Star City Blog

UNL is first stop for national 'whistleblower' tour for ethics program

Three high-profile whistleblowers and a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter headline a panel and the first tour stop for "The American Whistleblower Tour: Essential Voices for Accountability." The program taking place at 3:30 p.m. Sept. 27 at the Lied Center for Performing Arts is sponsored by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Business Ethics Program of the College of Business Administration, the College of Law and the College of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Presenters at the UNL event are Thomas Drake, National Security Agency whistleblower; Gary Aguirre, Securities and Exchange Commissions whistleblower; Mike McGraw, Kansas City Star Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter; and Jesselyn Radack, a Department of Justice whistleblower. Organized by the Government Accountability Project, the tour is part of a national campaign to educate the public about the phenomenon and practice of whistle-blowing. The program is free and open to the public.

Drake made national headlines this summer from his prosecution by the Department of Justice. His story continues to receive widespread coverage. A life-long military and government intelligence analyst, Drake attempted to expose massive NSA mismangement and the agency's use of a data-collection program that was more costly, more threatening to American citizens’ privacy rights and less effective than a readily available alternative. After reporting such problems through proper channels to no avail, Drake began sharing unclassified information with a reporter.

For his actions, Drake was arrested during a raid on his house and subsequently charged under the Espionage Act. He faced 35 years in prison, but in June the case against him fell apart and he accepted a plea bargain to a misdemeanor. He will serve no jail time, pay no fine and the judge admonished the prosecution. Drake's case was the subject of a recent 60 Minutes segment, a front-page article in the New Yorker and stories in daily newspapers across the nation.

In 2006, Aguirre rocked the financial world by alleging wrongdoing by SEC officials for their failure to allow a proper investigation to proceed, possibly because of political connections. Aguirre is a former SEC lawyer who was dismissed by the agency following his attempt to subpoena John Mack – a prominent financial figure who later became the CEO of Morgan Stanley – in an insider trading investigation of Pequot Capital Management, one of the country’s former leading hedge funds. Aguirre’s story sparked outrage, a Congressional investigation, and eventual vindication by the U.S. Senate.

McGraw is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning special projects desk reporter for the Kansas City Star. He has covered a wide range of issues in-depth, including organized labor, meatpacking, the federal judiciary, NASA, occupational safety and health issues, building collapses, food safety, housing issues and art world fraud. He is a former member of the Board of Investigative Reporters and Editors and a contributor to IRE's "The Reporter's Handbook." McGraw has taught investigative reporting at the Missouri School of Journalism and the University of Kansas, and has worked with several whistleblowers for his stories.

A DOJ whistleblower who served as a former ethics adviser to the department, Radack will serve as moderator for the panel. She accused the FBI of committing and ethics violation in its interrogation of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh without an attorney present, that the DOJ attempted to suppress that information and that former Attorney General John Ashcroft made an incorrect public statement about Lindh. The Lindh case was the first major terrorism prosecution after 9/11. Since her own case, Radack has been a champion of whistleblowers, recently serving as counsel on whistleblower issues to Drake. She currently serves as GAP National Security and Human Rights Director.

“The UNL College of Business Administration’s Business Ethics Program, the College of Law and the College of Journalism and Mass Communications worked together with the Government Accountability Project to bring this dynamic group of prominent whistleblowers to the university and the state of Nebraska. Our students and the public benefit from hearing from those who chose to do the hard thing, the right thing,” said Janice Lawrence, who serves as director of the business ethics program.

A full description of the tour can be found at: http://www.WhistleblowerTour.org. 

Nationally ranked by Businessweek, the Business Ethics Program at the UNL College of Business Administration was founded in 1998. The program focuses on the integration of ethics throughout the existing business curriculum. Ethics is currently integrated into approximately 90 percent of the courses offered at the College of Business Administration.

 

Setting the Record Straight: Tom Barber, Executive Director of the People's City Mission

Editor's note: The People’s City Mission was started in 1907 by local churches, offering food and shelter for transient and impoverished men, women and children. The Mission Distribution Center opened in 1990 as its primary distribution point for free food, clothing, household items, furniture, toys and personal care items, and its medical clinic opened in July 2009 to provide free medical, dental, vision and behavioral health care to low-income Lincoln residents without medical insurance. In 2009, the People’s City Mission helped 23,238 people in Lincoln/Lancaster County. The mission has 100 beds for men's emergency shelter, 60 men's transitional beds and 160 beds for women's emergency and transitional shelter. During the coldest and hottest months, the mission sets up cots for people to sleep in common areas if all the beds are taken.

