Prometheus Radio Project

Does your city or town need community radio?   


Check your zip code here.

Under the current FCC rules, there's little or no room for community radio  in Melbourne; however, the FCC is currently deciding whether to allow special rule waivers that would allow community radio in more locations..

Waivers would make a difference!

But to win fair rules for community radio, the FCC needs to hear from those who support community radio by May 7.  

To send the FCC your customized comment, just enter your zip code on the channel finder tool. Then click "Tell the FCC" on your results page and send your comment.

These are our cities and our airwaves! Tell the FCC that all our cities and towns deserve community radio.

To learn more about the FCC rules and what's at stake, check out Prometheus Radio Take Action page.

Watch a quick video, read more, and explore radio forecast maps. 

Remember, send your comment to the FCC by May 7!

 

LPFM stations that are already operating Melbourne/Palm Bay. 

Find available channels in your area here.

WFHA-LP

MELBOURNE FL
WINDOVER FARMS OF MELBOURNE HOMEOWNERS' ASSOCIATION, INC.
94.1 FM

WGRV-LP

MELBOURNE FL
BREVARD YOUTH EDUCATION BROADCASTING CORP.
93.1 FM

WNRG-LP

PALM BAY FL
PUBLIC RADIO INFORMATION SERVICES OF CENTRAL FLORIDA, INC.
107.9 FM

What's a Haridopolos? Term-Limited!

Good riddance.

(...) (Mike) Haridopolos, 42, is completing his ninth year in the Senate, including two as its president, after serving three years in the Florida House of Representatives. He was first elected to the Senate in a 2003 special election to fill the seat of Howard Futch, who died while in office. Haridopolos cannot run for re-election in the Senate because of term limits. (...) “We’ve had enough politics for a little while,” said Haridopolos, referring to himself and his wife, Dr. Stephanie Haridopolos.

It is we that have had enough of you.

More here.

One Chance

Short Shorts

Guv. Rick Scott gets shot down by the courts again with a no can do drug testing of state workers by executive order slap on the wrist.  He plans an appeal, of course.  Paid for with our tax dollars.

Per usual, the School Board of Brevard County acts with typical class by acting on raises during the school day while teachers are working, Monday, May 7, 9:00 AM.  Retirees, we need your voice!

Interesting conversation about what people think about Brevard Public School teachers here. (The old part-time employees myth surfaces yet again).

Buy Art.  Visit the Melbourne Art Festival this weekend.

Weekend Zen

I'm gipper, I'm gipper, I'm gipper, I'm gipper.

Optimo 55 Souf.  I'm Gipper.

Trending: Daniel Tosh

Best comment yet on the Daniel Tosh/Titusville, Florida water tower issue--

"Cmon now. Tosh is a Titusville favorite son. Other than Chris Collinsworth is there any other well known Titusville alums?" 

How quickly people have forgotten the Space Shuttle.

Make note, Titusville.

Mr. Personality

When I moved back to Melbourne after college graduation, I figured it would be easy to land a job teaching.

I had attended the local schools when the area was still small enough to put names with student faces.

And with a last name like "Shatsky", I mean, honestly, how hard is that to forget?

Armed with my resume, I walked the walk of all newly graduated teachers in search of a classroom, which involves pounding the pavement to area schools and introducing one's self to the principal.

My first stop was Croton Elementary School, located in my old neighborhood. Confident I would be remembered as that wonderful sixth grade city slicker who wore miniskirts and gold suede go-go boots, I entered the office and introduced myself to the clerical staff.

"Hello," I said. "My name is Sheree Shatsky. I'd like to drop off my resume."

The ladies looked at each other and smiled. I was right! They did remember me. I was as good as hired.

One of the office clerks took my resume and looked it over. I couldn't wait to tell my mother that Croton-the very first school I visited-rolled out the red carpet to the Prodigal Student. I must have made some impression as a kid! Must? I did! I was a great kid-a little sassy perhaps-some might say opinionated in a black and white thinking sort of way-but still smart, talented, and darn cute.

She looked up from her reading. Here it comes! What would she say? "Please have a seat. I'll get you right in with Mr. Rose?" Or perhaps, "You are just what we need here at Croton. An interview is just a formality?" I smiled my best smile.

