Peter C. In The News

“We lived in an Edison Community. These were little communities around The Powerhouse. We were the people who ran The Powerhouse. We maintained it, worked together and lived together as next door neighbors. Our kids went to school together. I lived with them for 15 --20-- maybe 25 years.”

Max said these words last December 3rd at our year’s end meeting of the Democratic Club of Oakhurst at the Ol’ Kettle as we introduced what was to become a regular closing highlight designated as, “A Moment with Max.”

I get to moderate these monthly sessions, having not been present a while back when a vote was taken by membership as to who should get stuck doing such a thing.

Here was my introduction to “A Moment with Max” as transcribed from a fortuitous recording of same:

“We have something special we’ve decided to close these meetings with from now on. We have a TREASURE in our organization. He’s 90 years old. He’s been on his best behavior today -- just sitting here waiting for his turn -- so I would like to take this opportunity to introduce the inaugural appearance of “A Moment with Max” -- Max Richie!”

Max lived in North Fork, having been a Merchant Seaman in the South Pacific during World War Two -- later joining Southern California Edison in 1947 and operating in the Powerhouse for 33 years until his retirement in 1980. It was while working for Edison that Max joined the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and became a union steward, at one time leading a strike against Edison which brought about milestone changes in wages, benefits and working conditions across the board. He continued his role as a primary union negotiator with Edison for the remainder of his years with SCE.

Max was heading north on Highway 49 Saturday morning, January 14th, to participate in a Mariposa County Democratic Central Committee symposium when he died.

“The family has talked it over, and decided that we could not have picked a better way for Dad to spend his last day than to wake up excited, discussing what he might say, printing off copies of a "Thank You" letter from Bernie Sanders and be on his way to his next Democratic activity.”

Max K. Richie was spending his 91st year still on the ball -- on the road - on the move - because Max K. Richie was mad -- and getting madder all the time.

Max was always writing “Letters to the Editor” -- The Sierra Star and Fresno Bee his primary recipients. On October 3, 2010, The Bee honored Max with featured recognition in their highly circulated Sunday “Meet Our Letter Writers” segment.

Pam Rowse of the Bee remembers Max well. " I was so sad to hear of Mr. Richie's passing. He has been writing letters, probably before I started working here in 1977. I remember he used to hand write all of his letters. He had very distinctive penmanship. Even though I don't have any of those hand-written letters, I can still see his very unique writing in my mind to this day."

The reason Max wrote all those letters all those years was for the same single word Gore Vidal once used in explaining why he has remained so politically energized and active even after becoming severely debilitated and confined to a wheel chair.

Rather than delineate specifics with any attempt at inclusive summary to create a litany of all the things that made Max mad, might I suggest the following publications Max devoured with passionate commitment and always consistently and insistently recommended to others?

The Nation
Liberal Opinion
Mother Jones
The Progressive
Dissent
Monthly Review
Industrial Worker
and Fresno’s Community Alliance.

I bring these to your attention with endorsement in the name of Max K. Richie: Socialist.

Senator Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts) thinks Barack Obama did the right thing and so do I.

Republican Senator Brown was elected to serve the remaining term of the late Ted Kennedy two years ago in January of 2010 with major Tea Party support, shocking the nation and waking up the Massachusetts Democratic Party from self-induced, naively assumptive apathy. Brown’s amazing triumph was hailed as a Conservative victory of the highest order and, more importantly, a glorious harbinger of dazzling things to come.

Such optimistic prediction seemingly came true in November of last year when enough disenchanted progressives stayed home and even more disaffected dissidents didn’t, thus ushering in a 112th Congress as bitterly divided as any in our history – and predictably so.

I’m hoping Senator Brown has got it down, gracing us with a prophetic act in his new support of our President. Barack Obama may at last be on his way to a deserved second term, having bitterly learned a hard lesson after his first few years of attempted cooperation, compromise and conciliation with a Republican Party primarily comprised of committed ideologues willing to serve the rich and keep millions unemployed to blow one man out of a job.

The major turning point for Brown comes with Obama’s decision to appoint Rich Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau despite powerful and fully dedicated Republican opposition to the very idea of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, itself. Although Cordray received a majority of Senate votes (53 to 45) on December 8th to let his nomination proceed, Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell again impudently invoked the threat of a filibuster to slam the door shut in Obama’s face once again as he had done dozens of times before with unanswered impunity. But things have changed and none too soon.

Boldly and courageously citing ample legal justification, Obama has finally flipped a Presidential eagle and installed Cordray as Director of the CFPB through a “recess appointment” as envisioned by our Founding Fathers and clearly authorized by Article II: Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Stunned Republicans have reacted with unusual vehemence, some even demanding immediate impeachment if not even more radical remedies up to and including lifetime banishment back to Kenya.

Let’s see what Republicans hate so much about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by examining what it promises to do:

In the words of Director Cordray, “The central mission of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is to make markets for consumer financial products and services work for Americans — whether they are applying for a mortgage, choosing among credit cards, or using any number of other consumer financial products.”

At its website, the Bureau cites as “core functions” such things as the enforcement of financial protection laws, the establishment of restrictions on unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices, the initiation of action upon citizens’ complaints and the promotion of financial education.

As usual, Republican opposition to such “socialistic” goals is accompanied by exclamations of wild outrage concerning “more big government”, “job killing regulations” and “strangulation of free enterprise”, each allegation presenting an even fresher level of characteristic absurdity.

Even eventual GOP nominee Willard “Mitt “Romney is now whining about Obama’s drive toward “European Style Socialism”, presumably including the Federal Republic of Germany, where the average German auto worker now earns wages of $67.14 an hour, more than double that of his or her American counterpart, while also receiving full health care, an ample pension upon retirement and a free college education. Look it up.

Fasten your seat belts. Election Year 2012 is off and running with a reinvigorated President, a replaceable Congress and a reawakened electorate.

If time goes by any faster, we’ll all be a thousand years old in about a half hour.

Here we are at another year’s end with Christmas 2011 behind us and 2012 so close we can almost get there holding our breath.

The Winter Solstice has been a major marker in human existence since the dawn of mankind - celebrated by every significant culture in recorded history - and it’s no wonder.

Imagine the joy in ancient days when - after months of every darkening diminution -- the sun finally begins to return all over the world.

In Ireland, the village of Slane is forty-five miles northwest of Dublin. On its ancient castle grounds have played The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springstein, Bob Dylan and U-2. On the Hill of Slane, Saint Patrick proclaimed Ireland to be Christian in 433 A.D. by lighting a paschal fire. The burial chamber at Newgrange is on the banks of the River Boyne a few miles to the east. It is over five thousand years old.

The Newgrange chamber is a huge, circular, man-made mound of white and black boulders, largely covered with earth and grass. It measures two-hundred and forty feet across and is forty-four feet high, occupying over a full acre. Discovered and uncovered by accident in 1699, the entrance overlooks a broad bend in the river. A narrow tunnel leads seventy feet down into the earth. Visitors are only allowed in small groups after arrangements are made with the proper authorities. Passage is slow. A central chamber contains three rooms - a trinity - all openly facing into the single center. Water has never penetrated the surrounding rocks. Construction was by master architects. It was built for the ages. The spiral markings are everywhere. Their meaning is unclear.

Our Irish tour guide suggested to me with whispered reverence that recent archeological findings indicate the mysterious structure was the work of Tuatha de Danann -- “The Children of the Light” -- a magical tribe said to have arrived in Ireland on flying ships -- hundreds of years later choosing to vanish into the ground upon the arrival of uninvited foreigners rather than defend themselves with horribly powerful instruments at their command-- fearsome options abandoned by unanimous group consensus and never since known.

A small opening over the entrance is aligned so that the sun’s rays penetrate and illuminate the chamber with a fiery red glow only once each year at the exact point of the Winter Solstice. It is seen as a symbol of rebirth and renewal. The effect lasts less than twenty minutes.

Newgrange is two thousand years older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

And it is inspirational to consider that the utter abandonment of weapons of mass destruction has at least one mythological precedent, perhaps even offering a New Year’s Resolution of infinite promise and ultimate merit.

“Whilst you have the light, believe in the light, that you may be the children of light. These things Jesus spoke; and he went away, and hid himself from them.”

Hundreds of festive folks, many having donned gay apparel, gathered again this year in Oakhurst to greet the arrival of Santa Claus in his North Pole Fire Department truck and witness the lighting of an impressive community Christmas tree next to that now internationally famous Talking Bear thanks to Facebook. There was magic in the air with the Winter Solstice set to mark the Sun’s sharpest turn away from us only days distant.

In such a setting, personal memories from many a Christmas Past instantaneously spring forth, flooding our minds and imaginations without further summons -- surging in a powerful torrent of cherished recollections joyously unleashed by sparkling ornaments, jingling bells, and seasonal songs snugly nestled in our minds since early childhood.

It was Christmas of 1949 when the legendary Gene Autry recorded a quaint little Christmas offering based on a character established a decade earlier by Robert L. May in a Montgomery Ward coloring book. The original story was presented as a poem in the same meter as the classic “It Was a Night Before Christmas” with song lyrics written for Mr. Autry by May’s brother-in-law, radio producer Johnny Marks. Want a quick Holiday bar bet? “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” was released on November 25, 1949 and shot to the top of the charts, becoming the first #1 Hit of the 1950’s. In its first year, “Rudolph” sold two and a half million copies nationwide and made Laurence A. Johnson crazy.

Mr. Johnson was the owner of four major supermarkets in Syracuse, New York. I was a nine year-old fourth grader in Syracuse attending Madison Elementary School, where my mother was President of the Parent-Teacher Association, more commonly known as the “PTA.” Laurence Johnson was unabashedly conservative in thought, word and deed - considering himself a super patriot and signing on as a major supporter of Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy after a speech the Senator gave in Wheeling, West VIrginia.

On Lincoln Day, February 9, 1950, a mere month after “Rudolph” guided Santa’s sleigh to unparalleled heights, Senator McCarthy dramatically announced: "I have here in my hand a list of 205 names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department”, recklessly playing fast and loose with the truth as was his style. From that point onward, McCarthy continued to exploit a rabid fear of Communism, gaining him a powerful national following, including Mr. Johnson in Syracuse.

After ruining the lives and crushing the careers of thousands of innocent Americans “blacklisted” by unproved accusation and secret allegations, McCarthy was finally revealed as the monster he was by Edward R. Murrow of CBS on “See It Now” in March of 1954 before a stunned audience of millions. Officially condemned by the U.S. Senate on December 2, 1954 in a bipartisan vote of 67 to 22, McCarthy died of acute alcoholism on May 2, 1957 at the age of 48, going down in history as a scurrilous scar on our common past, but not before influencing Laurence A. Johnson to launch a savage attack against Syracuse radio stations during the 1950 Christmas Season for playing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” due to the chromatic hue of Rudolph’s proboscises -- that is -- his COMMIE RED NOSE!

To those of Johnson’s fanatical ilk, RED represented “Godless Communism.” It was the RED Army that defeated General Anatoly Pepelayev and his WHITE Russian Army in 1923, bringing Trotsky, Lenin, Marx and Stalin to power. It was the REDS and their RED Chinese allies we faced in warfare against North Korea in June of 1950. ”Better DEAD than RED!” screamed Syracuse billboards.

Mrs. Cavanaugh of the PTA was not inclined to suffer fools. Widowed with two young sons and working full-time as a Medical Secretary with additional freelance writing on the side for spare change, she drafted letters to the Syracuse Post-Standard and Herald Journal which were published and endorsed by the Editorial Boards of both papers. Her position was clearly stated without ambiguity or qualification. Laurence A. Johnson was wrong. His assault on “Rudolph The Red- Nosed Reindeer” was simply silly -- a bold, unwarranted intrusion into private lives and innocent childhood -- flying in the face of common sense and basic decency -- utter nonsense by any measure. And she wasn’t shopping at Johnson’s Fine Foods one more second, thank you.

Greeted by overwhelming ridicule reaching universal proportion, Johnson dropped his Anti-Rudolph efforts without further controversy or comment, although continuing wild flag-waving efforts as a major contributor to the John Birch Society in subsequent times.

But as I saw our Oakhurst Community Tree burst into brilliant Christmas colors December 3rd and heard the strains of “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” echoing through the local crowd, I thought of Mrs. Cavanaugh -- and trust she is pleased. You might even say she glows!

I was pleased and honored when District 5 Supervisor Tom Wheeler unexpectedly passed me his microphone at the start of our last Town Hall Meeting at the Oakhurst Community Center with a request that I lead the packed hall in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I trust I acquitted myself reasonably well, although I almost started with a speedy “Sign of the Cross” from my Irish Catholic upbringing, rote memory offering its challenges. But then, our National Pledge of Allegiance has always seemed more of a prayer than a presence – a fierce aspiration more than a finalized achievement – particularly the “Liberty and Justice for All” part. But it’s that “Indivisible” word that I worry about these last few years. We are surely more divided now than ever before in my lifetime as a country. But not as a community.

It’s an impressive measure of Supervisor Wheeler’s dedicated leadership that his quarterly “Town Meetings” here in Oakhurst — and Ahwhanee — and North Fork– and Bass Lake – and now adding Yosemite Lakes Park/Raymond after recent Census adjustments, all combine in uniting Eastern Madera County into a remarkably cohesive political whole.

If you haven’t been attending any of these informal, yet informative little get-togethers, you really should.

Our last Oakhurst meeting on November 17th was fairly typical. Tom was not the only County official in attendance presenting himself for public accountability. Sheriff John Anderson was there to discuss a number of issues, from barking dogs and area burglaries to library safety and concerns about the homeless. Cal Fire Chief Nancy Koerperich addressed the red hot topic of Rural Fire Fees, also discussed through speaker phone by State Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen. Jill Yeager, Director of the Madera County Environmental Health Department, provided an update on septic system regulations, even as Mono Indians representative Charlie Altekruse spoke briefly on the possibility of a new casino on Highway 99 in Madera. You get the idea.

Supervisor Wheeler always works from a prepared agenda, moving things along as rapidly as meaningful discussion allows and closing with a request for questions, comments, criticisms or any other observations from those in the audience with no subject off limits. It’s all fairly remarkable and everyone seems to get along, playing well enough together to make our parents proud and former teachers smile.

On the 17th, I chatted with and introduced my wife to local Tea Party Coordinator, John Pero. I waved across the room to Greg Chapell, a Madera County District 5 Republican Committee Member, even as I am on the Board of the Executive Committee of the Democratic Club of Oakhurst. Greg and I share a table most First Fridays for spiffy spaghetti dinners at Our Lady of the Sierra.

I never cease being amazed at how much we all truly share in common and agree upon past all the flag waving, cliché clattering, democracy dismantling forces of Talk Radio.

We all seem quite together over our concerns regarding “The Great Wall of Coarsegold”, the need to realize maximum efficiency and efficacy throughout County operations in the face of horrendous reductions in staffing and funding and the desire to defend local enterprise against the gargantuan intrusion of big business.

It’s interesting to reflect that things seem incredibly possible with a direct interface between politicians and the general public — the elected and the electors. No back room bargaining. No secret deals. No lobbyists.

— “That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” (1863)

We’ve been engaged in class warfare these last thirty years. Guess what? We lost!

The top one percent of Americans currently scoop up a quarter of our nation’s income every year. They now own and control over forty percent of everything. That’s the largest disparity between rich and poor among all industrialized nations of the earth, even as U.S. citizens privately pay ever escalating costs for health care, higher education and anything else our flag waving, cliché clattering, democracy dismantling forces of the far right can “privatize”. The “Free World” is turning out to be not that free after all.

Senior citizens watch Fox News in an earnest effort to receive “fair and balanced” coverage, a continuing lie as big as Joseph Goebbels’ best. Bill O’Reilly fans? Greta Groupies? Hannity-Homies? Do Bill/Sean/Van Susteren ever mention that a good part of your now tax free Social Security income will be subject to that 9% “Federal Sales Tax” in Squirmin’ Herman’s “9-9-9” fantasy? Or that Mitt Romney fits the exact clinical definition of a pathological liar? Or that “Medicare for All” would cover everyone, reduce costs by a full third and ultimately provide far better care than we now receive paying twice the price for half as much? And Fox sure hates those kids of ours “Occupying” Wall Street and just about every other place you look.

“Misfits!” “They should get a job!” Even “dope smoking hippies” is back in vogue amongst the badly bewildered. But particularly significant is the general Fox insistence that “They don’t even know what they want -- just “pie in the sky!” -- a phrase dating back to 1911. “Pie in the sky?”

Joe Hill was born on October 7, 1879. He was a Swedish-American Labor Activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World --also know as “Wobblies.” Praised by the poor, feared by the rich, politically condemned and falsely accused, Hill was executed by firing squad on November 19, 1915.

“Pie in the sky” first appeared in Hill's “The Preacher and the Slave”, which parodied the Salvation Army hymn “In the Sweet Bye and Bye.” Hill took issue with the Army's concentration on the salvation of souls rather than the feeding of the hungry. The expression faded through subsequent years, then began emerging again during World War Two when it started being used figuratively to refer to any prospect of future happiness which was unlikely to ever be realized.

“Pie in the sky?” Nope. And forget “Bye and Bye!” We’re looking at “Here and Now” -- just as soon as everyone stops playing puppet and starts paying attention.

Move over Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs. There’s something happening here -- a new sheriff in town -- an additional player in your exquisitely exclusive group.

“I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
Says I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.”

Just as bodies falling in space increase velocity at exactly thirty-two feet per second, I have become convinced that time itself accelerates with similar immutability as our minds travel through the years.

It seems impossible. Here we are only three short weeks away from Thanksgiving Day 2011, nationally celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November as initiated by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 -- although dating back to those Pilgrims at the Plymouth Plantation in 1621.

And there we were -- visiting family in Cincinnati -- when what before my wondrous eyes should appear but some remarkable research by daughter, Colleen, which reveals something of which I had been completely unaware.

“Hezekiah Newcomb married Jerusha Bradford on November 14, 1716. Jerusha was the great-granddaughter of William Bradford, who arrived on the Mayflower in 1620, and who was Governor of the Plymouth Colony for many years.”

Everything is tracked without break from that point to Mabel (Newcomb) McClasky, “Mother of Kathryn (1902), Isabel (1903), Jennie (1907), Isaac Dennison (1909) and Wilma Newcomb McClasky (1912).”

Isabel (1903) was my Mother, Isabel M. Cavanaugh, headed for Heaven in 1998 in her 95th year of life, finally joining her husband, Donald Cavanaugh, after a full half-century of widowhood. “This is the longest time he’s been away”, said Mom, just weeks before their reunion.

