

CONTINUES ON PAGE 37

FROM PAGE 36

The streamers can be credited to Pelini, who, when not churning out new ice cream flavor combos in the basement, works as the creative director at ESSC. “I think what a lot of people are missing right now is going into a restaurant and feeling transported and not worrying about the rest of your life for two hours. So how do you translate that to now? And how The Billy Ray fried chicken sandwich do we make that P H OTO : E L M ST R E E T S O C I A L C L U B safe?” she says.

All orders are orders. placed online and taken to-go, so “We understand that if we’re going to Pelini made sure the short amount of charge this much, the experience must time you’ll be spending in the shop is match the price,” Anthony-Brown says. pleasant. She fashioned an entryway He explains that hospitality is not a out of some tables and fake — albeit one-way street, servers doting on guests lush — greenery so guests don’t walk who hold their tips over their heads. into a dark, desolate, used-to-be dining Choosing to have a no-tipping structure room to pick up their sandwiches. dissolves the illusion of servers and Something that people don’t need restaurant employees being servants to right now is a new, trendy, overly the guests. complex eatery. The menu is pared “You’re entering a mutual contract down and familiar: all-day breakfast when you dine out,” Anthony-Brown and lunch sandwiches, scoops of says.

He uses the example of a dinner ice cream, drinks to-go and specials party.

You wouldn’t complain about on the weekends. Some sandwiches the food and make demands of your are old friends: the turkey club (The host, so why would you behave that Bushwood), the Italian sub (The Bing), way in a restaurant?

Saying yes to a weekend-only smashburger (The every customer request, undercutting Dude). Others are reimagined favorites: employees’ compensation and benefits deviled egg salad on toasted quinoa to save a buck — these are business bread (The Baby) and a sandwich with identity issues at the core, Anthonybrown butter collard greens as its core Brown says.

(The Axel F).

“If we stick to our guns and we’re It all boils down to simple ideas honest with ourselves about who we executed with confidence. are and what we want to do, I think it’ll “You can chase trends all you want, pay off,” he says. but you’ll fizzle out,” Fabian says. “You The plan is to return full attention to have to showcase good ingredients with The Aperture once it’s safe to pick that solid technique. That’s pretty much all project back up and open a full-service it takes.” dine-in restaurant. For now, AnthonyThe three of them agree that simple Brown, Fabian and Pelini are serving is the way to go. It’s how they prefer take-out sandwiches as long as it makes to dine and how they’re running their sense. business.

“Elm Street Social Club is open now Their shared values have been and one day it will close,” Anthonyshaped by their experience in the Brown says. industry. Proper compensation, paid time off, health insurance, maintaining a safe and comfortable work Elm Street Social Club, environment — these all amount to 1819 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, leaving the industry better than they elmstsocialclub.com found it.

To ensure everyone is bringing home more than enough money to live, they’ve adopted a no-tipping model by adding a 20% service charge to all

THE DISH

Subito Serves ScratchMade Italian in Lytle Park

BY SA M I ST E WA RT

Downtown’s new Lytle Park Hotel opened to the public this June, along with their in-house, upscale Italian eatery Subito and sophisticated rooftop lounge, Vista at Lytle Park.

Subito serves scratch-made Italian dishes in a white-tablecloth, jazzy environment where you can indulge in the rich flavors of Northern Italy and the warm hospitality of The Lytle’s waitstaff without booking a room.

The lobby melts into Subito’s dining room, with the bar as a halfway point where you can have a glass of wine while you wait to be seated. You’ll catch a glimpse of the kitchen staff, heads down, firing entrees and wiping the edges of plates before they’re whisked away into the dining room.

“We wanted to create two unique spaces based on people’s preferences,” says hotel managing director Brett Woods. “That nice luxury feel of the white tablecloth and the grand piano, and for those looking for that level of service in a casual setting as well.”

