Thursday...broadcasting live from UN Radio Day with Talk Radio News in New York, NY

Thom speaks with news makers and shakers live from the United Nations
Hour one - Eamonn Fingleton www.unstainable.org Topic: 20th anniversary of Tiananman Square massacre
Guest: Kiyotaka Akasaka Under Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information Topic: Economic outlook & Climate
Hour Two - Ambassador Carsten Staur, Denmark Topic: The Success of Democratic Socialism
Guest: Dr. Margaret Flowers www.md.pnhp.org Topic: She was arrested on Capitol Hill at the Sen. Baucus roundtable.
Comments
Thom, in case you missed the news yesterday:
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'Gay penguins' rear adopted chick.- 6/3/09
The zoo, in Bremerhaven, northern Germany, says the adult males - Z and Vielpunkt - were given an egg which was rejected by its biological parents.
It says the couple are now happily rearing the chick, said to have reached four weeks old.
...
Thom,
I posted this at the end of your show on Monday and in case u missed it I'm posting info again.
84 year old Steven was your last caller Monday. He said he and his wife were expecting checks for their one-time tax cut by the end of May, but they haven’t seen their checks yet.
Due to their age, they must be getting Social Security. If their Social Security payments are being electronically deposited into their bank accounts, their one-time payment would be made the same way. So they should check their bank accounts to see if the payments are there.
It shouldn't even take half-a-minute pass that info along on your show.
Mark,
Maybe this is not possible with your schedule, but have you ever thought about choosing a person in an elected position whom you admire and volunteering a few hours a week in his/her office? It might allow you the chance to make some suggestions or offer some insight from your experience, as well as seeing how people and laws can be be positively influenced. If you like it well enough, or see enough promise in it, you might even run for office yourself.
hey Thom,
That 45 year old guy who remembers so well how bad Jimmy Carter was must have been 12-16 years old during the Carter presidency. Hmmm...
Mark,
In reference to the treatment of Latinos, you wrote:
"while the left–when it is not silent before these attacks–abuses them in their populist propaganda"
The left is very large and varied and you shouldn't judge it merely by what you hear on the commercial "progressive" radio shows. Even on those shows, there's a diversity of views on many issues including immigration.,
This post could have been shorter, but I included more than the basic information because I wanted to give you (and others) an idea of another kind of "left" and another kind of "progressive" radio.
I don't know if you are familiar with Democracy Now! hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. If you aren't, you might want to check it out. I think you'll find it more in tune with your views than what you get on most of the commercial "progressive" radio shows.
You can find out more about it, and even listen to or watch it at their website www.democracynow.org It's a daily show. The website also lists radio and/or TV stations that air it in your state.
Another great show is Grit TV hosted by Laura Flanders. It can be seen on Free Speech TV which, as far as I know is only on Dish TV. But Grit TV has a website where you can watch all their shows.
Both Democracy Now and Grit TV recently had long interviews with Eduardo Galeano, the author of "The Open Veins of Latin America", the book that Hugo Chavez recently gave to Barack Obama.
I have a suspicion that this blog page disappears posts that have more than one link in them, so I'll just name a few more resources you may be interested in. Then you can Google them.
If you happen to have Dish TV, Democracy Now is followed by Grit TV which is hosted by Laura Flanders. The show has a diversity of topics and guests that might appeal to you.
You also should check out the Pacifica Radio Network. It's a group of around 5 listener supported stations that is way to the left of most commercial "progressive" shows.
The hosts and shows range from left of center to beyond the orbit of the dwarf planet Pluto. You have to find which shows and hosts appeal to you. The political shows range from giving a left perspective on politics to the promotion of almost every conspiracy theory you can or can't imagine.
The two Pacifica stations I'm most familiar with are KPFK in Los Angeles and KPFK in Berkeley. You can Google them or just put .org behind their call letters. I believe you can stream both stations online and both stations archive their programs. I don't know how it is on KPFA, but shows on KPFK are usually in the archives around 1 hour after the shows air. (They don't have to edit out 20+ minutes an hour of commercials.)
Most of the shows on these stations are hosted by non-paid volunteers who are passionate about the subjects they cover, but the quality of reporting can be quite good. Shows that air more than once a week have paid hosts, though the pay isn't comparable to what they'd get on commercial radio. They also have some excellent musical programing for a variety of tastes.
