Writers Voice » Nonfiction

The Secret Arms Trade Between Israel & Apartheid South Africa

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:14:10 +0000

Sasha Polakow-Suransky

Writers Voice talks with Sasha Polakow-Suransky about his book, THE UNSPOKEN ALLIANCE. And, in an excerpt from our 2009 interview, Israeli journalist Amira Hass talks about her Holocaust survivor parents’ involvement in the Israeli peace movement.

As we produce this show, the World Cup Soccer games in South Africa are over and a new word has entered the American vocabulary — vuvuzela. But six decades ago, a much more sinister word came into our vocabulary from South Africa: apartheid. After decades of struggle, Black South Africans were able to overthrow the apartheid regime — an effort that was helped by an international embargo against trade with South Africa.

But not all countries observed the embargo. And some that claimed to, did not do so, in fact. One of them was Israel — and the lucrative trade it carried on with the apartheid regime was in weapons. The relationship extended to high level sharing of information and supplies for the secret nuclear weapons programs of both countries.

That’s what Sasha Polakow-Suransky shows in his controversial new book, THE UNSPOKEN ALLIANCE: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa.

The day before the book was released, the Guardian published a story about top level secret documents Polakow-Suransky found revealing that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime. In response, Shimon Peres issued a denial. But the author stands by this and even more damning revelations that he uncovered through painstaking research and face-to-face interviews with key officials involved.

Sasha Polakow-Suransky is a senior editor of Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council of Foreign Relations in New York. His writing has appeared in The American Prospect, the International Herald Tribune, The New Republic, and Newsweek.

Excerpt THE UNSPOKEN ALLIANCE

I spoke with Israeli journalist Amira Hass back in November of 2009 She was visiting the US on a tour to promote her mother’s diary of internment in Bergen Belsen during WWII (DIARY OF BERGEN BELSEN), which Hass edited. Both her parents were Holocaust survivors; after the war, they emigrated to Israel. Hass says the suffering her parents experienced during the holocaust made them very vulnerable to any suffering — and very attentive to the suffering of the Palestinians. They both became active in the Israeli peace movement.

In this excerpt from our 2009 interview, Hass says her mother felt deeply betrayed by what she saw as the use of the Holocaust by Israeli authorities to attack those who criticize their Palestinian policy. Her mother referred to it as ” the merchandizing of the Holocaust” and called for it to stop.

Listen to the entire 2009 interview

Web Extra: David Shenk Reads from THE GENIUS IN ALL OF US

Francesca Rheannon — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:25:05 +0000

David Shenk

Shenk reads a section from his book, THE GENIUS IN ALL OF US, about the baseball champion Ted Williams. The lesson? With practice-practice-practice, new science tells us you, too, can be a champion.

Listen to the full David Shenk interview.

Amanda Little & Anna Lappé on Kicking the Dirty Fuels Habit

Francesca Rheannon — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:09:07 +0000

Amanda Little

Amanda Little talks about her book POWER TRIP: From Oil Wells to Solar Cells. It’s about our addiction to fossil fuels and how to get off them. And Anna Lappé tells us about her new book, DIET FOR A HOT PLANET: The Climate Crisis At the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It.

What a difference an oil spill makes. Before the BP spill happened in the Gulf, the media was full of reports that Americans were getting less concerned about the environment. With oil prices down and worries about jobs up, climate change and other looming environmental disasters fell off the radar screen.

But BP has focussed the collective mind on our addiction to oil and the disasters it brings. And, with oil-smeared communities on the Gulf Coast seeing their economic lifelines of fishing and tourism threatened with extinction, the connection between environmental catastrophe and economic ruin is finally becoming clear.

In her quest to trace the development of our fossil fuel economy for her new book, POWER TRIP, Amanda Little went out on a deep sea oil drilling platforms that was built by Transocean for Chevron. The company built a sister platform for BP — the well that now is spewing oil uncontrollably into the fragile ecosystem of the Gulf.

Amanda Little writes about the environment, energy and technology. Her syndicated weekly column, “Muckracker,” appeared on Grist.org and Salon.com. She also wrote “Code Green,” a monthly column on green innovations for Outside magazine, where she was a contributing editor. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, and Rolling Stone, among other venues. She was given the Jane Bagley Lehman Award for excellence in environmental journalism.

Read an excerpt from POWER TRIP

Anna Lappe

Our food system is a major contributor to the greenhouse gases that are playing havoc with the Earth’s climate, from cutting down forests for farmland, to raising meat animals in huge industrial operations, to the thousands of carbon spewing miles our food travels.

The connection between environment and food was first brought to public awareness by Frances Moore Lappé. Her hugely influential book, DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET, advocated vegetarianism as a healthy, environment friendly alternative to the predominant meat heavy diet Americans followed.

Now her daughter, Anna Lappé, has come out with DIET FOR A HOT PLANET. It’s about creating a climate friendly food system that is healthy, tasty, and sustainable.

