ROCK FIGHT! by Kevan Smith

Hunters still rock post-nerf

2009-01-27T03:15:00.000-06:00

So after the nerf, I switched from BM to SV.

Here’s a 25-man Vault chart:

The Jowly Lump

2008-10-28T07:03:00.001-06:00

I like how Toles draws McCain:

Ride The Tiger!

2008-09-03T02:12:00.002-06:00

Anchovy has been level 70 on the Staghelm realm for some time now. Recently, I got the reputation to buy a Swift Winterspring Frostsaber, and here she is hanging out in Ironforge.

From the “I could have told them that” department ....

2008-07-11T17:56:00.001-06:00

This is from page 24 of the June 6, 2008, edition of The Inquisitor:

Adam Bryan Giblin, W/M,
DOB: 4/25/67, of
4611 Tibbs St.,
Shreveport, was
arrested by Officer
R. Christian on a
charge of theft and
on an outstanding
Caddo bench warrant
for proper equipment required
on vehicle. Over the last
year, the suspect allegedly took
from his place of employment
compact discs valued from
$5,000 to $15,000 and then sold
them to a local store to cash
them in.

Adam is the former program director at Red River Radio, the referenced place of employment.

I can’t be the only one who worked there who knew what was going on. Five to 15 grand is a lot of CDs! Or maybe something else went down, too. I also know of one occasion when he charged a local organization money to promote an event on the air with a fake “live remote.”

Vote Republican!

2008-06-23T17:27:00.001-06:00

Torture & NPR

2007-11-01T21:47:00.000-06:00

A couple of things about torture.

First, waterboarding is torture, no ifs, ands or buts. If my word isn’t good enough, consider former P.O.W. John McCain’s:

“All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today,” Mr. McCain, who spent more than five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, said in a telephone interview.
Of presidential candidates like Mr. Giuliani, who say that they are unsure whether waterboarding is torture, Mr. McCain said: “They should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture.”

Therefore, it’s distressing that a potential U.S. Attorney General won’t take a firm stand against waterboarding.

We must do better as a nation.

Second, NPR’s Steve Inskeep and Anne Garrels collaborated on a story that used sources who had been tortured. Instead of focusing on the torture, they focused on the resultant unsurprising confessions. It caused a firestorm of response, and FAIR issued an action alert. Garrels lamely defended herself, and it came off contrived.

We must do better as a nation.

Marshall Fannin Blog Gone Again

2007-11-01T13:00:00.000-06:00

Here's what I know about it: bupkus.

Anyone know anything?

IT appears to me that Marshall changed his domain hosting. That means it might be back soon. Or it might not be. The domain wasn't set to expire until next year, so I don't think it's a claim jumper. This is just speculation.

World Vegan Day

2007-10-30T11:43:00.000-06:00

War Criminal Escapes Justice

2007-10-29T04:39:00.000-06:00

Dammit, he got away!

“Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fled France today fearing arrest over charges of ‘ordering and authorizing’ torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military’s detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, unconfirmed reports coming from Paris suggest.”

Philosophy Talk visits KSCL this weekend

2007-10-26T14:24:00.000-06:00

Philosophy Talk, the radio show that questions everything except your intelligence, visits KSCL 91.3 FM and Centenary College this weekend.

Saturday, Stanford philosophers Ken Taylor and John Perry will tape a show from 5:00 to 6:30 pm in Anderson Auditorium on the Centenary College campus. They'll be exploring the concept of work with their guest, Al Gini.

Why work? Some argue that work is an unfortunate necessity; others that our jobs add to our lives. Work can make us into better people, teaching discipline, creativity, resourcefulness and other good habits. Some jobs might be degrading, but some kind of meaningful work is necessary for a meaningful life. Do Americans work too much? Do we identify too strongly with work at the expense of family, friends and health? What role should work play in a well-lived life?

Sunday at noon, Taylor and Perry broadcast from the KSCL studios. Beforehand, they'll discuss philosophy, their effort to bring philosophy to the airwaves, and their take on work.

KSCL airs Philosophy Talk at 10:00 am Wednesdays and Sundays.

Missed an episode? You can listen to past shows here.

Diminished Expectations Still Go Unmet at Red River Radio

2007-10-16T15:16:00.000-06:00

It’s fundraising time at Red River Radio. Here’s my two cents.

First, they’ve made their goal the lowest I’ve seen in years: $200,000. And they’re still not meeting it.

Let’s do the math. With $200,000 to be raised over a pledge drive of 14 days, Red River Radio needs to get $14,285.71 in donations each day. After nine days, they had only raised $114,210, according to their website. That’s $12,690 a day. At that rate, and barring any large donations being held back for a contrived big finish, Red River Radio’s drive will end with around $177,660, about $22,340 short.

The past several pledge drives have also fallen short -- distressing news for the network which is undergoing digital modernization yet still needs massive infrastructure redevelopment. They need lots of money and they aren’t getting it.

What’s the cause? Simply put, people don’t listen as much as they once did and the general focus is shifting from reliance on public donations to corporate contributions.

Consider these quotes from publications by David Giovannoni’s Audience Research Analysis organization:

Reinvigorating Public Radio’s Public Service & Public Support: INTERIM REPORT 1 APPROACH.

Americans are listening less to public radio today than two years ago. Not coincidentally, their financial support of our industry shows signs of softening.

Reinvigorating Public Radio’s Public Service & Public Support: INTERIM REPORT 6 LOSING OUR GRIP.

Public radio is losing its grip on its own listeners.

Stations that generate almost half of all public radio listening have lost loyalty in the last year. MORNING EDITION, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, and other programs generating 80 percent of all listening have lost their forward momentum or fallen back.

It doesn’t matter whether public radio has gotten weaker or commercial radio has gotten stronger. Either way, our listeners are listening less to us and more to them.

Reinvigorating Public Radio’s Public Service & Public Support: INTERIM REPORT 4 AN HISTORIC LOSS OF MOMENTUM.

After a 30 year run of virtually uninterrupted audience growth, public radio is no longer increasing its reach into American society or claiming larger shares of radio listening.

It’s not lost listening that portends ill for public radio. It’s the loss of upward momentum – the absence of growth on which we have traditionally relied – that threatens to ripple through our public service economy.

Public radio’s revenues have grown in lockstep with its audience for decades. Station managers could budget on the assumption of financial growth because their assumptions of audience growth typically proved true.

We can no longer assume we’ll have more resources tomorrow than we have today. At many stations, listener-sensitive revenues are poised to level or even decline; the projected gap between expectation and reality will approach or exceed the size of their Community Service Grants.

What’s the solution?

Red River Radio needs to change it’s programming to both increase ratings and boost audience loyalty. The program director should carefully analyze Arbitron data. Programs that perform well in similar markets should air here, replacing poorly performing ones here. That might mean grinding the sacred cows of opera, classical, Hearts Of Space and other programs into hamburger, but the network should find the courage to do it.

Christmas is the traditional time for “format change.” That gives them about two months to complete the analysis and make the changes, and it’s plenty of time. Bumped programming could go onto the digital channels.

Increasing productivity from the sales side would also help, but I can’t knowledgeably comment on how to do that. I do know about ratings and programming, though; I studied it for my degree and professionally.

Finally, I still think LSUS should pony up a sizable sum to rebuild the network. I’ve written about it before, so I won’t go over it again here. Dr. Vincent Marsala should personally champion the network in the legislature to secure increased funding, something he seems loathe to do.

Here’s an excerpt from email Dr. Marsala sent me:

“ ... we have been concerned about the needs of the radio station and for the past two years have included a radio station project in our capital outlay plans. However, it is unlikely that the state will fund such a project without substantial contributions from the public, if at all. Regardless, the project will stay on our capital outlay plan.”

As I said, the network needs a champion in the legislature to get that capital outlay funding. It might take a while, but trying is better than doing nothing.

Rock Fight Update

2007-10-12T10:45:00.000-06:00

Hello,

I figured I'd post saying why I haven't been updating ROCK FIGHT! playlists recently.

The KSCL studios have been renovated. The equipment is much more professional and works a whole lot better. As a result, I can do the show better by choosing CDs from the station's massive library. In the past, I burned my own CdS so I had one less worry about what could go wrong. That meant I knew what I was going to play beforehand and I could post the list. Now, the only accurate list is the one that's finished when the show is done.

However, the KSCL control board now has a decent MP3 player input, so in the future I will be playing a few songs from my iPod on ROCK FIGHT! I'll post those, but it will be a far shorter list than what I have been posting.

You really should see KSCL's library. It covers all the walls in two rooms including the studio. There's so much good stuff in it that it would make you weep with music-lover joy. The biggest challenge each week is choosing just 30 or so songs from among several hundred thousand.

ROCK FIGHT! is tonight from 6 to 8 on KSCL 91.3 FM. Tune in if you can! No word yet on streaming.

More pot smokers arrested than violent criminals

2007-09-25T13:14:00.000-06:00

Some crazy bad news from NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, made Democracy Now! headlines:

29,000 Arrested in U.S. in 2006 for Marijuana Violations
New government statistics show police arrested a record 829,000 people for marijuana violations last year. According to the group NORML a pot-smoker is now arrested every 38 seconds in the country. The total number of marijuana arrests in the U.S. far exceeded the total number of arrests in the U.S. for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

Do we really need to be filling our jails with pot smokers? It’s way past time to decriminalize cannabis.

ROCK FIGHT! 09/21/2007 KSCL 91.3 FM 6 to 8

2007-09-21T14:07:00.000-06:00

Hello again! A fine Fall Friday it is, so, time for ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 FM.

Lots of new music this week. You’ll hear the electronic ecstasy of Ernesto Gonzales, the freak pop of Travis Morrison Hellfighters and garage psych from Wooden Shjips. There’s also songs from Interpol’s and M.I.A.’s new albums. Plenty of other groovy shitake, too.

Here’s the playlist:

Song                                    Artist
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Same Old Drag                           The Apples In Stereo
China My China                          Brian Eno
Listen                                  The Clash
Cool As Kim Deal                        The Dandy Warhols
Shivering King                          Dead Meadow
I'm Sixteen                             Dengue Fever
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction           Devo
Reminisce                               Ernest Gonzales
Cheeseburger                            Gang Of Four
Last Living Souls                       Gorillaz
Purple Haze                             Groove Armada
Not Even Jail (Kessler Remix)           Interpol
No I In Threesome                       Interpol
Paper Planes                            M.I.A.
Hotel California                        The Moog Cookbook
The Needle Has Landed                   Neko Case
Brand New Colony                        The Postal Service
Store Bought Bones                      The Raconteurs
Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll           The Ramones
Nothing Means Nothing Anymore           River City Tanlines
No Feelings                             Sex Pistols
Giant Kitty                             Shonen Knife
Well Well Well                          Sondre Lerche
The World Looks Red                     Sonic Youth
I Wanna Be Your Dog                     The Stooges
Thank You For Sending Me An Angel       Talking Heads
You Make Me Feel Like A Freak           Travis Morrison Hellfighters
Kiss Off                                Violent Femmes
Always After You                        The Walkmen
We Ask You To Ride                      Wooden Shjips
The World's A Mess, It's In My Kiss     X
Speed Dial No. 2                        Zero 7

ROCK FIGHT! 09/14/2007 KSCL 91.3 FM 6 to 8

2007-09-14T09:45:00.000-06:00

Hello again, modern mangoes.

Friday is upon us! Time for another edition of ROCK FIGHT! from 6 to 8 on KSCL 91.3 FM.

Revolutionary exuberance awaits with tracks by M.I.A. and Actitud Maria Marta, along with a new song from Alec Holland’s latest project, Yamones. Who would have thought the boy who hates everything had a love song in him? Plenty of other chills and spills, too, so check it out!

Here’s the playlist:

Song                                Artist
-------------------------------------------------------------
La Base Milagrosa                   Actitud Maria Marta
Love Your Shotgun                   Be Your Own Pet
Luno                                Bloc Party
Dum Dum                             Butthole Surfers
Televised                           Calla
Let The Cool Goddess Rust Away      Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Smoke It                            The Dandy Warhols
Sex Me Up                           Datarock
Everything's Goin' On               Dead Meadow
Wrong Time Capsule                  Deerhoof
No Christmas For John Quays         The Fall
Pioneer To The Falls                Interpol
Fortune Of Fame                     The Jacobites
The Sky Is A Landfill               Jeff Buckley
Bamboo Banga                        M.I.A.
Lake Of Fire                        Meat Puppets
Shield Your Eyes....                Melt-Banana
Stranded In The Jungle              The New York Dolls
Mystereality                        OMD
Life & Illusion                     Phaser
Down With Moonlight                 The Rakes
I Can't Make It On Time             The Ramones
Twist Barbie                        Shonen Knife
Angst In My Pants                   Sparks
Nubile Days                         Swan Lake
Into Everything                     Télépopmusik
I Was A Lover                       TV On The Radio
Drive My Car                        Two Gallants
Wide Boys                           Ultravox
Promise                             Violent Femmes
We've Been Had                      The Walkmen
Motto Motto Motto!                  Yamones

The Petraeus Report

2007-09-10T21:21:00.000-06:00

General David Petraeus testified to Congress today giving his much anticpated report on "progress" in Iraq. There were no surprises in what it contained.

Once again, John Andrew Prime of The Times asked me to comment on the Iraq issue, specifically Petraeus' testimony.

Here's what I said:

General Petraeus' recommendations are sneaky. His plan would only reduce current post-surge troop levels in Iraq to their pre-surge level within about a year. It's akin to the shameful business practice of raising prices to then have a sale. Further decisions on troop reductions would be deferred at least six months.
The American people don't want that. Poll after poll shows we have lost patience with the war, with the horrible suffering on both sides. Most Americans want out, and we want it to happen starting now. In one CBS/New York Times poll, a majority believe the surge has either had no impact or made matters worse.
I grant that Iraq withdrawal is a challenge. We must find a plan that will disengage us from the Iraq debacle while maximizing chances for an end to violence there and a stable government that can keep the strategically vital oil flowing. Long term, we need a better oil plan for the country that reduces our dependence substantially. And we need to change our focus in the War on Terror from large-scale military engagement of whole countries to smaller, more-focused attacks against only those who truly threaten the country.
We need principled representatives willing to take political risks to resolve this issue. Who will step up to lead? I am not confident in our current leadership to do so.

Ambassador Crocker also testified, but I consider his report the least reliable. While Petraeus I think, despite his slanted statistics, had some independence, Crocker was just carrying Bush's water. There was nothing from him that wasn't standard administration propaganda.

The whole affair is mostly portrayed as a partisan battle. But both parties are ignoring what most people want -- to get out of Iraq now. Instead, Democrats are trying to craft a position that will allow the U.S. to stay in Iraq permanently while somehow "ending the war." Of course, that can't be successful, so it's ridiculous to think of the Democrat party as any real help, despite the admirable positions of a few loners within the party.

Many comments I'm reading are savvy to that. Some urge voting Green or Libertarian to elect people who will end the war. Both of those parties oppose it on principle. It's looking good for alternative parties this year. I know I'll be voting Green.

Oh, oh, I love it so....

2007-09-08T01:54:00.000-06:00

Best clip ever ....

ROCK FIGHT! 09/07/2007 KSCL 91.3 FM 6 to 8

2007-09-07T11:24:00.000-06:00

Hello again!

Another fantastic Friday it is, so time for ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 FM tonight from 6 to 8. Tune in for all the thrills and spills of stunt radio!

