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Local radio is back in South Florida with Sofloradio.com. Led by Jorge Rodriguez, it is the creation of a group of “recessionist” entrepreneurs who watched themselves get squeezed out of their talk radio jobs by corporate media’s decision to save money, by broadcasting the same “national” radio shows in all markets, and in the process they tried to and almost killed grassroots, local talk radio in South Florida.

The communications conglomerates which control all of the major audio and video media providers have taken this more national approach to radio programming because of the enormous cost savings of having to pay one voice compared to paying local talent big bucks in hundreds of markets. The largest holdout for local talent is sports talk, which is relatively safe, especially in markets with one or more local major sports franchises.

Enter Sofloradio.com. Using the low cost bandwidth of the internet, Rodriguez and his group of local radio professionals have banded together to create a true grassroots, authentic radio media outlet to provide a voice for Joe Working Guy. It could be Jane Working Gal, or even Chuck Creative Guy, it doesn’t matter, Sofloradio.com by nature just somehow identifies with the world’s “Doers.”

Liberal Issues Examiner, William Skordelis, grassroots columnist and “radio interview virgin”, (giving or taking – an interview), braved the unknown and dove headfirst into the studio of a couple of Sofloradio.com founders, the on-air duo of the Jorge Rodriguez Show, Jorge Rodriguez and Boca Brian. Or is it on-line duo? The fact is sofloradio.com is so close to traditional radio, you forget your listening to a computer.

To read the rest of the story from William Skordelis on Examiner.com click here.

Opponents of health care reform on the Right and in the insurance industry have been employing scare tactics every time they step in front of a microphone and open their mouths. One of the parts of the proposed health care reform legislation they’ve been grossly exaggerating and downright lying about is aimed at both seniors and aging baby-boomers, and that is that the health care reform will force seniors into counseling every 5 years in order to try and convince them that it would be better for society to choose death over life. In other words, the government would be promoting euthanasia.

Part of this inaccurate portrayal of one of the proposed health care bills, was started by anti-health care reform sensationalist Betsy McCaughey, on former presidential candidate Fred Thompson’s radio show when McCaughey claimed that on page 425 “the Congress would make it mandatory … that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care … all to do what’s in society’s best interest … and cut your life short.”

Nothing could be farther from the truth, but by quoting page numbers she lends credibility to her claim, this of course is eaten up by Right-Wingers. Then you have actual members of Congress fanning the flames of falsehood and the spread of lies becomes even more viral. House Minority Leader John Boehner warned Americans about the same provision claiming that it "may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law."

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Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are proving they are willing to gamble the well-being of American families for pure politics, and they are drawing the line in the sand over health care.

The Republicans are being blatant about their wish to not change a thing, by their failure to offer any alternative whatsoever to President Obama’s health care plan. Not only do they not have their own plan, they have shown their true political colors by coming right out and saying that this fight would be all about politics and what’s best for Republican incumbent politicians, with absolutely nothing to say about what’s best for the citizens of the United States.

Senator Jim DeMint, R-SC proved that this past week when he made the Republican goals public. "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

If Senator DeMint had said something like, “We don’t agree with President Obama on this point or that point, and feel it would be better if we did this or that.” American’s could feel better about the Republican agenda, and public opinion about the Republican party might not be so severe. Recent polls show the GOP declining so rapidly it's like rats jumping off a sinking ship.

Maybe if the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, could get beyond pointing out President Obama’s negative points from a conservative’s point of view, and actually tried to find someone in his party that does “do policy” people wouldn’t be able to accuse them of pure obstructionism, and might be less likely to label the GOP as “the Party of No.”

But since John McCain’s defeat in November, the Republican Party as a whole, its leaders in Congress, and in the RNC have been unable to do much more than shake their heads, stomp their feet, and get caught in sex scandals, and none of it has accomplished anything positive for the nation, or been any good for any Americans, except maybe for its comedians.

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Amidst the usual Obama bashing by the Republican Party, on Monday RNC Chairman Michael Steele answered a question, and in doing so summed up why the members of Republican Party are threatening themselves into extinction faster that the global warming they deny is threatening polar bears.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Steele was asked several times about the Republican Party’s health care policy proposals to stand up against President Obama’s health care plan. He was asked why the GOP hadn’t laid out a plan yet and he stumbled and stuttered his way around a non-answer. When asked if he could name any specific GOP policies, he gave the answer that most people would expect from the top man of the party of “No!”, "Look I don't do policy," he said. "I'm not a legislator. My point in coming here was to establish a tone."

