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On the Old Mole Variety Hour for January 12, Denise Morris and I review The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). 

Before I talk about the war on Gaza, I’d like to present a little background information.

 I love Harper's Index.

For those of you not familiar with it, Harper's Index appears near the front of every edition of Harper's magazine. It presents a sort of snapshot of current affairs by way of assembling a bunch of seemingly obscure, but ultimately telling, statistics. The index can really help break an issue down to irrefutable numbers in a way that cuts through ideological trappings.

Take the current iteration of Harper's Index, for example. It's all about the legacy of the Bush years, the whole fucking war-ridden, corrupt, incompetent, greedy, murderous, filthy lot of them. Here's just a few choice nuggets:

Percentage of Bush’s first 189 appointees who also served in his father’s administration: 42

Minimum number of Bush appointees who have regulated industries they used to represent as lobbyists: 98

Date on which the GAO sued Dick Cheney to force the release of documents related to current U.S. energy policy: 2/22/02

Number of other officials the GAO has sued over access to federal records: 0

Number of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and North African men detained in the U.S. in the eight weeks after 9/11: 1,182

Number charged with an immigration violation: 762

Days since the federal government first placed the nation under an “elevated terror alert” that the level has been relaxed: 0

Percentage of the amendments in the Bill of Rights that are violated by the USA PATRIOT Act, according to the ACLU: 50

Minimum number of laws that Bush signing statements have exempted his administration from following: 1,069

... and on and on. It's an itemized chronicle of catastrophic mis-government. Read the whole thing, and then print it off and give it to your Republican co-workers.

-A

Bridget B. here, the Saturday, January 3rd show, An Evening of Afrotainment, was a bit reflective with a little nudge on how we the people, in 2009, can be change agents.  I went back in time to play some old "spirituals" using Amazing Grace and Ol' Man River as my easing in approach to the first segment of the show. 

It was 1927, Jerome Kern created the music and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the lyrics.  Show Boat was the musical that told the melancholy story of the hardships black people went through and the "...struggles of the time, related to the endless flow of the Mississippi River, from the view of a dock worker on a showboat. It is the most famous song from the show.  However, the most famous rendition of it, one that is still noted today, was sung by Paul Robeson in James Whale's 1936 film version of Show Boat (Robeson had first performed the song in the 1928 London production of the show and in the 1932 Broadway revival, and

We would like to re-welcome Louis Sowa as our twelfth seated board member. Louis pinch hitted last year and served on the board for half a year. He will be serving a two year term having been appointed to the position vacated by Jay Theymeier. Louis is a tremendous help around the station in the engineering department and you can sometimes hear him on the air with Indian World. We appreciate all the great contributions that Louis is making to the station. Welcome Louis!

KBOO.FM needs a new look! KBOO Community Radio is looking for a graphic artist/web template designer to work with our web team to give our website a makeover. The current site is driven by Drupal, a PHP-based CMS (content management system). We're specifically looking for better ways to communicate with our audience, by using enhanced site layout and the best of current web open source technologies.

Thanks to everyone who sent us a donation through the Give!Guide during the last six weeks of 2008!  As anticipated, the final days were particularly exciting in terms of watching the giving results really accelerate their climb.  We ended up receiving just over $14,000, which we hand't budgeted for earlier in the year, and given our planned deficit this fiscal year, it will really help alleviate that situation.

An extra special thanks for those Give!Guide donors who becamse first-time KBOO donors; your investment in community radio is particularly important as the number and quality of free media choices continues to increase.

On Whole World Music on January 11, 2009, Craig Burk gave this introduction to raga Marwa, sung  by Ustad Amir Khan.