Inside the hotel you’ll be in earshot of the live music — a Jazz trio on Wednesdays and a singing pianist Thursday through Saturday. Weather permitting, you can dine al fresco on the patio that grazes the edge of historic Lytle Park. Or you can dine in the happy medium, a light and airy sunroom that blends the best of both worlds.

Subito was slated to begin service in March of this year, but didn’t end up opening its doors until June. It’s not unusual to push back an opening date in the restaurant world. So many small things can throw a wrench in the plans — licensing, inspections, construction, you name it. But this pushback was different. With every “t” crossed and “i” dotted, Subito, like so many other restaurants and bars, had to wait to open until the first wave of the pandemic passed. With no option but to be patient, the kitchen used those extra three months of downtime to perfect their formulas and brainstorm new recipes for future menus.

Even before lockdown, executive chef Michael McIntosh had spent nine months tweaking recipes before he landed on solid, repeatable formulas.

There’s no phoning it in when tinkering with the backbone of Italian cuisine.

Excellent pizza and pasta are expected and Subito delivers.

“You couldn’t just grab a recipe offline and start making pasta,” McIntosh says.

“It doesn’t work that way.”

Even seemingly small factors — like the water’s mineral content and how it interacts with yeast — play large roles in the dough’s taste and texture.

McIntosh rifled through 52 iterations of the house pizza dough before landing on the one that gets spun and stretched, adorned with simple ingredients, fired in a brick oven and brought to your table.

If you’re in search of classico Italiano, the pappardelle bolognese is it. The

Pappardelle bolognese P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R

sauce itself is a multi-day endeavor; first, they braise veal and pork for 24 hours, then add aromatics and lots of white wine and finish it off in the morning. It adorns a plate of silky, chewy pappardelle noodles, but isn’t so heavy that you can’t split a few small plates or order a spread from the raw bar. And the Margherita pizza — with burrata swapped for mozzarella, plus basil, garlic and San Marzano tomatoes — is a must.

For those in the mood to take a non-traditional route, there are plenty of options. “We wanted to have a very diverse menu,” Woods says. “We wanted to be Northern Italian-focused but also have something for everybody.”

That includes vegans.

There are a handful of animal-free dishes among the all parmigiano and ricotta. And if you’re absolutely not a vegan, go for the burger. It’s tender, married with a sundried tomato aioli, six-hour caramelized onions and melty taleggio. It has that same low-and-slow quality as beef stew. Or take your pick from a selection of steaks ranging from a 10-ounce top sirloin to a 36-ounce tomahawk, any of which Woods says can be cut with a fork.

That defining quality can be chalked up to sourcing. Subito exclusively uses Piedmontese beef, a breed of cattle native to Northern Italy. A gene mutation gives these cows a particularly desirable quality called “double-muscling” that increases their lean-to-fat ratio, quite literally making them beefier.

“In my opinion, it’s more tender than traditional American cattle,” McIntosh says.

It’s the seemingly small things that make a world of difference when considering distinguishing qualities between similar restaurants.

McIntosh dishes out something Italian for everyone by bringing reasonably portioned, carefully thought-out classics to the table.

Whether you’re ordering room service or stopping in for dinner, Subito aims to create an all-around excellent experience.

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Subito, 311 Pike St., Downtown, thelytleparkhotel.com/dining/subito.

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MUSIC

Rob Fetters P H OTO : ROBFETTERS.NET

Un-Fetters-ed With Ship Shake, Cincy Rocker Rob Fetters made the perfect pandemic album — he just started it a decade before lockdown

BY B R I A N BA K E R

R

ob Fetters has rightly achieved iconic status within the Cincinnati music scene, as befits a master Pop/Rock craftsman whose resume boasts bands the Raisins, the Bears, psychodots and an impressive solo career. More importantly, his nationwide run of house concerts in 2018 and his series of streaming shows during the pandemic have conclusively revealed his equally voluminous and fervent fan base in the wider world.

