Mid-February Break

Well, we're going to take a few days off. But we don't want you to get lonely! So here, relax to the groovin' Christian sounds of Final Placement. Love the guitar solo!! Maybe High Country Radio will give these fellas their much deserved big break--and launch them into the big time!

"Shine" by Final Placement from sharity world on Vimeo.

Right-Wing Radio Work Around

The Thom Hartmann Program has a new outlet in Asheville, WPVM-LP FM. From the Mountain Area Information Network:

The nationally syndicated radio program, The Thom Hartmann Program, is moving to MAIN-FM, 103.5, where it can be heard live from noon to 3 p.m. beginning Monday, Feb. 15.

MAIN-FM is a low-power radio station licensed to the nonprofit Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN) in Asheville.

...

Bowen called the show “compelling radio” due, in part, to Hartmann’s practice of interviewing conservative guests. “Thom is that rare talk-show host who is willing to talk to people who disagree with him,” said Bowen. He lauded the show as “evidence-based, give-and-take dialogue in the democratic tradition of debating important issues in a public forum.”

Thom Hartmann has been doing something very interesting in the world of talk radio. He has allowed his show--which is a commercial, advertiser-supported program--to be carried by non-commercial, community & college radio stations.

There's more than one way to skin a cat. And if the corporate-owned, right-wing world of talk radio won't allow alternative programming on their air? Then its just time to get creative.

Thom Hartmann here. MAIN here.

Journalists With Guts

Indulge us for a minute while we stay on the aviation theme.

You know, some of the best known investigative journalists have found themselves out of work as a result of their employers' financial woes. Many of them have ended up submitting their work to publications not previously known for investigative reporting--like Vanity Fair and even Maxim.

We're not huge fans of Maxim generally, but this week an interesting investigative news article caught our eye. Journalist Simon Worrall has written a piece called "The Mysterious Death of Bush's Cyber-Guru", and it raises some important questions.

From the article:

Just six weeks before his death, Connell had given a deposition in an Ohio lawsuit that accused Rove, Bush, and Co. of something far more serious than merely scrubbing e-mails: the theft of the 2004 Ohio vote. “This is the biggest scandal in our history,” says Mark Crispin Miller, a professor at New York University who has written extensively about electronic voter fraud. “Watergate grew out of a paranoid attempt to disable the opposition. But Ohio was exponentially different. We’re talking about a systematic, centralized attempt to rig the voting system.”
...

Ohio’s secretary of state in 2004 was a fiercely partisan Christian named Ken Blackwell. Blackwell had hired a company called GDC Limited to run the IT systems, which had subcontracted the job to Michael Connell’s company, GovTech. Connell had in turn sub-contracted SMARTech, an IT firm based in Chattanooga, to act, it was claimed, as a backup server.

“By looking at the URLs on the Web site, we discovered that there were three points on election night when SMARTech’s computers took over from the secretary of state,” says Arnebeck. “It is during that period that we believe votes were manipulated.”

In computer jargon it is known as a man-in-the-middle attack.

...

We may never know the truth about Connell’s last flight, but contracts between Connell’s company, GovTech, and Ken Blackwell’s administration establish a credible scenario for electoral fraud and place Connell at the scene of the alleged crime.

Among other things, the contracts contradict Connell’s sworn testimony that SMARTech, in Chattanooga, merely acted as a backup site for election data.

...

More here.

WVS: Sub-Minimum Wage Pilots

It's great when companies save money, right? Because the savings get passed on to you, right?

Like when a co-pilot for an airline is being paid less than $16,000 a year...and moonlighting to make ends meet:

The crash of Continental 3407 outside Buffalo last year, killing all on board, was big news, as any commercial crash is. But like many who were fortunate enough not to be touched personally by the tragedy, what most caught my attention was the news that followed. The co-pilot had been making less than $16,000. While I knew the airline industry had been struggling through tough times since 9/11, I sure didn’t know that some of the folks that fly me around are working second jobs and overnighting on lounge room La-Z-Boys. And I didn’t know that regional airlines, once thought of as puddle-jumpers, had grown so fast that they now account for more than half the nation’s daily departures. We are on our way to becoming a regional airline nation.

The quest to save money? Or a race to the bottom? Gotta save at ALL costs. You decide.

The Special Olympics and High Country Radio

Will the irony never cease? While High Country Radio carries Rush Limbaugh on WXIT--who, on his February 3rd program offered up some classic insults directed toward "retards"--goblueridge.net (a part of High Country Radio, and like High Country Radio also owned by Curtis Media) reports on its site about the upcoming Southeast Region Alpine Games which will take place here in the High Country this weekend.

Limbaugh's comments drew a response from the Chairman of the Special Olympics, in the form of an open letter:

Dear Mr. Limbaugh:

I incredulously listened to the segment in your show in which you repeatedly and offensively used the term "retard" in reference to our meeting with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

As a public figure, you have the great opportunity to influence the hearts and minds of millions of people in this country and around the world. People with intellectual disabilities - the largest group of people with disabilities in the world - have suffered generations of discrimination and humiliation...

Apparently, High Country Radio and Curtis Media do not realize how hurtful their programming is. Apparently, they believe that they can have it both ways--by carrying programming/content that simultaneously hurts and promotes the Special Olympics.

To that, we call Bull****.