• Bakken: Oh, yeah. And I have the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting in Minneapolis, which covers the history of radio. It covers radios from the turn of the century—the crystal detection set. Of course, crystal radio doesn’t require any power if you have local stations that are strong enough. I had a crystal set built into my bed so I could listen with the lights out after my parents thought I was asleep. I like old-time radio like Amos ‘n’ Andy and Fibber McGee and Molly.
  
  During the war, it became known that I had a first-class, radio-telephone license that I had gotten when I was 17, and they automatically made me a radar instructor. I taught airborne, high-altitude bombing radar for three years.
  

At 82, Bakken is quick to point out that he's “still working” on projects ranging from the support of environmental research on the “Big Island” of Hawaii to the development of innovative healing techniques that partner sophisticated medical technology with traditional “high touch” healing methods like massage and acupuncture. He has helped the North Hawaii Community Hospital grow into a showcase for what he calls “blended medicine.”

“Most hospitals are warehouses for sick bodies,” he said. “This hospital is built for patients.”

Bakken's focus remains resolutely on the future. In the mid-1970s he founded the Bakken Library and Museum in Minneapolis to share with a younger generation his fascination with electricity. In the 1980s he helped launch the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting, located in St. Louis Park, Minn. Both museums share the goal of fostering interest in engineering as a career.

“We need so many engineers,” Bakken said. “We're getting short of them in the U.S. Other countries are beating us in training engineers. The Bakken and the Pavek train a lot of kids. We hope we can get some of them to [attend] the University.” 

 

Bakken: It all comes back to Hawaii. There are seven organizations here in Hawaii that I’m very involved with, all attending to the health of the people. I have a community-health organization called Five Mountains Hawaii that targets a lot of local issues, such as drug and alcohol abuse. We’ve also begun to measure community health in every way you can think of, including automobile accidents.

Cooper: What are some of your findings?

Bakken: Well, for instance, we have a report that says students that don’t finish high school experience an extremely high death-rate in future years. If they do finish high school, those rates drop a little. If they get a year of college or trade school, those rates drop by half. And that’s U.S. figures, not just the Big Island. We try hard to encourage parents to be sure their children get at least 13 years of schooling. Somehow it awakens the child’s brain to look at life more positively.

Bakken represents the potential of the American people and what is so great about our Capitalistic Democratic Republic that Michelle Oh-no-mama thinks is so awful and unfair...."cuz people gotta get over the setbacks, pick themselves up after falling down and jump hurdles" of life?  I bet she would never have been a successful Olympic athlete with a negative and bitter laced vision like hers.  She prospered during the Reagan Era and guess it was 8 years of Clinton who screwed things up if the present is so bleak as Bush's economic policies are better than Clintons?   Cheers

Then in addition to the Steyn-way's manificent piece they are some other people in the Blogosphere who on are the same wavelength as Mark Steyn...only they aren't as funny and clever but nontheless triangulationg the Obama Presidential scam with the Steyn-way!  Russert is such a sap! 

Cheers,   h.t. Hugh Hewitt and Powderlineblog
jpodhoretz

I have been listening to Dr. Howard Dean with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.  I am struck by the smoke and mirrors assertion that speaking of Reverend Wright is "Race Baiting"!  During our recent Presidential GOP Nomination Primary the Latter Day Saints/Mormon Issue had to be addressed by Gov. Mitt Romney for the benefit of the US Electorate which "feared" how his  Religious beliefs would affect a the policies of potential Mormon in the White House.  Of course, Romney's speech echoed John F. Kennedy's famous speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association who feared how JFK's Roman Catholic beliefs would affect his Policies. Kennedy said the following: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president — should he be Catholic — how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote..." 

I think Obama will need to give the same type of Speak to the US Electorate about his Religious Beliefs especially if he gets the Nomination.  The excuse that Candidate Obama did not know the Minister of his Church as well as he thought he did is so lame and so very disconcerting that he could not figure this out after 20 minutes let alone 20 years!

Presidential Candidate Obama can you please 'plain to US Electorate how you feel about Black Liberation Theology? Start writing Senator Obama we American Voters need to know how your Religious Tenets will affect the Oval Office and Americans! 

So far my theory of "Rope a Dope" seems to be a good one.  The not so very Reverend Mouth that Blasphemed is still quiet.  Here is an Interesting Article from the LA Times that talks about your Take on the Obama/Wright Spat.  Even Spike Lee in jumping into to the Fray telling Reverend Wright to Shut up!  Who was the Grasshopper Blogger who mentioned Spike Lee and his Do the Right Thing Movie and the Obama's falling in Love over this Movie? Me,  back on April 22 here. For the Obamas Do the Right Thing is to them what the movie Casa Blanca is for Normal America Loving People!   The couple's first date was to the Spike Lee movie Do the Right Thing.^[11] Cheers FXY

 

Has Barack Obama put the Jeremiah Wright controversy behind him?