The only “tone” Michael Steele and the Republican Party are establishing, is the fact that they “tone deaf” to the needs of this country, and totally deaf to the wishes of the voters. The only “tones” they seem to be hearing are the same old song and dance from big insurance and the other special interests, who are afraid of any change in the status quo. But that’s only natural because conservatism dictates that they be afraid of and suspicious of even the slightest change.

Big insurance is afraid, not because they will be put out of business by Obama’s plan, because he is not by any means proposing a government run health care system that would put private insurance companies out of business. Health insurance lobbyists are willing to sacrifice the health and well-being of millions of Americans who either have no health insurance, or would lose it if they got really sick, and why? The answer is market share.

In order to avoid a possible drop in market share, they have been spending millions of dollars in lobbying money to prop up the candidacies of any politician who will show even the slightest favor towards stopping health care reform in its tracks just like they did in the 1990’s during the Clinton Administration. Opponents will call it “socialism”, or a “dangerous experiment”, and will try to convince you that we have the greatest health care system in the world, but don’t let them fool you. Sure it’s a great system if you can afford it, but tens of millions of us can’t. Health care costs are destroying families at an alarming rate, and will continue to do so until the system can be changed.

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On Thursday, President Barack Obama gave another landmark speech when he addressed the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, at their Centennial Celebration.

It was the first time that I had ever seen our president sound more like a preacher than a politician. Surely it was the fact that he was addressing an audience made up entirely of African-Americans, and it brought out a fiery quality that is reminiscent of the fire and brimstone one finds on a Sunday morning at any church with a predominantly black congregation.

But as always with Barack Obama, the passion and tone of his delivery is just the icing on the cake. His choice of words, his subject matter and his ability to tell a story, teach a lesson, promote his political policies, challenge his listeners’ character and conscience, and then build to a final climax, is the hallmark of his ability to deliver one historical speech after another.

Thursday’s speech was no different. Though in the room he was addressing an African-American audience, and used the history of their struggle from their beginnings in this country as slaves to the prominence in education, business and politics that many African-Americans enjoy today, he spoke to all Americans, of all colors, of all ethnic backgrounds, of all genders, of all sexual orientations, and of all political opinions. He challenged all of us to become involved in the politics of everyday life to become better Americans which in turn would create a more perfect union.

It is up to each of us to accept or deny his challenge as truth or lies, and then act or not in our own ways.

As always, no amount of commentary can do justice to the words of Barack Obama in their entirety. Please click the "Read more" link to view the full transcript of President Obama's latest landmark speech.

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For the fourth time in my 56 years I’ve heard about the suicide of a friend. Compared to the three other boys and men I’ve known who have taken their own lives, I knew this gentle young man the least, but he’s the first that could be considered a relative, as he was a second cousin of my wife.

I was only 14 years of age when the first person I knew, a close neighbor, personally took his own life. I really didn’t understand what had happened that day and remember breaking down crying when I was by myself in the bathroom. I don’t know why I cried, I just know that I did.

Now when I hear of someone who is not terminally ill or severely handicapped committing suicide, my first reaction is anger. Anger at the waste, anger at the thoughtlessness, and anger at the harm caused to the relatives and friends of the deceased. Perhaps that’s selfish on my part not to be sympathetic to the motives that could move someone to the point of courage or cowardice to take their own life. To be honest I think it would take more courage than cowardice, but to those of us who believe we would fight to the last moment to preserve life, to do otherwise would be incomprehensible.

Worldwide, there are more than a million suicides annually. That’s more than homicides and more than deaths due to war. Over the last 5 years, we’ve seen death by suicide increase by more than 60%, with the highest increases in developing countries. Men succeed more often than women despite the fact that women attempt suicide more often than men. Experts believe that this is because men tend to choose more violent methods of suicide, using firearms, knives and hanging, compared to those methods chosen by women which are more likely to be drug overdoses.

Personally, I think I’m too much of a coward to commit suicide. I can picture choosing assisted suicide if I was suffering immensely, and saw no other way out of my endless misery, but again that would be the choice of a coward.

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Every time I come to the Netherlands, I can't help think that the United States could learn a thing or two from the Dutch. Over the last week I've watched their incredible capacity to move people using their mass transit system while at the same time reaping the results of their investment into an infrastructure which encourages people to use human-energy-propulsion methods (i.e. the bicycle).

