West Virginia interaction: JohnCase responds to Senator Manchin…

 

My good friend and radio personality John Case received an e-mail from Senator Joe Manchin (D – WV) which, to all appearances, supports many of the subjects which we on the left do as well. John points out that this is a ruse… and, of course, with an election coming in November, Joe is trying to make himself look OK to Democrats.

 

Here’s the correspondence:

 

On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 9:27 PM, Joe Manchin <info@joemanchinwv.com> wrote:
Dear John:

West Virginia is still recovering from the storms that did so much damage these past few weeks. The power is back on, but families lost their groceries, saw their fuel expenditures rise, and many, many people lost pay because businesses weren’t operating. What more evidence do we need that American infrastructure needs improvement?
 
But in the middle of our suffering in West Virginia, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it had awarded a $94 million contract to provide reliable electricity for Helmand Province, Afghanistan. That’s right – while thousands of West Virginians were without power just a short drive away, the federal government decided it would be a good idea to spend all that money halfway around the world to buy electricity for a country that doesn’t even want our help.
 
I went to the Senate floor and I let my colleagues know that I am very frustrated and angry about this, and that I’m not going to just sit by and watch Washington treat West Virginia like it’s less important than Afghanistan. Now that West Virginia is officially asking for federal disaster recovery help, I’d like the folks in Washington to hear what you have to say, too.
 
Add your name to my petition and leave your thoughts for the record on my website.
 
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you build a bridge in West Virginia, we won’t blow it up. If you build a school, we won’t burn it down. In fact, we’ll be very appreciative. And if you help us invest in a more reliable electric system, we will use that power to make this country stronger, to power this nation’s economy, and to provide good-paying jobs.

-Joe

 

John’s response:

 

I am sorry, Senator Manchin, but — while I am glad you are opposed to further unnecessary expenditures in Afghanistan — I will not support you for re-election. I believe that candidates who espouse, as you do, Republican talking points on energy, the president, climate change, and other matters should be defeated. I will not vote Republican — so I am not planing to vote for you.

I think voters who are tempted by racism or ignorance, or simple misinformation about the future of coal and the its costs/benefits to West Virginia, to vote for you — should really get to enjoy the full consequences of Republican policies you are pursuing — why get it half-baked and stale from you, or Gov. Tomblin for that matter. Get the full dose of political poison!

By the way — I have a radio program on weekday mornings in Shepherdstown. Maybe I have it all wrong! Feel free to call in to WSHC Listen Live  line from 8-9 AM Tues thru Friday, 304-876-5369, if you would like to discuss this.

very truly yours,

John Case

Host, The Winners and  Losers Radio Program
WSHC, 89.7 FM / 897wshc.org
Shepherdstown, WV

 

Of course, the odds of Joe Manchin calling into the Winners and Losers radio show are greatly weighted to “no show.” John is correct that this so-called Democrat really seems to be a Republican (as does Earl Ray Tomblin) – from not supporting the President in the Senate to publicly affirming that he will NOT attend the Democratic Convention.

 

Thanks for making this correspondence public, John.

Related articles

• I’m really tired of hearing how Obama is costing WV coal jobs. Not True! (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
• Jay, Manchin ask Obama to OK state disaster request (wvgazette.com)
• Why Joe Manchin Flees From Barack Obama (powerlineblog.com)
• Manchin to skip Democratic National Convention (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
• Top West Virginia Democrats RSVP ‘No’ to DNC Convention (nymag.com)
• W.Va. Dem brass skipping DNC (politico.com)
• Some Democrats to skip their convention (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
• Manchin Questions Afghan Aid After Mass Power Outage at Home (wsaz.com)
• Manchin links state storm outages to Afghan aid (wvgazette.com)

 

I’ll be on the radio alone tomorrow morning…

John Case just called to tell me he and his wife are going camping in Pennsylvania and I’ll be doing our joint show, Friday Winners and Losers, alone tomorrow.