Here’s the score:

Song                                Artist
---------------------------------------------------------------------
In The Flat Field                   Bauhaus
Manipulation                        The Black Angels
Dr. Strangeluv                      Blonde Redhead
Picture This                        Blondie
Astral                              Calla
Sleep Over It                       Controller.Controller
Fa-Fa-Fa                            Datarock
Twin Killers                        Deerhoof
Idealistic                          Digitalism
Lexicon Devil                       The Germs
We Need More Power                  Geza X
Rest My Chemistry                   Interpol
Communist China                     Japan
Time To Get Away                    LCD Soundsystem
Lucky Number                        Lene Lovich
Hussel (Feat. Afrikan Boy)          M.I.A.
Roosey Goosey                       Made Out Of Babies
Cat Brain Land                      Melt-Banana
Sell Or Be Sold                     Minutemen
Mental Hopscotch                    Missing Persons
Spider's Web                        Mission Of Burma
Hanging On The Telephone            The Nerves
Little Girls                        Oingo Boingo
Electricity                         Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Broken Boy Soldier                  The Raconteurs
1 Hour 1/2 Ago                      Rain Parade
Terror!                             The Rakes
Reggie                              The Sounds
No Fun                              The Stooges
300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues    The White Stripes

Gerritsen Fallout

2007-09-05T13:02:00.000-06:00

There’s an article in The Times today about Roy Gerritsen’s outcome: “Man avoids solicitation of minor conviction, pleads to lesser charge.”

Check out some of the comments:

“How in the hell can you people live with yourself knowing that you let him plead to a lesser charge. I hope and pray if he ever does it again, it isn't my kid because someone will answer for this.”

“Wow the LA Justice system let a perv walk free!”

“This is terrible. Why let the pervert get off with a slap on the wrist? Let's send the illegals in our jails back to their own countries and make room in our prisons for some of our homegrown scum...”

“Just what makes this perv so special that he faces reduced charges and does not have to register as a sex offender. He won't change but you can bet he will be much more careful in the future.”

I’m glad I’m not alone in thinking he was let off too easy.

Gerritsen Gets Slap On Wrist

2007-09-04T14:16:00.000-06:00

Gerritsen Gets Slap On Wrist

Roy Geritsen didn't get off entirely free in court today, but he's not been punished much.

Roy, the former GM of Red River Radio, was arrested last October in a sting operation accusing him of soliciting sex from a juvenile over the Internet. He faced charges of computer-aided solicitation of a minor and attempted carnal knowledge of a juvenile. Bossier City police said Gerritsen arranged to meet who he thought was a 14-year-old girl for sex but who was actually a police officer posing as the girl. He was arrested when he arrived at a pre-determined location in Bossier City.

In court today, Gerritsen's computer-aided solicitation of a minor charge was lessened to criminal mischief, according to clerks. He pleaded guilty to that and was ordered to pay $1,000 plus court costs or to serve 30 days. The attempted carnal knowledge charge was dropped.

Gerritsen will not have to register as a sex offender, and he dodged the bullet of two years in jail. He is also now free to move out of the state.

Setting aside my dislike of the man, as a parent of a 14-year-old daughter, I am very disappointed in this outcome. Children today, my daughter included, rely on the internet for a variety of needs -- academic, social and personal. They deserve better protection from predators. I think a stiffer sentence was in order.

Since the cases did not go to trial, it will be problematic trying to get the chat transcripts. I'll see what I can do.

Katrina Crimes against "People of the Dome"

2007-08-31T21:32:00.000-06:00

During this Katrina week, I’d like to share this essay I received from community activist Mitchel Cohen. I have followed his writing for a number of years, finding him always reliable and conscientious.

In this essay, he mentions Les Evenchick and Malik Rahim. You may have heard Malik on Democracy Now!, where he’s been a fixture of Katrina coverage. Amy Goodwin interviewed him a couple of weeks after the storm, and the two passed a body that had been left in the street to rot; the resulting radio moment was seared into my memory. I also personally know both Malik and Les and consider them reliable sources.

An online friend of mine often questions the government. The other day he asked me if the situation was so bad that it’s too late to start shooting the people in charge. I’m a pacifist, but I flippantly replied, “It’s never too late.”

The aftermath of Katrina was an unpardonable crime perpetrated on the people of New Orleans by various people at different governmental and civilian levels. I believe many should face criminal charges for what happened, and since so many people died, perhaps some of those charges could be considered capital crimes. Louisiana does have the death penalty, after all. (I would be in favor of commuting the sentences to life in prison.)

Enough from me. Here’s Mr. Cohen:

People of the Dome

by Mitchel Cohen
mitchelcohen@mindspring.com

"I'm sick to death of hearing things from uptight narrow-minded pigheaded politicians. All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth." - John Lennon.

As Hurricane Katrina ravaged the gulf states, many organizations kicked into high gear to send relief to local groups in Mississippi and Louisiana, with no help from the government or formal relief agencies. Among them was the Malcolm X Grassroots movement, with whom the No Spray Coalition shared an office. Tons of donated supplies poured into the office and were trucked to Jackson, MS, where they were distributed through community-based efforts.

I spoke daily with Les Evenchick, a Green who lives in the French Quarter of New Orleans. I was also in touch with New Orleans residents Malik Rahim and Mike Howell; the areas in which they live were dry and they were holding out as long as they could. The story they tell is shocking: U.S. and local government officials ordered the local drinking water turned off and refused to allow water or food relief into New Orleans. Hundreds of people died unnecessarily as a result.

And yet, there was no shortage of water or food being sent -- it was just not allowed into the City! When Green Party activists tried to donate a large amount of water for the people in the SuperDome a few days after the levees broke, armed soldiers pointed rifles at them and prevented them from delivering supplies. Even three Wal-mart trucks loaded with drinking water were denied entry and turned away. No water was allowed into New Orleans. Evenchick says that "this was a brazen attempt to starve people out."

There was no health reason to turn off the drinking water at the time, as the water is drawn into a separate system from the Mississippi River, not the polluted lake, and filtered through self-powered purification plants separate from the main electric grid. If necessary, people could have boiled their water -- strangely, the municipal natural gas used in stoves was still functioning properly as of Thursday night of that first week! I emailed Governor Kathleen Blanco (a Democrat) asking, "Who ordered the turn-off of the drinking water?" I have not received a response from Gov. Blanco.

A commanding officer of a police squad complained that his 120 cops were provided with only 70 small bottles of water. Hospitals were supplied with nothing. Could FEMA, Homeland Security and local officials have forgotten to store bottles of drinking water in the Superdome, Convention Center and hospitals?

The only FEMA official on the scene in the early stages, Marty Bahamonde, has testified to Congress that he begged FEMA director Michael Brown for water, food, toilet paper and oxygen, saying that "many will die within hours." Brown's press secretary, Sharon Worthy, responded that the FEMA director needed more time to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge restaurant that evening. "He needs much more that [sic] 20 or 30 minutes," Worthy wrote. "Restaurants are getting busy," she said. "We now have traffic to encounter to go to and from a location of his choise [sic], followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc." Let them eat gumbo.

Green activist and former Black Panther Malik Rahim, who lives in the Algiers section -- which, like the French Quarter and several other areas above sea-level, remained dry -- points out that the government could have and should have provided water and food to residents of New Orleans but did not do so intentionally, to force people to evacuate by starving them out. This is a crime of the gravest sort.

French Quarter resident Mike Howell adds that the capability had been there from the start to drive water and food right up to the convention center, as those roads were clear. "It's how the National Guard drove into the city," he said.

The evidence is overwhelming that the government intentionally did not allow food or water into New Orleans.

These were the people, after all, who had twice voted in huge numbers against the candidacy of George Bush, the only area in the state to have done so. In recent years they also

Fought off attempts to privatize the drinking water supply,
Battled Shell Oil's attempt to build a Liquified Natural Gas facility, and
Tried to prevent the teardown of public housing

These were all battles in which Mayor Ray Nagin sided with the oil companies and millionaire developers. Nagin had contributed funds to George W. Bush's presidential campaign and was a registered Republican until just prior to the Mayoral election in 2002.

Attempts to starve civilians into leaving an area is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. Who gave the order to block water and food from entering New Orleans? Who ordered the drinking water inside the city to be turned off? No one has yet answered those questions.

On Thursday of that first week, volunteers who had rescued over 1,000 people in boats were ordered to stop, under the pretext that it was too dangerous. The volunteers wanted to continue rescue operations. They said there was little risk, that desperate people had been welcoming them with open arms. The military "convinced" the volunteer rescuers at gunpoint to "cease and desist." They did the same to a state senator who had led a flotilla of hundreds of boats and rafts all the way from Mississippi to rescue people.

Who gave the order to block the volunteer rescue teams in New Orleans? No one has yet answered that question.

Officials claimed that people were trying to shoot down the rescue helicopters. In actuality, there were a couple of people shooting into the air to signal helicopters to pick them up. Yet officials repeated the lies about people shooting at helicopters over and over, as justification for shutting down voluntary rescue operations and sending in thousands of fully armed military troops, along with private Blackwater mercenaries fresh from Iraq under orders to "shoot to kill."

(Blackwater, Inc. billed the federal government $950 per man, per day -- at one point raking in more than $240,000 a day. At its peak the company had about 600 contractors deployed from Texas to Mississippi, reports Jeremy Scahill in his pathbreaking book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," published by Nation Books.)

Two U.S. military helicopters spent a few days plucking 110 people from the roofs of their flooded houses. We saw them on T.V. and cheered. When they returned to base they were called into the commander's office. They thought they were going to be given medals. Instead, as reported in the NY Times, their commanding officers reprimanded them and removed them from helicopter duty for "violating orders."

Who gave the order not to rescue people? No one has answered that question.

For more than two weeks, hundreds of volunteer doctors and fire personnel -- including a squad from New York City -- were denied entry to New Orleans. They were dispatched, instead, to provide backdrop for Bush's photo-ops in other areas. The medical personnel were kept twiddling their thumbs as people were dying.

Who gave the order not to allow rescue workers into New Orleans? No one has answered that question.

In an interview with WWL-TV, Mayor Ray Nagin complained vociferously that Louisiana National Guard Blackhawk helicopters were being stopped from dropping sandbags to plug the levees soon after the breech. No repairs were allowed on the levees until long after the poor areas of New Orleans were totally flooded.

Who gave the order not to allow National Guard helicopters to drop sandbags to plug the levees soon after the breech? No one has answered that question.

Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez and Cuba's President Fidel Castro offered millions of dollars and hundreds of doctors to help save lives in New Orleans. They were turned down.

Who gave the order to turn down the aid offered from Venezuela and Cuba? No one has answered that question.

Millions of concerned citizens wanted to send assistance as well. FEMA recommended that they send contributions to "Operation Blessing," a front group for rightwing evangelist Pat Robertson. Robertson had recently televised a speech calling for the assassination of Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez.

Who gave the order to divert tens of millions of dollars in contributions sent to help the people of New Orleans by outraged American citizens, to rightwing Christian zealots? No one has yet answered that question.

The Saudization of New Orleans

Les Evenchick is an independent Green activist who lives in the French Quarter of New Orleans in a 3-story walkup. He points out that people were told to go to the bus depot to evacuate, but the bus station had closed down the night before. Unless you owned a car, Les told me, FEMA and state police would not let you leave.

Hundreds attempted to walk out of New Orleans; they were forced off the road and ordered back to the Coliseum or Superdome, where no water or food was available.

As a consequence the vast majority of the so-called looters were simply grabbing water, food, diapers and medicine. "It's only because of them that old people, sick people, and small children were able to survive," Les says. "The 'anti-looting' hype was just an excuse to militarize the area, place it under martial law and evict the population, mostly Black people, mostly the poor."

On August 30, Yahoo front-page news showed two pictures of people wading in water carrying supplies. The caption under the picture of the Black person read: "A young man walks through chest-deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans." The caption under the picture of a White couple wading through the water pulling supplies reads: "Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store." Got that? Whites "find," Blacks "loot."

MSNBC interviewed dozens of people who had managed to get out during the first few days. Every single one of them was white.

Some tourists trapped in the Monteleone Hotel pooled their funds and paid $25,000 for 10 buses to get them out. The buses were sent (there was no shortage of available buses -- why didn't the government use them?) but the military confiscated all ten of them for its own use. The tourists were not allowed to leave the city and were ordered to the Convention Center.

How simple it would have been for the government to have provided buses before the hurricane hit, and throughout the week. AMTRAK says it offered free rides out of town but that City officials never got back to them to finalize arrangements. Evacuating the 100,000 people trapped in the city should not have been that difficult. Even without AMTRAK or private cars, it would have taken at most 3,000 buses to get them out, fewer than come into Washington D.C. for some of the giant anti-war demonstrations. Even at $2,500 a pop -- highway robbery -- that would only be a total of $7.5 million for transporting out of harm's way all of those who did not have the means to leave.

The people who are poor (primarily Blacks but many poor Whites as well) who were trapped in the city as well as those thousands who were refusing to evacuate, not wanting to leave their pets or their homes and who had neither money nor places to go, were locked in the Superdome and not allowed to leave -- five days of hell. Those who survived the first dome were then -- finally! -- bussed out of the area to another stadium, the AstroDome in Houston. Call them "People of the Dome."

The Grassroots Organizes Itself

Gulf Coast resident Latosha Brown reports that the first group to send emergency supplies was TOPS, The Ordinary Peoples Society, a prison ministry in Dothan Alabama founded and staffed by ex-offenders. They organized food, pooled their money for additional goods and brought the supplies to a second organization of former prisoners in Mobile who distributed them, while they went back to Dothan for more. "That's why we tell everybody now that it was felons who were the first to feed, the first to respond to need, the first to get up and do something. They didn't wait for permission or for a contract. That's real leadership." ("Rescue Came from the Grassroots: The People, Not FEMA, Saved Themselves," by Bruce Dixon, in The Black Commentator.)

Volunteer medics established free clinics with the Common Ground Collective (www.commongroundrelief.org) in defiance of governmental edicts and machine guns. Common Ground has also mobilized thousands of young people from all over the country to come to New Orleans and help with the rebuilding, while using non-toxic alternative methods of mold removal and prevention in their efforts. Others, working in solidarity with tribal leaders, have created a dedicated relief effort for Native American communities (www.intuitivepath.org/relief.html). Food Not Bombs volunteers have been feeding people all over the region, with no help from the government or the Red Cross (www.foodnotbombs.net/dollar_for_peace.html).

On the other hand, from day one huge war profiteering corporations such as Halliburton, Bechtel and other private contractors began descending on the region, their pockets stuffed with billions of dollars in government handouts. Currently, thousands of poor homeowners and rental tenants -- including those unable to return to New Orleans just yet, having been evacuated to the far away domes -- are being evicted, says Mike Howell, who is organizing tenants to resist eviction. The phony "reconstruction" of New Orleans begins with the land grab, and with Mayor Nagin proposing gambling casinos, which he says would "rescue" the city, while destroying the remaining wetlands (Wetlands are nature's way of protecting large areas from floods; their destruction prior to Katrina contributed to the devastation of New Orleans and the Mississipi Delta.) and spraying massive amounts of cancer-causing pesticides over the entire flooded areas.

Many people are resisting this blatant confiscation of their lands and homes. As the resistance grows, New Orleans may soon become known as the first battle of the new American revolution.

Mitchel Cohen is co-editor of "G", the newspaper of the NY State Greens, and the coordinator of the No Spray Coalition (www.nospray.org). Write to Mitchel directly at mitchelcohen@mindspring.com. If you'd like to donate funds and be sure the money is going to a good purpose, donate to CommonGroundRelief.org.