They employ a version of the “hub system” similar to what the top airlines have been forced to embrace as a cost cutting philosophy to become more efficient. The hub system develops hubs to which all feeder routes converge and connect. The Dutch do this so effectively with their cities as the natural hub where everyone wants to go. And I mean everyone.

In Amsterdam for example, there is an incredible array of choices for the commuter to get from the outer suburbs into the incredible city of Amsterdam. And all of the various forms of mass transit have been developed to feed off of and take advantage of the Dutch people's love affair with the bicycle.

The mass transit systems are well thought out and well maintained. For the commuters, this means that you get incredibly efficient, incredibly clean, safe, and very cheap mass transit to the hub city of Amsterdam, and once you are there, you can continue to rely on their mass transit system in and around the city as well. Or you can do as the natives do and grab a bike.

And when you examine the system closer, the bicycle is the key that sets Holland's system apart from any other big city with a subway or commuter trains system. One of the first things visitors to Amsterdam notice are the thousands of bikes locked everywhere they are allowed, but even more impressive to someone from the United States are the huge bicycle parking lots.

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My friend asked me this morning if I was going to write about the death of Michael Jackson, and my answer was “maybe.” Why would you even hesitate to comment on a story like the demise of the “King of Pop?”

Maybe it’s because in one way, at one point in my life I was really impressed by this young man’s talent, and recognized him as one of the most musically gifted people of modern times, at least since John Lennon. Maybe it’s because after that period of awe, I began to see the terrible effects of celebrity on what turned out to be just another human being. Michael Jackson at his death was a poster boy for the cliché “Be careful what you wish for.”

This good looking, show-stage effeminate young man transformed into a hideous testament against plastic surgery. His private life went from one of unbelievable creativity to a tail-spin of one bizarre action after another. What good does all that money do if you cannot be happy? Money and fame is something that many people dream about all their lives, but until you’ve achieved it, you’ll have no idea what it can cost you.

Michael Jackson is not the first casualty of fame and fortune. The list starts before Jesus Christ, and goes on through time all the way to yesterday when the news broke that Michael Jackson was dead at the age of 50. Fame is gained at the cost of anonymity, which in turn marks the end of normalcy. To the ranks of the rich and famous, normalcy equals boredom. To many of those same people normalcy equals obsession and extravagance that goes beyond the bounds anything anyone could consider healthy. Michael crossed all borders of normalcy and seems to have been obsessed with being white and constantly surrounded by adolescent boys.

Michael Jackson will be remembered in mention for a couple more generations, at least as long as his sixth studio album, Thriller, holds the record for “Best Selling Album of All-Time” with over one hundred million units sold. That record will likely hold strong for some time, as his closest contenders are all following the number two album, AC/DC’s Back in Black with around forty-five million sold, not even half of what Thriller sold.

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When we heard of the apparent over-sight in former talk-show host Neil Roger’s contract with 560 WQAM which allowed management to fire his longtime producer and side-kick Jorge Rodriguez, we should have known that even “Neil God” was vulnerable (“You are correct Sir!”). Well it happened, and Friday marked the end of an era in South Florida radio when Neil Rogers aired his last show after accepting WQAM’s offer to buy out the remaining time on his contract.

Despite Neil’s vow to work to the very end of his newly signed 5-year contract out of sheer spite to piss-off WQAM’s General Manager, Joe Bell, and anti-fart-sound-activist, Beasley Broadcast Group attorney Joyce Fitch (which rhymes with….well you know) apparently the Beasley’s (to coin a phrase from one of Neil’s favorite movies – in the voice of Marlon Brando as Godfather Vito Corleone) "made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

But what’s good for Neil is bad for South Florida, because we’ve lost a legend of the airwaves. The famously inconsolable Neil was often mixed with waves of static because of a weak signal, which maybe in some ways just made us listen closer. Obviously the Beasley’s know very little about the radio business even though they are up to their necks in it. How do you pay a man what has been reported on his previous contract to have been making $1.5 million per year and then transmit his show with a signal so weak, broadcasts from Cuba would often bleed over Neil’s famous tirades about the grim reality of life on this earth from A to Z?

Really though, Neil Rogers is just another Beasley Broadcast casualty as they commit radio Hari Kari and one by one fire all their big name talent. If I were “Mad Dog” Jim Mandich, who handles the 4 to 7 p.m. slot, or the “Big Dog” Joe Rose, who handles the morning drive slot, I’d be brushing up my resume and preparing for the axe to fall any day now. In all fairness though, both of them do have a couple things going for them that neither Jorge nor Neil had. They both have nicknames with “Dog” in them, and they’re both former Miami Dolphin football players. After all WQAM is the station “where football always matters.”