Anna Lappé is also co-author, with Frances Moore Lappé, of HOPE’S EDGE and of GRUB (co-authored with Bryant Terry). A bestselling author, she is respected for her work on sustainability, food politics, globalization, and social change.

Read an excerpt from DIET FOR A HOT PLANET

Tales of Secrecy & Obsession

Francesca Rheannon — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:43:35 +0000

David Grann

We spend the hour with journalist David Grann, talking about his latest book THE DEVIL AND SHERLOCK HOLMES: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession and his first book, THE LOST CITY OF Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon.

“Life is infinitely stranger than anything man could invent”, Sherlock Holmes once said. The strangeness of life is at the heart of journalist David Grann’s new book THE DEVIL AND SHERLOCK HOLMES: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession. It’s a collection of 12 true stories. In them, Grann unlocks the mystery behind the murder of a Sherlock Holmes expert, goes with sandhogs into the depths under New York City’s streets to warn about a terrifying threat to the city’s water supply; he reports on the infiltration of the Aryan Brotherhood into the U.S. prison system. And he recounts the strange fate of Toto Constant, a leader of the Haitian death squads – and a man called “the devil” by Haitian refugees.

David Grann is a staff writer at The New Yorker. He’s previously written for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, among others.

We also hear part of our 2009 interview with David Grann about his last book, THE LOST CITY OF Z . It’s being made into a movie starring Brad Pitt as Percy Fawcett, the explorer who disappeared in the Amazon in 1925, looking for the ruins of a lost civilization in the heart of the Amazon jungle.

Roy Morris Jr. on The Making of Mark Twain & Diane Wilson On Pollution in The Gulf

Francesca Rheannon — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 11:41:42 +0000

Roy Morris, Jr.

Roy Morris, Jr. talks about LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain. And Diane Wilson talks about AN UNREASONABLE WOMAN: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas. A shrimp boat captain turned environmental warrior, she went up against one of the biggest polluters in America to save the waters of the Gulf.

The Mark Twain of the flowing white hair and big mustache we all know was made, not born. His real name was Samuel Clemens and, as a youth, he tried his hand at a number of trades, from printer to river boat captain and even gold miner. He was clever but didn’t much like hard work. And when war broke out between the states, he found he didn’t much like the idea of fighting. He grew up in the slave state of Missouri and when the conflict began heating up, he went gallivanting off to the Wild West, out to the Nevada territories, joining the stream of Americans going west to make their fortunes. There he learned to bend his story-telling talent to the professional life of a writer.

Clemens got a job as a reporter for a newspaper — although it was more entertainment than journalism. “Never let the facts”, he was wont to say, “get in the way of the story.” He created himself as a character, the character Mark Twain.

Roy Morris, Jr.’s book about Sam Clemens and how he became Mark Twain is LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain. He’s the editor of Military Heritage magazine and the author of four books on the Civil War and post-Civil War eras, including Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876 and The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War.

Read The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

Diane Wilson

As we find ourselves riveted by scenes of BP’s epic oil spill catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico — the spreading plume, the dying birds, the grieving fishermen — it may come as a surprise that toxic pollution is not new to the area. Long before the Deepwater Horizon disaster, chemical plants have been spewing poisons into the Gulf, threatening shrimp fisheries, wildlife, and residents.

Diane Wilson started shrimping on Texas Gulf Coast with her family at the age of 8 and became a shrimp boat captain when she was 24. She’s been an environmental activist since 1989, when she took on Formosa Plastics, one of the biggest polluters in the US. Her 2005 book, AN UNREASONABLE WOMAN: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas (Chelsea Green Press), describes her struggle to preserve a way of life that is now even more endangered and may never recover.

Writers Voice spoke to her in October of 2005, not long after Hurricane Katrina hit the coast — that was the last time the shrimp fishing industry was devastated. I was joined by Daisy Mathias, who was WV co-host at that time.

Hampton Sides On the Trail of An Assassin

Francesca Rheannon — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:21:11 +0000

Hampton Sides

Hampton Sides talks about HELLHOUND ON HIS TRAIL: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin. And Steven Church tells us about THE DAY AFTER THE DAY AFTER. It’s a memoir about growing up in the shadow of apocalyptic visions, including the making of THE DAY AFTER in his home town of Lawrence, Kansas.

Hampton Sides

When James Earl Ray was arrested for the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., it was all too easy for most white Americans to dismiss him as racist “white trash” that had nothing to do with the moderate mainstream. But the route that Ray traversed from a childhood steeped in violence and poverty to the day he gunned King down was one that was paved as much by society as by the complex currents of his own individual life and psyche.

