Podcast appearances and mentions of tom klammer

In April, three members of Friends of Community Media (FCM), a Kansas City 501c3 media reform group,  went to Boston, MA to attend the 2011 National Conference on Media Reform. In May, the Kansas City Greens asked us to share our experience of the conference at a forum. FCM Chair Tom Crane, and FCM board members Doug Greer and Tom Klammer gave their impressions of the Boston NCMR at the Aquarius Bookstore in Kansas City on the evening of May 16.  This discussion was aired on the 90.1 FM KKFI forum show at noon on Tuesday June 21, 2011

  The February 9 edition of the show featured the Bob and Ray Show. Former CIA analyst and Presidential daily briefer Ray McGovern returned to the Tell Somebody phone, and this time he brought Robert Parry on the line with him. Robert Parry has covered Washington for more than three decades and led the way in exposing the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980's. Ray McGovern has been publishing his articles on Parry's http://www.consortiumnews.com/ for several years and now Bob and Ray have teamed up as a powerful speaking duo. Right click on the .mp3 filename below and choose "save target as" to save the audio file to your computer. Tom Klammer        mail@tellsomebody.us  Check out the links at www.tellsomebody.us  

Richard Tripp, founder and director of Care of Poor People, www.coppinc.com, has a 20th anniversary event to help the homeless coming up in April, but he needs your help now. Massachusetts radio host David Pakman talks about the special election for the US Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy. A quick update on the KCMO city council action on the Kansas City WMD plant to be built in south Kansas City. Tom Klammer mail@tellsomebody.us www.tellsomebody.us click the mp3 filename below to play, or right click on it, and select "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer

Nilufar, host of , Saba, The Wind of Love, a Sunday afternoon KKFI show of Persian music and news from Iran, guest-hosts this edition of Tell Somebody. In the first half of the show, she plays interviews I did with Richard Mabion, organizer of the Breaking the Silence conference held in Kansas City, Kansas and with Ann Suellentrop of Physicians for Social Responsibility.  Mabion talks about the whole conference which had a theme this year of 'How Health and the Environment Connect,' then Suellentrop talks about the part of the conference dealing with the Kansas City WMD plant and nuclear disarmament. Then Nilufar reviews recent news out of Iran regarding nuclear policy and protests that have been going on in the months since the June elections there. Left click on the mp3 filename below to play it, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer. Tom Klammer               mail@tellsomebody.us

On this week's show, Legal Aid of Western Missouri is looking for cases in which renters are being evicted from foreclosed properties, and the Army general in command of US forces in northern Iraq says pregnancy could lead to court martial and jail time. In the first segment, Gregg Lombardi, Executive Director of Legal Aid of Western Missouri talks about the new law requiring lenders to give 90 days notice before eviction to renters of foreclosed properties. Then, Marjorie Cohn, immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild and law professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law reacts to a Stars and Stripes article that says that Major General Anthony Cucolo III, the Army general commanding U.S. forces in northern Iraq has a policy in place that makes it possible for personnel who become pregnant, or impregnate a service member, to face court martial and jail time. Then we hear a bit of audio from a town hall meeting on health problems faced by Kansas City WMD plant workers, and the show ends with track 3 of The Recipe's take on the Bill of Rights. Right-click on the .mp3 filename below and select "save target as" to save an audio file of this show to your computer, or subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes Store. Tom Klammer  mail@tellsomebody.us

Last April on Tell Somebody, I talked with Curt Ellis, copoducer of a documentary film, King Corn, that aired on PBS' Independent Lens later the same night as my interview.  (I've posted the 2008 interview here: King Corn interview with Curt Ellis from 2008 ) Now, the King Corn crew have a new film out, called Big River, "a 30 minute documentary about the ecological consequences of industrial agriculture." This week's edition of Tell Somebody features a new interview with Curt Ellis about Big River, and in the second half of the show, excerpts from Bill Moyers speech to those gathered at the first Free Press national conference on Media Reform in Madison, WI in November, 2003. The show ends with a spoken word piece on the First Amendment by artists 'Priest' and '337', aka The Recipe from their new CD on the Bill of Rights. Right click on the .mp3 filename below and choose "save target as" to save a copy of this show to your computer. Tom Klammer