Smiling back, she unceremoniously tossed my resume in the stack on her desk and said, "Didn't you have a brother named Vance?"

The kid who wore three pair of underwear to school as a preemptive strategy in anticipation of a paddling strike by the principal-my brother, Vance-three years my junior-he, they remembered!

As did the staff at Johnson Junior High, my next stop.

Heavy sigh. So much for gold suede go-go boots.

***

Happy Birthday, Vance.

April 26, 1959-January 20, 1986

We miss you.

Florida Sightings: Titusville Wants to Die

The (Titusville) city council turned down a $7,000 proposal to place a banner on a city water tower in honor of Comedy Central comedian Daniel Tosh, who graduated from Astronaut High in 1993.

(...)

“I don’t think it’s a good use of public property,” Councilwoman Martha Long said. “The fact that there is $7,000 being waved in front of us, it’s not worthy.”

 Wow.  With Titusville eroding quickly into a ghost town following the exit of the Space Shuttle program, I think Tosh himself sums up the struggling city best:

"You're slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter." 

Reading for Thinkers

It was the lock of the door which had been closed ten years and she put her hand in her pocket, drew out the key and found it fitted the keyhole. She put the key in and turned it. It took two hands to do it, but it did turn.

And then she took a long breath and looked behind her up the long walk to see if any one was coming. No one was coming. No one ever did come, it seemed, and she took another long breath, because she could not help it, and she held back the swinging curtain of ivy and pushed back the door which opened slowly--slowly.

Then she slipped through it, and shut it behind her, and stood with her back against it, looking about her and breathing quite fast with excitement, and wonder, and delight.

She was standing inside the secret garden.

-- Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

HBO's Girls: Point and Counterpoint

Personally, I found Girls clever. Is it accurate? Part of me hopes the show is "over the top"(way over the top), an opinion based on the amount of wincing I register while viewing.

But then again, often the truth hurts.

 ***

"Girls": What the Hell Was HBO Thinking?

When watching HBO's new, hotly hyped Girls, one thing is clear from the get-go: Hipsters are really going to like this show. Which is to say that it is as profoundly bland as it is unstoppably irritating.
The central character is an unsympathetic victim of First World Problems who mumbles her way through a Brooklynite's perdition of unpaid internships and missed orgasms. In its first three episodes, the comedy series establishes a new low for the premium cable network, even surpassing John From Cincinnati in its level of sheer unwatchability.

--Asawin Suebsaeng

***

Sorry, Haters: "Girls" Lives Up to the Hype

I'lll admit I was skeptical of my colleague Asawin Suebsaeng's review of Girls, the highly anticipated new HBO series, even though I'd never seen the show. While Swin called it "as profoundly bland as it is unstoppably irritating," the show (which premieres on Sunday night) has been hailed by feminist critics as the best thing on television today. I wasn't sure whose opinion to trust until I remembered that Swin recently called 21 Jump Street "pop art" and gushed that American Reunion was an "enjoyable" romp whose "gross-out gags are calibrated with just enough creativity to bypass genre banalities."

"Hipsters are really going to like this show," Swin sneered. I'm not sure how many of the half dozen MoJo interns who gathered for post-work beer and a sneak preview of Girls the other night would identify as hipsters, but we were all girls and we all found the show highly watchable.

(...)

Of course, there's no way that one show can fulfill all girls' desires for self-representation—and Girls certainly doesn't. The show embodies a very specific type of 20-something women—over-educated, affluent, struggling in the big city with the comfortable support of a parental safety net. As Swin rightfully notes, its characters are classic victims of First World Problems. And it remains to be seen if Girls will be relatable beyond the specific milieu of, in Dunham's words, "the rarefied white hipster thing."

-- Maya Dusenbery

More over at Mother Jone Mixed Media.

ALEC Drops Gun Rights Advocacy

" ... the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a 40-year-old conservative advocacy group that supplies legislators with ready-written legislation, announced that, because of pressure from corporations that support its operations, it’s disbanding its Public Safety and Elections taskforce, which supplied states like Florida with its Stand Your Ground law.

