Dear nancy,
Good Morning.
·
The Randi Rhodes
suspension continues and we have
included a link to a new fact sheet from
the affiliate station, where the event
occurred. They also have provided full
video of the entire event.
·
Please consider a donation
to the UN World Food Program - you will
find a collection of articles about the
growing food crisis, one is from these
mornings New York Times.
·
Also in the news - is the
upcoming Olympics in China, you will
find an excellent article on Tibet and
this morning we hear that protests were
erupting across the torch traveled
throughout France.
·
We remember the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King on the 40th
anniversary of his death.
We have some open weeks that need
sponsors in April.
Thanks, Nancy Cunningham
dallasairamerica@gmail.com
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Live Green Expo -Plano |
April 12, 2008
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Plano Centre
The Live Green Expo is a fun, family
event that will help North Texans make
informed decisions and take action to
lead more healthy lives with less impact
on our environment. Free to the public,
the Expo will feature exhibitors
offering a wide selection of products,
services and information. In addition,
the Expo will include dozens of
presentations on a variety of topics,
music, art, food, demonstrations and
activities for youth and children.
The Live Green Expo strives to create a
community in which:
We protect our environment by conserving
resources, minimizing waste and reducing
toxic products and materials. We have
healthy ecosystems and sustainable
neighborhoods.
We protect our environment by conserving
resources, minimizing waste and reducing
toxic products and materials. Find out
more
here
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Progressive talkers defend Randi |
As most of you know Randi Rhodes was
suspended by Air America for
comments she made during an appearance
in San Francisco
Many of her fellow "talkers" came to her
defense.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Bill Press ( heard mornings on many
AAR stations )
Here we go again. Another radio talk
show host in hot water. This time, my
friend Randi Rhodes.
First of all, let me say, I'm a big fan.
I listen to Randi whenever I can. She's
a great broadcaster, and a passionate
liberal. Day in and day out, nobody's a
more effective critic of George W. Bush.
And nobody's a more convincing supporter
of Barack Obama.
But Randi went over the line in calling
Hillary Clinton "a big f***ing whore."
Sure, she's got a right to say it. But
it was not right to say it, especially
not right for someone who represents Air
America and all of progressive radio.
Unfortunately, as I've learned on my
radio show, too many Obama supporters
don't understand that in order to love
Barack Obama, you don't have to hate
Hillary Clinton. They don't think it's
good enough to build up Barack Obama.
They think it's necessary to destroy
Hillary Clinton, too.
And that's just wrong. Being
passionately and enthusiastically for
Barack Obama doesn't mean you have to
say ugly things against Hillary Clinton.
In fact, it's counter-intuitive. In
politics, it's much more effective to be
FOR somebody, than to be against
somebody.
I hope Randi Rhodes is back on the air
soon. But I also hope the personal
attacks on Hillary Clinton cease.
Here's my suggestion to both Obama
supporters and Clinton supporters: We're
going to have to be together in
November. So save your negative energy
to use against John McCain.
+++ Green 960 has put up
the entire event video and a fact sheet
HERE |
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China's Brutal Olympic Echo |
By
Dave Zirin
China's brutal crackdown against Tibetan
protesters ahead of the Summer Olympics
in Beijing carries with it a terrible
echo from the past. Scores of people,
including school children are reported
dead and more repression has been
promised. The People's Daily, the
official newspaper of the ruling
Communist Party of China (CPC), said
"[We must] resolutely crush the 'Tibet
independence' forces' conspiracy and
sabotaging activities."
Even after decades of occupation, the
ruthlessness of the crackdown has
shocked much of the world. It happens
the week after the US State Department
removed China from its list of the
world's worst human rights offenders.
Yet the concern expressed by world
leaders has seemed less for the people
of Tibet than the fate of the Summer
Games, with Olympic cash deemed more
precious than Tibetan blood. The
Olympics were supposed to be China's
multibillion-dollar, super sweet
sixteen. Britain's Minister for Africa,
Asia and the United Nations, Mark
Malloch-Brown told the BBC, "This is
China's coming-out party, and they
should take great care to do nothing
that will wreck that."
