Trump Watch

For the KPFK fund drive we are featuring celebrated Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins — he says “there are no gods;” religion is “nonsense” and “a divisive and oppressive force.” He been called “the world’s most prominent atheist” – and when he makes his case for rationality and science, he’s witty, well-informed and wonderfully articulate.
Richard Dawkins DVD “The Root of All Evil” — $100 pledge
Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion — $100 pledge
call 818-985-5735 during the show, 4-5pm, or pledge online at www.kpfk.org.

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ERWIN CHEMERINSKY, Dean of the Law School at UC Irvine,will comment on Obama’s pick of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. He calls her “a superb choice.”

Also: After the State Supreme Court’s Prop 8 ruling: Is 2010 “too soon” for another gay marriage initiative campaign? Or could a grassroots organizing effort accomplish what the “No on 8” campaign failed to do? RICK JACOBS will comment – he’s founder and chair of the Courage Campaign, and he says “It’s time to go on offense. To be fearless in our fight for equality. Starting right now.”

The war on terror is un-winnable: That’s what REZA ASLAN says. Instead of claiming that Al Qaeda and the Taliban represent “evil,” he argues, the US should address the underlying social and political roots of conflict and terror — and also look at the traditions of religious violence found in Judaism and Christianity.
Reza’s new book is HOW TO WIN A COSMIC WAR: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror.

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Yesterday’s election, in which California voters rejected five budget measures, dramatized the crisis in governing the state with the 8th largest economy in the world. HAROLD MEYERSON will comment on the popular revolt against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the legislature, which is not allowed to pass a budget by a simple majority vote. Harold is an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post.

Also: Killing civilians in Afghanistan: TOM ENGELHARDT says Americans quickly forget the news reports from the backlands of the “war on terror,” but “forgetting doesn’t work so well in those backlands. When your child, wife or husband, mother or father is killed, you don’t forget.” Tom is the legendary editor who publishes the indispensable TomDispatch.com.

Plus: KATHA POLLITT is the award-winning columnist for The Nation – she’s also a poet, essayist, and blogger – and her book LEARNING TO DRIVE: AND OTHER LIFE STORIES is out now in paperback — the Boston Globe called it “painfully hilarious to read.” (originally broadcast 9-5-07)

Your Minnesota Moment: The state supreme court will begin hearing arguments in Norm Coleman’s challenge to Al Franken’s senate victory on June 1, with a decision expected before the July 4 weekend.

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Democrats in Congress are rushing to approve billions in war spending without debating heightened US involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan. TOM HAYDEN comments: he wrote about “The Politics of Escalation” at TheNation.com.

Also: In the fight for his health care program, Obama seems to have neutralized some powerful potential opponents.  JOHN NICHOLS explains: he’s Washington Correspondent for The Nation and writes “The Beat” blog at TheNation.com.

Plus: SUSAN CHOI’s novel A Person of Interest explores the personal and political repercussions set off by a campus bombing reminiscent of the Unabomber and the Wen Ho Lee case. Publishers Weekly called the book haunting”; Booklist called it ‘mesmerizing’; and The New York Times called it ‘beautifully written.’ It’s out now in paperback. (Originally broadcast 4-2-08)

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How Obama should engage the Muslim World: University of Michigan historian JUAN COLE says the Muslim world is not a new Soviet-type Bloc but rather is full of close allies or potential allies; Iran is not an implacable enemy of the U.S.; Al-Qaeda is not a mass movement but rather a small political cult; American “energy independence” is impossible — we will need Islamic oil for the rest of the 21st century.  Juan writes the indispensable blog “Informed Comment”; his new book is Engaging the Muslim World.

Also: How a new form of slavery was imposed on hundreds of thousands of African-Americans after the Civil War until World War II: DOUGLAS BLACKMON found that tens of thousands of southern blacks were arrested, often for “vagrancy;” unable to pay their fines, they were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries and farm plantations. Douglas Blackmon’s book Slavery by Another Name won 2009 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

Plus: Is Dick Cheney now the leader of the Republican Party? BART GELLMAN of the Washington Post talks about Cheney’s past — his hidden role in the Bush administration’s most fateful choices: shifting focus from al Qaeda to Iraq, unleashing the National Security Agency to spy at home, and promoting “cruel and inhuman” methods of interrogation.  Bart Gellman’s book ANGLER won the L.A. Times Book Prize for Nonfiction for 2009.
WATCH Bart Gellman on The Daily Show HERE.

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Obama’s Hundred Days: maybe you heard: he’s got wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a deep recession, rising unemployment, a failed auto industry and escalating problems in health care, education, and energy. HAROLD MEYERSON will comment — he’s editor at large of The American Prospect and writes an op-ed column for the Washington Post.

Also: A forgotten Israeli advocate for Palestinian rights: in the mid-1950s Brandeis Professor Simon Rawidowicz called for an end to discrimination against Arab residents of Israel—and for the “right of return” of Arab refugees from 1948. But he never published his writings on the topic. Now they have been published in full by UCLA historian DAVID MYERS – he’s Director of the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies, and his new book is Between Jew and Arab: The Lost Voice of Simon Rawidowicz. “uncannily pertinent to the Jewish situation now”—Leon Wieseltier.

