Tag: KRCC
What does “member-supported radio” mean? Friends don’t let friends air junk
It is that time again. Twice a year local public radio affiliate KRCC holds a fund drive during which it expects community support for its exclusively corporate programming. By what stretch of the imagination should listeners feel they need to pony up for somebody else's agenda? Of course, bathed in enough misinformation and indoctrination, a community will wallow, and pay for the upkeep of their own barbed wire. Yeah, those fence-sitting fence-keepers are going to be a bitch --and creative I expect, with their sardonic apolitical joie-de-rire. I don't look forward to it, but the next local effort to elevate KRCC begins Saturday. KRCC: Enough with COStupid.
Goddamnit! 100 years on, KRCC plays soldier to butcher Ludlow miners again
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO- This is what happen when apolitical wits want to dribble their sardonic apathy on a subject of historic import. Or as they see it, unimport. The 100-year anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre passed in April, with considerable media attention and unfortunately the requisit controversy that comes of celebrants numbering equal parts decendents of the perps and not the miners. You'd think KRCC might have heard the dissonance in April, the attempt of National Guard to rewrite the history in accordance to today's culture of military-worship and the ensuing protestations, but no. Tonight a locally produced radio show called "Wish We Were Here" aired a one-hour episode about "Ludlow" on public radio franchise KRCC. Noel Black, Jake Burnell and Andrea Chalfin put the program together and relied on the same revisionists which dogged the official commemorations.
Democracy How?
Amy Goodman of the program Democracy Now was in Colorado Springs last night (Thursday) speaking to a small group of patrons of KRCC radio crowd which, along with Colorado College the owner of the station, did a royally piss poor job of building the event. Few people were aware of the event taking place and few showed up as a result of that lack of promotion for the show. Corporate pushing KRCC never seemed to have ever wanted to carry Democracy Now in the first place, favoring Mobil-Exon Oil promoted PBS (Corporate Broadcasting System) by far in their huge hours given to push PBS's Democratic Party/ Republican Party ONLY politics nonstop over Colorado airwaves. KRCC is certainly not my idea of what a credible ALTERNATIVE media outlet should be sounding like. How could it be, with Sue Woolsey, wife of the former CIA director and notable Right Winger creep James Woolsey Jr., chairing the board of Colorado College and by extension, KRCC itself? The Woolsey family are big pushers for starting war against Iran. However, all is hardly perfect with Democracy Now itself either. Today's Counterpunch tells the story of another Amy Goodman-Democracy Now visit to another city which was Baltimore, home of the author of this particular Counterpunch published commentary. Read the piece and get a glimpse of how Democracy Now looks to some of us out here in America's Left Wing. We need many more shows like Democracy Now to counter the continuing and constant lies of the corporate run American media, but we need to look at what we have broadcasting for OUR side with open and clear eyes and ears, too. See No Questions for the Questioner Democracy How!?
Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me – laughs at us
Corporate disinformation Ha ha ha ha ha Public media pretends to balance Ha ha ha ha ha Laughing at the newspeople laughing at us Ha ha ha ha ha NPR's WAIT WAIT DON'T TELL ME trivializes being uniformed Ha ha ha ha ha Genocide, lost freedoms, the rich stealing all, Illegal wars, torture, environmental disaster, All too much solemnity for NPR, Ha ha ha ha ha The joke's on us -- Oh lighten up Ha ha ha ha ha
Is NPR blocking health care reform?
