I'm taking a time out.

I have to take a time out. I don’t really want to but I think that my long term stability is at risk if I do not.

I spend an inordinate amount of time with the day’s news. Not just watching what passes for a local newscast but really doing a deep dive with the news and opinion shows that make up the 24 hour news cycles.

I take it all in, analyze it myself, and pass on what I see as interesting or thought provoking to others via the social networking sites. Then I watch the ones that hit the like button on Facebook and the others that tell me I am an idiot.

So for the past several months I have been following the story of young Kyle Van Nocker. A young boy diagnosed with cancer prior to his fifth birthday. He fought an amazing fight, kept his spirits and those around him up and even wore t-shirts printed with things like, bald is cool.

By all counts his parents insurance company, Health America, spent between 1.6 and 1.8 million dollars on his care. But before you start feeling sorry for Health America they reported a profit last quarter of 79 million dollars. Then Health America decided they had spent enough. They, not Kyle’s doctors, made the decision that he had received enough treatment. They were not going to pay for anymore.

Some actuary had made the decision that a young boys life was worth 1.8 million dollars and no more. They stopped paying. I defy anyone to tell me that this is not a death panel. The Republicans warned that with the new Health care bill we would create death panels. I say they already exist.

What happened to Kyle? If not a death panel, what? They decided what his life was worth. They made the decision that they were not going to pay for anymore treatment. They signed his death sentence and I’ll bet that they did not feel one bit of guilt.

Kyle has passed away. An unimaginable loss for this family and friends. Nothing but a damn statistic for American Health.

This is America. This isn’t supposed to happen here. Republicans say the Health Care Bill will destroy our current system. For once, I pray they are right.

When I watched the news of Kyle’s passing I broke down and cried like a baby. I didn’t know him but having followed his story I felt like I did. I was so upset and angry I spewed out a few choice words about The United States and what it was becoming.

Watching the news and looking at the Internet sites as much as I do has impacted me in a very negative way. I get very angry and feel very helpless. All I can do is vote. Which I do, and I don’t see things getting better.

I see people wanting to burn Korans, death panels killing little boys and people taking someone like Sarah Palin seriously.

So, I have to take a time out. I have to cut back my exposure. I will not stick my head in the sand and I will still continue to fight for what I believe in. I just cannot continue to be exposed to the gotcha debates, the hate from people like Rush Limbaugh, and the utter phoniness of Glenn “Lonesome Rhodes” Beck. I will also swear off Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann.

I’ll be back. In the meantime I have to take a little sanity break. Maybe a good David Baldacci mystery.

So this is what it has come too?

This is what it has come to? Last night I was watching television and saw an interview with a Minister in Florida that is organizing a rally on September 11th for a mass burning of the Koran. That’s right, a large group of people seem to think it is a good idea to get together and burn the Koran, the Muslim equivalent of the Christian Bible.

The interviewer asked the man, and I am reluctant to call him a Pastor because I cannot believe a man of the cloth would perpetrate such an event, if there was anyone person in the United States that he admired. He answered, “Yes, President Bush.” So the interviewer asked, “So if President Bush called and ask you not to do this would you stop the rally?” His answer was no.

Looking beyond outrage, I was saddened. I can’t believe that this is what I am hearing in the United States. A country symbolized by Lady Liberty standing on Liberty Island. “Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free.” Just make sure that they are not of the Muslim Faith.

What happened? Why did it take ten years from the 9-11 attack for this rhetoric to be ratcheted up so fiercely?

Some would say it is because of the proposed Islamic Cultural Center in lower Manhattan. A few years back we visited that area in lower Manhattan. I saw some amazing things. I saw people gathered outside of a first responder fire house across the street from the World Trade Center site burst into spontaneous applause when the fire fighters opened the station house door. I saw people lower their voices to a whisper when the crossed the street and walked the side walks by where the twin towers once stood. Speaking in soft tones like one does in a church or holy place. I saw the Church across the street where the rescue workers rested between shifts on those horrible days, the pews forever scratched and scarred from their boots.

That’s not all I saw. I saw shameless hucksters across the street selling souvenirs and trying to make a buck. I saw hotels and a Burger King, a huge retail Century 21 store and even a strip bar. All part of the fabric that makes up New York City.

The other thing that strikes you when you visit this area is how small it really is. The streets are narrow, the green space is non-existent, and the buildings are tall. You cannot see around the corner, let alone down the street.

But because the 9-11 hijackers were Muslims all these things, even the t-shirt vendors are OK on the often referenced scared ground, but not a community center for Muslims. Strip bars yes, Muslim Community Center, no. OK. So how many blocks away is appropriate. Apparently not as far away as Florida or even in Tennessee where in Murfreesboro they are trying to stop a mosque as well. Where then? The warehouse district, out in those industrial areas where they put the adult book stores?

What or who is to say what is appropriate for lower Manhattan. Who is to say what is appropriate for Oklahoma City or anywhere else that some group deems sacred ground? The constitution, that’s what.

The right to religious freedom is the very foundation that this country was built upon. Because some blowhard on the radio or TV or some politician looking to grab a headline or some misguided fool in Florida doesn’t like it, just doesn’t matter.