If you want to tune in and you are within 50 or so miles of Shepherdstown, WV, it’s 89.7 on the FM dial.

If you are from anywhere else in the great wide world, go to http://897wshc.org and tune in from there.

To my readers: sorry for such a late start today…

I didn’t get any sleep last night – half an hour at the most – and then I had to go in to cover for John Case on the early morning show on WSHC. When I got home around 9:45, I fell asleep for the rest of the morning until two barking dogs decided to tell me it was lunch time.

Anyway… I haven’t browsed the news yet, or figured out what is going on for the rest of the day. Tomorrow we are going to DC to see a production of The Taming Of The Shrew with our friend’s Linda and Cecil. Oh yes, I’ll still be doing the Saturday morning radio show, but we’re on the sports-related short schedule tomorrow, so the show will be from 1o – 11 AM.

If I can get to bed early tonight I’ll be all ready for WSHC… and this blog… in the morning as usual.

Working on “Lefty”

Hopefully, we are getting closer to John Case finishing his first draft of the adaptation of Odets’ “Waiting for Lefty” we have committed to. My job will then be revisions and adding the music to it.

We’re updating it to get closer to the current day/ current protests of the Occupy Movement.

Sometime this summer we’ll audition,cast and perform it at The Folly on it’s great outdoor stage:

I haven’t had a chance to direct anything since 2009, so this is going to be fun for me… get me up off my butt and back into action.

Everything is behind today… I’m walking an uneasy line…

This is how I feel...

I was supposed to be at WSHC at 7:30 this morning to cover for John Case until 9:00 AM, but somehow I missed the alarm and slept too late… and if Ralph Petrie hadn’t called at 8:30 to see where John was I never would have gotten in.

At 7:55 I was on the air and my regular callers (especially Ralph, whose birthday is today… Happy Birthday, Ralph) started ringing in. I held the show an extra half hour to make up for the lateness.

I had a therapist’s appointment a little later… then I got home, fed the dogs and, dammit, fell asleep until 4:00 PM. Now I’m getting a really late start on my house packing and kitchen cleaning, etc.

We’re supposed to be trucking the furniture and boxes to the new house on Saturday and Sunday. We’ll never make it!

And I’ve got to be on with John at 7:30 tomorrow morning.

Take a break…

A wonderful film for a Wednesday Night:

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

This has been nominated for a short film Academy Award and I think it is surely worth it. Make sure to watch it at full screen.

Have a great time… more fun than watching politicians.
For those of you who are my radio listeners I’ll be on WSHC (89.7 FM) tomorrow morning from 7:30 AM to 9:00 AM substituting for John Case(on the web at http://www.897wshc.org).

Are you ever too old to be creative?

Although it is Friday the thirteenth, this may be an unusually lucky day for me. I’m sitting over in Mellow Moods with John Case (post our 7:30 – 9:00 AM radio show on WSHC) where we are meeting on a proposed revision of Clifford Odets‘ Waiting for Leftywhich we are framing

CraftWorks

inside the Occupy Movement. With music, yet.

Later this morning I have an appointment at CraftWorks over in Charles Town WV where they are looking for a part-time guy with arts administration experience (like me) who’s willing to be paid for ten hours at a low rate but actually work for twenty or thirty. A retired guys’ dream. I hope I do well at the interview… had a good conversation with their Director yesterday.

A Lubalin Masterpiece

I started getting interested in doing some type-oriented graphic design work, something I haven’t really done since the U-Design years in Hartford. One way to get inspired for that is to ramble through the works of my favorite graphic designer, Herb Lubalin. He’s been dead for three decades now (he died on MY BIRTHDAY, May 24), but many of his designs and logos are still being used and much of his work will live forever.rpiece

Bradley Sanders

I get such a thrill out of seeing what Lubalin did with type (he’s one of the reasons I started designing typefaces in the 80s… Avant Garde kicked me over the edge when I saw what letters could do when they interact.)  I’m going to work on a couple of experimental pieces… one supporting my Saturday show on WSHC… then see if any of the local non-profits are willing to giver me a try.