In HELLHOUND ON HIS TRAIL, Hampton Sides traces Ray’s journey as an assassin in parallel with King’s evolution from a civil rights leader to an advocate for an America of greater opportunity for all. It was a vision bent on healing the very forces that made a James Earl Ray possible: the forces of violence, poverty and racism. The book is part police procedural, part psychological analysis, and part social critique. It’s also a spellbinding examination of the lives of the two men, Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Earl Ray as they approached each other on their fateful trajectory.

Hampton Sides is the author of Ghost Soldiers and Blood and Thunder. He’s also the editor-at-large for Outside magazine and has written for National Geographic, The New Yorker, Esquire, and The Washington Post.

Stephen Church

Steven Church

As a child growing up during the Reagan era in Lawrence Kansas, Stephen Church had febrile seizures where he would be visited by hallucinatory visions of the apocalypse. He became obsessed with the end of the world.

Then, his visions seemed to be borne out when his hometown became the stage set for the filming of the apocalyptic TV movie, The Day After. His memoir, THE DAY AFTER THE DAY AFTER, gives the lie to idyllic notions of heartland America — we learn about Bloody Kansas and F5 tornados as well as the breakup of Church’s family.

Steven Church is also the author of THEORETICAL KILLINGS: Essays and Accidents and THE GUINESS BOOK OF ME: a Memoir of Record . He’s a founding editor of the literary magazine, The Normal School.

Isabel Allende’s ISLAND BENEATH THE SEA

Francesca Rheannon — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:28:33 +0000

Dr. Devra Davis

Isabel Allende

Author Isabel Allende talks about her new novel, ISLAND BENEATH THE SEA. It tells the story of a remarkable woman, the slave Tété, during the Haitian revolution against French rule. And we talk with Dr. Derva Davis about her book THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WAR ON CANCER. It’s about environmental causes of cancer and industry and government cover-ups of the issue. A presidential panel has just come out with a new report about it.

When an earthquake hit Haiti earlier this year, evangelist Pat Robertson laid the blame at the feet of the Haitian people, implying that, in overthrowing their French colonial slave masters in the 18th century, their forebears had made a pact with the devil — and the earthquake was God’s revenge. Robertson’s wacko commentary was a reminder of how deep and long lasting is the rage of the rulers against those who dare to free themselves from it. Haiti’s revolution still remains unique in world history as the only successful slave rebellion.

Now Isabel Allende has written a sweeping historical novel, ISLAND BENEATH THE SEA, that brings that time in Haiti’s history alive for the reader. It tells the story of the slave Tété, a woman born into slavery in the colony of Saint-Domingue. Rich in historical detail, ISLAND BENEATH THE SEA explores several themes: the toll slavery takes on both the oppressed and the oppressor, the melding of different cultures in the cauldron of colonialism and revolution, and the deep personal relationships that persist in spite of the rigid social barriers of slave society.

Isabel Allende is one of the best-known women writers in the Americas and the author of the 18 books, including THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS and INÉS OF MY SOUL.

On May 6, a scientific panel on cancer convened by President Obama released a report finding that Americans are facing “grievous harm” from chemicals in the air, food and water. Charging that the chemicals largely gone unregulated and ignored, it said the nation needs to do a better job in reducing the risk of cancer to the public. Typically, only 5% of cancers are linked to environmental exposure. But the report said this grossly underestimates the true rate — a claim that’s brought howls of protest from groups representing industry.

The panel says the risk to all Americans is understated because U.S. policy fails to take into account the cumulative effect of exposure to many different harmful chemicals in the environment and that infants, children and teens are especially vulnerable. Finally, it faulted US regulations for reacting to harm that already has been done rather than trying to prevent the entry of harmful chemicals into the environment in the first place.

I spoke about all these issues with my next guest, Dr. Devra Davis, back in 2008, when she came out with her book THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WAR ON CANCER. She says 95% of all cancers are caused by our environment – and that powerful special interests have colluded with government and watchdog organizations like the American Cancer Society (or ACS) to sow doubt on longstanding research proving that. The ACS disputes the Presidential cancer panel’s claim that environmental causes of cancer had been underestimated.

Dr. Davis is director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh, where she also teaches epidemiology.

Other Useful Links Mentioned in the Show:

Toxics Use Reduction Institute

Collaborative on Health and Environment

The Digital Commons

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:29:56 +0000

Cory Doctorow

David Bollier

Host Francesca Rheannon talks with David Bollier about his latest book, VIRAL SPIRAL. It’s about how the Internet is building a new digital republic. And Cory Doctorow tells us about his science fiction novel, MAKERS. It imagines the birth pangs of a new remix culture.

The idea of the commons is an ancient one. Peasants of medieval Europe seldom owned their own land. Legally, it was held by the nobles, the king or the Church. But they did have the right to use certain lands in common to grow crops, cut wood, or graze livestock. As capitalism took over from feudalism, the commons began to be privatized. First, land and forests were enclosed. As commodity relations spread, more natural resources, like water, followed suit. In our own era privatization has gobbled up a huge new arena of the commons as intellectual property, from the patenting of traditional plant varieties and the copywrighting of traditional folk tales to the human genome and biodiversity itself.

