REICH COMMUNICATIONS

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                                                                   San Juan del Cabo, Baja California

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What We Do: The National Road Safety Foundation

 

I love working with The National Road Safety Foundation. 

The work we do for them is not about selling anything. It's about preventing tragedy and saving lives.   

We do it through publicizing safety information, such as the dangers of distracted driving during this month - distracted driving awareness month.  That includes arranging media interviews to call attention to the issue. 

We also look to engage young people by inviting them to create public service messages through our national Drive2Life Contest and regional Drive Safe contests we do in conjunction with major auto shows.  We partner with safety groups like Lifesavers, The Governors Highway Safety Association, the National Association of School Resource Officers and the American Driver Training & Safety Education Association, which represents driver education instructors.  We also work closely with student advocacy groups like SADD and others.

I write a quarterly newsletter that goes out to the traffic safety community and others.  Here's a link to the latest issue, just out.

What We Do: Distracted Driving Awareness Month

April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month.

For client The National Road Safety Foundation, we are getting the word out about distraction, which is a factor in about 25 percent of all traffic crashes, claiming more than 3,100 lives every year.

This is a story from today's Health News Digest. 

We're also arranging Zoom interviews for the client with some TV stations around the U.S.

8:46

 

 

Standing with the Family of George Floyd

Zissen Pesach

Happy Passover

National Road Safety Foundation video debuts at SXSW

 

I have two connections to a new short film that had its debut a few days ago at the prestigious South by Southwest Film Festival.

"A Puff Before Dying" dramatizes the dangers of driving while high on weed.  It was written and directed by Michael Reich (my son) and Mike Pinkney for my client The National Road Safety Foundation.  

 

Here's a link to a review of the short by The Movie Buff.  A key quote:  "Directed and written by Michael Reich and Mike Pinkney, the satire shines through as a warning not to drive while high. It’s a responsible fable, for sure, that is so good I hope it gets shown in schools. I know if I were in high school and saw this I would just love it."

The video will be up in the next day or so on the National Road Safety Foundation's site at https://www.nrsf.org/resources/impaired-driving

 

 

 

Finally....

What We Do: Daylight Savings and Drowsy Driving

 

The change to daylight savings time provides a timely hook for the traffic safety community to talk to the public about the risks of drowsy driving.  It's a real problem -- more than a third of drivers admit to dozing while driving.  Drowsy driving, in fact, is a factor in 300,000 crashes that every year result in more than 5,000 deaths, 109,000 injuries and more than $30 billion in losses.

As usual at this time, we put out a news release from The National Road Safety Foundation that explains how to recognize of you're driving drowsy and what to do to be safe.  

The story was picked up by nationally syndicated Health News Digest.  And we also arranged for a few remote interviews with TV stations around the U.S.

Here's a link to one we arranged with Jacksonville's NBC outlet WJXT.   The 4-1/2 minute live interview, with NRSF spokesperson Michelle Anderson, aired live on the morning news Friday.  Michelle also did a taped segment with a station in Nashville, and she's got another coming up this week in Columbus, Ohio.

 

 

Battle of the Best Bagel Continues

The battle of which city has the best bagels continues, escalated a bit by a story in today's New York Times.

Bagel aficionados everywhere have traditionally pointed to New York bagels as the absolute best, although Montreal often takes a close second.  Of course, not all New York bagels are on an equal taste footing.  Bagels from corner delis,bodegas and coffee carts usually don't make the grade.  They're often just white bread rolled into a circle with a hole in it.  H&H Bagels were long touted as the gold standard, although I like Ess-a-Bagel.

And childhood memories of fresh bagels out of the oven from a big bagel factory under the El on Jerome Avenue in The Bronx are hard to top.

The Times story tries to debunk the long-held idea that it's the New York water that makes the New York bagel impossible to duplicate elsewhere.  The article claims it's not the water -- it's the baker.  They say a couple of Angelenos have figured it out and have bagels that not only rival, but actually top the famed New York bagel.   

I'll be out in L.A. next month and, time-permitting, I'll try to get a taste for myself.  

The owners of Courage Bagels in L.A., touted as one of the best.  Photo: The New York Times.

Fandango at the Wall – An Eye-Opening Journey

 

I came across a film a few months ago called Fandango at the Wall.  It caught my eye because I saw that it featured Latin jazz artist Arturo O’Farrill, who I’ve seen in concert.

The film, which can be seen on-demand on HBO, is an exploration and a tribute to a music genre known as jarocho  -- a 300-year old style of folk music from the Veracruz region of Mexico.  It’s a beautiful form of storytelling that includes improvisation – a key aspect of my favorite music, jazz.

Director Varda Bar-Kar follows O’Farrill as he tours Veracruz with Jorge Francisco Castillo, the organizer of the annual Fandango Fronterizo Festival, which unites people on both sides of the Tijuana-San Diego border through music.  We get to know some of the jarocho masters, humble and warm musicians who blend storytelling and poetry with music that derives from indigenous, Spanish, and African traditions.

I was captivated by the music – which is simultaneously simple and complex.      

The film finishes with footage from the annual Fandango at the Wall, with musicians and audience literally on both sides of the border, separated by fencing that could not block out the music and its soul.  It was especially appropriate, I think, when it was filmed during the hate-filled anti-immigrant rhetoric of the previous U.S. administration.  But although the former president is gone from office,  much of the hate and prejudice unfortunately still exists.  This film helps form a hopeful bridge.

                  Photo at right:  Arturo O'Farrill at The Wall

I connected with the director via email several weeks ago.  I asked her why she made this film.

“When the former president started vilifying Mexicans and treating refugees like criminals, separating families and locking children in cages, I recognized his rhetoric as a false narrative fostering hatred and division--a narrative that could only lead to pain and suffering. I had to do something about it,” she wrote.  “I decided I would make a film with    musical elements.  It was right at this time that a friend of mine, a fellow filmmaker, sent out the word that she had a friend who was looking for someone to film a music festival at the United States-Mexican border.  I responded immediately and was soon on the phone with Producer Kabir Sehgal who has partnered with Producer Doug Davis.  As he described his and Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra Founder Arturo O'Farrill's vision of recording an album at Fandango Fronterizo, we started to riff about what a film about this project could be.  Our visions were fully aligned and within three weeks, I was in Tijuana meeting Jorge Francisco Castillo, founder of Fandango Fronterizo and starting to film.” 

I also asked her what thoughts she hopes to leave with viewers?   

“Appreciation for Mexico's deep and beautiful son jarocho culture and people. A desire to learn more about Mexico and go there one day.  An understanding that by getting to know people who are different from us, who come from different cultures, we can enrich our lives and transcend divisions. The insight that building walls does not serve the greater good and that by breaking down walls and building bridges we come to recognize our common humanity.  The belief that it is possible to achieve harmony between nations and a more prosperous, harmonious and peaceful world.”

I encourage you to watch this film.  I think it helps accomplish the goals Varda Bar-Kar set out to achieve.  Thanks, Varda, for taking us on this wonderful musical and cultural journey.

 

Here's a link to the trailer...30 seconds