Search Results for: Peter Van Buren

Sandra Tsing Loh, “The Madwoman in the Volvo”: KPFK 4/30

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SANDA TSING LOH talks about her “year of raging hormones”–and about middle-aged women, America’s largest demographic group.  She’s an award-winning author, a contributing editor of The Atlantic, and host of “The Loh Down on Science,” heard on the radio weekly by four million people. Her new book is The Madwoman in the Volvo.  Sandra will be reading and signing Thurs May 1 in Pasadena, ticket info HERE.

Also: LA’s sky-high rents – and what to do about them:  HAROLD MEYERSON has some ideas.  Harold writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page, he’s editor-at-large for The American Prospect, and he wrote about rents in LA for the LA Times.

Plus: PETER VAN BUREN is the State Department whistleblower who wrote We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.  After the State Dept. fired him, he got the only job he could find as an ex-whistleblower.  We’ll talk to him about “Life in the New American Minimum-Wage Economy” – he wrote about it for TomDispatch.com.

The Trial & Sentencing of Bradley Manning: KPFK 8/7

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The larger meaning of the Bradley Manning trial: former State Department whistleblower PETER Van BUREN, author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, considers how America’s distant wars have come home — and how, under that pressure, this country is morphing into something unrecognizable. Peter writes for TomDispatch, HERE.  Alexa O’Brien trial coverage HERE.
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ALSO: HAROLD MEYERSON says L.A. has lessons for the American Left — about how to win: example, LAANE.  Harold’s report appears in The American Prospect, where he’s editor-at-large; he also write a column for the Washington Post op-ed page.

Plus: UCLA historian BRENDA STEVENSON remembers Latasha Harlins, the 15-year-old African American girl who was shot and killed in 1991 trying to pay $2 for a bottle of orange juice — and the killer got probation. That was shortly after the Rodney King beating and one year before the Rodney King Riots.  The terrible story of that killing is told in Brenda’s new book, The Contested Life of Latasha Harlins.

Top Secret America: KPFK 9/12

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The rise of a new American security state: Pulitzer-Prize winner DANA PRIEST of the Washington Post reports on a world so vast no one knows how many people it employs, how much money taxpayers spend on it, or whether “counterterrorism” and “homeland security” accomplish anything worthwhile.  Dana is co-author of  Top Secret America–it’s out now in paperback.  (originally broadcast 8/11)

Also: RUSSELL BANKS is one of our best writers – in his novel, Lost Memory of Skin, his protagonist, “The Kid,” is a registered sex offender forbidden to live within 2,500 feet of a school or park – and thus forced to join a homeless camp under a Florida freeway bridge.  The book is out now in paperback.  (originally broadcast 8/11)

plus: The US effort to “Rebuild Iraq”: how about this: a plant producing frozen chicken — in a country with no electricity for refrigeration? PETER VAN BUREN worked for the State Department during the “surge,” and recounts the way billions of dollars were lost to waste and fraud.  His book is “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People”–it’s out now in paperback.  (Watch chicken plant  PR video HERE.)  (originally broadcast 8/11)

 

The Reconstruction of Iraq: That “Hearts and Minds Thing”: The Nation 9/29

They called it “rebuilding Iraq,” and Peter van Buren knows a lot about what went wrong — he’s a career State Department foreign service officer who spent a year there on a Provincial Reconstruction Team. I spoke with him recently on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles.

It says here you speak Japanese, Mandarin, and some Korean – why did the State Department send you to Iraq?

Along with the WMD’s, there was another misunderstanding . . .
. . . continued at TheNation.com HERE

A Primary Challenge to Obama? KPFK 9/28

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 Ralph Nader, Cornel West, Jonathan Kozol and several others are looking for candidates to challenge Obama in the Democratic primaries next spring – JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation examines and evaluates their proposal.

Also: The US effort to “Rebuild Iraq”: how about a plant producing frozen chicken — in a country with no electricity for refrigeration?   PETER VAN BUREN worked for the State Department during the “surge,” and recounts the way billions of dollars were lost to waste and fraud.  His hew book is “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.” (Watch chicken plant  PR video HERE.)
And now Peter seems to be the only State Dept. official facing firing over Wikileaks—for posting a link to Wikileaks at his book website.

Plus: L.A.’s jails are the worst in the nation – that’s what the ACLU says in a report issued today that details “severe and pervasive abuse” of inmates by deputies.   PETER ELIASBERG, Legal Director of the ACLU/SC, says Sheriff Lee Baca “must step down.”   See coverage in the LA Times (page one) and the NY Times today.  SIGN THE PETITION HERE.