Other countries hankering after a piece
of China's thriving economy have rushed
to put daylight between the crackdown in
Tibet and the Olympics. No surprise, the
Bush's White House, underwriting their
war in Iraq on loans from Beijing,
headed off any talk that President Bush
would cancel his appearance at the
Olympic Games when spokeswoman Dana
Perino said Bush believed that the
Olympics "should be about the athletes
and not necessarily about politics."
Earlier, the European Union said a
"boycott would not be the appropriate
way to address the work for respect of
human rights, which means the ethnic and
religious rights of the Tibetans."
Read on
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Yates Communications
to launch America's first true "Green" radio
station |
"Eco-Friendly" News and Talk Programming
to Include Veteran Texas Radio Talent
Kevin McCarthy
CORSICANA, Texas-March 28, 2008-Yates
Communications received approval this
week from the Federal Communications
Commission to purchase radio station
KAND-AM, Corsicana, Texas, and announced
that they will use the platform to
create the nation's first true "green"
radio station.
The owner will operate the radio station
both locally over the airwaves and
globally as an internet broadcast
operation. Yates Communications is
scheduled to close on KAND-AM in mid-May
and plans to launch the new format on
June 1st.
"We've produced weekend syndicated
earth-friendly radio content for some
time. The programming ran locally in
Texas' largest cities, including
Dallas/Fort Worth and
Houston/Galveston," says Yates
Communications president, David Yates.
"We wanted to expand our reach, but were
not able find a station interested in
weekday programming that encourages
listeners to live a more healthy life,
save money, and save the planet. We
decided to do it on our own" he
continued.
Read on
/
Webpage
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A 'perfect storm' of
hunger
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Los Angeles Times -
By Edmund Sanders, Tracy Wilkinson -
Apr 1, 2008 (News Report)
The U.N.'s World Food Program is
struggling as costs of food and fuel
skyrocket while the numbers of
people needing help surge across the
globe. Millions are in danger.
Meteoric food and fuel prices, a
slumping dollar, the demand for
biofuels and a string of poor
harvests have combined to abruptly
multiply WFP's operating costs, even
as needs increase. In other words,
if the number of needy people stayed
constant, it would take much more
money to feed them. But the number
of people needing help is surging
dramatically. It is what WFP
Executive Director Josette Sheeran
calls "a perfect storm" hitting the
world's
Read on
+Breaking from these morning's
New York Times
Grains Gone Wild
By
PAUL
KRUGMAN
These days you hear a lot about the
world financial crisis. But there's
another world crisis under way - and
it's hurting a lot more people.
Skip to
next paragraph
I'm talking about the food crisis.
Over the past few years the prices
of wheat, corn, rice and other basic
foodstuffs have doubled or tripled,
with much of the increase taking
place just in the last few months.
High food prices dismay even
relatively well-off Americans - but
they're truly devastating in poor
countries, where food often accounts
for more than half a family's
spending.
Read on
World Food Program Issues 'Emergency
Appeal' For Funds
by Tracy Wilkinson
ROME - With food and fuel prices
soaring, the United Nations agency
charged with feeding the world's hungry
has launched an "extraordinary emergency
appeal" to cover costs and avoid having
to cut aid, a senior official said
Monday.
The World Food Program called on donor
nations for urgent help in closing a
funding gap of more than $500 million by
May 1. If money doesn't arrive by then,
Executive Director Josette Sheeran said
in a letter to donors, the WFP may be
forced to cut food rations "for those
who rely on the world to stand by them
during times of abject need."
The poorest face hunger as people around
the world are being "priced out of the
food market," Sheeran told reporters
Monday in a conference call.
Citing food prices that had ballooned
55% since June, the WFP disclosed a
$500-million shortfall Feb. 25, and the
gap has continued to grow ever since,
Sheeran said.
