This is my thirtieth year in radio and I'm still inspired by the spirit of the business, with all of its varied aspects.  There are layers stacked on entertainment, journalism, community service, marketing and a camaraderie that has always spoken to me.  It touches people and binds us to those in other worlds and about town.

There's also a moving timeline that is intriguing and exciting.  There's a rich history that creates this aura of heritage, yet it's full of people always working to enhance and polish the processes that make the sound come out of the speakers and the words ever-relevant.

I'm not a purist.  I think that's too limiting for such an evolving medium.  I love new ideas and exploring ways to change up my craft.  Besides, pure is relative to an individual and the period of his entry into the business.

The earliest broadcasts were always live, as there was no means to record them.  Later, programming was produced using test acetate (lacquer-coated discs cut using a needle modulated by sound), reel-to-reel and "carts" (continuous loop tape cartridges of various lengths).  However the basic gear -- the mic, a transmitter and many inexpensive receivers -- still comprises the magic of radio.

It's okay to wear your tape-splicing ability on your sleeve or to extol the virtues of the cart deck, but you have to be amazed at our ability to edit in the digital realm and file reports, with photos and video, armed with nothing more than a mobile phone and the radio smarts to know what to capture.

Radio is as it's always been; people with eyes on the streets and a smile in their voices.  The constant is that talent creates the imagery of a window that looks over the city to an extent that one might think of them as omniscient.  Listening makes you feel connected to the world outside while you may be confined to your home or your car or your office.  They are a collective voice coming from several places seemingly at onces, providing comfort and a sense of companionship.

People will forever pontificate about whether radio is dying.  Until it's dead.  But I know on this day it's not.  It's thriving as a medium and reaches impressive audiences over-the-air -- and now across a global digital fabric.  The biggest challenge today is not that the medium is losing its viability, but rather the challenges facing the guiding business model.

I have been extremely fortunate to be able to work at some of the most prolific radio stations of the midwest.  I've always worked alongside stellar performers who carry on the positive spirit.  They've been unquestionable assets to our industry and the stations they support.

But if radio ever does die, I hope entertainment, journalism, community service, marketing and a camaraderie survive.

Voter ID efforts suspect

I keep hearing that Iowa needs to pass legislation that prevents voter fraud.  And the proponents of the measure use language that appeals to the sensibilities of regular people, saying, "If you need an ID to (insert any common activity), then why not require ID to make sure elections are fair?"

And that's when my ears perk up.  That sure has the ring of demagoguery, the same rhetoric used in every debate on nearly any polarizing issues where someone has a thinly veiled agenda.

I must ask if this insistence on requiring government identification at the polling place is based on actual voter fraud problems or does this amount to statistical wizardry crafted by some organized elite faction to sway outcomes to their preferred side.

Voting is a fundamental right in our republic and it should not be a difficult undertaking for citizens to exercise. True, government and businesses are pushing harder to ask us to prove our identity at every turn, but the reasons for that climate are not the fault of the citizen. It's a mere convenience for the automation of information, correspondence and transactions.

The question you ought to ask is, should people have to jump through extra hoops to exercise their rights as US citizens? If I, as an American, have the right to be left alone, for example, then I have a right to not obtain government identification papers. You must not be forced to forfeit one right in order to exercise another.

If every time we turn around, the government demands that we produce papers, then we become a controlled state; we forfeit our personal sovereignty. We associate that kind of state-control with Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, which we vehemently oppose and find repulsive. We value the idea that the government has no cause, right or standing to stop, detain, inconvenience or generally bother people for any reason, unless the people have committed a crime against other people, or their property, or that public safety requires it.

There's no public safety issue here. And there appears to be no voter fraud issue either. People are trying to solve a problem in Iowa that simply doesn't exist -- at the behest of a well-funded organization that wants to use the peoples' government for its own profit and purpose.

Those who value liberty and freedom need to think critically about what this will mean for us. We need to understand the direction such measures would take us as a nation; more toward government control and the loss of the freedoms guaranteed by our charter.

While you were busy fighting, thieves stole America

I've suggested divisive infighting has been a useful distraction that enables corporatism.  Much evidence of that in social conversations I read on facebook.

There's plenty of common ground among the wage earners, but folks in the cheap seats are paired into political and social subsets, provoked to attack each other instead of directing their energy at restraining Washington.

We're the useful idiots perpetuating the crime by doing...nothing but bickering and name-calling.

The political parties have become bastardized versions of their former selves, directed by operatives who have but one common interest: to suck from the enormous teet of the federal government.

OWS and Teaparty movements are symptomatic of common unrest by the populous, yet the perception is sold to us that their forces oppose one another.

Seeing a thread here?

We're never allowed to forget the fights. The black/white issue keeps popping up in the media. But ask yourself who is advancing these conversations. It's either those on the dole or unwitting shills for said cause.

You know the message permeates the American psychie when the talking points of group X are exalted in man-on-the-street stand-ups.

I don't know who's responsible for provoking, nor would it be useful to argue over it, but I do know the left-right, black-white, rich-poor battles are playing out in all forms of TV, talk radio, blogosphere and social media.

Whether the ones we see on TV have anything to gain personally is less important than transcending the rhetoric altogether and working as a people in this and every election, firing incumbants of all stripes until Washington is rid of the bug that sucks the life blood from this republic.

We can break down immorality into its most basic form by relating it to something as primal as suffering, something most of us can relate to on varying levels and degrees.

Abortion is subject usually presented as a polar issue, either hard-left or hard-right position.  But attitudes change when you present it this way: "How about an abortion today?"  In its most basic form, no one wants one or thinks it's a suffer-free zone.  From that common ground, we can begin a thoughtful conversation.