ROCK FIGHT! 08/31/07 KSCL 6 to 8

2007-08-31T15:01:00.000-06:00

Hello again, inner space pioneers!

Friday starts a long Labor Day weekend. Kick it off right with ROCK FIGHT! tonight from 6 to 8 on KSCL 91.3 FM!

M.I.A. has a fantastic new album out called “Kala.” It’s even better than her first, “Arular.” Diplo still does some of the production, but Timbaland also shares that role. The result is awesome, and we’ll hear three (!) tracks from it.

There’s also two tracks from Interpol’s latest, “Our Love To Admire.” They’re my two current favorites, “Pioneer To The Falls” and “The Scale.”

Plenty of other great jams, too. Check it:

Song                                Artist
----------------------------------------------------------
Wicked Gil                          Band Of Horses
Hotwax                              Beck
Young Men Dead                      The Black Angels
Harmony In My Head                  Buzzcocks
Scream Team                         Deerhoof
Hit It And Quit It                  Funkadelic
We Need More Power                  Geza X
Standing By The Sea                 Husker Du
Pioneer To The Falls                Interpol
The Scale                           Interpol
North American Scum                 LCD Soundsystem
Birdflu                             M.I.A.
Boyz                                M.I.A.
Paper Planes                        M.I.A.
Out Of The Tunnel                   MX 80
Public Image                        Public Image Ltd.
The Tourist                         Radiohead
Gone West                           Rain Parade
T Bone                              The Rakes
I Want To Be Sedated                Shonen Knife
Wild Life                           Shonen Knife
Hallowed Be Thy Name                Sonic Youth
Tips For Teens                      Sparks
Pulled Up                           Talking Heads
Dirtywhirl                          Tv On The Radio
I Can't Stand It                    The Velvet Underground
No Guilt                            The Waitresses
The Rat                             The Walkmen
White Girl                          X

ROCK FIGHT! 08/24/07 KSCL 6 to 8

2007-08-23T22:24:00.000-06:00

Hello again, scholastic prairie schooners!

Friday at freakin’ last. Tune in ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 fm from 6 to 8 this evening!

A tool once asked about me, “Does he play anything that anybody who knows most everything about music, ever heard of??”

Err, yeah!

Sometimes I feel guilty about playing something someone has heard of, but not this week. It’s all hand-picked, fresh from the Zen garden. Check it:

Song                                        Artist
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rock Lobster                                The B-52's
Because                                     The Bird And The Bee
Luno                                        Bloc Party
Spring And By Summer Fall                   Blonde Redhead
Everybody's Happy Nowadays                  Buzzcocks
Shake Break Bounce                          The Chemical Brothers
Watch                                       Controller.Controller
Drive My Car                                Cristina
Sex Me Up                                   Datarock
Everything's Goin' On                       Dead Meadow
Go Home, Get Down                           Death From Above 1979
Punch Buggy Valves                          Deerhoof
Wiggly World                                Devo
Almost Forgot Myself                        Doves
Stars Are Stars                             Echo & The Bunnymen
Epitaph For A Head                          The Fuzztones
Re-Hash                                     Gorillaz
Get Down                                    Groove Armada
Homewrecker                                 Hellogoodbye
PDA                                         Interpol
Rio Seco                                    Juana Molina
Texas                                       Machine And The Synergetic Nuts
Lost                                        Meat Puppets
The Stone Age                               OMD
Astronomy Domine                            Pink Floyd
Susan's Strange                             The Psychedelic Furs
Where I End And You Begin                   Radiohead
Strasbourg                                  The Rakes
Nothing Means Nothing Anymore               River City Tanlines
X-French Tee Shirt                          Shudder To Think
Who Is It?                                  Talking Heads
Two Days Short Tomorrow                     Two Gallants
36-24-36                                    Violent Femmes
Don't Lose Your Temper                      XTC
A Day                                       Xymox

ROCK FIGHT! 08/17/07 & Roy Gerritsen

2007-08-17T14:17:00.000-06:00

Hi again!

I sheepishly apologize for not blogging more. The heat has really sapped my motivation.

It’s a good show tonight. Tune in to KSCL 91.3 FM from 6 to 8. Check it:

Song                                                    Artist
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Double Dare                                             Bauhaus
Black Grease                                            The Black Angels
Shooting                                                Chicks On Speed
Ivo                                                     Cocteau Twins
Casper                                                  Daniel Johnston
Fa-Fa-Fa                                                Datarock
Spirit Ditties Of No Tone                               Deerhoof
Saran Wrap                                              Dengue Fever
Jocko Homo                                              Devo
Then She Remembers                                      Dream Syndicate
Karma Police                                            Easystar All Stars
Lotion                                                  Greenskeepers
Gimme Some Skin                                         Iggy & The Stooges
Leave Me Alone                                          Johnny Thunders
Bird Song                                               Lene Lovich
Neon Lights                                             Luna
Shield Your Eyes, A Beast In The Well Of Your Hand      Melt-Banana
Let's Impeach The President                             Neil Young
Holland, 1945                                           Neutral Milk Hotel
Boy Void                                                Weirdo Rippers
Heaven                                                  The Rapture
Drag U Down 2 My Level                                  River City Tanlines
Out Of The Blue                                         Roxy Music
The Road Leads Where It's Led                           Secret Machines
Behind The Wall Of Sleep                                The Smithereens
Big Bottom                                              Spinal Tap
Suspect Device                                          Stiff Little Fingers
Artists Only                                            Talking Heads
Bunkers                                                 The Vapors
Sex Beat                                                Gun Club
Mexican Radio                                           Wall Of Voodoo
Don't Lose Your Temper                                  XTC

Roy Gerritsen

Also, here’s a Roy Gerritsen update. At his last court appearance, Gerritsen’s attorney received the chat transcripts. If the case goes to trial, those transcripts will be public record. The D.A. is trying for a sentence of two years hard labor. Gerritsen’s next appearance concerns jury selection on Sept. 4.

Roy, the former GM of Red River Radio, was arrested last October in a sting operation accusing him of soliciting sex from a juvenile over the Internet. He faces charges of computer-aided solicitation of a minor and attempted carnal knowledge of a juvenile. Bossier City police said Gerritsen arranged to meet who he thought was a 14-year-old girl for sex but who was actually a police officer posing as the girl. He was arrested when he arrived at a pre-determined location in Bossier City.

Gerritsen’s docket numbers are C149466, attempted carnal knowledge of a juvenile, and C149467, computer aided solicitation of a minor.

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, July 27, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-07-27T14:35:00.000-06:00

Hello again, plastic pantomime people!

Friday at last ... Time for another ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 fm, offical radio station of House Slytehrin. Tune in from 6 to 8 this evening for carefully chosen material from all living generations.

Here’s some of what I’ll be playing alongside plenty of new material, Top 30 fun hits and other crazy crap:

Song                                        Artist
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Wake Up                                     Arcade Fire
St. Vitus Dance                             Bauhaus
Bog                                         Be Your Own Pet
I Don't Know                                Big Audio Dynamite II
Like Eating Glass Ladytron Zapatista Mix    Bloc Party
Hanging On The Telephone                    Blondie
Strangler                                   Calla
Disco Blackout                              Controller.Controller
Bikini Girls With Machine Guns              The Cramps
08 Is That All There Is? (Long Version)*    Cristina
Cold War                                    Death From Above 1979
Scream Team                                 Deerhoof
Queen Of Languages                          Destroyer
Some Cities                                 Doves
Panda                                       Dungen
Cinderella                                  The Fuzztones
Watch The Tapes                             LCD Soundsystem
Punker Plus                                 Le Tigre
Split Myself In Two                         Meat Puppets
Radio Waves                                 OMD
Tattooed Love Boys                          Pretenders
How To Disappear Completely                 Radiohead
This Job Is Killing Me                      The Walkmen

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, July 20, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-07-20T09:29:00.000-06:00

Hi again, fevered Harry Potter purchasers!

Friday again .... time for ROCK FIGHT on KSCL 91.3 fm. Tune in from 6 to 8 tonight for some great music.

It’s a big mix this week with twofers from Elvis Costello, a cloying band called Lucky Soul, Schleuss’ favorite Of Montreal and Swedish rock tarts The Sounds. There’s also some classic punk and all the new and top 30 you can shake a stick at. Be there!

Here’s the shooting match:

Song                                        Artist
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Cake                                        The B-52's
Needles In The Camel's Eye                  Brian Eno
Mexican Caravan                             Butthole Surfers
Sort It Out                                 The Caesars
Free                                        Cat Power
Police & Thieves                            The Clash
Garlands                                    Cocteau Twins
Sleep Over It                               Controller.Controller
Neat Neat Neat                              The Damned
Heroes                                      David Bowie
Suburban Home                               Descendents
Definitely Clean                            Dream Syndicate
Crocodiles                                  Echo & The Bunnymen
Watching The Detectives                     Elvis Costello
Pump It Up                                  Elvis Costello
Rebellious Jukebox                          The Fall
She's Like Heroin To Me                     The Gun Club
Lips Are Unhappy                            Lucky Soul
Baby I'm Broke                              Lucky Soul
The Glory Of Man                            The Minutemen
Loosen This Job                             No Age
Disconnect The Dots                         Of Montreal
Forecast Fascist Future                     Of Montreal
My Iron Lung                                Radiohead
T Bone                                      The Rakes
Rock 'n Roll                                The Sounds
Reggie                                      The Sounds
I Want To Help You Ann                      The Lyres
Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone   Walkmen
Glittering Girl                             The Who
Can't Cheat Karma                           Zounds

Afterwards, this is the show to see:

A.J. LOWRING (Shreveport by way of Coushatta)

NATIVES OF THE NEW DAWN (Detroit, Michigan)

ASTRONAUTALIS (Jacksonville, Florida)

At Big D's BBQ (101 Common Street downtown)
FRIDAY, July 20th
8pm
$5.

Astronautalis and Natives of The New Dawn are both veterans of Warped Tour (Natives is on it this year), and Astronautalis played SXSW

www.myspace.com/astronautalis
www.myspace.com/nativesofthenewdawn
www.myspace.com/ajlowringmusic

Gerritsen Update

2007-07-19T10:14:00.000-06:00

Still grinding along slowly in Roy Gerritsen’s sex crimes case.

The conference scheduled for July 17 was rescheduled for August 10. His trial date is a month later on September 10.

Gerritsen’s docket numbers are C149466, attempted carnal knowledge of a juvenile, and C149467, computer aided solicitation of a minor. If convicted, he faces a maximum 15-year sentence and $12,500 fine, according to reports.

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, July 13, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-07-13T11:32:00.000-06:00

Gleepings and salivations, minions of the Great Old Ones.

Friday is here again and that means it’s time for another ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 FM. Tune in tonight from 6 to 8 for lots of great tunes from four decades.

Highlights include a track from the forthcoming The New Pornographers album, one of Kurt Cobain’s favorite Meat Puppets songs, an insane manifesto from Squarepusher, Danny Elfman’s first “hit,” and the Kroger corporate anthem, “Lost In The Supermarket,” by The Clash.

Here’s the whole enchilada:

Song                                Artist
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Human Wreck (Radio Edit)            Adult
Because                             The Bird And The Bee
A Sure Shot                         Calla
Is This Love?                       Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Lost In The Supermarket             The Clash
Computer Camp Love                  Datarock
It's No Game (Part 1)               David Bowie
Megan & Magill                      Decibully
Watercolours Into The Ocean         Destroyer
Snowden                             Doves
Your Gold Dress                     Dukes Of Stratosphear
Down In The Park                    Gary Numan & Tubeway Army
Chinese Rocks                       Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers
International Dateline              Ladytron
Watch The Tapes                     LCD Soundsystem
The Faire Folk                      Lightning Bolt
Green Eyed Devil                    Melt-Banana
Dirty Knife                         Neko Case
Go Places                           The New Pornographers
Only A Lad                          Oingo Boingo
Red Frame-White Light               Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Let Down                            Radiohead
Suzy Is A Headbanger                Ramones
Angst In My Pants                   Sparks
Fat Controller                      Squarepusher
Warning Sign                        Talking Heads
Wolf Like Me                        TV On The Radio
Sleepwalk                           Ultravox
Poison Plant                        USA Is A Monster
Wardance                            Killing Joke
Lake Of Fire                        Meat Puppets
Ana Ng                              They Might Be Giants
What Goes On                        The Velvet Underground
Gone Daddy Gone                     Violent Femmes

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, July 6, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-07-06T11:13:00.000-06:00

Achtung, das Lookenpeepers!

Time for another ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 fm. Be sure to tune in tonight from 6 to 8.

This week, there’s a track from the new New Pornographers album written by Dan Bejar - “Myriad Harbour.” And some other stuff ...

Well, here’s the score:

Song                                        Artist
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Simplesmente (Tom Middleton Remix)          Bebel Gilberto
Better Off Alone                            The Black Angels
Price Of Gasoline Automato Remix            Bloc Party
Ever Fallen In Love                         The Buzzcocks
Battle Scars (Feat. Willy Mason)            The Chemical Brothers
Anaesthesia                                 The Church
Heavy Metal                                 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Fa-Fa-Fa                                    Datarock
Siriustar                                   Deerhoof
Anything New                                Digitalism
Jugband Blues                               Eden
My Moon My Man                              Feist
Decent Days And Nights                      The Futureheads
Lightsonic                                  Groove Armada
Boy From School                             Hot Chip
Something I Learned Today                   Husker Du
Say Hello To The Angels                     Interpol
North American Scum                         LCD Soundsystem
Roadrunner                                  The Modern Lovers
Song Against Sex                            Neutral Milk Hotel
Myriad Harbour                              The New Pornographers
A Peculiar Noise Called "Train Director"    The Olivia Tremor Control
Down With Moonlight                         The Rakes
Suspect Device                              Stiff Little Fingers
Seen And Not Seen                           Talking Heads
Nursery Rhyme Breather                      U.N.K.L.E.
Little Cream Soda                           The White Stripes

WBUR's On Point Features Right Wing Radio Report

2007-07-05T10:55:00.000-06:00

WBUR had an excellent discussion of the study I wrote about from the Center For American Progress. It was on their NPR show On Point hosted by Tom Ashbrook.

The show’s blurb:

“Last week in the firestorm debate on immigration reform, even conservative stalwarts finally blinked at the full-blast power of rightwing talk radio. ‘Talk radio,’ said Mississippi's Senator Trent Lott, ‘is running America. We have to deal with that problem.’

“Problem? Not the way fans of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Michael Savage see it. This, they say, is democracy in action. And hallelujah their guys have the biggest megaphones. Maybe too big says a new report. But who's to say?”

Guests were Mark Lloyd, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress; Horace Cooper, Senior Fellow at the American Civil Responsibility Union; and Paul Waldman, Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America.

There was very good discussion and debate about the state of commercial political talk radio, examples of many conservative host’s hate-filled diatribes, listener call-ins and contemplation about a new Fairness Doctrine.

One point made was that NPR and public radio programming is the balance to right-wing speech on commercial radio. However, no one really took that seriously. It’s just not true for a variety of reasons explained in the show.

Go listen. It’s good!

New Studios for Red River Radio

2007-07-03T10:11:00.000-06:00

There was an interesting article in The Times the other day, “Public radio network outgrowing facilities.” Read it quick before you have to pay to see it.

Essentially, it boils down to, as the article states, “KDAQ has outgrown its current location at LSUS, and needs to move into a new facility in the next three years, according to station manager Kermit Poling.”