David Bollier

David Bollier says the enclosure of the commons by the market is one of the paramount injustices of contemporary life. But, he says, the emerging digital commons of the internet is exerting a powerful counterforce. Itís all about a values shift from limiting access to throwing it wide open, creating benefits for both individuals and social communities.

Bollier’s work focuses on the politics, economics and culture of the commons. He edits the web portal and blog OnTheCommons.org and co-founded the digital rights advocacy organization, Public Knowledge. We first spoke with him in 2005 about his book on the excesses of copyright law, BRAND NAME BULLIES (listen to an excerpt of that interview). His latest book is VIRAL SPIRAL: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own.

Creative destruction: it’s the term economist Joseph Schumpeter used to describe capitalism’s power to transform the economy through radical innovation. The digital revolution is the latest example — revving up the pace of creative destruction to ever higher speeds. At the same time, it’s leading to a blossoming of creativity through copying, using mashups and remixes to create new content out of old.

Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow writes about the digital universe both as a blogger and journalist as well as a science fiction writer. He’s co-editor of the blog Boing-Boing, a major voice in the cyberpunk subculture. Its themes are technology, futurism, science fiction, intellectual property — and Disney.

All these themes are central to his newest book, MAKERS. Set in the near future of an America in decline, it’s about two geeks who create a new economy based on backyard invention for the masses through digital 3D printing. The New Work, as they call it, takes off, with a mini-startup in every abandoned strip mall in America. Then it crashes, a victim of its own success. The protagonists turn to building interactive amusement park rides, mashups and remixes of Disneyland. That gets the corporate giant on their tail — and therein lies the tale of the book.

In addition to MAKERS, Cory Doctorow is the author of the novel LITTLE BROTHER, among others, and several story collections. His blog is craphound.com.

Earth Day 2010

Francesca Rheannon — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:31:45 +0000

Bill McKibben

Host Francesca Rheannon talks with author and climate activist Bill McKibben about his new book, EAARTH. It’s about adapting to a planet already transformed by global warming. Then James Hoggan exposes the lies of the climate denial industry — and who’s behind them. And we air a clip from an archived interview with George Monbiot, author of HEAT.

James Hoggan

The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970 by some 20 million people in thousands of schools and communities around the nation. The idea was the brainchild of U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. He hoped that a grassroots outcry about environmental issues might push Washington to actually do something to protect the environment.

Earth Day soon blossomed far beyond the capacities of Nelson’s office staff to organize it; it became a full-blown social movement. And it worked; that year, grassroots environmentalists joined forces with progressive labor unions to pass landmark regulation that really did make the nation’s waterways, air, and workplaces cleaner and healthier.

Bill McKibben

It’s a model Bill McKibben is following with the movement he founded, 350.org. The name refers to the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that must not be surpassed if we are to preserve the planet we were born into. But we’ve already blown past it — it’s now close to 390 ppm. That’s already changing the planet, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide, economic havoc, mass migrations, and threatening food and water supplies. McKibben says we already live on a different planet — he calls it “Eaarth,” spelled with two A’s to show that, while it might look the same, we’ve already changed it.

In addition to EAARTH, Bill McKibben has authored many books, including DEEP ECONOMY, which we spoke to him about several years ago on this show.

Take Bill McKibben’s Global Warming Quote Quiz

James Hoggan

Over his 20 year career as a public relations professional, James Hoggan has promoted the brands of numerous companies. He knows how words and framing influence public opinion — and how some in the public relations industry promote harmful ideas in service to the corporations that hire them.

So when some scientists and so-called grassroots groups began denying that human-caused climate change is happening, Hoggan smelled a rat. He decided to follow the money and expose what he calls the climate denier industry. He started the blog, DeSmogBlog.com and co-authored (with Richard Littlemore) the book, CLIMATE COVER-UP: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming.

James Hoggan cofounded the Suzuki Foundation Business Council on Sustainability. He’s also a Trustee of the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education.

George Monbiot

The show ends with one of Francesca’s favorite radio moments on Writers Voice. It comes from an interview with environmental journalist George Monbiot about his 2006 book HEAT: How to Stop the Planet from Burning. The moment came at the end of the interview, where Monbiot talks about the birth of his daughter and how it led him to some thoughts about the role of love in both creating problems for Earth’s climate and solutions to it. (The interview first aired on Sea Change Radio, a weekly radio show Francesca produced with Bill Baue.)

Coal Wars In The Mines and The Streets

Francesca Rheannon — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:09:32 +0000

Ted Nace

Diane Gilliam Fisher

Poet Diane Gilliam Fisher talks about her book, KETTLE BOTTOM. It’s about the Mine Wars of the 1920’s and the people who fought them. And we talk with Ted Nace about the movement to stop new coal plants from being built. His book is CLIMATE HOPE: On the Front Lines of the Fight Against Coal.