But it seems that being a jock or “sport-hole” isn’t enough to keep your job on WQAM. Sports gurus and gambling mavens, Ed Kaplan, and “The Hammer” Hank Goldberg couldn’t escape Joe Bell’s imitation of Jason, (the mad-slasher from Friday the 13th) and all they talked about was sports and sports betting. I guess it helps to work really cheap, though it’s been reported that Ed Kaplan offered to do the job for no pay from the Beasley’s if he could just keep his endorsements and commercial fees.

Maybe the key secret to keeping your job at WQAM is the cliché, “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” In other words, “I’m yer frayend!” All of the big-name WQAM casualties at one time or another bitched or moaned about management, the studios, or “Jolly Joe Bell.” But none did it more often and more harshly than “Uncle” Neil. In one way, it’s amazing that he lasted as long as he did.

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Freedom of expression and liberty is a funny thing, once you get the taste in your mouth it’s a bitter-sweet taste, and you just can’t get rid of it. That’s what’s happened to the Iranian people. They went into this presidential election thinking their vote meant something, and when their millions of votes were disregarded and swatted at like a swarm of pesky mosquitoes they took to the streets after they heard the results of the #iranelection.

When we saw the numbers of protesters and their persistence, many of us knew it would eventually turn to bloodshed, and that’s what has come to pass. Now it is a contest, of the human will and fortitude of the protesters against the government’s willingness to slaughter their own citizens to stay in power.

Dozens have already been killed, and since the foreign press has been expelled and the few that remain have been restrained from reporting anything other than the state controlled news feed, nobody can be sure how many dozens. The images we’re receiving are posted to the internet by courageous and savvy young Iranians who know how to manipulate the internet better than the clerics and the government controlled militias in power. The pictures that have pierced through the net are not pretty.

We saw the same kind of situation unfold in the Tiananmen Square protests in China, twenty years ago, in which the government triumphed after seven weeks of protests. The Chinese Government had absolutely no mercy and it is estimated that they killed over 2,000 protesters and wounded close to 10,000 others.

However there are major differences between the two situations. The Iranian military is by no means as strong and numbered as the Chinese military and it is doubtful that they are as singularly programmed. But perhaps the most significant difference is the religion factor, the influence of Islam. The Chinese had been a society that by the time the eighties had been reached they were a society which had been created with the absence of religion for generations. The Iranians are just the opposite. They are a people who for the last thirty years have been living in a strict Islamic theocracy. The political structure in power is the result of a theocratic revolution that has shaped generations of Iranians to hold true to the tenets of Islam.

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The Republicans, especially presidential loser Senator John McCain have been criticizing presidential winner President Barack Obama’s low-key stance on the massive protests taking place in Iran over the obviously rigged presidential election last week. In doing so no one should be surprised as it is only the Republicans living up to their moniker as “Conservatives”.

Dictionary.com's Number One definition for “conservative” reads as follows:

-adjective

1. disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.

Their leaderless, rudderless stance as the new party of “No” and insignificance, as well as their efforts to outwardly oppose everything President Obama has endorsed or said, have found themselves on the short end of the stick on every issue because of the President’s continuing popularity.

But it’s really no surprise because they are only doing what conservatism tells them they must, they oppose all change, no matter how incremental, or how much they profess to want change.

With Iran, they are staying true to form. John McCain wants President Obama to speak out in support of the opposition movement, even though most experts on the subject of Iran agree that that would only empower the current regime by proving that America still wishes to interfere with Iran’s domestic policies and governance. It was that history of meddling in Iranian politics that sparked the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and the storming of the American Embassy in Tehran.

Conservatives wish to continue the politics of political posturing with little force to back it. That is surely preservation of the existing conditions and the American institution of a three-decade-old hostility towards Iran. When will the Republicans learn that being the earth’s chief bully is not always the best political or diplomatic path to follow?

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This post was published on Suntimes.com on June 16, 2009. To view the post there, click here.

As expected Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri vetoed legislation that would have allowed dispensaries to sell medical marijuana to the state's approximately 600 registered medical patients permitted by the state to possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana and up to 12 cannabis plants.

The bill was passed by the state’s lawmakers a few weeks ago and had been sent to the Governor’s office for signing into law. In a written statement, Republican Governor Carcieri said that permitting the manufacture and sale of drugs illegal under federal law would send the wrong message to children about use.