The transcript Isabel’s granddaughter, Colleen, provided is utterly fascinating. It includes all sorts of curious notations, including a four year-old falling into boiling soap (unpleasant consequences), a father acquitted of killing his son (details not provided), and piracy at sea, courtesy of one Thomas Newcomb, cited as a “Soldier of the Revolution”, drafted into the American Army under George Washington on 23 August, 1777, at the age of 16. “Tea Party?” Cousin Thomas was the real deal.

There are fishermen, farmers, soldiers, merchants, surveyors, constables, judges, tanners, tavern owners, ministers, blacksmiths and wagon makers strewn throughout the pages of our ancestry. We are told of babies by the dozen, “troublesome Indians” by the score and at least one extramarital affair, balanced quite nicely by sworn testimony that old Hezekiah Newcomb (1693-1772)) led a “virtuous, pious and truly exemplary life” and “was almost never seen without a Bible in his hands.”

There are millions of Mayflower descendants living today, but very few are actually aware of such seemingly unique distinction.

Among notable proven Mayflower offspring are Presidents John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, James A. Garfield, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George H. Bush and George W. Bush. Then we have such famous figures as Marilyn Monroe (pun intended) , Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Orson Welles, Noah Webster, Clint Eastwood, Alec Baldwin, Dick Van Dyke, Richard Gere, Christopher Lloyd, Bing Crosby, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hugh Hefner, Cokie Roberts and Bob Bradford, Founder of Yosemite Films.

Traceable to the Mayflower or not and surely inclusive of the Wampanoag and other native Americans who never issued engraved invitations to dock up and drop by in the first place, we all share a common past as we proceed together into an uncertain future.

“Relatives” are not only those with whom we will gather at a bountiful harvest table this coming Thanksgiving Day. For each seen and known, hundreds more are hidden from us by the impenetrable mist of forgotten bygone days -- aging children-- one and all.

Let’s jointly reflect upon our collective history -- being thankful for and responsible to -- each other.

I couldn’t believe it when Lynn Jacobsson called and said Cindy was coming to Oakhurst.

Of course, Oakhurst — being a CDP (“Census Designated Place”) with 2,829 souls — is a major metropolitan area compared to Crawford, Texas. Crawford had a rounded-up total of no more than 800 Texans, a trillion cattle and a curious monkey named George when Ms. Sheehan set up her antiwar camp outside his ranch and became a global phenomenon in August of 2005.

And so it was The Positive Life Center on Golden Oak Drive was filled with folks –wall to wall — standing room only — for four solid hours on Sunday, August 28th. It was exciting, amazing and inspiring.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Cindy Sheehan’s visit was her ability to draw such an amazing assembly of truly cool people from our immediate mountain area on very short notice.

Ms. Sheehan was here concluding a ten day bus tour promoting “Re-Creating Revolutionary Communities” (REVCOM). This brief quote from Cindy at her website sums it up nicely:

“Recent events in the U.S., which amount to financial terrorism by the elite, have demonstrated that Democracy with a Capital D is officially DOA, and We the People can face a scary future assured that we will survive, because we can build communities that foster peace, health, the environment, and prosperity.”

Crazy hippie talk? Some sort of a wild anarchistic ‘60’s acid flashback? Doesn’t Cindy Sheehan realize it’s 2011 and the banks own us all?

From North Fork was the Friendship Circle of Grace Community Church, the Kern family with their Farm and School Garden, the North Fork Art Gallery, the Up Country Co-op, the Sustainable Forest and Committees Collaboration, Three Springs, The Yosemite Sequoia Resource Conservation and Development Council, Cash Mob, the North Fork Studio and the intriguing North Fork Shares project.

Mariposa sent representatives from Mariposa Spirit, the Mariposa Peace Vigil and those from Mariposa involved in pursuing the continued development of electric cars, even as Cindy’s old bus parked across the street is bio fuel powered as an example to everyone but Rick Perry.

Oakhurst attendees included Full Circle Family Outreach, Judy DeRosa’s Creativity Circle, Marianna Burrett of Tend the Earth, Barney Berrier speaking on Alternative Energy, Peace Fresno, and legendary blues artist Jimmy Collier.
Cindy Sheehan sat and listened from start to finish, frequently nodding her head with enthusiastic endorsement and powerful affirmation. At the end of it all, she spoke.

Cindy told us of losing a son and her belief that the American Dream is long gone — if it ever was. She discussed the importance of true community, pleased that her presence had drawn so many kindred spirits. She challenged us to focus on the potentials of collective activity for common local good.

The Irish have a name for such a notion: “Sinn Fein” — “We Ourselves.”

I liked Cindy a lot. She’s very much for real. In this age of unbridled hyperbolic hysteria on the right and tragically compromised conviction on the left, Cindy Sheehan just keeps on truckin’.

As should all Progressive Democrats – “Together — more or less in line.” *

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland has just unveiled a complete Museum redesign that tells the story of rock and roll in a more linear fashion and updates all museum technology to state-of-the-art including the interactive kiosks On the Air: Rock and Roll and Radio. Mr. Cavanaugh and his impact on rock music are featured in this exhibit.

At the age of sixteen in 1957, Peter C. Cavanaugh enjoyed a fifty-eight percent total audience share on his hometown station -- WNDR in Syracuse. He enjoyed unequaled market dominance for years over WTAC in Flint before leaving the airwaves to become President of the station in 1977. His book “Local DJ” tracks Cavanaugh’s radio adventures through time -- as well as promoting and producing literally hundreds of early concerts with the likes of Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper, Kiss and AC/DC.

As Executive Vice President of Reams Broadcasting, Peter ran a seven station radio group which included the top-rated Rock ‘n’ Roll stations in America -- WWCK in Flint (Spring ‘84) and WIOT in Toledo (Winter ‘91). Mr. Cavanaugh is former Chairman of the NBC Source Board, President of the ABC Radio Affiliates Board and President of the Flint Area Advertising Federation. Peter lives in Oakhurst, California, with his wife, Eileen.

“Of all who had a major influence on me while growing up in the Midwest, none matched the audaciousness, tenacity and gonzo-like behavior of Peter Cavanaugh. He was more than just the rock ‘n roll guru who gave America its first encounters with The Who, Bob Seger and all the great Detroit bands (Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper, MC5, etc.) He was the one who taught me how to go up against the powers-that-be and live to tell all. Thank you, Peter Cavanaugh, for saving a generation of Flint kids from the likes of Pat Boone” -- Michael Moore

The On the Air: Rock and Roll and Radio kiosks are located in the Museum’s Ahmet Ertegun Hall in the Cities and Sounds gallery.

Note: Peter C. was interviewed on Tuesday morning, September 6th, at 8:05 EDT by Johnny Burke on his top-rated WHNN 96 Morning Show in Flint/BayCity/Saginaw.

When that deeply poetic lyric line appeared at the very end of Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” in 1976, coming out of nowhere from “the back seat of a ‘60 Chevy”, it somehow ignited a powerful, emotionally evocative response across the nation, giving Bob his first “Top 10 Billboard single” -- making Seger an “overnight success” after more than fifteen years playing Michigan barn bashes, bars and Bar Mitzvahs.

We all seemed to get it -- a sweetly poignant, nostalgic reflection on the inviolate passion of teenage years and the inevitable passage of time.

There’s again a certain wild rushing in the wind - a softly aching, sighing surrender to the insistence of change as night stretches over us in ever expanding return.

Congress is frozen as almost never before in the icy grip of a hardhearted Conservative core sworn to protect the interests of manipulative masters, convinced that their pledge to “starve the beast” through “no more taxes” will ultimately prove patriotic -- blind to the blatantly nihilistic nature of their exercise.

While a sitting President ponders how such extraordinary efforts to compromise, even at the risk of shattering his own political base, could be so savagely rejected, would-be successors compete for the honor of most contentious class clown.

+ Michele Bachmann wishing Elvis “Happy Birthday” on the 34th Anniversary of his Death, even as she offered Christian testimony that “submission” means exactly the same thing as “respect”, a definition Biblical errant by any theological standard.

+ Rick Perry, an astounding, squat little clone of George W. Bush and Yosemite Sam, negatively questioning “Evolution”, “Global Warming”, The Federal Reserve” and “Abortion Rights” all in the same breath -- while chomping away on a quarter pound of deep fried Iowa State Fair butter on a stick.

+ Mitt Romney -- at that same Fair -- insisting with a straight face that corporations ARE people and ALL the money corporations earn go right back down to everyone else, especially me and you. Mine must still be in the mail.

+ Herman Cain -- maintaining his obsessive fear of Muslims in general and “creeping Shariah law” in particular, even with triple cheese and double pepperoni.

+ Rick Santorum -- echoing the Pizza Man’s Islamophobia, but adding gays and Same Sex Marriage as particular targets of sanctimonious scorn.

+ Tim Pawlenty -- offering plenty of platitudes, then getting out fast while the getting was good when he finally noticed no one was noticing him.

+ Ron Paul being -- Ron Paul -- a curious combination of brilliant insight (getting our military out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and just about everywhere else) and baffling lunacy -- shrinking our Federal Government to the size of gnat, then having his son, Rand, swallow it.

+ Newt Gingrich -- a true loser -- losing once again with such absurd observations as "Any ad which quotes what I said Sunday is a falsehood."

+ John Huntsman -- abandoning a perfectly fine job as U.S. Ambassador to China to be completely ignored by everyone who counts, since John’s thoughts seem far too, as Sarah Palin might say, “thinky.”

+ And Sarah, herself, whose biographical tour de farce, “The Undefeated”, was this summer’s biggest box office flop, raking in a total of $175,000 before being quickly pulled from theaters.

Barack Obama should come out of his conciliatory closet like a Honey Badger in heat and demand that Congress enact sweeping historic legislation in a “New Age New Deal” -- with hundreds of billions invested in infrastructure, education, and jobs, jobs, jobs -- all surely called for by provisions in our Federal Constitution guaranteeing the promotion of general welfare.

The cost of such extensive spending should be born by long overdue revisions in the Federal tax code, final abandonment of the “Bush Tax Cuts”, withdrawal of our troops from harm’s way in Africa, Afghanistan and the Middle East, and a return to Eisenhower Era levels of taxation for the wealthiest among us. Such actions would also offer heavy positive impact in addressing current deficits and ultimately providing a balanced budget, as we last enjoyed under Democratic President Bill Clinton.

As such proposals undoubtedly would become immediate fresh fodder for unrestrained, uncompromising Republican rejection, they would also instantly provide a framework for true critical change, compensating for our current motivational malaise and becoming the basis for Obama’s reelection next year.

2. To say something in an ostentatious or aggressive manner, but with no intention to act.”

With the nation held hostage once again, our President blinked. Abandoning other viable options, he caved. Embarrassing himself and supporters in full global view, he was wonderfully woofed by Speaker Goofy and the gang, all of whom had repeatedly gone on record guaranteeing they wouldn’t do what Obama feared they might. They started pretending, so he began bending. They woofed and it worked.

As the House of Representatives went first in voting on “The Budget Control Act of 2011” with only hours to go before an artificial, arbitrary “deadline”, Democrats tied at 95 to 95 while Republicans overwhelmingly approved the measure 174 to 66. Then the whole Senate rolled over with confirmation at 74 to 26 and the measure was sent to the White House for a presidential signing strikingly devoid of ceremony or celebration. Behind the scratch of his pen, I believe I heard crickets.

The Economic Policy Institute, a highly accredited nonpartisan think tank, estimates that the devil’s deal struck August 2nd officially raising the nation’s debt limit will end up costing our American economy 1.8 million jobs by the end of next year. And will probably plunge us into further recession/depression/suppression.

In signing the extraordinarily tortured piece of superfluous legislation, President Obama simultaneously announced he is now going to concentrate on the most important immediate priority facing our country -- jobs.

This seems the biggest disconnect since Lucy left Desi, Eddie departed Debbie or, for younger readers, since Charlie split from Winona, Bree, Heidi, Robin, Rachel, Brooke, Capri, Denise, Elizabeth Ann, Ginger, Heather, Kacey, Tracy, Kelly, Tamara, Dolly, Melanie, Michelle, Natalie -- and others of varying significance.

Meanwhile, Congress, having failed to resolve an issue involving the Federal Aviation Administration, went home and started enjoying a fully paid five week vacation, leaving 75,000 support and construction workers unemployed, including over 400 safety inspectors. House Speaker John Boehner publicly stated the whole problem could be resolved immediately in exchange for Democratic concessions on changing a labor rule to make it more difficult for airline workers to unionize. The potential cost to taxpayers on this particular GOP hostage taking? 200 million dollars a week in lost airline fees or, by the time September arrived, a cool billion bucks gone bye-bye from our Federal Treasury. So much for dealing with the deficit.

For those who might feel the word “hostage” is pure Democratic hyperbole, here are Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Kentucky) comments: “I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting. Most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this — it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done.”

You know what? I can’t fairly fault good old boy Mitch. What works -- works. Decoded? “This hostage deal is a dog that DOES hunt.” And there’s another old Kentucky saying I’ve always treasured, herein edited for purposes of propriety in a family newspaper--

Blame for such future shame should be properly attributed accordingly, substituting “me” with the collective “us” for any critically necessary future change in which we can truly believe.

In faithfully backing Barack with dog like loyalty, perhaps some of us have been barking up the wrong tree.

I was first introduced to Elizabeth Warren in Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story.”

At the time, Ms. Warren was chair of a Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the U.S. banking bailout involving hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars. When Michael asked her in the film “where the money went”, she candidly replied with genuine frustration and refreshing candor, “I don’t know” — a question which remains largely unanswered to this day.

A seemingly perfect choice to develop and oversee a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren was named a a senior adviser to President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on September 17, 2010, since then earning the nickname “Sheriff of Wall Street” and ruffling more than a few feathers outside and inside the Obama Administration.

On Thursday, July 14th, while testifying before a congressional panel, Warren questioned the scope of state and federal investigations into alleged mortgage abuses and “illegal” foreclosures perpetrated by the nation’s largest mortgage companies, marking the first time a senior White House official publicly broke ranks with the President over the issue and raising fresh questions about the wisdom of the government’s rush to settle with the firms.

She testified that government agencies may not have sufficiently investigated claims that borrowers’ homes were illegally seized by banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial.

Four days later, on Monday, July 18th, President Obama announced Warren was being passed over as his choice to become permanent Director of the very organization she had conceived and created, instead choosing to nominate Warren’s second-in-command, former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, thus caving in to those who view Elizabeth Warren as being far, far too serious in her quest for meaningful banking regulations and reform.

While this decision may well open the door for Ms. Warren to run for the Senate next year in Massachusetts against Scott Brown, surprise inheritor of Ted Kennedy’s old seat, Obama’s latest reluctance to confront the GOP head on in this instance again seems to signal Presidential timidity at best and incomprehensible capitulation at worst.

In Elizabeth Warren’s case, I find myself equally troubled by the President’s choice of such Wall Street tainted advisors as Geithner, Larry Summers, Bill Daily and others, who may well have felt themselves under Warren’s scrutiny to an uncomfortable degree in her attempts to shed serious light on shifty shenanigans.

But I am most heartened by Ms. Warren’s words to the Huffington Post
in graciously commenting on Cordray’s appointment:

“I’m not taking my eye off those who want to cripple this agency. We got this agency by fighting, we stood it up by fighting, and, if takes more fighting to keep it strong and independent, then we can do it.”

Perhaps the day may come when a Senator Warren might become a President Warren. She already has her gloves on.

"If we should ever separate, my little plum, I want to give you just one bit of fatherly advice: Never give a sucker an even break!”

There they were the morning of November 5, 2008, facing a newly elected Democratic President, Democrats outnumbering Republicans in the House (257 to 178) and Senate (58 to 41) with political pundits pronouncing their party more endangered than Delta smelt.

But since assuming office on January 20, 2009, President Barack Obama has folded like a lawn chair — a paper hat — a cheap suit — metaphors abound — and he’s done it time and time again. Elected through his soaring campaign rhetoric of, “Yes, we can!”, it now seems clear that he can’t — or –worse—-he won’t.

Barack Obama wasted his first two years of Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress to such a disenchanting extent that more than half the youth vote which elected him stayed home last November, resulting in an historic electoral swing to the right.

If the legendary “Urban Cowboy” was — “Big Hat — No Horse!” — Our President has defined himself as — “Big Talk — No Walk!”

We remain the only nation in the entire industrialized world without some form of universal health care for its citizens. Obama caved early on this one, even refusing to put a “single- payer” proposal on the table at the outset of negotiations. A single-payer system of health care would largely cut insurers out of the process, permitting government to be the sole payer of health care claims by consumers and providers and eliminating a profit motive, saving billions in the process.

We now witness the most uneven distribution of wealth between rich and poor in our history on the planet, virtually the worst inequity anywhere among free governments. Obama tossed away elimination of tax breaks for the rich and private corporations at the end of last year for little in return except an extension of emergency assistance to the unemployed, haughtily defined by Republicans at the time as a thoroughly questionable expenditure. He traded a cake for a cookie.

As unionism in general and collective bargaining in particular have come under bitter attack by State governments in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and elsewhere, our President has remained disturbingly disengaged.

An insatiable American War Machine — that “Military – Industrial Complex” President Eisenhower warned us about in 1961– IS NOW ADDING FOURTEEN BILLION DOLLARS A WEEK TO OUR NATIONAL DEBT. President Obama has limited military withdrawal from Afghanistan to a minimal level against former promises and now entertains the notion of leaving significant troops in Iraq past a deadline pledged by his predecessor, George the Conqueror. Then there’s Libya.

Alan Cheah, my “For Your Consideration” colleague, bets “that 99% of Tea Party members do not belong to the social circles being protected by (Eric) Cantor and (Jon) Kyl”. Both of these dangerous dudes have been dangling all of us over a potentially deadly economic abyss to avoid any tax increases on the truly well-off.

For that matter, I have never heard any Tea Party patriot defending those obscene banking practices which threw us into a deep recession in September of 2008 or the “banksters” who profited before, during and after everything collapsed around us. 2011 will be their best year yet. This debacle remains functionally unaddressed by President Obama and a bought and paid for Congress. There have been no meaningful changes in Federal Law since the bottom dropped out, even as hundreds of corporate criminals are heavily rewarded, yet are still uncharged – let alone unpunished.

Ironically, with their deep embracement of the U.S. Constitution, Tea Party folks may even come to our rescue in early August by observing that the 14th Amendment clearly states: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” There is no need for a “debt ceiling” referenced anywhere in the document, especially regarding interest payments on current obligations already “authorized by law”.

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from less than 9 percent in 1976. From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.

For any practical purpose, that top 1% of our population now own and operate the United States of America. If you’re in the bottom 99%? They believe they run YOU. And they’re certainly exercising a frightening degree of demonstrable control over our Chief Executive, whose earnest inclination to conciliate at any cost against the interests of the American middle class is leading us to Seriously Unfair, Commons Killing, Economic Ruin.

Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) has finally resigned his office. He’s later than this year’s truncated Sierra Spring and miserably more disappointing.

I realize Republican counterparts in matters of sexual folderol are as numerous as fleas on Fluffy — Christopher Lee (R-NY), Mark Souder (R- Indiana), Larry Craig (R-Indiana), David Vitter (R-Louisiana), Mark Sanford (R-South Carolina), John Ensign (R-Nevada), Gary Condit (R-California), Chip Pickering (R-Mississippi), Mark Foley (R-Florida), Ed Shrock (R-Virginia), Bob Barr (R-Georgia), and our own Sperminator (R-California) being the first dozen instantly springing to mind, pardon the expression.

The fact that many of these rascals were able to remain in office for varying lengths of time despite extended public humiliation has nothing to do with the rights or wrongs of their behavior. Citing such instances in defense of Weiner, even referencing Bill Clinton’s successful survival in the Oval Office with a severely stained reputation, offers nothing more than the absurd notion that getting away with something creates irrefutably established collective sanction – like stealing second base. I suggest Representative Weiner’s reprehensible conduct introduces a whole new ball game.

We find that dirty old man in a raincoat now miraculously replaced by a cleaner Weiner on a Blackberry, suddenly graced through advanced technology with the remarkable capability of instant digital exposure on a global scale. Ooops. Excuse me. I’m having a Jethro Tull flashback. Poor old Aqualung. “Sitting on a park bench. Eyeing little girls with bad intent.” But this time Representative Weiner is the “dead duck”, whether he knows it or not.

Weiner freely (and finally) acknowledges that he shared certain “messages and photos of an explicit nature with about six women over the last three years.” Responding to a specific concern expressed in an ill-advised 29 minute long question and answer session following his initial June 6th confession, Representative Weiner embarrassingly admitted he could not guarantee that one or more of his flashing photos might not have been received by a young girl under the age of legal consent, a turn of events offering felonious potential.

Consider who’s been hurt. Setting aside obvious casualties, including his pregnant wife, confused constituents and a stunned staff, Anthony Weiner has destroyed all credibility as a champion of progressive thought even as we approach the most critical tipping point in our nation’s political history — a hero horribly unhinged.

A new Rasmussen poll shows a Congressional approval rating plummeting to less than ten percent — tying an all time low as Republicans cheer a 9.1 % unemployment rate — believing that blocking economic recovery is their best way to beat Obama in 2012.

Two billion dollars a week continues to drain our Treasury for “absolutely nothing” — this being the late Edwin Starr’s 1969 evaluation of WAR, a conclusion brilliant in its time and even truer yet today.

We keep getting robbed on gas prices, food costs and new “fee surcharges” on everything that walks, crawls, flies, stands, or just sits there like a bump on a log or a hump on a frog. Speaking of which, my disgust with Representative Weiner has much less to do with his sexual proclivities than the utter abandonment of responsibility on every level evident in his actions — substituting inspired leadership with perspiring lechery — followed by the most functionally fatal act of all — lying about it again and again and again and again — even directly to the President in a private conversation. In this and other failings, Weiner has added far too heavy a load of harmful personal baggage to remain a viable spokesperson for enlightened change.

Tony! We believed you! You betrayed our trust! But most of all, you have turned out to be a real creep — even creepier than that eensy-weensy spider crawling up a water spout.

“Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer.”

“-- and Romney and Ryan and Boehner and Newt --
and Trump and Palin and Bachman to boot ! ”

Citizens of New York’s 26th Congressional District elected Republican Christopher Lee to office in November of 2010 (only seven months ago) with an astounding 76% of the vote over his Democratic opponent. Then Representative Lee took off his shirt and trolled for trollops on Craig’s List, a career move with public revelation leading to panicked resignation. Thank goodness for Republicans that New York’s 26th is traditionally known as one of the safest G.O.P. strongholds in the entire country. But, wait! What do we see?

Thanks to Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, “Murderer of Medicare”, last week’s special election in the 26th saw Democratic candidate Kathy Hochul engineer a stunning defeat over Republican Jane Corwin by an amazing 47% to 42%. Every poll taken indicates without question that the House-approved attempt to kill Medicare as we know it, enthusiastically endorsed by Ms. Corwin until the last minute, was the singular deciding factor in an historic and virtually immediate voter swing resulting in Ms. Hochul’s election.

And yet Jeff Denham and every other Republican representative of the House, along with 40 similarly configured, ideology driven Republican Senators, appear locked in a mindless, lemming-like march off a cliff of dazzlingly ill-conceived conviction, powerless to defy their invisible masters.

Back in that lazy, crazy summer of ‘63, the top rate for personal Federal Income Taxes for the fortunately blessed was 91%, now slashed over time to 35%. All in all, Federal taxes for 2011 are the lowest in sixty years -- since the end of World War Two.

The rich have not only gotten richer in recent decades. Elected surrogates have been brilliantly successful in blaming “Big Government” for the prolonged economic execution of America’s Middle Class. Even more sinister is the ever accelerating abolishment of social programs by the score and abandonment of any affirmative recognition of hard-won, long-accepted, time-honored commitments to a prosperous collective future in a thriving, vibrant, national union.

I would hope our President will now display the same courage, confidence and conviction which won him unparalleled praise from even his harshest critics in the bin Laden finale by -- taking on the takers. They have a lot to give back. Let’s boogie with these bullet points:

* Any retreat on maintaining and bolstering Medicare/Medicaid as we know it will be unforgivable.

* Federal taxes must be increased by a full 10% on all net personal income above $250,000.

* Investment in social programs curtailed by or eliminated through
“budget cuts” should be restored at the soonest and increased thereafter as circumstances allow, i.e., when the rich again start paying their full fair share.

* Let’s bring home our troops from Iraq, Afghanistan and all those other places where American ground presence has become, in the age of deadly drones, an expensive, outmoded, completely unnecessary anachronism.

* The Republican Party of 2011 has been hijacked by precocious pretenders funded by an oligarchical cabal seeking eventual repeal of the whole New Deal. Then they’ll get serious. This threat should be met with the responsive severity it deserves.

* Washington lobbying should be enormously curtailed, if not completely eliminated as a formal enterprise. Why not? In most civilized societies, prostitution is illegal. Let’s write that up NOW. Then it’s on to “Medicare for All.”

* A Constitutional Amendment should be initiated aimed at overturning the Supreme Court’s horrid decision in “Citizens United” granting corporations “person” status in matters of free speech. Right now, it’s open season with money ever more bold to keep us controlled.

* Under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, Federal legislation should be drafted and approved eliminating bidding between states offering competing, ever escalating tax breaks for corporations and other “divide and conquer” opportunities for the insatiable elite.

And let’s not be shy about sharing our concerns with others, particularly those beginning to realize that cries of “taking our country back” has been leaving out the last two words:

Howard Camping is an 89 year-old civil engineer who says we have just a few days days left. Then it’s Armageddon — the end of the world. Don’t start packing. He’s been wrong before.

Mr. Camping, heard regularly on Christian radio station 91.5 FM with a tower on Deadwood, claims Judgment Day will commence at 3 PM Pacific on Saturday — May 21, 2011. He says he’s getting that straight from God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures and promises he won’t screw up like last time when he swore the Apocalypse would kick off on September 6, 1994. That day came and went without much happening at all — except actor Jackson Pinckney was awarded $487,000 for being partially blinded by Jean-Claude Van Damme during filming of “Cyborg” and Aerosmith, Lisa Marie & Michael Jackson shared top honors at the 11th Annual MTV Awards, both events evidently not referenced in biblical prophesy.

Mr. Camping insists on his “Family Radio Network” that great earthquakes will shake the Earth that Saturday and continue through Oct. 21st as believers will be called to the heavens and the unrepentant will be thrown to the ground and shamed. Like in Ultimate Fighting.

Most faithful Christians dismiss Camping as embarrassingly errant, even as the Morning Order of Prayer in ancient Roman Catholic liturgy clearly states, “As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” But this hasn’t stopped Camping and his happy Campingers from putting up billboards coast to coast proclaiming May 21st is Doomsday, adding that “The Bible Guarantees It!” Camping has tens of thousands of true believers, but some folks will believe anything. Anything at all –even the wildest of truly whacky ideas.

(1) The world will end Saturday. Nope. It won’t even slow down on its 60,000 mile an hour trip around the Sun. Get out your stop watch.

(2) “ObamaCare” exists. There’s no such thing — just changes in Federal law falling far, far short of health insurance for all. Keep your eyes on the State of Vermont. The legislature there has approved Universal Health Coverage, i.e., coverage for all. In 1791, Vermont was the first State in the Union to outlaw slavery. Vermont was also the first State to mint a copper penny (1785), first to see victory during the Revolutionary War in
the Battle of Fort Ticonderoga (1775) and first to photograph a snowflake (1885). I thought everything cool started in California.

(3) Taxing the rich kills jobs. But it might kill idle financial speculation that’s costing us four bucks a gallon for gas — a fortune with every fill-up.

(4) An increase in the Federal Debt Ceiling will be treasonous without slashing programs for the poor and powerless. I agree with the late Kurt Vonnegut. He wrote, “I despise Social Darwinism.”

(5) Social Security is broke. It’s not. Social Security is entirely solvent and will pay full benefits at least through 2042. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office even projects that Social Security may pay all benefits through 2052 with no changes whatsoever.

(6) Medicare must be replaced with private insurance purchased from “for profit” corporations. Or, yeah? Not if seniors have their say, especially our “seniors of tomorrow.”

(7) Abortion Rights, Same Sex Marriage, Collective Bargaining, Gays in the Military and other social issues, many thought to have been long since resolved, are a more important pressing priority than jobs, the economy and bringing our troops home. D’oh!

(8) Even though bin Laden is as dead as disco,”The War on Terror” stays alive and well. Osama sleeps with the fishes. GAME OVER!

(9) Like Fox News, our current U.S. Supreme Court is fair and balanced.
Can you say “Citizens United?” Corporations are legally complete human beings with the same rights, protection and privileges as any of us? Except maybe jury duty? Or military service? Or paying taxes?

(10) The Great Wall of Coarsegold will be fixed to everyone’s complete satisfaction so not a single soul will remain concerned about the whole darn hill crashing down on Highway 41 at the height of rush hour traffic. Hmmmmm. Maybe that’s something NO ONE believes. Not even Howard Camping.

Representative Jeff Denham of California’s 19th Congressional District seems like a very nice young man and I’m sure, as is true of all very nice young men, Jeff will be perfectly fine once he grows up.

I saw and heard Jeff, 43, speak last Thursday before a first class Luncheon presented by the Oakhurst Chamber of Commerce at Sierra Meadows Country Club, a bit of a change in ambiance from my usual well-worn bar stool at the Oak Room. Since I have somehow gained a local reputation for progressive (“liberal”) (“left wing”) (“commie”) views – often expressed aloud and at length in public, I had promised Kathy McCorry and Angelo Pizelo my attendance would be accompanied by a closed mouth and open mind. I am pleased (and surprised) to report that I delivered on both.

There was last year’s corporate plane ride with Karl Rove in apparent violation of Federal Law and an ill-advised $150,000 “Public Service Campaign” in honor of American war dead which gained Jeff substantial local television exposure during last year’s Republican primary as well as the justified wrath of area veterans’ groups. Then there was that $2,500 a person ($50,000 a table) fund raiser at Washington’s ever so fashionable “W” hotel headlining LeAnn Rimes on January 4th marking Jeff’s debut in Washington. The event took in $212,250 in contributions, but his committee claimed it cost $212,900, meaning the whole lobbyist shakedown supposedly earned just 650 bucks. Stuff like that.

So I was impressed with and pleasantly surprised by a number of Representative Denham’s brief opening remarks. Comfortably and informally clad in a sports shirt and casual slacks, Jeff introduced himself and claimed his core identity, setting aside all else, was being the proud father of two. Doctor Laura would have been proud. He discussed his initial organizational accomplishments in our nation’s capitol, spoke of possible federal legislation in support of those whose homes had been foreclosed through no fault of their own and even, when questioned about “New Deal” legislation under Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the ‘30’s, allowed that “make work” projects such as the Civilian Conservation Corp just might make lots of sense today. And, bless him, Congressman Denham even categorically stated that he wasn’t sure America was on the right path with all three of our current “wars”. He said they lack specific goals and policy purpose. Amen!

Then things started spinning a whole different way, pure fiction being woven into purported fact before our very eyes and ears. Jeff had clearly taken TEA with his luncheon tri-tip. It hit hard and heavy.

Ignoring historic weather data courtesy of Mother Nature, Jeff told our Oakhurst bunch that California’s “man-made drought” should be ended because of this year’s “200 percent of normal” snowfall in the Sierra, the highest estimated figure I’ve seen being impressive, but significantly less. Then came Congressman Denham’s allegation that President Obama is not telling the truth when he says that the United States has only 2% of the world’s oil reserves when it’s really a cool 65%. I googled it. Barack’s pretty much right, although some sources say it may be as high as 2.4%. Not even the entire Middle East has 65%.

Warmed up, Denham then launched into Koch brothers approved, Karl Rove sanctioned, right-wing rhetoric straight out of the Ayn Rand lunacy bin. Cut government spending. Stay in your station. Cut government spending. Kill not the King’s deer. Cut government spending. Bow to your betters. Cut government spending. Let flow an ocean of unchallenged, unabated, constant repetition to drown out all other voices, particularly those of the sane.

“We must cut corporate taxes to create jobs”, said our novice Congressman, praising the “New Republican 2012 Budget” even as it lowers taxes on the richest among us, destroys Social Security as we know it and kills Medicare for all under 55, a group which has faithfully contributed to the program ever since their very first day at work.

Among concluding comments, Jeff made the usual cliched promise to “take our country back” without mentioning why or from whom, emphasized the need for a “different” Republican party than that of honored American tradition and promised to do all he could not to raise the Federal Debt Ceiling — damn the torpedoes — full greed ahead.

We have reached a definitive point as a people. Our collective future is taking form. Only history will finally and objectively judge our father of two — even as this grandfather of eleven wishes him well. And wisdom.

With politically progressive credentials clearly and publicly established through the years, my first reaction to formation of the “Tea Party Movement” was admittedly positive with genuine enthusiasm and hopeful expectation. Government, supposedly “by, of, and for the people”, hasn’t seemed at all that way in recent times.

“Having enjoyed a lovely gathering at the July 4th “Family Freedom Fest” at Oakhurst Park, all concerned are due appropriate congratulations and recognition for successful organizational efforts and, mainly, for deeply caring about their country.”

I still feel that way now about the people, but not “The Party.” That’s not my cup of tea at all.

In national polling data from early April, 55% of us urged compromise on major issues, including 69% of Democrats, 53% of Independents and 50% of registered Republicans. In contrast, 68% of those identifying themselves as “Tea Party Supporters” shunned any form of negotiated agreement, preferring a government shutdown and subsequent horrors over not getting their absolute way — placing principle over precipice plunging.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va) , a Tea Party treasure, drafted and drove to approval (220 to 202) a hopelessly pretentious House Resolution –”The Government Prevention Shutdown Act” — which revealed Cantor’s inexcusable ignorance of basic Constitutional Law. In the bill, cynically named to disguise 61 billion dollars in social spending cuts, Cantor inserted language which stated that the measure would become the law of the land if the Senate didn’t quickly approve it. And never mind a Presidential signature. Cantor, who apparently never completed Third Grade Social Studies, thought it was a great, “serious” idea.

But Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wis) leaves Cantor in the dust when it comes to hypocrisy honed to the razor’s edge. Representative Ryan is House Budget Committee Chairman and has just introduced his masterpiece, a “ Path to Prosperity”, your official Republican Budget Proposal for Fiscal 2012 and beyond. On this path, according to Kaiser Health News, seniors and those with disabilities would pay much more for Medicare. Specifically, “By 2030, typical 65 year-olds would be required to pay 68% of the cost of their coverage, which includes premiums, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket costs.” In addition, traditional “Medicare” would DISAPPEAR by 2022 and shift beneficiaries into private insurance plans operated by “for profit” corporations. And he’ll be bringing back that “Donut Hole” so retirees can pay more for drugs again. And all this under the Holy Tea Party Grail of “Cutting Government Spending”

How about “Increasing Government Revenue”, even though Congressman Ryan, now self-defined as the Doctor Kevorkian of Medicare, also wants to lower taxes for the rich from 35% to 25%?

Right here in California, an interesting statistic from Tulchin Research offers breathtaking hope. A survey taken in March suggests that nearly eight out of ten California voters (78%) favor raising income taxes by 1% on the top 1% of Californians in order to help balance the state budget and prevent deeper cuts to social services. 89% of Democrats like the idea, 79% of Independents think that’s a fine suggestion and even 60% of Republicans would support such a measure. This single act would raise 2.5 billion dollars for the common good. Hah! An increase to 10% would completely eliminate our entire currently projected state budget deficit and restore many programs, safety nets and jobs recently ripped away by alleged necessity.

Please bear in mind, our “Top 1%” just received a 9 billion dollar tax decrease from the Federal Government at the end of last year with President Obama’s extension of the Bush tax breaks. Over the last ten years, they’re billions and billions and billions ahead. How ‘bout you?

Locally and nationally, our collective problem is not loss of private wealth, but lack of political will.

And as for “The Tea Party” with Sarah, Michelle, Eric, Paul and now even “The Donald?”

““At any rate, I’ll never go THERE again!’” said Alice as she picked her way through the wood.” *

* Chapter Seven –”A Mad Tea Party” — from — ”Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll (1865)

Note — I’ve had several inquiries regarding my reference to Led Zeppelin above in the context of bringing “the balance back.” This phrase appears in “The Battle of Evermore” from “Led Zeppelin IV” (1971) — “The magic runes are writ in gold to bring the balance back.”

Robert Plant is a great fan of Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” from which he drew considerably inspiration in “Battle of Evermore”.

And so it was we sadly witnessed trees by the thousands -- many hundred year old oaks -- bent and broken -- smothered and toppled -- as irresistible forces of inevitable nature visited these foothills in the first 24 hours of a new Spring.

Our Oakhurst area was the regional epicenter. A furiously perfect combination of temperature and humidity unloaded wet snow by the megaton on Birch, Pine, Manzanita and more -- fresh green buds unfortunately providing greatly increased capture space. As I awoke on Monday morning, the dawn was filled by the sound of trees cracking like rifle fire.

“Sierra Cement?” Yes! A perfect description! Daughter, Susan, claimed no pride of authorship as she uttered this phrase, having lived here for well over a decade, yet never having witnessed such a relentless, devastating example of this unyielding, unforgiving phenomenon. Nor had wife, Eileen, nor I ever experienced so powerful a storm, although both of us were born and raised in Syracuse, New York, where an annual snowfall of 120 inches remains pretty much par for the course.