I saw Bradley Sanders of the Folly when John and I came into the Mood earlier and told him I’d like to learn how to weld. I have some ideas for metal sculpture that I’d like to carry out and Bradley was encouraging. One more thing to keep from the boredom of retirement.

So at 65 I’m getting ready to move ahead.

Related articles

• Design for drugs in NYC. Exhibition will explore the graphic world of pharmaceutical products (eyemagazine.com)
• Graphic Designers (rrobinson92.wordpress.com)
• Beautiful old school typography by Herb Lubalin (lostateminor.com)

Just got back from WSHC…

Hard to believe, but I substituted for John Case on this mornings Winners and Losers show on WSHC radio. Thankfully, Shepherd U. police came over to unlock the door at Knutti Hall and let me into the studio, where I spent the morning playing Thanksgiving songs (mostly about Turkeys) and talking about what I was thankful for.

At 2:00 we’ll be over at my Daughter Penny’s for Thanksgiving dinner. However, right now I’m watching the Macy’s Parade, which I try never to miss (back when I lived in NYC, I always tried to see it live and in person… a great event.)

Shepherdstown is pretty dead right now… most of the students from Shepherd are home for the weekend and most of the businesses are closed. No street parking problems, though… just nowhere to go.

Happy Thanksgiving, all. Be kind to an Indian today… and apologetic.

And don’t go to any stores that start Black Friday today. They are un-American.

An Essay by my good friend John Case…

Debt-ceiling Showdown: A test of Sanity

by John Case

John Case on WSHC's "Winners and Losers"

The so-called “debt ceiling” crisis is upon us. Unless the amount the US can  borrow is raised, a second financial crisis looms,  partial default on our  debts,  the furlough of 800,000 federal workers and contractors, cancelled
checks to millions of social security and medicare and medicaid clients, and a host of other evils. Th president has said his young children are performing better on their homework, than leaders in the Republican dominated House are on theirs. He’s called for all to leave ideology at the door as he convenes them again at the White House tomorrow. But the only ‘ideologists’ are the so-called Tea Party fanatics, who act as witting or unwitting flunkies for reactionary Ag-biz, Energy, Defense and some of Wall street interests — those planning to make a killing by ‘shorting’ the whole
economy as it tanks again — while striving to distract everyone with racist and nativist ‘dialogs’, keeping women barefoot and pregnant and calling it ‘religion’, and tagging unions not banks for the deepening crisis.

Its becoming a test of sanity how long it takes all reasonable people to conclude that the Republican party has painted its teeth orange, turned right, and jumped off a cliff, to mangle an old Dylan lyric. Conservative NY Times columnist David Brooks calls a) threatening to bring on another financial crisis and “stain the honor of our country” over  debt,  and b) refusing to raise any tax whatsoever — acts that voters will and should repudiate.

“If the debt ceiling talks fail, independents voters will see that Democrats were willing to compromise but Republicans were not. If responsible Republicans don’t take control, independents will conclude that Republican fanaticism caused this default. They will conclude that Republicans are not fit to govern. And they will be right”

Joseph Stiglitz

Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says the problem runs deeper than psychological challenges of leading Republicans. He calls the showdown over debt ceiling and the obsession of right wing leaders with even more austerity,  alongside the stubborn refusal of the rich to pay even a penny tax —  “the ideological crisis of western capitalism”.

What has happened is that the entire trickle-down, free market fundamentalist premises that began with the Reagan Administration and drove financialization for the past 30 years have been proven utterly false. Some call it neo-liberalism. In any event — its failing. Those clinging to the hollowed out ideology appear less and less lucid and more narcissistic. On a personal level, If not treated, this can become a personality disease we call “sociopathic behavior” — a life without conscience or sensitivity to any other beings.

