Here come the candidates, Part 1

It’s that time of year again. We’re gearing up for election coverage in October and we want to provide as much coverage as possible regarding the local, state, and regional elections.

I’ll post the specifics as they get confirmed by Mardi and me. Here’s what we have so far:

Thursday, September 30 at 5 p.m. — John Shoales and Dave Mullinix discuss Proposition 22.

Friday, October 1 at 5 p.m. — Rosemary Wilvert and Mila LaBarre argue for a “Yes” on Measure H in SLO.

Monday, October 4 at 5 p.m. — Jan Marx, candidate for SLO mayor.

Tuesday, October 5 at 4:30 — Dan Carpenter, San Luis Obispo city council

Tuesday, October 5 at 5 p.m. — Paul Brown, candidate for SLO mayor

Wednesday, October 6 at 4 p.m. — Kathy Smith San Luis Obispo city council

Thursday, October 7 at 4:30 — Andrew Carter, San Luis Obispo city council

Thursday, October 7 at 5 p.m. — Sheriff’s candidate forum (Cortez is confirmed)

Friday, October 8 at 5 p.m. — No on Measure H (San Luis Obispo)

Wednesday, October 13 at 5 p.m. — Tom Watson, Republican for Congress.

Thursday, October 14 at 5 p.m. — Paul Teixiera, candidate for District 4 county supervisor.

Tuesday, October 19 at 5 p.m. — Mike Zimmerman, candidate for District 4 county supervisor.

Tune in! Call in! Be sure to vote!

Monday, Monday

I will be away from Hometown Radio on Monday, off to LA to see Mom and help her turn 95. Looking forward to the celebration. Annie Lorenzen and Mark Wilson will guest host, with Annie taking on the second half of the show with a rather controversial guest from Chicago discussing abortion. I suspect the phones will be ringing. I’ll be back on Tuesday and hope to have Devina Douglas, the whistleblower on the South County Sanitation District mess as my special guest.

Meanwhile, congrats and thank you to Judy Salamacha who hosted an incredible Writers’ Conference at Cuesta College over the weekend. Kudos to everyone involved and I hope that Cuesta continues to support the only writers’ conference on the Central Coast.

Thanks to Bill Denneen for recognizing Hometown Radio with his most recent “Denneen Envrionmental Award” in recognition of all the coverage we’ve given to local environmental issues on the show. Bill is one-of-a-kind and I appreciate deeply his recognition of our work.

Hope everyone has a good week.

The GOP goes to the right, way to the right

As the dust settles from Tuesday’s elections, it seems that the republicans have decided their best strategy for the new few years is to run to the right, way to the right. Analysis shows that members of the so-called Tea Party movement won big in delaware and New York.

As the LA Times repoprted, “The conflict between tea party activists and the political establishment has defined the primary season, which began to wrap up Tuesday with contests in seven states and the District of Columbia. Hawaii holds its primary Saturday.”

Case in point: Delaware, where a moderate Republican, considered a shoo-in in November was defeated by the Tea Party candidate. Now Republicans are worried that their nominee won’t be able to appeal to Independents to win in November. It is a debate being played out across the country.

We’ll definitely discuss the topic on the radio this week, but feel free to weigh in here.  Do the Tea Party flks help or hurt the Republican Party? For me, I delight in rumors that Palin wants to run in 2012. That would be fitting.

Gearing up

Hope everyone had a good Labor Day weekend. Summer is officially over and time to get serious on Hometown Radio.

Mardi and I are starting to plot out our coverage for the November 2 elections. We’re going to start with SLO mayoral candidates: Jan Marx joins us Monday, October 4th and Paul Brown on Tuesday, October 5th. We’ll post a complete schedule as things are finalized.

Special show tomorrow (Friday) Mardi Hall is going to be at the Lemos store in San Luis on Broad and Orcutt from 3 to 7 p.m. We’re encouraging folks to bring in their dogs and cats to be microchipped for only $20. Great deal. Bring your pet and swing on by and see Mardi.

Meanwhile, the big national issue on the radio this week continue to be the nutjob pastor in Florida who wants to burn the Qu’ran. It is the latest example in a series of religious intolerant issues that have flared up around the country. We had a tsunami of calls yesterday. We’ll do part Ii today with Rev. Caroline Hall of St. Benedict’s weighing in.

Looking forward to the discussion.

The Terrorist

Chuck, Annie and Verena Maier on Monday night

I have been called many things in my nearly 19 years on the radio, many of them deserved: Butthead, Jerk, Asshole, Dickhead and others certainly come to mind.

But I was pretty floored to read Bob Cuddy’s column in the Tribune today and discover that he now considers me to be a terrorist and the head of a terrorist organization.

Really. I’m not making this up.

My crime? Apparently it’s that I was so moved by the sight of a grown man crying in my studio over a lost dog that I set up a Facebook page that ended up with about 4200 dog lovers from around the world. We held one rally. Gave voice to the plight of Chuck Hoage after Animal Services and the county decided to move on. We worked the local media. We had a letter writing campaign.

Contrary to accusations from Mr. Cuddy, there were no incidents in Arroyo Grande where the new dog was staying. The accusations flying about have never been proven.

The good and wonderful news is that Chuck and Annie are back together again.

It had nothing to do with terrorism, Bob.

It had everything to do with community.