The amount of water snow contains is known as the "snow to liquid ratio." An average ratio is about 10:1, which means that 10 inches of snow melts down to 1 inch of water. The ratio for “Sierra Cement” is about 5:1, whereas good powder is around 15:1 or 20:1. Accordingly to the National Weather Service, our recent Oakhurst inundation was probably close to 4:1 -- as heavy as it gets.

The single saving grace of “Sierra Cement” would seem to be its brief life span, unlike “Societal Cement”.

“Societal Cement” is formed and molded, often by passive acceptance. It sets and hardens -- securing and separating us into unique personal placement away from others -- isolating all in varying degrees by religion, politics, race, national origin, sex, age, income and other divisions.

Ultimately, we’re all in this together, whatever “this” may turn out to be.

Why is gasoline is now up to $4.00 a gallon while there has been absolutely no dimunition in available supply except that which has been arbitrarily and artificially imposed?

Because we’ve been conditioned to accept as inevitable the absurdity that certain forces are “beyond our control”

Why are governmental budgets being balanced on the backs of the old and poor while corporate profits are at record levels with General Electric paying NO taxes on FOURTEEN BILLION DOLLARS IN 2010 PROFITS?

Because compromise, the essence of cooperation, has been unilaterally condemned as capitulation and foolishly defined as unconditional surrender.

As one can be locked into a situation or system which rigidly prohibits spiritual, philosophical or economic extension beyond defined perimeters, remember that Societal Cement primarily only exists to preserve the approved -- to keep us in our place in line -- all the time. A willful decision to accept selfishly formulated notions of others as personal judgment is self-imposed confinement.

“Freedom of Thought” can not be found and is not guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. This may well explain why the “Tea Party” attracts so many spectacular non-thinkers, up to and including the entire programming lineup at KMJ-AM and their struggling FM stepchild.

The Irish greeted Saint Patrick’s message in 433 A.D. with open minds and happy hearts. It is Celtic to the core, imagination yielding to exaggeration in elegant elaboration. So, too, is the legend of St. Patrick observed here in America — with wild celebration and exuberant joy. In Ireland it’s a “Holy Day of Obligation.” You’re supposed to be in church.

“By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young girl calling.
Michael, they are taking you away.
For you stole the English corn
So our young might see the morn.
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.”

“The Fields of Athenry” is an Irish folk ballad set during the Great Irish Potato Famine (1845-1850) about a fictional man named Michael from near Athenry in County Galway — sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay, Australia, for stealing food for his starving family.

1992 was the 100th Anniversary of my Great- Grandfather’s death. He had left Ireland during The Famine Years in 1848 and had crossed the North Atlantic to the green fields of America. He rests buried under a fine Celtic Cross in a little churchyard just north of Syracuse. His name is engraved in sharp, bold lettering, still clearly distinct with more than a century gone:

My namesake’s handwriting appears in an old, worn book on Irish History which was passed down to me. It was all Peter
left us in memory. This is what he wrote:

Cavanaugh
Diocese of Fern
County of Leinster
Town of Ballyoughter
Irish Nobility
Evicted By The English
And Abandoned By God

I had left broadcasting after 36 uninterrupted years. I knew where to go. Eileen and I drove to Detroit and caught a flight
to Dublin. We rented a car and traveled the land without itinerary or agenda. There was no need. There were spirits every-
where. We were led.

Peter is listed as the son of James and Margaret Cavanaugh, born in the summer of 1816 in Ballyoughter. The town has disappeared. It was located east of Enniscorthy, just south of Dublin in the Wicklow Mountains near the sea.

Peter was baptized July 15 of that year, according to parish records now miraculously preserved on microfilm at the Library
of Ireland in Dublin. The fancy spelling of the family name “Kavanagh” with a “C” and a superfluous “u” can be attributed
to the transcribing priest, who wrote in a most graceful and elegant hand. Before and after his stewardship of some thirty
years, the whole bunch were illiterate “Kavanaghs”, forbidden to learn reading and writing, own property, vote, practice their religion, hold public office, engage in trade or commerce or possess firearms.

The priest had faithfully noted births, marriages and deaths in the small community during his whole tenure. It is a ledger covered with
invisible tears. There are five pages per year before “The Famine,” and five years per page thereafter. Many in our family died
of hunger. So did a million fellow countrymen during the time of the “Great Starvation” with yet another million emigrating on “Coffin Ships” bound for North America, Australia and New Zealand. Of these, an estimated one out of five died from disease and malnutrition before reaching their destination.

“By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young man calling.
Nothing matters, Mary, when you’re free.
Against the Famine and the Crown
I rebelled. They ran me down
Now you must raise our child with dignity.”

Let the record be clear. At no point during the length of the “Famine” period did Ireland fail to grow plentiful crops — enough to feed the entire native population of the island twice over. But “Free Market” thinking carried the day. Such bountiful harvests were sent to England and Europe to enrich the treasuries of non-Irish Lords, Ladies and Landowners who lived far across the Irish Sea, owning and controlling over 95% of the Emerald Isle following 800 years of tyrannical, often brutal rule over Britain’s first and last colony.

The rich and powerful have been triumphant over the poor and weak century after century in our extended human experience. Governance in a democratic fashion is still new and fragile in the history of our species.

Could a time ever come when the wealthiest one percent of American households might represent 190 times the economic worth of an average person? Or witness that top one percent more than doubling their share of America’s income in a single generation while the bottom 90% fell? Or realize fifty percent of Americans now own only one-half of one percent of America’s stocks and bonds?

“By a lonely harbor wall
She watched the last star falling
As that prison ship sailed out against the sky.
Sure she’ll wait and hope and pray
For her love in Botany Bay –
It’s so lonely ’round the Fields of Athenry. “

It was a Happy New Year beginning for wealthy corporate interests in Wisconsin last month when newly-elected Republican Governor Scott Walker assumed both office and the delusion that no one would particularly notice when he signed a series of bills in his opening weeks granting $140 million dollars to out-of-state corporations in tax relief. Equally preposterous was Walker’s naiveté in supposing that the $137 million dollar state budget shortfall thus created could be blamed on Wisconsin’s unionized government employees, except several police and firefighter groups which supported him in his recent election campaign, loyalty having its place in pay backs.

Besides winning Super Bowl XLV, beating top-ranked Ohio State in basketball and brewing beer by the boatload, the Badger State proudly waltzed into 2011 with a budget actually in balance, more rare in our times than a good hair day for Donald Trump. That’s until Walker and fellow Republicans in the Wisconsin House and Senate, having ridden November’s Tea Party Wave to super majority status, whacked off that cool 140 million for their friends. Giddy with glee, Walker then proceeded to pronounce Wisconsin’s unionized governmental employees, save those with squad cars or fire trucks, guilty of gross financial malfeasance. Their crime? A union contract. Their penalty? The 2011 “Budget Repair Bill” (SS 11), introduced and voted on in less than a single week.

SS 11 was designed to strip the ability of Wisconsin public employee unions to bargain over pensions, health insurance and working conditions and would limit those unions to negotiate only on base wages. But there will be no discussions over an immediate increase in forced, arbitrary contributions to health and pension plans amounting to several thousand dollars annually. That's a done deal. So be it!

The proposal marks a sad and ironic shift for Wisconsin, which in 1959 was the first State to pass a comprehensive collective bargaining law for public employees and was the birthplace in 1932 of Wisconsin State Employees/Council 24. This seed of a dream later grew to become today’s AFSCME, The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, by far the largest national union representing all non-federal public employees.

I was an elected Audit Man for NABET (National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians) Local 46 at WTAC in Flint during the ‘60’s and was President and General Manager of that same facility, negotiating for station ownership against NABET in the late ‘70’s. Mind you, this was in Flint, Michigan, home of the United Auto Workers and site of the historic 1936 Sit-down Strike at General Motors which brought forth an American middle class now endangered as never before.

Wisconsin is not alone in what any fair minded individual should regard as thinly veiled, politically expedient union busting. Similar legislation against collective bargaining by governmental employees, including police and firefighters, is pending in Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana, Nevada and Tennessee.

In 1987, I was honored being asked by the UAW to narrate a live radio and TV broadcast of their 50th Anniversary Parade through the streets of Flint and produce a thirty minute “Fireworks Spectacular” on the banks of the Flint River in the heart of downtown, complete with lasers and a synchronized symphonic soundtrack. By then, I was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of a seven station non-union group, but had always attempted to be enthusiastically participatory in all community events regardless of worker affiliation or lack thereof.

In preparing a formal ten minute recorded introduction to the festivities, I visited UAW archives in Detroit and discovered a dusty old 78 rpm Gramophone disc from 1932, an old activist marching song which I wrote into the script.

On a hot summer night at dusk, through dozens of speakers with thousands of watts pumping into a hundred thousand Michigan ears -- came chilling words from a not too distant past -- and a title explaining this Cavanaugh’s own powerful reluctance to join any union damning bandwagons of this moment or any other.

With St. Paddy’s Day just weeks away, I trust such sentiments referencing ANY national origin will forever remain properly abandoned on the trash heap of history, never to be resurrected by thuggish throwbacks to meaner streets and uglier days. Or that time-honored collective bargaining ever be cavalierly condemned by precocious newbie Governors looking for press.

Of all the people in history that have reached 65 years of age, half of them are living right now. And that’s for the whole world. Here in Madera County, we’re all over the place. Look around. Geezers galore! I’m proud and amazed at being part of our illustrious bunch, having entered my 70th year this last September 8th when I turned 69. Wife Eileen is most uncomfortable having me state personal chronology this way, “70th year” ringing in her ears with ominous overtones, but I find still being on the right side of the lawn an astounding achievement.

The United States entered World War Two three months after my birth and ended it four years later with two blinding explosions of star-hot white light over Hiroshima and Nagasaki as The Atomic Age rolled in with terrible terminal fury.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known as the "father of the atomic bomb". Later solemnly pondering such achievement with churning discomfort as he reviewed the horrific fruits of his labor, Oppenheimer famously recalled these words from the Hindu Holy Book, Bhagavad Gita: "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

Back then, even we children knew the score. “Duck and Cover” wasn’t a game, but a constantly repeated survival exercise. We were carefully instructed to “listen for sirens” and be on the lookout for a “brilliant burst of light”, at which point we were to dive to the ground or under our desks and, if possible, cover ourselves with anything appropriate, if only little hands on tiny faces. I honestly never expected to see puberty, whatever I might have thought that to be, although in the late ‘40’s we never heard of “puberty” at all. There were many more secrets then. But not about instantaneous death and destruction. These always seemed but a single flash away. It was understood that existence was a precarious proposition.

Proportionately miraculous, therefore, is the extraordinary notion that so many of us in Oakhurst are still here, our longevity primarily attributable to the overarching guarantee of assured mutual destruction should “the radiance of a thousand suns” ever again be darkly unleashed.
This “War Against Terror?” How foolish a phrase and how wrenchingly sad, for only ultimate terror has kept us safe so far.

But things have become marvelously, almost immaculately anesthetized. We are painlessly removed from stark realities for which we still remain ultimately responsible. “War” has become an abstraction. Just a word. Other than a slender percentage of population, most of us live safe above the cry of battle, far away from the rumble of artillery, at comfortable, soothing distance from death rattles of the dying. Such cultural sequester is not by accident.

It was a full fifty years ago, January 17, 1961, that President Dwight David Eisenhauer, Supreme Allied Commander of our victorious forces in that Second World War, issued this critical warning in his Farewell Address to the Nation:

“My fellow Americans, we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

An astounding recent article (December 2010) in the Boston Globe analyzed the career paths of 750 of the highest ranking generals and admirals who retired during the last two decades. Escalating through earlier years, by 2004 through 2008, 80 percent of retiring three- and four-star officers went to work as consultants or defense executives, many becoming millionaires in the process. In 2007 alone, the move from general staff to industry was virtually a clean sweep. Thirty-four out of 39 three- and four-star generals and admirals who retired in 2007 are now working in defense roles — nearly 90 percent.

With a trillion and a half dollar budget deficit this year alone, fifteen billion dollars a week now feeds the increasingly voracious American war machine.

With an American war hero’s warning unheeded and predatory power unchecked, we have become a people comfortably numbed -- resigned to bored indifference -- our continuing presence in Afghanistan and elsewhere off our shores -- an extended act of moral abrogation and national insanity.

Among our species’ most puzzling and haunting mysteries, right up there with the meaning of life, the secret of bumble bee flight (there's no aerodynamic reason) and why men leave up toilet seats (gravity defiance?), is one purely attributable to the late Walt Disney. I’ve heard it since First Grade.

“If Mickey is a mouse, Donald is a duck and Pluto is a dog -- what -- and who -- is Goofy?”

That voice has seemed suspiciously familiar all along -- his curious, stuttering cadence -- those blurry eyes -- such great big hands -- and what a stunned look of blank amazement at -- almost everything.

The giant gavel John Boehner so proudly pounded as he became our new Speaker of the House was made to certain specifications in Middletown, Ohio, part of John's home district. One suspects the exact design was primarily to assure all assembled that Speaker Boehner's gavel was much, much, much bigger than his predecessor’s -- approximately the size of a small fire hydrant -- possibly reflecting Boehner's panting embracement of “trickle down” theory with typical dog-like loyalty.

In certain circles, size still counts. So does chromatic hue. Though made of wood, John’sgavel, flashing under the pulsing, strobe-like illumination of cameras by the score, started to glitter like gold. And well it should. There's money up on that there Hill.

Only the night before John’s big day, our own new Congressman from California’s “Gold Country”, Jeff Denham (almost -- he wasn't sworn in yet -- that's just a detail) threw one heck of a “You Can Buy and Pay Me Some More” Party at one of the coolest spots in town. Representative Denham, having campaigned on a message of austerity and budget cuts, charged $2,500 a person (or $50,000 a table) at Washington’s posh "W" Hotel for a no holds barred, shake 'em on down fund raiser headlining LeAnn Rimes, fresh from a confessed extramarital affair and her recent Christmas Pageant appearance with a gay choir in a “Sexy Santa” outfit. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Santa’s always been fashionable. Attendance was wall to wall. In fact, before even being elected, Jeff has become a fundraising kingpin for fellow freshmen members, planning at least four high dollar fundraisers in D.C. at the Republicans-only Capitol Hill Club.

The word is out. Reputation counts. Denham comes through. Proper contributions? Political solutions!

In late March, Denham probably violated federal election law when he traveled on a corporate aircraft owned by a prominent west-side farming company from Fresno to the Bay Area with Karl Rove, Presidential Advisor to George W. Bush.

Rove, long overdue for serious time in the slammer, had just addressed a major Republican rally at the Fresno Convention Center. Karl should have advised Jeff about the "Honest Leadership and Open Government Act" George signed in September of 2007 making it illegal for House candidates to fly on corporate jets.

If there was a shred of doubt in anyone's mind that sinister forces are at work in the world, one only needs to review the appalling “Remembering the Brave" Campaign launched in support of then California State Senator Denham with an extensive paid schedule dominating our mountain airwaves on every major Fresno TV station in days leading up to the June 8th Primary. Over $150,000 in funds were spent as we witnessed Jeff Denham climbing to long sought Congressional heights on the backs of the bereaved. Veterans’ groups were justifiably in an uproar. Why didn't all that money just go to the cause?

And how often will we again, time after time, bribe (“contribution”) after bribe (“donation”), see our darkest suspicions blatantly verified by the conduct of elected officials displaying total disregard for true honor, proper respect and common decency. Family values -- discounted to dust.

"As opposed to Equal Time provisions of the FCC when dealing with political candidates, the Fairness Doctrine merely provided that an opposing viewpoint be presented when requested, with absolutely no requirements as to length, time frame or quantity of announcements. In managing radio stations with various formats from 1964 onward, I found this was never a problem. ‘Conservative Radio’ grew out of the phenomenal ratings success of Rush Limbaugh. Giving the devil his due, I consider Rush to be the finest broadcast performer of his generation. But his emergence as a ratings phenomenon was completely unrelated to the suspension of the Fairness Doctrine, which was, after all, a policy, not a law. I always thought it was a good idea to leave room for different opinions. One young man who requested and was given an opportunity to voice his thoughts regarding a local school board election in Flint, Michigan, received his first public broadcast exposure over our WTAC. I'm sure Michael Moore, that young man, would still agree that the Fairness Doctrine increased freedom of speech rather than suppressed it.”

Colleen lives in Middletown, Ohio, smack dab in the middle of Ohio’s 8th Congressional District, which encompasses a primarily rural area on the Indiana border north of Cincinnati. Ohio’s 8th is carved up quite like our own California 19th. It’s voted solid Republican since the end of the ‘30’s.

Colleen and husband, Lindsey, staunch Republicans, report they like Boehner and that his office “really came through” when they spent a week in Washington earlier this year. It was cherry blossom time.

His immediate predecessor, Donald Edgar “Buz” Lukens, was highly regarded as a rising “Family Values” star in Ohio Conservative politics until being forced to resign following conviction for “contributing to the delinquency of a minor”, a nice way of describing paid sex with a 16 year old. “Buz” was also sentenced to 30 months in Federal Prison for accepting countless bribes in office. But “Buz” could always be counted on to vote straight party line. Period. Always. “NTN!” “No Thinking Necessary!”

And so it was when our soon to be Speaker of the House of Representatives, third in line to the American Presidency, eloquently summarized his reaction to a long overdue House vote on preserving tax breaks for 98% of us with the words — “Chicken crap” — it brought to mind a perfect illustration of how things really work in Washington on the right side of the aisle.

Colonel Tom Parker was a one-time carnival huckster and country music promoter, who become almost as famous as his phenomenally successful protege, Elvis Presley. But it was in those early years way before “The King of Rock ‘n Roll” that “Colonel” Parker” pulled off some of his most incredible exploits. One of my all time favorites was an act called, “Colonel Parker’s Amazing Dancing Chickens.” In return for a nickel admission price, every paying customer left dazed, dazzled and thoroughly satisfied with an astounding performance that delivered all it promised and then some.

Colonel Parker would begin his presentation with a brief commentary on the time, effort and inestimable genius required in teaching chickens how to dance, then pull back the curtain on a dozen caged chickens walking randomly about in feathered frenzy as only chickens do. Parker would then drop the needle on an old RCA “Victrola”, filling the room with a scratchy, but clearly audible version of “Turkey in the Straw.” AND! THE CHICKENS ALL DANCED. IN UNISON. When the song ended — THEY STOPPED!

What went unseen was that the floor of the elevated cage was actually an electric hot plate, triggered “on” by starting the Victrola and “off” by stopping it.

Just a day before Congressman Boehner’s “Chicken crap” commentary, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid announcing that no Republicans would vote for ANYTHING on ANY SUBJECT until the top 2% income earners in our country got to keep their Bush era tax breaks. It was signed by all forty sitting Republican Senators without exception.