This is completely true and accurate. KDAQ, the flagship of Red River Radio, is consigned to hovels on the LSUS campus. It’s disgraceful and shameful. In fact, the university is just plain lucky no one has gotten seriously ill from working there or that the buildings haven’t been blown away by a bad storm.

Kermit goes on to mention that the station has plans for a new studio that will cost about $3 million, which he is trying to raise through federal and matching grants.

This plan was bandied about before I left Red River Radio, and I saw the artist’s conception of the new studio. It was very nice but not extravagant, and it would serve Red River Radio well for many decades.

It seems, though, that little progress has been made towards fruition since I left. So I’m going to say this yet again: LSUS should pay the lion’s share in funding the new studio.

Every time you tune in to Red River Radio, you hear that KDAQ is a community-supported service of LSUS. They are very proud to provide public radio to such a large area. For decades, Red River Radio has helped LSUS achieve a positive image throughout the region.

Yet the university has kept the network based in tin shacks all this time.

It’s time for some reciprocation. After all the benefit Red River Radio has provided LSUS, coming up with at least half the construction cost can easily be viewed as both a reward for that service and as an investment in continued service. It just seems fair to me.

What can you do? Write the chancellor and tell him your thoughts! Surprisingly, he has yet to make a public comment on the situation.

Right Wing Programming Stifles Shreveport Airwaves

2007-06-26T16:22:00.000-06:00

A new study is out from the Center for American Progress called “The Structural Imbalance Of Political Talk Radio.” It’s a quantitative analysis of conservative and progressive viewpoints on political talk radio programming in the United States.

And it’s bleak if you are a progressive.

First, though, here’s some background form the report:

“Despite the dramatic expansion of viewing and listening options for consumers today, traditional radio remains one of the most widely used media formats in America. Arbitron, the national radio ratings company, reports that more than 90 percent of Americans ages 12 or older listen to radio each week, ‘a higher penetration than television, magazines, newspapers, or the Internet....’ Among radio formats, the combined news/talk format (which includes news/talk/information and talk/personality) leads all others in terms of the total number of stations per format and trails only country music in terms of national audience share. Through more than 1,700 stations across the nation, the combined news/talk format is estimated to reach more than 50 million listeners each week.”

That’s the raw size of the issue, and then there’s these frightening conclusions:

Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive.
Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk -- 10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.
A separate analysis of all of the news/talk stations in the top 10 radio markets reveals that 76 percent of the programming in these markets is conservative and 24 percent is progressive, although programming is more balanced in markets such as New York and Chicago.

As with everything else, Shreveport is worse. The study references KEEL and KRMD. It found that KEEL airs 11 hours of conservative talk radio every day with 0 hours of “progressive” programming. KRMD airs 7 hours of conservative programming balanced by 0 progressive hours. So, all told, Shreveport talk radio listeners get 18 hours of conservative opinions per day balanced by nothing.

It seems to me that this is a chance for public radio to bridge the gap locally. Both Red River Radio and KSCL could easily provide such progressive programming as Democracy Now!, Counterspin, or selections from Air America hosts. As well, the Public Radio Exchange is a treasure trove of progressive content.

Balancing the ubiquitous and often violent, hate-filled conservative diatribe served daily here with progressive viewpoints would be a great public service. And isn’t that what all radio, but especially public radio, should be about?

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, June 22, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-06-22T15:18:00.000-06:00

Hello again, joke and/or trivia Pringles pals!

Friday is here at last, so it’s time for another ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 fm. Thanks in advance for tuning in.

This week is a polygamous mix of old and new punk and electronica. Just look at the lineup! So tune in from 6:00 to 8:00 and get your sicko kicks along with the news and weather.

Here’s what makes Mr. Bojangles boogie:

Song                                    Artist
-------------------------------------------------------------
Blank Eyed, Nose Bleed                  Adult
Preparedness                            The Bird And The Bee
Helicopter Whitey Version               Bloc Party
Baby's On Fire                          Brian Eno
Tornadoes                               Butthole Surfers
What Do I Get                           The Buzzcocks
Crackin' Up                             Caesars
Monument                                Calla
Take The Skinheads Bowling              Camper Van Beethoven
Life Is Sweet                           The Chemical Brothers
The Pills Won't Help You Now            The Chemical Brothers
Wordy Rappinghood                       Chicks On Speed
Career Opportunities                    The Clash
Silent Seven                            Controller.Controller
Rebel Rebel                             David Bowie
Radio Waves                             OMD
Dead And Alive                          Dead Boys
3000 Flowers                            Destroyer
Ha Ha Ha                                Flipper
Dare                                    Gorillaz
PDA                                     Interpol
All My Friends                          LCD Soundsystem
Plateau                                 Meat Puppets
Shield Your Eyes....                    Melt-Banana
Lexicon Devil                           The Melvins
Ghost                                   Neutral Milk Hotel
Exit Music (For A Film)                 Radiohead
Suspicious Eyes                         The Rakes
Sheena Is A Punk Rocker                 The Ramones
Do You Believe Her                      The Raveonettes
Satellite                               TV On The Radio
We've Been Had                          The Walkmen

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, June 15, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-06-15T15:38:00.000-06:00

Hello again, loud louts!

Friday, time for another ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 fm from 6 to 8.

First, a brief interlude:

Come out to the best show around tonight. The Noids and Astronautilus perform at Big D's BBQ, 101 Common Street in Shreveport. Show starts at 8:00, right after ROCK FIGHT! In the event of rain, it moves to 941 Captain Shreve in Shreveport. It’s gonna be great!

Back to the show:

This week, there’s lots of old-school punk and new wave along with modern hipster stank. The emphasis is on humor, with songs like “Computer Camp Love” from the new Datarock album, a Dickies cover of a moldy Moody Blues tune and Blur’s ode to transgendered confusion.

Alas, the podcast is dead and gone. No one listened.

So you’ll just have to use your radio.

Here’s the dirty lowdown:

Song                                    Artist
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I'm Alive                               999
Sexy Boy                                Air
Girls And Boys                          Blur
Spit It Out                             Brendan Benson
Warm Leatherette                        Chicks On Speed
Upon This Tidal Wave Of Young Blood     Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Long Time Jerk                          The Clash
Bruised Broken Beaten                   Controller.Controller
Computer Camp Love                      Datarock
Sonic Reducer                           Dead Boys
Sick Priest Learns To Last Forever      Destroyer
Nights In White Satin                   The Dickies
Outside The Trains Don't Run On Time    Gang Of Four
Me! I Disconnect From You               Gary Numan & Tubeway Army
Last Living Souls                       Gorillaz
Trot Out The Dead                       Hammers Of Misfortune
I'll Never Forget You                   Husker Du
Love Will Tear Us Apart                 Joy Division
High Rise                               Ladytron
After Dark                              Le Tigre
Lucky Number                            Lene Lovich
Split Myself In Two                     Meat Puppets
Spider Snipe                            Melt-Banana
Quiet Please                            Negativland
Pulse                                   The Psychedelic Furs
Annalisa                                Public Image Limited
Down With Moonlight                     The Rakes
I'm Affected                            The Ramones
Sister Savior                           The Rapture
Where's Captain Kirk                    Spizzenergi
Another Song                            Swell Maps
Don't Worry About The Government        Talking Heads
Dreams                                  TV On The Radio
Sex Beat                                Gun Club
Institutionalized                       Suicidal Tendencies
Just Drums                              Tapes 'n Tapes
Soul Kitchen                            X

Gerritsen's Trial Date Moved Again

2007-06-13T13:37:00.000-06:00

The wheels of justice move slowly.

Roy Gerritsen’s sex crimes trials have been moved to July 17, 2007, at 9:00 in Bossier Parish District Court.

ROCK FIGHT! June 8 podcast

2007-06-09T14:43:00.000-06:00

Here’s the ROCK FIGHT! podcast for the show that aired June 8, 2007:

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, June 8, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-06-08T14:56:00.000-06:00

Hello again, sweet savers of condiment packets!

Friday! Time for another ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 fm from 6 to 8.

Interpol has a much-anticipated new album out called “Our Love To Admire,” so there’s an Interpol retrospective on this week’s show. We’ll hear the new single, “The Heinrich Manoeuver,” along with a remix from an older album, a song from an earlier pre-release this year and a Peel session of my favorite Interpol song, “NYC.”

There’s also a pair of old Cure tunes, a classic from Bowie, and two re-made classics by by Luna and The Moog Cookbook. And I’ll play tunes from the college Top 30 and new underground artists. All the old school punk and new wave you can eat, too.

So tune in!

Here’s why they call it dope:

Song                                    Artist
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Devils Haircut                          Beck
Pink Love                               Blonde Redhead
Rapture Riders (Full Version)           Blondie Vs The Doors
Under                                   Brian Eno
Astral                                  Calla
I Want More                             Can
All Cats Are Grey                       The Cure
A Forest                                The Cure
Neat Neat Neat                          The Damned
Heroes                                  David Bowie
Not Even Jail (Daniel Kessler Remix)    Interpol
The Heimlich Manoeuvre                  Interpol
Anticipation                            Interpol
NYC                                     Interpol
Liquid Coffee                           Jennifer Gentle
Waiting On A Friend                     Luna
Inertia Creeps                          Massive Attack
Rockin' In The Free World               The Moog Cookbook
Maybe Sparrow                           Neko Case
Know                                    Nick Drake
Myxomatosis                             Radiohead
Carbona Not Glue                        Ramones
Catapult                                REM
Blank Generation                        Richard Hell & The Voidoids
Infinity Girl                           Stereolab
No Compassion                           Talking Heads
The North Pole                          The Walkmen

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, June 1, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-06-01T12:51:00.001-06:00

Hello again, headbanging harbingers of heat!

Friday is here with another ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 FM. Because I missed last week, it’s a special four-hour edition this week from 6 to 10. A double dose of gnosis!

Plenty of new stuff this week -- UNKLE, Groove Armada, Dungen, The Chemical Brothers. Datarock, Feist and others. And plenty of old stuff, too. It’s all mixed in a gumbo for your hipster delight.

Also, a worker from Smithfield Foods’ Tar Heel, NC, plant will join me to talk about her experiences there and what she plans for the Paula Deen show in Bossier City tomorrow. For more info, check out my blog entry or visit the Justice at Smithfield website.

So tune in! It’ll be swank.

An abbreviated podcast comes later, but for now here’s the tunes:

Song                                Artist
-------------------------------------------------------------
Gimme Sopor                         Angry Samoans
Dark Entries                        Bauhaus
The Passion Of Lovers               Bauhaus
Electric Shake                      Be Your Own Pet
Simplesmente (Tom Middleton Remix)  Bebel Gilberto
Dark Star                           Beck
The First Vietnamese War            The Black Angels
23                                  Blonde Redhead
Spring And By Summer Fall           Blonde Redhead
Everybody's Happy Nowadays          Buzzcocks
Luckey Dime                         Calexico
The Pills Won't Help You Now        The Chemical Brothers
Some Loud Thunder                   Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Boys Better                         The Dandy Warhols
Fa-Fa-Fa                            Datarock
Hang On To Yourself                 David Bowie
Do It!                              Death From Above 1979
You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla)  The Dickies
Gör Det Nu                          Dungen
Bad Dream Mama                      Eagles Of Death Metal
Seven Seas                          Echo & The Bunnymen
My Moon My Man                      Feist
Inductive Resonance                 The League Of Gentlemen
T'aint What You Do                  The Fun Boy Three
Lightsonic                          Groove Armada
Fortune Of Fame                     The Jacobites
Cut Dead                            The Jesus And Mary Chain
Antenna                             Kraftwerk
Sugar                               Ladytron
Bird Song                           Lene Lovich
Laminated Cats                      Loose Fur
Carnival Knowledge                  Loose Fur
Sugar                               Made Out Of Babies
We're Here                          Meat Puppets
Cat Brain Land                      Melt-Banana
Flashback                           Ministry
The Setup                           Mission Of Burma
Car Bomb                            Negativland
Hanging On The Telephone            The Nerves
My Way                              Nina Hagen
Dictatorsaurus                      Probot
Lucky                               Radiohead
Skttrbrain (Four Tet Remix)         Radiohead
Paranoid Android                    Radiohead
Suspicious Eyes                     The Rakes
Spellbound                          Siouxsie & The Banshees
Face The Blood                      Sondre Lerche
Born Under Punches                  Talking Heads
Genius Of Love                      Tom Tom Club
Satellite                           TV On The Radio
Wolf Like Me                        TV On The Radio
Distant Smile                       Ultravox
Nursery Rhyme Breather              Unkle
The Knock (Drums Of Death Part 2)   Unkle
Universal Corner                    X
We're Desperate                     X
Life Begins At The Hop              XTC

Deen to face Justice at Smithfield

2007-05-30T22:04:00.000-06:00

Heres a good chance to help workers achieve humane working conditions.

  Event: Justice at Smithfield Paula Deen Informational Demonstration
  Date: Saturday, June 2, 2007
  Where: CenturyTel Center in Bossier City, LA
  Time: Meet at 2:30 p.m.

Celebrity chef Paula Deen appears at CenturyTel Center Saturday with a show to promote her books, cooking show and other financial interests.

Deen endorses Smithfield Foods. She said she partnered with Smithfield because “it shared my family values and traditions.”

The truth about Smithfield is a little different.

Smithfield Foods is the largest pork producer and processor in the world, the fourth largest turkey processor and the fifth largest beef processor in the U.S. It is headquartered in the town of Smithfield, VA, but its operations stretch across the United States, Mexico, and much of Europe.

In the early 1990s, Smithfield opened its 975,000 square-foot pork slaughter plant in the town of Tar Heel, in Bladen County, North Carolina. This facility is now the single largest pork processing plant in the world.

Smithfield treats its Tar Heel plant workers worse than dogs.

They are forced to work under harsh circumstances. Fast line speeds, inadequate training, and improper safety procedures in the plant all lead to a dangerous workplace. As workers try to stand up to Smithfield and organize a union to fight for basic rights and dignities on the job, they are met with brutal force and harassment at the hands of Smithfield.

Smithfield has even been cited by Human Rights Watch for violating international human rights standards. Smithfield Packing has created an environment of intimidation, racial tension, and sometimes violence for workers who want a voice on the job.

But workers are fighting back.

When Deen comes to town, the UFCW, the union that represents many Smithfield workers, will be there, too.

UFCW organizer Nazey Gulech is here working with my union, SEIU Local 100, other unions and local religious and community organizations to organize an informational demonstration in front of CenturyTel the day of the show. We'll hand out flyers and hold up signs telling Deens fans the truth about the company she supports so whole-heartedly.

A worker from the Tar Heel plant will also be on hand to share her story. She and another person will enter the event and seek to ask Deen to accept a letter from the plants workers. The letter asks her to withdraw her endorsement of Smithfield.

Youll be able to hear Nazey on KSCL 91.3 at around 6:30 p.m. Shes also speaking at 7:00 Thursday evening at the West Edge Artists Co-Op. She may be featured on Red River Radio during Morning Edition Friday. And theres an article about the campaign in this week’s Shreveport Sun.

We need warm bodies at CenturyTel! It will be a peaceful event that supports justice for the workers at the Spring Heel plant. Please attend.

At the very least, dont buy products from the Tar Heel plant. Products from the Smithfield Tar Heel plant are coded 18079. Bacon is usually 79-C.

Here are some websites for more in-depth information:

http://www.smithfieldjustice.com/

http://www.ufcw.org/

Anchovy Update

2007-05-23T19:00:00.000-06:00

This is Anchovy and ShereKhan at level 59.

ROCK FIGHT! May 18 podcast

2007-05-19T18:22:00.000-06:00

Here’s the ROCK FIGHT! podcast for show date 05/18/2007.

