Wed. 11/22: Inside the Bubble in Baghdad

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American officials in Baghdad inhabit an isolated world: the Green Zone, a walled fortress filled with villas, swimming pools, and shiny new SUVs. It’s ground zero for cultural blindness, neo-con fanaticism, and imperial fantasy – the place where the American effort to remake Iraq was always doomed to failure. Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post tells that story in his new book Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone – it was nominated for National Book Award.

Also: All governments lie: the story of I. F. Stone, iconoclast, rebel, and the most important independent journalist of the 20^th century.
Izzy exposed government lying about the Vietnam war simply by reading the government’s own documents. Myra MacPherson tells his story – her new book is All Governments Lie!: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone.

Plus: The secret history of disco: disco brought a polysexual, polyracial, polymorphous celebration to a space beyond the reach of church, state and family. We’ll talk about they way it became a worldwide phenomenon, and the way it ended in a homophobic, racist backlash. Our disco man is Peter Shapiro — is book Turn the Beat Around is out now in paperback. PLAYLIST: Bee Gees, “Stayin’ Alive”; Gloria Gaynor, “I Will Survive”; Sister Sledge, “We Are Family”; Chic, “Good Times.” (originally broadcast July 27, 2005.)

And: Your Minnesota Moment: yesterday in Minneapolis, USAir removed 6 Muslim imams from a flight, handcuffed and detained them for several hours — after passengers complained of “suspicious behavior”: praying to Allah.