The Massey Energy Company mine disaster in West Virginia is but the latest in a long and bitter history of the exploitation of the people and the land of Appalachia’s coal country. The other side of that story is how the miners fought back to win better wages and working conditions by organizing the UMWU.

Looking at the Upper Big Branch mine, one fact stands out for those who know enough about how important that union history is. The mine was non-union. Far more coal mine fatalities happen in non-union mines than those where the workers are unionized.

Poet Diane Gilliam Fisher’s 2004 book KETTLE BOTTOM uses verse to tell the story of the West Virginia Mine Wars of 1920–21. That’s when the United Mine Workers union went up against the coal operators and their hired thugs. Many people died — mostly miners — and President Harding sent in troops to quell the rebellion. The southern coal fields didn’t win union recognition until 1933.

KETTLE BOTTOM won the 2004 Perigia Press Award, and was listed in the 2005 top ten list for poetry by the American Booksellers Association. In addition to KETTLE BOTTOM, Fisher is also the author of ONE OF EVERYTHING and RECIPE FOR BLACKBERRY CAKE. Writers Voice spoke to her in 2004.

Read Diane Gilliam Fisher’s poem Explosion at Winco No. 9.

Coal is most carbon intense fuel, according to climate scientist James Hansen. With climate chaos happening at a faster pace than even the most pessimistic scientists predicted, many are saying we should just leave the coal in the hole.

Ted Nace is one of them. His new book, CLIMATE HOPE: On the Front Lines of the Fight Against Coal, tells the remarkable story of the movement to stop the building of any new coal power plants in the US. In just 2 years, between 2007 and 2009, it managed to stop plans nearly a hundred coal plants from being built, out of 151 proposed. The loosely organized grass roots movement brought a burgeoning coal boom largely to a halt.

Ted Nace is the founder of CoalSwarm, a web based wiki that currently has over 2,000 articles and has become an online hub for the anti coal movement.

Archived Show: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 22:30:57 +0000

Gail Hornstein

This is an archived show this week, originally aired on May 21, 2009. Gail Hornstein talks about AGNES’ JACKET: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness. Read the original post here.

Is Marijuana Safer Than Alcohol?

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:39:46 +0000

Peter Vickery

Mason Tvert

Marijuana policy activist Mason Tvert talks with host Francesca Rheannon about the book he co-wrote, MARIJUANA IS SAFER: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? It says marijuana should be treated legally no different than alcohol. And Peter Vickery tells us about his historical thriller, MADISON HOPPER AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN BLOOD BROTHERHOOD. It’s the first in a mystery series about the struggle for civil rights in the early years of the 20th century.

Why Are We Driving People to Drink?

About 50% of Americans report using marijuana at least once — and the true figure is probably higher. When President Obama asked Americans to go on his Open Government Initiative web page to tell him what problems they thought he should address, legalizing marijuana was one of the top items on the list.

Mason Tvert is a warrior in the trenches of the marijuana legalization movement. In his new book, he says the war on pot is driving people to a much more dangerous drug — alcohol. Tvert says marijuana is not only safer than alcohol, it has real medical benefits. He asks the question: Why do we punish adults who make the safer choice to use marijuana instead of alcohol? And he says legalizing pot would help cash-strapped state budgets.

Tvert is cofounder and executive director of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) and the SAFER Voter Education Fund. His book, co-written with Steve Fox and Paul Armentano, is MARIJUANA IS SAFER: SO WHY ARE WE DRIVING PEOPLE TO DRINK?

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Peter Vickery

Peter Vickery is better known as a politician than a writer: He was elected to the Massachusetts Governor’s Council in 2004. He served a term as a progressive voice on the council. Politics is one love of Vickery’s; the law is another — he’s an attorney — and writing is a third. Putting the last two interests together, he’s taught legal writing at the University of Connecticut. But lately he’s turned his pen to another kind of writing: historical thrillers that bring together all his interests. He’s completed one of a series about the struggle for civil rights in the early years of the 20th century. It’s called MADISON HOPPER AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN BLOOD BROTHERHOOD.

Masters of Art, Science and Deception

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:18:06 +0000

SJ Parris

Mark Lamster

Mark Lamster talks with host Francesca Rheannon about the great Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens’ career as an unofficial diplomat for the Spanish Crown. And mystery writer S.J. Parris tells us about Renaissance scientist Giordano Bruno’s visit to Oxford in 1583. She spins a murder mystery around the visit and around Bruno’s mission as a spy for the English Crown.