At the Honeywell.com website, a picture I suppose representing happy Kansas City Plant employees accompanies this message: To sign up for the beryllium medical surveillance program contact Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) at 1-866-812-6703. On November 6, 2009, the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority of Kansas City Missouri met, and after going through the motions of listening to testimony in opposition, voted unanimously to approve the latest step in a complicated leasing scheme to facilitate the building of a new nuclear weapons components plant in southern Kansas City.  Part of the deal is about $40 million in tax abatements and incentives to improve infrastructure that will also benefit the Kansas City stop on the North America Super Corridor. The private developers for the project and their PowerPoints,  as usual, got the lion's share of the time before the PIEA commissioners and staff, but opponents made some important points. Tom Klammer  www.tellsomebody.us    mail@tellsomebody.us Right-click on the .mp3 filename below and then choose "save target as" to save copy of this show to your computer, or subscribe to the podcast for free at the iTunes store.

In the first segment of the show, I talk with Gershon Baskin, founder of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI).  Baskin spoke recently at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kansas on the topic "Is Peace in the Middle East Possible?" Founded in Jerusalem in 1988, IPCRI is the only joint Israeli-Palestinian public policy think-tank in the world, and is devoted to developing practical solutions for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  In the second half of the show we hear from filmmakers Lexy Lovell and Michael Uys on their documentary The Good Soldier.  The film is the subject of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS November 6, 2009, and features 5 soldiers from World War II to Iraq, including past Tell Somebody guest Edward Wood. Tom Klammer  www.tellsomebody.us  send email to mail@tellsomebody.us right-click on the .mp3 filename below to save this show to your computer.

Rhonda LeValdo is the host of Native Spirit Radio, a weekly show that airs on KKFI in Kansas City every Sunday at 5pm Central Time. LeValdo is an Acoma Pueblo Tribal Member from New Mexico, a member of the Native American Journalists Association, and currently teaches at Haskell Indian Nations University. She was honored by the Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center at Kansas University as one of their Women of Distinction. In this edition of Tell Somebody, Rhonda LeValdo talks about her radio show and some of her other accomplishments. (right-click on the .mp3 filename below and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the show, or subscribe to the Tell Somebody podcast for free at the iTunes store). Tom Klammer  www.tellsomebody.us mail@tellsomebody.us

Josh Stieber was in middle school on 9/11/2001.  Fear and terror and panic were contagious.  Josh joined the Army and did a tour in Iraq. Reflecting on his expericences there, Josh came to believe that love can be just as contagious and just as powerful a force as fear was, and set off on foot and bicycle across the country.  Josh and a companion stopped on the side of the road outside of Sedalia, Missouri, and talked on the phone to Tell Somebody.  Earlier the same day, Senators Kit Bond, John McCain and Mitch McConnell hid out in Childrens Mercy Hospital in Kansas City for a supposed healthcare town hall with a hand-picked audience of partisan supporters.  Tell Somebody heard from the protestors across the street. And finally, we go to the archives to hear from Julie Pierce, featured in the film Sicko,  whose husband died after Cigna insurance denied treatment for him, and look back to when whistleblower Wendell Potter was still working for Cigna. Tom Klammer   mail@tellsomebody.us     www.tellsomebody.us "right click" on the .mp3 filename below, or on the "pod" icon above and then choose "save target as" to download the audio file of this show to your computer, or subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store.