The bill’s sponsor State Representative Thomas Slater said that though the exact date has not yet been set, the House and Senate leaders have promised to hold a veto override vote.

The absurdity of Governor Carcieri’s statement sends another wrong message to the children of the more than 6oo registered medical marijuana patients and any other man women or child who has ever suffered a severe illness. In essence he is stating that although the State of Rhode Island recognizes that marijuana can help them stave off the suffering, the state refuses to provide them safe access to their medicine. Governor Carcieri is telling the citizens of all ages in the State of Rhode Island that it is okay to purchase medicine on the black-market, and that it is okay to support the drug cartels and organized crime.

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If you were on Twitter last night, you know that “D-Day” held the top spot in the Trending Topics for several hours. A very appropriate achievement since yesterday, June 6th, was the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landing on the Normandy coast in France. D-Day was the beginning of the end of World War II, with around 10,000 allied casualties, men either killed, wounded, missing, or captured.

For those of us who were baby-boomers, children created as a result of the returning troops, and the end of the war, D-Day is almost as real, as those who actually lived through it. We had the dead uncles, and heard the stories first-hand over and over again from the survivors of D-Day, the war in the Pacific, and all the other battles and support troops of “The War to End All Wars”.

By the time we had reached our teens, we had heard every anecdotal war story, to the point that we could lip-sync the major talking-points, and we had seen every black-and-white World War II film many times over. We were a bunch of peace-freaks created by living through the Vietnam War, tired of hearing about World War II, the Korean War, and just plain sick of war. It’s no wonder that we took to the streets to protest the Vietnam War, much to the dismay of our parents and all the other veterans.

Yet as you get older, for some reason, you naturally begin to appreciate your roots and your parents, and realize not only their value, but also the unselfish gifts they had given you that you’d previously taken for granted. For the sons and daughters of the World War II generation, aside from our parents’ seemingly bottomless well of love and devotion to making our lives better than theirs had been, the victory that started on D-Day was their greatest gift to us.

If you were on Twitter last night, you saw reverent and irreverent posts about D-Day. Those who acknowledged the importance of D-Day were either baby-boomers or “Thirty-to-Forty-Somethings”, who had paid attention to the all-day news coverage of President Obama’s visit to Normandy. The rest were probably just Tweeters playing the trends trying to get followers.

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Some days the words of one man or woman are so powerful, and so far above any actions or any other words that are uttered on that day, the words alone define that day for the rest of history. Many would disagree for a myriad of reasons, but today, President Barack Hussein Obama defined June 4th as the day he challenged the entire world to peace.

His speech in Cairo, Egypt to a predominantly Muslim audience challenged those present, challenged the followers of Islam throughout the world, challenged the West, challenged Israel, challenged Palestine, Hamas, Iran and Americans alike to leave the stereotypical hate of the past behind, and to form a new coalition of peace, tolerance and prosperity based on mutual respect and goals.

On their own, these are not new challenges, but the manner in which they were delivered, in the setting they were delivered, and the courage with which the words were spoken were historical. President Obama didn't just declare his challenges to those with whom we are normally at odds, but to the American people as well.

As in other speeches, President Obama renewed a recurrent theme that in order to find peace and progress, we needed to focus on our similarities more than our differences, while at the same time respecting each others' rights to those differences.

It is with all the deepest respect to a man with whom I don't always agree, that I present his words in their entirety. Sometimes one man's or woman's words define the day, and today is such a day.

William S. James, Privileged

Speech by President Barack Obama in the Grand Hall of Cairo University on June 4th, 2009

I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning, and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. Together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I am grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. I am also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: assalaamu alaykum.

We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world — tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and mistrust.

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Today, proponents of equality, liberty and individual freedom have a small reason to celebrate, as New Hampshire becomes the sixth state out of fifty to legalize same-sex marriage.

It is a small step because it is a struggle for equality that is not embraced by the federal government, or a majority of Americans, and represents ground that must be taken state by state. Representing one of the smallest states in the nation based on its total population of 1.3 million people, New Hampshire ranks 41st, but that’s not what makes this such a small step. We recently witnessed the rise and fall of same-sex marriage in California, the largest state in the nation, go from the joy of triumph, to defeat in the polls, to defeat in court, and then to new found sorrow and back to inequality, within a matter of months.

What should be such an easy decision, granting equal rights in a union recognized as marriage between two loving consenting adults, comes very difficult for those who profess to be inspired by the man who they claim had divine levels of forgiveness.

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