Friday, 1/10/03
Very good show on attorney Lynn Samuels charged as an accomplice to a terrorist by John Ashcroft, plus extraordinary case of an immigrant where aCongresswoman and others made tremendous efforts saved the husband of an American citizen from deportation as he was about to board the plane.
Suggested topics for future programs:
*NYT: U.S. threatens to Act Against Europeans Over [Genetically]Modified Foods, by Elizabeth Becker (1/10/03)
*NYT: Six Months Later, New Audit Board Holds First Talk,” by Stephen Lebaton, 1/10/03
Article notes that they have awarded themselves pay of 452,000, 50,000 more than the President gets and that Harvey L. Pitt is still serving at the head of the SEC and plans to do so for the foreseeable future until a new chairman is approved by Congress.
*NYT; Deaths on the Job, Slaps on the Wrist, 1/10/03, by David Barstow and Lowell Bergman, NYT entry for next year’s Pulitzer. Incredible story on job safety, OSHA


Thursday, 1/9/03
Excellent show on SUVs, oil and Iraq, etc.
The ads shown on DN attacking SUVs, while well meaning seemed too clever by half and much too in your face. Much more effective would have been an information campaign: a child under five is killed or maimed every week by a parent or relative backing up an SUV out of the driveway; SUVs legally emit 5x more pollutants than smaller cars; SUV’s are allowed faster writeoffs than regular cars, SUVs are far more dangerous to occupants because of roll overs than other cars with a high likelihood of injury and paralysis..

Earlier on the Morning Show, in the discussion of the Bush renomination of Judge Pickering with Ron Walters, it might have been opined that in addition to payback to Trent Lott for remaining in the Senate, it might be a shrewd political move to allow the Democrats a high profile pyhrric victory on one or two judges while the rest of the 28 right wing judges blocked by the Democrats in the last session of congress slide through with a minimum of publicity.

In the headlines, the item on Yasser Essam Hamdi, and the Fourth Circuit court of appeal’s ruling supporting the Bush administration’s decision to deny Yasser Hamdi legal representation, branding him an illegal combatant, it might have been mentioned that two of the judges were Reagan appointees, and one was appointed to a lower court by Bush 1, and elevated by Clinton to the Appeals court.
On the issue of war for oil, some questionable statements were made such as this is a war to maintain hydrocarbons as the basis of our economy, as if there were any practical alternatives. Even with the best will in the world, we can reduce but not eliminate our need for oil, and certainly not before the oil pumped worldwide begins to plateau or decline in the next ten years, or possibly sooner, assuming that current world economic conditions remain the same, i.e, that there is no crash.

Wednesday,1/8/03
Excellent show starting off with a concise analysis of the Bush tax cut; Bhopal, Dow Chemical, etc, ending with a debate about reinstituting the draft with a good spokesperson for the negative.
Tuesday, 1/7/03
Excellent show. Ralph Nader as usual spoke succinctly on the current situation.
On new FCC rules permitting unlimited media ownership. Could have used FCC spokesperson better to ask why it’s good to have media restrictions lifted rather than evade the question through narrow technical issues.

Monday, 1/6/03
Very good show mostly on Iraq, with good behind the scenes info on NYT John Burns from Jeremy Schehill, Interesting speaker from Venezuela who charged that the Caracas police murdered two pro-government protesters. Would be good to get a follow up somewhere. Good citation of antiwar.com for U.S. attacks on Iraq.
Friday, 1/3/03
Excellent show although more light than heat on Halliburton and Venezuela, good segment on Christian missionary stories with Mother Jones correspondent

1/2/03
Complete show to devoted to a tape of Dr. Helen Caldicott: how many times have we heard this plus there was some unpleasantness as she scolded the students who were leaving as she was speaking. Nobody’s allowed to leave, that’s rude, she said. That segment should have been edited out or skipped. Once again, let’s give Amy and her producers a holiday break and be thankful for the few headlines at the top of the show.

Australian doctor; this one was listenable, but still these one person shows
1/1/03
Excellent show on Mexico, Chiapas, etc. Several voices.
Tuesday, 12/31/02
Started off good on North Korea crisis but then went to a yearly tradition of a compendium of sound bites from the preceding year.