http://www.federfiles.com/ en-us 2010-06-14T19:44:13-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000115.html Please excuse the rambling nature of this missive. I’m old, that’s my excuse. How old, exactly? Well, if I actually make it to 6:49pm Eastern time this coming Wednesday, I will be sixty-five. Let me put that in number form for you, ladies and gentlemen: 65. That’s SIXTY-FIVE years OLD. I have not aged well. I don’t mean in the external, superficial, the merely physical way. I suppose—aside from the myriad destructive effects of unrelenting, self-created, and self-maintained stress— I suppose I fall into a sort of middle category when it comes to that part of aging; Eyes, teeth, joints, various other parts and processes are worn or aching probably no more and no less than the average sixty-five-year-old—taking into account class, race, level of education, degree of missing serotonin at birth, etc. I probably look 65, though I have a hard time judging that anymore—hard time telling, for that... Magazine mikefeder 2010-06-14T19:44:13-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000114.html I'm doing a show tonight (interviewing a noted immigration lawyer and expert) on Arizona's new law... Are they a bunch of rascist, proto-fascists or just overwhelmed and trying to protect themselves because the cowards in the Federal government won't do it for them. Putting the Civil War and most of the Tea Party nuttiness aside, States do have some rights--especially perhaps when they are left helpless by the the Federal Govt. -- A complicated issue. To me, there is, unavoidably, massive racism behind this new law in Arizona, but this is America, so what's new. There are more complex questions, politically and economically at work here. ...Anyway, thinking about the above, who poppped into my mind but my Aunt Erma--may she rest in peace; a descendant, as, of course, our entire family was/is of that happy-go-lucky gang Moses led out of Egypt. She worshipped (not religiously) the sun and spent... Magazine mikefeder 2010-05-08T12:23:41-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000113.html Here's an e-mail I got after yesterday evening's radio show on Sirius. I was talking about what seems to be a kind of intellectual/political devolution in white males in this country, especially fundamentalist Christians and Republicans in predominantly Southern, Midwestern and Western States. ...For example, the Governor of Virginia declaring April to be Confederate History Month, or the Texas Board of Education altering its state textbooks so that Thomas Jefferson is excluded from a list of great Enlightenment thinkers-- And, finally, a Congressman from South Carolina who was afraid of locating more military personnel on Guam because he was afraid too many additional people would cause the Island to tip over into the ocean. One of the great joys after all the years I've been in broadcasting (aside from town house, The villa in Tuscany, the private jet--and all the rest--is the warm feeling you get hearing from listeners, especially... Magazine mikefeder 2010-04-11T18:43:07-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000111.html I've been reading articles on the Copenhagen summit meeting on global warming. 1) Because I have previously ignored the whole phenomenon—having lain for a long time in the warm bath of helpless passivity in the face of such an overwhelming catastrophe; and 2) Because I've been interviewing experts (scientists) on my Sirius show, and I don't want to appear to be as ignorant as I really am. As my Grandmother used to say, that would be "a shame for the neighbors." Lo and behold, it has been revealed to me that, among other great man-made causes of global warming (spewing Carbon dioxide into the air and destroying the planet's ability to absorb it so that it stays in the atmosphere) is de-forestation. Now, I actually did know about the rain forests and how their destruction was contributing to the whole disaster. What I didn’t know (though, in retrospect it seems... Magazine mikefeder 2009-12-20T11:20:30-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000109.html I'm re-posting a piece I wrote two days after Veteran' Day, 2008. This was just after Obama got elected, with all the hope and promises that came along with him. Its been ten months now, and, at some point, Bush's wars have started to become and are now close to actually being, Obama's wars. Yes, Obama inherited these terrible, complex situations, but by now he's had time to sort out and become aware of the extent of his inheritance. What happens from here on in--like, for instance, the possibility of sending tens of thousands of more troops to Afghanistan--is entirely Obama's doing--and the deaths, mutilations and despair they cause will be on his head. In Iraq, we seem to be in the process of withdrawing according to some schedule. That's good, but, I believe the plan is to leave