Celebrating Years Of Alternative Journalism

A2's Longest-Running Alternative Newspaper Ten years of alternative journalism!  We are proud and we are grateful, too. It is a time to celebrate, a time to name names, and a time to take stock.

Our greatest accomplishment as an independently owned and operated alternative newspaper is that we have survived! In the 10 years we have been publishing, AGENDA we have seen a number of locally-produced high-quality publications come and go. And if we consider the number of very high-quality A2-published periodicals in the last 30 years which have for whatever reasons flourished and then died out, the scope of the feat becomes clearer. Longest-running doesn't mean better of course. That's not the point But it does put AGENDA in a local historical context and in what we consider terrific company: the Ann Arbor Argus (1969-71 ), the Ann Arbor Sun (1 970-76), Up Against the Wall Street Journal (1970-72), the Michigan Free Press (1974-78), and The Alchemist (1978-80). These papers best illustrate Ann Arbor's rich history of radical and underground literature, a tradition begun before the 60s and still alive and flourishing today.

There is no better place on the planet to learn about this legacy than U-M's Labadie Collection, housed on the seventh floor of the Graduate Library. I recently spent a Monday afternoon enjoying what I knew was special access to the inner vaults of the collection, with Curator Ed Weber acting as my personal guide. Weber, who some townies may know from his 30-year involvement with the now-defunct Cinema Guild, has been overseeing the Labadie Collection since the early 1950s, keeping it focused on the collection and storage of social protest literature.

The Labadie Collection itself was established in 1911 when Joseph Labadie, a prominent Detroit anarchist, donated his library to the U-M. The collection is now international in scope and contains 15,000 books, 8,000 periodicals (600 current titles--including AGENDA), 20,000 pamphlets, and numerous brochures, leaflets, clippings, posters, photographs, cartoons, sheet music, buttons, bumper stickers, and armbands!

The first thing I asked for was to be taken to where AGENDAs are stored. The second thing I wanted to know was what Weber thought about AGENDA."l don't recall anything quite like AGENDA before in Ann Arbor," Weber told me, citing our intense focus on politics and advocacy. "It is what the French call engagé--committed--engaged in the sense of not just thinking about issues but working on them."

Weber and I sorted and sifted through the card catalog of Ann Arbor-based periodicals in search of AGENDA'S predecessors. Our hunt turned up names like Burning Spear, The Leaping Lesbian, The Periodical Lunch, People's Voice, SDS Ledger, Smoke, Looking Glass, New Morning, The Picketer, Spectrum Left, Friends of SNCC, and Youth Liberation.

The five papers on the cover were ultimately chosen because of their longevity (lasting at least two years), and similarities with AGENDAs form and function. All were mass-circulated, printed on newsprint (most tabloid, some broadsheet), with a non-corporate radical-underground-alternative take on the news. There are many differences of course. AGENDA is privately owned and independent of any political entity whereas the Ann Arbor Sun, for example, was an official organ of a political party--the White Panthers. The Michigan Free Press was uniquely organized as a collective--the New Morning Media Cooperative, a local chapter of the nationwide American Revolutionary Media. A statement of philosophy found in the MFP's masthead reminds me of something AGENDA might print "Because we intend to tell the truth from the viewpoint of working people [and 'non-working people,' we would add], we do not pretend to be 'objective,' like the corporate media."

There have been so many more publications that I am not naming here, and so little telling of the actual history being told that I invite people who have been involved in these enterprises to write to AGENDA and share the stories behind the radical rags you have worked on. Please.

There are many names named throughout the "viewpoints" that follow--all very deserving tributes--but I cannot let this opportunity pass without acknowledging what has made it possible for me personally to pursue what is turning into my life's work: the love, hard work, and sacrifice of Laurie Wechter, my wife, partner, and collaborator.

One other player MUST be acknowledged up front as well. Phillis Engelbert has given AGENDA her heart and soul for as long as I can remember. Thank you.

Thank you everyone for your support.

Yes, we have survived a decade. My hope for the next decade is to prevail.

Ted Sylvester AGENDA Editor

What Goes Around...