ALEC’s decision to end their gun rights advocacy “may be the most important thing politically in terms of legislative effect” in the aftermath of the Trayvon shooting, says Professor Cook at Duke.

(...)

“Possibly the determining issue here is that now a lot of people who have felt they’re not affected by gun violence or [looser gun laws] recognize that, ‘This could have been my kid,’ and they’re seeing the effects of these laws in the real world, and I think that’s something that’s different from past high-profile incidents,” says Josh Sugarman, founder and executive director of the Violence Policy Center in Washington, which advocates for stricter gun laws and more complete and accurate gun-tracking data.

Read more at The Christian Science Monitor.

Quote of the Week

"I am not going to be the veep nominee…Lay that to rest.”

--Jeb Bush

Read more here.

Scott Reduces Retirement Contributions for Employers

Gov. Rick Scott on Friday signed legislation that will reduce retirement contributions for more than 100,000 public employees.The legislation cuts by 30 percent the contributions made by governments on behalf of employees who have elected to participate in the defined-contribution plan of the Florida Retirement System. The legislation does not affect the majority of public employees, the more than 540,000 who are in the traditional pension plan.

With employees contributing 3 percent — as required since July 1, 2011, by legislation that’s been found unconstitutional by a circuit-court judge and is still being litigated — the state or local government bite falls to 3.3 percent.

Think about this. Public employees win the 3% lawsuit and no longer be required to contribute. As a result of the new law above, employers are now contributing less. 

Our pension will be subsequently reduced for who knows how long. My guess is this will be yet another lawsuit.

Public employees work too hard here in Florida to put up with this nonsense.

Read more over at Tallahassee.com.

Good to Know: Teen Birth Rates in the United States, 1940 – 2008

From 1940 to 1957, the teen birth rate increased 78 percent to a record high.

The birth rate dropped fairly steadily from the end of the 1950s through the mid-1980s, but then increased 24 percent between 1986 and 1991.

Between 1991 and 2005, the teen birth rate decreased 34 percent to a record low of 40.5 in 2005.

The teen birth rate increased 5 percent between 2005 and 2007.

However, between 2007 and 2008 the teen birth rate decreased 2 percent.

The chart and the table in this document reflect births per 1,000 teen girls aged 15-19 in the United States and are the most recent national data available.

See the breakdown by specific year here.

Sources:    Hamilton, BE, Martin, JA, & Ventura, S.J., Mathews, T.J., & Hamilton, B.E. (2001). Births to Teenagers in the United States, 1940-2000. National Vital Statistics Reports, 49(10).; Hamilton, B.E., Sutton, P.D., & Ventura, S.J. (2003). Revised Birth and Fertility Rates for the 1990s and New Rates for Hispanic Populations, 2000 and 2001: United States. National Vital Statistics Reports 51(12); Hamilton, BE, Martin, JA, & Ventura, S.J., (2010).    Births: Preliminary data for 2008. National Vital Statistics Reports. 58(16). Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. Released April, 2010.

Weekend Zen

Up on Cripple Creek she sends me
If I spring a leak she mends me
I don't have to speak, she defends me
A drunkard's dream if I ever did see one

The Band.  Up on Cripple Creek.

(R.I.P. Levon Helm).

Short Shorts

Florida state Senator Nan Rich will run against Guv. Rick Scott in 2014.  Other possible Democratic contenders: 2010 gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink, former Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, state Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith, and – if he were to join the Democratic Party - former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, now an independent.

Go figure. TD Bank rated one of the worst in the state of Florida. Read how the rest fared here.

Redistricting goes back to court, possiby more gerrymandered than the first time around?

Peruse Florida legislators associated with ALEC.

A Florida progressive (?) blogger goes to the dark side.

Reading for Thinkers

"There is no more thrilling sensation I know of than sailing. It comes as near to flying as man has got to yet - except in dreams."

Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)
1889

Dick Clark

“It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.” 

 Dick Clark.  1929-2012.

Farewell.

Space Coast Daily

Wanted to give a shout out to Space Coast Daily, an alternative online news source to print media serving the Brevard County area.

