Amy and me

I first became aware of Amy Goodman and her great TV/radio show Democracy Now! in the fall of 2004. Sparky and I were supposed to make our yearly pilgrimage to the beach in North Carolina but we chose to go to Knoxville so I could get my quadruple bypass done instead. When the days of searing pain stopped we decided to get away for a long weekend around election day, so we rented a house on a lake near Hickory, NC and we arrived there on Saturday and we left on Tuesday morning, election day. During our stay we stumbled across something called Free Speech TV on the satellite system they had in the rental house.

We had never seen anything like it. There on TV was someone who sounded like us, someone who was doing news stories about the things we cared about. There was someone, and a whole network too as a matter of fact, who was devoted to telling the kinds of truths we didn't often hear on the news we get on our local cable system. It was a revelation to us. When we weren't out enjoying the lake or the local scenery, we watched this wondrous woman Amy Goodman do her thing. We watched other shows on Free Speech TV about how we can achieve true democracy and shows about history that we never would have seen in corporate media outlets. Sparky and I both fell hard for the charms of that honey voiced progressive babe Amy Goodman.

We were very sad when we had to go because leaving meant that we would no longer get Free Speech TV and we couldn't see our new beacon of hope and progressive news, Ms. Goodman. Then later as the events of election night 2004 unfolded we became more depressed and sad. The Idiot Boy King got reelected and we would no longer be able to see or hear Amy.

But as luck would have it the universe conspired to even things out for us. Not too long after Bush got reelected our local public radio station picked up the radio show version of Democracy Now! and they began airing it at 6:00 PM every week night. We usually go for our nightly walk on weeknights around 6 so we got to listen to the show on our way to the park. We'd listen to the show on our way home and we'd finish listening to it when we got back to Monkey Central. We'd cheered when Amy socked it to the corporate media for not doing their jobs in keeping the ass hats in Washington DC honest. We cried with delight when they did stories that no other media would touch. We were overjoyed when Amy kept us informed of all the shenanigans that the Bush junta was trying to get away with.

It was a courageous thing for our local public radio station, WETS 89.5 on my FM dial and online at wets.org, to put this show on in our area at that time of the evening. I've said before how conservative this area is, they'd elect Adolf Hitler to Congress if he ran as a Republican, and the decision to air Democracy Now! ruffled more than a few feathers. WETS lost some members because some people didn't want to hear Amy tell the truth and to do the kinds of stories she does on her show. They wanted our local public radio station to be nice and safe and quiet and comfortable and not to rock the boat or make waves. The more they ran the show the angrier some people got. But something odd began to happen, other voices sprang up and these voices were in support of the show.

Then something even more unexpected happened, someone, my friend Joseph F., the smartest guy in the world, started a group in support of the show called "Democracy Now Tri Cities." The purpose of this group was to make sure Amy Goodman stayed on the air. My friend Joseph then did something radical for this area, he began a progressive blog in conjunction with Democracy Now Tri Cities and he used this blog as a clearing house of information about all the progressive events that happen in our area of east TN/sw VA/western NC. And it was because of Joseph and his support of our local public radio station that many people in our area began organizing and reaching out to one another. Amy Goodman and her show brought progressive people around here together and together we've put on many anti war protests and done many other things to raise the consciousness in this area about progressive and peace related things. Sparky and I met and became friends with Joseph and his wife, Sand and her husband John, Rev. Shuck, and many others because of Democracy Now! and Amy Goodman.

So now it's that time of year I used to dread around here, spring pledge week on WETS, click here to give our local NPR station some money if you like. I became a member last year because of Democracy Now! and this year I'll donate my time during pledge week. I'll be answering the pledge phones from 4 to 7 tonight and one day next week as well. I used to hate pledge week because it interrupts all the programming, but now I gladly put up with it if it means we can keep Amy on our local airwaves. So if you're in the WETS listening area and you call and make a pledge later this evening or next Monday evening from 4 to 7, then you might get lucky and I may answer your phone call. If you talk to me real nice and make a nice size pledge, who knows, I may even write about you on here.

Support your local NPR station, especially if they air Democracy Now! And your local station doesn't air the show, then pester them until they do.