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The loudest voice taking on vulnerable Senate Democrats right now is not the Republican party, but Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group founded by the billionaire Koch brothers.

It's been decades since the advertising industry recognized the need to woo Hispanic consumers. Big companies saw the market potential and sank millions of dollars into ads. The most basic dos and don'ts of marketing to Latinos in the United States have been understood for years.

So when officials started thinking about how to persuade the state's Spanish speakers, who make up nearly 30 percent of California's population, to enroll in health care plans, they should have had a blueprint of what to do. Instead, they made a series of mistakes.

For example, one thing health policy experts love about Obamacare is that no one can be denied coverage for a pre-existing health condition. Covered California, the state's health insurance exchange, made this a selling point in almost all its Spanish ads. But that doesn't resonate with Latinos. Many have never had insurance, never considered it.

Bessie Ramirez is with the Los Angeles-based Santiago Solutions Group, a Hispanic market research firm that has consulted for large health-care clients like HealthNet, Cigna and Blue Cross.

She says another problem is that all the early TV ads end with a web address for Covered California in Spanish — no phone number or physical address. She says that completely misses how Hispanics like to shop, especially for a complicated product like health insurance.

Across the country, communities stranded in food and retail deserts are asking how they can enjoy the bounty afforded to other urban centers. One Washington, D.C., community thinks it might have an answer.

Just a 10-minute drive south of the U.S. Capitol, across the Anacostia River, sits Congress Heights. The Southeast D.C. neighborhood is less than 2 miles long and home to more than 8,000 people, many in single-family houses. But if you're looking for a sit-down meal, options are scarce.

Up Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, just outside the neighborhood's boundaries, Georgena's has long been the block's only bar and restaurant. It's a former strip club that now serves a gracious soul food menu. Beyond that, your options are the liquor mart, IHOP and a couple of carryout places.

It's a largely low-income area, but it's also a stable one, with century-old churches, a nearby military base and pockets of a professional class.

For potential businesses, "low income" can seem an insurmountable hurdle.

Still, the city's planning office thinks this busy corridor has potential. It's been working with an urban planning firm to help communities take concrete and data-based steps to attract business.

The Safety Feedback Loop

The potential here is obvious for some Congress Heights residents, including business owner Donny Seto, who's lived in the area for six years. He opened his own cellphone store about a year ago.

"With this particular store, I have a larger variety of merchandise, including D.C. Lottery scratch tickets, hats, gloves," he says. "As long as you cater to the needs of the customers and you listen to what the customers say and what they want and you bring it into the stores, yes, they will buy it. And they will patronize your business."

“ "Everyone has bulletproof glass. Why? What are you so afraid of?"

You can listen to plenty of actors performing the works of William Shakespeare. But imagine if you could hear the voice of the young playwright himself — or the older one, for that matter — reading his own writing aloud.

Well, we can't take you back that far. But in the early 1960s, when recorded readings by authors were rare, a young couple in Boston decided to be literary audio pioneers.

The idea was hatched in 1962. Lynne Sharon Schwartz, who is a respected novelist today, was working on a magazine at the time. Her husband, Harry, was at the Boston Redevelopment Authority. They were avid readers, Lynne Sharon Schwartz says: "And we were just hanging out with friends and talking about the major or the young, up-and-coming writers of their day. We were aware of Caedmon, which had brought out the Dylan Thomas record of A Child's Christmas In Wales. And we thought, we could do something like that."

A few of the 'big guys,' like T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden, had recordings out on LPs. But there weren't recordings of up-and-comers, like Philip Roth and John Updike, or of other, more established authors: Bernard Malamud, William Styron, James Baldwin. The Schwartz's idea was to record such authors, put them on vinyl LPs, eight minutes per side, sell the records for $1.95 apiece, and pay each writer $150 — pretty good money in the early '60s.

The Schwartzs heard that Baldwin was coming to speak at MIT.

"So we all went to his talk and afterwards we approached him and said, 'Would you like to do a reading?' " Harry Schwartz says. "And he said, 'Eh, sounds like a good idea.' "

Baldwin read from Giovanni's Room, his second novel, published in 1956. It's an early book about homosexuality, then a forbidden subject.

Lynne Sharon Schwartz directed the reading. Then, with razor blades and sticky tape, they edited the various takes down into 16 good minutes. James Baldwin helped the Schwartzs set their recording dream in motion.

"He said, 'Oh, I'll call my friend Bill Styron, maybe he wants to do this,' " Harry Schwartz says. "And then Styron led us to James Jones, and they led us to Philip Roth."

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