Mark Lamster

In his time, Peter Paul Rubens was the most sought after painter for the major and minor royalty of Europe. He was a shrewd businessman who levered his career as an artist into fabulous wealth. But he also had a hidden career as a secret diplomat for the Spanish Crown. His home town was Antwerp in Flanders. Along with Holland, it was part of the Low Countries, which at that time were colonies of Spain. And while Flanders was a docile colony, Holland was in the throes of a revolt against colonial rule. When the Dutch blockaded Antwerp, they choked off the vital artery of commerce that fed Flanders’ prosperity.

Rubens wanted peace and spent years trying to broker a peace deal for Spain with the European powers. He didn’t live to see it come to fruition, but the story of his efforts affords a fascinating window into the history of his time and the character of Rubens: a charismatic, pragmatic, artistic genius. Mark Lamster has written that story in a new book, MASTER OF SHADOWS: The Secret Diplomatic Career of Peter Paul Rubens.

Lamster writes on arts and culture for Design Observer and the Los Angeles Times, and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. He’s also the author of SPALDING’S WORLD TOUR.

Web Extra: Mark Lamster reads an excerpt from MASTER OF SHADOWS.

S.J. Parris

In the previous segment, we traveled to the 17th century to talk about Peter Paul Rubens. Now we go a little further back in time with another story about an historical figure who also had a hidden career: Giordano Bruno. Sixteenth century Europe was a battleground between old ways of thought and new, between the narrow dogmas of the medieval period and the birth of science in the Renaissance. The great Renaissance thinker Giordano Bruno was an emblematic figure of that conflict, as well as one of its victims.

After being excommunicated by the Church for reading banned books, he wandered Europe teaching philosophy, mathematics, dabbling in magic, developing a philosophy of universal love, and writing a best seller how-to book on memory tricks. He also was a pioneer in astronomy, perhaps the first European to understand that the universe was infinite. He was ultimately burned at the stake for his heretical, free thinking views.

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In 1583 Bruno landed in England, where Queen Elizabeth ruled over a Protestant land roiled by Catholic plots to bring England back into the Papal fold. There’s some indication that he worked as a spy for the Queen, reporting back on Catholic subversion. But he also went to Oxford in the hopes of getting a teaching job at the university. S.J. Parris has written a murder mystery built around Bruno’s visit to Oxford, HERESY.

S.J. Parris is also the author (under her real name, Stephanie Merritt), of the memoir, THE DEVIL WITHIN and the novels REAL and GAVESTON.

Richard Wilbur

In a subplot of HERESY, Giordano Bruno searches for the “lost volume” of the works of the mythical ancient Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus. He was said to have written 50,000 books, and to have been both a god and a mortal. We hear poet Richard Wilbur reading his poem about Trismegistus, recorded when we visited him at his home in Cummington, MA.

Read Wilbur’s poem, Hermes Trismegistus.

Raising Decent, Secure, and Happy Kids

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:39:08 +0000

Kim John Payne

Rafe Esquith

Celebrated elementary school teacher Rafe Esquith talks about his book, Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-up World. And we talk with educator and therapist Kim John Payne about Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier and More Secure Kids.

Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-up World

At a time when charter schools are taking over public schools, and public schools in poor communities sink ever deeper into crisis, there’s at least one classroom in one school in central Los Angeles that’s bucking the tide.

The school is Hobart Elementary and the classroom belongs to teacher Rafe Esquith. His kids come from homes where English is not the native language; where parents struggle to put food on the table and pay the rent. But his students excel against the odds, not only on standardized tests, but also in their dedication to hard work and learning. And some great literature. Some of you may have seen the PBS documentary about Esquith and his school project, The Hobart Shakespeareans. But his work with kids goes far beyond putting on great plays. He uses music, literature, and sports to teach his kids the basics: not just reading and math, but character and decency.

Rafe Esquith is the author of several books, including the best sellers written for teachers, and . His new book for parents is LIGHTING THEIR FIRES. Rafe Esquith is the only teacher ever awarded the National Medal of the Arts.

The Hobart Shakespeareans in Shakespeare’s A Merchant of Venice.

Simplicity Parenting

Kim John Payne says kids are being traumatized by what he calls the four pillars of too much: too much stuff, information, too many choices, and lives that are moving too fast. He says every kid has their quirks, but if you add constant and cumulative stress to a child’s life, their quirks become disorders. Disorders like ADHD or obsessive compulsive disorder. His book, , shows how parents can bring their kids back to a more balanced, less disordered way of being that honors their individual personalities.

Kim John Payne has been counseling teachers, parents and children for 24 years about behavior at home and school. He’s the Director of the Waldorf Collaborative Counseling program at Antioch University New England. www.antiochne.edu He’s also a founding member of the Alliance for Childhood.

Web-only extra: Listen to the full interview with Kim John Payne.

Kim John Payne on information overload:

Money, Rights and the Value of Nothing

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:15:27 +0000

Raj Patel

Samba Gadjigo

Raj Patel talks about his best-seller, THE VALUE OF NOTHING. It’s about reshaping market society and redefining democracy. Mount Holyoke College film prof Samba Gadjigo tells us about his community-based learning project, Africa Through African Eyes. And we hear a clip from next week’s show: Kim John Payne on SIMPLICITY PARENTING.