By Tom Barber

At the People’s City Mission, one of our sayings is “NEED KNOWS NO SEASON" -- but during some seasons, the need becomes a lot more apparent. 

After being blessed with unseasonably warm weather for most of the fall, cold weather has settled into Lincoln.  And along with it comes an increased need for shelter and support from our homeless population -- suddenly, the Mission is being flooded with people who might be comfortable living under an overpass or in an alleyway  in warmer temperatures, but now the weather is becoming too dangerous for them to do that.  Our numbers swell, the meal counts soar, we are forced to add staff to accommodate the new visitors and the cost of keeping the Mission open skyrockets. 

Setting the Record Straight: Albert Weiss, President of the Jewish Federation of Lincoln

Albert Weiss, President,
Jewish Federation of Lincoln

 This year, the Jewish holiday of Chanukah, or Hanukkah, began after sundown on December 1. In the Hebrew calendar, it occurs on 25th day of Kislev. Since the Hebrew calendar is a lunar calendar, Chanukah occurs at different times in the Gregorian calendar, the calendar that is commonly used throughout the world. Also known as the Festival of Lights, the word Chanukah means “dedication” in Hebrew. Visit the Jewish Federation of Lincoln's website here.

By Albert Weiss

Chanukah can be interpreted in several ways. In the broadest sense, it stresses the importance of religious freedom, the desire of a people to pursue their religious beliefs.

Antiochus IV of Syria banned Judaism in 168 B.C.E. and turned the Second Temple into a place for pagan worship with the installation of a statue of Zeus. In 165 B.C.E., a revolt against Antiochus IV was successful. The revolt was first led by the priest Mattathias and then by his son Judah. It was necessary to cleanse and rededicate the Temple after the desecration by the Syrians. In this rededication process, only one container of uncontaminated oil was found. It would take eight days to make new oil acceptable for use in the Temple. Chanukah celebrates the miracle of that one container of oil burning for eight days, rather than the normal one day.

Setting the Record Straight

Shirley K. Sneve, Executive Director,
Native American Public Telecommunications

Editor's note: Native American Public Telecommunications serves Native producers and Indian country in partnership with public television and radio. NAPT works with Native producers to develop, produce and distribute educational telecommunications programs for all media including public television and public radio. NAPT supports training to increase the number of American Indians and Alaska Natives producing quality public broadcasting programs, which includes advocacy efforts promoting increased control and use of information technologies and the policies to support this control by American Indians and Alaska Natives.

By Shirley K. Sneve

“Over the River and Through the Woods” is the song from grade school that still rings in my head when I think of Thanksgiving. Summer is over. The air is as crisp as the leaves beneath my feet.  I love the colors of fall. I love the smells of fall. In Nebraska, we reap the harvest of our local farmers — apples, squash, corn, and beans — and my favorite, sweet potatoes.

Ask most anybody what Thanksgiving Day means to them and you’ll get the same idea: We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing. We give thanks for family, friends, home—and food.

It all started in 1621 with a celebration between the newly arrived English colonists and the Wampanoag Indians in 1621. Without the help of the tribal people in what is now Massachusetts, they wouldn’t have made it.

Maggie Pleskac, Owner and Chef, Maggie's Vegetarian Cafe

Editor's note: Maggie Pleskac has been vegetarian since 1993, after reading John Robbins' "Diet for a New America." The owner of and chef at Maggie's Vegetarian Cafe, 311 N. 8th St., she's also one of the founders (and current vice-president) of Slow Food Nebraska, on the board of directors for Open Harvest Natural Foods Cooperative Grocery, and a member of Buy Fresh Buy Local Nebraska. In 2007, the University of Nebraska Press published a book she co-authored with Sean Carmichael titled, "Dueling Chefs: A Vegetarian and a Meat Lover Debate the Plate." Pleskac attended Slow Food International's Terra Madre World Meeting of Food Communities conference in Turin, Italy, and agreed to share her experiences with Star City Blog.

By Maggie Pleskac

I’ve just returned from Slow Food’s five-day biennial conference in Turin, Italy, where the importance of eating local, seasonal food is the culture, not just the catch phrase.

This conference, called the Terra Madre, featured delegates from more than 150 countries, representing food communities working towards sustainable production practices and preserving the biodiversity of the food chain. I was among 6,000 food producers, farmers, fisherman, educators, chefs and activists. The passion and resolve to protect our global food supply was vocalized by all in attendance, and translated into nine languages. 

