Did you ever get so dirty doing something that you wanted a bubble bath to get clean? I think it is time for the USA to take a bubble bath, not just for getting a little sweaty and soiled, a byproduct of hard work, but to remove the grime of misleading media narratives that surround hard-working Americans.

Some of the grime that plagues us comes from the excuses that industry and political leaders have fed us over the years to explain why America is the only developed nation that has failed its citizens and denied them a higher quality of life while less endowed societies have made progress (see the Human Development Index).
This should make us curious: how does this happen in a wealthy, educated nation?

The answer to that question is news.
Move over click-bait. There are real stories out there.

One of the roles of WRWK, as media, is to act as a mirror for society so we can see what we have become or are becoming and to offer workable solutions when the USA is going astray. It’s a thankless job since no one wants to know when it’s time to head to the gym or start a diet, read a book or drop some fun but costly pleasure. To that end, we will work to inform, explain, uplift and inspire with a variety of voices and perspectives unpolluted by profiteering or commercialism.

And in the process, we may even entertain you!

Thomas Jefferson thought of opera as hyper-evolution; growth in an area of no utility to human progress.
That is what our political system has become: political opera (no offense to opera lovers of course). Our political system has devolved into an entertaining drama and ultimately an influence auction – on both sides of the aisle.

WRWK is not democratic or republican, liberal or conservative, right or left, etc. We are progressive, committed to making progress beyond the drama. We believe in the attainability and the bright possibilities of human progress. We follow the standard set by the founders: to create a more perfect union and it’s a journey, not a static “stand.”


On this journey, we will do our best to inform, inspire and entertain you so we can all have challenging, worthwhile and fun time building up our country for our children and all future generations.

Remember that everything we do now socially, politically, economically and spiritually, like golf and football, were brought into existence by thinking human beings. The good news is that we can tweak them all we want to make this world work better for Everyone.

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This newsletter was cobbled together by Ron, Lee, Max and Ann Sykes, Brooke’s Widow. Without Ann this would not have been possible.

At the end of this post/newsletter please fill out our Spring Survey.

