No matter how you slice it, today’s show dealt with the massive shit storm that is our world right now.
I was all set to talk about FloriDUH with Deborah Newell Tornello, and about New Orleans 10 years after Katrina (and why that city flooded in the first place after dodging a direct hit) with the brilliant Harry Shearer.… and just moments before showtime, I was altered to the horrific shooting murder of a Virginia-based TV reporter and camera man during a live shot early this morning.
To say that it threw me into a state of being shell-shocked would be to under-state the levels of disgust, nausea and dread that overcame me. And so it goes, life in America.
I actually pulled out the interview I conducted last April with Tim Fischer, former deputy prime minister of Australia, who was in office in 1996 when the Port Arthur Massacre devastated that nation. Fischer helped push through sensible gun legislation that has succeeded in almost wiping out mass shootings there altogether. You can listen to that interview here:
Meanwhile, as I was preparing to discuss Katrina and all the issues surrounding the storm that drowned New Orleans with Harry Shearer, I couldn’t help but notice that I’m sitting in the crosshairs of Tropical Storm Erika which, if she stays on course, will pay us a visit Monday morning!
I somehow made it through enough of the show to get to Harry Shearer, who makes New Orleans his home most of the year. Five years ago, Shearer released his first documentary – The Big Uneasy – which he wrote, directed and narrated, and tells about the confluence of fuck ups that flooded New Orleans five years earlier.
I embedded it yesterday, and will post it again here today, because I really want you to see it… Sadly, we don’t learn from our mistakes. So whether it’s a massive Army Corp of Engineers failure, or our pretending that we don’t have a gun violence epidemic in this country, we’re bound to repeat them. And that’s our fault.
I’ll be back tomorrow to take on another day… radio or not!
That was a great opening song. My first time visiting so it might be a constant. I listen to Harry every Sunday on NPR. Talented man.
Very talented! I open with a different song each day. I hope you’ll come back again!
I was a subscriber and devoted follower of Randi. I always appreciated that she trusted you to fill her huge shoes.
You are becoming a fascinating person to me with the company you keep. And the void that MSNBC/Griffin is creating has allowed me to fill in that hole with interesting people more often like yourself. That network lost a whole half a day by me.
I play Majority Report in the back ground and did with you today. Good … actually great … fillers for my day as I putz around. So yes I will become a follower. Also follow WeGotEd and Ring of Fire and Thom Hartmann and on and on. Amy Goodman and Stephanie Miller and Jacki Schechner … I am packed with good head healing daily inputs. Now you.