There were so many wonderful workshops offered at the Terra Madre that it was impossible to attend them all. In my own field of passion, I attended a workshop titled "Cooks and Places"  that brought up the importance of the connection between the chef and the farmer. The panel speakers consisted of four chefs/cooks from four continents. The stories that were told by cooks across the globe warmed my heart. They spoke of how they have fostered relationships with the farmers who provide their ingredients, from a make-shift kitchen in Africa to a five-star restaurant in the United States, the importance of knowing your farmer and knowing your food is inseparable.

Nancy Anderson, Lincoln Association for the Traditional Arts

 

Nancy Anderson, vice president, LAFTA board of directors

Editor's note: LAFTA, or Lincoln Association for Traditional Arts, will host its next concert Nov. 12 at the 7th Street Loft,  7th and K streets, with band Marley's Ghost.Tickets cost $13 for members, $17 non-members, $10 for students with ID and $1 for those under 12 years old. 

By Nancy Anderson

When I tell people I am on the LAFTA board of directors, the response is often, “What’s LAFTA?”

After five years, the question still surprises me, because I had lived in Lincoln less than a year when I went to my first LAFTA concert. A few months later, I joined the board, and I have been attending LAFTA concerts ever since. This year marks the group’s 29th anniversary.

How is it possible, I wonder, that so many people who have lived here much longer than I don’t know who we are or what we do?

For starters, LAFTA stands for “Lincoln Association for Traditional Arts,” but although that says who we are, it still does not explain what we do.

A second question naturally arises: What’s a traditional art? Our logo consists of the word “LAFTA” with a drawing of four instruments — a mandolin, a guitar, a banjo, and a fiddle — providing a clue that we are in the music business, but that does not tell the full story, either.

Neal Obermeyer, Editorial Cartoonist

Editor's note: Neal Obermeyer, cartoonist for the Lincoln Journal Star, BoldNebraska.org and the San Diego Reader, shares his experiences at this year's 24 Hour Comics Day at Krypton Comics, 2819 S. 125th Ave. in Omaha from noon on Saturday, Oct. 2 to noon on Sunday, Oct. 3. "48 HOURS: A Collection of Two 24 Hour Comics," featuring Obermeyer's prodcutions from two previous years, is available at Krypton and Legend Comics, 5131 Leavenworth St. in Omaha.

By Neal Obermeyer

True to the spirit of 24 Hour Comics Day, I am writing this in desperate need of sleep. Maybe magic will happen. Most likely, I will trudge my way through, hoping it'll seem better in the morning. And there you have it -- 24 Hour Comics Day in a bloggy nutshell.

For a slightly more useful background, 24 Hour Comics Day is an international event started by comics creator Scott McCloud. The challenge is to create a 24-page comic book from scratch in 24 hours. Variations on the theme have sprung up in the digital age, but the basic premise is always the same -- you come with a blank slate, and 24 hours later, you leave with a finished work.

This was my fourth year. I love the challenge and I always try to recruit more people to join in. What usually holds people back from trying is the same thing that holds people back from finishing -- perfection. Some people say "Oh, I can't draw very well" or "I'm not really a writer." Similarly, some people spend hours on each page, making sure each stroke is perfect, and then noon rolls around and they have three pages and a sense of "What did I just do?"

That's why I always tell people, focus on the challenge. Complete the book. Don't worry about quality -- focus on the quantity and the quality will come in its own charming way.

How you go about completing the challenge is different for everyone. Some people script their entire story before putting any pictures on paper. Others fly completely blind. I'm usually somewhere in between. I like to have a general sense of where I'm going, but I can't let it get too nailed down, otherwise I'll get bored. The story needs to unfold while I'm writing it, so that there's a sense of discovery throughout the night.

This year, my appreciation of the Pablo's Triangle show at Lincoln Calling and the festivities that followed meant that I was four hours late to Krypton Comics for the start of 24 Hour Comics Day. So I was already behind on the challenge, and hangovers don't do much for my creativity.

I sat and doodled for a while, trying to find things that seemed fun to draw. I also wrote down random words that popped into my head, hoping for inspiration. At one point, I thought I would come up with some profession that I knew nothing about (I was thinking about actuaries) and then write a detailed story about an actuary, only making up everything about what actuaries do.

Jeremy Buckley, Founder of Lincoln Calling Music Festival

Editor's note: Lincoln Calling is the biggest music festival in the city. Every year during the month leading up to the festival, which begins Tuesday, Sept. 28, founder Jeremy Buckley sits through interview after interview, giving the same vanilla answers to the same uninspired questions.

Not this time.

Instead, local musician and rabble-rouser Darren Keen of The Show is The Rainbow sat down with Mr. Buckley for a different sort of chat -- one without any boundaries of politeness, taste or common decency -- and, perhaps appropriately, a chat in the sense the word now connotes: digital.