WFP officials declined to put a figure
on the current shortfall, saying it was
a moving target, but experts estimated
it in the range of $650 million.
Read on
Donate today to
World Food Program
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Happy 4th Birthday Air America |
 This
past week marked the 4th anniversary of
the first sign on of Air America radio
network.
Al Franken signed on at 12:00 noon
eastern time on March 31st 2004 to the
new progressive radio network Air
America Radio -
He did it by in part by saying--
"Broadcasting from an underground bunker
3500 feet below Dick Cheney's bunker AIR
AMERICA radio is ON THE AIR- Today is
both and ending and a beginning -an end
of right wing dominance of talk radio
and a beginning of a battle for truth, a
battle for justice and a battle indeed
for America itself- not to be too
grandiose about it .
Folks you and I know that the radical
right wing of the republican party has
taken over not just the white house, the
congress and even the courts but perhaps
most insidiously the airwaves and we
know they are using it to lie."
Listen to the entire recording of the
first broadcast sign-on
HERE (
be patient )
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10 things you should know about John McCain
(but probably don't)
|
1. John McCain voted against
establishing a national holiday in honor
of
Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his
position has "evolved," yet he's
continued to oppose key civil rights
laws.1
2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain
is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq,
Russia and China. Conservative columnist
Pat Buchanan says McCain "will
make
Cheney look like Gandhi."2
3. His reputation is built on his
opposition to torture, but McCain voted
against a bill to ban waterboarding, and
then applauded President Bush for
vetoing that ban.3
4. McCain opposes a woman's right to
choose. He said, "I do not support Roe
versus Wade. It should be overturned."4
5. The Children's Defense Fund rated
McCain as the worst senator in
Congress
for children. He voted against the
children's health care bill last year,
then defended Bush's veto of the bill.5
6. He's one of the richest people in a
Senate filled with millionaires. The
Associated Press reports he and his wife
own at least eight homes! Yet
McCain says the solution to the housing
crisis is for people facing
foreclosure to get a "second job" and
skip their vacations.6
7. Many of McCain's fellow Republican
senators say he's too reckless to be
commander in chief. One Republican
senator said: "The thought of his being
president sends a cold chill down my
spine. He's erratic. He's
hotheaded. He
loses his temper and he worries me."7
8. McCain talks a lot about taking on
special interests, but his campaign
manager and top advisers are actually
lobbyists. The government watchdog
group Public Citizen says McCain has 59
lobbyists raising money for his
campaign, more than any of the other
presidential candidates.8
9. McCain has sought closer ties to the
extreme religious right in recent
years. The pastor McCain calls his
"spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes
America's founding mission is to destroy
Islam, which he calls a "false
religion." McCain sought the political
support of right-wing preacher John
Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina
was God's punishment for gay rights
and called the Catholic Church "the
Antichrist" and a "false cult."9
10. He positions himself as
pro-environment, but he scored a 0-yes,
zero-from the League of Conservation
Voters last year.10
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40 Years later, we remember Martin Luther
King |
Martin Luther King's Life and
Legacy 40 Years After His Assassination
Democracy Now
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was
assassinated forty years ago today.
He was in Memphis, Tennessee to march
with sanitation workers demanding a
better wage. We spend the hour on his
life and legacy. We hear from the Rev.
Jesse Jackson, who was with King at the
Lorraine Motel, where he was killed;
Harry Belafonte, who was with Coretta
Scott King at the King home in Atlanta
on April 4, 1968; Dr. Vincent Harding, a
close friend and colleague of Kingıs who
wrote Kingıs major antiwar speech,
³Beyond Vietnam;² Taylor Rogers, a
former sanitation worker in Memphis;
Charles Cabbage, a longtime activist and
community organizer in Memphis who met
with King hours before he died; Jerry
Williams, one of the only African
American detectives in the Memphis
Police Department in 1968; Judge DıArmy
Bailey, a circuit court judge in Memphis
and co-founder of the National Civil
Rights Museum; and we hear King in his
own words, giving his major speech
against the war in Vietnam and his last
public address given the night before
his death in Memphis, Tennessee.
