News & Public Affairs
Interview with Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Father John Dear
11/20/08 Robert LoreiRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Thursday) Listen to this entire show:
Tags: peace, non-violence, Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., School of the Americas
John Dear is a Jesuit priest, peace activist and the author of more than 20 books including A Persistent Peace, Put Down Your Sword, Transfiguration, You Will Be My Witnesses, Living Peace, The Questions of Jesus and Mohandas Gandhi.
Dear has served as the director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and as a coordinator of chaplains for the Red Cross at the New York Family Assistance Center after 9/11. From 2002-2004, he served as pastor of four churches in New Mexico. He has traveled...
2 commentsLabor journalist: Not so quick on the auto bailout
11/20/08 Robert LoreiRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Thursday) Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Big Three Automakers, UAW, wages, benefits, single payer health care
Good afternoon, welcome to WMNF’s Radioactivity, I’m Rob Lorei. Coming up: we’ll meet a Catholic priest who is one of the country’s leading peace activists, Father John Dear. We’ll also speak with a journalist about the latest on the possible bailout for the auto industry.
But first some listener comments about yesterday’s interview with Steve Yerrid, the lead attorney in the group of Florida lawyers who sued the tobacco industry 10 years ago on behalf of the state of Florida and won $15 b...
Be the first to commentDemand at food banks up 25 percent listen
11/20/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Food banks, economy
As the number of the unemployed rise, the country’s food banks are also struggling to feed more people who are now unemployed or just down on their financial luck.
Today the region’s biggest food bank, America’s Second Harvest of Tampa Bay, conducting its 14th annual Empty Bowls Luncheon at Lykes Gaslight Park.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that food banks historically have depended on donations from food manufacturers and large supermarket chains. But in recent years, produ...
Be the first to commentHoward Dean's influence on the '08 elections listen
11/20/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Howard Dean, Democrats, politics
Howard Dean will soon leave his post as the head of the Democratic National Committee. His tenure was at times controversial, such as his 50 state strategy of investing resources to state parties everywhere, and not just in so called “Blue” States.
In Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, political reporter Matt Bai wrote an article called, “The Other Winner”, in which he detailed how Dean had unleashed new progressives in the party.
WMNF spoke with Bai early Wednesday and asked him ab...
Be the first to commentKeith Ellison interview - Part 2 listen
11/19/08 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Religion, Muslim, Arab issues, CAIR
In 2006, Minnesota’s Keith Ellison became the first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Congress. WMNF’s Seán Kinane spoke with him on Saturday, before the Council on American-Islamic Relations banquet in Tampa. The second half of the interview begins with Rep. Ellison responding to Barack Obama’s first move as president-elect. Obama chose Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff. Emanuel is strongly pro-Israel.
“[I've met with Dr. Al-Arian's family] and I’ll be happy to meet with them again in the futu...
Be the first to commentHomeless Coalition honors heroes listen
11/19/08 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Homelessness
Tampa and the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners have proclaimed this National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week.
Today at its annual meeting, the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County presented its Homeless Hero Awards.
Homeless Coalition Chief Executive Officer Rayme Nuckles pointed out the Coalition’s accomplishments during the past fiscal year, including its high profile public awareness campaign, [Unexpected Faces, Unexpected Places]...
1 commentsTobacco attorney urges state to preserve Trust Fund
11/19/08 Robert LoreiRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Wednesday) Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Steve Yerrid, tobacco, lawsuits, Lawton Chiles Trust Fund
Welcome to WMNF’s Radioactivity. I’m Rob Lorei.
Ten years ago, trial lawyers won billions of dollars from the tobacco companies to help pay for the health care of people who are suffering from lung cancer and other health related diseases. But the money from the 1998 tobacco settlement is propping up state of Florida government and helping balance the state budget. Is that the right use for the money? We’ll talk about that with one of the attorneys who won the lawsuit for the state of Flor...
Be the first to commentFlorida's budget woes to worsen listen
11/19/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: State budget, economy, taxes, polls
Florida’s budget woes are expected to get worse. Later this week, state forecasters are expected to announced that the current budget will fall short by as much as $2 billion.