The path ahead is toward more socialism to protect a fair distribution of wealth, and to restrain super high risk private corporate behavior and concentration, of power. “Too Big to Fail” means “Too Big to Remain in Private Control.”

More socialism does not mean the end of capitalism or markets. Competitive markets — that regulation insures remain competitive! — are democratizing. They are one known key to efficient — meaning productivity-enhancing — commodity production. They are an important, although hardly the only, factor in encouraging innovation.

Every generation re-invents and reproduces almost every facet of both public and private institutions and all relations of production and exchange, including social classes and the interactions of public and private
property. The “more socialism” of the next generation will not be the same public institutions that arose in the big 20th century expansion of public sector activities across the world. It will be smarter, more scientific, more resilient and less bureaucratic or centralized. We will find the ways to make public institutions and services more accountable to,, and closer partners with, the people they serve. And it will be global in scope.

I predict sanity will prevail. We will make it through this storm, as a people, though I cannot say what the toll may be, except that all will be changed. There are crazed Captain Ahabs on the decks of our ships, and they are obsessed with a whale of their imagination, when a tsunami of monumental dimensions is approaching starboard.

Related articles

• Let’s Put Our Thinking Caps On, and Really Try to Figure Out the Best Way to Respond to This Argument (coordinationproblem.org)
• Stiglitz: The Ideological Crisis of Western Capitalism (economistsview.typepad.com)
• White House Debt Ceiling Summit Aims for Grand Deficit Bargain (usnews.com)
• Editorial: Make a deal on raising debt ceiling (knoxnews.com)
• Inequality Dampening Economic Recover (ritholtz.com)
• Politics hamper efforts to solve world’s debt crisis (theglobeandmail.com)

Looks like I’m doing WINNERS AND LOSERS on WSHC tomorrow morning…

…since I haven’t heard from John Case. Guess he’s still in Canada. Oh well, this will round out my week.

I’m going over blues music and such here tonite… and making a list of political stuff to talk about in case anyone calls in to the show (Mark or Dino or Ralph).

By the way… you can listen to the show on line. Just go to http://www.897wshc.org and click on “Listen to WSHC Live”.  To call in to the show dial 304-876-5369 anytime between 7:30 and 9:00 AM when I’m on the air.

There’s also the chance that John will walk in during the show and I can turn over the reins and the door key to the real host of the show (and get some sleep on weekday mornings!)

A piece from my friend and Friday radio partner John Case:

This is from John’s daily mailing. You can reach him at socialist-economics@googlegroups.com.

Thoughts on Left criticism of Obama:

The Left press and blogosphere is rife with analyses on the mistakes of the
Obama administration that allegedly ’caused’ the Republican resurgence in the mid-term elections. Chiefly Obama’s stimulus effort is scored as half-hearted, less than half the amount needed using the most precise Keynesian calculations. And from the perspective of Hyman Minsky’s Post-Keynesian followers, the absence of a strong employer of last resort strategy gravely threatens a country’s ability to recover stability or sustainable growth from the chaos of a ‘government-constrained great depression’ (the more accurate term for this crisis than ‘the great recession’).

On the social safety net front, increasing the economic rights of the American people, Obama’s (and Pelosi’s and Harry Reid’s, Chris Dodd’s and Barney Frank’s) accomplished reforms in health care and finance are seen as compromised by excessive concessions to corporate interests. It has shocked some to discover, or re-discover, some of the basics of class politics in this era of giant transnational corporations. To left and even most liberal thinking forces, the ideological arguments for universal health care and for more constrained and sustainable financial markets disciplined to more useful investment strategies seem unassailable, stronger than ever from an historical perspective. The uneven but nonetheless unmistakable worldwide advance of objective socialization processes in the global economy and national economies are strongly reflected in the ever increasing degree and sophistication of regulation in markets, and in the advancing sector of public and quasi public goods, including infrastructure, in advanced economies. More and more these processes have the tinge of inevitability, though we should have learned to be careful of such appearances. They are grounded in both technological and interconnected social evolution, especially the division and re-division of labor. Given the vast transformations in the class and occupational diversification since the 18th century dawn of capitalism, it’s likely a longstanding idealist tendency on the left that seeks to reduce them by referring to capitalism as single system throughout, even though certain features certainly persist.