On January 28, 2009, The House voted to approve the Stimulus Bill 244 to 188 with not one single Republican vote. On March 27, 2010, The Health Reform Bill was approved 219 to 212 with every Republican voting against the measure.

In 1976, as we celebrated America’s Bicentennial with fashionable fun, fantastic fireworks and flag-waving frolic, Jude Wanniski coined “The Two Santa Claus Theory”, a brilliant positioning move for the Republican Party. It elected Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Mr. Wanniski was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal at the time and a devout believer in supply side economics. This is often referred to as “Trickle Down” by those who believe money accrued by the rich inevitably finds its way down to the proletariat (working) poor. Wanniski’s hero was a gentleman named Milton Friedman, who took things a bit further, stressing that government must be starved of revenue in order to curtail the growth of spending on such wasteful items as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, Workers Disability Compensation and, when all is said and done, any expenditures not associated with increasing private wealth. So it can trickle down.

So Jude Wanniski came up with his “Two Santa Claus” approach -- and it goes like this:

Jude said that Democrats are elected because the Democratic Party is generally perceived as “Santa Claus”, providing all sorts of goodies with every new election cycle for the general well being of the American people, as mandated by Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, hardly a Marxist document. Ask The Tea Party.

So Jude declared that the Republican Party needed to be “Santa Claus”, too, by making the electorate an offer they could not refuse. It came down to two short words -- LOWER TAXES! It worked like a charm and did again -- only weeks ago.

And here’s the really cool part of Wanniski’s plan -- If Republicans would only keep pounding “Lower Taxes!” through the years, while increasing expenditures on things THEY liked, combined with radically lower taxes for powerful supporters (Reagan Tax Cuts 1981 and 1986) (Bush Tax Cuts 2001 and 2003), there would be an inevitable collision with an unavoidable destination -- the realization of Milton Friedman’s dream -- a democratic government stifled, strangled and starved. Down for the count. Turn up the Trickle.

Granada (1983 -- $ 50 million dollars), Panama (1989 -- $155 million), Persian Gulf War (1991 -- $ 102 Billion), Iraq (2003 -- $ 784 Billion to date), and Afghanistan (2003 -- $ 321 Billion to date).

And are we more secure with all those “dollars for defense”, especially with profit margins for war manufacturers raging as high as 90%?

As of this very year, China now has the fastest computer in the world (The Tianhe 1A --capable of 2.5 thousand trillion operations per second), the speediest train (Hexie Hao at a steady 250 miles per hour) and the deadliest long-range missile system ever developed --The Dong Feng 21D -- fully capable of sinking an aircraft carrier a thousand miles away.

In the last 30 years, since the election of The Great Communicator with his powerful new message, our National Debt has soared from $ 700 billion to $ 14 trillion dollars under primarily Republican administrations. $14 trillion dollars is $ 14 thousand billion, a full $ 9 trillion of the $ 14 trillion total racked up since the Inauguration of George W. Bush in 2001.

Now we have a Presidential Panel calling for austerity measures disproportionately aimed at those who can least afford sacrifice, while a new House of Representatives stands ready to roll back hard-won measures dealing with Health Care and Banking Reform.

Wall Street compensation with bonuses in 2010 will hit a record of $144 billion dollars -- the highest in history -- with million dollar earners paying Social Security taxes on barely 10% of their incomes.

George The Conqueror now romps about the nation on a book tour victory lap -- something Barack Obama will be denied at the end of his first and only term -- unless he begins to act like a Republican -- leading with enthusiastic vitality -- ruthlessly sticking to a defined game plan -- and fighting with determined dedication and fierce conviction for what he truly believes.

December 7, 2010

The Grind on Highway 41 in Oakhurst, California, was "Standing Room Only" on Tuesday, December 7th, for a special "Peace on Earth -- If We Want It Presentation" commemorating the 69th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the 30th Anniversary of John Lennon's death. A wall-to-wall crowd viewed two brief anti-war films from the 1930's -- then participated in a lively hour-long discussion with a four member panel representing multi-cultural reflections.

Rev. Paul Colbert (Vicar -- St. Raphael's in Oakhurst), Peter Cavanaugh (Oakhurst Peace Forum), Basim Elkarra
(Executive Director -- Sacramento Valley Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations), Dr. Terry Winant (Philosophy Department -- Fresno State University) and Rev. Mary-Alan MacNeil (Soto Zen Priest -- Oakhurst)

November 4, 2010

“Peace on Earth -- If We Want It”

With the 2010 November Elections mercifully behind us in a year speeding along faster than a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs, here come the Holidays and with them -- treasured childhood echoes from the soundtrack of our lives.

In recent years, faced with ever increasing competitive pressures, some radio stations are beginning to feature “Christmas Music” even now, this category traditionally covering everything from religious themes (“Silent Night”, “Away in a Manger”, “Joy to the World”) -- through more secular fare (“Jingle Bells”, “Frosty the Snowman”, “Feliz Navidad”) -- to the sublimely ridiculous (“All I Want for Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth”) (”Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”, ) and, for Proposition 19 fans, Cheech and Chong’s immortal (“Santa Claus and His Old Lady.”)

Each new season brings fresh candidates competing for contemporary acceptance and, hope against hope, for qualification as a true classic to be brought back time and time again with every completed 583 million mile spin around the sun at 18.5 miles per second.

Recorded in October of 1971 at Record Plant Studios in New York and released on December 6th, the Harlem Community Choir appeared on “This is Christmas”, an offering which received limited exposure due to its perceived “political nature” -- consequently failing to make Billboard’s Top 100 for the month. It was considered by most programmers to be an utter failure in spite of featuring a star performer from a band already judged by many as the greatest of all time -- as has become -- though the years -- the song itself.

December 7th of this year is “Pearl Harbor Day”, somberly recalling the 1941 attack by Imperial Japan on our American fleet at Pearl Harbor, “a date which will live in infamy” and initiated our involvement in World War Two. The following day, December 8th, 2010, marks the 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. It was John, of course, who wrote and produced, “This is Christmas” -- later better known as “Happy Xmas (War is Over”). You’ll be hearing it again these Holidays on almost every radio station in range across all formats. It contains a message upon which our lives and the future of our nation depends.

And it’s an invitation.

This year on “Pearl Harbor Day” -- some mountain neighbors are getting together at The Grind to present -- “Peace on Earth -- If We Want It” -- a Holiday Commemoration brought to you by the Oakhurst Democratic Forum.

Featured will be two exceptional short films from the 1930’s.

1939 was a rough year to be a diehard pacifist. But that's when Hugh Harman's "Peace On Earth" antiwar cartoon was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1994, it was voted #40 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time. It was also nominated for the 1939 Academy Award for Short Subjects, the same year “Gone With the Wind” won “Best Picture.”

“Dealers in Death” is a 1935 antiwar documentary telling the story of companies that became rich selling weapons in World War One. Many munitions companies are highlighted including Krupp, Vickers-Armstrong, Skoda, Colt and Remington. Parallels between then and now are truly terrifying.

A panel of participants include Rev. Paul Colbert, Vicar of St. Raphael’s Episcopal Church in Oakhurst, Soto Zen Priest Rev. Mary-Allen Macneil of Oakhurst, Dr. Terry Winant from the Philosophy Department at Fresno State and special guest, Basim Elkarra, Executive Director of the Sacramento Valley Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Mr. Elkarra also sits on the California Democratic Party's Executive Board and Chairs its Arab American Caucus.

We hope you’ll join us.

Pearl Harbor Day -- 7 PM -- at The Grind.

Constable: “I will cap that proverb with -- “There is flattery in friendship.”
Orleans: And I will take up that with -- “Give the devil his due.”

Giving the devil his due, Rush Limbaugh is the finest broadcast performer of his generation. Beyond question, Rush is one of the most powerful radio voices in the history of the medium and, as with Shakespeare, reflects with stunning accuracy the quintessential essence of 16th Century thought.

Given his awesome ratings generation on hundreds of stations across the country following a national syndication debut in 1987 on the imaginary “Excellence In Broadcasting” Network, I was delighted to feature Rush when I managed WSPD, “The KMJ of Toledo”, in the mid-’90’s. Obviously, we never used “The KMJ of Toledo” in our Ohio advertising, since no one there would have known what on earth we were talking about, but you get the idea. I even ran Rush twice each weekday from Noon till 3 PM, then repeated the whole show again from 3 until 6. We were a solid #1 for six straight hours. But there was an issue concerning fair content balance. I needed a listener generating counterweight.

And so it was that when WIMA-AM, “the KMJ of Lima”, a hundred miles to the south, starting regularly beating Rush Limbaugh rather handily in local Arbitrons with some guy named “Dennis Schreefer”, it seemed wise to check things out.

Dennis turned out to be a crusty old progressive codger several years my senior-- a former major market TV anchor -- who deserted fame and fortune to freely unleash his mind in Talk Radio, even though this meant starting a brand new career in a teeny-tiny town. He’d sent out tons of tapes and only Lima, Ohio called -- where he was hired and proceeded to kick Rush’s royal rear. The radio trades went wild. WHP-AM, “The KMJ of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania”, got to Dennis first, luring him away with big, big bucks and a promise of autonomy -- i.e., allowing him to say what he wanted on the air. So he did.

Six months passed and, following a major skirmish with General Public Utilities and Metropolitan Edison Company, Dennis was unceremoniously fired without recourse. The corporation, operators of a nuclear power plant known as ”Three Mile Island”, scene of a partial core meltdown in 1979, had canceled all of its advertising on the station over Schreffer comments relating to community safety and security such as, “We’re sleeping with a potential killer!” and “Your teeth fall out first!” Snappy stuff.

So I snapped Dennis up in a heartbeat and brought him to Toledo. At our first face-to-face meeting, he announced: ”You’re looking at a proud parent. My oldest son has just been voted “Resident of the Month” at the Omaha Rescue Mission.” That was true. And that was the essence of Dennis’s “act.” He simply told the truth as he saw it -- damn the torpedoes -- full speed ahead. Rock ‘n Roll is an ageless attitude and not restricted to music. In six months, WSPD’s (6 to 10 AM) ratings soared from an 8.1% to a 12.5% Total Audience Share, the largest morning show increase in Toledo radio history, unmatched to this day.

One morning, as he was rolling through a typically convoluted, stream-of-consciousness, politically charged narrative on life as he found it, he suddenly stopped--paused--then softly uttered--”You know what? It’s the kids. Damn it. It’s the kids!”

A major Conservative talking point (let’s see if you’ve heard this one before) is: “American Guarantees Equal Opportunity--Not Equal Results.”

One out of every seven of our children now goes to bed really hungry every single night.

For the majority of our teenagers, higher education has become an impossible dream.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) measures student literacy in science, math, and reading among 15-year-olds, and is an often-cited reference for policy makers sounding alarm bells about the state of education in the United States and its implications for the ability of Americans to secure jobs in a global economy. The US is now ranked 29th, behind countries like Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Liechtenstein.

America has cut billions and billions of dollars in Educational funding over the past ten years at every level of government -- Local, State and Federal, failing miserably in what should be our most important investment as a people.

There is a critical need for massive revision of national priorities, including immediate restoration of tax structures witnessed during the Republican Administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Having spent my first twenty years in radio as a Rock ‘n Roll DJ, commencing a relentless musical assault on older ears in 1957 at the innocent (not really) age of 16 on my hometown station, WNDR in Syracuse, I finally got a real job in 1977. That’s when I left the air to enter sales and management at WTAC in Flint. Eventually I moved to Toledo as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of a seven station broadcast group, where I remained for a dozen more years. This was followed by 1998 in Youngstown, where I ran another five radio stations.

It was in Youngstown that I became a Chief Execution Officer, firing
dozens of loyal employees “for the bank”, many with decades of devoted service. Killers make great money. I know I did. That’s why the average Chief Executive Officer in America now earns 263 times the pay of an ordinary American worker. At eBay, Meg Whitman left them in the dust.

Conservatively estimating the salary, bonuses and stellar stock options exercised by Ms. Whitman during her ten year tenure at eBay, her billion dollar haul, if broken down at $100,000,000 annually divided by 52 weeks, comes out to a cool rate of $48,076 an hour. “Nicky” Diaz Santillan, working for Ms. Whitman as maid and housekeeper almost the entire period Queen Meg was at eBay, earned $23 an hour at the time of her dismissal when Whitman decided to enter politics -- a poor little rich girl deciding to add a whole state to her collection of dollies and ponies.

Sacrificed on the altar of convenient political expediency, Ms. Santillan testifies that Whitman’s final words of thanks were -- “from now on, you don't know me and I don't know you. You never have seen me, and I have never seen you.” After 9 years as a virtual family member, Ms. Santillan thus found herself instantly abandoned and left adrift, disposed and dispossessed -- human flotsam.

But it’s still high tide for beneficiaries of other Billionaires bent on keeping us in our places with smiling surrogate faces -- funded in no small measure by Charles and David Koch of New York. The Koch brother’s father, Fred ”There Goes a Red!” Koch, was an arch-conservative prime mover in the John Birch Society back in the ‘50’s, an organization chiefly remembered for calling Dwight David Eisenhower, victorious Supreme Allied Commander in World War Two and 34th President of the United States, a “conscious agent of the International Communist Conspiracy.” Fred’s boys have made sure the lunacy continues.

Karl Rove, coming to West Hills College in Coalinga on October 10 for a brief visit (instead of a more appropriate extended Pleasant Valley Prison stay), was forced by party pressures to endorse Ms. O’Donnell less than 24 hours after publicly lamenting her win on fascist friendly FOX. Mr. Rove thus retains a profitable profile in powerful circles with an amazingly obeisant display of groveling, dog-like loyalty, but even he has to admit it IS getting pretty “nutty” all over, and not just with witchcraft-dabbling Christine.

According to brand new Census figures, the income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year to its widest amount in history as young adults and children -- in particular -- struggled to stay afloat in a recession which is far from over. What we see every day here in the Central Valley still stretches coast to coast.

The top-earning 20 percent of Americans - those making more than $100,000 each year - received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line. That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968.

In 1972, the English rock group Slade had a #1 hit in the U.K. with a torrid toe-tapper called “Mama, We’re All Crazy Now”, even proving their self-proclaimed insanity by spelling the song, “Mama, Weer All Crazee Now.” Quiet Riot, an American band, took the same tune to the top in 1984, as did Angeles del Infierno from Spain in 1991 with “Mamá, Estamos Todos Locos.” In 2005, looking for something cool to write as a “My Space” profile quotation, I thought, “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” summed up everything quite nicely. It’s still there, horrifyingly more meaningful than ever. Now it shows up here.

In the last few weeks, Christine “Don’t Even Keep Your Hands to Yourself” O’ Donnell became the official Republican Senatorial candidate in Delaware for the forthcoming November elections, joining Tea Partiers Rand Paul (Kentucky), Joe Miller (Alaska), Sharron Angle (Nevada) and Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania) at the front line of an ominously threatening 2010 ultraconservative offensive, even as tea must be tasting like hemlock to traditional members of the Grand Old Party. Karl Rove, coming to West Hills College in Coalinga on October 10 for a brief visit (instead of a more appropriate extended Pleasant Valley Prison stay), was forced by party pressures to endorse Ms. O’Donnell less than 24 hours after publicly lamenting her win on fascist friendly FOX. Mr. Rove thus retains a profitable profile in powerful circles with an amazingly obeisant display of groveling, dog-like loyalty, but even he has to admit it IS getting pretty “nutty” all over, and not just with witchcraft-dabbling Christine.

With our “combat mission” having “formally concluded” in Iraq, 50,000 U.S. troops remain stationed in a situation only marginally more stable than Kabul. Baghdad still lacks basic, dependable infrastructure seven full years since the American invasion to “get Saddam”. Things are blowing up with ever more dependable frequency. It seems certain to all but the badly bewildered that our new eight hundred million dollar American Baghdad embassy will, if accidentally left standing, eventually house the winners of an unavoidable civil war between Sunnis and Shiites, a certain conflict made inevitable by George the Conqueror’s stunning organizational ineptitude in the days and weeks following Saddam’s ouster and the Iraqi military’s complete capitulation. All we had to do was not screw up a transitional government. A trillion dollars later, retrospect reveals the enormity of blunder in “W’s” bluster.

Then we have those “new elections” in Afghanistan, again filled with fakery, fraud and fiction. A third less voters dipped their fingers in not so indelible ink this time around, compared to the estimated 6 million who probably didn’t even elect Hamid Karzai in the first place and got stuck with him anyway. Like we did. The Obama Administration has sent an additional 50,000 U.S. troops into harm’s way in Afghanistan since taking office in January of 2009. This legislative election was supposed to be part of the big pay off for our President’s yet inexplicable urge to surge, ushering in freedom and democracy across a barren, battered land -- now rendered even more broken than before.

It’s getting weirder and wilder just about anywhere you look.

I therefore close with the immortal words of the late Hunter S. Thompson:

I’m not completely sure what Hunter meant by that, but find myself in total agreement.

One of the joys of living in a small town such as ours are special times when the heart and soul of shared community are openly exhibited with powerful emotion.

Bright sunshine under cloudless skies warmed autumn's first true mountain chill at Patriot Day 2010, presented annually to honor the memory of those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 and to express gratitude to all who serve us so fully and faithfully in our daily lives up here in the mountains and honor those who have gone before us -- without whom we would not be.

Sierra Telephone and all associated with the observance are to be again congratulated for bringing America home.

As a Progressive Democrat -- or self-defined "Chuck Berry Liberal" -- I suggest we share much more in common with Tea Party patriots than many might suspect.

"Tax and Spend?" How about "Collect and Share?" As in "Loaves and Fishes?" Much of our mutual security is and always has been held in common, the very source of the word, "Commonwealth." Schools? Roads? Police? Armed Forces? Get the picture, Ansel? "Obama Care?" That same day as our Oakhurst gathering, the Fresno Bee announced that 24.4% of families in Fresno County have no health insurance of any kind. Merced County is even worse at 31.6% with Madera County enjoying the dubious distinction of leading the region with 32%. That's almost one out of every three families right here without any health insurance of any kind. It's not that they don't want it. They can't afford it.

The really crazy part is that those with health insurance are already paying for those without. Customarily in our society, thank God, no one in serious peril is ever turned away at an American hospital door.

I am persuaded the only difference between "Medicare for All" and the status quo will be elimination of unfair insurance and drug company profits, replaced by better health coverage at reduced cost for families rich and poor alike. Putting it simply -- a better deal for all -- for less. Imagine life without insurance premiums. John Lennon should have put that in his song.

And how far does this "Obama Care" take us on the "Road to Socialism" with "Job Killing" ferocity? Barely off the starting line. Lobbyists tore through initial Congressional proposals like locusts on lilacs, stripping all but stems and seeds.