On Tue, May 10, 2022, 6:23 PM WRWK <info@theworkfm.org> wrote:  “Radio by, for, and of the People”Midlothian, Virginia  WRWK Newsletter May, 2022   Word of the Year at TheWorkFM is Antifragility “Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.” Nassim Nicholas Taleb   TheWorkFM Op-ed The future is here now, buried in the din of haters, hawkers, paid actors and anti-hero wannabes. We know we are all vulnerable to our reptilian emotions; the violent events they’ve created litter our history. Luckily, a more progressive thread winds through human history, fed by our better angels. This element scares those fed by fear and anger–those who perceive change as a threat. Mix in politicians who base their messaging on fear and anger to turn-out voters, and you have Virginia in 2022.  Our kids will have to find a future. Let’s help them make a path. Vote, write, engage, protest; and laugh at, smile at, or just ignore those who rely on fear and anger to deal with uncertainty.   Let’s model and teach antifragility, the power to learn from challenges; to keep cool and carry on.  That is my Work at theworkfm.   Join me! Ron A Celebration of Being inappropriate through history in song   Good news on the donation front at the WorkFM! I just deposited a check for $1,000 from a donor who wishes to remain anonymous, and a friend and neighbor is donating a serious, but older road bike to WRWK. Soon, I will have it appraised. In spite of Covid, Big Lies and other naysayers, WRWK is still doing the work of Progressive Community Radio in Midlothian and beyond. Bring us your donations, cars, boats, airplanes, gently used Audio Equipment, worn dollars, and coins, and we will give you continuous Progressive Community Radio—not trapped or muted by corporate dollars. A few programs to consider… While we don’t want to overwhelm with a list of all our programs, each month we’ll try to point out a few programs you might really enjoy – check ‘em out! Weekdays at 2pm listen for “The Thom Hartmann Show” the #1 progressive news talk show in America. On  Mondays you can enjoy the light-hearted but informative show “When the Biomass Hits the Wind turbine” at 1pm, as Annie and Jay discuss sustainable living and their own experiences with their “Earthship” home. For those interested in experiments with sound, hear “Radio Art Hour” at 3pm from Wave Farm studios, where resident radio artists feature audio collages that include ambient sounds, old shortwave broadcasts, sound effects, phone messages, random conversations, and other sounds, to create a compelling sonic salad.  Tuesdays at 3pm we feature programming for kids with “The Children’s Hour with educational episodes and artist interviews. For the history buff, on  Wednesdays at 1:30 we air “This Way Out” a locally produced news program focused on the LGBT community. We also offer “The Thomas Jefferson Hour” at 4pm with Humanities Scholar Clay Jenkins. On Thursdays at 1pm, listen to “Green Street Radio” a science-based but accessible discussion of environmental issues. At 3pmget a more local perspective from “Richmond Business Babes” where host Lisa Linnell interviews RVA women about the businesses they own and run.  Fridays you can listen to “Counterspin” at 1:30, a media-analysis discussion by FAIR. “Time with Fred” at 8pm is a local program focused on inspirational interviews with those who have overcome great challenges.  Saturday and Sundays you can hear a progressive take on current events with “The Bradcast” news review at noon and “Attitude with Arnie Arnesen” at 2pm, hosted by the funny and feisty Arnie Arnesen.  Sundays,get your dose of Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping for “Earth Riot Radio” at 1pm and be sure to stay for the hilarious hijinks of “Turn On the News” at 1:30pm, where a collage of news and talk show clips help to put current events into a comic spotlight.  For a specific list and program notes for a specific day, check “Program Notes” at TheWorkFM.com  Three Live programs emanate from the WRWK studios weekly, Richmond Business Babes when Lisa Linnell interviews successful businesswomen in RVA 3 tp 4 PM on Thursday.   Finding Our Fit discusses wellness in relationships with ourselves, others and our planet, 5 to 6 PM on Thursday with a renowned healing advocate and  counselor Susanna Wo-Pong Calvert Building Better Communities discusses how to build communities in RVA, and the people who make that happen on Saturday 4 till 5 or 6.  Note—kudos to Ann Sykes, Brooke’s widow, who rescued our email list from the bit bucket so we could send this newsletter to our family of Supporters, Hosts and Volunteers at WRWK Progressive Community Radio. Ann has also helped with the web site and other loose ends, following the sudden loss of her husband, and our board member, a noted local musician and promoter in RVA. We all miss Brooke Saunders.   Misinformation is a #Deathcult,   Commentary from WRWK’s Founder, Chris Maxwell  The deadly impacts of misinformation are dramatically revealed through the election results of 2016 and 2020, the Covid pandemic chaos, and mass exodus from climate damaged area. Such migrations may become localized if Roe v. Wade is overturned, turning some states into a theocratic “Gilead” from Handmaid’s Tale – no longer so fictional.   But the vast majority of Americans across all spectrums favor retaining abortion choice as a woman’s decision. Even among evangelicals, only 45% support overturning Roe v Wade. Since SCOTUS Justice Alito insists on forcing births by compelling us back to 1789, it behooves us to note that abortion was NOT illegal then. It is also relevant to know that abortion was not even a political issue until Nixon flunky, Pat Buchanan, suggested using abortion as a wedge issue to turn evangelicals away from the Democratic Party. This disinformation effect is not new; its first conception boiled up in the cauldron of the Nixon lie factory, from that unholy communion of Nixon and Buchanan.  That rough beast slouching towards us was then birthed, and raised to strength, through thousands of networked radio transmitters, broadcasting syndicated “religious” political content, starting in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan dramatically relaxed FCC rules. Waves of disinformation flooded the air–the new FCC rules allowed programming to be delivered via satellite, without a local host, and controlled remotely. This allowed Talk-radio entertainers like Rush Limbaugh to play on listeners’ fears of change, and goaded them to anger.  Did the majority push back? No, they let that disinformation continue, as a matter of “free speech”, safely snoozing in their faith that logic would prevail. And the liberals also slept, so sure that logic would win the day. Now, the beast is huge, hale, hearty and beating the hinges off the civilization. We comprehend now that WE MUST PUSH BACK ON DISINFORMATION. And since it is from Radio networks that we first saw the birth and development of the “Alt-Facts” broadcasting, it makes sense that it is on Radio we should make the stand against misinformation.    Usque ad finem (English. be true to yourself to the end) Please remember, even in the midst of all the noisy news, we’ll keep reporting on the authentic reality, and how we can help extricate it from the influence of the con-artists and the confused. This century has been like a final exam for humans seeking genuine progress—the previous president, Covid, Ukraine, are the tests. Faced with challenges, some countries fight for human progress, while others are on the fence, and some leaders look for ways to enrich themselves from human tragedy.  Roe is the latest test—do some Republicans still wonder if women are full citizens or just accessories?… if “all men are created equal” refers only to the males of our species? Deep bias remains, and body autonomy is still in the chasm. Keep fighting, keep growing.  WRWK LP FM  Midlothian, Virginia. Progressive Community Radio in RVA @93.9 FM theworkfm.org  See you next month! Share:    You can reach us at: 913 Grove Road, Unit #8 Midlothian, Virginia 23114 (W of Huguenot Rd. on Midlothian Tpk./Route 60 E behind Puritan Cleaners) email: info@theworkfm.org facebook.com/theworkfm/ on line: www.theworkfm.org 913 Grove Road #8 Midlothian VA 23114 USA Unsubscribe   |   Change Subscriber Options ReplyForward

“God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7

This is my attempt to summarize what we can learn from this moment and where we can go from here, as humans and what that has to do with WRWK, TheWork FM, and my work as an individual in my 80+ years on this planet.