On behalf of the steering committee and staff of Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice, it gives me great pleasure to thank you for 10 years of providing alternative news in Ann Arbor, and to wish you good luck in your next decade of publishing AGENDA. Thanks also to your faithful advertisers and subscribers, whose support makes AGENDA possible!

We deeply appreciate your commitment to supply our community with viewpoints on important national and international events that are a needed corrective to the reporting of the mainstream, corporate press. We are also grateful for your support of ICPJ's programs and activities over the years.

I have only lived in the area for six years, and remember discovering ICPJ and AGENDA on the same day soon after arriving. So many of your articles and features have been enlightening, and several have been very moving. In particular, columns by Eric Jackson, your reporting during the build-up and in the after math of the Gulf War, and your reprints of important speeches have been most helpful. Arwulf Arwulf's piece on Thanksgiving in your November, 1994 issue still brings tears to my eyes.

Thanks again for doing a great job! Peace,

Thom Saffold, ICPJ Steering Committee President ANN ARBOR

AGENDA Then and Now

I can still remember a Wednesday night in early 1986, sitting in one of those Mason Hall classrooms that face the Diag. That wing of rooms is one of the first places on campus to be infected by the annual outbreak of Spring Fever. You know--when it's just starting to warm up after the long, dreary winter and there are throngs of people outside in the 55-degree sunshine, prematurely wearing shorts and t-shirts and tossing Frisbees. It's one of those classrooms where at the first skin of spring, people throw open the Windows and wish they were on the other side.

Well, this particular Wednesday night it wasn't quite that warm yet because the radiators were still clicking. There was a warm feeling, however, generated by the close to 80 bodies that used to regularly pack the weekly meetings of the Latin American Solidarity Committee. It was quite a mix of people, too. Graduate students; professors; elderly church ladies; young, athletic-type men who sat along the window edge with their baseball caps turned backwards; would-be revolutionaries; starry-eyed fresh persons; and regular Ann Arborites, with kids, jobs, etc.

As usual, we had a long (and I mean long!) list of topics on the agenda--one of which was AGENDA. In their turn, two veteran LASC-ers named Ted Sylvester and Laurie Wechter addressed the group about a new project they were undertaking--the publication of a monthly newspaper. In this paper, they would print the meeting agendas (hence the name AGENDA) of the myriad social activist groups that dotted the Ann Arbor political landscape a decade ago. The paper would also contain a Community Resource Directory, featuring news from these groups and information about how to join. Ted and Laurie hoped their project would unite the grassroots community and help it attract new members. They asked LASC to support the paper--both financially and by submitting monthly reports for publication.

I remember several people in that meeting being enthused by the idea and pledging their assistance. Personally, I was already in over my head organizing marches, street theater performances, and so on, so I merely cheered from the sidelines. I left for the summer to intern with a family farm organization in Iowa, a position that by some strange twist also landed me in Nicaragua for a two-week study tour. On that trip I visited a farming cooperative that had recently been destroyed by a contra attack. That experience provided the inspiration for my first article in AGENDA.

When I returned to Ann Arbor at the end of the summer, I visited Ted and Laurie in their modest home on a quiet dead-end street on the west side, introduced myself, and handed them my story.

I could not then predict this would be the start of an on-and-off (mostly on) 10-year odyssey in the world of alternative journalism. I could not then envision the end-of-the-month all-nighters; endless fund-raisers (phone-a-thons, bake sales, bucket drives, silent auctions, mailings, concerts, rummage sales, and more phone-a-thons); volunteer recruitment; staff meetings; ad sales; and hours, hours, hours of writing! And I certainly had no inkling that the AGENDA staff would become my family.

Ten years later, everything has changed yet nothing has changed. The office has moved, many staff people and volunteers have come and gone, our equipment has been upgraded (slightly), and the paper has improved dramatically in appearance and content. Yet the original ideas are still in place. The mission of AGENDA  to educate, to support groups promoting social change, and to disseminate information the mainstream press ignores--is exactly what it was 10 years ago when Ted and Laurie spoke about it in that spring-fever-infested classroom.

Phillis Engelbert AGENDA Editor

Un-smashed By The State!