The socialization tendency, for example, regardless how inevitable it may be, paradoxically makes corporations and the rich ever more “dependent upon the public sector for essential services and infrastructure”, and “thus” in proportion, ever “more — not less” — fierce in their efforts to manipulate and dominate public institutions This is obviously an inherently corrupting process however and thus compels — again, and not for the first time — a no less fierce defense of democracy and democratic institutions. The expansion of democratic rights — i.e. “entitlements” — inherently challenges unjustified wealth inequality. Yet some on the left draw a different conclusion, namely, that democratic struggle in all state and public institutions is a dead end, and the president’s departure from the ideal an illustration of this, rather than simply a testimony to its difficulties, and importance.

In foreign policy, Obama’s efforts to “draw down” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been excoriated as false and dishonest and, indeed, simply a continuation of 20th Century imperial policies. In most cases critics decline to place the president’s ‘defects’ in context of what is politically possible given the balance of forces in and between Congress, state legislatures and governors, the Supreme Court, and not least — the armed forces and their institutions and vast economic clientele. “Out Now!”, “Jobs Now”, “nationalize the banks” are slogans that epitomize these tendencies. They prefer instead to measure his performance ideological standards. Even the most trenchant and credible critics of the president’s ‘compromises’ — such as Paul Krugman — frequently preface their objections with “….it’s unknown if a better bill was politically feasible, but…..”. The “but” usually includes the argument that its better to hold a more pure, but failed, position, than legislate a piece of sausage which most folks would prefer not to inspect too closely.

The problem with the hatred or disgust of sausage making is that all legislation, in fact all governing, is really like sausage making. The problem with primarily ideological objections to the president is that they are too often distractions from the harder mobilizing and organizing activity that’s at the heart of the challenges to move the democratic restructuring agenda forward, and send its enemies to the dustbin of history. To expect any elected president to fall on his or her sword is, well, foolish.

More sober analysis, it seems to this writer, points out that the weaknesses in the stimulus response, the reforms, and the setbacks in the mid-term elections are, more than ever, calls to arms at the grass roots. Overcoming the corrupting forces of monopoly corporations and their owners on the political process needs exponentially more horsepower from the bottom up. The failure and nullification of existing democratic institutions, “the spread of ungovernability,” are the greatest threat posed by both the current assaults from the Right, the arrogance of the military, and especially the failure of existing institutions to effectively counter the economic crisis. It’s an opportunity for the Left, broadly speaking, that has not presented itself since at least the Sixties, and perhaps even the Great Depression. But seizing the opportunity means a strategic re-focus on breaking out of its electoral and governing isolation, breaking out of the political sidelines.

Local power is the chief link the chain of tactics I think we need to grasp, to borrow Lenin’s famous metaphor. It’s not the only link, but the one most accessible to us given the organizational chaos on the Left. And the essence of the challenge in local electoral battles is how to galvanize, neighborhood by neighborhood, workplace by workplace, majority coalitions of workers, nationally and racially oppressed, women, youth, seniors, small business, democratically minded intellectuals and liberal corporate interests that expand the mandate of local government to take aggressive action on the immediate needs of the people, AND become much more foundations on which to force state-wide and, in turn, national institutions to turn back demagogic and corrupted attacks and address the key problems.

In some ways I am convinced that the organizational chaos is largely a product of our relative electoral isolation — and thus isolation from the real vicissitudes of exercising working people’s great power.

jcase

It’s Tuesday and I have nothing on my calendar…

It looks like we’ll have another rain this morning… it will last all day. Probably tomorrow as well. By Thursday we should be back to a sunny day and it will get to be a little warmer (we’re in the 50° area now) and be up in the 60°-plus somewhere.

