democracyroad

Podcast: Diesel and Case on Moby Dick and Senator Capito

This podcast was broadcast August 3, 20171. Musical Theme: The Clancy Bros and Tommy Makem -- Carnegie Hall, 19622. The Winners and Losers Radio Program: 6:30 - 9:00 AM -- Mike Diesel and Case do a "drunks delight" version of news and views. First: Shelley Moore Capito's explanation of her health care votes. Second: People who do not like, or have no personal analog in,  Moby Dick, may be deported in the near future. Third: Who is John P Kelley. Fourth. Trump signs unconstitutional bill interfering with his own "foreign policy".

Resistance Radio Podcast: Jamaall Craig on Trump speech to cops

Jamaall Craig, a PhD candidate and former civil rights leader at the United Steelworkers of America, is our guest.  We talk about 45's criminal, fascist speech to cops and Black Lives Matter.
This podcast was broadcast August 2, 1917 on EnlightenRadio.org. The show is hosted by Stewart Acuff, a legendary organizer and former Organizing Director for the AFL-CIO.

Trumper attacks on Local Control, Scout Masters on The Jambpree Fiasco

Julie  Archer from WV Citizens Action on Fair Elections discusses anti-democratic measures against voting by phony "fraud" legislators, as well as a discussion on decentralizing West Virginia. Jerry Harness, a retired Veterinarian, and 50 year volunteer for the Boy Scouts of America takes on the Jamoboree Fiasco where President Trump made highly inappropriate remarks to 34,000 scouts. also Mike and John and Gayle have fun. This podcast was broadcast on EnlightenRadio.org August 2, 2017.

Enlighten Radio: July 31: Fanny and Stas interview storyteller Ilene Evans

Enlighten Radio: July 24: Stas and I share living arrangements stories

The Poetry Show Podcast looks at Peggy Shumaker

This program was broadcast on EnlightenRadio.org, July 31, 2017 from Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Janet Harrison and John Case host.
 
Peggy Shumaker was born in La Mesa, California, but she grew up in Tucson, Arizona. Both her undergraduate degree (B.A. in English) and her M.F.A. in creative writing were earned at the University of Arizona. Before moving to Alaska, she was writer-in-residence for the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She is Professor emerita and former chair of the English Department and Director of the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Among her several collections of poetry are The Circle of Totems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988), Wings Moist from the Other World (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994), Underground Rivers (Red Hen Press, 2002), Gnawed Bones (Red Hen Press, 2010), and, most recently, Toucan Nest: Poems of Costa Rica (Red Hen Press, 2013). Additionally, she has also published a memoir in lyric fragments, Just Breathe Normally (University of Nebraska Press, 2007) and a book length collaboration with artist Kesler Woodward, Blaze (Red Hen Press, 2005). In 2008, she founded Boreal Books to publish literature and fine art from Alaska. She has served as poet laureate of Alaska (2010-2012) and as President of the Board of Directors of the Associated Writing Programs. Persimmon Tree, a literary journal written by women over 60, recently announced that Shumaker will be taking over from Wendy Barker as poetry editor of the journal. She was chosen for a Fellowship in poetry  from the National Endowment for the Arts, as the Rasmuson Foundation's Distinguished Artist for 2014, and as the Artsmith Artist of the Year 2014. 
 
In an interview about Just Breathe Normally with Alberto Rios, she said, "We find our ways to transform—we transform what we cannot make better. And we transform it into art if we are lucky. We transform it into something tolerable if we are not so lucky." In another interview about Toucan Nest, she said, "When we pay mindful attention, the world amazes."
 
This week's featured poem is "Kus-sun-ar" from Gnawed Bones (Red Hen Press, 2010). The poem alludes to her recovery after a near fatal accident. 
 
KUS-SUN-AR
 
For an injured friend, 
he brings salmon fillets, fish
he caught dipnetting all night at Chitina.
Needle-nose pliers nipped out
all the invisible bones. 
 
Growing up at fish camp, he'd sneeze. 
Elders said, "Kus-sun-ar."
Otter. They invoked otter's name
to wish him close
to one who lives in more than one world. 
Shaman helper, on land, in water. 
 
He tells me otters live inside women, curled up
just above the stomach, 
and this feels true. I feel my otters, 
restless, disturbed. 
 
My hurt body can't rest yet, 
it was so close to the other world. 
 
I am an otter, skinned in the round, 
my pelt pulled off in one piece.
Stitched into a kit bag, 
I feel the shaman
feeding me salmon, 
placing his healing
into my emptiness. 
 
 
Writing prompt for the week: Think of a phrase or saying you heard as a child. Write a poem incorporating the phrase but also include a description of another scene that somehow resonates with the saying. You might even consider moving back and forth between the saying and the resonant scene or scenes. 

Winners and Losers: 7.28.17: skinny repeal, capito and mccain, death penalty, drug cartels and immigration. Clinton emails cause solar eclipse

This broadcast of the Winners and Losers Radio program was aired July 28, 2017. John Case and Mike Diesel host the Morning Zoo of Shepherdstown on diverse topics. Profiles in courage and cowardice are examined. Also: Union Edge looks at the connection between the drug trade and immigration policy. And -- a legacy excerpt for Best of the Left on the Death Penalty.
 
 

Winners and Losers Podcast 7.27.17: Case and Diesel Do a New Boy Scout Oath, DeathCare watch, and the Gettysburg address

This podcast of the Winners and Losers Radio Program was broadcast on EnlightenRadio.org July 27, 2017. John Case and Mike Diesel host a far-rangng discussion of a new Boy Scout Law and Oath in the wake of the so-called President's disgrace and disgust performance; also -- the meaning of Senator  Shelley Moore "I won't take away West Virginian's health care" Capito's vote YES on proceeding with a debate that could only end with making  that promise a lie. The Gettysburg Address tops it off.