Give me your money or I'll send Amy Goodman away

Well kids, I broke my public radio pledge week cherry today. And you know what? I had a great time doing it. It was a blast helping out during pledge week. I loved talking to listeners, taking their pledges, hearing them say how much they loved Democracy Now! and WETS in general, and it was a hoot to meet some of the guys who's voices I've heard for years. What they say is true, the DJ's always look different than you think they will.

I manned the pledge phones from 4 PM to 7 Pm yesterday. The calls were a shade scarce in the 4 to 5 time slot but after 5 things picked up. But when the dulcet tones of the Democracy Now! music began wafting the calls came pouring in. Well, I say pouring in but my friend Keith says that it's usually even busier when the show is on. I'm thinking it might have been slow because today was the first day.
Speaking of Keith, here he is in all his volunteer glory chugging a cup of yerba matte.

One of the perks of volunteering to answer the phones during the pledge drive is free food. Yeah I know the spread in the above picture looks anemic and it was when I first got there but when dinner time rolled around a local Chinese restaurant really delivered so to speak. They sent over about 1o or so to go boxes packed with all kinds of good food. I probably got my week's worth of sodium in what I ate and I know I got my yearly dose of MSG. But am I going to whine when it was free? Oh hells no.

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Another perk of helping out was getting some swag from the guys at WETS. I scored four free CD's and I'll listen to them in the next few days. If I don't like them I'll take them back and swap them out for some different ones next Monday when I answer phones with my friend Snad and some other folks.

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But the best perk of all was getting to talk to the grateful Democracy Now! listeners. I could hear the gratitude in people's voices as they gave me their pledge information. One woman who I talked to lived in Florida and she had heard the program on our local station last year when she was up here visiting friends and relatives in the mountains of western NC. She said that even though she lives in the Tampa Fla area she wanted to make sure that Democracy Now! stayed on the air in our area and so she pledged $200. It was amazing hearing something like that. Others called in with pledges of $10, $30, and other amounts but the one thing that ran through all the calls was a deep appreciation for the Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, and our local public radio station.

This guy is the genius known as Joseph F. He's the brains behind Democracy Now! Tri Cities. And yes ladies, he is all of that and a pallet of chips. He's not only the smartest guy in the world, he's also a swarthy Greek who was born on the island of Crete. He's got a doctorate in political science and his speciality is in the area of military/political/international intelligence. He's also a damn funny and super nice guy. But unfortunately for all of you gals, he's married. And the woman who he's married to is the smartest woman in the world. I kid you not.

After our stint eating, joking, and chatting, which we did when the phones weren't ringing, we all went down and heard Joseph give a lecture entitled "Why The US Can't Win In Iraq." He gave this lecture, complete with power point presentation, at the Acoustic Coffee House, which is a local hipster bar/coffeehouse/live music venue. The main thrust of his lecture was that the idiots in the power in Washington DC insist on fighting a conventional war against an unconventional enemy. We're stuck using the old model of fighting a war where armies meet on a field of battle. Our "enemies," or more correctly, the Iraqi resistance is not going to engage us in a head to head fight, they're going to use guerrilla tactics that can enable them to fight indefinitely. It's like we're using a shotgun to kill mosquitoes. It's a stupid strategy that is doomed to fail. And we could change but the corporations who supply the Department of Defense with war material won't let us. And neither will the idiots in our government because if they try to change it's an admission that everything that they've done thus far is wrong.

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I've heard Joseph give lectures before and I always learn something new and I always come away smarter than I was before. If only we could get the idiots in Washington DC to listen to my man Joseph. Or better yet, if only we could get him elected President of the World, then maybe he'd set all the bullshit right and we could finally move in a new prosperous direction.