“I had to get over my fear of doing the livestreams, and playing a screaming ass song and then...crickets. No response,” says Fetters during a recent phone interview. “That’s when my inner Bob Shreve kicked in. I learned to channel that and now I’ve got my own sound effects. It’s like a crappy Ed

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Wood/Bob Shreve show. It’s circus time, but I get to do music and the music is real.”

And yet, in casual conversation, Fetters will, in all honesty and humility, refer to himself as “a nobody.” He’s had legitimate shots at the brass ring; a befuddled Clive Davis came to Cincinnati to see the Raisins and left without offering them a contract, perhaps a blessing in disguise.

And the Bears scored a deal with respected indie I.R.S. Records through their imprint Primitive Man Recording Company, whose PMRC acronym was an eyepoke at the Parents’ Music Resource Center, a reactionary censorship cartel headed by outragedhausfrau-with-benefits Tipper Gore.

But the Bears only managed to release

J A N U A RY 2 0 2 1

two superbly eccentric albums with PMRC before the label imploded, leaving the band to periodically resurface with self-released gems across the three subsequent decades.

With psychodots, Fetters and longtime cohorts Bob Nyswonger and Chris Arduser made a mighty Pop/ Rock noise for 28 years off and on, keeping creative ambitions high and expectations for success at a reasonably low level. Just two years ago, the ‘dots declared an end to their annual Thanksgiving shows in Dayton and Cincinnati with one last spectacular blowout at the Woodward Theater.

Finally, there’s Fetters’ solo catalog — three well-crafted albums released at relatively long intervals: 1998’s Lefty Loosy Righty Tighty, 2005’s Musician and 2014’s Saint Ain’t. Fetters’ solo presence had been previously limited due to his burgeoning commercial music endeavors, but he has largely extricated himself from that end of the business to concentrate on his personal songwriting.

As with every musician on the planet, the pandemic provided Fetters with a

surplus of time after his house concert schedule for 2020 was cleared, so it was hardly a shock when he announced the release of his fourth solo album, Ship Shake, in early December. The eyebrowraising aspect of the album is that none of its material was actually written during lockdown.

“To tell you the truth, some of the leftovers were just so goddamned depressing,” Fetters says. “I figured I could have three sad songs on the album, maybe four. I’ve got some real sad pandemic songs, and I’ll wait to release those. At some point, you just have to stop whining.”

It’s astonishing that Ship Shake feels so contemporary when its themes and perspectives were shaped so long ago; Fetters has seemingly been writing for this moment in history for well over a decade. “Queer Year” feels as fresh as tomorrow’s breaking news, and yet it was the first song Fetters wrote after completing Saint Ain’t in 2014.

“A friend of mine came out and thought I’d be upset, and I was like, ‘Aw, man, why would you think that?’” he says. “I didn’t want something trendy

and hip, I just wanted a statement of ‘I love you, brother.’”

The ostensible title song, “Turn This Ship Around,” was composed five years earlier.

“That song was so heartland Rock it embarrassed me,” Fetters says. “I took it to my friend Brian Lovely and he wrote different lyrics for it, trying to save it, but that wasn’t right either so I buried it. In March, when stuff was starting to go bad, I was well into this album and I found ‘Turn This Ship Around’ and played it, and it was like, ‘Whoa, this is totally now.’ I had Bob play bass, and my son Noah was able to record drums on it, which he did for five other tracks.

He’s an audio/stage tech guy and I didn’t know he could record himself that well, but he did a great job.”

Some songs on Ship Shake are older still. “Dog is God” was played by psychodots a couple of times, and “Not the End” was credited to the ‘dots and appeared on the public radio fundraising disc Get Real Gone (“The only people who heard it paid $100 for the disc...so not a lot of people.”). The oldest original song on the album is “Artichoke,” a song that dates back to the Raisins — a live version appeared on the band’s swan song, Everything and More, released on cassette in 1985 — and which was reimagined by the ‘dots on their 1991 eponymous debut.