"Reducing the Deficit?" It seems to me we've dropped a trillion dollars in Iraq for nothing other than seeing Saddam Hussein dropped from the gallows. We're spending a million dollars a year per man in Afghanistan for purposes which remain as mysterious to me as the whereabouts of Carmen Sandiego. Or Waldo.

"No More Crazy Spending?" We now come full circle: Earlier this summer, a 9/11 health bill died on Capital Hill after failing to reach the two thirds majority necessary for passage in the House. The bill, known as the Zadroga Act in honor of fallen 9/11 first responder James Zadroga, would guarantee the long-term operations of health care programs set up years ago for first responders and residents who were hurt or became ill in the aftermath of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center, that same catastrophic tragedy commemorated here in Oakhurst only days ago.

The 255-to-159 vote went mostly down party lines with 243 Democrats and 12 Republicans in favor of the bill and 155 Republicans and 4 Democrats opposed. It appears a matter of party positioning.

In 1845, the "Know Nothing Party" was a nativist American political movement brought about by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to Anglo-Saxon values and controlled by the Pope in Rome. This "Know Nothing Party" has now been replaced in 2010 by a "No Everything Party," certain members of which believe Barack Obama is clearly Kenyan, under the spell of a witch doctor in Mombassa, bringing in Spanish-speaking immigrants regarded as unfriendly to wiener schnitzel and whiskey.

As expressed by the title of our weekly column, all of the above is humbly presented in hopes of your consideration.

A pending November election period awaits Mountain Democrats of all persuasions with everything on the line and little to brag about except not being Republicans. Thankfully, that should be more than enough.

In the words of Buffalo Springfield, "I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down!"

The Minority Leader in the House of Representatives sports an artificial tan as phony as his continual claims to speak for "The American People" at every turn.

The Minority Leader in the Senate recites talking points of the privileged like the good party parrot he is, feathers righteously ruffling at the slightest hint of genuine social concern on the part of anyone -- anywhere.

Our "Democratic Majority" in the House and Senate is highly suspect at best -- purely fictional at worst.

Recent headlines screaming: "Next Big Battle in Washington: Bush's Tax Cuts" (New York Times) remind us that even the most obvious immediate remedies to historic budget deficits remain hostage to the relentless push and pull of powerful wealth.

"Victories" in health insurance and financial reform legislation have been, by any fair measure, severely limited. Attempts at formulating initial important steps addressing climate control have now been abandoned for the current session.

The unauthorized release of secret military documents dramatically unveils the depth of deceit ever more evident in our naive occupation of Afghanistan, an ongoing tragedy for all participants.

According to national talk show host Thom Hartmann, Chief Justice John Roberts' Supreme Court is "the most conservative one in living memory." During this time, the Roberts court "issued conservative decisions 58% of the time" and, in the last year, "that rate increased to 65 percent, the highest since 1953."

As Jeffrey Toobin wrote in an article for The New Yorker, "In every major case since he became the nation's seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff."

President Obama is vilified by the right for allegedly doing what he hasn't done and pilloried by the left for not doing what he should have done. Driving down the middle of any given road guarantees being repeatedly struck by traffic coming both ways.

Despite indisputable evidence to the contrary, an astounding 24% of the American public still believe our President is a Muslim, while 27% insist he wasn't even born in this country.

These are pretty much the same folks firmly against allowing a Muslim Community Center to be constructed near "Ground Zero" in Manhattan, displaying blatantly unconstitutional mob mentality at its meanest -- but amazingly successful in frightening the timid into submission.

By now it must be crystal clear to our President that conciliation with the right has been rejected, compromise spurned and capitulation demanded. It's always jump ball with a knee in the -- never mind.

Progressives have no choice but to rededicate themselves to each and every principle and purpose which -- so far -- have proceeded not much further than putting Barack Obama in the White House. This was a mighty and historic step, but only the first of many if we are to truly succeed finding remedy following 30 years of reversal.

Since 1980, gains from U.S. economic growth have gone overwhelmingly to the upper class. Economic inequality has steadily worsened. Even by 2000, the ratio of family income of the top 5% to that of the bottom 20% stood at 19.1, a dramatic rise over the 1979 ratio of 11.4.

Ronald Reagan's economic policies ushered in the return of levels of disparity unseen since the eve of the Great Depression.

The beat went on under George The Conqueror. By the inauguration of Barack Obama, the richest 1% of us owned and controlled as much as the bottom 95% with the American middle class more threatened with extinction then those darn Delta Smelt.

Change comes slowly, but when it arrives, we must be on the right side of history -- not to be found these recent times on the right side of the aisle.

Although I’ve come to depend upon “Letters to the Editor” as an energizing way to start each day, never failing to find a fresh dose of outrageous nonsense somewhere in the mix, I must observe that Desmond Mason’s “Reason without violence” raves in the August 19th Fresno Bee are singularly stupid, reflecting a level of ignorance perhaps unknown since 1633 when the Vatican made Galileo recant his telescope and, in the face of substantial visual evidence to the contrary, declare that the earth is the center of the Universe by divine decree. Galileo, despite his “confession of Faith,” was then sentenced by The Inquisition to life in prison.

Almost four centuries later, in 1992, Pope John Paul II stated that the ruling against Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension”.

Hopefully, it won’t take another four hundred years for the Western world and Mr. Mason to realize that Islam is NOT a “religion of violence”, that the Quran does NOT teach that “Christianity is the Big Satan and Judaism is the Small Satan” and that Muhammad is NOT “the real Satan.”

As Galileo discovered the hard way, any size “Satan” dwells only in the minds of the bedeviled.

Proposition 19, also known as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, is a California ballot proposition which is on the upcoming November 2, 2010 California statewide ballot as an initiated state statute.

Proposition 19, if approved by voters, will legalize various marijuana-related activities, allow local governments to regulate these activities, permit local governments to impose and collect marijuana-related fees and taxes, and authorize various criminal and civil penalties.

Medical marijuana is already legal in California, due to the enactment of Proposition 215 in 1996. That was 14 full years ago. Word seems to be just reaching us here in the hills.

Before continuing, I confess that this column is passionately subjective in nature. Please know that I personally participated in public protest at a meeting covered elsewhere in this edition, and understand that I consider the behavior of Madera County’s Planning Commission Chairman at this gathering to be that of a common school yard bully.

By way of brief background, allow me to share a letter which I wrote last September to the Madera County Board of Supervisors:

As a resident of Madera County, I request reconsideration be given to the ban on Medical Marijuana Dispensaries you enacted by unanimous vote September 22, 2009.

I’ve been smoking marijuana for more than fifty years, though not continuously. Sometimes I sleep.

I am the father of four and grandfather of eleven, having been happily married to the same woman for 45 years.

I enjoyed high (no pun intended) (well, maybe) executive positions for decades in my chosen profession.

All eight of my daughters and sons-in-law are successful entrepreneurs, exceptional parents and staunch Republicans, deeply involved in their churches and communities.

Sheriff Anderson’s comments on medicinal marijuana seem embarrassingly provincial.

For example, his assertion that “cities with marijuana dispensaries saw an increase in crime” begs for independent verification.

The county counsel’s finding that “marijuana dispensaries would negatively impact the health, safety, and welfare of the community" is simply silly.

For more than twenty years, Dutch citizens over age eighteen have been permitted to buy and use cannabis in government-regulated coffee shops. Even this non-medicinal policy has not resulted in escalating consumption. Rates of marijuana use in the Netherlands are far lower than those in the United States and rank average when compared to other European countries.

Setting aside recreational use, the proven medicinal benefits of marijuana are now far past mere anecdotal testimony.

The Supervisors had been informed in a letter from area ministers that certain parties were going to set up “Marijuana Dispensers” in Oakhurst
(confusing the word with “Dispensary’) -- inferring that
local children would soon be able drop a quarter in a joint box and one would roll right out. Armed with such inspired data and similar tripe, the Supervisors took their vote. I never received official response to my letter, but things seemed pretty mellow for months until I learned in The Star of a public meeting in Coarsegold scheduled for August 3rd. The headline read, “Planners Revisit Pot Shop Ruling.”

I went on to suggest that it might be instructive to contact Steven and Rita Smith, who were petitioning for a temporary use permit, or County Supervisors and/or Planning Commission Chairman Larry Wright for appropriate comments.

I had entered the Coarsegold Community Center as a total stranger, not knowing a single soul in a room soon to reach standing room only status.

More than a dozen attendees offered sworn testimony supporting the medical collective with NO OPPOSITION expressed by ANYONE in the wall-to-wall crowd, even when repeatedly prompted to do so. The “hearing”, by then hopping hopelessly like the Kangaroo Court it was, ended tumultuously when Wright rose from his seat on the dais and approached Mrs. Smith in a menacing manner, ordering her to immediately leave the building.

When members of the audience responded to Wright’s conduct with significant negativity, Wright demanded the entire room be cleared and threatened to call the Sheriff, moments later doing so as the crowd refused to move. Within minutes, a CHP unit and three Madera County Sheriff’s cruisers pulled up, complete with a canine unit to sniff out the snafu. But the doggie had nothing to do, nor did any of the summoned officers, other than ponder why on earth someone had panicked. It was quiet as a mouse on cotton.

Mrs. Smith, a devout Christian whose deep faith plays an open and prominent role in her activities, remains shocked and shaken. She wants to move cannabis from the Devil’s darkness into the light of the Lord that it be cleansed and controlled. Those are my words, not Mrs. Smith’s. She would say it much better.

I trust the Madera County Board of Supervisors will review the sad episode herein recounted and realize issues yet unresolved need to be fully and fairly addressed in open forum. It will also be beneficial for them to inform the Planning Commission that they need to listen to their boss -- the people -- rather than be listened to.

In a major summer highlight, The Oakhurst Democratic Club was honored to present a personal appearance by

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen at a sold-out August 7th Breakfast Reception.

Secretary Bowen is the third highest ranking executive in California State government.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen personally greeted each of the 85 guests who attended a breakfast in her honor Saturday at the Oakhurst Community Center.

Peter Cavanaugh, a member of the Oakhurst Democratic Club executive committee, columnist and former disc jockey, opened the morning's festivities by putting his remarks to song, providing the crowd an early morning laugh. Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in California's 19th District and Oakhurst Democratic Club member Les Marsden lead the introductions.

Secretary Bowen visited the Mountain Area to inform voters what she is doing to protect against voter fraud, empower voters, work with teens through mock trials, work on open government, the Safe at Home program -- a confidential address program for survivors of abuse -- and to take questions from the partisan crowd.

Bowen said she is working on expanding voter rights and passing AB 1340, which would allow military votes to be counted if they are received within 10 days of an election with a postmark on or before the election date.
Mountain Area residents felt privileged to be visited by Bowen, the third highest ranking executive in California government.
Devon Foster, 12, came from Fresno with his parents and said one day he hopes to either be the Secretary of State or a member of the House of Representatives.

"I think it's very unusual to have someone that high up in California politics come to Oakhurst and it's an honor to meet her," Foster said.
Bowen already has Joyce Stuhr's vote in the November elections.

"She's done a good job and she's here talking to us," Stuhr said. "How many elected officials do that? I'm also voting for her because of her success with voting machines."

The event was hosted by the Oakhurst Democratic Club and although there was a light-hearted feel to the event, political opinions were still strong.
"I'm a Democrat because I think and I care," Ed Bailey said. "I was a biological conservative Republican and was brought up where illiteracy was high. President Nixon helped change my mind. He was my hero and let me down."

More than anything, Cavanaugh hopes the event brought awareness to the November election.

"Secretary Bowen's presence in Oakhurst will hopefully bring awareness to the November election which I think is the most important election of my lifetime," Cavanaugh said. "This has not been a progressive Congress and this election could somehow put us on a trajectory into the past by blowing up our bridge to the future.

"I really think this election will see the momentum from two years ago that elected Barak Obama and will reinstitute a progressive presence or it will go in the other direction and plunge us into the dark ages recently seen during the administration of George W. Bush."

Summer 2010 is sizzling to a close as we approach some stark, cold realities. A pending November election period awaits us with everything on the line and little to brag about except not being Republicans. Sadly, that should more than be enough.

In the words of Buffalo Springfield, “I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down!”

The Minority Leader in the House of Representatives sports an artificial tan as phony as his continual claims to speak for “The American People” at every turn.

Our “Democratic Majority” in the House and Senate is highly suspect at best -- purely fictional at worst.

Recent headlines screaming: “ Next Big Battle in Washington: Bush’s Tax Cuts” (New York Times 7/24/10) remind us that even the most obvious immediate remedies to historic budget deficits remain hostage to the relentless push and pull of powerful wealth.

“Victories” in Health Insurance and Financial Reform legislation have been, by any fair measure, severely limited. Attempts at formulating initial important steps addressing climate control have now been abandoned for the current session.

The unauthorized release of secret military documents dramatically unveils the depth of deceit ever more evident in our naive occupation of Afghanistan, an ongoing tragedy for all participants.

According to National Talk Show Host Thom Hartmann, Chief Justice John Roberts' Supreme Court is "the most conservative one in living memory." During this time, the Roberts court "issued conservative decisions 58 percent of the time" and, in the last year, “that rate increased to 65 percent, the highest since 1953.” As Jeffrey Toobin wrote last year in an article for The New Yorker, "In every major case since he became the nation's seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.

President Obama is vilified by the right for doing what he hasn’t done and pilloried by the left for not doing what he should have done. Driving down the middle of any given road guarantees being repeatedly struck by both sides of traffic. By now it must be crystal clear to our President that conciliation has been rejected, compromise spurned and capitulation demanded. It’s always jump ball with a knee in the -- never mind.

It seems to me we have no choice but to rededicate ourselves to each and every principle and purpose which -- so far -- have proceeded not much further than putting Barack Obama in the White House. A mighty and historic step, but only the first of many if we are to truly succeed.

Change comes slowly, but when it arrives, we must be on the right side of history -- not to be found on the right side of the aisle.

The word "Breeches" goes back to the Twelfth Century in Old English, commencing earlier as "Brokiz" in the Germanic language, derived from the Nordic "Brok" and Latin "Bracca". All of these words refer to -- pants -- not to be confused with sounds made by Mel Gibson in full tilt boogie rage. B-r-i-t-c-h-e-s is how "Breeches" is pronounced and has become the common spelling in these contemporary times.

An idiom, again something not to be confused with Mr. Gibson, is an expression which means something different from what the words literally imply. In this case, being too big for one's britches suggests arrogance, conceit and an exaggerated sense of self-importance

As any elementary grade school student learns quite early on (I hope), one of the most powerful and impactive speeches in human history, certainly in our American experience, was President Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address", delivered on Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of The Civil War. In his remarks, Mister Lincoln redefined "The War Between The States" as a struggle not merely for the Union, but as a "new birth of freedom" to guarantee survival of America's representative democracy as a government of the people.

So when Glenn, Sean, Mark, Jerry, Lars, Michael, Billy, Rush and hordes of similarly inclined, intellectually constipated, Wall Street vested, local imitators across the land pitch and moan about "big government", aren't they simultaneously assigning ALL of us --"We the People" -- to secondary status? Have we become too BIG for our britches?

Government = People. Government equals The People. WE are supposed to BE the GOVERNMENT.

Our Founders never meant government to be a separate, third party entity. When government's not working, we need to change ourselves, not elect a government fundamentally dedicated to its own destruction.

But don't say that out loud! "D'oh" is a sound trademark of 20th Century Fox. Rupert Murdock feels that's his private property. Not mine. Not yours. Honest to Abe! Go ahead - Google!

I just picked up a copy of the "Central Valley Tea Party Times" at the Oakhurst Branch Library. At the very top of the front page are listed "Core Values" -- the first one being "Constitutionally Limited Government", followed by "Free Markets" and "Fiscal Responsibility."

In my view, as with everything in life, it's all in how you look at it -- all in how you study it.

I treasure our Constitution, but am bitterly opposed to limiting the our power -- the power of "We the People."

A "Free Market" guarded by other watchdogs of wealth killed two million Irish during the "Great Famine" of the 19th Century, a personal family issue verified by documents on file at the Library of Ireland in Dublin.

"Fiscal Responsibility" was masterfully addressed by my colleague, Alan Cheah, in his most recent column. Basically, Alan simply suggests looking at an irrefutable record. It's all there.

Having enjoyed a lovely gathering at the July 4th "Family Freedom Fest" at Oakhurst Park, all concerned are due appropriate congratulations and recognition for successful organizational efforts and, mainly, for deeply caring about their country. It seemed more like a proper church picnic than a political rally on a completely gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Hundreds were on the scene -- well dressed -- down home upscale -- most wisely positioning themselves in shaded areas under a hot summer sun. Staying out of the heat. Being cool.

It will be even cooler when we can all leap past tired slogans, empty talking points and wild rhetoric - so that "government of the people - by the people and for the people --shall not perish from the earth."

I note with befuddled amusement Sheriff Margaret Mims' curious allegations in The Bee July 13 that marijuana "dispensaries are a magnet for crime." She adds, "public safety risks outweigh any medical benefits."

Forcing medical marijuana back into the underworld despite emerging public consensus to the contrary hardly seems enlightened or advisable -- unless our good sheriff is dedicated to driving up the pricey cost of untaxed, quality cannabis in the Valley.

County officials have already had plenty of time to "draft regulations" regarding distribution. California voters approved the use of marijuana for medical purposes in 1996. That's 14 years ago.

That “L-word” now ranks with the worst of epithets, having been mutated and mutilated in certain circles to subterranean levels of disrespect. Local TV viewers can easily testify that, during the recent Primary Election period, our Central Valley News agonizingly devolved into “The Meg and Steve Show” as Meg Whitman and Steve Poisner exchanged nasty diatribes debating who is more “Liberal”.

We received a mind numbing sneak preview of what awaits us this autumn as manipulative money dominated the airwaves -- in our faces -- keeping us in our places. In a sharp doctrinal shift overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided Supreme Court ruled in January that the government may not ban political spending by corporations or unions in candidate elections. Don’t be deceived by any implied parity between the two. Unions have millions. Corporations have billions. No tie.

I am a “Chuck Berry Liberal”. Sometimes I will and again sometimes I won’t. Sometimes I do and against some times I don’t. I can change my mind faster than Larry King switches wives. Or girlfriends. Or wives of girlfriends.

Contrary to the naive notion that there is one specific “Liberal” agenda to which all swear allegiance, free thinkers are all over the place in our bunch. A room filled with “Liberals” is pretty much a cluster of unherded cats. Contrast this to the lock step, nonjudgmental, unwavering blind obedience to party politics evident elsewhere. Bought and paid for.

From a practical perspective, this has been working like a charm in our current Congress with a minority party exerting influence far beyond their number in blocking any form of regulatory legislation not favoring private profit over public good. My only satisfaction is witnessing John Boehner and Mitch McConnell as chief spokespersons basically elevated by seniority, both men sharing the charisma of sea slugs, save the fact that sea slugs can be quietly colorful.

