Got a DJ slot!

Egregious Euphemisms
I don't know how long I lived in SoHum before I realized that the Eel River "Conservation Camp" -- a sign for which you'll notice if you're headed out of Redway going north -- is not a place where kids can go in summer to learn environmental awareness. It's a prison! But no one would ever realize this unless you're about to drive onto the property. Then, a sign next to the road just after the entrance states YOU ARE ENTERING A PRISON.

Now, why can't the sign down by the main road say the same thing?

Hands Off Richardson Grove
One of the things I'd like to use the program for is to galvanize those who are opposed to the widening, and/or straightening of 101 through Richardson Grove. I went to a meeting today at Friends of the Eel River to learn what's going on to defeat Caltrans' plans for the area. According to one participant, the main force behind the program is Ron Arkley (who gave half-a-million dollars to the Bush re-election campaign), who has an agreement with Home Depot to build them a store up north. More on this story as it develops.

A True Revolution of Values

• I’m convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. … When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies. … True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation.

-- Martin Luther King, Riverside Church, 04 APR 67.

Arms R Us
The Department of Defense’s planned expenditures for fiscal year 2008 are larger than all other nations’ military budgets combined. The supplementary budget to pay for the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not part of the official defense budget, is itself larger than the combined military budgets of Russia and China. Defense-related spending for fiscal 2008 will exceed $1 trillion for the first time in history. The United States has become the largest single salesman of arms and munitions to other nations on Earth. Leaving out of account President Bush’s two on-going wars, defense spending has doubled since the mid-1990s. The defense budget for fiscal 2008 is the largest since World War II. -- Chalmers Johnson, author of the Blowback trilogy

"Planet Humboldt" It's ... Alive
At long last, rule of the air-waves shall be mine, MWAH ha ha ha ha!

The program manager's coffee-cup was dry when she fell for my carefully crafted tale of ambiguity and disguised intent, and -- heedless as yet of the consequences -- she has assigned me my first radio program, under the previously established rubric Planet Humboldt: 2 to 4 pm, 1st & 3rd Saturdays. We be on the AIR, BABY! First show 02 FEB 08.

Communiques of the most urgent nature are soon to be sent forth, enlisting the aid and comfort of card-carrying lunatics like .. why, like you. And you! And you, and you, and you!

Listing requests for songs from friends, family, farmers, furriers, Frenchmen and Phil the cleaning guy; developing various content items -- music, comedy, news, short interviews, poetry and quotations with wispy New Age music playing softly in the background (or to be alternative about it, dancehall music playing softly in the background), call-ins, pre-recorded stuff, maybe a mock PSA here and there, etc. -- then allocating the blocks of time that might possibly contain all my multitudes; yes, these and many other tasks await the intrepid man or woman [people] who would call himself: D.J. Or who would call HERself: D.J. [Or who would call themselves: D.J.s.]

And so the dumping into this blog of anything that might possibly be useful in filling up FOUR HOURS A MONTH OF AIRTIME has begun. The first item: a letter to Hillary Clinton which might be great fun to read on-air (although i'd appreciate a reality-check)! Here it is:

The Common Dreams news website reported 21 JAN 08 that "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton came under fire when she was quoted as saying [that] King's dream of racial equality was realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964." I decided to drop Hillary a line.

Dear Hillary:

Hillary, I have always recognized you as one of the most intelligent and capable people in politics, much as I might peacefully but vehemently disagree with your unbelievably strident and subservient support for the bellicose bullies and war-mongers in our midst, cravenly cluttering and chattering in the gleaming offices, boardrooms and bomb-proof bunkers of the nation's political, business and military entities, still clinging to mad, race-crazed dazed dreams of glory and conquest, a past in front of their very noses fast vanishing down a whirlpool of history if ever there was one. But I digress.

Your statement -- about how King's dream was realized -- would have been practically unobjectionable if you had simply added that his dream of equality was [at least partially] realized "in law, if not in fact" after Johnson signed the act.

Sincerely,

Jack Frybulous,
Redwood Nation

ps - Sorry to have missed Bill's historic visit to the county seat, Eureka a couple of days ago. Folks still talkin' about it!

pps - Alexander Cockburn in a recent ed. of the Nation describes driving from WA down thru OR and n. CA, seeing hardly anything but stickers for Ron Paul! He added he liked the look of the folks he saw. Huh. What do you make of that?