Who would have ever thought that Senator Mel Martinez would come on my show before Senator Bill Nelson?  Well, money talks, I guess.  No, I didn't pay Sen. Martinez to come on the air this morning at 7:15... but he has a book to sell!  It's called "A Sense of Belonging: From Castro's Cuba to the US Senate, One Man's Pursuit of the American Dream."

You can hear our conversation by listening to Hour 2 of today's show!

After leaving early yesterday to take Alison to her first day of school, I had a fairly downbeat day.  Watching the "news" and hearing the pundits weigh in on who Obama will choose as his running mate, I became more and more despondent. 

I fear that the unwashed masses (even those who bathe regularly but have yet to learn how to think objectively) are buying the negative campaigning and outright smears on Obama's character and judgement by McCain and his surrogates.  They learned the art of "catapaulting the propaganda" from ol' W and his brain, Karl Rove!

So, today was spent talking about who Obama should choose, as we anxiously await the text notification (yes, I signed on!). 

Tonight is the last night of "Verdict" with Dan Abrams on MSNBC.  I like Dan and thought the show was ok... but am looking forward to Rachel Maddow's new and well-deserved show that will occupy that timeslot!  I only wish MSNBC had cancelled Chris Matthews' show instead of Dan Abrams, and put Rachel on before my 9pm bedtime!

Oh well, that's why God invented Tivo, I suppose...

But last night, Dan and his panel discussed whether or not Obama's lackluster performance in recent polls suggest he might stand a better chance of winning by putting Hillary Clinton on the ticket that any of the perceived front-runners.  I'd certainly rather see her than Tom Kaine or Evan Bayh, and could go either way between Clinton and Biden.... I guess we'll know soon enough!

I just hope he uses his very intelligent brain to make the right decision!

Hear  today's show here!

Although it was two days later than it was supposed to be, today was BACK TO SCHOOL day for the kids in South Florida!  Hurray...

I left after the first hour of today's show to take my daughter to her first day of 4th grade.  Thanks to Stephen Goldstein and Kingsley Guy, the Dueling Columnists, for filling in for me for the last two hours of today's show so I could go into "Mom" mode.

During the hour I was there, we talked about schools-- the tragedy that has Florida on the lowest rung of the funding ladder of all 50 states.  Last night, I got an email from a listener who informed me of a new website, www.50thnomore.org. 

I don't know much about the site, other than I agree with everything they wrote.  I sent an email to them last night, asking for more information and requesting an interview.

The one thing I know we can all do this election season is vote the Republicans out of the Florida legislature.  ALL of the votes on education cuts came down strict party lines-- with the Republicans approving the cuts, and the Democrats voting against them. 

If you believe that our kids deserve better, vote the Republicans out!

As I said I would do yesterday, I have started a links page.  You can always access it by looking to your left, and scrolling down past the Obama and McCain Information Clearinghouse links....

Hear today's show here.

Fay came ashore near Naples this morning, never gaining enough steam to be categorized as a hurricane.  But she dumped a lot of rain and blew a lot of wind, enough to cancel schools for the second day in Dade and Broward. 

In the first hour, we checked in with the National Hurricane Center and with our own Wendy Grossman, who's been down in Key West riding out the storm.  In our second hour, I checked in with an old friend of mine who lives in Ft. Myers.  Randy Thomas, the most successful woman in the Voice-over field, joined me on the phone and was just about to say that Fay was a non-event in Ft. Myers ... when her power went out.

Luckily, she has a generator which kicked in, and we got her back on the phone.   If Randy's voice sounds familiar, it could be because she's been the announcer for the Academy Awards, Emmys and Tonys, she's currently heard every night on Entertainment Tonight and The Insider, as well as all over the TV and radio... Plus, she's a former South Florida radio personality, having worked at Zeta 4, WAXY-FM and WSHE (all of us old-timers remember those stations!).  

I began the show this morning where we left off yesterday.  I was able to sift through the audio from the "forum" Saturday night and played McCain's answer about what his faith means to him on a daily basis, which is I guess all a lie.  You see, he gave a one-sentence throw-away answer, then told another story.

I recounted it in yesterday's blog. so just scroll down if you missed it yesterday.

I also focused in on the ongoing controversy around McCain's uncharacteristically decent performance Saturday night.... It just makes you wonder if, perhance, he had advance knowledge of the questions that were going to be asked.