When AGENDA got started in 1986, we could not possibly have anticipated that just 10 years later we would have a pot-puffing draft dodger in the White House. Of course, he has since disavowed his two greatest achievements, so the progress isn't quite as great as it appears.

Ten years is a long time for a newspaper (or anything) on the left Survival is always an uphill struggle, since the money and the power are all on the other side. Keeping AGENDA alive and maintaining its centrality in the life of progressive politics in Ann Arbor is quite an accomplishment. We wouldn't have thought it possible in 1986.

We've had a lot of disappointments in the last 10 years as progressive movements have been set back in the U.S. and around the world. But there are still considerable grounds for hope. In the U.S., the AFL-CIO is in the process of becoming a dynamic progressive force that may reverse the rightward drift in domestic politics. In places such as Haiti and Chiapas, millions of people are struggling against the logic of a work capitalist system that places profit above basic human rights and the survival of the environment. These struggles provide a basis for believing that the tide will turn and that there is a future for progressive politics, and a future period.

Back in 1986 we might have hoped that we would have accomplished more by now. But if we didn't succeed in smashing the state, at least the state didn't succeed in smashing us. Congrats on making it 10 years. The next 10 years will be better.

Still struggling to Keep the World Safe From Economists,

Dean Baker, Thea Lee, Mark Weisbrot WASHINGTON, D.C.

Freedom of Voice

AGENDA is still a work in progress. We especially want to encourage more women and people of color to join in its evolution. AGENDA is here for real people. It's here for people who want to have a say and to share what they believe with others. AGENDA exists to give freedom of voice to those of us who have less access to the corporate media Some of our writers have less access because of belief s and some of us have less access because of our sex, race, age, or sexual preferences.

AGENDA can become a stronger publication with more words from the point of view of those people affected most urgently by this lack of access. We want to reach out for your help and we want to provide that access. It could be a well-balanced relationship. There's no end to the testimonials and news that could be written. The Washtenaw County community reads 20,000 copies of AGENDA every month. That's a very large forum. And the people who read AGENDA are not just the already converted. Everyone needs to understand and be educated.

I know many of us lack the confidence to think that what we have to say is good or important enough. We need to go ahead anyway. There's support at AGENDA for anyone willing to put in the work. There's support for anyone who cares about justice and wants to present their argument.

Intimidation is not the only reason people don't write. Is there some way we can do a better job at being inclusive? Is there more you could do to include yourself?

If you find yourself complaining about lack of coverage on something that seems obvious and important, why not write about it yourself? Step forward with your idea Let us know who you are. If you don't want to write it, then help us find an appropriate writer who will. Get involved.

For me, the AGENDA project has been a never-ending challenge. Now that I have worked four years at another job, and limit my work for the paper, I can see our strengths and flaws more clearly. Given the constant state of financial emergency, it's a miracle that AGENDA is around to be criticized or praised.

The sacrifice, loyalty and tenacity of Phillis Engelbert and Ted Sylvester, (who has had a constant vision and a deep passion), have kept AGENDA alive.

Thanks to Associate Editor Eric Jackson and to assistant editors who have, through the years kept AGENDA fresh and on its toes. Thanks to writer editor sales rep Peggy Novelli, paste-up king, Denis McBee and computer doctor, Jim Kirk for being there through thick and thin during the harrowing beginnings of AGENDA. And thanks to Alphonso Hernandez Lozano, Jim Sullivan, Andrea Walsh, Jeff Gearhart, Stephanie Harrell and Nan Stoll who will always be our heroes for their hard work and emotional support And welcome to Jennifer Hall, who is already making things so much easier as our new business manager, freeing Ted up to finally fit more investigative writing into his job description.

Finally, many thanks to AGENDA columnists Jamie Agnew, Arwulf Arwulf, Orin Buck, John Carlos Cantú, Alan Goldsmith, Barbara Ransby, Jonathan Rose, William Shea and Jonathan Weber, countless other writers and volunteers, and to our subscribers, advertisers and community for making AGENDA such a successful publication.

Laurie Wechter AGENDA Editor

The Best Cause

Happy Birthday. It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years since Ted Sylvester first conceived a newspaper that would provide progressive elements in Ann Arbor a common forum to lay out their schedule, an agenda for change.