Raj Patel

In an interview during the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama declared: “I am a pro-growth, free market guy. I love the market. I think it is the best invention to allocate resources and produce enormous prosperity for America or the world that’s ever been designed.” Well, with over a year of double digit unemployment (give or take a percentage), the great sucking sound of US taxpayer dollars being allocated to the Wall Street banks who got us into this mess, maybe it’s time to take another look at the market. At least as we know it under modern U.S. style capitalism.

That’s what my guest Raj Patel does in his latest book, . He says we’re actually operating under a kind of anti-market now, where nothing is important beyond the short term bottom line of those who own and control society’s financial resources. He says our idea that the market turns individual greed and selfishness into social good is misplaced. Instead This distorted market is destroying the value of human capital, our democracy, our environment and our future.

But, Patel says there’s hope: reshaping the market into another mold that recognizes cooperation, more local control over resources, and the balancing of human needs with economic gain.

Raj Patel has worked for the World Bank and World Trade Organization — and protested against them around the world. He’s currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for African Studies, an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a fellow at Food First. His first book was . The Value of Nothing is on the New York Times best-seller list.

Hear an interview Francesca did with Raj Patel about Stuffed and Starved.

Samba Gadjigo

Samba Gadjigo is a filmmaker, an expert on African film, and a professor at Mt Holyoke College. He’s long been disturbed by the popular images of Africa we get in the American media: images dominated by disaster and suffering on a continent-wide scale. He says that while Africa has challenges, it also has everyday heros who are working to meet them. Heroes like the market women who join microfinance networks to build their small businesses, or other women who are working to end female genital mutilation in their communities.

[sniplet amazon search]

He’s spearheaded a what he calls a community based model of learning to show American Africa through Africa Eyes. It combines talks, films, music and art exhibits, all based at or near the Westfield State College campus in Massachusetts. The project is running through February and you can find out more by calling Dr. Elise Young of the history department at 413-572-8237.

Coming Attractions: Next week, we’ll talk about how parents can help their kids become happier, calmer and more moral human beings. Master teacher Rafe Esquith will tell us about his book for parents: LIGHTING THEIR FIRES: Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-Up, Muddled-Up, Shook-Up World. He’s the force behind the world renowned Hobart Shakespeareans, a troupe of young actors from poor schools in Los Angeles. And Kim John Payne tells us about his book, SIMPLICITY PARENTING.

Web Extra: Dom Sagolla

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:57:47 +0000

Dom Sagolla

Dom Sagolla talks about how Twitter’s role during the antigovernment demonstrations in Iran started him thinking about how to protect one’s identity on Twitter.

You can listen to the full interview with Dom Sagolla.

Changing The World With Social Media?

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:54:28 +0000

Chris Brogan

Dom Sagolla

Twitter founder Dom Sagolla talks about his style guide to Twitter, 140 CHARACTERS. And social media expert Chris Brogan tells us about his book, TRUST AGENTS. It’s about how to use the Web to build your influence, improve your reputation and create trust.

Dom Sagolla

Dom Sagolla (Twitter handle: @dom)was one of the moving forces behind the creation of social media: he was part of the team that invented Twitter. About 20% of Americans have twitter or Facebook accounts, with thousands adding new ones every day. Twitter is used for communicating just about anything to any one, from the cute thing your dog did this morning to telling the world that a young woman was just shot down by Iranian paramilitary forces during an antigovernment demonstration. You can even keep track on Twitter of the food you eat or exercise you’ve done during the week.

“Jack and the engineering team put a limit on there of 140 characters so they could allow space for the username. And there was an uproar and Jack, being the lead engineer sort of took charge and said. ‘Hey look, there’s actually a lot of space. You could change the world in a 140 characters’.”

But it didn’t start out to be like that. It started out when a software engineer named Jack Dorsey approached the podcasting company Odeo, the company Dom Sagolla worked at. Dorsey wanted Odeo’s help in creating a program that could send text messages between phones and computers so Dorsey could keep in touch with his friends.

Over the some six years since Twitter was invented, Sagolla’s been thinking a lot about how to use the 140 character platform — what he calls “the short form” — to communicate as effectively as possible. Now he’s written a style guide to Twitter:

Web only extra: Dom Sagolla talks about how Twitter’s role during the antigovernment demonstrations in Iran started him thinking about how to protect one’s identity on Twitter.

A social media agency can also help grow your twitter goals. (Paid advertisement)

Chris Brogan

On February 6, people in Western New England came together for a “PodCamp” held at Westfield State College. It was all about social media and podcasting. Back in 2006, Writer’s Voice webmaster Bill Weye and I went to PodCamp Boston, the first of its kind in the U.S.