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, May 18, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-05-18T15:00:00.000-06:00

Hello, arbitrary anglers!

FRIDAY! Time for ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 fm from 6 to 8.

People don’t live by loud rock alone. Everyone needs some downtime, a chance to reflect with soothing music designed to explore inner space. So, ROCK FIGHT! goes ambient this week.

There’s lots of mellow good stuff: Brian Eno, Steve Roach, Tetsu Inoue and more. It’s guaranteed to refresh your psyche or TRIPLE your money back!

Podcast to come later.

Here’s the cheat sheet:

Song                                            Artist
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surreptitious Ritual                            Between Interval
People Are Friends                              Biosphere
1/1                                             Brian Eno
Six Marimbas                                    Steve Reich
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Mother    Pete Namlook/Klaus Schulze
Cloudscape                                      Philip Glass
In Form Of A Birdie I Meet My Creator           Ruxpin
The Other Side                                  Steve Roach
Inter Link                                      Tetsu Inoue
Later                                           Woob

Thoughts on Iraq for a Gannett Newspaper

2007-05-17T15:21:00.000-06:00

John Andrew Prime of The Times is working on a story about the Iraq War and asked me a few questions. The opportunity made me cohere my thoughts into something short and sweet.

Here’s what John asked:

Do you think the public’s opinion on the War on Terror and the War in Iraq have changed over the course of the past year or so, and why?
Have your views changed? Why or why not?
What do you think this nation should do with regard to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Will anything change under a new administration after the ‘08 election?

And here’s my response:

Over the past year, measured public opinion about the war has remained relatively constant. Only about 35 percent “approve” of the war. The rest express various degrees of “disapproval.” Locally, more people support the President’s policies than that, but his support is rapidly waning.
Essentially, what’s left is a hard core of supporters pitted against growing opposition. The rhetoric from both sides will get worse.
Regardless of our Iraq War opinions, we can all agree the war merits civil discussion. We can treat each other respectfully in disagreement, and rhetoric of the right-wing-talk-show or leftist-rant ilk only puts us further from a solution.
My personal opinion about Iraq has remained constant since it started. We should withdraw all of our forces, abandon plans for permanent bases, turn control over to the Iraqis assisted by a regionally-based coalition and begin reparations payments.
I don’t think a massive conflagration will erupt if we withdraw. The same prediction was made of Vietnam and proved to be gross exaggeration. Iraqis can manage their own country better than we can manage it for them.
Profiteering corporations should be booted from Iraq, particularly oil companies and mercenary armies like the Blackwater forces. The growing trend to use these mercenary armies is troubling.
In Afghanistan, we have a better prospect. Our conduct there, while not exemplary, has generated some goodwill to build on. The people there are ready for peace. There is ample opportunity for coalition building if we respect all interests. I think we can manage with our special forces aiding indigenous forces. We must settle the Osama Bin Laden problem finally and unequivocally.
The Democrats are just as much a war party as Republicans. Regardless of who wins the White House, the next president won’t withdraw from Iraq entirely. A Democrat might withdraw some forces, but the plan of opening permanent bases will continue, the oil companies will still get their due and mercenaries will still operate without oversight.
The main problems in ending the war comes from two areas. First, we spend so much money on the military that the war industry dominates our polity. And we've built a propaganda machine that constantly trumpets how great our nation is because of that military spending.
Anyone who challenges the war machine is either ignored or ridiculed. But I think soon we'll be discussing these issues seriously. I hope that’s the big change this election -- getting the nation to really look at industries supporting and profiting from war and what that means for our way of life.

I don’t know what of that, if anything, will make it to the final article, but I’m glad to have had the opportunity to comment. We’ll see what happens.

Inside Chinese Gold Farming

2007-05-14T18:16:00.000-06:00

Here’s a look inside the world of Chinese gold farming.

Chinese laborers play many popular video games like World of Warcraft collecting gold and items or creating characters and leveling them up. They then sell the gold or characters to gamers in more affluent countries, especially the U.S. Typically, they make about $200.00 a month, though food and housing are provided.

Is it exploitation? I’m not so sure, because they say they have fun playing. But it is a tedious job with intense pressure to produce. It’s also explicitly against World of Warcraft’s terms of service, and thus it’s cheating.

Anyway, here’s the video:

ROCK FIGHT! May 11, 2007, podcast

2007-05-12T00:47:00.000-06:00

Here’s the ROCK FIGHT! podcast for May 11, 2007:

ROCK FIGHT! May 11, 2007

2007-05-11T14:35:00.000-06:00

Hello again, yammering young yobs!

Friday -- time to get your ROCK FIGHT! on. Be sure to listen to KSCL 91.3 FM from 6 to 8.

This week, there’s a pair of tunes from the new Melt Banana album, “Bambi’s Dilemma.” I can’t say enough good things about this album. If you love Melt Banana, you won’t be disappointed, yet they still manage to branch off into new stylistic territory. There’s plenty of shred-it-up mania, but also more contemplative songs. This would also make a good intro to the band if you haven’t heard them yet, and it should definitely intrigue you into exploring their substantial back catalog.

Also, there’s a pair of songs from The Sugarcubes, the band that launched the superstar singer whose name sounds like a cat hurling up a hairball -- Bjork. I stayed away from the hit “Happy Birthday,” choosing instead two songs I like way more from their first album, “Life’s Too Good.” By the way, I hate Bjork’s new album, “Volta.”

There’s also two of my favorite Echo and the Bunnymen tunes, a classic from David Bowie, The Edge in a side project with some artsy types, a song about bouncing boobies, a little bit of country and a lot of rock and roll.

So tune in! It’ll be a gas!

Podcast to come later.

Here’s the FIGHT! card:

Song                            Artist
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Shake Your Head                 Adult
Spill                           Be Your Own Pet
Preparedness                    The Bird And The Bee
Italian Leather Sofa            Cake
Strangler                       Calla
Blackout                        David Bowie
Thing That Only Eats Hippies    The Dead Milkmen
Darker                          Doves
Climbing Up The Walls           Easystar All Stars
Heaven Up Here                  Echo & The Bunnymen
Porcupine                       Echo & The Bunnymen
Caught In My Eye                The Germs
Whatever                        Husker Du
Obstacle 1                      Interpol
All The Dark Rags               The Jacobites
Sleazy                          Jah Wobble/The Edge/Holger Czukay
La Verdad                       Juana Molina
Three                           Massive Attack
Cat Brain Land                  Melt Banana
Last Target On The Last Day     Melt Banana
Messages                        Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Minor Detail                    Sondre Lerche
Circuit Love                    Soviet
Split Endz-I Got You            Split Enz
I'm Still In Love With You      Steve Earle And The Del Mccoury Band
Motorcrash                      Sugarcubes
Coldsweat                       Sugarcubes
Listening Wind                  Talking Heads
Poison Plant                    USA Is A Monster
Animal Day                      Wall Of Voodoo

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, May 4, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-05-03T23:50:00.000-06:00

Hello again, magnanimous media mongers!

By now you know the drill: It’s Friday, so it’s time for another ROCK FIGHT! from 6 to 8 on KSCL 91.3 FM. Woooooohoooooo!

There’s a lot going on with this show, which is a hodgepodge of mostly old stuff mixed in with a smattering of new. I have no clue how it’s going to work out, so tune in to hear either massive brilliance or a horrible train wreck!

My favorites this week are Bobby Conn, Calla, Melt Banana and Sparks, but all the tunes are special in their own way. Everything is beautiful. And if you missed The Clorox Girls at Cooper Manor, there’s a pair of songs by them you can listen to while kicking yourself.

Here’s the podcast:

Here’s the ill behavior:

Song                                    Artist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Side-Swiped (Extended Mix)              Adult
Atomic                                  Blondie
We Come In Peace                        Bobby Conn
Pendulum                                Broadcast
Monument                                Calla
Ghetto Defendent                        The Clash
Golden Boy                              Clorox Girls
Stuck In A Hole                         Clorox Girls
Is That All There Is?                   Cristina
Boys Don't Cry                          The Cure
Sonic Reducer                           Dead Boys
Sleepy Silver Door                      Dead Meadow
Do It!                                  Death From Above 1979
Definitely Clean                        Dream Syndicate
You're My Drug                          Dukes Of Stratosphear
Inductive Resonance                     Fripp, Robert & The League Of Gentlemen
Faith, Hope And Charity                 The Fun Boy Three
Carnival Kids                           The Futureheads
Ether                                   Gang Of Four
Fire Spirit                             The Gun Club
Contort Yourself                        James Chance & The Contortions
People Who Died                         Jim Carroll Band
The Empire Song                         Killing Joke
Like A White Bat In A Box...            Melt Banana
The Glory Of Man                        The Minutemen
Untitled                                Neutral Milk Hotel
Dancing With Myself (Feat. Phoebe)      Nouvelle Vague
Bunker Soldiers                         OMD
Low Life                                Public Image Ltd.
Came Without Warning                    Scream
Moustache                               Sparks
Margerine Melodie                       Stereolab
Slow Motion                             Ultravox
That's The Punch Line                   The Walkmen
Making Plans For Nigel                  XTC

CLOROX GIRLS

Pictures of The Clorox Girls and Kenny and The Flesh up at my FlickR site.

What happened to the Marshall Fannin Blog?

2007-05-02T18:32:00.000-06:00

A few of you may have noticed that Monday one of Shreveport-Bossier’s most controversial blogs, The Marshall Fannin Blog, disappeared. Since then, traffic to this blog has more than doubled due to people searching on the term “Marshall Fannin.”

Before the blog went down, Marshall had posted that there would be a “major announcement” on the site at noon Monday. This also came after some really juicy posts about the state’s Democrat and Republican parties.

I e-mailed Marshall asking what was up, and he at first told me he wanted to bring it back, but then said that he wasn't gonna do it. So it goes.

The Clorox Girls at Cooper Manor

2007-04-30T16:15:00.000-06:00

Alec Holland sends me word of this must-see house show:

Thursday, May 3rd
122 E. Dalzell
8:00 PM
$5.00
BYOB

THE CLOROX GIRLS (Portland, Oregon)
www.myspace.com/cloroxgirls

Here’s The Clorox Girls website, and here’s plenty of YouTube action.

ROCK FIGHT! April 27 podcast

2007-04-29T21:38:00.000-06:00

Finally, here’s the podcast:

See below for the playlist.

New Mount

2007-04-28T01:22:00.000-06:00

And I didn’t even have to prostitute myself ....

Click the pic for a larger version.

Anchovy is my dwarven hunter in the Muradin realm riding her new white ram. Her pet is a tiger from Stanglethorn Vale named ShereKhan. It took me a week of farming to raise the gold to buy the mount.

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, April 27, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-04-27T10:32:00.000-06:00

Hello again, chronic connoisseurs!

Friday is here with another ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 fm.

It’s another fine week for exploring some old underground tunes. Check out The Dead Milkmen, Gary Numan, Talking Heads and other 80s germs. Move on to the 90s with Beck and Radiohead. Then settle into this century with Bloc Party, The Bird and The Bee and Modest Mouse. Plenty of great tunes.

The after party is at Cooper Manor, 122 E. Dalzell here in Shreveport. God Stewart, Kenny and The Flesh and Elevado are gonna blow your eardrums out. Doors open at 8:00. Cover is $5.00. Be there!

And tune in ROCK FIGHT! from 6 to 8. The podcast will be up tomorrow.

Here’s the poop:

Song                        Artist
-----------------------------------------------------
Hotwax                      Beck
My Fair Lady                The Bird And The Bee
Little Thoughts             Bloc Party
Plans                       Bloc Party
Punk Rock Girl              The Dead Milkmen
Smart Patrol / Mr. DNA      Devo
M62 Song (Four Tet Remix)   Doves
Bingo Master                The Fall
Earthworm                   Flipper
Are Friends Electric?       Gary Numan & Tubeway Army
New Genious (Brother)       Gorillaz
War Anthem                  Hammers Of Misfortune
Elena                       Juana Molina
The Insect Eater            Lene Lovich
New Church                  Lords Of The New Church
New Gods                    Meat Puppets
Float On                    Modest Mouse
Everything Is On The One    Parliament
Attack                      Public Image Ltd
Under The House             Public Image Ltd.
No Surprises                Radiohead
Blitzkrieg Bop              Ramones
Halloween                   Siouxsie & The Banshees
Ugli                        Skinny Puppy
Rain King                   Sonic Youth
I'm Not In Love             Talking Heads
Pulled Up                   Talking Heads
The Wrong Way               TV On The Radio
Back In Flesh               Wall Of Voodoo
Runaways                    XTC
The Space Between           Zero 7

Milk and Mounts

2007-04-25T15:31:00.000-06:00

A couple of things today ....

First, thanks to Erik Marcus at vegan.com for turning me on to this hilarious segment from The Colbert Report. I hope you remember it with your next glass of milk. Is there any reason to drink that stuff? Evidence shows it actually leeches calcium from your bones, and you can get plenty of calcium from green, leafy vegetables and enriched soy and rice milks. Rice milk, by the way, is wonderfully delicious and is even yummier on cereal.

Here’s the video:

Next, you might know that I play a lot of World of Warcraft. It occupies a major portion of my free time. In the game, when you reach a high enough level, you can buy a mount to ride to different areas. Riding is fast, and there’s a certain amount of prestige associated with your mount.

However, rides ain’t cheap. In fact, the most sought after rides, epic mounts, cost thousands of gold. So it’s no surprise that a real-world market has developed for in-game gold. You can buy gold with real dollars at certain websites, and it gets delivered to your WoW character’s account. I’ve done it before -- $15.00 for 100 gold.

One player, though, needed to raise 5,000 gold to purchase her epic mount. She came up with an interesting solution. Check out these Craig’s List personal ads.

That’s right -- supposedly a female player prostituted herself to raise the money for her epic mount. The 5,000 gold translates to about $700.00. Redonkulous! Still, I wonder if her quest for an epic mount indeed procured her an ... ahem ... epic mount.

I only need 140 gold for my ride. What can I do for you?

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, April 20, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-04-20T12:35:00.000-06:00

Hello, militant musicologists.

It’s Friday, so time for another ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 FM.

This week it’s an extravagant double-play fiesta! You get two from the Butthole Surfers, The Dead Milkmen, Sonic Youth and Franz Ferdinand, and sort of two by Radiohead -- one song from them and a very cool jazz cover of “Paranoid Android” by Brad Mehldau. Plenty of other great stuff, too.

So, tune in KSCL from 6 to 8 tonight while you kill Shadowmaw Panthers for those blokes in Stranglethorn Vale!

Sorry, no podcast this week, but you can listen to some older ones.

Here’s the playlist:

Song                          Artist
-------------------------------------------------
52 Girls                      The B-52's
Manipulation                  The Black Angels
Paranoid Android              Brad Mehldau
Human Cannonball              Butthole Surfers
In The Cellar                 Butthole Surfers
I Love You, You Big Dummy     Captain Beefheart
Lay Low                       The Church
Coup D'Etat                   Circle Jerks
Capital Radio One             The Clash
Everything's Goin’ On         The Dead Meadow
Big Deal                      The Dead Milkmen
My White Devil                Echo & The Bunnymen
Lipstick Vogue                Elvis Costello
Take Me Out                   Franz Ferdinand
Cheating On You               Franz Ferdinand
Meantime                      The Futureheads
Cinderella                    The Fuzztones
Tiptoe                        Goldfrapp
Antenna                       Kraftwerk
High Rise                     Ladytron
Narcisist                     The Libertines
Ride The Sky                  Lightning Bolt
Eurochild                     Massive Attack
We Will Rock You              Melt Banana
Mental Hopscotch              Missing Persons
What People Are Made Of       Modest Mouse
The Village                   New Order
Take California               Propellerheads
The National Anthem           Radiohead
Kill Yr. Idols                Sonic Youth
Shadow Of A Doubt             Sonic Youth
Promise                       Violent Femmes
Always After You              The Walkmen
Suffice To Say                The Yachts

Two dissidents, Zinn and Chomsky, on Democracy Now!