Younger readers and people new in town may not realize the darkening political climate that was prevalent at the time AGENDA was born. At that time, Reagan's handlers were in their sixth year of consolidating their corporate grip on the mindset of America, and a berserk CIA was fighting a secret war against the people of Nicaragua and El Salvador. Labor unions were being crushed as the export of manufacturing jobs began in earnest.

In Ann Arbor, the swinish Mayor Belcher (yes, that was his real name) and his cronies on city council were busy tearing down parts of history downtown and replacing them with hideous red brick office ziggurats. Meanwhile, the status-obsessed "public" U-M was routinely raising its tuition to the point where only children of the elite could afford to attend (Unless you were really big and played football).

Outside of an occasional whimper from the reliably subservient mainstream media, there were few publicized objections to the outright hijacking of the government and plundering of the city's heritage. That's when AGENDA began. For the last 10 years it's provided a common voice for disparate groups looking for a defense against the juggernaut of greed and conformity. Besides providing an event schedule for the disenfranchised, it has also given us stories that, by their nature, won't be covered in other media (Does anybody think they can get the truth about the Detroit newspaper strike from another corporate newspaper?) It's been a lot of work for a good cause, the best cause. Congratulations!

P.S. Put more naked people on the cover.

Michael Rosentreter VANCOUVER, WA

Agenda For The Next Decade

AGENDA has its roots in the movement to defend Central American revolutions from U.S. intervention. Local TV stations and The Ann Arbor News weren't reporting the truth of the matter--while the U.S. military organized, armed and ran the Nicaraguan contras and the Salvadoran death squads from bases in Panama, the news barons persisted in these lies about Nicaragua's "freedom fighters," and unknown "right-wing extremists" who combined with "left-wing terrorists" to impede the Reagan administration's quest for "peace" in El Salvador. The Latin American Solidarity Committee needed a vehicle to run a well-organized information blockade, and thus AGENDA was born.

The format has undergone various changes, but early on AGENDA adopted its two key defining features--longer analytical articles on the great issues of the day, and a calendar connecting the general public with a network of community groups. Nobody else offers these important services in the Ann Arbor area.

The movement from which AGENDA arose came into existence several years after Ann Arbor's previous progressive generation self-destructed in factional warfare and mostly moved away. A core of talented grad students started again, nearly from scratch, and had the good sense to avoid most of the old sectarian pitfalls. This attitude was reflected in AGENDA. Anti-authoritarians of all stripes, Marxists, Liberation Christians, feminists, U-M's anti-racist network, the gay community, artistic circles and others who might otherwise find excuses to argue among themselves instead found their voices in AGENDA. That alone is an impressive accomplishment.

Most of the original contributors have moved on in the ensuing decade, but Ted Sylvester has remained at the helm and seen AGENDA through triumphs and hard times--sometimes simultaneously. The paper has survived with a lot of help from its friends and many sacrifices on the part of Ted and cohorts. Because AGENDA'S existence was always dicey, those closest to it often failed to notice their impact in the community. But while Ted and friends suffered over computers, Washtenaw County got better-informed because AGENDA was there.

Times changed. New students replaced the departed classes. South Africa was liberated, Central America's wars subsided, the Soviet bloc fell. The folks whose covert sponsorship gave us genocide at places like El Mozote lost the White House and took over the Congress. How can Washtenaw County's progressive community think globally and act locally in this new paradigm? Keeping a voice is an indispensable step. That means not letting Ted bum out, not allowing AGENDA'S contributor or pool to trickle away without replenishment It means intelligent discussion about race relations, coverage from the world 's main political fault lines, rough times for troglodytes and parasites attached to U-M and EMU--all through the medium of AGENDA.

This is a good time to compile a "Best of AGENDA" book. Folks who weren't around Ann Arbor 8 or 10 years ago would learn things that they missed the first time around. People living outside this intellectually-privileged neighborhood would discover what they have been missing. Regular readers would be reminded of what a good thing they have.

Whether AGENDA appears as scheduled in April 2006 is your call. Clear your brains, limber your typing fingers and open your checkbooks. AGENDA won't last another 10 years without your active support, and you're too smart to live on corporate propaganda disguised as news.