“I had no intention of re-recording that again, but when I did the house concerts, Bob and (former Raisins drummer) Bam Powell went into the studio with me to record bass and drums so I could play it at house shows,” Fetters says. “I play along to tracks, it’s not unplugged Rob. I like acoustic music but I’d die the death of a thousand cuts if I had to be acoustic Rob all night. I like loud, electric music.

I started playing ‘Artichoke’ and it was like, ‘Whoa, this is swinging!’ The psychodots version is good, but I felt like this was the real song.”

One of Ship Shake’s more recent songs is “Me & Eve,” which Fetters wrote in 2017. It’s also one of his most emotionally raw compositions, as the second verse begins with this sobering revelation: “I got molested when I was four/I talk about it now, it ain’t a secret anymore.” Fetters didn’t talk about the incident with anyone until he was in his mid-30s, not until his children triggered an overprotective response that required therapy to resolve. When the idea for “Me & Eve” began to evolve, it was an interesting take on the Garden of Eden story that took a harrowing turn. “‘Me & Eve’ came out of nowhere,” Fetters says. “When I was gathering the songs for this album, I was thinking that I should call it Songs I Should Never Play in Public. I’ve always been irritated by Adam and Eve, that to have

knowledge and a raised consciousness means you get banished. Somewhere in my mind, I wanted to write a song backward. You know, they start with their clothes on, eat the apple and then the clothes come off. Then I disclosed something; the second verse is totally autobiographical. I went into therapy and came to realize that trauma didn’t define me and I became more comfortable talking about it.

“When I was doing the house concerts, I realized I was in an environment where I could get away with that one.

I’m squeezed into a living room with 35 people and everyone’s comfortable and I’d say, ‘Can I play a heavy one? You want to go dark?’ And generally, it’d be, ‘Yeah, make it darker!’ The first verse, people are giggling because it’s funny, the second verse, jaws are dropping, third verse, we’re OK. After that, I decided to record it, but not put it on a record. Then I recorded it, and it was too late, so I put it right in the middle of the record where maybe nobody would see it. It’s probably the song on the album.”

Ship Shake is, in most respects, a textbook example of Fetters’ artful craft.

Sonically, the songs range from bracing and engaging Pop Rock (“Turn This Ship Around,” “Artichoke,” “Can’t Take It Back,” “Prophets,” “Dog is God”) to lilting balladry (“Scripture,” “Me & Eve,” “Not the End,” “Believed”).

Lyrically, the themes are typical Fetters fodder; the obscurity detailed in “Nobody Now” (“I loved that song when I wrote it, but I thought, ‘Fuck, I’m writing another song about being a loser’”), the political prescience of “Prophets” (“I wrote that in 2016 when I suspected that Trump might win”), the lost love of “Believed” (“I wanted to write a song about the first time my heart got really broken. I played it for Noah and he cried. He said, ‘Dad, you can’t play that!’”), the found love of “Me & Eve,” and the resonant isolation of “Scripture” (“It just makes sense now because people are afraid to come outside”).

The oddball on the album is Fetters’ cover of “Shakin’ Street,” a slowed down but still scorching take on the MC5 classic, originally found on their 1970 sophomore album Back in the USA. Once again, Fetters’ house gigs contributed to the song’s inclusion on Ship Shake; he would regale his intimate audiences with tales of his early life and going to Detroit to see concerts, which would include recollections of the Stooges and MC5.

When they blanked on the MC5, he would remind them of “Kick Out the Jams” and then hit them with an acoustic cover of “Shakin’ Street.”

“I’ve always loved that song and I loved playing it on an acoustic guitar,” Fetters says. “So I thought, ‘Nobody’s

Rob Fetters P H OTO : RO B F E T T E RS. N E T

heard this, let me record it and see what happens.’ My version is a lot swingier than the MC5. It’s slower but it rocks.”