Plus:
FRANK GEHRY: the architect and his creative process. BARBARA ISENBERG has been talking with Frank Gehry for twenty years – about how he came up with the design for Disney Hall, how his ties to artists have always been stronger than to architects, and how he keeps inspiration going at age 80. Barbara is a former staff reporter for the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal; she’s also written for Time, Esquire, and London’s Sunday Times. Her new book is Conversations with Frank Gehry.

The L.A. Times Festival of Books at UCLA is back this weekend — it’s always a great event, and this year more than 100,000 people are expected.  I’ll be moderating a panel Sunday at 11am in Haines Hall 39 on “CLIMATE IN CRISIS” featuring
–Stephan Faris, author of FORECAST: The Consequences of Climate Change, from the Amazon to the Arctic, from Darfur to Napa Valley
–Edward Humes, author of ECO-BARONS: The Dreamers, Schemers and Millionaires who are Saving our Planet;
–William J. Kelley, co-author of SMOGTOWN: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles;
–Daniel Sperling, co-author of TWO BILLION CARS: Driving Toward Sustainability.

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For our Festival of Books preview show, we’ll feature LATimes columnist STEVE LOPEZ – the film of his book “THE SOLOIST” opens Friday in LA, it’s the story of a homeless violin player on skid row and the newspaper columnist who becomes friends with him – starring Jamie Fox and Robert Downey Jr.  Steve will be speaking at the BookFest Sunday at 1:30 on a panel moderated by film critic Ella Taylor.  (originally broadcast 4/16/08)

Also: DAVID ULIN, book review editor of the LA Times, will talk about the troubles in the book business, and the troubles at the LA Times – he’ll be speaking at the BookFest Saturday at 130 on “Publishing 3.0”; Saturday at 330 with Columbine author Dave Cullen, and Sunday at 10:30 he’ll be moderating a fiction panel.

Plus: The Black Girl Next Door: that’s the title of a powerful new memoir by JENNIFER BAZILE, she was the first black female professor of history at Yale – and she’s been named one of “thirty leaders of the future” by Ebony magazine. She’ll be talking about growing up black and middle class in LA in the seventies at the BookFest Sunday at 1:30.  (originally broadcast 1/14/09)

. . . and I’ll be moderating a panel on “Climate in Crisis” Sunday at 11 in Haines Hall 39.

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“I would like to give young people solid intellectual, historical support for saying ‘screw you’” – that’s what ANDREI  CODRESCU says, he’s the poet and NPR commentator from New Orleans.  In pursuit of that goal, he has come up with “impractical guide to practical living” – seeing the 20th century as a battle between radical visions of art and revolution: one the one hand, the creative and the absurd; on the other, reason and order. His new book is The Posthuman Dada Guide.
Andrei Codrescu will be speaking in the ALOUD series at the downtown LA Public Library on Tues April 28, 7:00pm.
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Plus: “America hasn’t led on RENEWABLE ENERGY since Jimmy Carter left office and Ronald Reagan ripped out the solar panels from the White House” – that’s what EDWARD HUMES says. Obama knows what has to be done – but an intractable opposition is working to block aggressive government intervention. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist talks about the environmental heroes of our age. His new book is ECO BARONS: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires who are Saving our Planet.
He’ll be speaking at the LA Times Festival of Books Sunday April 26 at 11:00am in Haines 39.l

ALSO: SMOGTOWN – Los Angeles, where the enemy “came from within” – from the car-addicted suburban lifestyle that took off after WWII. Environmental journalists CHIP JACOBS and BILL KELLY tell the story of the corporate-tainted science, the immense health costs, and the attempts at cleanup. Their new book is Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles. They will be speaking at the LA Times Festival of Books Sunday April 26 at 11:00am in Haines 39.

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HAROLD MEYERSON reports that the presidents of the two labor federations and of the nation’s 12 largest unions — including the National Education Association, which heretofore has not belonged to any labor federation – yesterday announced the formation of the National Labor Coordinating Committee, an interim body that could pave the way for labor’s reunification by forming a new federation with roughly 16 million members. Harold writes for the Washington Post op-ed page; he also editor-at-large of The American Prospect.

Also: “A MY LAI A MONTH” – NICK TURSE has uncovered crucial evidence that the My Lai Massacre was not an isolated incident, but rather part of a large pattern of US killing of unarmed Vietnamese people. Nick’s article for The Nation, “A My Lai a Month,” won a special Ridenhour Prize for reportorial distinction.

Plus: Dreamers, Believers, Builders, and Killers in California: MARK ARAX breaks with the cliches about California’s sunshine and beaaches with stories reporting on migrant workers from Oaxaca, racism and craziness in the Central Valley, marijuana moguls in Humbold County, and the foreclosure crisis. Mark’s new book is West of the West.
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He’ll be reading and signing at Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Ave in LA, Wed nite at 730pm.