Eric Jackson AGENDA Associate Editor

Find The Right Balance

As an occasional writer and distributor and fultime supporter, I salute you for keeping AGENDA going for 10 years. I know it hasn't been easy.

In my mind, AGENDA is the best local example of "civic journalism," not just reporting the news but doing so to try to make things better.

It's always been a mystery to me why some believe that journalists must act as if they have no opinions. Journalists have opinions, whether they express them or not, and these opinions (as well as their own self-interests such as money, career, reputation, etc.) affect their work, whether consciously or not I learn more from AGENDA writers, because I know where they are coming from and it's not money or fame.

The greatest service you provide me is providing an alternative perspective on important local issues. The coverage of the potential new golf course and the Detroit newspaper strike are the best recent examples. Particularly memorable to me were the 1992 articles on the Kroger strike and the in-depth discussions of judicial candidates.

My suggestions? One, continue to try to find the right balance between coverage of political and cultural issues. I recognize that these are not mutually exclusive, but I believe the daily lives of most people are more affected by the former. I also recognize that cultural coverage can help provide the financial support for the political coverage.

Two, continue to be willing to challenge the status quo, not just the corporate and political "powers-that-be," but also the Ann Arbor "armchair liberal." I bet that a majority of Ann Arbor citizens would both declare themselves moderates or liberals and claim to support equal educational opportunity, but yet oppose efforts to fund all schools at the same level, particularly if that meant sharing some of their tax revenue with poor rural and urban schools. AGENDA can help force us to reevaluate this type of incongruity.

Finally, I challenge my fellow citizens and activists to support and use AGENDA. Too many groups spend too many resources writing articles for their internal newsletters, while ignoring the opportunities to reach a new and wider audience in AGENDA. Keep on comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.You and your readers will sleep better at night.

Jeff Alson ANN ARBOR

AGENDA Being Free

Before I was a writer for AGENDA, I was an advertiser in AGENDA, and, in the very beginning, I was even a reader of AGENDA. Hey, what the hell, it's free, right? But free in more than one sense, not only free of charge but free of obligation, free in spirit, I free as I dent, free to have I opinions in opinionated tones.

With corporations now owning your TV show and TV station, your newspaper and newsstand, your book publisher and book mart, your movie studio and your multiplex, it 's nice to have a local AGENDA a perspective f rom which you are not invisible. I think a lot of people take AGENDA for granted because it is so free--everybody should want to read, advertise in and write for AGENDA. While l'm glad to do all three, I most enjoy seeing my words in print, even they are free too--you can only be uncompromising if you are free. Besides not every writer can nave their work next to a long Arwulf Arwulf musing on the subject of his vasectomy.

Jamie Agnew AGENDA Writer

(continued on next page)

==========================================

BIG, BIG, THANKS TO ELMO

AGENDA has been on the receiving end of great acts of generosity over the years and one such act deserves EXTRA special thanks. Elmo Morales, of Elmo Supershirts fame (among other things), has been housing the AGENDA office behind his T-Shirt store (now behind Main Street News as well) since1992! We love you, Elmo! [Photo: Orin Buck]

============================================

Celebrating 10 Years of Alternative Journalism

Scooping The [S] News

AGENDA was the first to announce publicly that Juigalpa had been chosen as Ann Arbor's new sister city in Nicaragua. This would have been back in the early fall of 1986.

The Coalition for Peace in Central America had waged a successful campaign to put the Peace in Central America Proposal on the city election ballot This proposal called for an end to U.S. intervention in Central America and the formation of a Central America Sister City Task Force.

We won the election and set about selecting a town in Nicaragua to invite to be our official sister city. We chose Juigalpa and they accepted.

I know The Ann Arbor News learned of the selection of Juigalpa as our new sister city from AGENDA because an Ann Arbor News writer called me after reading about it in AGENDA. This is just one little example of how those of us in the progressive community could count on exposure through AGENDA. We didn't need to hope that the mainstream corporate media would see fit to give our issue a bit of press.

By the way, the Arm Arbor--Juigalpa sister city relationship is also 10 years dd this year.