If the corporation from which you get your news is NOT TELLING YOU that the US could give its citizens Universal Health Care for less than the cost of today's system, and could do so tomorrow by expanding Medicare offering free medical care to all like every other developed nation, then they are lying to you. How can you expect any reform if the status quo defends itself with the complicity of the corporate media. That includes the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, all the more duplicitous for pretending to serve the "public." The CPB's underwriters are big oil, big agra, big pharma, the banks and the insurance villains. Listen closely and you can still hear NPR News pronounce the question mark after "Global Warming." NPR's corporate clients, whose PR firms dictate the news show content, represent a near complete lineup of the opponents of the public interest. How then do NPR member radio stations have the nerve to solicit listener contributions? Our local NPR member KRCC is scheduled to begin its fund drive next weekend. Perhaps this is a fine time to question why they subscribe to a news outlet which stands between you and health care reform. Now is no time to quibble whether NPR is lesser evil than Fox. If they distort the mandates which brought President Obama to office, if they cite polls which misrepresent the public, if they hedge their bets by protecting the insurance industry, they serve you not the least. We are better off with no NPR, than a program which poses as a progressive-leaning perspective, informed by educated commentators, only supply a fraudulent left which places the bipartisan "center" fully on the side of the conservative right. Do you want health care, or any reforms at all? You'll need an honest media.
Tim DeChristopher on Democracy Now!
Tim DeChristopher, a University of Utah disobedient civilian, was interviewed on Democracy Now! today. Amy Goodman asked him what relevance Edward Abbey had to his move to disrupt the bidding process for oil and gas leases in Utah's red rock country. His answer: I think that the most powerful relevance of Edward Abbey to what I did was his statement and really his expression of the idea that sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul, because I think that’s what I had seen throughout my work as an environmentalist previous to this, where I had seen this massive crisis and massive challenge that we were facing in climate change, and I saw that my efforts of writing the letter here and there and riding my bike and things like that weren’t really aligning. My actions weren’t aligning with my sentiment of how serious this threat was, and I knew that. And so, I felt that kind of conflict within myself. And when I stepped it up at this auction and was putting myself out there and winning all these parcels was really the first time I felt like my sentiment—or I felt like my actions were aligning with my sentiment. And I felt this tremendous sense of calm when I started doing that, because for the first time that conflict within me was gone, and I knew that when I was, you know, standing up and risking going to prison, my actions really were aligning with how big of a crisis this is. A grand jury indicted Tim DeChristopher Wednesday afternoon with two felony counts of violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Act. If convicted, Tim could face up to 10 years in the slammer. This, despite the fact that Ken Salazar cancelled the contested leases because the government failed to follow its own procedures, but more on that later! For now, tune in to KRCC at 7 to hear Tim (and then Noam Chomsky) on Democracy Now! tonight.
Psychedelic Air Force Academy Show and KRCC, Pentagon Kool Aid Stand
I told myself I just wasn't going to comment anymore about the local Colorado Springs private radio station, KRCC. Yeah, I know they bill themselves as being 'public radio', but have you ever heard so many commercials in your life? I haven't and this station could give PBS, the Petroleum Broadcasting System, a run for its money in the competition for 'public' that just isn't. But there they were yesterday broadcasting with a program that tried so hard to remake the Air Force Academy image into that of a hip, psychedelic, sort of Acid Kool Aid institute of Beatnik being! I kid you not! Oh, KRCC! You are just so hip! NOT.... Yes, according to their program that highlighted Ken Babbs and his hip, psychedelic LSD influenced vision of the Air Force Academy, KRCC was trying to get its public to swallow some sort of Pentagon image building promotion Kool Aid. This radio station just puts me into a daze most of the time and this program was no exception. It might have been 'Jeff' and his program, and the program did not have that NPR style of holding the nose while whistling off the what-ever? Like most of the time at KRCC, I turned the thing off after a sec or two, and still do not know exactly what the Hell I was actually listening to? Some sort of Orwellian nightmare, perhaps? Score par for KRCC. But I think it was some sort of report about Ken Babbs visiting the Air Force Academy? How did it go? ...sort of thing??? Anyway, leave it to Colorado College, owners of KRCC, and the Air Force Academy to come up with using Ken Kesey to make themselves out to be ever so hip! Them a hip set of Cadets out there to invite a speaker onto campus to talk Ken Kesey up! Psychedelic, Man! Now let's go drop some bombs on civilians, why don't we? Got a joint? Apparently this is Psychedelic Ken Babb's most often used quote line... 