Locals will remember Peter Kerasotis.  He heads up sports for the SCD and for those interested, addresses the unceremonious dumping of his talent by FLORIDA TODAY here.

Citizen journalists are offered the opportunity to post to the site. All submissions are reviewed and approved by an editor.  Readers can register and comment on the news site, via Facebook and Twitter here.

For those leaning conservative, you will likely be comfortable in these waters, but for anyone seeking a source outside the local norm, this site might work over your morning cup of coffee.

One piece of advice?  Lose the mug shots.

No More Horsing Around

While most of America horsed around over which women work harder, 15-year-old Madison Wallraf saved over two dozen horses from a five alarm fire at M&R Overlook Farms near McHenry, Illinois.

(...)

"A young girl, a teenager, was riding her horse out here in the pasture, and she saw the flames coming from the barn, so she jumped off her horse, left her horse there, with saddles, reigns, everything. [She] just jumped off and ran and started hauling all the horses out," said witness Dixie Von Helms.

Wallraf crawled through smoke hovering three feet from the floor to reach the horses.

(...)

"I started off by just putting their halters on and pulling them out by twos, but then the fire started getting quicker so I just started wrapping their ropes around their necks and just tying them around my arms and pulling them out. ...  I got kicked in the shoulder by one of the horses in there and I got knocked down a few times, but my adrenaline was so high at the time that it didn't phase me." 

The cause of the fire remains unknown.  Walfraff and her friend Shannon Weitzman, 21 were treated for smoke inhalation.

Read more at The Northwest Herald.

***

True strength lies in gentleness.
— Irish proverb

Florida Cracks Up

"The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the state of Florida can divide into two states. ..."

Read more "Florida Cracks Up" over at The Bloid News, a fake take at today's news.

(Yep.  Shameless self-promotion).

:)

Palm Bay Breaks the GOP Lock on Brevard

Appears Palm Bay, Florida will earn its own state House district after the Florida redistricting dust settles.

More registered Democrats than Republicans living in the city south of Melbourne most certainly means that the Republican lock on Brevard County will finally come to an end.

View the proposed District 53 here.

The Florida Supremes review the revised state Senate plan on April 20. 

Weekend Zen

Sunshine go away today
I don't feel much like dancin'

 Sunshine.  Jonathan Edwards.

Florida Stand Your Ground Campaign

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg joins the challenge against self-defense laws known as Stand Your Ground here in Florida, also known as shoot-first laws across the US.

The law per Bloomberg--as currently written--smacks of "vigilantism".

The Orlando Sentinel:

(...)

Both men said people have a right to defend themselves in their homes and vehicles but should be held to a different standard in public places.

"I'm trying to protect people across this country," Bloomberg said. "Plain and simple, this [law] is just trying to give people a license to murder."

Read more about the campaign at FloridaStandYourGround.org.

George Zimmerman was charged yesterday with second degree manslaughter in the shooting of Trayvon Martin.

Citizens United Redo

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take a second look at the controversial Citizens United ruling which basically resulted in the corporate financial takeover of political campaigns.


UPI:

(...)

In upholding a ban on corporate independent expenditures in state elections, the Montana justices determined that "unlike Citizens United, this case concerns Montana law, Montana elections and it arises from Montana history."

That ruling, the petition said, raises the question for the U.S. Supreme Court to consider: "Whether Montana is bound by the holding of Citizens United, that a ban on corporate independent political expenditures is a violation of the First Amendment, when the ban applies to state, rather than federal, elections."

Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission is the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision two years ago that effectively ended the restrictions on political contributions from the general funds of corporations and unions.

Read more here.

Short Shorts

Santorum calls it quits.

As do George Zimmerman's attorneys.

Ashley Judd slaps back at a media preoccupied with plastic surgery.

And Florida Atlantic University goes Presidential.

Florida Pension Tension Prolonged

Boo, hiss.

The Florida Supremes have indeed scheduled to hear the 3% pension lawsuit filed by state workers-this September.

The First District Court of Appeals had granted the request of the FEA to jettison the pension lawsuit directly to the Florida Supreme Court.

So much for fast tracking.