Life consists of humans looking to understand the world and then inventing ways to avoid, deal with or change it.

We can decide that the world is very dangerous where only the brutal survive, and we come to believe we must become dangerous to survive.

Alternatively, as thinking humans, we can decide to take control of the system and change it instead. We are, after all, homo sapiens, “wise men.”

Humans share many characteristics with other animals just as we share similar parts of our brain with them.
Whether you believe in evolution or not, the similarities are striking. Life is geared towards survival through change.

We can even see parallels with single cell organisms which can find food and avoid danger, or with chimpanzees which can find food, mate, avoid danger and share social functions to make life better for all of them.

Then there are humans with the stimulus response brains of reptiles, the social brains of chimps and then that something extra, a huge prefrontal cortex. This is the “something extra” that allows us to create realities in our heads that allow for us to see the one we live in even as we imagine a alternative one; and even how to inspire it into existence.

We have to accept the world we see but we must also imagine a better world, and the ways we can get there.

The dilemma is that we are something like 7 times more likely to act because of anger or fear than out of inspiration.

Anger and fear are hard-wired in ancient parts of the human brain. This leaves humans open to seduction, even self-seduction by their own fear and anger. And anti-social “leaders” are always looking for vulnerable people.

You see this commonly in fear based cults, political parties and religions. Fear and anger are also used to sell bigger cars, guns, defense budgets, and to get us to the polls.

Bigger cars, guns, swelling defense budgets and fearful and angry voters have seldom led to a better world though they can be very profitable.

Until the Russian leader decided to hold us all ransom to his paranoid and violent version of the world we could wallow in our ignorance and put up with his well documented misdeeds and other misdeeds closer to home.

Now that humanity is in his cross-hairs it is too late to avert his 20th century version of the world, where violence is still an option.

It is not.

As an example, hundreds of thousands of people have died in the USA, a far greater percentage than any other country, because for political advantage, many leaders of the fear and anger persuasion used the epidemic as a political football.

Thinking humans, this is your moment to put into action your ideas for the world you want. Don’t let fear and anger be your guide, look for leaders who can inspire you to new ideas for these new times.

Let’s go for it!

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

Mark Twain

WRWK LP FM 93.9 welcomes Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin to his leadership role.
We in Virginia have just begun to throw off the history of “winners” who keep the winnings for themselves.
Leaders who get rich “leading” as their supporters are losing are really carpetbaggers whether they have “done anything wrong” or not.
Mitch in the senate and Nancy in the house have presided over a nation in decline even as benefits to their fellow electors and lobbyists and particularly corporations who finance their influence machine reap most of the benefits.
Informed citizens are aware that voter interests and passed laws are not in step.
A woman’s right to choose is decided by men who apparently don’t realize men are also involved.
Critical Race Theory is a deciding issue for voters even though it is not taught in public schools in Virginia.
The MVP claims eminent domain to build a pipeline across Virginia to ship fracked gas out of the country.
Leaders in the state legislature legalize gambling as a good source for jobs even though the costs of gambling are always borne by the citizens.
Hemp is made legal in Virginia not for its excellent fiber and the jobs it would bring but for pot smokers. Nothing against pot smokers but what is the government’s interest in this?
In short, the government  is always preyed upon by special interests, and it can’t or won’t protect itself from them.
As a man who has  “made his money”  I hope you can break up the taxpayer funded party and usher in a new era for Virginia.
An era where electors can represent the needs of citizens now and into the future.
An era where electors getting fat on the public dollar are called out or at least labeled.
An era when citizens falling for emotional issues tell you not now to win the sucker vote, but that you have an angry and divided state and job number one should be to bring it back together.
In our 70 + years on the planet how is it that we get lost in ourselves and our interests?
I put it to poor leadership and I welcome your interest in moving Virginia beyond that and into a future that will serve our kids, and their kids.
As the new moral leader of Virginia I hope I can count on you to lead all of Virginia into a future fit for our kids and not just for business.

To quote the very first Republican:

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Abraham Lincoln”

  We at WRWK will help you to do this in any way that we can.  Please let us know if special interests try to bend you from your goal.

Ron  Skinner
WRWK LP FM  Midlothian, Virginia.Progressive Community Radio in RVA @93.9 FM

We’ll have music all afternoon!

This Rockitz Radio Hour Show includes most of the CD released in 2019 to support the opiod disorder center Friends 4 Recovery in Chesterfield. Click here to download the mp3