Here is the transcript of that conversation, edited for grammar and length. For a full schedule of events, visit LincolnCalling.com or visit the festival's Facebook page.

 

ON BUCKLEY NOT LIKING KEEN'S NEW ACT:

Darren Keen: Ok, so here we go. I'm gonna start ruining your morning now.
Jeremy Buckley:  Exciting!

DK: First off, I want to say thanks for doing this interview with me.
JB: Seemed like a nice change of pace. I think a lot of people misunderstand me, thought this might be a way to clear some air. I'm sure you've dealt with that in your life, too.

DK: Yep. OK. So. I am really pissed at you personally for not having Bad Speler [Keen's latest project] play this year. I got signed to a really reputable label [Illegal Art] and have started touring a lot, so my first question is, why didn't you pick my band?
JB:  Well, I think I have a penchant for sticking with stuff that's not too out there, in general. People look at my picks for Lincoln Calling as a personal voucher that I am in to the music. Whether that is fair or not, I can't say. But in the times I've seen you perform as Bad Speler, I'll have to admit that I don't get it. Probably for the same reason I can't stand Animal Collective (you can ask Spencer [Munson] about that). It's frantic, and nerve-wracking in my opinion, and I don't know that I have the wherewithal to know how to sell it.

DK: So basically you admit that you are just getting out of touch?
JB: Well, I've discussed the topic with a lot of friends whose opinions I trust, and it seems that there are a lot of people who agree. Hopefully they are not just agreeing with me to agree with me. It's difficult for me, in regards to Lincoln Calling, to include stuff that I don't know how to sell. If that means I am out of touch, I guess it is what it is.

Ember Schrag, Musician and Founder of Clawfoot House

Editor's note: Ember Schrag, musician and founder of Clawfoot House music and arts venue, 11th and F streets, is currently at the beginning of a three-month national tour. She took some time to fill in Star City Blog on how the tour's going so far and saying goodbye to Clawfoot House. Schrag's full tour diary can be found here.
 

By Ember Schrag

I’ve been on the road for one week. Just ten more weeks to go!

We started off in Ames and Iowa City for two shows with Ron Wax. The whole crew: me, my boyfriend Bryan (who will be playing some of the shows as Eloine), my bassist Chris Bowing and my drummer Gary Foster, and Ron Albertson and Dave Rabe of Ron Wax. We enjoyed two brilliant diner breakfasts while in Iowa; everyone’s such a character, especially Ron. We met a woman named Willie Nell Wade in a rest stop, and she was a scream. As are the Iowa rest stops: they’re absurdly swank.

The first show was at a rented office space called the Ames Progressive, where Ron and Dave got everyone to play along. Dave threw everybody shakers, and Ron told all the members of the other bands (and anyone else who was standing near an instrument) that all the songs were in D flat and to just hit it.

Hard floors, delicious food

 It seems like we end up having lots of time off in the smaller towns like Dubuque, Decorah, Monee. In the bigger cities we keep missing everything besides the neighborhood around the venue we’re playing.

We’ve slept on lots of floors but also had friends cook pots of Vietnamese soup for us and make breakfasts with kale and brie. We played at a gorgeous rented synagogue called the Gates of Heaven in Madison, Wis., in a park next to Mendota Lake. On Labor Day in Milwaukee, Bryan played an afternoon show with Bryce Beverlyn II and Peter J. Woods at the Borg Ward Collective while I went to do an in-studio radio set at WMSE.

Setting the Record Straight: Julie Hagemeier, President-Elect of the Lincoln Arts Council

 

By Julie Hagemeier

An Arts Council is only as strong as its constituents, and the arts in Lincoln remain vibrant and innovative. Even through an economic downturn, the Lincoln arts community has been resourceful and discriminating and has continued to thrive.

As incoming president of the board of directors of the Lincoln Arts Council (LAC), it is my privilege to serve the Lincoln arts community.

As we on the LAC Board envision the future, we hope to find ways to increase the dialogue and collaborative opportunities between arts organizations. The first opportunity to do that is through the re-institution of the Arts Roundtable, which will be held Oct. 12 from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. in Room 104 of the Temple Building, 12th and R streets, on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. We hope to be able to find ways to facilitate opportunities between arts organizations, or to simply have a great networking opportunity for arts leaders.

The Lincoln Arts Council exists in service to “inspire a creative community.” Activities at the Arts Council are created to expose the arts to the widest audience possible, emphasizing that the arts are not just for a select few, but for everyone. The arts inspire, educate, influence health and wellness, and touch the very soul of each individual. The Arts Council hopes to provide ways for everyone to experience what is often a life-changing experience.