Florida educators and fellow state workers whipped yet again.

Read more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/03/supreme-court-primed-to-take-on-3-percent-pension-case-starting-in-september.html#storylink=cpy

Weekend Zen

Just hang on, hang on to the vine
Stay on, soon you'll be divine

Pink Martini. Hang on Little Tomato.

Puppet Republic

Who is really writing state legislation?

And with little scrutiny?

Hint.  It's not your state legislators.

Find out who here.

Ditch ALEC

For those who ponder why so many states seem to take on an issue simultaneously, ponder no longer.

ALEC aka American Legislative Exchange Council is a corporate funded group that funds and shoves extremist right-wing issues down our throats.  Stand Your Ground laws, turning public lands over to corporations and supporting efforts to suppress voting (including the reduction of early voting days) are a few examples of the group's influence over state legislators.

The Bismark Tribune:

(..)


ALEC brings together state and federal lawmakers, who pay $100 for a two-year membership, and corporations, which pay between $2,500 and $25,000 for an annual membership. The legislators and corporate representatives draft templates of legislation that can be used by lawmakers and lobbyists as models for state or federal legislation.

Meaning, legislators are mere puppets of ALEC. That atrocity-- in tandem with the SCOTUS 2010 Citizens United decision permitting super PACs to saturate campaigns with huge contributions--simply vaporizes the voice of the American individual.

It appears the American individual has had enough.

Facing threat of boycott by the American public and likely skittish of the outrage following the Trayvon Martin shooting, two corporate members of ALEC have dropped membership in the organization

Coke has called it quits as well as Kraft.  Pepsi jumped ship in January.

AT&T, Bayer, ExxonMobil, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson &Johnson, Koch Industries, Pfizer, State Farm Insurance, UPS and Wal-Mart Stores all remain members.  Read here for a complete list, which sadly includes one of my go-to companies, Amazon.com.

It's time these companies left ALEC as well.

You can help.  Sign the petition here.

And take note of companies that continue to align with such a destructive organization.

Like Amazon.com.

Short Shorts

A New York pit bull stands his ground and takes a bullet to the head from the intruder. In Florida, my guess is the intruder would claim self-defense. Kilo-- twelve years old--survived the shooting.  That's one lucky dog.  Send best wishes here.

Sarah Palin's "Game Change" of morning talk television goes noticed by Jon Stewart. Check out his views Gov. Palin's debut here.

If you have yet to catch the HBO dramatization of Game Change, a bio pic depicting the inner workings of the grooming of Mrs. Palin as a VP candidate, it's worth a watch.  Follow up post-view with McCain campaign senior advisor-turned-author Steve Schmidt's take on the dramatization here.

Reading for Thinkers

“Pass the damn ham, please.”

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

***

Join the USA Network this weekend in celebraration fifty years of To Kill a Mockingbird.

President Obama kicks off the party with opening remarks before opening the curtain on Hollywood's portrayal of America's most beloved novel.

To learn more about Lee herself, watch the full documentary Hey Boo on the American Masters website here or pour yourself a favorite beverage, sit alongside with me and view below.





 

Watch Harper Lee: Hey, Boo on PBS. See more from American Masters.

The Politics of Contraception

The CNN/ORC International Poll  (March 24-25, 2012) found what most women already know.

Mitt Romney is a casualty of the GOP self-declared "war on women" .

When asked "If Barack Obama were the Democratic Party's candidate and Mitt Romney were the Republican Party's candidate, who would you be more likely to vote for -- ?" , sixty percent of women chose President Obama over 37% of female respondents likely to vote for GOP candidate Mitt Romney

And for a bonus response:

Read here how 56% of poll respondents blame the Bush administration for the current state of this country's economy.

***

" ...it is idle for us to expect that the men who thus rob women will not rob each other as individuals, corporations and Government."

--Susan B. Anthony, Activist

Meet My PGP

This is what a completed PGP looks like.

The Professional Growth Plan is required of all educators pursuant to Florida State Statute 1012.98(4b)(5).

Too bad the statute doesn't address compensation of off the clock hours spent pulling this bad boy together.

None of which I or my fellow educators received.