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CHRIS HAYES of MSNBC and The Nation talks about the pervasive failure of our elites –which shows that it’s time to move beyond meritocracy, even though it triumphed with the election of Obama.  Our new goal, he says, should be equality.  His new book is Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy.

Also: how the market has taken over intimate life, from dating to marriage to childraising and even to death: Berkeley sociologist ARLIE HOCHSCHILD explains.  Her new book is The Outsourced Self.

Plus: GAIL COLLINS, the New York Times op-ed columnist, has been spending time in Texas, to see how the Lone Star state has hijacked our future.   She will report on her findings — alarming, and, of course, hilarious.  Her new book is As Texas Goes: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda.

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Growing up next door to a plutonium weapons factory: KRISTEN IVERSENtalks about her  “hauntingly beautiful memoir that is also a devastating investigation into the human costs of building and living with the atomic bomb” (Kai Bird).   The site is Rocky Flats, outside Denver; the book is Full Body Burden —  READ an excerpt in The Nation HERE.

Also:  HAROLD MEYERSON explains what happens if America loses its unions – a necessary question after Wisconsin.  Harold’s new piece for the Washington Post is HERE — and for The American Prospect HERE.

Plus:  LILLIAN HELLMAN was the most successful woman playwright in American history and a hero of the fight against HUAC – and also, ALICE KESSLER-HARRIS says, “A Difficult Woman” – that’s the title of her new bio on “the Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman.”   Alice is professor of American history at Columbia University and past president of the Organization of American Historians.

For the record: our shows on KPFK have been pre-empted for the fund drive.

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What should young people do when faced with the ruinous cost of college?  Mitt Romney has the answer: don’t ask the government to help, but instead “shop around” to find the best deal in the marketplace of educational choice.  TOM FRANK says “massive indebtedness changes a person, maybe even more than a college education does.”   Tom wrote about student debt for the June issue of Harper’s; his new book is Pity the Billionaire.

Also: A PEOPLE’S GUIDE TO LOS ANGELES – the indispensable new book – offers an assortment of eye-opening alternatives to L.A.’s usual tourist destinations. It documents 115 little-known sites in LA where people have fought for equality and justice.  Co-author LAURA PULIDO will explain – she is s Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at USC.  A People’s Guide is our featured thank-you gift in the KPFK fund drive today – please call and pledge during the show: 818-985-5735.

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Report from Fukushima: REBECCA SOLNIT visited the disaster zone in northern Japan.  “Disasters in the West are often compounded by the belief that human beings instantly revert to savagery in a calamity,” she says.  “But in Japan, the greater problem seems to be conformity.”  Rebecca wrote a Fukushima diary for the London Review of Books.  She’s the author of A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster.

Plus: Tomorrow night, 5/10, George Clooney will host an Obama fundraiser at his house in Laurel Canyon – it’s the biggest presidential fundraiser in history, $12 million, and demonstrators will be there, calling for more aggressive action to prevent foreclosures.  PEGGY MEARNS of the Campaign for a Fair Settlement will explain – the message to Obama is “Keep Americans in our houses, and we’ll keep you in yours.”

Also: Politics and economics: HAROLD MEYERSON says “the good times are gone – long-term prosperity may be a thing of the past.”  Harold writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page and is editor-at-large of The American Prospect.

ELIZABETH TAYLOR’s on-screen persona repeatedly introduced a broad audience to feminist ideas: that’s what M.G. LORD says.  She argues that, from National Velvet (1944) to Butterfield 8 (1960), Taylor “lived her life defiantly in public—undermining postwar reactionary sex roles.”  M.G.’s new book is THE ACCIDENTAL FEMINIST: How Elizabeth Taylor Raised Our Consciouness.

Plus: Politics, from Kabul to Madison: our weekly update from JOHN NICHOLS, he’s Washington Correspondent for The Nation and he blogs at TheNation.com; his most recent book is Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street.

Also: BRADLEY MANNING remains in military prison, charged with leaking nearly half a million classified government documents to Wikileaks – but CHASE MADAR says he deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom for blowing the whisle on criminal violations of American military and international law.  Chase’s new book is The Passion of Bradley Manning.