Podcast 384

Final Thoughts From The Road. With a tragedy in South Carolina, and more nonsense coming out of Washington DC, the chattering class will be busy chattering this weekend. They’ll be telling us the country is falling apart, sowing the seeds of discontent, depression, confusion, envy, and anxiety. The thing is, if you travel the country state by state, you don’t see discontent, depression, confusion, envy and anxiety. You see people coping; in fact thriving. In the middle one of the most dense population centers in the world — the US eastern seaboard — you’ll find Maryland’s Eastern Shore, a rural paradise. Then there’s Ocean City Maryland, which actually is hot and sweaty, but everyone seems to be having a good time. Fifty states, with fifty different histories, cultures, many of them thriving. Yes, thriving. How can this be? The America you see and hear about on Fox News and MSNBC, or you hear about on scratchy dying AM Talk Radio stations is burning; falling apart, splitting at the seams. The pounders and the screamers polarize us into right and left, and tell us our country is a place where people hate each other, members of different ‘castes’ seethe, where the rich get super rich and everyone else gets nothing. The only thing is, that’s not what is going on in the real America. If you travel it, you’ll see what I mean. Are there injustices? Is there crime? Poverty? Yes. But, somehow in this place, painted as the seventh level of Dante’s Inferno, people raise families, go to work, do what they can for each other, start businesses and vacation together. I saw people of all colors, cultures and languages working together, eating together, living together. Meanwhile, the truck stops are chock full of trucks, RV’s and travelers twenty four hours a day. The restaurants are busy, as are the Targets and Home Depots and Food Lions, even small town grocery stores. It used to be said that the media in America is a mirror, to show society what it is. Well, I am here to tell you, Houston we have a problem. The media isn’t showing us what we are, or what is going on, because the images just don’t match. The Media and the politicians in Washington are lying to us, and using the outrage machine to their political advantage. I’ve seen about three quarters of this country in the last 4 months, at the most basic level; Interstates, two lanes, and dirt roads. I’ve driven through the big towns, and the small towns, meeting and talking to regular people. I just don’t see the strife and struggle we’re being told ‘we’ are experiencing. There are challenges in every time. Our challenge is turning off these idiots on television, and in Washington DC. America not only has a future, it has a great future and it’s time we had leadership that recognizes and encourages our innovation and energy, rather than scares, and divides us, lies to us and tells us what we have to do. Let’s start making it happen, regardless of what the chattering chatterers have to say this weekend. Sponsored by X Government Cars. 

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Podcast 379

National D-Day Memorial. The Road Trip continues, south from Indianapolis to Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Western Virginia. Stopping off for a street fair in Berea, Kentucky and by chance, the National D-Day Memorial at sundown, on June 6th, 2015; the 71st Commemoration of the landing by allied armies in occupied France, at Normandy. Meanwhile, more and more politicians declare their ‘candidacy for the Presidency’ and where’s the first place they go? Iowa. There’s many interesting and valuable small and medium sized towns across this country, with interesting people, that could do with a little attention from politicians who are supposed to be representing the people, but no. The entire media and political focus in this country is on the diffused population of a state that has made a tourist business out of politics, a full year before it will matter. This is how a handful of political ‘activists’, which really means ‘groupie’, ‘attention whore’, ‘fame vampire’, get to have an outsized influence on the American political process. The founding fathers not only are turning over in their graves; they’re spinning like tops. The best thing about travel is it all blurs together until its like a dream, and that’s good. All the better to turn off those idiots, and hit the road. The thing about travel is, once you let you go, and let the countryside and the experiences that go with it come and go, sometimes you get to see amazing things. This is the case with the National D-Day Memorial, which many people probably don’t even know exists, reached at sundown on June 6th, after an unexpected detour to save time, just in time to hear one soldier play taps, in honor of those who gave their lives that day so many years ago. Travel east of the Mississippi is different because the distances are shorter, but there’s more places to pull over and dawdle. College towns like Berea, Kentucky. Rocky Top Tennessee, and the birthplace of country music, Bristol, Virginia. Anyplace but Iowa! Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. 

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Podcast 359

Spring Dusk. Live from the deck of the Broadcast Bunker on a spring evening. Finally warm enough to eat outside, and podcast from the deck with great coffee and an origami fire in the grill, post steak. A review of a live speaking engagement at SD48’s Freedom Banquet starts and is interrupted because of technology problems. Is technology purchased just four years ago becoming obsolete? After a discussion about methods of public speaking, details about the Freedom Banquet discussion. How the media covers a ‘presidential’ race is too personality driven. What are the announced and unannounced candidates doing right now? What’s their goal. It isn’t the ‘electorate’ per se, but the actives and the major donors. Meanwhile, the public remains starved for coverage about details on issues. The most divisive force in American Politics today isn’t congress — though we are told constantly ‘gridlock’ is a divisive force — it’s media. Specifically, media tailored to a point of view, or ‘tribe’. With people using media tailored to their specific social tribe, we’re not getting the full story, and most of the time we’re getting ‘news’ focused on someone’s personality, what this one said or didn’t say, or the latest scandal. And, with candidates focused on the politically active, this is the time to start the process of organizing at the precinct level. Instead, people are talking about hot button, media driven ‘issues’ like the riot in Baltimore, or Ted Cruz’s statement about liberal fascism and Christians. Part of the mission of the podcasts is to break some of that emotion down with updates on issues. There is a need for people to connect as citizens, and learn to talk to each other without their party and social labels superimposed on their foreheads. Can we do it? Not while Fox News or MSNBC is blaring away in the background. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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