News & Public Affairs
Grand jury recommends beefed-up anti-corruption laws, but will the state legislature actually listen? listen
12/30/10 Kate BradshawWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: State legislature, ethics, grand jury, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, FWC, Fish and Wildlife, Mike Fasano
A state grand jury has affirmed something that Carl Hiaasen fans already know: Florida politics is rife with corruption. Yesterday the Florida Attorney General’s Office issued a report from the Nineteenth Statewide Grand Jury on Corruption. The panel said corruption is rampant at all levels of government.
When it comes to corruption convictions, Florida was number one in the nation between 1998 and 2007. The Sunshine State saw 800 in that time. New York State was a runner-up at 700. That’s...
2 commentsAtheists: Sheriff donation of jail hoops to churches unconstitutional listen
12/29/10 Kate BradshawWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: separation of church and state, first amendment, religious freedom, evangelical Christians, Bartow, Polk County, atheists
Last week, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd sent out a small barrage of press releases touting the removal of county jail basketball hoops. He re-installed them at local churches. The move is drawing fire from a range of critics, including atheists.
In the middle of last week Sheriff Judd invited the press to come take photos of him dismantling basketball hoops at Central County Jail in Bartow. Then he installed the sports equipment at a nearb...
7 commentsDo Death Panels Already Deny Americans Medical Treatment?
12/29/10 Robert LoreiRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Wednesday) Listen to this entire show:
Tags: death panels, privatized Medicaid, Florida, Alisa Wilson, David Lillesand, Rick Scott, Jeb Bush
Good afternoon, welcome to Radioactivity. I’m Rob Lorei.
A young mother dies in north Florida- waiting for a private insurance company to approve her liver transplant. The approval never came- leaving behind a family including a ten year old son. Is this an example of a death panel? We’ll talk about it in a few minutes.
But first some listener comments about yesterday’s program. Here’s what some listeners had to say on the topics of donations to WMNF, program changes, and yesterday’s g...
Be the first to commentIslamophobia: The Network Behind The New McCarthyism?
12/28/10 Robert LoreiRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Tuesday) Listen to this entire show:
Tags: McCarthyism, Islamophobia, Peter King, Max Blumenthal, TomDispatch, Pamela Geller
Good afternoon, welcome to Radioactivity. I'm Rob Lorei. On the first part of today's program we'll have open phones. In the second part of today's program an interview with journalist Max Blumenthal about what may be this era's New McCarthyism.
Recently AHA reported:
Be the first to comment"Incoming House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Peter King (R-NY) says he will launch investigations into radical Islam as part of his mandate to "protect our homeland from the te...
Derrick Jensen interview special
12/27/10 Jon ButtsRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Friday) Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Derrick Jensen, climate change
Today’s guest really lit up the phones! We were very happy to have Derrick Jensen join the Sustainable Living program. Derrick’s an acclaimed author of “A Language Older than Words” and “The Culture of Make Believe” plus many more. He’s also a teacher, small farmer, inspiring speaker, organizer, and environmentalist. His message is that our civilization is killing us and the natural world; and, we need to stop this by using the same means they (politicians & CEOs) are using on us. Somehow we...
Be the first to commentWalter Dean Myers Extended Interview
12/27/10 by Dawn Morgan ElliottWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: military, Viet Nam War, reading, writing, incarceration, juvenile
Walter Dean Myers is an award-winning author of young adult fiction and non-fiction. His novels cover serious topics like poverty, incarceration and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, all from the perspective of a young protagonist enduring the experiences. Dean Myers was born in West Virginia in 1937 and raised in Harlem by family friends. Raised in poverty, he join the Army in the late 60’s and was touched by the war in Vietnam. He begins the interview talking about his home in 1950’s Harlem....
Be the first to commentBig Citizenship: Extended Interview
12/27/10 Dawn Morgan ElliottWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: AmeriCorps, volunteering
Alan Khazei is a proponent for national service. He has spent over 20 years trying to build a comprehensive national service system in the United States, which he sees as a pillar of a working democracy. As co-founder of City Year in Boston, which came to be the model for the federal AmeriCorps program, Khazei has helped millions of people help serve their country domestically.
His book, Big Citizenship: How Pragmatic Idealism Can Bring Out the Best in Americawas published this summer. ...