One of its organizers was Chris Brogan (Twitter handle: @chrisbrogan). He’s gone on to become an expert in the area of social media. He says over 70% of people polled will trust an opinion that they read online whether or not they know the author of the opinion. He wants to make sure their trust isn’t misplaced. So he’s written the book, . Bill Weye and Francesca Rheannon interviewed Chris Brogan.

Web Only Extra: Chris Brogan talks about personal communication on the Web.

Our Last Chance To Save Humanity

Francesca Rheannon — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:14:43 +0000

Dr. James Hansen

Climate scientist Dr. James Hansen talks about STORMS OF MY GRANDCHILDREN. It’s about climate catastrophe and how we must — and can — prevent it. Richard Wilbur reads “Advice To A Prophet”. And we pay homage to Robert Parker and Howard Zinn, who both died in late January, 2010.

Dr. James Hansen

NASA recently reported that 2009 was the second warmest year on record, capping the warmest decade recorded. Dr. James Hansen is the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He taught Al Gore about climate change. The Bush administration tried to muzzle him when the then head of NASA tried to keep him from saying that humans were the cause behind global warming. And he was one of the first to sound the alarm that climate change is real, it’s happening, and threatens life as we know it on Planet Earth. One of the leading climatologists in the world today, Hansen was named in 2006 by Time Magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

His new book, , calls global warming a generational crime. Hansen says that we can get off fossil fuels and must phase out coal by 2020 lest the earth warm to a level it hasn’t seen for 55 million years, when the ice sheets were gone and crocodiles frolicked at the North Pole. And he says it could get even worse — runaway climate change could lead to an Earth as hot and lifeless as Venus. But, we can get off our fossil fuel addiction without breaking the bank for the average person if we can tax carbon and return the proceeds to you and me and to support renewable energy.

[sniplet amazon bookstore widget]

James Hansen received the Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility from the American Association for the Advancement of Science “for his quote courageous and steadfast advocacy in support of scientists’ responsibilities to communicate their scientific opinions and findings openly and honestly on matters of public importance.”

Richard Wilbur, Advice to A Prophet.

WV Interview with mystery novelist Robert Parker.

WV Interview with historian Howard Zinn.

Web Extra: Howard Zinn archive interview

Francesca Rheannon — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:21:33 +0000

Howard Zinn

The great “people’s historian” Howard Zinn died January 27, 2010 at the age of 87. His book, A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, presented an alternative view to the one most are taught in school: instead of focusing on presidents and tycoons, it told the story of people’s movements, including those of workers, civil rights and antiwar activists, women and gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

Zinn spoke to Writers Voice host Francesca Rheannon in 2005 about his companion volume to A PEOPLE’S HISTORY, . It’s a collection of writings from the great protagonists of social justice: Frederick Douglass, George Jackson, Chief Joseph, Martin Luther King Jr., Sacco and Vanzetti, and Malcolm X, among many others. Zinn talks about hi perspective on history, war and peace, and the two sides of the American story — idealism and exploitation.

Go to Howard Zinn page on Amazon.com.

In this video Zinn discusses his experiences fighting during World War II and his being asked to bomb a small town in France.

Best of 2009 and A New Look At Ayn Rand

Francesca Rheannon — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:07:13 +0000

Anne C Heller

Anne C. Heller talks about her biography, AYN RAND AND THE WORLD SHE MADE and we play clips from our list of WV Best of 2009, including creative nonfiction writer Tracy Kidder, poet Richard Wilbur, novelist Nicholson Baker, psychologist Gail Hornstein and journalist David Grann.

Ayn Rand And the World She Made

Ayn Rand

Although Ayn Rand has been dead for almost thirty years, her books are still phenomenal best sellers. The two most famous, ATLAS SHRUGGED and THE FOUNTAINHEAD have sold more than 12 million copies in the US alone.

Rand has been the object of adulation by conservatives for her advocacy of limited government and unfettered individual rights. The reaction to her by progressives has been equally fierce: repulsion against her elevation of selfishness to the highest good. She was charismatic, controversial, idiosyncratic and egomaniacal.

Anne C. Heller has written a fascinating biography of this influential figure, . She doesn’t agree with her subject’s philosophy, but has been fascinated by her since working as an executive editor at Conde Nast Publications, with a special emphasis on money and finance.

Watch 1959 Mike Wallace interview with Ayn Rand: Part One

A Selection of Clips from the WV Best of 2009

It’s that time of year to reflect on all the great guests we had on WV this year and pick the Top Ten. This year on WV, it was really tough to choose, because there were so many show episodes I could have included. But we managed. We play some clips from the top five from that list:

Poet Richard Wilbur
Tracy Kidder, STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS
Nicholsen Baker, THE ANTHOLOGIST
Gail Hornstein, AGNES’ JACKET
David Grann, LOST CITY OF Z

Read about and listen to any or all of the WV Ten Best of 2009.

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