Both of these stations have shows hosted by and geared towards the concerns of various "minorities" including Latinos, African-Americans, Native Americans, etc. Even some of their general political shows are hosted by "minorities", and white hosts also advocate for the interests of "minorities". They also address issues of the poor rather than just fetishization of the middle class that's the staple of commercial "progressive" radio.
Let me give you an example of the diversity on KPFK. Monday through Friday the in the 7-8 AM slot the shows change from day to day. The host of the Monday show is a long time well connected political older Jewish woman who is a prominent member of Progressive Democrats of America. The Tuesday host is a black woman who was born in Barbados and (I believe) lived in Harlem as a young woman. She's a long time political activist. The Wednesday host is a Latino professor at a local state university who is also a political activist. The hosts of the Thursday show switch from week to week. One week is a black woman political activist with a spiritual bent to her orientation and the other week is a Japanese-American transgendered (born woman) political activist. Friday's show is hosted by a white male attorney and political activist. The show that follows (8 to 9 AM) is a daily show hosted by a woman of Indian decent who was raised in the United Arab Emirates. She was working towards a Ph.D when she dropped out of Caltech to become a full time political activist.
Two warnings about the Pacifica Stations.
They are very pro-minority, pro-immigrant, pro-worker, pro-peace, etc. They're also pro-gay and pro-women, and your posts indicate a resentment towards women and gays.
Since they're listener supported, they have on air fund drives that interrupt their regular programing. In fact, KPFK began its summer fund drive this week. They usually schedule fund drives to be around 10 days to 2 weeks, but lately they tend to take around 3 weeks to reach their goal. But even during the fund drives, they often have fantastic shows that feature the premiums they offer for donating to the stations.
Hey B Roll, I think that you meant "...KPFA in Berkeley..." -- you said KPFK for both.
Everyone forgets that during the cold war, we also had a space race going on. One thing Russia could do that we never could do was to land their space crafts on land. We always plot our space capsules into the ocean. They perfected that so they could drop a tank on the Salisbury plain and it hit the ground, rolling.
When you tell the right wing that, they claim that we could do that if we put another parachute on the Gemini space capsule. It isn't that simple. In fact, that technology was responsible for the formation of NATO treaties we sign with our European allies.
But, what happens is that Russia would rather spend their money on war then on fixing elevators and that lead to their downfall. If we don't become more concern about spending our money in the US to help our infrastructure, then we will face the same fate as any country in history that turned its back on itself and tried to control the world.
We need NO, NADA, ZERO, NONE, ZIP Czars.
We are not a pre-Communist Russia.
What we need is for the farging Department of Justice to do its farging job.
Thanks Mahatma...
Thanks for catching that. It is KPFA in Berkeley and KPFK in Los Angeles.
And it's nice to know that at least a few people read my posts.
6 months for disrupting Congress is an abominable penalty. Many thanks to the brave demanders of representation.
In Kent, WA the Larouchies set-up a booth trying to solicite donations for their pamphlets; this is a bit like the ADL setting-up a booth at a neo-Nazi recruiting fair. The issue of the day was healthcare reform; they were telling anyone who would listen that Barack Obama was going to rob $2 trillion from the healthcare system; how exactly he would perform this magic act required some mental legerdemain that I was in no mood to ascertain fully. I just thought that maybe they could have been taken more seriously if they hadn't posted a poster of Obama with a Hitler moustache; I didn't understand how angering many African-American bystanders would help get their message across. To be fair, the also refer to Dick Cheney as the Son of Satan, which even I think is a bit much. It's too bad, since I think even Thom would agree with some of their ideas on the economy.
As a further thought in regard to Thom's conversation with Dan Gainor, I little understand where people get the idea that politicians of either party are actively seeking Hispanic votes in any meaningful way. The Republics lost ground with Hispanic voters by feeding into an atmosphere of hate, and the Democrats by doing nothing won them by default. Selecting Sotomayor for the Supreme Court has for the moment a cosmetic effect, but otherwise little has changed: the ICE still conducts its raids, the Justice Department continues to ignore the civil rights crisis in the South, Hispanics at the airport where I work are still being harassed by police and Homeland Security thugs, right-wing pundits continue to diseminate misinformation meant to inflame hatred while the left--when it is not silent before these attacks--abuses them in their populist propaganda.