More on How the TMM 'Sausage' Gets Made...

As you know from Lee's post yesterday, we were scrambling to try to figure out how to cover the California wildfires fires in a way that made sense for our program. In other words, we don't want you to turn us on and hear what you just heard on Morning Edition. So, what to do? We started thinking about how we find out what's going on -- what our our team is listening to on TV and on the radio -- and then we started asking ourselves, what if we didn't rely on those programs to inform us? What if we didn't speak English? Or, what if our circumstances made it such that we did not want our presence known to authorities? What would we do, then?

That's what brought us to Eddie Sotelo, a.k.a. El Piolin, one of the country's top Spanish-language radio hosts. Sotelo is on Univision and based in Los Angeles. We wanted to get his take on how folks outside what we call the "communication mainstream" are coping with the wildfires. Sotelo had just driven a truck of supplies from L.A. down to San Diego ... and talked to us just as he was about to go on the air.

...It's also why we talked to Amy Isackson, a reporter at NPR member station KPBS in San Diego. She had both fascinating and horrifying stories about the risks undocumented workers were taking as a result of the disaster -- refusing to evacuate, or even trying to cross the border.

Then ... last night, our producer, Douglas Hopper, got the call he'd been waiting for. He'd been trying to reach tribal leaders on American Indian reservations in the area to ask how their folks were faring. Why? Well, many of the tribal lands are rural and filled with brush ... very dry from a lack of rain. Also, some reservations are remote, have their own fire departments, and generally don't rely on county infrastructures. Late last night, we finally got a hold of tribal council chairman Vernon Wright, from the Rincon Luiseno Indian Nation. Wright gave us an update on what was happening in his community.

Frankly, all of those folks sounded like they could use some rest.

I hope you liked my conversation with Anu Kumar. Every week, we try to dip into the The Washington Post Magazine and this week, I have to tell you, there was a gender-split. Most of the women on the staff were fascinated by Anu's story about why she continues to observe a tradition attached to the Hindu festival of Karwa Chauth -- the tradition holds that married women must fast for 24 hours, from moonrise to moonrise, so their husbands will live a long life. The women in my office found ourselves asking whether we'd be willing to do that (even though I think only one of us is Hindu ... I'll let you guess who said yes).

After listening to today's conversation with Kumar, you should read the Post's piece here. I believe their web story includes cover art from the actual printed version of the magazine, which has a lovely photo (but, sadly, not of Anu).

And, the icing on the cake: U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez. It was the Republican from Florida's first interview with NPR in a while. Martinez, a Cuban-American, talked to us about President Bush's recent Cuba speech -- HIS (the President's, that is) first discussion of Cuba in some time.

Tomorrow ... TGIF.

Michel Martin

7:47 PM ET | 10-25-2007 | permalink

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7:47 PM ET | 10-25-2007 | permalink