(Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we broadcast, Dispatches From Scotland, with our Government and World Affairs Correspondent, Will McCleod, as he travels the Highlands and the Dells interviewing members of Parliament, business owners and the common working stiffs of Scotland with regular daily reports on the Scottish Independence Referendum.)
"Letter from America by Will Mcleod" Podcast is now available for your perusal at the link or at the Netroots Radio Blackthorn PodCast Player
Will McLeod's 'Letter From America' is a series of radio missives from Netroots Radio to the People of Scotland.
Netroots Radio Player and other info below the Orange Flourish.
The After Show with Wink and Justice broadcasts 8am to 9am Pacific on Metaphor Mondays, Wednesday's Child is Full of Whoa! Wednesdays, Thank God It's Giovedì (that's what we call it) and Angle of Repose Fridays
Who luvs ya, baby!?
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The Netroots Radio Player
Daily Kos Radio, Vintage James Baldwin, Labor History, Native American Documentaries, Flashpoints, Majority Report, RadioLabor News, Democracy Now, The David Packman Show, The Union Edge, The Professional Left with Driftglass & Blue Gal, Free Speech Radio News, Jim Hightower, Green News Report, ACLU Minutes, Breaking Through with Mom's Rising, The BradCast, Talking Left with Danielle & Shane-O, Eclectic Mixes by Spc Agnt DJ Justice, Nicole Sandler, Ring of Fire, The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow, Liberal Fix Radio, Health, Science & History Specials, your Netroots Radio Favorites... and so much more, on right now!
Go ahead, now you can listen while roaming the Big Orange and beyond!
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(Netroots Radio could use your help. Go to the donate button at the bottom of our homepage at NetrootsRadio.com to keep progressive radio beaming 24/7!)
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(12-String Ovation Balladeer Astoria, Oregon / copyright Justice Putnam)
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Don't forget to tune in to The Justice Department: Musique sans Frontieres, Sundays 8pm to 9pm Pacific and Mondays 9pm to Midnight Pacific.
Special Agent DJ Justice; Radio Host and Program Director for Netroots Radio mans the dials, spins the discs, warbles the woofers, puts a slip in your hip and a trip to your hop.
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Voices and Soul appears on Black Kos Tuesday's Chile; poetry chosen and critiqued by Black Kos Poetry Editor Justice Putnam.
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(Cut Stones and Arch St Ceneri, France / copyright Justice Putnam)
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(Chateau de Valicourt Montmorancy, France / copyright Justice Putnam)
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Question: Who is your audience? What are you here for?
Answer: Tribal Alliances, Heart-felt Convictions, Passionate Reason, Random Abandon, Sustainable Civility and a kiss; to comfort the sad and the mad Ones; the Ones roaming the International section of the American Supermarket at night; or roaming the neglected streets looking for an angry malaprop to sink their teeth into; the Ones who seek without seeking and learn as much as they teach; the Ones who embrace and kiss and embrace again; the Ones who sing the song of the city and the ballads of the forest; the Ones who chant the rhythm of the sea and hum the melody of the desert; the Ones who sing the prayer of Her name and Her name is the World. Yes, those are the Ones. -- JP
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(Man, Girl and Broken Window Klamath Falls, Oregon / copyright Justice Putnam)
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Old Fisherman and Cannery on Corsica / copyright Justice Putnam
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Okiciyap (we help) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, your donation should be tax deductible. Okiciyap, located on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota, is working to provide a food pantry, youth center, K-12 educational support, GED & Lakota as a 2nd language class support for youth and adults. The word Okiciyap is Lakota for "we help."
The Daily Kos Fundraising for Okiciyap group was formed to support the pantry. More information is available at the Okiciyap diaries published here at Daily Kos.
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So that explains it... !
Sunlight and Water Pitcher Muir Beach / copyright Justice Putnam
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... Or does it?
(Holy Bible and 3 in 1 Oil Berkeley, California / copyright Justice Putnam)
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(Motown NN14 Detroit, Michigan / copyright Justice Putnam)
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(Rail Road Crossing, Sonoma California / copyright Justice Putnam)
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(Farm Road Olema, California / copyright Justice Putnam)
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"Many heroes lived before Agamemnon, but they are all unmourned, and consigned to oblivion, because they had no bard to sing their praises."
-- Horace
"Still the race of hero spirits pass the lamp from hand to hand."
-- Charles Kingsley
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(Lamp and Post Berkeley, California / copyright Justice Putnam)
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(House Ruins of Poet St Pol Roux Brittany, France / copyright Justice Putnam)
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1
She is on the second floor of a tenement.
From her front room window you see the cemetery.
Her bedroom is my favourite: newspapers
dating back to the War covering every present
she’s ever got since the War. What’s the point
in buying her anything my mother moans.
Does she use it. Does she even look at it.
I spend hours unwrapping and wrapping endless
tablecloths, napkins, perfume, bath salts,
stories of things I can’t understand, words
like conscientious objector. At night I climb
over all the newspaper parcels to get to bed,
harder than the school’s obstacle course. High up
in her bed all the print merges together.
When she gets the letter she is hopping mad.
What does she want with anything modern,
a shiny new pin? Here is home.
The sideboard solid as a coffin.
The newsagents next door which sells
hazelnut toffees and her Daily Record.
Chewing for ages over the front page,
her toffees sticking to her false teeth.
2
The new house is called a high rise.
I play in the lift all the way up to 24.
Once I get stuck for a whole hour.
From her window you see noisy kids
playing hopscotch or home.
She makes endless pots of vegetable soup,
a bit bit of hoch floating inside like a fish.
Till finally she gets to like the hot
running water in her own bathroom,
the wall-to-wall foam-backed carpet,
the parcels locked in her air-raid shelter.
But she still doesn’t settle down;
even at 70 she cleans people’s houses
for ten bob and goes to church on Sundays,
dragging me along to the strange place where the air
is trapped and ghosts sit at the altar.
My parents do not believe. It is down to her.
A couple of prayers. A hymn or two.
Threepenny bit in the collection hat.
A flock of women in coats and fussy hats
flapping over me like missionaires, and that is that,
until the next time God grabs me in Glasgow with Gran.
3
By the time I am seven we are almost the same height.
She still walks faster, rushing me down the High Street
till we get to her cleaning house. The hall is huge.
Rooms lead off like an octopus’s arms.
I sit in a room with a grand piano, top open –
a one-winged creature, whilst my gran polishes
for hours. Finally bored I start to pick some notes,
oh can you wash a sailor’s shirt oh can you wash and clean
till my gran comes running, duster in hand.
I told you don’t touch anything. The woman comes too;
the posh one all smiles that make goosepimples
run up my arms. Would you like to sing me a song?
Someone’s crying my Lord Kumbaya. Lovely, she says,
beautiful child, skin the colour of café au lait.
‘Café oh what? Hope she’s not being any bother.’
Not at all. Not at all. You just get back to your work.
On the way to her high rise I see her
like the hunchback of Notre Dame. Everytime I crouch
over a comic she slaps me. Sit up straight.
She is on the ground floor of a high rise.
From her living-room you see ambulances,
screaming their way to the Royal Infirmary.
-- Jackie Kay
"My Grandmother's Houses"
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Rest in Peace Aaron Swartz
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(Morning Fog And Surf, Muir Beach, California / copyright Justice Putnam)
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