Florida’s Chief Financial Officer, Alex Sink, has said that the state should hold a Special Session to deal with the worsening crises. New House Speaker Ray Sansome says the state can avoid the cost of a special session by tapping state reserves and dedicating the first two weeks of the regular session to finding de...
1 commentsMatt Bai on Lieberman imbroglio listen
11/19/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Yesterday, Senate Democrats chose not to penalize Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman for his brazen campaigning for Republican John McCain this year.
Democrats voted 42-13 to allow Lieberman to retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.
Although the vote was secret, the Senate’s other Independent member, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, told CNN he was one of the 13 who voted against Lieberman. Sanders has said that while millions of people worked hard for Obama, Lieberman...
Be the first to commentMore on Jim Jones and Jonestown, Part II listen
11/19/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Jim Jones, Guyana, Jonestown Massacre
Last night on the Evening News, we ran the first part of our interview with former San Francisco Examiner reporter Tim Reiterman, author of the definitive book about the Rev. Jim Jones and the tragedy at Jonestown. The book is called “Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People.” The book, originally published in 1982, has been reissued in paperback.
Jim Jones led more than 900 people – part of his church known as the Peoples Temple - to commit mass suicide on Nov. 18t 1...
Be the first to commentCoastal Cities Summit focuses on values and vulnerabilities listen
11/18/08 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Climate change
The 2008 Coastal Cities Summit is under way this week in St. Pete Beach. 250 global experts will address threats faced by coastal cities worldwide, including threats from climate disruption and overdevelopment. This morning’s keynote speaker was Saskia Sassen, professor of Sociology at Columbia University.
“Coastal cities are going to be particularly strategic. They will become vanguard spaces in order to handle some of these challenges.”
Sassen compared the...
Be the first to commentSarasota County tries to woo Baltimore Orioles listen
11/18/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Sarasota County, Boston Red Sox, baseball training facility, Baltimore Orioles, sports
After striking out on a deal that might have brought the Boston Red Sox to Sarasota to play their spring training games, public officials now have their eyes on wooing the Baltimore Orioles to the area.
The Sarasota County Commission today approved a plan to continue discussions to potentially increase a tourist tax -- levied on hotel rooms and condo rentals up to six months -- to 4 percent from 3 percent, reserving half those revenues for a stadium project.
The tentative costs for a ...
Be the first to commentCivil rights group reports rise in hate crimes
11/18/08 Robert LoreiRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Tuesday) Listen to this entire show:
Tags: racism, Barack Obama, KKK, Neo Nazi'
Good afternoon, welcome to WMNF's Radioactivity. I’m Rob Lorei.
Since Barack Obama’s election to the presidency two weeks ago, there has been a wave of hate crimes and incidents of racial intimidation, according to our next guest, Mark Potok, director of the intelligence project at the Southern Poverty Law center in Montgomery, Alabama.
Potok says the crimes are committed by a small subset of white America, that they don't foretell a race war, but they do cause his group concern. Mark ...
5 commentsJonestown revisited 30 years later listen
11/18/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Jim Jones, Jonestown Massacre
Thirty years ago today, more than 900 members of what was known as the Peoples Temple died from apparent cyanide poisoning in an event termed a "revolutionary suicide" by the Rev. Jim Jones in the South American nation of Guyana.
The event became known simply as “Jonestown,” and it was a horrific incident that is still unsettling three decades later.
The poisonings in Jonestown followed the murder of five others by Temple members at a nearby airstrip. The victims included Congressman L...
Be the first to commentHillsborough County Commission welcomes new member listen
11/18/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Hillsborough County Commission, indigent health care
An overflow crowd jammed into the County Center for the Hillsborough County Commissioner’s Investiture Ceremony this morning.
Many in the audience were there to see newly elected Democrat Kevin Beckner officially take office. Beckner was administered the oath by recently elected Hillsborough County Judge Caroline Tesche.
Beckner was a complete unknown in Hillsborough politics when he announced nearly two years ago that he was going to challenge Brian Blair in 2008. He ran a grassroots ...
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