Be the first to commentScience Challenge 2011
12/27/10 Dawn Morgan ElliottWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: science, books, reading, education, nonfiction
Former physicist Jeff Shaumeyer worried about American culture excluding the sciences. So in 2004, he began a company called Ars Hermenuetica in an effort to encourage science literacy.
Shaumeyer implemented the Science Reading challenge a few years later, an attempt to inspire average Americans to read popular science.
Be the first to comment"It came about when I noticed some online blogging fri...
Factory Girls: Extended Interview
12/27/10 By Dawn Morgan ElliottWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: China, labor, factories, women's issues
Leslie T. Chang is a former Wall Street Journal correspondent who lived in and wrote about China for a decade. She wrote her 2008 book, Factory Girls, to give a face to the approximately 130 million Chinese migrants who make all the stuff that fill up American stores and closets.
Two young female faces are at the heart of Chang’s story. They belong to women who willingly traded in rural village life in hopes of fruitful futures in China’s industrial meccas.
Be the first to comment"One is named Lu Qingmin ...
The Plight and Promise of Africa
12/27/10 Produced by Dawn Morgan ElliottWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Africa, Eckerd College, Darfur, Sudan
The Plight and Promise of Africa was an educational and global awareness initiative of Eckerd College in 2010.
Throughout the year WMNF reported on various lectures and community events that were a part of the college’s initiative.
Alizza Punzalan-Hall is the director of Community and media relations and co-chair of The Plight and Promise of Africa.
Be the first to comment"Throughout the year we will be talking about Darfur in Sudan, the crisis and genocide, child soldiers in Uganda, sexual violence u...
Documentary inspires Clearwater couple to speak out against Japanese dolphin hunting listen
12/23/10 Kate BradshawWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: The Cove, animal rights, dolphin hunting, Japan
The Oscar-winning film The Cove highlights the capture and killing of dolphins in the Japanese fishing village of Taiji. The documentary set off a wave of outrage across the globe. It has even prompted a few Tampa Bay area residents to head there next week.
Tim Burns said his wife urged him to see the film, and come September they were on a plane to Japan.
Be the first to comment"We're both aquatic people, I've grown up in the ocean my entire life, so we instantly got online because anything I see the fir...
Homeless Memorial Day recognized in Tampa listen
12/22/10 Janelle IrwinWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Homeless, Homeless Coalition
Members of the Hillsborough County community gathered in Joe Chillura Courthouse Square in downtown Tampa last night to remember the lives of their homeless neighbors. WMNF's Janelle Irwin reports, residents showed their compassion by lighting 56 candles; each one representing one death.
Be the first to comment"This year we will remember 56 homeless men and women who's names we know. They died from being hit by cars, by trains, drowning in local waterways and ponds, beatings, untreated medical conditions, and ...
Mayor addresses homeless shelter, domestic violence, during monthly breakfast listen
12/22/10 Kate BradshawWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: St. Petersburg, Bill Foster, homelessness, domestic violence, homeless shelter, Pinellas County
Today marked the final 2010 edition of St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster’s monthly mayor’s breakfast. Turnout was low, but a few perennial topics came up as the mayor made his rounds.
Maybe it was the chilly air, or that the event was scheduled so close to a major holiday. Today only about six people showed up to the December mayor’s breakfast, which took place at the Twisted Cork on 34th Street North. The mayor stopped for a long chat at every occupied table, and said this kind of setting ...
Be the first to commentFCC approves compromised Net neutrality rules listen
12/21/10 Kate BradshawWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: FCC, Net neutrality, Mitch McConnell, Internet
Today the Federal Communications Commission approved new rules governing Internet traffic. The rule’s proponents are calling it a win for Net Neutrality, while critics on the left and right decry the new roles. FCC Chair Julian Genachowsi said the new rules will foster free speech and fair distribution of content on the Internet.
1 comments"Consumers and innovators have a right to a level playing field. No central authority, public or private, should have the power to pick wi...
Big Citizenship listen
12/21/10 Dawn Morgan ElliottWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: civic involvement, volunteer, service, AmeriCorps, nonfiction, Edward Kennedy
Alan Khazei is author of Big Citizenship, and co-Founder of City Year in Boston, a service organization for young adults that became the model for AmeriCorps, a national service organization started under President Clinton in 1993.
WMNF’s Dawn Morgan Elliott spoke with Khazei about his passion for national service and the start of City Year.
Be the first to comment"During the mid-1980’s there was a burgeoning movement around the country at the grassroots level, with a number of people doing different p...