Gregory Fox ANN ARBOR

Why Not, Indeed?

Hi, l'm a native Ann Arborite in school in Albany, NY and working in Pasadena, CA until next semester. Back at school there's a weekty publication "Metroland and out here we have the"LA.WeeWy." These publications have really flourished after finding a niche with people around my age bracket (21-26). I had alway s hoped that such a publication would appearinA2 Whenl was home recently, I was impressed to see your paper, l hope you become the "weekend-event bible" that these other magazines have become.

I notice that in your March issue you ask readers what they'd like to see, and I thought I'd toss my 2 cents in also. The most important thing l'd like to see is an "events" section that has a set of major categories (art, literary, theatre, jazz, blues, dance, classical, restaurants, etc.) with entries for every place imaginable, and under these entries a list of happenings at each location.

I also have to add the fact that I like the way you are the "alternative news monthly." The problem with the weekly is that it's too commercial. They've had some good discussion topics (cryogenic suspension, illegal immigration) but I think A2 demographics need more intellectual meat. So if you keep that component, you'll be taken more seriously.

Also, the ad's are a huge influence in the weekly. l'm used to ignoring ads. In the weekly, I tend to breeze through the articles and go to the ads because this is where you find live concert info and phone numbers to call. You guys have ads for bookstores. Why not have big ads for, say, the Blind Pig or Rick's or The Bird of Paradise? Also, isnt the new Ark opening soon?

Well, hope the magazines give some good insight into other publication markets. Keep it up.

John Beatty, ALTADENA, CA

MANIFESTO

Speak! and tell some truth as best you know to tell it Reach further! And further than what passes for journalism, that's not difficult, just speak true. In an age where newspapers come to resemble prime time television, simple honesty with a seriously planted questioning element is relief and welcome dissent! Freedom Now! in the words of Julian Beck, inspired by Lady Judith Malina: "Infiltrate the media, whoever can, but remember they're geared to speak for the system." And this from Diane Di Prima's Revolutionary Letter #41 : "Revolution: a turning, as the earth turns, among planets, as the sun turns round some (darker) star, the galaxy describes a yin-yang spiral in the aether, we tum from dark to light, turn forces of pain & fear, the dawn awash among them."

Julian and Judith say: "There is nothing to learn but that the bread has all been eaten and how to replace it. . .there will be abundance but it will not be easy. We are talking about the end of despots and the curtain rising on a theatre of free time."

And as things do tum, as we evolve and revolve, telling the truth as we understand it is good planning, real planning, hope for a better day and nights of glorious mayhem. Clarity; enhanced wonderment Dialogue of the open eyes and ears. Long live the real freedom of press. Always demand the truth. Accept no substitutes.

Arwulf Arwulf AGENDA Writer

Ann Arbor Special

My first recollection about AGENDA was biking up Madison Street hill during a blustering spring day about 10 years ago.l was delivering the Graduate Employees Organization's calendar information to the house of Ted Sylvester where the paper was published.

Ted spent a minute showing me their latest computer and shared his thoughts about up-coming issues. He gave me his thoughts about the direction the paper might take, if the community was there to support it Thanking him, I left feeling support the of the novel idea of publishing an alternative paper, that the paper was already heading in the proper direction and in good hands. But I hoped--yet wasn't sure if--the community would be as supportive.

About five years later I volunteered to help tribute AGENDA. Packing thousands of copies in my car, we sped across town. After hopping from venue to venue, interacting with one proprietor after another at each stop, I was dog-tired but impressed to see the breadth of commitment AGENDA had in the community. From book store and convenience store, to senior citizen centerand dormitory, the paper was we loomed by all. Ann Arbor had readily accepted the paper and its view.

John Hamman of the Clements Library made a salient comment of explanation one day about this community's continued acceptance of AGENDA. He called the paper "unafraid and challenging," calling ít "a special thing that makes Ann Arbor a special place."

I agree! Ann Arbor is indeed a special place because of the view and commitment the editors and town-folks have in supporting this alternative newspaper. And I feel we, as a city, would be something less--not quite as special--without it.

William Shea AGENDA Music Writer

The Big Show

l'm occassionally asked what it's like to hold one of the best film commentary gigs in Michigan... and my response is that it's great.