'Most people don't realize how many of the "hippies" actually served in the military. Ken states his position as, " (I was in the) NROTC in college, took the marine option and was commissioned a second lieutenant". He was a helicopter pilot when his squadron got orders to go to Vietnam. When asked his opinion of the Vietnam war, Mr. Babbs states" I had no perceptions of right or wrong before I went to Vietnam, but (it) took about six weeks to realize we were wasting our time there".' WOW! Profound! They were wasting time... Magic mushrooms anybody? What a prankster! If I was still young, I'd be ready to get into that hip, Psychedelic
World news and the everyday teenager
There wasn't any conversation to speak of on the drive to school today, so I turned on the news. From the back a teen immediately interjected "Is that completely necessary?" I muted the sound and turned around, completely incredulous. "What?" "Is that completely necessary?" she repeated without a hint of what I hoped to have been mischievous insolence. "Not really." Is all I could muster as I turned the volume back up and refocused my attention. I can't say that listening to corporate propaganda is necessary, or even a good idea. But I am at an equal loss for how else to stay tuned to what's happening around us. It's a good thing my honest ambivalence tripped up the teaching moment I might have offered. There are probably far too many ways to get entangled in current affairs, but for children with school, sports, video games, television, play, music and the odd meal, there is no break for non-academic reality. One might argue that kids could be spared the complications of the world outside. I can hardly see the merit to that school of unthought. Especially as domestic politics have certainly invaded their education, the piss-poor vocational experience few are willing to admit that American schools have become. This drive-time comment came after an evening spent not being forced to attend a journalist's lecture last night. It was off-putting enough to have to wait in the atrium apparently. Although, as dense as the economic principles might have been, I sorely regretted that all of the kids, especially the girls, had not witnessed Naomi Klein, about as apt a role model as any young woman could dream. So what if much would be above their head? Won't they grow into it? Are there realities too shocking for children? Shouldn't our challenge be to address those horrors, sooner than shield ourselves by pretending they do not exist? What a luxury that our children have even the choice to know how they are impacted. It's one thing to expose kids to pictures of highway accidents, or television programs about serial killers, quite another in my opinion to complicate their understanding of societal malevolence. Can they not gleam from parental example that such obstacles do not render life hopeless? We cope. We blot out certain realities to pamper our own delusions. Is that a difficulty level beyond young people? There's no doubt a fine line about forcing experiences on children, the morning news for example, but isn't that to pretend that almost all their indoctrination isn't involuntary? Can you think of any accomplished person who wasn't pushed? We can be thankful our children aren't experiencing household raids, aerial bombings, and marketplace bombers which take the lives of their friends and relatives. How sheltered do children need to be? Even if their Social Studies will eventually teach them Zinn or Chomsky, aren't the lessons sabotaged by the context of isolation? How are children really to learn that they aren't working in factories but for blood spilled by labor unions; that their
Time for a little Texas Swing!
If you are sick and tired of that crap they play on KRCC, then try some music with a little Texas Swing old style! Live 365 Internet Radio has hundreds of stations of all types of music but for Texans especially, head on over to Station Country Shufflemania These are the great sounds heard on the Texas radio stations and juke boxes back when Jack Ruby was the King of Dallas strip clubs. I know, because I was a young kid who many a time spent half the night at a café just 1/2 a block away from where the girls danced! Time for a little Texas Swing!
Dave and 911 fail Dale Carnegie at KRCC
Believe what you want, but suffer the fate of Copernicus if you insist on trying to shake the system to its destruction. Copernicus tried to put the very infallibility of the church to flame. Hard to blame them for burning him.
Amy Goodman fliers for distribution
Help spread the word that journalist Amy Goodman will be making an appearance on Sunday 3pm. This is an opportunity to ask KRCC to give her show DEMOCRACY NOW a morning or afternoon drive time slot.
Autry Field KRCC Amy Goodman venue
AUTRY FIELD is a 1/2 block east from Shove Chapel on the CC campus.
KRCC promoting Amy Goodman and DN!
Most radio listeners are in their cars. That AM stations retain their clout is because for the longest time most cars could only receive the AM signal. Older established technologies present critical links not just older generations but to lower socio-economic populations.