So, it didn't come as much surprise when we found out that he had ample opportunity to hear the questions, as well as Obama's responses. 

Despite Pastor Rick Warren's assertion at the beginning of the event that there was a coin toss to determine the order, and that McCain was safely inside a "cone of silence," as well as McCain furthering the deception by claiming (in answer to Warren's question about the comfort level inside the "cone of silence" that he was trying to "listen through the wall!", we later learned that McCain had actually arrived to the Saddleback Church 30 minutes late! 

When questioned about this by CNN's Rick Sanchez, Warren said he knew that McCain didn't cheat, because he asked him.  And, of course, McCain would never lie about a thing like that! 

After I heard all of this and got more and more incensed about it last night, I called Pastor Warren's office at the Saddleback Church and inquired about the sin of lying.  I haven't gotten a return phone call yet.  I'll let you know when it comes!

In the meantime, if you'd like to call, the number is 949-609-8000, and the email address is info@saddleback.net.

One final postscript on this "forum"... Rick Warren was interviewed by ABC's Jake Tapper.  They were talking about John Edwards and the revelation that he had committed adultery.  This question and answer came from the transcripts:

TAPPER: Would you have compunctions about voting for someone who had cheated on his wife?

WARREN: Absolutely I would. Absolutely I would. Because if you can’t keep your faith to your most sacred vow – “’til death do us part” -- how in the world can I trust you to lead my family? My government? My nation?...Absolutely I would. I think people first need to ask forgiveness and then earn trust back over time Can trust be re-earned? Absolutely but it takes time.

So, why then, did Warren give McCain a free pass on his adulterous past?  When asked about his greatest moral failure, McCain glossed over it by saying "The failure of my first marriage."  Period.  End of sentence.  End of answer.  No further questioning by the moral compass of Mr. Warren about the fact that McCain was an adulterer who cheated on his first wife, who had suffered in a terrible car accident while McCain was held in Vietnam that left her less perfect physically than the swimsuit model she was when he went away! 

We also spent some time this morning speculating about who Obama would choose as his running mate, as the announcement could come at any time. 

And we talked about the story that broke yesterday about the fact that 100 college presidents from around the country are calling for an open debate about the idea of lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus.

I think that if 18 year olds can choose to go to war (or be drafted) and are responsible enough to vote, then they should certainly be allowed to drink.  I think taking the taboo away might actually encourage more responsibility.

**Edit*** added at 10:53am...  Just thought I'd add this in.  I made an off-handed comment this morning about George W. Bush's alcholism, and his drunken appearance at the Olympics.  A caller questioned me about it.   I just stumbled, so to speak, across this nice little photo gallery of reasons why I'd suspect W was back on the juice.  Have a look here.

Hear today's show here.

Today was supposed to be the first day of school.  Instead, we're watching Fay. 

At least it looks as if we won't get a direct hit here in South Florida, but we should still get some pretty stormy weather today and tomorrow.  For the lastest info on the storm, just click on the "Operation Stormwatch" banner from our homepage at www.940winz.com.

I spent Saturday out in the waters between Key Largo and Islamorado, SCUBA diving and snorkeling.  It was a magnificent day, with no hint of the stormy weather to come!



Here I am feeding fish... One bit me on the finger... I have two nasty teeth marks today to prove it!



And yes, we did see a shark...



And some barracuda too...



So, that was Saturday...  I didn't get home until very late Saturday night, and yesterday I was the Keynote Speaker at the Coral Springs/Parkland Democratic Club Awards Luncheon.

I didn't have a chance to really watch the "Presidential Forum" that took place Saturday evening at the Saddleback Church in California until last night. 

Unfortunately, I think that once again, the Democrats allowed the Republicans to frame the debate.  This "forum" was conducted by an Evangelical minister, at his church, in front of an audience who was unapologetically in McCain's camp. 

Supposedly, the order of appearance was determined by a coin toss, and Obama was up first.  According to Pastor Rick Warren, McCain was sequestered off-stage in a "cone of silence" so he would not have an advantage by hearing the question and his opponent's answers. 

Unfortunately, the entire event was proved a sham, as McCain hadn't arrived until 30 minutes into the event.  He was able to hear at least half of the questions, as well as Obama's answers.

So, to those wondering why McCain seemed to prepared with all of the answers, to the point of even anticipating the follow-up to one of the questions, therein lies your answer!

