The New Year, still bright and shiny and new. Don’t worry. It won’t last long.
We kicked off the New Year here at The Nicole Sandler Show with a couple of old friends — The Nation‘s John Nichols joined me for one final 2014 recap, courtesy of his annual Progressive Honor Roll.
I couldn’t let him go without talking about our first big loss of the year which came on New Years’ Day with the death of Mario Cuomo.
I shared my story of having had the honor of producing the statewide “Ask the Governor” series with then- Gov. Cuomo while I worked at WMCA/NY in the early ’80s. One of my biggest regrets was not taking him up on his offer to work in his press office because it would have meant moving to Albany.
We lost one of the really good ones….
Howie Klein usually spends Monday morning with us, but has a conflict on Monday mornings for the next few months. We’re working on scheduling him on a different day, so watch this space.
In the meantime, I could think of no other person I wanted to speak with at the dawn of this new year than Heather “Digby” Parton. I’ve been reading her blog for as long as I can remember, and felt an instant camaraderie the first time we met in person.
Every time Digby is on the show, I always think we only just scratched the surface… We spoke today about the “slowdown” by the NYPD and their childish display of backs turned on Mayor de Blasio as he delivered eulogies for two fallen cops this week.
As much as I feel for the families of those officers, I can’t help but wonder why the same outpouring of support never materialized for the two Nevada police officers who were gunned down by Bundy supporters/white supremacists this summer. Hmmmm….
And I’d be remiss if I left out a farewell to Bill Moyers who ended his broadcast run last Friday. Do yourself a favor and watch his final episode or, at the very least, his final sign-off at the end.
Tomorrow, same-sex marriage begins in Florida! So we’ll deal with that and hang with Laffy too, for the first time in this new year, tomorrow morning, radio or not!