KRCC is mum about Amy Goodman visit
Democracy Now! heroine Amy Goodman will be visiting the Springs on Sunday April 20th, but you wouldn't know from listening to DN!'s own local radio affiliate KRCC. Today, in the segue for the 7pm slot, "Coming up next, Democracy Now," instead of mentioning Goodman's upcoming appearance, the DJ added "if Amy Goodman is not your bag, check out KRCC's HD2 on which you can hear The Thomas Jefferson Hour." Can you imagine KRCC introducing Fresh Air with Terri Gross like that? On her last appearances, Amy Goodman filled the 900-seat Shove Chapel. Where do you suppose KRCC gets off thinking they can ignore her local following? It's insulting enough that they gave DN! a mediocre time-slot, they're trying to sabotage Goodman's opportunity to speak to their listeners in person? No mention either on their calendar. Search their website for "Amy Goodman" and you get nothing! Over the last few months, KRCC has promoted appearances by all sorts of Neocon conservative global-warming deniers and war profiteers. As recently as yesterday KRCC had uncritical promotion of ex-Interior Secretary and crook Gale Norton. What's happening to Colorado College? What's happened to KRCC?
Democracy Now host to visit Springs
DEMOCRACY NOW (7-8pm weekdays on KRCC) radio news reporter Amy Goodman will be in Colorado Springs on SUNDAY April 20 AT 3:00PM between appearances in Salida and Denver. No word yet as to the local venue or arrangements. Call KRCC or stay posted!
Springs Culture Cast has party for Craig Richardson and Klayton Elliot Kendall of Springs Culture Cast
The Smokebrush is feting the first anniversary of the Springs Culture Cast enterprise on Thursday night. I love the work Craig and Klayton are doing to illuminate our city's culture scene. Every weekday the two assemble a four minute segment on local arts. I especially like when their delivery swerves into the theatrical, but I can't laugh forever at their sledgehammer self-promotion. Radio segway: "It's time for the Springs Culture Cast:" Underwriter credit: "Springs Culture Cast is brought to you by..." Intro: "Welcome to the radio edition of Springs Culture Cast." Reporter: "Hi I'm Craig Richardson with Springs Culture Cast... " "...This segment of Springs Culture Cast was produced by Craig Richardson and Klayton Elliot Kendall. "To explore our video archives, please visit us online at Springs Culture Cast dot com. "For Springs Culture Cast, this is Craig Richardson."
Colorado Springs Mack the Knife
The Gazette reported this weekend that Alexander Pring-Wilson, now of Court TV fame, has won a second reprieve against accusations of knifing an Hispanic Boston teen in 2003. Pring-Wilson's legal team has twice successfully confused juries by defaming the victim's poor man's past, detracting from Pring-Wilson's drunken, unprovoked pounce with a knife. In the fawning article about the family's blue blood Wood Avenue heritage, the Gazette oddly shrunk Pring-Wilson's 4-inch-blade Spyderco military jackknife to a "penknife!" We're informed the CC grad will be spending the holidays in Colorado. And will the ex-rugby captain be drinking? I say, won't somebody visit the CSPD and ask if the Colorado College campus hasn't any unsolved closing-time stabbing deaths among its cold cases? Maybe Pring-Wilson can stop by the Police Department and volunteer the DNA sample he refused to give them from Boston. The CSPD were alerted in 2003 about the similarity of the Boston stabbing to the fatal assault on Jocelyn Sandburg in 2002, and have yet to be given evidence to preclude him as a suspect. But Pring-Wilson's mother was a long time Colorado Springs prosecutor and, as the Gazette article reminds us, is from a very influential family. In Boston, Pring-Wilson was stumbling home from a Reggae bar after closing time. He came upon a car parked next to a pizza joint, with two Hispanic teens who he thought were laughing at his drunken state. Pring-Wilson approached the car, opened the passenger door and began stabbing one teen as the other ran from around the other side to pull Pring-Wilson off. The driver had not realized that the pummeling he was witnessing involved a knife. Pring-Wilson claims self-defense, prosecutors are suspicious of Pring's having begun at the onset with his knife unpocketed, blade open. Before Pring-Wilson moved to Harvard, he attended Colorado College. The year after graduation he still returned to Colorado Springs regularly to visit his former-teammates, parents and girlfriend. Might one of his visits have coincided with Jocelyn's murder, a weekend night in 2002, a little after 2am? Jocelyn and passenger were just a block from home when someone threw an object at their car. Jocelyn stepped out to address the young pedestrian, he suddenly threw what looked like a punch but oddly Jocelyn fell face forward to the pavement. She got up to chase him further into the CC campus where her body was found later with multiple stab wounds. If you trace a direct route between the bars of Tejon Street and Pring-Wilson's house, as a drunk might navigate, you cross Jocelyn Sandberg's car right in the middle. It happened at an hour when Jocelyn was returning from a concert in Boulder, and when a drunk would be turned out from a bar at closing time. And what an unusual scenario for an altercation: knife-wielding pedestrian versus car.
