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.
...

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.

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.

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.

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.