Altruistic exceptions aside, private profit is a primary and essential human motivator Ask the Chinese. It’s our current balance of things here at home that’s concerning. In our nation, the top ONE percent own as much as the bottom NINETY-FIVE percent combined. That’s not a typo. And control goes with it.

The Tea Party has it right. We need to return our government to the people. I only suggest more reflection is desirable as to just who “the people” are. It sure can’t just be ONE percent of us.

“Liberal” is derived from the Latin “Libertas”, meaning “FREEDOM!” the exact word Mel Gibson defiantly screamed aloud at the end of “Brave Heart.” Yes! That wild William Wallace was a Liberal --as are most honored heroes of History.

If there was a shred of doubt in anyone’s mind that sinister forces are at work in the world, one only needs to review the appalling “Remembering the Brave” campaign launched in support of State Senator Jeff Denham with an extensive paid schedule dominating our mountain airwaves on every major Fresno TV station in days leading up to the June 8th Primary.

Rove, long overdue for serious time in the slammer, had just addressed a major Republican rally at the Fresno Convention Center. Karl should have advised Jeff about the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act George signed in September of 2007 making it illegal for House candidates to fly on corporate jets.

How about over $150,000 in funds mysteriously launched in support of a “Public Service Campaign” as we witness Jeff Denham climbing to long sought Congressional heights over the bodies of American war dead?

The following is an example of our correspondence with KGPE, KFSN, KSEE, KMPH and KFRE which summarizes the issue:

I am Media Manager for Les Marsden, running for Congress in the 19th District on the Democratic ticket.

Noting that today's Fresno Bee (5/17/10) references a certain broadcast announcement promoting a benefit concert for “Remembering the Brave, Inc.” featuring Jeff Denham, also a candidate in the 19th District Congressional Primary, and having been informed that KGPE-TV has been running a significant schedule for said announcement, please consider this a formal request that Mr. Marsden be provided with similar air time and frequency prior to the June 8th Primary to express his thoughts and observations in this important race.

My understanding of still extant FCC Equal Time rules would indicate this request is appropriate, even though the announcements are alleged to be "paid for by a nonprofit organization,” your broadcast of same constitutes free airtime used by a candidate for Federal Office, ignoring the fact
that the entire campaign appears to be a cynical, flag-waving attempt to circumvent election laws by forces unknown “saluting” the parents of dead soldiers.

Should my understanding of FCC policy in this area seem incorrect, please provide me with applicable citations.

Otherwise, Mr. Marsden looks forward to reaching your important audience with parity against opposing Federal candidates.

Peter Cavanaugh
The Committee to Elect Les Marsden

$150,000 is a whole lotta loot. It looks like Fresno TV stations took the money and ran with it without meaningful review. Surprise. Surprise.

And we once again see our darkest suspicions blatantly verified by the actions of a powerful few against the many with total disregard for true honor, proper respect and common decency.

The Little Annie Fanny of America's Recidivist Right
For Your Consideration
Peter Cavanaugh

Although my four Republican daughters roll their eyes like Brunswick Power Grooves every time I refer to Sarah Palin as "The Little Annie Fanny of America's Recidivist Right," I believe Palin should be free to speak at Stanislaus College for as much money as she can possibly grab from those similarly free to pay. Say what you will about the lady, she sure can draw a crowd.

For successful economic enterprise, one gives people what they want. In selling advertising for "Rock 'n' Roll Radio" several centuries ago, when most business folks regarded the new music form as little more than thundering air hammers at painful, screeching pound, this observation often worked like a charm: "Hey! Our listeners love rock 'n' roll. You use worms to catch fish, but never eat 'em yourself, right? Wanna catch the largest radio audience around?"

The CSU Stanislaus Foundation, a private, separate entity from the publicly supported school, is looking for a profitable 50th anniversary celebration. According to foundation president Matt Swanson, "The event is being 100% funded by fresh, private money."

Although College President Hamid Shirvani is also chairman of the foundation board, Shirvani seems to be offering nothing on the controversial issue other than Swanson's busy phone number. But it's quite true that no taxpayer money is going to Sarah for making heavy hay while her midnight sun shines -- ringing that recidivist register -- ca-ching!

Our tax money is going for schools. For defense. For police. For firefighters. For wealth held in common, properly defined as commonwealth, a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good.

Historically, it has sometimes meant the same thing as "republic." The United States of America is a democratic republic. And I concur with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: "Taxes are the price of civilization."

But what sort of civilians are we? Since the American Revolution, we've had taxation with representation, but, from time to time, shifting, competing majorities have made a few poor choices.

When Ronald Reagan made his successful bid for re-election in the fall of 1984, Perrysburg, Ohio, just south of Toledo, was the final destination on a "whistle-stop" train tour. It had been arranged to capture a nostalgic sense of traditional American political campaign history. Perrysburg is where I lived while selling that noisy rock 'n' roll. There were Secret Service agents swarming all over our little town with machine-gun toting sharpshooters on every roof.

The tall Irishman spoke only four blocks from my house and not 50 feet away from the Shamrock Lounge, my home away from home. His last words were that Democrats always thought it was April 15, but Republicans wanted every new day to be the Fourth of July.

Right on cue, fireworks exploded in the distance and a band struck-up "Stars and Stripes Forever" as Reagan's train pulled away from the station. It was slick as could be. Like a shining city upon a hill. Or Fox News. Or Sarah Palin at CSU Stanislaus.

Let the weak be strong. Let the right be wrong. Roll the stone away. Let the guilty pay.

Each weekday afternoon across our nation, that impossibly smug, outrageously pompous, self-labeled Great American, Sean Hannity, begins his program with the above chorus from Martina McBride’s “Independence Day”. It is presented by implication as a powerful personal anthem, evoking thrilling images of a locked and loaded, combat geared, radio warrior about to wreak savage revenge against enemies far and wide, especially those with certain Middle East connections, all liberals, most progressives, and some folks who just plain look funny. One might even envision a jaunty, ascot-attired, aviator-scarfed Sean climbing into his Sopwith Camel F.1 biplane, setting off to strafe the Kaiser at sunset over war torn Berlin.

Country music fans, however, know “Independence Day” is actually about a horribly abused housewife who burns her alcoholic husband alive and their whole house with him on a Fourth of July. Talk about fireworks! A daughter, ostensibly the song’s composer, is consequently sent to live in in the uncertain safety of foster care.

But Sean only plays Martina’s chorus. Why ruin an otherwise stirring image with mere facts?

Especially when Mr. Hannity received a major broadcasting award in late March from Talkers Magazine for “Outstanding Community Service by a Radio Talk Show Host” while being simultaneously accused of being an utter fraud for the very same activity cited in his official commendation.

Quoting Conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel, Sean Hannity’s sponsorship of, involvement with and allegiance to a group called “Freedom Alliance” and their “Freedom Concerts” is “all a huge scam.”

Writes Ms. Schlussel, “They’ve told you they are raising money to pay for the college tuition of the children of fallen soldiers and to pay for severely wounded war vets. In two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively of the money raised by Freedom Alliance
went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to “expenses”, including consultants and apparently to ferret a Hannity posse of family and friends in high style.”

On one line item from her impressively detailed documentation, Ms. Schlussel observes that $500,000 in expenses were spent to award just over $800,000 in scholarships.

A Conservative investigator accusing a Conservative talk show host of major fraud?

That’s almost as crazy as a Republican candidate for Governor, Steve Poizner, attacking California liberals for “years of doing too much for too many.” Poizner is running far behind Meg Whitman in voter polling and so resorts to thinly disguised racist rhetoric in a desperate attempt to win base support, evidently forgetting the words of another prominent Conservative, Winston Churchill, who once famously observed,

If Poizner’s correct, Sir Winston could have been have been talking about us Mountain Democrats!

Although I was barely 2, and could hardly walk, my father would stand me up on the bar to entertain his cronies with a fairly impressive ensemble of various Irish ballads, dirges and chants, which I mastered even as I learned to speak. They would give me pennies and shot glasses of beer for my trouble.

To this day, it seems like more than a fair exchange as I recall the laughter and the love.

And here it is the 77th day of this very year with another 364 days until St. Paddy's Day 2011.

About 15 million Americans are unemployed. Another 9 million are officially labeled "involuntary part-time workers" by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which it explains in its March release, "these individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job."

Toss on the heap another 2.5 million who are, in government-speak, "marginally detached," half of whom have become "discouraged workers." With six applicants for every job, folks in this category have just about given up.

These figures are translated into an overall "Unemployment Rate" of 9.7%. Against this national percentage, compare Madera County at 16.6%, Fresno County at 18.2% and Merced County at a heartbreaking 21.7%.

Welcome to the new "now." About 45 million of us remain without any form of health insurance, a statistic swelling by 10,000 a day.

Current pending legislation intended to address this issue insures only the insurers. Private companies are guaranteed billions in mandatory premiums from the public, but no public options are presented to provide proven, cost-cutting competition.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent by outrageously profitable corporations in cleverly conceived, brilliantly executed strategies, which have been clearly successful in convincing many of us to emotionally vote against our own interests time after time.

Did you know Madera County Supervisor Tom Wheeler has endorsed a "socialistic" project? Last week's Sierra Star quotes Wheeler as saying, "I think it's a big hit for the community," and I quite agree. Wheeler was referring to a Department of Veterans' Affairs Outpatient Clinic being built in Oakhurst for our nearly 3,000 Mountain Area veterans.

The 8,500-square-foot clinic off Highway 49 will house 18 treatment rooms offering primary care, mental health care, women's health services, eye care and a pharmacy, all paid for and run by the government.

God Bless our veterans. The American military death toll in Afghanistan has reached 1,000 with four times that number killed in Iraq.

Earlier this month, General Stanley McCrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was given extended control over all military activities and operations in the region. McCrystal's latest analysis of the situation indicates he will require more troops than originally anticipated to finish the job and win. Or at least, end the mission some way that doesn't seem too terribly whacked, then retire from the military to become set for life with appropriate compensatory rewards for self-service properly rendered.

Barack Obama has 34 months left in his first term as president, but minimal time remaining to regain the enormously enthusiastic momentum across party lines initially generated by his election to office. He has stood, but not delivered. He has spoken, but done little. He has promised, but not provided.

Obama is despised by the right and is being abandoned by the left. And with a fine fighting name like O'Bama, Mr. President, this Irishman's still in your corner, but hoping for no future rounds like the first.

Under various pieces of self-serving legislation enacted through the years by lawmakers far and wide, “Political Advertising” has been enshrined with delightfully friendly laws, custom made for the special folks who write them. Those running for Federal Office, in particular, enjoy certain unique privileges, including “lowest unit cost” guarantees, absolute freedom from any form of editing and/or content control and increased availability of airtime which must be provided significantly beyond normal commercial tolerances during campaigns.

While the guiding spirit behind these statutes has been to theoretically insure the electorate is made sufficiently aware of community issues and needs to be able to intelligently vote with adequate, informed aforethought, the cumulative effect of such noble attempts by the empowered to maintain position and status has been quite to the contrary.

An intelligent discussion of public affairs? Come on. We’ve seen it all---an endless parade of poisonous partisanship from all sides.

Name calling. Character assassination. Blatant untruths. Vulgar vituperation. Ugly innuendo.
Snarling sarcasm. Sneering sloganeering. Arsenic-coated bullet points.

Sadly, negative campaigning works great. It’s human nature. Fundamental decency and common courtesy are seasonally sacrificed by practiced professionals upon the cold, bloodless altar of blatant political expediency.

We warn our kids of sex and drugs, but willfully expose them to vile personal attacks of the lowest order at the highest levels of debate as a sanctioned form of civilized human discourse.

And, let’s face it. Those ads are annoying at best and infuriating at worst. At the height of last year’s Presidential Campaign, more than one-third of all prime broadcast time could be characterized as “political” in nature, the bulk of which ranged in content from nasty to nefarious.

No wonder “government” is now commonly viewed with dark suspicion. We are cynically conditioned on an annual basis to consider leadership little more than leprosy.

The controversial January 21st Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission has opened the door to unlimited corporate and union spending. Recent national polling now indicates eight in ten respondents say they oppose
such activity with little difference between Democrats, Independents and Republicans.

Let’s ban all paid political advertising from radio, television, satellite and cable.

There would still be plenty of opportunities for propaganda peddling through newspapers, billboards, magazines and, of course, the mighty Internet, but none of these offers the same potentially intrusive, virtually unavoidable presence of traditional, licensed, electronic media.

The Finest Elections Money Can Buy

A bitterly divided and radically partisan U. S. Supreme Court has
opened the floodgates on profligate corporate political extortion.
In yet another act of wild public betrayal reminiscent of its
December 2000 anointing of George W. Bush as President, the
Court has ruled that the government may not ban political spending
by corporations in candidate elections.

The New York Times offers us this headline: "Lobbies' New
Power: Cross Us, and Our Cash Will Bury You."

President Obama calls it “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street
banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests
that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the
voices of everyday Americans.”

But our still new President needs to put a bit of bite into his barks.
Make that bites. With really big teeth. Fangs are fitting.

It’s no surprise to any of us that things haven’t completely turned
around in the last twelve months after eight horrid years of Bush-
Cheney and three decades of wretched retreat from traditional
democratic values, but we seem at dead stall with no wind in our
sails, no hand on the wheel and no cannons on deck, loose or
otherwise - not even a Mighty Mouse to round up all the
Democratic Congressional Cats unable to herd themselves.
Our leaders seem bafflingly blinded even as we see the road.

Medicare for all. OUT of Iraq. OUT of Afghanistan. IN with
Social Responsibility. IN with Economic Justice. And ON and ON.

There are over 35,000 registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C.,
the number growing every hour since Obama’s election. That’s
approximately 65 lobbyists haunting each member of the U.S.
Congress on any given day.

And the Supreme Court’s Decision in “Citizens United v. Federal
Election Commission?”
E.J. Dionne Jr. nailed it in the Washington Post:

“The only proper response to this distortion of our political system
by ideologically driven justices is a popular revolt. It would be a
revolt of a sort deeply rooted in the American political tradition.
The most vibrant reform alliances in our history have involved
coalitions between populists (who stand up for the interests and
values of average citizens) and progressives (who fight against
corruption in government and for institutional changes to improve
the workings of our democracy). It's time for a new populistprogressive
alliance.”

“This court ruling should also challenge the fake populism we have
seen of late. It disguises a defense of the interests of the powerful
behind crowd-pleasing rhetoric against "Washington," "taxes" and,
yes, "Obama." The President has helped feed this faux populist
revolt by failing to understand until recently how deeply frustrated
politically moderate, middle-class Americans are over policies that
bailed out the banks while leaving behind millions of unemployed
and millions more alarmed about their economic futures.”

Yet, paraphrasing Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we have nothing to
fear but us, ourselves. And, quoting Elvis, “It’s now or never!”

The 23rd New York Congressional District is as carved up as a Thanksgiving Turkey by Friday morning, not unlike our own California 19th. It includes all or parts of Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lewis, Madison, Oneida, Oswego and St. Lawrence counties, most of the Adirondack Mountains and the Thousand Islands region, bordered by Canada to the north.

As of a recent special election, the 23rd is now represented by Bill Owens of Plattsburgh, the first Democrat to serve the area since sometime in the 1850’s - before The Civil War.

My namesake and Great-Grandfather, Peter Cavanaugh, having fled to America from unrestrained free market economics during Ireland’s Famine Years, has been buried under a fine Celtic Cross in New York’s 23rd since 1892. I’m sure he’s resting more comfortably these days, having waited 117 years for proper representation.

The special election to please Peter gained national attention when several national Republican leaders endorsed Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman over Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava. A few days before the election Scozzafava dropped out and endorsed Mr. Owens, who went on to win the seat with a 48.7% plurality. Nice work, Sarah.

I’m hoping it won’t take 117 years for Les Marsden to replace George Radanovich.

The November 17th issue of the Fresno Bee featured a Letter to the Editor submitted by Nicholas Massei, Jr., suggesting Radanovich be congratulated for “having the courage to vote against” the House-passed health care reform bill.

Junior went on to loyally recite standard GOP “talking points,” escalating in wild absurdity with data from The Lewin Group, a consulting firm based in Falls Church, Virginia.

He neglected to mention that the Lewin organization is wholly owned by the health insurance giant, UnitedHealth Group, or that Mr. Massei, himself, is an Authorized Independent Agent for Blue Cross of California.

Radanovich’s vote against health care reform is as cowardly and beholding to special interests as his November 5th “No” vote on H.R. 3548, “The Workers, Home Ownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009.”, which passed 403 to 12, including overwhelming support from 156 Republican members.

An immediate priority of the measure was an extension of
unemployment benefits for 14 weeks with an extra 6 weeks
intended for states with unemployment figures above 8.5%, including California at 12.2%.

In Radanovich’s 19th Congressional district, latest figures indicate Mariposa County registering 9.9% unemployment, Madera 13.8%, Tuolumne 13.5%, Fresno 15.8% and Stanislaus 16.6%.

No, Virginia, there is no "Doc Oslo." This is a simplistic creation of Bill Atwood's bombastic imagination, expressed in his grandiloquent ravings about President Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize in his letter to the editor in the Oct. 29 Sierra Star.

Mr. Atwood regularly contributes such "thoughts" to the Sierra Star and, along with other imaginary friends, "Doc Oslo" is as phony as the rest of Bill's platitudinous blather.

We see our young President presented as a "teleprompter" reading, "world order guy" whose "indecision" on Afghanistan "is putting our troops into a more dangerous situation." More dangerous than what, Mr. Atwood? Being there in the first place?

After savaging the administration's nascent economic policies, Nancy Pelosi's independently verified charges against the CIA and CNN for not being FOX, Atwood fires a grand finale fusillade against health reform.

Stating "more than 80% of Americans are happy with their current health care plan and the socialists want to mess up the best health care delivery system in the world to help just a few," Atwood plunges from fantasy to fiction with astoundingly ingenuous ease.

And he's waiting for the White House to call? More likely some nice young men in their clean white coats.

As a resident of Madera County, I am requesting that reconsideration be given to the ban on medical marijuana dispensaries the Board of Supervisors enacted by unanimous vote Sept. 22.

I’ve been smoking marijuana for more than 50 years, though not continuously. Sometimes I sleep.

I am the father of four and grandfather of eleven, having been happily married to the same woman for 45 years. I enjoyed high (no pun intended … well, maybe) executive positions for decades in my chosen profession.

All eight of my daughters and sons-in-law are successful entrepreneurs, exceptional parents and staunch Republicans, deeply involved in their churches and communities.

Sheriff Anderson’s comments on medicinal marijuana seem embarrassingly provincial.