St Patricks Day denoument chronicled
Council must prevent parade pandemonium John Weiss INDY editorial, Dec 6 Largest US Civil Disobedience Movement Underway AfterDowningStreet.org, Dec 6 Ousted protesters unsure of trying luck at St. Patty's parade ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS, Dec 1 City attorney says prosecution is 'not in the public interest' CS GAZETTE, Nov 29 St. Paddy's Day Two off the hook CS INDEPENDENT, Nov 29 City Drops Charges Against Last of St Patrick's Day Protesters KRCC, Nov 28 The St. Patrick's Day Two -After a mistrial, the city decides to retry just a pair CS INDEPENDENT, Oct 4 Two of St. Patty's Day Seven Could Be Retried -Charges dropped for all except Fineron and Verlo CS INDEPENDENT, Sept 27 UPDATE: The Gazette article is still among the top commented. Here's a string of the initial comments, in chronological order: hmmmmm wrote: Well this proves that if you break the law, and they did, and complain and whine enough then you can get off. Very disappointed in our DA on this one. quote “When you consider dragging an old woman across the street and not lifting her up, it’s really hard to see how that’s doing nothing wrong,” Verlo said. end quote. When this "old woman" refuses to get up and follow police orders, Yes they did nothing wrong. It's called the law, and they broke it. 11/28/2007 7:44 PM MST on Gazette.com csaction wrote: No part of this trial was ever in the public's interest and the city prosecutors were the last to see that. Some of the police used excessive force and that ruined their case. The parade rules weren't applied to everyone equally, and that ruined their case. You aren't guilty of obstructing the street when the police throw you down in the street. Explaining that you have a permit to march, just like the year before, is NOT failure to disperse. Allowing every politico in town to make a political statement EXCEPT those with a message of peace, is NOT equal protection under the law. The strangest part of the city's position, other than the obvious lame claim that they could get a conviction but decided not to, is Ms. Kelly's apparent distrust of the legal system: "everything the police did was justified and there was probable cause for an arrest, but getting a conviction is another story". It is NOT another story IF the police did nothing wrong and there WAS probable cause for an arrest, and that's ALL been decided by a jury of their peers when they couldn't prove their case to 6 people in this town. Is she suggesting that the jury system is wrong or that we, the people, are too stupid to see that the police and city are always right, no matter what they do? Does she think we can't sit on a jury and decide the ruling based on the evidence, and get it right? The jury already got it right and the city wanted to intimidate the remaining 2 people with the threat of a trial, until the last minute, to stop them from suing for the police brutality, already proven to a jury. 11/28/2007 7:49 PM MST on
Jena, take your nooses down
John Mellencamp has put out a new video and new song in support of the Jena 6. I think it will be a hit, and hopefully KRCC will begin to play it on a regular basis. Call them up and ask that they do.
Que Viva Colombia!