Listen/Watch/Read
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
King's Voice Still Silenced
By Jeff Cohen
OurFuture.Org - If King had survived to
hear the war drums beating for the
invasion and occupation of
Iraq-amplified by TV networks, The New
York Times front page and The Washington
Post editorial page-there's little doubt
where he'd stand. Or how loudly he'd be
speaking out.
And there's little doubt how big media
would have reacted. King would have been
Dixie Chicked. . .or Rev. Wrighted. He'd
have been marginalized faster than you
can say Noam Chomsky.
Read on
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 4, 1968
Joseph A. Palermo
"Let us stand with a greater
determination. And let us move on in
these powerful days, these days of
challenge to make America what it ought
to be. We have an opportunity to make
America a better nation. And I want to
thank God, once more, for allowing me to
be here with you." Martin Luther King,
Jr., Mason Temple Memphis, Tennessee,
April 3, 1968
In late March and early April 1968,
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. devoted
his organizing talents to a drive to
bring the nation's poor people to
Washington, D.C. for a series of massive
nonviolent demonstrations. King's "Poor
People's Campaign" would attempt to
unify African Americans, Latinos, and
lower-income whites in pressing the
Johnson Administration and Congress in
an election year to enact a $30
billion-a-year domestic "Marshall Plan"
to alleviate poverty. King hoped his
latest March on Washington would sustain
the momentum of the maturing civil
rights movement by broadening its goals
to include class grievances. He was also
searching for a nonviolent alternative
to the wave of riots that had ripped
through black neighborhoods in the
preceding years. Although King
understood the underlying social causes
for the uprisings, he believed they were
"misguided" as forms of political
protest.
Read on
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
History channel King Special
Forty years after the assassination of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at age 39, a
new History special, KING, with newsman
Tom Brokaw, takes viewers on an
unprecedented journey back in time and
forward to today. KING goes beyond the
legend to delve into the man, the
questions, the myths and, most
importantly, the relevance of Dr. King's
message in today's
 world.
http://www.history.com/minisites/king
Book suggestion
:
April 4, 1968:
Martin Luther King Jr.'s Death and
How It Changed America
by Michael
Eric Dyson
On April 4, 1968, at 6:01 PM, while
he was standing on a balcony at a
Memphis hotel, Martin Luther King,
Jr. was shot and fatally wounded.
Only hours earlier King--the prophet
for racial and economic justice in
America--ended his final speech with
the words, "I may not get there with
you, but I want you to know tonight,
that we as a people will get to the
Promised Land."
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NPR: National Pentagon
Radio? |
 |
|
By Norman Solomon, AlterNet
While the Iraqi government continued its
large-scale military assault in Basra, the
NPR reporter's voice from Iraq was
unequivocal on the morning of March 27:
"There is no doubt that this operation
needed to happen."
Such flat-out statements, uttered with
journalistic tones and without attribution,
are routine for the U.S. media
establishment. In the War Made Easy
documentary film, I put it this way: "If
you're pro-war, you're objective. But if
you're anti-war, you're biased. And often, a
news anchor will get no flak at all for
making statements that are supportive of a
war and wouldn't dream of making a statement
that's against a war."
So it goes at NPR News, where -- on Morning
Edition as well as the evening program All
Things Considered -- the sense and
sensibilities tend to be neatly aligned with
the outlooks of official Washington. The
critical aspects of reporting largely amount
to complaints about policy shortcomings that
are tactical; the underlying and shared
assumptions are imperial. Washington's
prerogatives are evident when the media
window on the world is tinted
red-white-and-blue.
Earlier in the week -- a few days into the
sixth year of the Iraq war -- All Things
Considered aired a discussion with a
familiar guest.
