RadioNation with Laura Flanders

Saturday on RadioNation with Laura Flanders (Air America Radio, XM satellite radio and streaming online Saturdays and Sundays from 7:00 pm to 10 pm EST), Flanders addressed the three "I"s: Iraq, Israel and Impeachment. Her guests were Congress rep Jim McDermott; former CIA analyst and now reporter Bill Christison; and reporter and author David Lindorff (also co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of The Case for Impeachment).

McDermott tackled Iraq. His advice was for people to start working their reps and letting them hear what they think of the war. He also advised on the need to go beyond e-mails and start doing some grassroots work in your local communities. (Such as showing up at a Democratic Party meeting, local, and making sure that the war was on the agenda. It's always on Bully Boy's.) Could constituents influence law makers? McDermott said yes and offered how his constituents had impacted his votes on AIDS issues. Some strong calls during this interview.

Christison tackeled Israel. Some crazy calls during this interview. (Were those Flanders' listeners?) Christison spent a large amount of time (as did Flanders) in correcting listeners who wanted to tell them what Christison had just said (and it was always wrong about what he'd just said) and how outraged they were by it.

We had trouble hearing Christison. We couldn't figure that out for the longest. Was it a mike issue? Was it a phone issue if he was calling in? C.I. explained it was a "resonator" issue. Christison doesn't use them. C.I. explained this once ("and I'm only doing it once") so let's see how well we understood it. Your voice is shaped by a number of things. That includes whether you speak on the breath or not. ("On the breath" means you're exhaling when you speak and your diaphragm is pushing the air out. This is a bit more important to singers who need the breath control for long musical passages than it is in talking, but it makes a difference.) It also includes your cavities. (Don't go there!) Christison's voice stops around the collar bone. He's making wonderful use of his chest cavity, but he's neglected the facial ones (including the nose) which provide much of the "brightness" in many voices. (Using your naval cavity does not mean you sound nasal. You can do a quick check of your resonators by humming -- we quickly did to find out what we were using.) So Christison is speaking using his lower resonator (his chest cavity) only. (C.I.'s saying "Yes" but we really don't think we're being listened to. Everyone's tired.) It was a low rumble and isn't that uncommon among men in law enforcement. (Where you're trying to sound authorative or intimidating -- take your pick.)

That's not us excusing the callers. They were so off the mark, it had nothing to do with the fact that they misheard due to that. They misheard, our opinion, because it was so shocking to hear, on commercial radio, someone seriously address this issue. Hopefully, some of those outraged were outraged because they were hearing those sort of questions and issues for the first time. After the shock wears off, they may think about them.

It was a strong interview but we all had to park ourselves close to our speakers. (C.I. said, at one point if we're remembering right, that Flanders is using all of her resonators which is why her voice sounds the way it does. Apparently that and on the breath makes the voice sound more alive and attractive.)

The last guest was David Lindorff. Lindorff addressed the issue of impeachment and Flanders did something in this interview that we found especially helpful. We've heard (and read) the case for impeachment. We support that. What she instructed Lindorff to do was to explain the why the faulty reasoning that we can't impeach is wrong. Lindorff did that quite well. Dismissing with the ideas of Cheney as president or Hastart as president. He also brought up the issue of the so-called Constitutional crisis that impeachment would supposedly cause. It's written into the Constitution -- how can following the Constitution create a Constitutional crisis?
It's right in there with the powers given to the president. It's a check. Using a check does not constitute a crisis. Not using it when someone is subverting/shredding the Constitution creates something worse than a Constitutional crisis -- the death of democracy.

Stealing from Kat, here's what's on tonight's show:

What's up on Sunday? Three words are all you need to know: Mark Crispin Miller. The topic is the media system and he'll be in a roundtable with Makaini Themba-Nixon and Paul Miller addressing consolidation and more. Laura has a guest on Sunday whose name I'm not familiar with but should be, Meizhu Lui, co-author of The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the US Racial Wealth Divide (going right on my to read list) and also the Executive Director of United for a Fair Economy.
So "It's all on RadioNation with Laura Flanders this weekend on Air America Radio." Make a point to listen. If you miss it, a shorter version of the program is archived (C.I.'s got a link for it on the left).