News & Public Affairs

SURVEY OF HOUSING DISCRIMINATION IN PINELLAS COUNTY

Leon Russell, director of the Pinellas County Office of Human Rights, discussed his department's recent study showing that the majority of black and Hispanic people renting apartments in Pinellas County experience some form of differential treatment. Using people of different ethnicity, the Human Rights office sent sets of people to test rental policies throughout the county. Black testers reported receiving different forms and different information and said they were shown different apartmen...

DEMOCRACY NOW ON CABLE TV

MJ Williamson is Director of Community Outreach for SPEAK UP TAMPA BAY, the cable access channels in Tampa and Hillsborough County. She discussed the premiere of the television version of DEMOCRACY NOW tonight at midnight on the local access station. She also discussed recent efforts by the Hillsborough County Commission to defund the county's side of cable access. Williamson told listeners how they could get involved in public access.

PROTESTS IN WASHINGTON D.C.

Protests were held recently in Washington D.C. in support of fair trade and against the International Monetary Fund. Several students from Eckerd College attended the protest and shot video of the demonstration. Our guest, Molly Rockerman, is an Eckerd student and a volunteer at the Tampa Bay Action Group. She'll show the video at the TBAG office in St. Petersburg this coming Thursday night.

THE BUSH DYSLEXICON

New York University media studies professor Mark Crispin Miller began compiling a book about the humorous speech patterns of George W. Bush in the latter part of 2000. Intending to write a funny book, Miller's view of Bush changed the deeper he got into the subject. Was Bush using his bumbling speech pattern as a shield to maintain an image that was useful in transmitting an image to the public and the press? In fact , Miller found out, that Bush was quite capable of being eloquent depending ...

THE BOOK OF THE EVERGLADES

Interview with Suasan Cerulean, editor of THE BOOK OF THE EVERGLADES. This work discusses the history of the "river of grass" from the time of the earliest inhabitants of Florida, to the arrival of the European settlers, to the damming and diking of the region, to the latest efforts to restore the flow of the river. Cerulean engaged novelists, journalists and scientists to contribute to the book.

THE UPCOMING CONSTRUCTION AT MALFUNCTION JUNCTION

John McShaffrey, public information officer for the local district of the Florida DOT, talked about the construction to improve the I-4 and I-275 interchange. The improvements will begin at the end of the month, take four years and cost 80 million dollars. The intent is to improve traffic flow through one of the worst bottlenecks in the Bay area.

BAY AREA COMMUTER CHOICES WEEK

BAY AREA COMMUTER CHOICES WEEK is October 7-10th. In an effort to reduce traffic congestion and pollution, Bay Area Commuter Services sponsors "commuter choices week." It's a way to publicize alternatives to single passenger automobile commuting. Those alternatives include car-pooling, van-pooling, bicycling, buses and walking. Dandi Moodi, the executive director of BACS stopped by to discuss the event.

THE TEACHINGS OF DON CARLOS

Our guest was Victor Sanchez, author of THE TEACHINGS OF DON CARLOS: Practical Applications of the Works of Carlos Casteneda (Bear and Company).

BUSH SPEECH

Open phones discussing President Bush's UN speech about Iraq.

ELECTION REFORM

BRINGING CLEAN ELECTIONS REFORMS TO FLORIDA? This weekend E.J. Ford, a PhD. candidate at USF, will present a workshop on the Clean Election reforms (publicly financed campaigns, limits on donations by corporations, the rich and special interest groups) which have been passed in Maine, Massachussetts, Arizona, and Vermont. The workshop will be given as part of the Earth Summit activities. On this segment Ford discussed how the reforms work and why they are necessary for improving participation...