Be sure to scroll down for links to past shows - also scroll through www.tellsomebody.us We talked a lot on Tell Somebody about bad media coverage generally, and specifically on the subject of healthcare reform: Tom Klammer: Who Sits at the Health-Reform Table? Recently on Counterspin on KKFI, we heard about a Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting online petition demanding that TV networks stop their blackout of single payer.  I read more at www.fair.org, and then I contacted FAIR's communications director, Isabel Macdonald, who told us more about the petition, and gave a preview of coming attractions in FAIR's magazine Extra! And, again, please hold up your hand if you already knew that 85% of the non-nuclear components for the US nuclear weapons arsenal are made right her in Kansas City.  GSA/NNSA/PIEA and a compliant Kansas City, MO city council have worked a tax break deal with private developers to boondoggle- er I mean build - a new WMD plant, and DOE is looking at dumping waste mercury in the old plant.  Now, even though you could very easily construct the argument that the city council set the table for waste dump proposals, a compliant citizenry is letting the council-critters and Congressman Cleaver win easy points with vacuous statements against violating the neighborhoods of the Kansas City plant.  Former Kansas City Plant employee Maurice Copeland and PSR/Peaceworks KC rep Ann Suellentrop fill out the second part of the show.  Having trouble with all the alphabet soup?   Right click on the mp3 link, save it, and give a listen. Tom Klammer www.tellsomebody.us mail@tellsomebody.us

Local activists working for single-payer healthcare are the main focus of this week's show, but we start with a little coverage of WMD in Kansas City.  Most people don't know that a plant in Kansas City produces about 85% of the components for the United States' nuclear weapons arsenal.  The General Services Administration and the National Nuclear Security Administration have teamed up with private developers,  compliant Kansas City politicians, the KC Planned Industrial Expansion Authority (PIEA)- a state chartered quasi-city agency - and the Lathrop & Gage law firm  to come up with a $600 million + Kansas City tax-abated, PIEA-owned new WMD components plant built in a soybean field they contrived to have designated as "blighted." We have some short excerpts from the latest PIEA hearing, where boosters speak and power-point at length, and critics, including a former employee charging poor work place hazard handling are removed by security. After that, we listen to Dee Berry and Mary Lindsay, local activists with Heartland Healthcare for All talking about why Single Payer Healthcare is the only healthcare 'reform' worthy of the term, and what they are doing to get the word out. Links and contact info for Single Payer: Mary Lindsay - citizenpower@aol.com Dee Berry  - dberry7@sbcglobal.net Physicians for a National Health Plan - www.pnhp.org Heartland Healthcare For All - www.heartlandhealthcareforall.com Single Payer Action - www.singlepayeraction.org   Links for Kansas City WMD Plant: http://www.nukewatch.org/KCNukePlant/index.html http://kcnukeswatch.wordpress.com/page/3/ *************** Tell Somebody is a weekly public affair program airing on Tuesdays at 6pm Central Time on 90.1 FM KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio, podcasting via the iTunes store, and www.tellsomebody.us Tom Klammer - host - Tell Somebody www.tellsomebody.us comments or questions?  send an email to mail@tellsomebody.us

A recent column by Democracy Now host Amy Goodman cites a study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting that found that in the week before Obama’s health-care summit, of the hundreds of stories that appeared in major newspapers and on the networks, “only five included the views of advocates of single-payer—none of which appeared on television.” Most opinion columns that mentioned single-payer were written by opponents. I thought it might be a good time to reach into the archives and give another listen to a December, 2004, conversation with Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Steele.  Jim Steele was co-author, with Donald L. Barlett, of Critical Condition, How Health Care in America Became Big Business & Bad Medicine.  Even after four-plus years, the diagnosis of the problem as laid out in the book holds up. After that, Part V of Eyewitness to the Revolution, Hugo Hakk's account of the February, 1917 Russian Revolution breaking out in Petrograd, just translated this month by his daughter Liia Hakk. Tom Klammer

Tom Klammer of Kansas City's KKFI-FM interviews Dr. John Johnson on his quest to uncover the truth behind the 2005 death in Iraq of his daughter, PFC LaVena Johnson. This is Part Two of the interview, which originally aired on August 3, 2007 on Klammer's 'Tell Somebody' program. More information on LaVena's story is available at www.lavenajohnson.com.

Tom Klammer of Kansas City's KKFI-FM interviews Dr. John Johnson on his quest to uncover the truth behind the 2005 death in Iraq of his daughter, PFC LaVena Johnson. This is Part One of the interview, which originally aired on August 3, 2007 on Klammer's 'Tell Somebody' program. More information on LaVena's story is available at www.lavenajohnson.com.