In a few minutes I’ll be out walking the dogs, then I can bring up my dry laundry, empty the clean dishes from the washer and add in the dirty dishes and get them started. I’ll vacuum up dog hair on the living room rug today and clean off the kitchen floor, too.

I’ve just finished making a new pot of French Roast coffee and it’s almost 10:00 AM. I was in bed until 8:30 as it was, then listened to the radio for a while hearing the end of John Case‘s interview with Delegate Doyle. Tomorrow he has candidate Dunleavy, who is running as an independent for County Commissioner, someone I am very interested in. This is John’s politics week before he leaves early… I’ll be covering the show alone on Friday morning and I’m planning what I’ll be doing on it. Right now I’m not sure.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great Tuesday no matter what the weather brings us.

OK…”Thurber Carnival” is over and the stage has been cleared off.

And we’re all putting things away or getting them stacked in places to be carried home by the various owners who donated props and furniture. Shutting down the light booth was about the easiest part of the gig. Those that eat pizza (the non-vegans) are eating the delivery from Dominoes and things are winding down all over.

I don’t think I’ll be working another show until February… I’m not going to work on “Christmas Carol” in November as I have some conflicts (it opens the day after Thanksgiving which is also the day after my Wife’s birthday and we will probably be making plans since she has a couple of days off from teaching at that time. Anyway, I’ve informed the powers that be that I won’t be doing lights in November.

Now I’m just waiting for John Case to give me a ride home… I know my dogs are waiting to be walked as Elly is out at a meeting and won’t be back for a couple of more hours. I’m sure they’ll be jumping all over the place when I get back.

After the radio show and we’re having coffee at Mellow Moods…

John Case and I are enjoying our post-show coffee over on German Street as we watch Phil work like a demon to service his customers (including getting our two bagels toasted). Right now none of his help are around and he is working like a mad man… impressive!

Today I’m finishing up my search for a sale of my dead car for parts. So far the best offer is at Brown’s for $200.00… I’m still hoping that one more guy who is looking for an Echo motor might come through and buy the car to retrofit. I gave him two days and this is the third, so I’ll call him. Whatever I get from the parts goes into paying for Linda Bartash’s Subaru.

Tonite starts the second and final weekend of Thurber Carnival… John says their brushup rehearsal was pretty good last night. I skipped it… the director said she didn’t need lights for the rehearsal. Just as well, since I was exhausted last night. Maybe we’ll have some audience, too. Full Circle does a really bad job of promoting shows and a 10 or 12 person audience in a 90 seat house is not unusual. We hit 30 on  the Sunday matinee last week and that was the best house so far.

OK…have a great Friday. The rain has stopped here and the sun is out…first time in a couple of days…and I want to enjoy it.

Related Articles

• It looks like I may buy Linda Bartash’s Subaru Outback… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
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• Doctors and Nurses Are Fueled by Coffee (webmd.com)

Depressing morning…

(Post has been UPDATED BELOW)

I’m waiting to hear from Brown’s Automotive on what’s wrong with my car. They told me on the phone that it might be a head gasket problem, which John Case informs me might just mean a dead car. It will be pretty expensive to get it running again and, as usual, I don’t know where the money will come from. The car used just about all of my Social Security money last month. My wife says we can’t afford that again… and besides, these little ischemic attacks I have that I’m getting tested for may come to mean that they won’t let me drive anyway. My existence is getting much smaller.

I have to arrange rides and pickups to get through my lighting commitment to Thurber Carnival. That’s not too difficult. Several of the cast members drive near my home when they come in to rehearsal or the show and I can get picked up or dropped off after. I just wish it were over with and I had one less thing on my mind.

