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.

Thanks for turning me on.

Thanks for turning me on. Those were the words that Des Moines radio icon Dic Youngs used to close his radio program for over 45 years on KIOA.

Dic, or Youngsy as so many people called him passed away earlier this week. Today I attended the visitation service held in Des Moines. The feelings that I left with will be something that I struggle to completely figure out over the next few days.

Youngsy was a unique character. And I use that word because that is what he was. A character that was loved by so many that listened to him on the radio. First on AM 940 KIOA and then as music all but left the AM band on Oldies 93.3 KIOA.

Dic Youngs left a lasting mark on this community and every one that knew him. He was the embodiment of everything that is missing from radio these days. A person working for over 45 years on one radio station. I have been fortunate in my career that relatively, I have not had to move that much, but even with that my longest tenure has been six years.

But it was more than that. And I could write an entire book about the stories of this legendary man. The man who once went to a high school prom with a girl that did not have a date, that worked countless hours and devoted time to charity. That organized Rock and Roll Reunions and did it because he simply loved the entertainment business and loved being on the radio.

I don't know this for certain, but I don't think Dic Youngs died a wealthy man, at least from a money standpoint. He did what he did because that was what successful radio people did and people that just loved entertaining and making others happy.

A speaker at the service today summed it up better than I ever could when he said. "We grew up in the era where you used radio to effect good, not cause divisions."

I wish that there was the opportunity for radio to create the next Dic Youngs, but voice tracking and consolidation and greed have made that virtually impossible.

The second part of the equation for me was seeing some people today that I have not seen in over 10 years. In some cases much longer. People freeze in time and image in your mind. No one stops and thinks what John F. Kennedy would look like today. He is frozen in time the way he looked prior to November 22, 1963.

We are all getting older. I saw that in these long time friends and noticed how they had changed. Knowing full well that they were thinking the same about me.

It made me confront my own mortality.

I said earlier that I did not think Dic Youngs died a wealthy man. But if a measure of a man's wealth is the legacy he leaves behind, then he was indeed a very wealthy man. The people that turned out today to pay their respects were an amazingly diverse cross section of the population. Old and young, normal working folks and many dignitaries. They were all there. Plus his friends from the radio community. Many of whom will go back to competing fiercely tomorrow but today standing side by side to honor a legend.

So yes, Dic Youngs was a very wealthy man.

In the end the only way to bid farewell to someone like this, that brought such joy and friendship to so many, the majority of which didn't even know him personally, is to simply echo the words he used to close every broadcast.

Youngsy, thanks for turning us on.