Saturday, February 18, 2006

Laura Flanders broadcasts from Nevada; Ruth takes on The Pooper

Just posted this info at The Common Ills so let me crosspost and then I'll get into this entry:


On Feb 18 and 19th, RadioNation with Laura Flanders will broadcast from Nevada -- this month's stop on Laura's "America is Purple" tour. The broadcasts are live and open to the public.
Come on down! 4-7 PM local time.
Saturday, Feb. 18, 2006.
RadioNation with Laura Flanders will broadcast live from:
Culinary Institute Union Hall
1630 South Commerce Street
Las Vegas Nevada 89102
www.culinaryunion226.org
SUNDAY, Feb 19, 2006
RadioNation with Laura Flanders will broadcast live from:
the offices of PLAN
(the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada)
821 Riverside Drive
Reno, Nevada 89503 www.planevada.org.

Not in Nevada? Well lose the frowns, we can still listen:

RadioNation with Laura Flanders
LIVE from Las Vegas and RenoThis Weekend, RadioNation comes to you live from the Culinary Hall in Las Vegas and the Progressive Leadership Alliance in Reno.
Saturdays & Sundays, 7-10pm ET on Air America Radio
Want to know how ["]red state["] Nevadans came to vote for new taxes? How they used a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage? Find out how casino workers built one of the strongest unions in the country and how women could claim two Congressional seats for Democrats. With D Taylor, Secretary-Treasurer of the Culinary Workers Local 226, Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie and Kristina Wilfore of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.
We've got good news from Nevada, this weekend!
And as always, a one-hour version of last weekends's show is available for podcast at The Nation's website: www.thenation.com
It's all on RadioNation with Laura Flanders this weekend on Air America Radio.

First off, my apologies to the community, I rushed to get that post up at The Common Ills and didn't notice until now that the mythical "red state" was in the info. There are no red states, no blue states. We live in a purple nation and that's the whole part of Laura Flanders' current tour across the country. I always say, "It is what it is." But if I'd ever go back and change anything in an entry I did, I would go back in and put quotation remarks around it. Coming from someone living in a supposed "blue" state, some community members may see that as a slap in the face. It wasn't. It was the result of my rushing. ("Go back in and change it, Kat!" Though I don't have the problems logging in that C.I. currently has, that thing is publishing right now and will take another twenty minutes to finish publishing. I don't have time to change it now. Possibly later.) It shouldn't have made it up and I take responsibility for not looking at what I was copying and pasting.

Now . . .

Ruth has an entry up at The Common Ills. They are called "Ruth's Public Radio Report" now days. No longer "Ruth's Morning Edition Report." So there shouldn't be a worry about when they post to begin with. But that was intended as a morning entry. Here's the back story because Ruth was including it but she and I decided it took away from the other points she was making.

She phoned C.I. last night about her entry because Kyle had sent an e-mailed copy of a post from The Pooper. Ruth felt she should respond since she covers Pacifica for the community. She spoke to C.I. and didn't realize this was "The Pooper." (C.I. dismissed The Pooper some months ago -- and noted the radio shows would be disappearing.) C.I. was listening to her ideas and then had to stop her because two people that C.I. knows (one that C.I. knew -- the woman is dead) are mentioned and C.I. told Ruth to write whatever, that it was her space, but not to mention The Pooper by name (no need to promote the right-leaning -- he is still just leaning, right?) and to make sure Dallas knew there would be no link to The Pooper's post.

Ruth needed someone to bounce off of and this morning, C.I. attempted to do that. But it wasn't working. (This is noted with both Ruth and C.I.'s permission.) C.I. was too bothered by The Pooper's nonsense so C.I. suggested me. I'm familiar with The Pooper. So Ruth bounced ideas off me and then we rolled up our sleeves while Ruth dictated and I attempted to type. ("Slow down!" I kept insisting.) Dallas helped us with links. When Ruth dictates to C.I., she usually edits as she goes along. I told Ruth not to edit while she went along and that I'd read it back to her after and she could do her editing then. Which meant taking more time but it also meant she wasn't stopping to consider and reconsider every paragraph.

Ruth did pull a few sentences and several paragraphs but what's up there is strong writing. The Pooper, as Ruth points out, lost both jobs at Pacifica so that may explain why he's posted such an attack on Pacifica. With Ruth being the voice of the community covering Pacifica, she really did need to respond to The Pooper's nonsense and Kyle had asked her to.

She was worried that posting anything might upset C.I. ("upset further") but that wasn't the case. C.I. wanted Ruth to weigh in with her take on it. C.I. just wasn't up to listening to The Pooper's nonsense in the discussion stages. I was happy to help out. The Pooper bores me as much as he does C.I. But the attacks in this post really bothered C.I. C.I.'s time was limited today (and all weekend) due to speaking to groups about the Bully Boy so it just wasn't worth it for the two of them for Ruth to bounce ideas off the C.I.

Ruth doesn't cover every slam, she can't because there are too many. She was worried that some of the slams, left uncommented on, might be read as her endorsement of them which is why she wanted a sounding board on this column. I was glad to help out Ruth and C.I. I hope you'll read it and I hope you get that this isn't a new attack on the roots and history of Pacifica
by The Pooper. He's reviving his old attacks, more publicly this time since he attempted to back off them in 1999 when people were speaking out loudly in support of community radio. He notes somewhere in his post that he wasn't sure he should post it. I'm glad he posted his attack. A lot of people got confused, when the board started to lose the battle, and The Pooper started acting as though he hadn't supported the board from the start. "I thought he had," you'd hear people saying. He had. He rewrote history as the (then) board started losing support for their attacks on Pacifica and people like Amy Goodman started winning. If you listen to Pacifica today, you're hearing the vision of the victors. If you're interested in hearing what Pacifica would have sounded like had The Pooper's side won, check out NPR.















Posted by at