"To talk about the state of the war and how
the U.S. military changes tactics to deal
with it," said longtime anchor Robert
Siegel, "we turn now to retired Gen. Robert
Scales, who's talked with us many times over
the course of the conflict."
Read on
|
Listen
to the Errington Thompson Show
Saturdays - 9am EST
Air America - Asheville, NC
|
Get your
nightly
MALLOY! |
|
"Rational Radio"
KMNY (1360AM)
Mike Malloy
Malloy's
syndicated
NovaM show airs
weeknights from 8-11 PM.
Also don't miss
Jack Bishop
7-8 PM
and
Empowerment
Radio
11 PM-12 AM
5 hours
of progressive radio every weeknight on
Rational Radio 1360 AM
Also steaming here
rationalradio.org
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State Democratic
Convention - Delegates and Alternates -
Housing |
 |
If
you were elected as a delegate or an
alternate to the State Convention in
June, please visit:
http://txdemocrats.org/housing to
make your housing reservations
immediately. If you put it off there may
not be any rooms left at our
special block rate.
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MLK - Video |
 |
In a
remarkable and prescient 1967 speech,
delivered at a Nation conference
in Los Angeles, Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. painted a picture of a
society that looks remarkably like the
one we live in today. It was at this
gathering, as Katrina vanden Heuvel
writes, before an overflow crowd at the
Beverly Hills Hilton on February 25,
that Dr. King first came out,
courageously, eloquently and
unequivocally, against the Vietnam war.
Two months later, on April 4th, King
delivered hisfamous
antiwar sermonat
Riverside Church in New York City.
MSNBC has streaming all five appearances
from Dr KingHERE
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Shock Jocks |
 |
Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radioprofiles
national radio's most offensive shock
jocks and tells why they should be
stopped. The highly politicized and
often factually challenged world of talk
radio dominates a sizable portion of
America's airwaves. But the dirty secret
of talk radio's success is the use of
hate speech masquerading as free speech.
Rory O'Connor, veteran media critic and
Emmy winner, tackles the "hate talk
establishment" and shows how huge media
conglomerates not only make hate talk
possible but profitable. He profiles the
10 worst offenders, including Don Imus,
Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, and
shows how they dangerously blur the
distinctions between news, opinion and
entertainment. Shock Jocks offers a
clear analysis of how hateful sound
bites hinder democratic dialogue, affect
legislation on important issues, and
even exacerbate racist, sexist,
homophobic and xenophobic attitudes.
O'Connor also chronicles the rising tide
of progressive activists challenging
right-wing air dominance.
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Voter Fraud |
 |
Steven Rosenfeld reports for AlterNet,
"Willie Ray was a 69-year-old
African-American City Council member
from Texarkana who wanted her
granddaughter, Jamillah Johnson, to
learn about civil rights and voting
during the 2004 presidential election.
The pair helped homebound seniors
citizens get absentee ballots, and once
they were filled out, put them in the
mail."
Read on
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Buying of the President 2008 |
| |
Center
for Public Integrity The Buying of
the President 2008
"This
website is a
companion to
The Buying of the President 2008.
Like the book, this site explores
the roles that money and special
interests play in presidential
politics. But unlike the book, which
will provide a behind-the-scenes
examination of how big money
influences the presidential election
process, this site is a work in
progress - a continually updated
window into the 2008 race that's
also richly supplemented with
details, insights, and revelations
from previous campaigns and, where
feasible, those who engineered them.
In addition to details about the
2008 candidates and their political
benefactors, for example, the site
includes everything from a history
of money in presidential politics to
in-depth, on-the-record interviews
with current and former presidential
candidates, consultants and
strategists, donors and fundraisers,
and academics who have studied the
intricacies of the political system.
What's more, the site offers the
Center for Public Integrity's
complete body of work on
presidential elections, most notably
cover-to-cover, full-text-searchable
copies of the three previous books
in the Buying of the President
series."
·
The Buying of the President,
1996-2004
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