The candidate's supporters say yes, but conservative commentators beg to differ.

May 2, 2008
Barack Obama and friends would like to believe that a little steam is beginning to come out of the furor surrounding the explosive views of the candidate's onetime pastor and spiritual advisor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

Appearing on NBC's "Today" show Thursday, Obama defended his handling of the controversy over Wright -- who had suggested the U.S. government could have brought on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and planted the AIDS virus among African Americans. His wife, Michelle Obama, urged: "We've got to move forward."

 

A supporter on the liberal Daily Kos website proclaimed that had already happened. "The entire Wright storm cloud has been seeded, drained and dispersed," said the pro-Obama poster.

Not so fast, conservative writers and radio commentators demanded.

On Fox television's "Hannity & Colmes," co-host Sean Hannity said Obama's relationship with Wright exposed the candidate as "hiding who he really is, and I think that's what's damaging here."

Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt blogged that Obama's past associations with Wright and others were increasingly making him look "unelectable." Hewitt added, "The Dems look more and more like Thelma and Louise headed for the cliff."

Republican uber-operative Karl Rove, now a Fox television commentator, said Obama should admit a mistake in associating with Wright. And Rove hardly appeared crestfallen when he predicted that the controversy would "continue on for months."

More on Wright: The controversy continues to bite back at Wright. Spike Lee, director of such racially themed films as "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X," was quoted in London's Guardian newspaper Thursday saying that the pastor "needs to be quiet." Northwestern University, meanwhile, withdrew its offer of an honorary degree for the minister, fearing his presence might make it difficult to ensure the "celebratory character" of the school's June commencement ceremonies.

-- James Rainey

Barack Oh-no-ma's think tank believes Reverend Jeremiah Wright should be called Reverend Jeremiah Left!  That is what the Obama Camp and Strategists have been thinking of Reverend Wright for a while per the LA Times Blog as of this March 16, 2008 post(see below).  Still no peep out of the Mouth that Railed the Obama Peace Train and left Oh-no-ma Tongue tied.....so far it is looking like a TKO in this epic "Black on Black Crime" with Reverend Jeremiah Left on the Canvas (at the moment) as these 2 Political Black Liberation "rock'em sock'em"Theologians dressed in Sheep-like "Chrisitians" Tunics  fight it out in the Ring of Presidential Politics.  Reverend Jeremiah Left is such a fine example of Christian Theology as he sucker punches his disciple Barack.  Oh-no-grandma I should of thrown Reverend Left off the train before I dumped on you.  Obama's Grandma has not come out against her Grandson yet but his Preach has.  Who is living the Christian Golden Rule Grand-Mama or Revving Jeremiah Left?  Will the Preacher of "attacked Black Church" Wright come out for round 4 or is this a TKO in favor of Prezidential Candy-date Oh-no-ma or is this a Rope a Dope as I suggested here and here?  Will Reverend Left wag his hissing rhetoric at The White Man in America who is naturally EV IL!  I'm waiting Rev as is "GD"America.... 

But more than a year ago -- long before some of Wright’s more incendiary sermons became hot-button videos on YouTube, forcing Obama to publicly renounce his pastor last week -- the Obama campaign had a sense that Wright's sharp tongue might spell trouble for the Illinois senator. 

That was the word anyway Sunday from Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, who acknowledged during a conference call with reporters that Wright was disinvited ...

from Obama's official candidacy announcement on Feb. 10, 2007, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill.

Wright had been expected to lead an invocation of some kind, but never appeared.

“There was no doubt that there was controversy surrounding him,” Axelrod said Sunday.  “And we didn’t want to expose him … [or] make him the target and a distraction on a day when Sen. Obama was going to announce his candidacy.”

So if the savvy Obama campaign knew Wright was a problem a year ago, why did the Illinois senator, a parish member for two decades, wait until last week to disassociate and denounce the minister's inflammatory statements?

The topic is clearly uncomfortable for Obama and his aides, personally and politically. Axelrod's comments came only after prodding from a reporter and after he had initially suggested that Wright’s absence that day was due merely to the fact that the temperature was in the single digits.

And even as Obama has condemned some of Wright’s rhetoric and distanced himself from his longtime spiritual advisor, doing so has not been easy.  Wright remained on an African American religious advisory committee for the campaign until Friday.