Liveblogging on Farai Chideya's "News & Notes" radio show

It has taken the inimitable media maven Farai Chideya to pull me back into the blogosphere after an unexpected hiatus due to the sudden death of my maternal grandmother and muse, Madeline Wheeler Murphy.

She was a veteran journalist and community organizer in Baltimore, Maryland -- Farai's neck of the woods.

I have no doubt that if she had not sustained a massive stroke several years ago which made such a wizard of tongue and pen functionally illiterate overnight, my grandmother would have joined me (if not preceded me) in the blogosphere. She was online before most of my peers and colleagues in 1996, and she was a fearless, inexhaustibly curious and gifted woman. (But more on this amazing woman in a separate post.)

So, I see this opportunity to participate in her "Bloggers Roundtable" section of her show as a very appropriate on-ramp back into cyberspace, having Black female journalist bookends representing the ancestral presence of my grandmother on one side of me and the future of Black journalism on the other.

Today, the "News & Notes" Bloggers Roundtable discussion will cover YouTube/CNN's pseudo-digital presidential debate, Michael Vick's animal torture addiction, CBS sending little white boys out in the wild, Congressman Keith Ellison using the H-word (i.e., Hitler) in reference to Team Dubya and BET's new family values show changing its name from "Hot Ghetto Mess" to "Racism on Auto Pilot". (Or is it "We Can Do Better"?) Well, a fetid rose by any other name is still a fetid rose, right?

Lastly, if you are not listening to "News & Notes" right now -- or cannot because it airs passed your bedtime or not at all if you're in cities like Chicago or other metro areas whose NPR affiliates are not enlightened enough to carry this wonderful show, then you can listen to Farai & Co. here.

Comments

[Shanikka]

Welcome back to blogging. I'm sorry about your grandmother's passing.

I tried to find a place to send you an e-mail but failed (I'm not Typepad savvy; sorry!), so I'm dropping this public note to let you know about the new Afrocentric community blog I launched today, Maat's Feather, and issue an invite for you to participate/cross-post to it. Many of us are now writing separately and hopefully the new site will give folks a central place to find our views, agreeing or disagreeing. The url is www.maatsfeather.com. Hope to see you there. But either way, glad to have you back!

[bygbaby]

1st of all, sorry to hear about your grand mother. Sounds like she was a driving force in your life.

I caught the show today & got excited when your blog was mentioned. I sorta screamed out a little that I read his blog.

The segment was good & I am happy it pulled you back online!

Bygbaby