Is it distasteful? Perhaps. But how can you paint a broad stroke that all Muslims are terrorists? It would be like saying all Catholics are terrorists because Timothy McVeigh was Roman Catholic. It is pure racially motivated hatred and it sickens me.

My next door neighbor on 9-11 was Muslim. He and his family were ashamed and hurting just like the rest of us. He was afraid for his safety. Why? He didn’t do anything. I never thought he was a terrorist nor had anything to do with the World Trade Center coming down. He flew an American flag on his porch like the rest of us.

Everyone has the right to worship or not to worship as they see fit and where they see fit. Trying to stop this Islamic Center is a very slippery slope. What’s next? Regulating in what parts of the city there can be a synagogue? And what about the use of Roman numerals on buildings. Wasn’t Pontius Pilate a Roman? See? How far does it go?

Burning the Koran. Racial hatred, and all this on the eve on Dr. King’s historic march on Washington.

Keep feeding the 24 hour news channels. Keep listening to the hate mongers on TV and Radio. They will be there spewing this nonsense as long as there is an audience for it.

I for one am worried about the direction of my country. I will continue to pray for it, until such time as some politician decides my neighborhood is an inappropriate place to do so.

Racial Profiling

Racial profiling. Two words that have always made me cringe. The thought that in 2010 in the United States an African American could be stopped simply for being in too good of a neighborhood. The thought that he or she surely didn't belong there and therefore had to be up to no good. That kind of thinking was something that I could not comprehend. So imagine how surprised I was when I unwittingly did the same thing to an innocent person.

I was recently on a flight from Las Vegas to Houston. Seated across the aisle from me in the center seat was a man of middle eastern descent. He was clutching a very expensive camera with an equally expensive lens. As the plane taxied and took off the man became extremely agitated. He could not sit still in his seat, was sweating profusely and at times appeared to be crying. Every few minutes he would take the camera apart, look inside and shake it and then put it back together.

My mind started on a roller coaster ride through my head. Was the camera set up as an incendiary device? Was he about to leap out of his seat at any minute and head toward the cockpit? Was the camera going to explode or start a fire. What was he up to?

So I started making a plan. Every since 9-11 I had decided that if I was ever in a situation where terrorists were trying to take over a plane that I would not be one that sat by and let fate dictate my future. In other words I was not going to go down without a fight.

I started looking around to see who might be of help. To the left and behind was a woman traveling with two children under the age of five. No help there. Behind me was what appeared to be her husband with two other small children. Probably nothing there. In front of me was a large man that looked like he would welcome the opportunity to kick anyone's rear end at any time for any reason. Other than that, there wasn't much in the immediate area.

So I sat back and watched. He continued to take the camera apart and put it back together. Fidget in the seat and sweat through his shirt.

Of course, in the end, thankfully he was just a nervous flyer. But it made me think. If that had been a middle aged white man doing that, right away I would have probably just written him off as a nervous flyer. But since he was middle eastern I jumped to the conclusion that he was a terrorist and made plans to try and stop whatever he was planning.

I had unwittingly engaged in racial profiling. I am not proud of it and have tried to rationalize it a million different ways. I was just being cautious, or it is just the way of the world post 9-11. The reality is, it was wrong and no matter how I try and make it seem OK, it isn't.

It's like they told us in Grammar School, you can't judge a book by it's cover.

I wonder what I will do if I am confronted with a situation like that in the future. I am sorry to say that I cannot be sure that I will not do the same thing.

Who would have thought?

So I am sitting here on Sunday evening and thinking about what a difference eight months make. As most people know on April 28th of 2009 my position was eliminated and for the first time in my adult life I was unemployed. What most people don't know is that despite the worries about how I was going to pay our bills, that on the inside I could not have been happier. Rumors of the layoffs had been circulating for months and I was secretly hoping and nearly praying that I would be on the list.

I had been in my current position for six years and going to work had become insufferable. I had been beaten down to the point that radio, an industry I had loved since I first was fascinated by it as a child, was now something I hated.

What I now realize is that radio wasn't the problem at all. Nor was it the company I worked for. It wasn't even the changes that had come about in the industry over the past several years. The problem was the management team that I had been working for. The people that lead by keeping employees in their place, by always looking for something to find fault with and telling you things like you are lucky to have a job.

Sunday nights were the worst. About three in the afternoon I started to feel my mood change. It was all about the dread of going back to work in the morning and facing another week. So when I was dismissed I decided no matter what I had to do, I was done with radio.

Thankfully a good friend of many years made me reconsider that decision. Now jump forward to tonight. It's around 10 pm and I am happily looking forward to another week. I have been back on the air recently filling in here and there and have finally had the chance to do some talk radio and on the legendary WHO no less. Yesterday during the show we heard from callers listening over the air in Wyoming and South Bend, Indiana. The mighty signal of WHO. Radio is fun again and I am having the time of my life.

Why, because I am treated with respect and my co-workers and managers actually care about my thoughts and opinions. I am fortunate to work for the best General Manager in radio and it has made all the difference in the world.

So tomorrow I will go in and prepare for a week that includes station visits from Uncle Kracker and Brandi Carlile. I will do the morning show tomorrow on Capital 106.3 and Saturday morning on WHO. And in between, whatever the week brings, I will be having fun and it will be at work. Life is good again.