You know how you can meet someone and instantly connect? How after 15 minutes of conversation, you just know that this is a person you could sit down and talk with nonstop for the next 12 hours and not notice the clock? And do it the next day and the next?
I met somebody like that this week: Kathy Gori. It wasn't even face-to-face, just a phone connection between southern and northern California. But if the energy from that conversation were converted to kilowatts, I could power my whole neighborhood for a week. Sizzle.
Kathy Gori
Fortunately, for me and every other progressive, Kathy's taken on a new project from her perch in Sonoma - podcast interviews with politicians, newsmakers, authors and other people who interest her. She's calling it The Gori Details, turning a last name which was such a plague on the elementary school playground into an asset. She's aware as any of us that November's election is crucial to America's future. So, between sessions with the likes of Watergate figure John Dean and one of the left's favorite Middle East scholars, Juan Cole, Kathy will be interspersing the first couple of months at The Gori Details with interviews of a bevy of fresh, young Democratic Congressional candidates from around the country.
First up: the happily named John Courage, an Air Force veteran and teacher who's running from Texas District 21, where the Tom Delay-protecting incumbent Lamar Smith has held the seat for 10 terms. Last fall, Courage won Democracy for America's first national endorsement for the 2006 congressional contest. He's also one of 16 netroots candidates that ActBlue has endorsed. A transcribed excerpt from Kathy's interview with Courage appears in the extended box.
As Maryscott O'Connor
pointed out in a Diary submerged beneath the outpouring over Ned Lamont's victory last week, Kathy is not new to the interview biz.
In 1996-2000, she co-hosted "Up for Air" on KPFK, Pacifica radio's Los Angeles station, won the National Federation Of Community Broadcasters' 1998 Silver Reel for 2nd best morning drive show in the country, and was named one of the 10 best deejays by the Los Angeles Times. Even if you're not from California, you may have heard her giving voice to animated characters, dubbing films and making radio commercials. She and her husband, Alan Berger - who has been deeply involving in getting The Gori Details underway - earn their bread as screenwriters.
Since Kathy's addicted to blogs, my obvious question was, why not start your own? What is it about podcasting?
"It's kind of a new thing, a hybrid, a talking blog, which sounds like something from Jurassic Park. Why podcasting? I write for a living. And after writing all day, the last thing I want to do is sit down and write some more. But I want to participate. I get angry at the reporters on TV who are never asking the questions that I'd like to have answered. So I'd like to take a shot at it, that's all."
Podcasting also fits the skill set she acquired in 10 years as a radio professional and "news junkie."
"Four years co-hosting the morning show on KPFK ... where every morning, four mornings a week, six interviews a show, I talked to everybody under the sun, about politics, news, you name it. I've always enjoyed radio, and podcasting is a great way to do it, without having to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and drive 25 miles to the station."
She would have begun The Gori Details years ago. But podcasting technology wasn't available. Now that it is, she's learning the new equipment and new software as quickly as possible. Being used to working inside a radio station with experts taking care of the technical end of things, she's slowly smoothing out the rough edges.
Coming soon will be her own Web site, with links to her interviews. For now, you can listen to one or all of her first three by clicking on this link.
Here's an excerpt of her interview with candidate John Courage (any transcription errors are mine):
John Courage
Gori: What made you decide to take this leap and run for Congress?
Courage: Well, I'm sure like most people, we're really concerned about the direction of this country. And I certainly have been. As a teacher I was particularly aggravated that we didn't get the correct kind of support, or consistent support, for public education. And when I tried to find out what my Congressman was doing to support public education, I found he wasn't. I also ... did a little more research and found out he didn't support health care, he didn't support education, he didn't support Social Security. When I couldn't find anyone else to run against him, I stepped up.
Gori: Well, you know, Lamar Smith, what I read about his record, he's sort of like a 2-year-old. The only word he seems to know is "no." Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. His position, of course, on the Iraq War, which I think is going to be a very important factor this year ... Texas has sent, as California has, too, a lot of their people to this war, and ...