We can disagree on issues. But I think Bob crossed the line with his language and I think he owes all The Friends of Annie an apology.

Meanwhile, can’t wait to meet Annie tonight at 6 p.m. on the radio.

Here comes Glenn Beck

I apologize for the light posting this week. It has been an extremely busy time for me.

We raised more than $20,000 for Pastor Doug, thanks in large part to our smash dinner at McPhee’s last Sunday night. What a great time we had.

And I’ve been busy in the fight to return Annie the dog to Chuck Hoage.

But we’ve had some great radio segments this week — everything from a visit from Lois Capps to Jeanne Dugger taking on the Muslim-haters to Jim Stegall arguing for a ban on texting while driving. Check out the podcasts for any segment you may have missed.

Anyway, right now we’re busy cleaning house, getting ready to welcome Glenn Beck to KVEC starting next Wednesday. Beck takes over for Clark Howard who seemed to struggle with our midday audience. I’m not a particular fan of Mr. Beck’s, but he delivers an audience and he will give us plenty of fodder for my show to discuss. So, welcome!

Goodbye Dr. Laura

We used to carry Dr. Laura on KVEC back during the Clear Channel days–before we wised up and dumped her for Sean Hannity.

You’ve probably heard the news by now. Dr. Laura went on cable TV Tuesday night and announced that she would not renew her contract at the end of 2010.

She got into a discussion last week on her show with a black woman caller. Dr. Laura went nuts and started using the so-called “N-word” repeatedly during the segment, accusing her caller of being ‘hyper-sensitive.”

Surprise, surprise. A firestorm of criticism erupted. Dr. Laura apologized repeatedly, but it wasn’t enough. On Larry King, she attempted to make an argument about first amendment liberty, but I’m not aware of the freedom of expression being extended to blatant racial slurs.

I don’t have anything against Dr. Laura personally, but a seasoned pro like her should know better. She screwed up and dug herself a deeper hole with a lame defense. I don’t think people are going to buy her as a “victim.”

We’ll cover this on this show Wednesday, maybe Thursday. Meanwhile, here’s the audio and the transcript. Decide for yourselves.

A few days away

It will be light posting on the blog for a couple days as I head north to Seattle to do the family thing for a couple days.

What a show we had today. I still can’t believe the outrage sweeping through the community over Annie the dog. The phone calls did not stop today and you could feel the anger, hear the frustration. I am hopeful that Sup. Adam Hill will deliver good news by the time I return. It’s a sad story.

And folks were equally vocal when we discussed the impending return of gay marriage in California. Thanks again to Rev. Carolyn Hall for dropping by. I think her analysis is spot-on:The religious right will punt in California rather than lose the whole thing at the Supreme Court on a 5-4.

Have a good weekend. Talk soon.

A man and his dog

We had a pretty tough, pretty emotional, segment tonight with Chuck Hogue. Originally scheduled for one hour, we ended up going for two due to all the phone calls.

To recap: Chuck’s beloved dog of seven years, Annie, ran away from the family property last June after hearing a gun shot. The dog was spooked. Chuck, a recent widower, spent three weeks trying to find his dog. He works full time. He doesn’t own a computer. But he dutifully checked the Animal Services lost and found line daily.

Three weeks later, he gets a call. Your dog is at Animal Services. Come get her. he rushes out there the next morning — only to find out the dog was adopted out to another family days prior. What????????? No one can figure that out.

Even worse, the second family refuses to give up Annie and Animal Services won’t step in. Chuck keeps trying to contact Dr. Eric Anderson, but Anderson isn’t responding.

At the same time, several callers shared stories of having to deal with dog licensing issues at Animal Services by talking to people in . . . .Texas. So Animal Services is farming out, outsourcing county work to Texas???? Doesn’t that strike you as bizarre.

Not suirprisingly, the vast majority of callers believe Chuck should get Annie back, though our options seem limited.

Katcho is Chucks’s supervisor, so we’re asking folks to drop Katcho a friendly email at kachadjian@co.slo.ca.us and see if he can’t knock some sense into Animal Services.

Chuck was crying at the end of the show. He deserves to have Annie back.

Jeff Hamm, director of the county health agency, doesn’t seem to understand why Annie and Chuck should be reunited. His phone number is 788-2855.

Program Notes:

I will be away friday, Monday, and Tuesday. Suzan Vaughn, Jeff Eckles, Mardi Hall, Steve Weiss, Jack Hardy, and Dr. Scott Robertson run the show in my absence.

Remembering the Motel Inn

Jeff Bringle sent over this photo of the famous Motel Inn of San Luis Obispo, the very first motel in the U.S.

Check out the sign at the right of the photo. Yep, it says KVEC. Our radio station was located at the Motel Inn during the early ’60s. What a time it must have been.

Of course, there’s not much left now. The Inn closed in the ’80s and most of the original buildings were knocked down in 2006. It’s a blight on our city’s history to see how we’ve failed to preserve the legacy of this building, which served as the cultural/social center of town for decades.

I know. I know. No one has any money. But I’d hate to see that building, those memories, slip away forever.

Marilyn from San Luis Obispo, who first moved to town in 1948, joins me on the radio today at 3:45 to share her memories of the Motel Inn.

Meanwhile, check out this 1993 valentine to the Motel Inn from the Seattle Times.