I can't speak for the other columnists that have written for AGENDA through the last decade, but I will say that for me it's been a rewarding experience. As anyone who's done time in journalism will tell you, there's nothing quite like show biz. By extension, this is especially true of cinema.

Writing on film is a particular challenge because there are some who think of it as if 20th-century art form. Now I wouldn't put the issue in such stark terms--if only because I also have a soft spot for painting and sculpture--but I will admit cinema is the most plastic of the modem arts.

I also believe it's the most abused of the performing arts. For the movies survive solely through economie necessity. Yet where most periodicals relish this commercialism, we cast a side-long glance at the industry.

AGENDA is written for a politically mature and socially sophisticated audience. It pulls no punches and this writer likes it like that. As maybediscemed bythediversityof expression on its pages, AGENDA'S unorthodox attitude makes writing for this monthly a privilege. But enough cheerleading...if only because by disposition this player avoids teams. Telling it like it is can be a hard-nosed preposition...and I like this strain in AGENDA. "Screen Scene" is meant to take on anybody in film at any time and for any reason.

Still, writing isn't done in a vacuum. So I value the hints, suggestions, and downright bullying I sometimes get from friends and readers about what to watch and what to write about Believe it or not, some number of the films mentkxied in the column have come directiy from such suggestions.

Pass the word along if you think something is worth viewing. I may or may not write about it but the odds are much better that l'll take the time to see what you're talking about.

Buttonhole me if I run across you at a neighborhood auditorium or video shop. Tell me, as one friend recently did, whether or not l'm reviewing films you want to see. And as l'm particulariy fond of off-beat fare, tell me about these titles. I'll always be glad to listen to and read your comments.

Just remember that almost every second of film you watch cost someone thousands of dollars to produce. So if you only support commercial cinema, this is the diet you'II receive. Support non-theatrical cinema--local films, independent films, experimental films, documentaries, and counter-culturalfare--if only because these films worry politicians of all stripes. It bugs them that altemative voices have access to the media.

Just don't forget that the movies aren't only bigger than life...they magnify life. So the question, ultimately, is very simple: Whose life is it?

John Carios Cantu AGENDA Film Writer

Are Your Hands Hot?

Not to be a cynic or anything but...

Ann Arbor and the rest of the universe is lucky as helI that we're celebrating the tenth anniversary of the newspaper you're holding in your hot Iittle hands this month. It's AGENDA'S birthday and I could sit here all day and recount any of the hundreds of articles this past decade that have pissed out someone in the power structure at the U-M, or pushed a fat cat student rental slum lord intothreats of legal action or better yet, articles that are filed away in some CIA office in Washington waiting for the right-wing coup that seems like lts only days away at times. (You think not?)

But, this is a time of celebration and not cynicism. As we face the latter part of the 20th century, the brand of journalist candle-in-the-darkness AGENDA provides becomes more and more rare (and thus more and more vital).

Of course, if you want to read stories about animal ERs, or the oh so chic cappuccino and hipster restaurant invasion of downtown, political coverage that borders on fascism, or entertainment coverage that is more concemed about selling ads for beer companies than art that matters, there are other places for you to go for the information you require to lead your life of quiet desolation.

But...lf this isn't the case, the continuing publication of AGENDA and its independent editorial voice and this month's milestone is one great occasion. Yes!

Alan Goldsmith AGENDA Music Writer

SPECIAL THANKS

AGENDA is a "free" paper yet has over 200 subscribers. The following Hst of "Sustainers" are special subscribers, people who over the years have given AGENDA a $100 donation or more! AGENDA thanks them for their generosity!

Jeff Alson, David Austin, Don & Anne Marie Coleman, Mary Lou Cooley, Tree & Jimmy DeZazzo, Paul Haynes, Bob Heald, Fergus Lalor, Bart Loeb, Tina Manier & Luis Vasquez, Riek McHugh, Jane Queller, Mariene Ross & John Taylor, Howard Stewart, Jim Sullivan, Mary and Vernon Tokita, John Vandermeer, Diane Wechter, Kathryn & Bill Wechter.