Chaos continues at Radio One

The only national black talk network has been having a lot of trouble. Of course, I point to the day they pulled my show off the air as the beginning of the end.

1) According to the Washington Post: Radio One's stock lost 17 percent of its value this week, closing yesterday at $1.06. Since last year, when the company's stock traded at a [sic: high] of $7.59, its value has declined 85 percent.

2) The son of the founder of the company has just received a generous pay raise and compensation package. According to the Washington Post: Liggins would receive $980,000 in salary, a 70 percent increase over the $575,370 he made in 2007, and have the opportunity to match that in an annual bonus, contingent in part on the company meeting certain performance goals. He would be paid a $1 million "signing bonus" because, the Radio One compensation committee said, he has been underpaid for the last three years. Liggins also would be paid $4.8 million to compensate him for losses he incurred when he was forced to repay a company loan to buy Radio One stock several years ago.

3) The ReidBlog reports that Lee Michaels, former national program director of Syndication One and XM 169 The Power, has just gotten fired. Michaels is the one who pulled my radio show off the air after we had a dispute over my show on urban legends. Reid also tells the following story: Apparently, the company finally managed to sell its L.A. station, (then called KKBT - 100.3 The Beat, now called V100, and the station that used to employ Steve Harvey, before the Radio One folks kicked him to the curb, allegedly over remarks he made about Cathy Hughes as she sat in the audience for the BET Comedy Awards, which he was hosting. The station, which with Harvey had the number one show in the market, promptly went in the tank after that, and in 2005, Harvey jumped to Clear Channel. The rest, as they say, is history...

CJL

Helping North Koreans 'strike the blow' (Korea Times)

H ave you ever engaged in action not because you were sure it would change the world, but to satisfy your own heart? That, I emailed to an American friend, is why I have joined the effort to help North Koreans who are trying to escape from their homeland. I can’t change the direction of policy in North Korea or China but I can row the boat I am sitting in rather than lamenting that I can’t steer the yachts somewhere else. So I have tried to do what I can: Attending protests in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul (and I plan to do so when I visit America in April); donating money to the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights ( www.nkhumanrights.or.kr ); educating myself, writing articles and emailing friends; and, as a member of the board of trustees, I recently submitted a resolution to the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association (FDMHA) in Washington, D.C., to try to call attention to the plight of North Koreans. Our organization’s missi...

2020-04-26 "May I choose more teachers?" TNKR Matching session #102

2020-04-26, TNKR Matching session #102 The Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center (TNKR) humbly began in March 2013 with 5 tutors and 5 NK refugees being matched together. We held that first session at a TOZ business center in Gangnam. Seven years later, TNKR has now matched 455 North Korean refugees with 1,027 tutors, coaches, and mentors. Today we held our 102nd Language Matching session at our slightly expanded office near the Sangsu Subway Station. Instead of just being something that Casey and Eunkoo did short-term, TNKR is now an official organization in both South Korea and the USA, we have been featured in media and by other organizations (just yesterday, we were featured by KOTESOL), and we have fans and donors from around the world.

Chang Ha-Joon's foolish consistency (Korea Times, January 1, 2013)

By Casey Lartigue, Jr. Is the sky blue? Is the ocean water? If you suspect those are trick questions, you are right. The sky isn’t always blue ― it is reddish at sunset, dark at midnight, gray on an overcast day. The ocean isn’t water ― there’s also fish, plant life, submarines, dissolved minerals, surfboards, sunken ships, even people swimming in it sometimes. As Hoover Institution scholar Thomas Sowell wrote in his 1996 book ``The Vision of the Anointed,” people who use “all-or-nothing” reasoning can deny a statement because it is not 100 percent true in every circumstance. Such word games might be fun for college students or debaters, but there are some distinguished people who are respected for making such childish arguments about serious issues. In his book ``23 Things They Don’t Tell you About Capitalism,” Cambridge University economist Chang Ha-Joon argues that 1) “[T]here is really no such thing as a free market” and 2) “The free market doesn’t exis...

2020-11-26 My basketball story

This photo was uploaded today by my aunt Annette. This was back in the day, when 1) I had a head full of hair and 2) played basketball a lot. That first year of playing organized basketball, I focused on playing defense. It seemed that everyone wanted to shoot the ball, so I passed the ball and played defense. I probably led the league in steals, rebounds and blocked shots. I enjoyed taking on the best player from the other team, I felt like I would get better, quickly. The second year, I was a different player. I will never forget the first game that second year--we lost 29 to 26, I scored 18 points. I probably led the universe in scoring that second year, although we didn't win much. One thing I learned from that experience is that one great player 9 (at least in his own mind) can't beat a team. An eye injury ended my pro career before it began, to this day I still have floaters in my eyes because of the injury. I started wearing glasses, but the problem never went away. On t...

"Yoegi Anjuseyo!"

* I have a short reflection in today's Korea Times about an encounter with an unfriendly looking Korean man on the subway. It was a reminder not to be too quick in judging people in Korea. 09-13-2011 16:47 'Yeogi Anjeuseyo!' By Casey Lartigue Jr. The recent incident in which an American English teacher bullied an elderly Korean man and other passengers on the bus reminded me of a more pleasing incident from years ago. I was on the subway, taking the train outside of Seoul for a work assignment. I have the habit of standing on the subway to strategically position myself near the doors in case my stop magically appears. On that particular day, there was a Korean man STARING at me. Not just looking at me, but intensely staring at me. He had an incredible frown on his face. Not just for one stop, but for several stops the guy just kept staring at me. If I had known more Korean then I would have been able to curse him ...

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