Courage: Absolutely. A lot of people I know.
Gori: And so many people have ...our soldiers, the people that are over there, are not properly supplied. It's one thing to send people, but then take care of them when they come back also.
Courage: I think that was probably the greatest problem that we had. Now I didn't agree with the war in Iraq at the beginning. I certainly supported our efforts to fight the terrorists in Afghanistan. But the war in Iraq was a whole different ballgame. It seems we sent our troops over there unprepared, unsupported, unsupplied. As a result now, we're in the middle of a war that seems endless and hopeless. And the American people do not support this war. And you know I'm a veteran, as you said. I wore a uniform. I carried a weapon. I stood at posts defending my country. So I understand what it means to be and serve in the military. I also understand what it means to expect your government to be there for you, to support your effort. ...We just didn't have a plan to not only to win the battle, we didn't have a plan to win the peace.
Gori: Texas in the past has always been a very Democratic state, and then it went through changes, and George Bush was the governor, and you guys were kind of the canary in the coal mine for all the experiments we've been submitted to ... the No Child Left Behind thing, all the crazy experiments with education, a lot of the environmental depredations that went on in Texas. We're all living in Texas now.
Courage: Well, you know, Texas is really sorry that we gave the rest of the country George Bush. And we're really ready to take him back and put him out to his ranch, or his ranchette, out in Crawford, and hopefully that's going to happen sooner rather than later. ... We've got to get him and all the Republican leadership out of Washington just as quickly as we can. That's what my campaign is about. I'm running to bring change to the Congress. I'm running because we've got such a corrupt culture of incumbency. And that culture is costing us. The cost of corruption is so great that it's really putting us in a very dangerous situation with our civil liberties as well as our economic condition, especially for future generations.
{snip}
Gori: One thing I don't understand, because they have seized control of the government, and they've got basically all the branches locked down tight, why are they so angry? When you see them on television ... if I were running everything, I'd be the nicest person in the world. Now I'm not running everything, they are, why are they screaming all the time?
Courage: Oh, it's fear. They're fear-mongers. They're chickenhawks and fear-mongers, and their goal is to keep America frightened and talk about how strong we need to be in our fight against terrorism. But we're being weakened in the very foundations of our society. The Republican Administration has done everything it can to cut back on programs that Americans need, that undermine the very foundation of the American society that provides a quality education and good health care and civil liberties protection. And they do that by frightening a lot of the American public.
{snip}
Gori: How are you dealing with voter registration there in your area? How's it coming?
Courage: We're really working on that and making that a strong part of this campaign. We have a lot of colleges and universities in and around our district and we work a lot with those students. We've got many, many people who are registered who simply don't vote. And so a lot of our effort is to just help educate, inform and motivate people to exercise that right to vote. It's just so important now, and I think people are really waking up and realizing that. For too long people said, well, my vote doesn't count and all these politicians are the same. Well, I'm showing them a different kind of a politician. I'm not a lifelong politician. I'm not rich. I don't come from some well-to-do, elite family. I'm a teacher. I'm a working man. My family is like that. That's what the people in our district want to represent them in Congress. They're waking up to get involved.
Gori: Well, the expression I loved was figuring out who it is that's stealing their chickens. ... I come from a blue-collar family and people, I mean, my family, thank goodness, are liberal Democrats, but we have a couple of relatives that are on the other side. And it's almost like they've had lobotomies, you know? These are not people with money. These are not people ... getting any advantage from any of the things that this group in Washington has passed, and yet they still cling to it.
Courage: Well, for too many years, the Republicans sold a bill of goods to middle America, saying that you, too, can become a Republican. All you need to do is vote like we do and you'll gain all the riches and wealth and power that we have. A lot of middle-class Americans, hard-working families, they don't have the time to sit down and investigate the truth behind the Republican lies. And so they bought in, they drank the Kool-Aid. And before it kills them, we're trying to give them the cure.
You can help John Courage spread his message by encouraging your friends in District 21 to vote for him. You can contribute money to his campaign by going to his Web site here or to the ActBlue Web site here.