On air: Is America a Christian nation?

Updates on our Photostream throughout the show in Florida.

We’ve been talking through the two debates below, and looking around on the net, and it seems this question cuts to the heart of a fierce debate that’s been reignited by Tuesday’s inauguration. The first issue is whether America is a Christian nation, and what follows is whether it should be?

Time for religion to leave the centre stage of politics?

One option for today’s show in Florida. Several of you emailed straight after President Obama’s address on Tuesday so say how delighted you were that he had refered to ‘non-believers’. We think this is the first time this has happened.

Now, the President is a religious man and practising Christian, but would like to see his faith take a back seat when he’s deciding policy?

Are you glad Gitmo’s going?

One option for today’s show in Florida. I’m sure you’ve seen that the Guantanamo Bay prison camp is to shut within a year.

President Obama spoke in his inauguration address about ‘rejecting as false the choice between our safety and our ideals’. Do you agree with him?

Or must concern for due process and human rights be tempered by an understanding of the threat that Islamists post to America and many other countries in the world?

On air: Stories from a Florida soup kitchen

Photostream being updated all the time from Florida.

We’re broadcasting from this place today . We went there earlier and it is somewhere full of hope and misery all at the same time.

 The  ” hope” part is the excellence of the volunteers and the generosity of local donors to keep the place going. The team was business-like but friendly, the kitchen spotlessly clean but homely.

The “misery” bit is the fact that the impressive Josh from the centre estimates that he’s serving 40 per cent more “customers” year on year.

This is here in Fort Myers in “sunny”  Florida.

In local Lee County the latest census estimates there are 3 thousand homeless people.

 Last night it was pretty cold and many of them “come down from the woods ” (in the words of one of the volunteers)  for a sink shower and something warm in their bellies.

Could there be a worse time to fluff your lines?

So Barack Obama had to take the oath of office again after this blunder…..doh! It seems it was Chief Justice Roberts who was at fault . All the same, could there really have been a worse time to trip over your words? If you’ve ever said something you shouldn’t have…weddings, funerals, speeches…we want to hear from you.

On air: Will the world have to wait for the Obama effect?

Pics from my day on the Mall here.

Forget the first 100 days in office, expectations here are so fierce it’s more about President Obama’s first 100 minutes in office. But should the requirements of Americans come ahead of what the world wants from the new man at the top. Howie in Florida kicked this off after Monday’s show pointing out that he’s the President of the US not the world. Is that fair comment?

Hello From Southwest Florida

Hello BBC community…

My name is Mike Kiniry. I’m a producer and the morning host on Southwest Florida Public Radio in Fort Myers, Florida. We’ll be hosting World Have Your Say on January 22nd and 23rd – the end of inauguration week here in the U.S. I’ve been invited to introduce you to our local community in advance of their arrival…

What’s Obama’s priority?

Yesterday was about the words today is about the deeds.

What should President Obama do on his first day?

It’s the big day: tell us what you’re doing

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, we want to hear from you on Obama’s Inauguration Day. Are you excited, partying, bored?

He’s our President, not yours

Just after we came off air on Monday I got this email from Howie in Florida. See what you think.