For example, his assertion that “cities with marijuana dispensaries saw an increase in crime” begs for independent verification.

The county counsel’s finding that “marijuana dispensaries would negatively impact the health, safety, and welfare of the community” is simply silly.

For more than 20 years, Dutch citizens over age 18 have been permitted to buy and use cannabis in government-regulated coffee shops. Even this non-medicinal policy has not resulted in escalating consumption. Rates of marijuana use in the Netherlands are far lower than those in the United States and rank average when compared to other European countries.

Setting aside recreational use, the proven medicinal benefits of marijuana are now far past mere anecdotal testimony.

One might as well condemn aspirin as a work of the devil.
I urge rescission of the Sept. 22 decision.

We were in San Francisco, where Eileen and I had the great
fortune of attending a special screening of “Capitalism: A Love
Story”, later spending time with an old friend.

MIchael Moore had joined us on the sidewalk in front of our hotel
to continue an extended conversation about Flint times and new
challenges. A crowd was quickly gathering. He’d just been on
Leno. His security team was understandably growing increasingly
uncomfortable. Those death threats are real.

But Michael was captivated by the wild idea of possibly gracing
George Radanovich’s “Town Meeting” the following day in
Oakdale with an impromptu appearance. Saddened to learn that a 7
AM flight to Minneapolis would prohibit such sport, Mike
nonetheless offered his support in nailing a (D) after our next 19th
District Congressional Representative’s name.

Michael lives in a Republican dominated rural area, too. His year round
home is in Antrim County, Michigan - population 24,109.
He’s all too familiar with the curious George Radanoviches of the
flying monkey right embracing vices as virtues, treasonably
trashing our American middle class, offering a smile all the while.
While any attempt at true objectivity would be folly, I feel safe to
say that Michael’s new film will not disappoint. It is a powerful
call to action.
The star?

Our 32nd President of the United States visits us in poignant,
never-released, never-seen, granular black and white footage
captured shortly before his death.
He outlines all that could be.
Which still has never been.

"Failed Expectations"

“Take me to the station.
Put me on a train
I’ve got no expectations
To pass through here again”

Cindy Cavanaugh is fiercely disappointed. She ain’t gonna work
on Maggie’s Farm no more. For $67.50 she expected better from
Bob Dylan at Alliance Stadium in Syracuse on Sunday, July 19th,
before a less than sell-out crowd, even though John Mellencamp
and Willie Nelson were opening acts.

A devoted fan of many years standing, my sister-in-law offers this
succinct summary: “He played nothing but new material all night
long until he encored with a screwed up version of ‘Like a Rolling
Stone’. Dylan sucked.”

Some ricochet now in progressive circles over perceived neglect
from the new administration with scores of contested issues from
“Don’t Ask” and “Single Payer” to general economic policies,
military involvement in Iraq/ Afghanistan and, especially here in
the Valley, environmental concerns. I suggest it will take more
than a few days to address decades of national decline.

Republican talking points outrageously ignore complexities of any
kind. Thoughtful perspective brings realization that major
realignment is long overdue and imperative for collective survival.
I remain passionately proud of our new President. He deserves our
loyalty, support and guidance. In the Great Depression of the
1930s when the AFL and CIO asked Roosevelt for what became
The Wagner Act of 1935. FDR said, “I agree with you. I want to
do it. NOW GO TO THE STREETS AND MAKE ME DO IT.”

With Peter Leinau’s decision to withdraw his availability for
Washington responsibilities, I am offering unqualified support and
endorsement of Les Marsden’s candidacy in next year’s 19th
District Congressional Race. Les is a winner and represents the
highest ideals of Democratic Party tradition much, much more than
not.
With symphonic resonance.

Meanwhile, some expectations are grandly exceeded. My (gasp)
50th Year High School Reunion in Syracuse (Cathedral Academy
‘59) on 7/18 was nothing short of amazing. A stop at WPHR-FM
in Syracuse to visit my old friend, Dr. Roosevelt Wright
of the Newhouse School of Communication, found me suddenly
on-the-air for an hour with 6’9’’ Arinze Onuaku, starting center for
this year’s Syracuse University Basketball Team. Arinze made this
year’s “Sweet Sixteen” and has a shot at the National
Championship in 2010. He taught me how to jump.

And I spent a few days in poor little Flint, Michigan, on
the way back home. I was honored being interviewed during an
informal “Michigan Radio Reunion” over WKUF-FM.

WKUF is a listener-supported, low-power facility serving the
Flint Community, quite like Pacifica does Fresno on KFCF.
WKUF broadcasts for the common good. It was delightful being with them.

After five decades in commercial radio, I agree with Cindy
Cavanaugh. I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s Farm no more.

When our new First Lady, Michelle Obama, made her initial and only university commencement address this spring at the University of California at Merced on the 15th of May, five of six San Joaquin Valley congressmen skipped the event.

All had been invited, but only Pleasanton Democrat Jerry McNerney, whose East Bay-centered 11th District district includes a portion of the northern San Joaquin Valley, had the grace and good manners to attend.

According to a spokesperson, our own George Radanovich from the 19th District didn’t “make any special effort to avoid it”, easing concerns among constituents that George ever be subjected to any form of heavy lifting.

Bakersfield Republican Kevin McCarthy said he had an art competition to attend, paintings taking precedence over professional protocol.

Visalia Republican Devin Nunes announced he didn’t go because “he is unhappy with President Barack Obama and the majority Democrats in Congress”, upon whom he blames everything, including the Sack of Rome and The French Revolution.

And Merced Congressman Dennis Cardoza declined an invitation to the exercise for “personal and professional reasons”, although UC Merced is in his district and he received his invitation months in advance.

In the words of Buffalo Springfield (1967) , “There’s something happening here. What it is, ain’t exactly clear.”

While the lack of Republican reps might be cynically scored as characteristically boorish behavior, I find myself concerned in no small measure over Costa’s/Cardoza’s perplexing provincial petulance, for only such might account for their inexcusable absence.

With 20.4% Unemployment (2nd highest in the nation) and 6,000
foreclosures during 2008 in a population of 80,000, Merced deserved more than MIchelle Obama received.

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall. Who’s the fairest of them all?”, asks
the wicked witch in Snow White. “Fair ball!”, shouts the umpire,
as a home team scores the winning run. “That’s not fair!”, cries
every child ever born anywhere when denied anything. I did.
But it’s hard fitting “fair” into framework. As Supreme Court
Justice Potter Stewart once ruled on obscenity, he couldn’t define
it, but knew it when he saw it.

Having over 90% of government regulated, publicly owned
AM/FM radio airwaves devoted to right-wing, ultra-reactionary,
radically anti-progressive commentary is simply unfair. And this
90% plus percentage is, pun intended, a conservative estimate.
Such dominance in the last two decades came about through the
mechanics of “free market” economics. Commercial sponsorship
commands programming. Big Business loves Rush, Sean, Glenn, Mark
and Ray just down the road.

In earlier times, the Federal Communications Commission
enforced what came to be known as “The Fairness Doctrine”. This
was a policy, not a law, firm definition proving elusive. It just
meant all sides of important issues should be heard. It was never
meant to shut people down, but open discussion up.

In August of 1987, under President Ronald Reagan, the F.C.C.
abolished the Doctrine. In August of 1988, Rush Limbaugh,
through the magic of newly emerging satellite technology, began
national syndication with radio stations unhampered by the need to
offer reasonable rebuttal to Liberal Losers, Environmentalist
Wackos, Long-Haired, Dope-Smoking Hippies, and, in particular,
Femi-Nazis. Ratings scored, profits soared and “Rush Rooms”
flourished coast-to-coast. With lemming-like instinctive drive at
full throttle, rewarded by riches, the American broadcast industry
took a right hand turn, now intransigently locked in place.

So comes Free Press. They want to reform media and transform
democracy. Free Press offers lots of great ideas. and we can get
involved right here in the Mountains. Right now. Click
www.freepress.net. It’s all there.

I’m working with Senior Program Director Craig Aaron, with
whom I spent an hour discussing fairness on Sirius Left (Channel
146) a few weeks ago. A major push for Free Press is Low-Power
FM Radio. What Is LPFM? LPFM -- stations are community based,
nonprofit radio stations that broadcast at the local level, to
neighborhoods and small towns throughout the country.
Run by nonprofits like colleges, churches, schools, labor unions
and other community groups, LPFM stations provide local
coverage, information and perspectives that are not available
anywhere else. These noncommercial stations are uniquely
positioned to meet local needs. LPFM stations may have a small
broadcast range. They operate at 100 watts or less and have a
broadcast reach of just a few miles, but their impact on local
communities could be immense.

An editorial I was honored having recently published in the
Pulitzer-Prize Winning Toledo Blade, admittedly pushes things a
bit further: When 2009 financial covenants can't be met, taxpayer owned
(or owed) banks should seize the stations and/or groups
which they funded and transfer the facilities in Federal
Communications Commission-sanctioned public auctions to local
interests.

In such transactions, former employees would receive special
consideration, including the opportunity to be considered for
small-business loans to not only gain control but participate in
common, community-oriented ownership.
Oh, no! I must be an Environmentalist Wacko, Femi-Nazi, Dope-
Smoking, Hippie Liberal.

"If you go down in the streets today, baby,
you better open your eyes.
Folk down there really don't care which way the pressure lies,
So I've decided what I'm gonna do now.
And I'm packing my bags for the Misty Mountains
where the spirits go,
over the hills where the spirits fly."

The Misty Mountains of Zeppelin fame are in Wales. They are
referred to in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Return Of The King." Robert
Plant is a big fan of Tolkien and I'm a big fan of Robert Plant,
Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham.

Eileen and I moved from Michigan to Oakhurst two years ago,
here to the Misty Mountains of the Sierra. Yet we always look
back, the better to look ahead.

Flint, Michigan, was once home to the highest paid factory worker
in the entire industrialized world. Then everything went
completely upside down. In less than a human lifetime - first
faded to worst.
Thus sprang a coalescence.

"I wouldn't have been able to do what I've done if I hadn't grown
up in an area that had such a vibrant and rebellious political and
cultural scene. The music was so integrated into your experience as
a teenager. Everyone knows about Woodstock, but we had our own
mini-Woodstock every Wednesday, every summer, just outside
Flint. It was called Wild Wednesday. It was in a field with a big
pond, and it was the first place that people saw so many of these
groups, like MC5, Iggy, Seger. We'd literally be there every
Wednesday from Noon to Midnight. Thousands would show up.
And out of that grew the protests.You'd have a group of high
school students planning a walkout. Maybe it was just over how
lousy the food was at the lunch counter at school. It wasn't like,
"Here's the political thing." It was all woven together in the same
sort of rebellious, rock & roll attitude. When you said rock & roll,
it wasn't just the music. You meant it as a way of life, as a coat of
armor against everything that was coming at you. It was a force to
be reckoned with. In my mind, there would be no "Roger & Me",
no "Fahrenheit 9/11" if I had not been one of thousands
participating in that moment. And the millions who go to
“Fahrenheit” carry that with them as well. They were there at Wild
Wednesday, too."

On October 17, 2008, I was honored assisting the Oakhurst
Democratic Club present a free showing of "Michael Moore's
Slacker Uprising," having had the joy of introducing Michael to
the world over WWCK-FM in Flint from 1980 through 1987.
During this period, WWCK-FM became the highest rated Rock ,n
Roll station in America. Michael's program, "Radio Free Flint",
won a number of local and national broadcast awards.

The Oakhurst Library was wall to wall with local residents who, as
the movie concluded, were then treated to a half-hour of live phone
conversation with Michael. Calling from Flint, Mike answered
questions from the Oakhurst audience and offered his overview on
current economic and political challenges.

Through Blue Tooth technology, it seemed as though he was right
in the room. All in attendance were there at Wild Wednesday, too.

Witnessing the horrid professional executions of Les Root, Jeff Wade, Bill Bailey, Rusty Thomas, Laurie Richter, Doug Fisher, Brian Beddow, and dozens of other loyal and faithful area broadcast employees in recent days and, with local management “unavailable for comment," might I propose a few "new rules" about media ownership?

In the past dozen years, we've seen facility value thrive on the promise of "consolidation," then brutally collapse under the weight of egregious greed.

As Cumulus, Citadel, Regent and similar corporate entities default on borrowing covenants in 2009, taxpayer-owned (or owed) banks should seize the stations and/or groups which they funded and transfer the facilities in Federal Communications Commission-sanctioned public auctions to local interests.

In such transactions, former employees would receive special consideration, including the opportunity to be considered for small-business loans to not only gain control but participate in common, community-oriented ownership.

In his January 29th Sierra Star Column, "House hunting for inmates", Dr. Bill Atwood once again displays the intellectual depth of a frozen bird bath.

President Obama is not about to "close" it, he's going to shutter a torture camp housed at that location since 2002.

The overwhelming majority of "terrorists" detained there were not captured by U.S. forces or agents, but were turned in as "enemy combatants" by their own people for massive cash bounties.

Camp Delta, Camp Iguana and Camp X-Ray have become global symbols of criminal corruption at the highest levels of government.

Release of 35th Anniversary Edition -- "Guitar Army" --John Sinclair/Michael Simmons

A highly-respected Bay Area Broadcast Voice for over 40 years, Denny began at KPFA in 1967, working in public affairs and news programming. He moved on to become the Monday morning host for about 12 years, followed by a year on Brainstorm. Since then he has found his niche doing author interviews on Cover to Cover.

Annie's Host Chris Owen, Peter Cavanaugh and Owner Annie Whiteside-- Herself!

Artillery Magazine, Rolling Stone, High Times, Penthouse, LA Times, Focus on the Family

Peter C,

I was just chatting with one of my old HS buds & he told me about your book. Messing around the internet, I found your website.

I grew up in Midland in the 60's (Midland HS, class of '70, go Chemics). Naturally, my radio was tuned to WTAC, and of course I attended as many of the local rock n roll shows as I could (Sherwood Forest, Mt Holly, Daniel's Den, Blue Light in Midland). The Jimi Hendrix show at the IMA was my first big-time rock n roll concert.

I'd like to say thanks for all you did & all you meant to so many of us way back when. It really was a magical time to be growing up. I now know how much hard work you must have put into it & how you must have had to put yourself on the line to keep the quality so uniformly high. You really provided cutting edge entertainment to an area that just as easily could have been a real forgotten backwater.

I guess it was in no small part being captivated by what I heard on WTAC and then going to the shows that you were promoting & advertising on the station that really got me hooked on music. I'm happy to say that 40-odd years later, I'm still making a living in the music biz & still having a blast doing it.

For what it's worth, I ran into Ted Nugent in September ( we played the Cal State Fair the night after he did & saw him at the hotel) & had a nice chat about the old days in Mich, and, just last month I went to see Bob Seger's show in Nashville. He still sounds GREAT, by the way.

I hope all's well with you & yours!!!!

Thanks so much!!!!

Jim Scholten
Sawyer Brown
Nashville

Peter C,
Loving the book! Takes me back to my miserable Midland, Michigan childhood where all I wanted to do was pack my bag and leave that one-horse-town starting when I was TWELVE!!! WTAC was the only thing happening and it was a a beacon of light to a rock loving kid (listen to the new Bob Seger song "Face the Promise" for an approximate 'biography'!).

Fortunatately I eventually crawled out with stops at Daniel's Den, MSU and various national "Ports of Call" before finally reaching the bright lights of the Big City. Had two great kids, wrote two Graphic Novels on my mis-spent youth and am having helluva good time in my 54th year! Thanks for giving me a good start with the best in Rock & Roll!
Best regards,

Rob "Rocco" Maisch
In Deepest Cleveland

A Record Crowd of 15,000 at the 30th Anniversary Bobby Crim Festival of Races

Peter C. & WHNN's Johnny Burke Introduce Robert Gillespie and The Legendary Mitch Ryder

Abraham Lincoln, Jerry Reed, Jim Kenyon, Joe Tierno, Janice Kenyon, Peter C. and Dan O'Neil

One of very few surviving objects known to have been the personal property of an Irish king, the Kavanagh Charter Horn is a ceremonial drinking horn of elephant ivory dating from the early 12th century, with brass mountings added in the 15th century. Owned by the MacMorrough Kavanagh Kings of Leinster for centuries, it remained in the possession of the Chiefs of the Borris line until its later donation to the National Museum of Ireland.

This website was originally created and developed by daughter, Susan, out in Oakhurst, California. You may visit Susan and her husband, Rich Seiling, at www.westcoastimaging.com

Michael Moore, on the far RIGHT side (haha) of our 1980 WWCK staff photo (below)

B. C. Coleman (page 231) is living a life of splendid sanctuary in Buzzonia, Michigan, with turkeys and deer at sunset and a vintage '41 Willys in the barn. Buzzonia was chosen by the Fraternal Union of Casual Knights as venue for Mr. Goodbar's 70th Birthday Party in late October '06. As Aging Children know, "70" is the new "17." Bob Dell (page 35) runs the top-rated Morning Show in New Orleans on WWL, although eventually retiring to Oneida Lake in Upstate New York. Bob Seger (page 195) was back on the road with Coast-to-Coast sell-outs after 11 years of absence. Rock 'n Roll never forgets!" Alice Cooper (page 130) is still 18. MC5 (page 111) have their own excellent movie coming out on DVD. Iggy Stooge (page 156) is available now on DVD with one of the best live performances I ever witnessed, magnificently unleashed before a sold-out crowd at DTE Music Theater in August of 2003. Iggy opens Michael Moore's film, "Capitalism: A Love Story" with a wild version of "Louie-Louie", complete with new, appropriate lyrics.

I'm pleased to find myself being quoted extensively in "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison" by Michael Streissguth, an Associate Professor of English at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, from which I graduated in '63. I was also happy to record an audio version of "Local DJ" for Wayne State University and WDET-FM, Detroit's National Public Radio station.

IN PRINT:
Click on the images below for full article. Please be patient--they are full sized images.

"Bookworming: Your Esteemed Airwave Scribbler spent a large portion of this now-waning summer paging through "Local DJ: A Rock 'n Roll History" by longtime Flint record spinner and Rock Promoter Peter C. Cavanaugh. (349 pages, Xlibris Press, paperback $19.54, hardback $29.69, eBook $8 at www.xlibris.com). Chronicling an era and jobs skills that likely wil never been repeated, it's recommended reading for all radiophiles!" - John Smyntek/Radio TV Editor

"Peter C. Cavanaugh, a big noise on the radio in Flint back in the rockin' late '60s and early '70s, wrote a book about his experiences called "Local DJ."

PCC says he has signed film option rights to Kathleen Glynn and her new production company, Blue Lake Entertainment. Familiar ring to it? She is married to filmmaker Michael Moore and has produced all of his efforts to date." - John Smyntek/Radio TV Editor