a couple of divisions in the country to protect American "interests"--... Magazine mikefeder 2009-11-11T16:29:14-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000108.html It seems to me that the tragedy at Fort Hood on Wednesday was almost inevitable, and, also, perfectly symbolic of this country's almost total disconnection from the central flow of humanity. ...Here's a man, Major Nidal Hasan, who had made numerous official requests to be let out of his contract with the army; who, in fact, had hired a lawyer to represent him in his efforts to break his contract. I realize that the Army had put him through both undergraduate and medical school and that he owed them his time and professional services (I think it was nine years as a psychiatrist that he owed them). That's only right and fair. But you might think that, upon seeing such resolute dedication to ending his connection to the Army, it might lead his superiors to consider that he would certainly not be performing what was a very delicate and difficult... Magazine mikefeder 2009-11-10T11:54:22-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000107.html One of my guests this past Saturday on Sirius was Leonard Goodman, a defense attorney practicing in Chicago. Mr. Goodman is one of the dozens of lawyers who have been volunteering their time and efforts to free—or at least get a legitimate day in court for—the remaining 230 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Many of these defense lawyers were recruited by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. …On my show we’ve talked many, many times about the two tragic and unnecessary invasions/occupations we're involved in right now in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the terrible cost in lives and money involved— not to mention the utter political incompetence and moral failure that these wars represent... Further, we’ve talked about the astounding hypocrisy and twisted values of a Congress and a President who are so terribly concerned about finding money to provide life-saving health care to Americans when the very money... Magazine mikefeder 2009-10-26T21:36:46-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000106.html Well, here it is, Father's Day-- a celebration invented, no doubt by either some publicity-seeking politician or the owner of a chain of department stores looking to boost sales. It’s always possible, of course, that it had a more touching beginning. But however it began; it does arouse feelings in a great many people... Walking on Broadway this morning I saw some obvious parties sitting at the outdoor tables of restaurants--clearly there to honor their father. And, in the space of one block, I heard two separate cell-phone conversations--a forty-ish woman and a man in his early twenties, wishing their fathers happy Father's Day... As with many of these celebration days—again, no matter how mercenary or mundane their origin might have been— (Mother's Day, etc.), its something that has, over the decades, attained the level and status of an important human ritual-- something that taps into the a very deep... Magazine mikefeder 2009-06-21T20:07:36-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000105.html Sitting inside my apartment with, as usual these days, too much time on my hands; listening to the non-stop rain bouncing off, splashing, clinking on the metal fire-escape outside the window--off the metal windowsills, and down on to the bricks in cement courtyard six floors below... Seems to me that such a day has far more charm in the country or even in other parts of the city where things are smaller and quieter. I remember the rain hitting the wood and tar-paper roof of the little house I grew up in out in Queens, and watching the drops hit the leaves of the trees in the backyard.. There are few sounds as peaceful and evocative as raindrops hitting a roof or landing on leaves or splashing in small puddles... I guess, though, that sound and that quiet, philosophical state it induces is really as much a state of mind... Magazine mikefeder 2009-06-06T15:41:32-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000104.html While I have the rare energy, some random observations… Blame it all on Wall Street or Government regulators or on the criminal gang that ran our government for the last 8 years-- up until about 3 weeks ago… The marauding Bush monster may have had its various heads chopped off, but a great deal of the huge, toxic body remains---embedded deep in the roots of the vast government bureaucracy, the court system, the very philosophical and cultural assumptions and mechanisms of America. The great tidal wave of corruption, greed, violence, imperious arrogance and contempt of everything decent can’t just sweep over a country and when its gone, leave that country clean as a whistle, ready to sprout clean new flowers… Such a tsunami of everything petty and vicious and insensate