Writing Assignment 5 - Post 6

Scott Paton lives in Columbia, Maryland, but his voice can soon be heard all around the world.

This year marks Motown’s 50th anniversary, and Paton, 51, wrote and produced a radio special for this milestone in American music, co-hosting with Motown hit-maker Smokey Robinson. The eight hour show has aired in many major cities across the country so far and has been sold overseas.

“I hadn’t planned on hosting or co-hosting the show at all,” Paton said. “But the people that hired me to produce it just said, ‘Why don’t you host it?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I could do that.’”

Paton began his career in writing and producing in Los Angeles when he was 18, but has been living in Columbia for the past 22 years, mainly working as a freelance writer. This project gave him the opportunity to do something he loved on a grand scale. For the show, Paton interviewed artists such as Otis Williams of the Temptations, Martha Reeves, The Supremes, The Four Tops, and co-host Smokey Robinson.

“It was a thrill,” Paton said of the opportunity the radio show presented. “Not only as a fan of Motown, but also the fact that it was so pivotal in helping accelerate racial equality. Getting to share the life stories of the people that helped that movement progress in the ‘60s was an added thrill because it’s such an essential component of American history.”

Paton calls himself a “lifelong music fan” in addition to being a professional music historian. He has interviewed hundreds of artists and predicts that he has produced thousands of hours of radio programs. Despite having met some of the most influential artists and songwriters around, Paton has never been intimidated by fame.

“Some of my favorite people to interview weren’t even the biggest stars,” Paton said. “They were just nice and interesting. Every now and then, someone big and famous would be wonderful, too. Fame does not impress me. But talent does.”

Though the interviews themselves and the completion of the Motown special provided a great deal of satisfaction for Paton, the production process itself proved to be grueling for him as well, especially on a tight deadline.

“It was hard to whittle things down to eight hours— I could’ve made it 24 hours,” Paton said. “Production-wise, it was a very complex job juggling all the different content I had and turning it into cohesive narrative.”

Now that the show is complete and on-the-air, Paton has other projects to which he looks forward. A three-hour Motown show with co-host Mary Wilson, one of the founding members of the Supremes, will go on-air Memorial Day weekend.

Despite the re-launching of his career in the music business, Paton currently has no plans to leave his Columbia home.

“Columbia is where my record collection is. It’s too big and heavy to move.”

Writing Assignment 4 - Post 5

A one alarm fire early Monday morning at a high rise apartment left one woman injured and a baby with smoke inhalation, authorities said.

Arnetta Sands, 36, resident of North Aisquith Street, was spraying insecticide from an aerosol can in her kitchen when the fumes were ignited by the stove shortly after midnight. A wall shared with the adjacent apartment caught fire, causing it to collapse.

The shared wall fell on the crib of 10-day-old Andre Henderson, who was treated and released at Johns Hopkins Hospital for possible smoke inhalation. Firefighters removed a large portion of the wall off of the crib at the scene.

Sands was treated for first degree burns at Church Home and Hospital. Renee Henderson, 23, the newborn's mother, was uninjured. No one was severely injured or killed.

Writing Assignment 3 - Post 4

Three suspects, one armed, robbed a Greenmount Avenue bank early Monday afternoon.

The men ordered four employees and two customers in the Provident Bank to lie on the floor before ransacking several tellers' cages. The bank manager was held at gunpoint with a .22 caliber sawed-off rifle.

The suspects fled from the scene with an undisclosed amount of money shoved in two white pillowcases. The men were last spotted running east along an alley on the north side of the bank.

There were no injuries or arrests at the scene.

Writing Assignment 2 - Post 3

For a local mother of three, creative writing is not just a way to spend her free time-- it's her job.

"I've been writing for about 20 years," Suzanne Supplee, 45, a Baltimore-based young adult author says. "As a hobby at first, then seriously for the last 10 years."

Despite having written for so long, Supplee's first novel was published in 2008. She describes the excitement she felt when she first learned she would be published, saying she jumped around "like an eighth grader." Getting to the publication stage was a long, grueling process, Supplee says, but a rewarding one as well. It took several revisions and two years after she received the contract for her book, Artichoke's Heart, to be published.

Still, Supplee remains inspired to write. "I don't believe in writer's block," Supplee says. "I don't even like to say those words."

Many authors, both local and non-local, share Supplee's disciplined attitude.

Writing Assignment 1 - Post 2

The number of widows in Iraq has steadily risen over the past several years since the war first began. A trailer park in Baghdad named Al Waffa, otherwise known as the "Park of the Grateful," houses approximately 750 people. A wonderful (and surely appreciated) effort, but there are an estimated 740,000 widows in Iraq.

Approximately one out of 11 Iraqi women ages 15-80 are widows. Many of these women have had to resort to begging, prostitution, or even temporary marriages in order to survive. These marriages, sanctioned by Shiite tradition to get aid from the government, are arranged between widows and men with power and ties to the government. I'm wondering how effective, in the long run, the government is expecting these methods to be.

As the war continues, the Iraqi government says the needs for help exceeds their capabilities. Only about one in six of the widows in Iraq are currently receiving state aid. Many widows say the only way to get any kind of help is if they have political ties or agree to the previously mentioned marriages.

Samira al-Mosawi, chairwoman of the women's affair committee in Parliament calls this system "blackmail," saying widows don't need the kind of support that comes with the marriages, but a "permanent solution." Right on.

Mazin al-Shihan, director of the Baghdad Displacement Committee, actually laughed at the suggestion that money go directly to the widows. Al-Shihan said, "If we give the money to the widows, they will spend it unwisely because they are uneducated and don't know about budgeting." Then, I don't know, maybe Iraq should wise up and fix this problem at its root? Educate its women? Don't make it so that they are completely dependent on their (now dead) husbands? True, this doesn't solve the problem now. But I think it's safe to say that temporary marriages that benefit only those women with ties, and that sometimes literally only last a few hours, can only be minimally effective. Besides, nothing else is solving the problem now, either. They might as well put a plan into effect now that will ease the problems later.

Writing Assignment 1 - Post 1

The number of widows in Iraq has steadily risen over the past several years since the war first began. A trailer park in Baghdad named Al Waffa, otherwise known as the "Park of the Grateful," houses approximately 750 people. There are an estimated 740,000 widows in Iraq.

Approximately one out of 11 Iraqi women ages 15-80 are widows. Many of these women have had to resort to begging, prostitution, or even temporary marriages. These marriages, sanctioned by Shiite tradition to get aid from the government, are arranged between widows and men with power and ties to the government.

As the war continues, the Iraqi government says the needs for help exceeds their capabilities. Only about one in six of the widows in Iraq are currently receiving state aid. Many widows say the only way to get any kind of help is if they have political ties or agree to the previously mentioned marriages.

Samira al-Mosawi, chairwoman of the women's affair committee in Parliament calls this system "blackmail," saying widows don't need the kind of support that comes with the marriages, but a "permanent solution."

Mazin al-Shihan, director of the Baghdad Displacement Committee, laughed at the suggestion that money go directly to the widows. "If we give the money to the widows, they will spend it unwisely because they are uneducated and don't know about budgeting."