2007-04-18T13:33:00.000-06:00

This week Democracy Now! has been featuring both Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky. The two noted humanitarian dissidents commented on a variety of matters, especially, as you might guess, the Iraq War. Here are some of their more piquant observations from the transcripts.

Zinn urges soldiers to practice civil disobedience from Thoreau's example:

And so, that (Thoreau's essay on civil disobedience) stands as a classic statement for Americans, that it's honorable and right to not to pay your taxes or to refuse military service or to disobey your government when you believe that your government is wrong. And so, the hope is that today more soldiers who are asked to go to Iraq, more young people who are asked to enlist in the war against Iraq, will read Thoreau's essay on civil disobedience, will take its advice to heart, realize that the government is not holy, that what's holy is human life and human freedom and the right of people to resist authority. And so, Thoreau has great lessons for us today.

Zinn on patriotism:

So today, for instance, the highest act of patriotism I suggest, would be opposing the war in Iraq and calling for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Simply because everything about the war violates the fundamental principles of equality, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, not just for Americans, but for people in another part of the world. So, yes, patriotism today requires citizens to be active on many, many different fronts to oppose government policies on the war, government policies which have taken trillions of dollars from this country's treasury and used it for war and militarism. That's what patriotism would require today.

Chomsky on the Iraq war:

This is one of the worst catastrophes in military history and also in political history. The most recent studies of the Red Cross show that Iraq has suffered the worst decline in child mortality, infant mortality, an increase in infant mortality known. But it’s since 1990. That is, it's a combination of the affect of the murderers' and brutal sanctions regime, which we don’t talk much about, which devastated society through the 1990's and strengthened Saddam Hussein, compelled the population to rely on him for survival, which probably saved him from the fate of a whole long series of other tyrants who were overthrown by their own people supported by the U.S.
And then came the war on top of it which has simply increased the horrors. The decline is unprecedented. The increase in infant mortality is unprecedented; it's now below the level of, worse than some of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It's one index of what's happened. The most probable measure of deaths in a study sponsored by M.I.T. incidentally carried out by leading specialists in Iraq and here last October was about 650,000 killed, soon to be pushing a million. There are several million people fled including the large part of the professional classes, people who could in principal help rebuild the country. And without going on, it's a hideous catastrophe and getting worse.

Chomsky on whether the U.S. can "win" the Iraq War:

It depends on what you mean by win. The United States certainly has the capacity to wipe the country out. If that's winning, yeah, you can win. It's -- in terms of the goals that the United States attempted to achieve, the U.S. Government, not the -- the United States, to install a client regime, which would be obedient to the United States, which would permit military bases, which would allow U.S. and British corporations to control the energy resources and so on, in terms of achieving that goal, I don't know if they can achieve that. But that they could destroy the country, that's beyond question.

Zinn on the same:

Noam said, yes, we could win in Iraq by destroying all of Iraq. The Russians could have won Afghanistan by destroying all of Afghanistan. We could have won in Vietnam by dropping nuclear bombs instead of killing two million people in Vietnam, killing 10 million people in Vietnam. And that would be considered victory, who would take satisfaction in that?

Zinn applies the Viet Nam lesson to Iraq:

Just as today when they say, oh, there will be civil war, there will be chaos if we withdraw from Iraq. There is civil war, there is chaos and no one is pointing out what we have done to Iraq. Two million people driven from their homes and children in dire straits, no water, no food. And so the remembrance of Vietnam is important if we are going to make it clear that we must withdraw from Iraq and find another way, not for the United States, for some international group, preferably a group composed mostly of representatives of Arab nations to come into Iraq and help mediate whatever strife there is among the various fractions in Iraq. But certainly the absolute necessary first step in Iraq now is what we should have done in Vietnam in 1967 and that is simply get out as fast as ships and planes can carry us out.

Chomsky on the current U.S political climate for progressive change:

There are periods of regression. We're now in a period of regression, but if you look at the cycle over time, it's upwards. And there's no limits that it can't reach.

Kenny and The Flesh at Cooper Manor 04/15/2007

2007-04-16T10:15:00.000-06:00

There’s some new photos of Kenny and The Flesh performing at Cooper Manor Sunday, April 15, at my Flickr site.

Kenny and The Flash get better every time I see them. They were particularly good last night. A violent double drum and bass assault with cracked-out shens from singer Kevin. Moments reminded me of the best of Lightning Bolt, Death from Above 1979 and Melt Banana. My opinion is that these guys are the best band in town right now, and you should catch a show. I also think they are ready to take it on the road.

Also, there’s this recent message from Alec:

ATTENTION: No more punk shows at COOPER MANOR.
I tried to be kind to you guys and open my home up so that rad bands could come through and we could all have fun and thrash together, but I guess that my gift wasn't good enough for some of you.
As many of you know, I had a show here last night with ANS and Opposite Of God where me and the bands were selling records from our own personal collections. As a promoter, sound guy, and bassist in one of the bands playing last night, I don't exactly have a lot of time to be watching over the records I had set out. I thought, "Hey, let me enlist some trust into some of these possibly rad kids to actually let me know if they're interested in buying records," but no. Instead, I end up ripped off. It appears as though all the LPs I DIDN'T sell are now missing as well as most of the 7" I had out.
Due to the thievery of little punk shit heads that I allowed into my home, there will be no more thrash or hardcore shows to speak of at COOPER MANOR. I hope you guys have a lot of fun not being able to have any bands that you like come through Shreveport anymore.
I will continue to book what I think are radder shows with foreign bands and bands I already have booked, but you will not see another band with 1-2-1-2 drum beats come through again. You did it to yourselves. It was fun while it lasted.

Internet Vacation

2007-04-06T16:41:00.000-06:00

I am taking an Internet vacation to concetrate on new writing and music. I'll be back sometime after April 13, 2007.

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, April 6, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-04-04T18:54:00.000-06:00

Hi again!

Friday is almost here, and so is another edition of ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 fm.

It’s Good Friday, so this is an extra good show. It’s mostly oldies this time, with plenty of punk/new wave classics like “Rock Lobster”, “Praying To The Aliens,” “Jocko Homo” and “All Cats Are Grey.” But there’s also plenty of new stuff, too, from the likes of Beck, Bloc Party and Ted Leo & The Pharmacists. And there’s electronica from Colder, Goldfrapp and the chillicious Ulrich Schnauss.

So tune in! And call in: (318) 869-5297.

Also, new for this week, the entire show playlist is available as a podcast. Visit rockfight.podbean.com to listen, or use this miniplayer:

Here’s the poop:

Song                                Artist
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rock Lobster                        The B-52's
Motorcade                           Beck
Hope For The Heartbeat (Remix)      Bill Nelson
The Tulips                          Bloc Party
Tornadoes                           Butthole Surfers
Crazy Love                          Colder
All Cats Are Grey                   The Cure
Moonage Daydream (Alternate Take)   David Bowie
Ashes To Ashes                      David Bowie
Peter Bazooka                       The Dead Milkmen
Jocko Homo                          Devo
Airbag                              Easystar All Stars With Horace Andy
Nocturnal Me                        Echo & The Bunnymen
Thursday                            The Futureheads
Praying To The Aliens               Gary Numan & The Tubeway Army
U.K. Girls (Physical)               Goldfrapp
Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream)     Icicle Works
In A Hole                           The Jesus And Mary Chain
The Twist                           Klaus Nomi
The Model (London)                  Kraftwerk
Weekend                             Ladytron
Sinister In The State Of Hope       Loney, Dear
Computer Games                      Mi-Sex
Gods Of Aquarius                    Nina Hagen
Bunker Soldiers                     Orchestral Manoeuvres In The
Christine                           Siouxsie & The Banshees
Shake The Sheets                    Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
Black And Blue                      Tilly & The Wall
Playhouses                          TV On The Radio
As If You've Never Been Away        Ulrich Schnauss
How We Livin'                       The USA Is A Monster

Let's Do Some Scovilles, Man!

2007-04-02T19:47:00.000-06:00

I have been hearing recently from various sources that vegetarianism is “unmanly,” and that conversely, eating meat is macho. Of course you see ads plugging meat as a manly food, dismissing tofu as something sissy. These attitudes spread over into other media like opinion columns, blogs, conversations, etc.

I am not going to bother arguing the ridiculous notion that a man’s diet determines how macho he is. It’s just absurd on the face of it. Instead, I’ll just point out two things.

First, how macho is meat exactly? How much manliness does it take to go to the supermarket and buy some packaged meat from an animal that was cruelly tortured during its life and suffered an agonizing death? I’d say none. And I thought that people who torture animals are regarded more as psychopaths and bullies rather than exemplars of manly virtues. Does torturing animals to obtain meat somehow change that?

Second, I can easily think of one food more macho than meat. It’s a vegetable, and it’s so manly it even has it’s own measuring scale. I’m talking peppers and Scoville Heat Units. You’ll seldom see a man back down from the so-called challenge of eating steak, but offer him a few habanero peppers and see him squirm.

The hottest pepper in the world is from India, the primeval home of vegetarianism. Pictured here is the Indian pepper Naga Jolokia (naga morich, bhut jolokia), the chili tested hottest in the world at 1.04M SHU, enough to blister your mouth! How does that compare to other peppers? Here’s a handy scale courtesy of Wikipedia:

Scoville rating	Type of pepper
15,000,000 - 16,000,000	Pure capsaicin
9,100,000	Nordihydrocapsaicin
2,000,000 - 5,300,000	Standard US Grade pepper spray
855,000 - 1,041,427	Naga Jolokia
876,000 - 970,000	Dorset Naga
350,000 - 577,000	Red Savina™ Habanero
100,000 - 350,000	Habanero Chile
100,000 - 350,000	Scotch Bonnet
100,000 - 200,000	Jamaican Hot Pepper
50,000 - 100,000	Thai Pepper, Malagueta Pepper, Chiltepin Pepper
30,000 - 50,000	Cayenne Pepper
10,000 - 23,000	Serrano Pepper
7,000 - 8,000	Tabasco Sauce (Habanero)
5,000 - 10,000	Wax Pepper
2,500 - 8,000	Jalapeño Pepper
2,500 - 5,000	Tabasco Sauce
1,500 - 2,500	Rocotillo Pepper
1,000 - 1,500	Poblano Pepper
600 - 800	Tabasco Sauce (Green Pepper)
500 - 1000	Anaheim pepper
100 - 500	Pimento, Pepperoncini
0	No heat, Bell Pepper

What’s your manliness level? Personally, while I won’t dine on animal corpses, I’ll be happy to throw down a few Habaneros with you. That’s the hottest I’ve had, and I wouldn’t turn down a try at something hotter. Would you? C’mon, sissy!

Time to pimp for vegan ethics ....

2007-03-31T04:58:00.000-06:00

OK, it's a celebrity, but it's anything but wishy-washy. Casey Affleck just lays it straight out in very plain, graphic language. The accompanying images are horrifying. Is it any wonder this was banned from the networks? Nevertheless, feel free to comment if you can challenge any of Affleck's facts.

Watch more videos at PETA.org
“Order a FREE vegetarian starter kit at GoVeg.com.”

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, March 30, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-03-28T22:56:00.000-06:00

Hello again, pantheistic Spring celebrants!

Friday tiptoes in on teensy bunny feet, bringing a bulging basket of ROCK FIGHT! on kscl 91.3 fm.

It’s another mellow show this week. In fact, I’m going to be taking the show into a more chill, down tempo direction in general. Oh, you’ll still get your spicy bits of punk past and modern blast beats, but, overall, it’s going to be more contemplative and cerebral, more opiate than amphetamine.

This week features Radiohead, but only expect two of the three listed songs. You’ll also get a pair of pop tunes by Joe Jackson, an ode to romantic shooting by Blondie and plenty of chill from the likes of The Orb’s Dr. Alex Patterson, Tosca, Bebel Gilberto and Calla. There’s even an oft-overlooked classic from Queen.

Tune in: kscl 91.3 fm this Friday 6 to 8. Call in, too, at (318) 869-5297.

Listen to the podcast sampler version here, or use this miniplayer:

Here’s the lovely radio lumps:

Song                                Artist
---------------------------------------------------------
Mesopotamia                         B52´S
Bananeira                           Bebel Gilberto
Bloodhounds On My Trail             The Black Angels
Youth Nabbed As Sniper              Blondie
Talk To The Bomb                    Brazilian Girls
Astral                              Calla
Instinct                            Dr. Alex Patterson
Flames Go Higher                    Eagles Of Death Metal
Pride                               Echo & The Bunnymen
Alice In My Fantasies               Funkadelic
Contract                            Gang Of Four
M1 A1                               Gorillaz
Bates Motel                         The Hitmen
It's Too Late                       Jim Carroll Band
One More Time                       Joe Jackson
Baby Stick Around                   Joe Jackson
You're No More                      John Weber
We Have Joy                         Killing Joke
Discipline                          King Crimson
Etape 3                             Kraftwerk
Thee Ol' Boozeroony                 Kyuss
Awake On A Train                    Múm
Maybe Sparrow                       Neko Case
Dragon Attack                       Queen
Pyramid Song                        Radiohead
Where I End And You Begin           Radiohead
Idioteque                           Radiohead
Bowels Of The Beast                 The Raveonettes
Behind The Wall Of Sleep            The Smithereens
Get A Shot Of The Refrigerator      Stereolab
Stay Hungry                         Talking Heads
Ocean Beat                          Tosca
While I'm Still Alive               Ultravox
Tecumseh                            USA Is A Monster

Gerritsen Sex Crime Trial Set For June 11

2007-03-28T00:47:00.000-06:00

And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for!

As you know, Roy Gerritsen had a day in court yesterday. The result: May 16th has been set for a status conference, and June 11 has been set for trial. A status conference is when Roy’s attorney and the Bossier Parish District Attorney meet. If any deal is made, that will be where it happens.

Gerritsen’s docket numbers in Bossier Parish District Court are C149466, attempted carnal knowledge of a juvenile, and C149467, computer aided solicitation of a minor. If convicted, he faces a maximum 15-year sentence and $12,500 fine, according to reports.

But it's such a small 600-pound gorilla!

2007-03-26T10:15:00.000-06:00

NPR’s Guy Raz did a sneaky thing with statistics on Morning Edition. He noted that the U.S. defense budget is at a historical low, only 3.7 percent of gross domestic product. “We actually spend significantly less on defense today than we did at any point over the past sixty years,” he reports.

The trick is the comparison. If you stand next to an elephant, you’d seem pretty small, too. Putting the very large defense budget next to the vastly larger GDP makes it look small, but in terms of dollars, it’s at a historical high. According to Congressional Quarterly, “total national defense spending is larger now than at any time in history,” and “Bush’s request for fiscal 2008 stands historically large.”

U.S. military spending, Wikipedia notes, “is larger than the military budgets of the next fourteen biggest spenders combined, and nearly seven times larger than the official military budget of China. The United States and its close allies are responsible for approximately two-thirds of all military spending on Earth (of which, in turn, the US is responsible for the majority), and spend 57 times more than the six front-defying nations combined (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria).”