This morning I did recount another instance of "truth-stretching."  Mr. Storyteller, aka McCain, when asked, "You publicly say you are a follower of Christ.  What does that mean to you and how does faith work out in your life on a daily basis?" he answered, "Means I'm saved and forgiven, and we're talking about the world.  Our faith encompasses not just the US but the World.  Can I tell you another story real quick?"... And then proceeded to truly tell a tale. 

Cue in 1:00 in this video and listen to his "story" of being a POW and the guard who "drew a cross in the dirt"...



Somehow, this story is just a bit too fishy. 

McCain told the same story on the 2000 campaign trail, except not about himself, as reported by the New York Times

Many years ago a scared American prisoner of war in Vietnam was tied in torture ropes by his tormentors and left alone in an empty room to suffer through the night. Later in the evening a guard he had never spoken to entered the room and silently loosened the ropes to relieve his suffering. Just before morning, that same guard came back and re-tightened the ropes before his less humanitarian comrades returned. He never said a word to the grateful prisoner, but some months later, on a Christmas morning, as the prisoner stood alone in the prison courtyard, the same good Samaritan walked up to him and stood next to him for a few moments. Then with his sandal, the guard drew a cross in the dirt. Both prisoner and guard both stood wordlessly there for a minute or two, venerating the cross, until the guard rubbed it out and walked away.

Add to that the fact that McCain knows a bit about Alexander Solzhenitsyn, enough to write an article about him that appeared in the NY Sun on August 4.

However, McCain's admiration for the guy probably rubbed off on his storytelling...  Apparently the experience of being a prisoner and having someone else draw a cross in the dirt was actually Solzhenitsyn's story:

“Along with other prisoners, he worked in the fields day after day, in rain and sun, during summer and winter. His life appeared to be nothing more than backbreaking labor and slow starvation. The intense suffering reduced him to a state of despair.
On one particular day, the hopelessness of his situation became too much for him. He saw no reason to continue his struggle, no reason to keep on living. His life made no difference in the world. So he gave up.

Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.

As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.

As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed. He knew he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet he knew there was something greater than the evil he saw in the prison camp, something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that hope for all people was represented by that simple Cross. Through the power of the Cross, anything was possible.
Solzhenitsyn slowly rose to his feet, picked up his shovel, and went back to work. Outwardly, nothing had changed. Inside, he had received hope.”

[From Luke Veronis, "The Sign of the Cross"; Communion, issue 8, Pascha 1997.]

Hear today's show here.

TGIF!  I think next year, I will plan a vacation in mid-August.

This week seemed to drag on forever... This is always a slow time of the year, news-wise.  At least we have the Olympics, but I haven't seen anyone in the mainstream media addressing the idea that Michael Phelps is some kind of robot-- he certainly can't be human!

Anyway, I started the show this morning by playing back the conversation I had at the end of yesterday's show with Thom Hartmann about the fighting between Russia and Georgia.  In all seriousness, I'm truly concerned that the corporate media is taking the John McCain talking points on this... and not dealing at all with the fact that his talking points come from his chief Foreign Policy Advisor, who happens to be on the payroll of the Georgia government as their lobbyist in Washington.

I also haven't seen many stories about the visits from KARL ROVE and Condoleeza Rice with the Georgian leaders in the weeks leading up to their attack on Russia.  At least Condi, like it or not, is the Secretary of State.  Karl Rove, on the other hand, has no offical position in our government.  So, the question begs to be asked, What the hell is he doing meeting with foreign leaders?

I shared with you a great piece written by Brent Busowsky in The Hill this morning.  Read it for yourself here, and pass it along to anyone who thinks this situation between Georgia and Russia is good for John McCain!

The attacks keep coming on Barack Obama, and now the guy who made the work "swiftboating" a synonym for a politically-motivated-baseless attack is at  it again.  He's written a new book, ostensibly about Obama, though it's difficult to find any charges in it that haven't been proved false!  The Obama camp has added a new page to their FightTheSmears.com site to debunk the lies in this book.  Find it here.

Being the "other" Friday morning, I was joined in the second hour by the Dueling Columnists, Stephen Goldstein and Kingsley Guy, whose columns in today's Sun Sentinel dealt with medical marijuana.  Goldstein wrote that it should be legal and readily available to those who could benefit from it.  The usually ultra-conservative Kingsley Guy responded by saying that not only should all marijuana be legalized, we should end this so-called "war on drugs" once and for all!  For once, I agree with Guy!

Hear today's program here.