It may be getting to be time to end this blog. It’s something I’m thinking seriously about right now. It takes a lot of energy and focus to keep it up… I’ve been doing it for six years, starting when I was actually gainfully employed and feeling pretty good about everything, and operating now in a place where I wasn’t able to get reemployed and had to retire earlier than I wanted to and my health is starting to take a dive. The blog is just one more thing… It doesn’t bring in enough money from font sales to do more than buy a couple of bottles of seltzer every other month and it doesn’t have any effect on changing the depressing politics and middle-class decline in this country. As one of that middle class that has suffered the decline, I don’t see a way out of it (unless a big move to hire carless 64-year-olds pops up somewhere around Shepherdstown, WV, where I am now trapped.)

I’ll make a decision on the blog in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, I’m going to start looking through my stuff to see what I can put up on eBay.

____________________________________

UPDATE: 11:48 AM

Brown’s has an estimate of at least $1500.00 and maybe up to $2000.00 on my car (they won’t know until they take the engine apart.) I called and left a message on my wife’s office machine with the price, but I’m pretty sure we can’t handle it and it looks like I’m going to be permanently without a car.

If I was depressed before, it is a deep pit now.

Related Articles

• Watching a “Thurber Carnival” Rehearsal… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
• My Car will now not be done until noon tomorrow… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
• Jon Hamm Suffered From Chronic Depression. (perezhilton.com)
• Depression: 10 Traps to Avoid (cbsnews.com)
• Should You Disclose Depression To Your Employer? [Working It Out] (jezebel.com)

My Car will now not be done until noon tomorrow…

…and I remain trapped at home. John Case is going to pick me up at 6:30 AM to get to the radio show setup at Mellow Moods (you can listen from 7:30 to 9:00 AM on WSHC 89.7) and I assume he’ll drop me off at Brown’s Auto Repair after the show.

It seems the new water pump (another part I didn’t know about) wasn’t delivered until late today and the guy working on my car won’t have everything back together until the late morning. This will only add hourly charges and watch the whole thing go beyond the $1200.00 they estimated yesterday.

That blows my evening out of the water, too. I was going to go to the Thurber Carnival rehearsal at Full Circle tonite to work on the lighting plot… looks like the next rehearsal I’ll be able to get to is Monday.  John is going to express my regrets to the Director, as he has to be at rehearsal at 7 PM. They haven’t run both acts in sequence and I have plenty of time to get the lighting down.

And life goes on…

Trapped without a car…

I was supposed to meet with Candi from the American Conservation Film Festival this morning, but without a car I’m trapped at home. We’ve rearranged our meeting as a telephone conversation as opposed to coffee at Mellow Moods.

I suppose I could walk the mile and a half to get to Mellow Moods, but it would also require a walk back and my exercise program isn’t up to that yet… the hills would kill me.

John Case just called to say that Winners and Losers will be broadcast from Mellow Moods tomorrow morning and if my car isn’t out of the shop he’ll pick me up. At least I can still do the radio. I have a 1:45 doctor’s appointment in Hagerstown that Elly has to drive me to anyway because they are doing a test that requires sedation and I couldn’t drive after it anyway.

So I’m waiting for Candi’s ten o’clock call… just me and the dogs.

Watching a “Thurber Carnival” Rehearsal…

I’m over at Full Circle Theater (Shepherdstown) tonite watching a rehearsal of Thurber Carnival, picking up a script and a (preliminary) lighting cue sheet and having a talk with Melinda, the Director.

I’m doing the lighting for this one and my Friday morning Radio Buddy, John Case, is in the cast.

The fuzzy picture has John in the second from left position (sorry about that, I used the camera in my laptop with rehearsal lights).

This show opens next month and I’ll have more on it later.

Just got back from the Friday morning broadcast with John Case…

I did my regular Friday morning broadcast with John Case’s show (Winners And Losers) on WSHC 89.7 FM this morning. No special guests, but lots of discussion on Afghanistan, Greece, The Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones, Theatre, Movies (Robin Hood especially) and anything else which jumped out at us from the internet.