Federal military spending is over 50 percent of the total budget. Even before the so-called war on terror that percentage was similar. That sort of militarism harms our government, our democracy, our culture and each of us personally. But perhaps we are addicted to the money because it “accounts for the majority of federal spending in nearly every state.”

Don’t let Guy Raz’s sneaky diminution of military spending fool you. Listen to this old hippie instead. (Edited 03/28/07 to remove annoying Flash.)

Gore can't get a break at NPR

2007-03-24T15:29:00.000-06:00

NPR gets a few raspberries from Media Matters for its coverage of Al Gore and global warming. Media Matters contends that NPR took part in right-wing smears and attacks on Gore.

First there’s “NPR's Harris faulted Gore's global warming ‘facts,’ while getting ‘facts" wrong.” That story points out factual errors from science reporter Richard Harris, shown at left. Further, host Renee Montagne says “some scientists” question Gore’s data and conclusions but doesn’t name a single one. In fact, on the NPR website, the headline is “Gore on Climate Change: Scientists Respond,” although not a single named scientist is mentioned.

The Harris gaffe is mentioned again in “Myths and falsehoods about global warming,” a good summary of the right’s attempt to debunk good science. This article relates Harris’ reporting to the larger right wing effort to portray Gore as an exaggerator through “false comparisons and misrepresentations of his claims.” This is noted again in “Media revive, retool, and create anti-Gore smears and attacks.”

I didn’t vote for Gore in 2000, but enough is enough. He’s not going to run for President again, or likely any national public office. He’s performing a valuable public service educating people about global warming, and, if you have a beef with that, attack the arguments fairly. Ad hominem arguments don’t cut the mustard.

Hit Counter Update

2007-03-24T03:04:00.000-06:00

Updated uniques per day from the ol’ hit counter:

Day         Date            Unique Visitors     Above/Below
Friday      March 23, 2007      9                   -6
Thursday    March 22, 2007      19                  +4
Wednesday   March 21, 2007      23                  +8
Tuesday     March 20, 2007      19                  +4
Monday      March 19, 2007      11                  -4
Sunday      March 18, 2007      10                  -5
                      Average:  15

Chill, Rick -- still as unpopular as ever.

The best day ever so far was when I posted the Conservapedia entry. Next best was the UFO post.

Businesses and Blogs

2007-03-23T15:28:00.000-06:00

How should a business or organization respond when it is getting negative press in a blog?

Our local Better Business Bureau offers this advice:

“Given that BBBs act in the spirit of resolution and neutrality, our first suggestion to our members is to attempt to address the issue directly with the blogger. Use your own posting on the blog itself to respond – either in a posting that all readers can see or by attempting to obtain the individual email address of the person who posted the critical message.”

That’s from an essay called “Should a business respond to criticism in a blog?” Despite the source - the generally internet-clueless BBB - this is actually the best advice on the subject I have read. One quibble: sending a private email is not the same as “posting on the blog” as the article implies. Still, great advice there, so go check it out!

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, March 23, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-03-22T18:53:00.000-06:00

Hello again, stoned Shreveport trilobites.

Friday. Time for ROCK FIGHT!

Keyword: mellow.

After nearly two weeks of noise madness at Cooper Manor and more old school punk than I care to admit to, I need to give the old eardrums a rest. Plus, when Spring weather hits the burgh, isn’t it great to just sit on the porch sipping a beverage, watching the world go by and listening to some mellow tunes as the sun goes down?

We’re gonna chill this week with trip-hop artists Massive Attack and Zero 7, Vancouver, BC, art rocker Dan Bejar’s Destroyer, the sexy Brit band Goldfrapp, Nick Drake, supposed Shreveport refugees The Residents and many others. Even the Alien Sex Fiend and Skinny Puppy are low key this week.

Tune in: kscl 91.3 fm this friday 6 to 8. Call in, too, at (318) 869-5297.

Listen to the podcast sampler version here, or use this miniplayer:

And here’s the whole playlist:

Song                                Artist
--------------------------------------------------------------
Girl Sun                            12 Rods
Alien Sex Fiend                     Alien Sex Fiend
Secondscepe                         Autechre
Little One                          Beck
So Here We Are (Four Tet Remix)     Bloc Party
Hover Over Nowhere                  Calla
Get Up On Down                      Dead Meadow
Good Good Things                    Descendents
Watercolours Into The Ocean         Destroyer
Pilots (On A Star)                  Goldfrapp
A Fistful Of Peanuts                Gorillaz Vs. Space Monkeyz
Heat Miser                          Massive Attack
Poor Boy                            Nick Drake
Crest                               Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Beach Sequence                      Passengers
Blue Veins                          The Raconteurs
Sad Eyes Kill                       Rain Parade
N-Er-Gee (Crisis Blues)             The Residents
Coelocanth                          Shriekback
Love                                Skinny Puppy
Blueskies                           Soma Sonic
New Orthophony                      Stereolab
All Fires                           Swan Lake
Molfsee                             Ulrich Schnauss
Bad Data                            One By Four By Nine
I Love You                          Yello
Home                                Zero 7
In The Waiting Line (Dub)           Zero 7

Cooper Manor March 21, 2007: God Stewart, Church of Snake, Clipd Beaks

2007-03-22T16:28:00.000-06:00

Here are 23 photos I took last night at Cooper Manor: Cooper Manor March 21, 2007 - a photoset on Flickr.

The bands were God Stewart (mostly), Church of Snake and Clipd Beaks. God Stewart were sloppily entertaining. I'd call them Crunk Rock.

Church of Snake have really grown as a band since the last time I saw them -- they're tighter, louder and harder. They sound like what Devo might have been if Devo were a thrash band, and that's meant as a positive review.

Clipd Beaks were freakin' awesome -- loud psychedelic doin'-it-to-ya-in-your-earhole madness, swirling machismo miasmas of echo and strobe throbbing with bass pulsed shamanistic intent. They actually had a physical effect on me akin to taking a few Valium with vodka shots. (Kids, don't do that.)

This photo is Eric performing in God Stewart.

Cooper Manor Pics, Competition for Morning Edition and World of Warcraft

2007-03-21T00:00:00.000-06:00

A few things to blog about today.

First, check out the set of photos I took at Cooper Manor last Monday night. Kenny and The Flesh opened, followed by Black Helicopter and Brooklyn’s manic noise merchants Magik Markers.

To the left is the Markers’ Elisa Ambrogio playing her metallic red Strat with a Maker’s Mark whiskey bottle. The noise she generated was astounding. Click and look close at her eyes. That’s not “red eye.” That’s the Rock and Roll devil spirit shining out. The Markers summoned Papa Legba.

Kenny and The Flesh elevated the violence level. Eric, pissed at his malfunctioning drums, destroyed his whole kit in the middle of the show. He slammed, beat, slashed, poked and kicked and that was the rhythm section. You don’t know what to think when you see a band like this. There’s always going to be a surprise.

Black Helicopters were a nice surprise. They played loud drone rock from back in the day, reminding me of my old outfit, Chevrolet Stegosaurus, and also Too Many Douglasses. Just good straight-ahead rock with no frills.

I enjoyed all the bands. I missed Green Milk From The Planet Orange and Yip Yip last night, but I had seen Green Milk before. Tonight at Cooper Manor, 122 E. Dalzell, you can catch Church Of The Snake from Hot Springs, AR, and Clipd Beaks from Oakland, CA.

Competition for Morning Edition

There’s good news for public radio listeners looking for alternatives to corporation-friendly, über-branded NPR News: PRI And WNYC(R) Radio Announce New Morning Drive Time News Program For Public Radio.

Essentially, Public Radio International, WNYC, New York Times Radio, The BBC World Service and WGBH, all stalwart names in public broadcasting and journalism, are teaming up to create a morning news show to “reinvigorate morning drive time with a dynamic and lively new two-hour national news program.” How tasty does that sound?

Here’s more:

The program will represent an entirely new sound in public radio’s morning drive time. Departing from the highly-packaged format -- with pre-recorded interviews and long features -- that has become the medium’s hallmark sound, it will bring a wholly live, open, and unprecedented personality-driven format to public radio's renowned news and information programming.

Up-to-the-minute local, national and global news will be delivered by a charismatic host – to be announced later this year --- and a vibrant team of national and international contributors. The breadth and unique capabilities of the show’s media partners will allow in-depth news coverage and live reports from the field from within the US and around the globe, with BBC reporters and analysts joining in on the discussion.

The show will launch as a multi-platform program, and will be interactive and engaging, inviting listeners to respond immediately to news and participate in editorial decision-making, as well as to build a significant online community around the broadcast.

I particularly like the multi-platform approach which means it will be available over this new medium, the Internet, hopefully both streaming and as a podcast. And though it’s way too soon to speculate how listeners will participate in editorial decision-making as claimed, I think it can be a real exercise in participatory democracy.

Can you imagine stuffy NPR doing something like this? Me either. I also think it’s a safe bet that Red River Radio won’t carry it, despite the fact it could save them beaucoup coin by not paying for the increasingly tiresome Morning Edition.

The new show will be produced in Manhattan and is scheduled to launch in 2008.

I first heard about it from this NPR Check post. People are looking for alternatives, which is a good thing.

World of Warcraft

Here’s my latest World of Warcraft character, Anchovy, a dwarven hunter, and her pet, Charlotte, a green recluse from Duskwood. She also has a wolf from Dun Morogh named Pellegrino. The realm is Muradin. You got some Horde? Bring it, bitch!

ROCK FIGHT! KSCL 91.3 FM Friday, March 16, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-03-15T23:23:00.000-06:00

Hello again, modern young Massachusetts moonlight lovers with the radio on.

FRIDAY! At freakin’ last! Gimme your paycheck and tune in to ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL for all your fine broadcast needs.

This week it’s an unapologetic flashback edition with lots of old punk and new wave and a few newbies for that little sumpin’ sumpin’. Thrill to the sounds of yore with double plays from The Violent Femmes, Art Of Noise and Robert Fripp’s dancy League of Gentlemen. Recall the dance floors of nightclubs past listening to Ultravox, Echo & The Bunnymen and digital sampling pioneer Herbie Hancock. Plenty of punk classics, too!

Check out the podcast sampler:

Call in, too: (318) 869-5297

One last thing before this ends -- ATTEND A COOPER MANOR SHOW THIS WEEK! There’s some ridiculously great bands we are lucky to have playing Shreveport.

And quick -- dial 911 ‘cause I’m dropping the bomb:

Song                                Artist
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Action Time Vision                  Alternative TV
How To Kill                         Art Of Noise
A Time For Fear                     Art Of Noise
I'm So Bored With The USA           The Clash
Lorelei                             Cocteau Twins
Journey To The Center Of A Girl     The Cramps
Mongoloid                           Devo
The Days Of Wine And Roses          Dream Syndicate
Heads Will Roll                     Echo & The Bunnymen
Inductive Resonance                 Fripp, Robert & The League Of Gentlemen
Trap                                Fripp, Robert & The League Of Gentlemen
Ward 81                             The Fuzztones
Love Like Anthrax                   Gang Of Four
The August Engine Pt. 2             Hammers Of Misfortune
Chinese Rocks                       The Heartbreakers
Sound System                        Herbie Hancock
Search And Destroy                  Iggy And The Stooges
Lust For Life                       Iggy Pop
Circles Of Sorrow                   Jennifer Gentle
Nuages                              King Crimson
Teenager(s)                         Meat Puppets
Where Were You                      The Mekons
Let Me Dream If I Want To           Mink Deville
Roadrunner                          The Modern Lovers
Trash                               New York Dolls
You Really Got Me                   Oingo Boingo
Another Girl, Another Planet        The Only Ones
2+2=5 (The Lukewarm)                Radiohead
(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures      The Rezillos
Everyone's Rooting For You          Sondre Lerche & The Faces Down Quartet
Steady Rollin'                      Two Gallants
The Thin Wall                       Ultravox
Black Girls                         Violent Femmes
Confessions                         Violent Femmes
Target - Mr. Disney - War           Zounds

Conservapedia! ROFLMAO!

2007-03-14T07:52:00.000-06:00

I am shamed for National Public Radio.

The network actually lowered itself to cover Conservapedia and to take it seriously! Conservapedia thinks Wikipedia and Google are biased: "Tired of the LIBERAL BIAS every time you search on Google and a Wikipedia page appears? Now it's time for the Conservatives to get our voice out on the internet!"

There's a good critique of the coverage at NPR Check, Wickipedia v. Wackopedia. For extra fun, check out Conservapedia's entry for Liberal.

Cooper Manor 03/13/07

2007-03-14T03:05:00.001-06:00

Crazy Israeli Trashes Cooper Manor!

Cooper Manor March 13, 2007

The show at Cooper Manor last night was awesome. Monotonix from Tel Aviv, Israel, performed along with The Apes and Kenny and The Flesh.

Monotonix was insane. This is a photo of the lead singer belly-boarding over the remnants of a salad he had thrown all over the dining room floor. He also set himself on fire.

All the bands were great, and I took almost 300 pictures you can see at the above link.

ROCK FIGHT kscl 91.3 fm March 9, 2007, 6 to 8

2007-03-08T02:09:00.000-06:00

Hello again, manic meme mongers!

Friday approaches with another ROCK FIGHT! on the best rock radio station in Shreveport, Bossier City and the surrounding rebel countryside.

It’s the sellout show this week. Look at all these made-it-big bands: XTC, Death Cab For Cutie, The Killers, The Church, Blondie, Bauhaus .... Why, there’s even a staple of San Francisco hippie rock, “White Bird” by It’s A Beautiful Day. That’ll put flowers in your hair!

Food punks Rachael Raybies and the Yuck-Os say tune in!

KSCL 91.3 FM * Friday 6 to 8 * (318) 869-5297

Here’s the seafood platter:






Song                                Artist
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Wake Up                             Arcade Fire
Silent Hedges                       Bauhaus
Wildcat!                            Be Your Own Pet
Where Is Home?                      Bloc Party
Dreaming                            Blondie
She's So Modern                     The Boomtown Rats
I Feel Like Myself Again            Brendan Benson
Subject To The Ladder               Broadcast
Pete The Killer                     Calla
Reversal                            The Church
Mama, Won't You Keep Those
Castles In The Air And Burning      Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Junkie                              Dead Milkmen
Transatlanticism                    Death Cab For Cutie
Top Tim Rubies                      Deerhoof
I'm Sixteen                         Dengue Fever
Statue Of Liberty                   Descendents
Makyo - The 2nd Gate Of Dreams      Dr. Alex Patterson
The City Is Here For You To Use     The Futureheads
Thursday                            The Futureheads
As Time's Gone                      The Fuzztones
Lights                              I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
Moiré                               Ian Boddy & Bernard Wostheinrich
White Bird                          It's A Beautiful Day
Andy, You're A Star                 The Killers
From The Air                        Laurie Anderson
Return Of Django                    Lee Scratch Perry & The Upsetters
Faces                               Lene Lovich
Beneath                             Meshuggah
I Think I’m Going To Hell           My Morning Jacket
Last Supper                         Panzerchrist
Monkey Gone To Heaven               Pixies
Now It's Time To...                 Poxy
Bones                               Radiohead
Paper And Iron (Notes And Coins)    XTC
Jason And The Argonauts             XTC

OH! And I’ve put a few songs up as a ROCK FIGHT! podcast. If this goes well, I’ll make them longer and enable iTunes subscriptions. Please tell me how it works.