Pastor Lopez is my favorite religious leader. He was born in Venezuela, but has lived for years in Colombia, too. His religious teachings have inspired millions around the world! Here he is at his best in 'La Tracionera'. We need a more spicier religion than we currently have dominating in the US. If interested more in his teachings, check out Discos Fuentes. I wish that KRCC carry his sermons on air, too. He's hot! And sad to say, KRCC is so not. Too much National Public Radio and BBC, I believe. Colombian music is the best in the world, and the price is right at Discos Fuentes. KRCC, if you got some music from this label then play it? If not, then in=vest$$$ a little and liven your music scene up some. Discos Fuentes. Also, El Indio Pastor Lopez does rap. Pastor Lopez with Dancers in Black. The Absent Son is good, too. Pastor Lopez is defintely the grandfather of Colombian cumbia, and it's too bad he almost can't ever be heard on radio in the US. Some other Colombian hits played by other musicians are Tus Besos son como caramelo, La Burrita, and an older version of La Pendeja with great dancing, Sonora Dinamita with Que Bello. Also, No me toques mi cucu, La Zenaida, and Amor Carnal. Que Viva Colombia! Let's hope that the US doesn't totally mess the country up as it has done with Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Iraq.
Democracy Now on KRCC
This week the Pacifica news program Democracy Now was added to the KRCC lineup on weekdays at 7pm. After listening this week when I could, I came away thinking: for the Colorado Springs community, the sudden juxtaposition of Democracy Now to the regular NPR and BBC-lite news programming has got to be turning some heads. Local critics had anticipated that Democracy Now would perseverate on only the bad and the ugly, but this inaugural week proved very much the opposite. What happened this week? The Democrats ran roughshod over Congress. They introduced some key legislation ahead of their 100 hour pledge, leaving time even for a non-binding resolution on Iraq. In brief, they behaved quite the opposite of how the mainstream media would like to portray Democrats. On NPR, just as on the networks, we were given only brief summaries of what the Dems did. The little interest the reporters paid to the stories played into the inferrence that accomplishments in Congress this week were of little consequence. And the Senate's non-binding resolution damns itself with its ineffectual appellation, if that's all you say about it. Contrast that with Democracy Now's coverage. DN aired Representative Lynn Woolsey's full address on behalf the corresponding bill in the House, the Bring Our Troops Home and Sovereignty of Iraq Restoration Act. To hear her rational and sober words left you wondering how anyone could still think otherwise about what to do in Iraq. American listeners are not accustomed to hearing politicians unspun. These days when a speech such as Rep. Woolsey's reaches the public unfiltered, we think that person should run for president. The media doesn't want to empower politicians like Woolsey if they can help it. Better for Americans to be impressed with TV celebrities than real public servants. And so Democracy Now's reports this week were affirming. They offered the ray of hope that the new House and Senate will move forward in spite of whether the mainstram media, including NPR, make light of their work. I saw NPR's Political Correspondent Mara Liasson speak at Colorado College back in 2004. She spoke about the likely contenders for the Democratic nomination. Asked afterwards why, incredibly, she never once mentioned Dennis Kucinich, she told us it was because she assumed we were interested in the candidates of consequence. Now in Colorado Springs, like over 500 other communities in America in which Democracy Now is airing side by side with NPR, reporters like Mara Liasson are going to know they can't play gatekeeper with the news. Although Fox and the MSM will be there to corroborate the mainstream NPR line, public radio listeners will be hearing other voices, such as Amy Goodman's, pulling the cat from the bag. Increasingly, Mara and company will no longer get to decide for their listeners what persons or which issues are of consequence. Colorado Springs' first week of Democracy Now began with a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The DN special was broadcast live from the media conference in Memphis and
The virtual world of the global marketplace
Wow, look what’s moved in to a prime drive-time slot on our public radio station? National Public Media’s MARKETPLACE. Wow! Filled with corporate press releases designed to stimulate stock values, and commentary designed to give the stimulation a simulation of being in the investor’s interest.
NPR versus Habeas Corpus
Can you imagine an informed American populace without the media telling them what’s happening? Why are your friends and neighbors not able to hear Democracy Now on their radios? In Colorado Springs the gatekeeper is public radio station KRCC.
Progress at the local radio station
The main obstruction to getting Democracy Now aired on KRCC has left the building, unceremoniously let go, hopefully with a restraining order.