in human beings leaves nothing but a dripping, devastated ruin—i.e., the current financial plight of our country; reflected in the... Magazine mikefeder 2009-02-15T18:50:22-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000103.html So who pays any attention to Veteran's Day anymore? A hell of a lot of people, I'm guessing, in certain places in the country. But in Manhattan the other day, there weren’t many. As in all things involving this giant beehive, "not many" is a relative term. The newspaper estimated that there were about 20,000 people at the parade, but didn't specify if that was the crowd, the marchers or both together. In any case, I was on the East Side, hurrying as fast as my aged body would carry me, to the West side, to do a fill-in show for Lynn Samuels at Sirius… And I was worried that I'd be held up by the parade. No worry. It was a sparse, not too lively crowd that lined Fifth Avenue—at least in the Forties where I was crossing. And the actual parade was thin, ragged and pathetic-looking. To be... Magazine mikefeder 2008-11-13T19:48:59-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000102.html It is a historical moment, almost beyond comprehension, that Barack Obama is President-elect and that he and his family will soon be living in the White House... A black man and his family presiding and residing in the "White" house. What is in the minds and hearts of black Americans now, especially older black Americans, is beyond my white person's comprehension. However, from my point of view—having been born in the forties and grown up in the fifties, etc., this story, if some writer had dreamed it up then, could have been published only in a fantasy and science fiction magazine; maybe Ray Bradbury would have written it. I remember a great scene in Bradbury's Martian Chronicles… Mars had been found to be safe and relatively easy to get to for residents of Earth, and, after some small amount of time went by, all the black people in the American... mikefeder 2008-11-07T17:59:13-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000101.html So, the last debate has come and gone. And like all things that go now, it goes fast... hurtling rapidly into to the forgotten archives of the past... That it, after its replayed a thousand times the next day until you could die of boredom watching the news... But after a day goes by, an event or a speech, no matter how shocking or momentous, is OLD... There are 20 million blogs, fifty million instant messages--flying text and graphics appearing every second everywhere... Not to mention a thousand interviews and moving ribbons and split screens. Twenty-four/Seven news channels eat human emotion, thought and experience like a gang of starving sharks... Breaking News!! What happened? Oh, did you miss it? Yeah, what happened? I don't know anymore--it happened two minutes ago... Oh.. Wait!! More Breaking News!! What? Where? I looked away for a second. Too bad, it’s gone now. What's gone?... mikefeder 2008-10-17T21:05:54-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000100.html Taking calls from listeners (as usual)… On the phone-call monitor in front of me, my engineer, who took the call initially, has typed in that the caller has identified himself as Bob and that he's calling from Idaho—but, really, he could be Anybody from Anywhere... A lot of the callers are truckers or people in cars but they will sometimes identify themselves by their home state when in fact, they might be anywhere in the country-- calling on their cell phones. I often get calls from some trucker who is listed as calling from Texas but is currently rolling through Indiana hauling a load of appliances or dog food or plastic bags... Some calls I can recognize by the area code (whenever someone calls any radio show these days their phone number appears on the screen. Once people became aware of this, it cut down quite a bit on... Magazine mikefeder 2008-10-12T19:06:11-05:00 http://www.federfiles.com/archives/000099.html Political Babble Am I the only one who's sick of hearing all these ridiculous numbers from the candidates? 300 billion in new taxes! 800 Billion in new spending! 5 million jobs! 18 billion in pork spending! Who could possibly understand or even care anymore about all these numbers? They are all wishful fantasies or outright lies--- Abstract numbers that reflect nothing of reality and are merely spouted to the point of meaninglessness to scare off or attract voters. I'm bored to tears by this entire campaign-- Even Ms. Wolf-killer is getting to be less entertaining. I wish it was election day tomorrow and we could just get it over with-- Hopefully send McCain back to Las Vegas and Palin back to Alaska to deal with impeachment by her own state legislature. Also, the sooner the election, the less chance the desparate criminals in the current administration and their surrogates (McCain,... Magazine mikefeder 2008-10-10T17:47:33-05:00