Please click on the above link, but there’s also this player:

Triangle Craft Update

2007-03-06T01:36:00.000-06:00

My friend Richard sent me a clarifying email about his black triangle sighting. Also, after I posted the first sighting, this blog received its first ever visit from a computer at Barksdale AFB. Hmmm.

Here’s Richard’s second email lightly edited:

To further clarify....
My sighting was late thursday night just after midnight. Therefore it was actually Friday, March 2, 2007, 12:01 am.
The reason that I was so aware of the time was because the TV was on and just transitioning to the top-of-the-hour next program while I was preparing to go outside. As you know from your broadcast background, programming times are exact.
I then allowed for about 1 extra minute as I was having to gather up the dog and leash and flashlight and prepare to carry him down the stairs (because he his blind, he can no longer walk down them himself). This gathering-up process has become routine and typically only takes a minute if not less.
The stairs descend downward towards the south with a clear (enough) view of the southern sky. It was as I began walking down the stairs that I clearly first saw the light(s) of the approaching craft in the distance. I am at Haystack apartments. The craft may have at the time been (3000 ft. AGL) over the Lucas Wastewater Treatment Plant or perhaps even a bit west of it, and traveled on a heading that (estimate) would be 10 degrees west of due north. It never seemed to change altitude whatsoever.
Clarifying the exact time and day seems important in case anyone else can provide a corroborating report.
Of further note, although not a trained pilot, I have always been an aviation enthusiast, in all aspects, including experience flying in about a dozen different GA planes not to include the usual variety of commercial passenger jets and commuter aircraft. I am an excellent spotter as well, easily able to correctly identify most modern U.S. military aircraft with a good enough glance, some foreign military aircraft as well.
I also feel that I have a better than average ability to estimate visual measurements from any given ground location (speed, distance away, altitude agl) but will admit that given the unusual circumstances of this sighting, nightime (but nearly full moon) viewing, strangeness, etc., that I would allow for a +/- 50% margin of error in my estimates. More in favor of higher numbers, actually.
Summary of estimates:

distance at closest point: 1 mile or more

altitude above ground level: 3000 ft or more

speed 35 mph or more

Please inform me if you hear that anyone else saw it. I would be happy to meet them and discuss it.

Triangle Craft Over Shreveport

2007-03-04T01:45:00.000-06:00

Saturday night, I was at Barnes & Noble where I met an old friend of mine, Richard. He asked me to withhold his last name.

Richard related to me that he had seen a triangle craft over Shreveport the night before, the night/morning of March 1/2. We talked about it, and later he mailed me an account of his sighting.

A triangle craft is a common UFO sighting, more so after 1990 than before. They are so well known, that you can fly one in Microsoft’s Flight Simulator.

Whitley Strieber provides what I think is the best explanation for what they are in his recent novel The Grays. He writes that they are covert blimp-based craft very highly stealthed and run by the most secret of our governments agencies. They are used to conduct surveillance, both foreign AND domestic, which violates current U.S. law.

I lightly edited Richard's account for spelling, grammar and readability. Here it is:

Last night right after midnight (12:01 this morning) I saw one of those flying triangle-shaped vehicles pass right over the city.
Because our dog has Cushing's disease and drinks copius amounts of water, he needs to go outside and pee a lot. I have become used to staying up till about midnight generally in order to walk him so he can pee, usually after that he can hold the next one till morning. As soon as I took him outside last night I immediately noticed a light in the direction of the southern horizon and then a few seconds later knew that it was not normal.
The glow was not typical nor was the intensity, which was too bright. It was headed generally north, which was generally in my direction but off-angle. I stayed focused on it and my mind actually told me that it must be a helicopter (air-ambulance perhaps?). So I listened for that sound for a few seconds as my amazement continued to grow. No sound ever occurred, although the dogs behavior become markedly stranger as the vehicle approached and passed to one side (east of me) and continued maintaining a straight course generally headed north. I suspect this was due to some strange high frequency sound detectable only to him. He is fully blind as of mid-January so I know he couldn't have seen it himself.
By the way, my view of this craft was clear and unblocked with clear sky and 20/20 vision. It was distinct and sharp and easily could have been seen clearly by anyone else who happened to notice. It had to have been at least a football field in size, at the minimum, possibly two or even three times bigger than that, depending on it's height and distance from me, which was difficult to ascertain.
I did remember to reference its apparent size, which was about the width of my thumb knuckle (arm extended) when it was at it's closest point to me, my best guess being about 1 mile (line-of-sight). But it could have been further away than that. I didn't think it was flying. It seemed more to be gliding or even coasting or cruising like a large ocean vessel when seen from a distance would look while crossing a calm sea. The force of gravity didn't seem to be an issue. If my distance estimates were correct, it would guess it was going about 30 or 40 mph, which is too fast to be a blimp (this was obvious to me, it was also much larger than any blimp), but way too slow to be a conventional known aircraft. Period. Too huge and too slow and silent.
My gut says it's a new type of aircraft being flown by the top-secret whoever. The Air Force base would have seen the same thing as me only passing to their west instead of east. I stood there for half an hour looking for anything to follow, which could have included interceptors or who knows what else. Nothing came or went after it.
My viewing time was as follows (these are reasonable estimates):

First noticed it approaching 12:01.

By 12:02 (about 1 minute of initial observation), I finally realized (or conceded) that this was indeed one of those triangle large vehicles we've been hearing about.

By 12:04, two minutes of detailed viewing followed by at least three or perhaps several more minutes of decreasing visibility as it went into the distance, red light blinking. Basically, look for three golden-white marker-lights at each of the corners, (front and each rear corner) and an obvious and tantalizing (to me anyway) single blinking red light centered on the "underside", blinking in steady one-second intervals.

No noise, nada, it was a relatively quiet night and I listened closely. I'll tell you what the dog did when I talk to you next, something he's never done that was weird but in a funny way.

I love stories like this.

I've only seen one UFO in Shreveport. That was in 1986. I have seen a few crop circles in the area, though, including one by the Shreveport-Barksdale bridge.

Stats

2007-03-02T05:30:00.001-06:00

How many people read this thing?

Not many. On average, 8 per day.

Day         Date                Unique Visitors     Above/Below
Friday      March 02, 2007      6                   -2
Thursday    March 01, 2007      12                  +4
Wednesday   February 28, 2007   7                   -1
Tuesday     February 27, 2007   9                   +1
Monday      February 26, 2007   10                  +2
Sunday      February 25, 2007   12                  +4
Saturday    February 24, 2007   6                   -2
                      Average:  8

Free Gary Tyler

2007-03-02T00:54:00.001-06:00

Respected human-rights organization Amnesty International is again calling for Governor Blanco to pardon Gary Tyler, “a 49 year-old African-American man who has been in prison in Louisiana since the age of 17, and whose 1975 trial was infected with racial prejudice.”

Gary’s case was featured recently on Democracy Now! It’s a fascinating piece that includes details of his torture by police and his first jailhouse interview ever.

Please read and listen to those hyperlinks. And if you are further inclined, visit freegarytyler.com, where you can sign a petition urging Gov. Blanco to pardon Gary.

And remember, Democracy Now!, which airs on numerous public radio stations around the nation, is also a free iTunes podcast download every day. I get that audio version, but, there’s also a TV version.

ROCK FIGHT! March 2, 2007

2007-03-02T00:27:00.000-06:00

Hi again, children of the pleasure culture!

Friday is here. Time for another ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL 91.3 FM.

It’s a a groovy show, so call in with your love offering. Our fun-raising goal is a million smiles! The number is (318) 869-5297.

Here’s why the bastards can’t get me down:

Song                        Artist
------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm Alive                   999
Pussy                       Brazilian Girls
..And More                  Can
Nine Hundred Samosas        Crucial Unit
New Rose                    The Damned
Under The Mountain          David Byrne
Dinosaur                    David Byrne
The Red House               David Byrne
Genetic Engineering         Dazzle Ships
Thanks-A-Lot                Dengue Fever
Romantic Adventure          Fila Brazilia
Sanctuary                   The Fun Boy Three
Liquid Coffee               Jennifer Gentle
Jackson                     Johnny Cash
Lady Of The Dancing Water   King Crimson
Maybe Tonight               The Knack
Like A Pen                  The Knife
Saturday Waits              Loney, Dear
Herculoid                   Made Out Of Babies
MB11                        Melt Banana
MB13                        Melt Banana
Snow                        Gustavo Santaolalla
Chocolate City              Parliament
Gloria                      Patti Smith
Optimistic                  Radiohead
Shaking Through             REM
Separation                  Robert Miles
Nightingales                Sondre Lerche & The Faces Down Quartet
(No More) Mr. Nice Guys     Sparks
Suspect Device              Stiff Little Fingers
Tonic Bit                   Tetsu Inoue
We Came To Dance            Ultravox
Bad Man                     Juicy Bananas
Powers                      Blackalicious
Heroin                      The Velvet Underground

My Prediction

2007-03-01T00:50:00.000-06:00

My prediction for the final total: $188,465.81.

Now some Radiohead lyrics -- "Optimistic" from Kid A:

You can try the best you can
If you try the best you can
The best you can is good enough
This one's optimistic
This one went to market
This one just came out of the swamp
This one dropped a payload
Fodder for the animals
Living on an animal farm

It is, after all, one of the greatest songs from one of the best bands of all time. Any grief? You can see the comment link .....

Heroes

2007-02-25T05:45:00.000-06:00

Great news!

Communiqué from ALF activists
Date: February 20, 2007
Institution targeted: Blue Chip Rabbit Farm

ROCK FIGHT! February 23, 2007

2007-02-23T00:48:00.000-06:00

Achtung das lookenpeepers!

Der ROCK FIGHT!

FREAK OUT! kscl 91.3 fm * Friday * 6 to 8 * (318) 869-5297

die Scheiße:

Lied                                    Künstler
------------------------------------------------------------------
Intervention                            Arcade Fire
Let's Get Sandy (Big Problem)           Be Your Own Pet
Pink Moon                               Beck
The Sniper At The Gates Of Heaven       The Black Angels
Contact In Red Square                   Blondie
Satisfaction                            Blue Cheer
Masters Of War                          Bob Dylan
Rat Trap                                The Boomtown Rats
Defenses Down                           Calla
Malo                                    Calla
Le Gusta El Fuego                       Calla
Heartache                               Converge
Cherry Cola                             Eagles Of Death Metal
Let Down                                Easystar All Stars
No Dark Things                          Echo & The Bunnymen
Greenshirt                              Elvis Costello
Sex Machine                             The Flying Lizards
The Dark Of The Matinée                 Franz Ferdinand
Guru Song                               The Future Sound Of London
She's Lost Control                      Joy Division
Micael                                  Juana Molina
Carrying A Stone                        Loney, Dear
Walking Boss                            Meat Puppets
Ride                                    Nick Drake
Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse    Of Montreal
Only A Lad                              Oingo Boingo
Georgia                                 OMD
The Emerald Law                         Probot (Wino)
Exposure                                Robert Fripp
Death To Our Friends                    Sonic Youth
Moustache                               Sparks
Secret Message                          Syd Barrett
Poppy                                   TV On The Radio
All Stood Still                         Ultravox
Always After You                        The Walkmen
Don't Give Up                           The Whitest Boy Alive
We're Desperate                         X

Roy Gerritsen's Court Date and This American Life

2007-02-20T09:02:00.000-06:00

I know we were all looking forward to seeing former Red River Radio General Manager Roy Gerritsen in court today. But it’s just not to be. His case has been continued until 9:30 a.m. March 27, 2007. He’ll appear before Judge Jeff Cox.

Here’s a reminder of the details:

Roy Gerritsen In The Dock
Docket #            Charge
------------------------------------------------------------
Docket No. C149466  Attempted carnal knowledge of a juvenile
Docket No. C149467  Computer aided solicitation of a minor

This American Life

In other news, This American Life is now available as a podcast. There’s another hour you don’t have to listen to Red River Radio! I like to listen to it when I run or cycle.

The show’s producers say “We sometimes think of it as a documentary show for people who normally hate documentaries. A public radio show for people who don't necessarily care for public radio.” It can be riveting, and it’s almost always entertaining.

New Email Addy

2007-02-19T09:19:00.000-06:00

If you have trouble reading the text, right click and view the file on its own:

Vegan Hunting

2007-02-17T07:51:00.000-06:00

I like to make fun of myself, and this is awesome:

Vegan Pledge Drive

2007-02-16T06:35:00.001-06:00

Gah! My day is off to a bad start because I haven’t been able to sleep. I’ve felt like I had to puke all night, and I’ve got some acid reflux going on. Whats up with that?

Erik Marcus is conducting a pledge drive. Instead of asking for money, though, he’s asking people to commit to hand out Vegan Outreach pamphlets at college campuses. This is something I could do.

Erik recommends handing out “Even If You Like Meat....,” but I also like “Why Vegan?,” “Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating,” and “Try Vegetarian.” Which do you think would get the most positive response? Comments appreciated.

While you are at Erik’s site, don’t forget to get your free copy of “Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating.” It’s a great introduction to being vegan.

ROCK FIGHT! Friday 02/16/2007

2007-02-15T14:30:00.000-06:00

Hello Mr. and Mrs. Shreveport-Bossier and all the hip bees!

Friday slouches surreptitiously closer, bringing with it another ROCK FIGHT! on KSCL.

There’s some great music this week, including a pair of tunes from the new Arcade Fire album, a bit of prog wankery from King Crimson and Opeth, psychedelia from Secret Machines and Hypatia Lake, and lots more. This week’s show could go in many directions, much like an 8-pointed Chao.

So tune in! KSCL * 91.3 fm * Friday 02/16/07 * 6 to 8

And don’t forget, the phone number is (318) 869-5297.

❤ Here’s your lonely Valentine ❤:

Song                                    Artist
------------------------------------------------------------------
Black Mirror                            Arcade Fire
My Body Is A Cage                       Arcade Fire
Deutschland (Has Gotta Die)             Atari Teenage Riot
Our Swords                              Band Of Horses
Girl Dreams                             Beck
Scenic World                            Beirut
Innocent Child                          Big Audio Dynamite II
Have You Lost Your Way                  Bitcrush
Needles In The Camel's Eye              Brian Eno
Old Soul Song                           Bright Eyes
We Love You                             Camper Van Beethoven
Shake Break Bounce                      The Chemical Brothers
Some Loud Thunder                       Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Hey Now Now                             The Cloud Room
Ghost Of Our Love                       Daniel Johnston
The Man Who Sold The World              David Bowie
Once Upon The Cross                     Deicide
My Age                                  Descendents
3000 Flowers                            Destroyer
You And You                             DNA
Put It Back Together                    Fatboy Slim
Haven't Got A Clue                      The Flaming Lips
Shannon Stone (2003)                    Go Home Productions
White Light                             Gorillaz
Finding Solutions                       Heartless Bastards
Cafeteria Bananas                       Hella
Don’t Want To Know If You Are Lonely    Hüsker Dü
Scene 9: The Funeral For Martha Bigsby  Hypatia Lake
NYC                                     Interpol
Eternal Life                            Jeff Buckley
Change                                  Killing Joke
Level Five                              King Crimson
Conan Troutman                          Kyuss
The World Acording To Nouns             The Minutemen
I Missed The Point                      Neko Case & Her Boyfriends
A Fair Judgement                        Opeth
Swan Swan H                             R.E.M.
Morning Bell                            Radiohead
Nothing Means Nothing Anymore           River City Tanlines
The Road Leads Where It's Led           Secret Machines
Hit Liquor                              Shudder To Think
Virtue And Wine                         Sondre Lerche
Vic Acid                                Squarepusher
Fish                                    Throwing Muses
The Rat                                 The Walkmen