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TOM FRANK asks the question: “Given the rigged, rotten nature of the higher-ed game, why would people play by the rules?”  The answer: lots don’t.  Tom wrote about fake degrees and phony college credentials — and their larger social and cultural significance — for his column in the August issue of Harper’s.

Plus: the fight for MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA — it’s not a battle between “populists” and “aesthetes”; it’s a takeover by the corporate mentality.  CHRISTOPHER KNIGHT explains — he’s art critic for the LA Times and he blogs at Culture Monster.

Also : PETER EDELMAN is one of my heroes — he resigned from the Clinton adminstration in protest against Clinton’s treatment of the poor in “the abolition of welfare as we know it.”   Today he talks about how we can end poverty in America now – and what’s stopping us. 
Peter’s new book is So Rich, So Poor: Why It’s Hard to End Poverty in America.

LISTEN online HERE — SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
SARAH VOWELL talks about the “orgy of imperialism” that led to the Americanization of Hawaii.  She has one of the great American voices—first on “This American Life,” then in a series of wonderful books that became best-sellers. She’s been a frequent guest of Jon Stewart’s and David Letterman’s.  Now her newest book is out in paperback – it’s called Unfamiliar Fishes.

Plus: Islamophobia and its Discontents:  LAILA LALAMI talks about living with anti-Muslim bias.  Laila teaches creative writing at UC Riverside; her novel is  Secret Son,  and she wrote the recent cover story for The Nation on Islamophobia.

Also: “Mr. Satan Goes to Wall Street“: it’s a new street-theater musical comedy by the award-winning guerrilla-theater company the Imagination Liberation Front. Mr. Satan will perform this summer, for the Occupy Wall Street troops in Zuccotti Park – and in the streets outside of the Republican and Democratic national conventions.  Benefit Wed. 8pm at Sacret Fools Theater in E. Hollywood; info HERE; contribute HERE (to “Imagination Liberation Front”).

LISTEN online HERE — SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
The United States has never understood Afghanstan – and probably never will.  That’s what RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN says – he’s a Washington Post reporter who has spent years covering the wars Afghanistan and Iran.  Now he has a new book out – Little America: The War within the War for Afghanistan.

And we will have our political update from HAROLD MEYERSON—he writes a column for the op-ed page of the Washington Post, and he’s editor-at-large of The American Prospect.

Also: The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame: from Gene Debs and Clarence Darrow to Bruce Springsteen and Michael Moore — PETER DREIER has a list.  He teaches politics at Occidental College, he writes for The Nation, the L.A. Times, and The American Prospect, and his new book about the 100 greatest Americans is out now from Nation Books.

LISTEN online HERE
TERRY GROSS of NPR’s “Fresh Air” is heard by more than 4 million listeners on more than 400 stations.  She talks about what went wrong in her interviews with Hillary Clinton, Nancy Reagan, and Bill O’Reilly.  Her book, All I Did was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians and Artists, is out now in paperback.  (originally broadcast 2/2006)

Also: REBECCA SKLOOT talks about how racism, poverty and science came together in the case of  a poor black woman whose cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine.  Rebecca’s best-selling book is THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS.  (originally broadcast April, 2010)

And: Barack Obama’s mother, the amazing Ann Dunham: she married a black man – Barack Obama Sr. — when she was 18, then he left her after Barack Jr. was born; she got him into the best school in Honolulu, and then she left for Java and worked with poor women in the third world for more than a decade.  JANNY SCOTT of the NY Times tells that story – her book is A SINGULAR WOMAN–it’s out now in paperback.  (originally broadcast  July 2011)