I’m getting used to this and learning how to work the equipment so John can take a break one of these Fridays.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun this morning and it is amazing how fast an hour and a half goes by.

Here’s a message from my friend John Case…

If you are near Shepherdstown, WV tomorrow in the late morning, here’s something you may be interested in attending. This is from my Friday Morning radio friend, John Case, and I pass it on to you:

Hello Friends.

I know many of you may be busy. And I also know financial reform is a thorny topic not easy to get ones mind around — even after you read the economic literature!

However, there is no issue before Congress and the administration more crucial than financial reform. Failing it, one cannot name another challenge after it that will not be fraught with great peril of another collapse, and a descent from a Great Recession — to a Great Depression 2.

Please join me for a lunch time street corner conversation lunchtime hour at the corner of German and King streets in Shepherdstown. The link below is a flyer endorsed by the President as a guide for talking and understanding whats going on in Congress on financial reform. We will have a 100 copies, plus some stickers. Lets meet at Mellow Moods at 11:AM, Thursday. Tomorrow! Then converse on the square for lunch!

Both WV Senators are on board — but neighbor to neighbor calls to Senator Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, the man who will lead the charge to block reform, will not hurt the cause.

LINK: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/wsrinfo/

Senator McConnell
601 W. Broadway
Room 630
Louisville, KY 40202
Phone: (502) 582-6304

Cheers

John Case

I’ll be there, camera in hand (I usually get to Mellow Moods around 10:30 AM).

I’m on the radio again tomorrow…

I’ll be on the radio with John Case tomorrow morning from 7:30 to 9:00 AM. Tune in to WSHC FM (the Shepherd University station), at 89.7. If you can’t get it on your radio you can listen in from the station’s web site.

I don’t know what we’re talking about or who the guest is, if any. Tune in and find out.

I’m off to be John Case’s CoHost this morning…

In a little under an hour from the time I’m posting this I’ll be on the Winners and Losers program with John Case at WSHC FM (89.7 on our local dial).

If you are not a local, you can get the program at WSHC’s on-line site. Go to:
http://897wshc.org/listenlive.html and listen in.

I’ll be on until 9:30 AM. Hope you get to listen in.

I’m going to be John Case’s Regular Guest on his Friday Morning Radio Show

If you want to hear me probably make a fool of myself, you can tune into the Friday Morning Winners and Losers program with John Case at WSHC FM (89.7 on our local dial in the Panhandle). He has guest hosts the other four weekdays but he had no one for Fridays from 7:30 to 9:00 AM Eastern Time, so he asked me.

If you are not a local, you can get the program at WSHC’s on-line site. Go to:
http://897wshc.org/listenlive.html and listen in.

John and I will be joined by Dr David Baltiera from Harpers Ferry Medical Center to talk about health care challenges going forward since the enactment of the recent reform legislation.

Hope to hear from you afterwards… BT

Just got back from being on the radio.

This is too early in the morning for me to really get moving, but, that being said, I was on WSHC-FM Radio on John Case’s Winners and Losers Program. Laura and Rudy Bakin and Alan Harner (and of course John Case) sang a smidgen of the “thimbles variations” from Hunting Of The Snark on the air and we got to talk about the show with Case and his buddy John Reed.

I don’t know how we sounded, but I guess I’ll hear about it at rehearsal tonite.

We’ll be on the radio early tomorrow morning…

John Case, who plays The Butcher in The Hunting of the Snark at Full Circle Theater, also has a weekday morning show on WSHC-FM (89.7) in Shepherdstown. He’s invited some cast members to sing a little from the show and me to talk about it (with Ruth Raubertas, our music Director).

He comes on at 7:30 AM and runs til 8:00 AM… I don’t know where we’ll be in there, but we are supposed to show up in the stucio at 7:30.

If you get the chance, listen in.