Fetters admits that Ship Shake would likely have been delayed a year or more because of his packed house concert schedule, but he remains hesitant about identifying his latest solo work as a pandemic album.

“I think I’ve realized that artists take pain and turn it into something beautiful,” he says. “Not always.

Sometimes it’s fun to come up with ‘Guernica.’ But we take trauma and try to make sense of it by putting it into a song.”

With Fetters, the dichotomies stack up pretty quickly. He’s a selfproclaimed nobody who is enough of a somebody to book himself into living rooms from coast to coast. He can write about the dissipated Rock lifestyle from memory, secure his status as a dedicated family man, and create eccentrically accessible Pop songs in between catchy commercial jingles for United Dairy Farmers and LaRosa’s.

He’s a lapsed Methodist who adheres to no religion and even claims a relative lack of spirituality, an agnostic

bordering on atheism that sings about faith and God with equal amounts of passionate conviction and questioning cynicism. And yet he believes in a higher consciousness, or perhaps it’s a lower consciousness, and most of all, he believes in his family, his friends and his art.

“I get to do my work and that’s all I need,” Fetters says. “I get to eat, I’ve got a roof and I get to do my shit. I am so grateful to the people who support me, they’re so wonderful. In a weird way, maybe I am trying to be a holy man, to take all my pain and experience and do something good with it. Todd Rundgren had his album Healing, and you’re damn right, he’s a healer. Wayne Kramer, Pete Townsend, Chuck Cleaver, you are motherfucking healers. Kate Wakefield, you’re a healer. All these people are holy to me, and this is what I’m supposed to do.”

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Learn more about Rob Fetters at robfetters.net and listen to Ship Shake at robfetters.bandcamp.com.

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DELIVERY CONTRACTORS NEEDED

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BY B R EN DA N EM M E T T Q UIG LE Y

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43. ... these flowers won’t keep my hands warm ...

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48. What you can’t do to any of this puzzle’s theme answers

3. Rock star who wrote the autobiography “The Heroin Diaries�

4. Anti-distracted driving spot 5. Home for “Liberty Leading the People�

6. Visual

49. Dropped a deuce

7. Whichever person, old-style

16. Prove to be false

52. ... how will I walk with this on? ...

8. Boston skyscraper, familiarly, with “the�

17. Sort

58. “Sweet Jesus!�

18. I highly doubt this is going to fit round my neck ...

60. Two for the seesaw

9. It can lower your interest payments

20. Kind of sushi

61. French 101 lesson

10. Not working 11. “The Last Dance� team

35. French flower

38. Play with Bubble Wrap, say

2. ___ panel

34. Speedy point

40

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50. Mic check phrase

26. As compared to

42. The past

69. Bulgogi, e.g.

40. Drawing forth

55. U.S. Bank Stadium team, for short

33. Wheels with bad MPG

49. Hit to the side of the face

54. Mollusk shell lining

1. Cut back

25. Kicks out

39. Douze less deux

48. “You ___ kidding!�

21. Mosque leader

32. Setting for Hitchcock’s “Notorious�

68. Alternative to French

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46. Local ‘hood

67. Contact solution brand

31. E-signature file

19. “___ culpa�

71. Elementary org.?

44. Act sarcastic

66. Deck out

33. ... is this supposed to go on my head? ...

24. ... and this is way too wet to go outside in ...

30. Master debater

41. Online “brah�

53. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act org.

70. East, in Ecuador

13. You are here, in sci-fi

31. Make pretty

65. “Go-Big Show� channel

29. Do covering

23. Layabout

28. ___-Coburg

62. ... where do my arms go?

Besides, this is way too thin

27. Stamp on grass-fed beef

36. Ginger 37. Have a few birthdays

22. Equipment for holding

12. Racing horse

51. Tree-lined shelter

56. Space junk’s path 57. Inventor of the alternating current induction motor

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59. JCC alternative 63. Psaki who will be Joe Biden’s press secretary 64. Voting day: Abbr.

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