Living in the USA

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Our war on Xmas: BOB DYLAN has released a Christmas album! Is this a joke — or a tragedy? SEAN WILENTZ explains — he’s official historian at the official Bob Dylan website (he also teaches history at Princeton.)  READ Sean Wilentz on Dylan’s Xmas album HERE. LISTEN TO SAMPLES HERE. PLAYLIST: “Here Comes Santa Claus”; “I’ll Be Home for Xmas”; “Must Be Santa,” “Winter Wonderland”; “O Little Town of Bethlehem”  (originally broadcast 11/11/09)

Plus: Obama’s year-in-review: JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation comments – and reviews the pros and cons of the health care bill, scheduled to pass the Senate Dec. 24 at 8am.

Also: KATHA POLLITT is best known for her political columns in The Nation and her personal essays in The New Yorker, but she’s also an award-winning poet – her poems are published in The New Yorker, Paris Review, The Atlantic, and many other places.  Now she has a new book of poetry out – The Mind-Body Problem. We’ll talk about poetry and politics, and she will read some of my favorites.  (originally broadcast 7/29/09)

For the record: today at 4 on KPFK the fund drive will feature a guest host.

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Obama’s jobs program: is the effort he announced yesterday big enough?  Is it good enough?  Does anyone feel good about the American economy right now–with the 2010 elections not so far away?  Also, the Senate Dems’ failure on the health care public option.   JOHN NICHOLS comments  — he writes “The Beat” blog at TheNation.com.

Also: DICK CHENEY won’t go away – he keeps giving interviews attacking Obama. BART GELLMAN comments – his award-winning book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency is out now in paperback.  (originally broadcast 5/6/09)

Plus: LIES — AND TRUTH – ABOUT 9/11: JOHN FARMER says the official version of what happened that day is “almost entirely . . . untrue.” But he’s no conspiracy theorist; he says Bush and Cheney turned out to be “irrelevant” that day.  Farmer is dean of the Rutgers Law School and was senior counsel to the 9/11 commission.  His new book is THE GROUND TRUTH: The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11.

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Obama and Afghanistan: the speech he should have given, starting “We have no partner in Afghanistan,” and ending “our troops will be brought home.”  TOM ENGELHARDT explains — he edits the indispensable blog TomDispatch.

Also – the rise, and fall, of democracy – SUSAN GRIFFIN will comment. Her book Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy: On Being an American Citizen is out now in paperback.   Susan will be in conversation with Louise Steinman at the LA Public Library ALOUD series Thurs at 700pm: reservations HERE.

Plus: KPFK Sports! Soviet sports, that is: BOB EDELMAN talks about soccer under Stalin and how it provided “a small way of saying no.” Bob teaches history at UCSD; his new book is Spartak Moscow: A History of the People’s Team in the Worker’s State.
WATCH Spartak playing in 1954 on rare video HERE

And: The great ELMORE LEONARD presents his rules for writing dialogue. He’ll be honored by PEN, the writers’ organization, tonight. (originally broadcast 2-5-2003).

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“A serious critique of Glenn Beck is almost a waste of time,” TOM FRANK says. “After all, the man has referred to himself as a ‘rodeo clown’ and a ‘recovering scumbag.’”  And yet Beck today has become the most influential man on the right.  Tom Frank explain; he wrote about Glenn Beck for Playboy.
WATCH GLENN BECK “LOSE HIS MIND” on YouTube HERE

Also: GREIL MARCUS talks about the New Literary History of America:  his new co-edited thousand-page compendium, where “nothing remains of the boundaries that traditionally separated literature, history and popular culture” — from the Puritans to “Lolita” and Jackson Pollack – and of course Greil’s Moby Dick:  “Ahab is always out there.”

Plus: Americans in Cuba on the eve of Castro’s revolution: that’s the setting for RACHEL KUSHNER’s novel TELEX FROM CUBA. For the Americans, plantation society in Oriente was a paradise – until the rebels came down from the hills.  Rachel’s book is out now in paperback.  (first aired 8/27/08)

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New York Times op-ed columnist GAIL COLLINS traces women’s progress from the fifties to the present, from “My Little Margie” to Hillary for President — and Sarah Palin for Vice President.  Gail Collins was the first woman editor of the New York Times editorial page;  Her new book is When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present.

Also:  With Obama’s trip to Shanghai this week, HAROLD MEYERSON asks: who created that dysfunctional relationship with China?  The answer; not the Chinese, but rather American businesses and finance, above all WalMart and Wall Street.  Harold is an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post.

Plus: RICK HERTZBERG remembers the Obama campaign — and talks about Obama one year later.  Rick writes about politics for The New Yorker; once upon a time he was a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter.  His new book is Obamanos! The Birth of a New Political Era.
Rick will be in conversation with Marty Kaplan of USC Thursday at 7:3opm at WRITER’S BLOC at the ICM Theater, 10250 Constellation Blvd (MGM building) in Century City.  Tickets are $20.

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BOB DYLAN has released a Christmas album! Is this a joke — or a tragedy? SEAN WILENTZ explains — he’s official historian at the official Bob Dylan website (he also teaches American history at Princeton.) READ Sean Wilentz on Dylan’s Xmas album HERE. LISTEN TO SAMPLES HERE. PLAYLIST: “Here Comes Santa Claus”; “I’ll Be Home for Xmas”; “Must Be Santa,” “Winter Wonderland”; “O Little Town of Bethlehem”

Plus: “Guyland” is the world of twenty-something men whose passions are limited to watching sports, getting drunk, and getting laid. MICHAEL KIMMEL will explain; his book Guyland is out now in paperback.  (originally broadcaast 11/26/08)

Also: BARBARA EHRENREICH talks about Americans’  “unwholesome love affair with Positive Thinking.”   She says losing your job, or your home, is not “an opportunity.”  Her new book is BRIGHT SIDED: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America.
Barbara will be speaking Sunday  Nov 15 at 2pm at CalTech in Baxter Hall.  More info HERE.
Read the Journal of Happiness Studies HERE.

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One year ago, Barack Obama was elected president. Yesterday, Republicans won some off-term elections – are voters telling us something?  JOHN NICHOLS comments; he’s Washington correspondent for The Nation, and writes “The Beat” blog at TheNation.com.

The wildly popular “TIJUANA SOUND” of the 1960s, marketed by Herb Alpert, caricatured Tijuana as a sleepy Mexican border town. The real Tijuana, however, was an emerging industrial city with its own versions of the blues, rock & roll and jazz.  JOSH KUN explains: he directs the Popular Music Project  at the Annenberg School at USC; his installation “Last Exit USA” is at Steve Turner Contemporary, 6026 Wilshire Blvd.  PLAYLIST: Herb Alpert, “Tijuana Bull,” “All My Loving”;  Los Tijuana Five, “Suenos de California”;  Los TJs, “El Twist Despacio”; Los Tigres del Norte, “La Granja,” “El Otro Mexico.”

Also: DOROTHEA LANGE photographed  “Migrant Mother,” the icon of the Great Depression–an eloquent portrait of a survivor.  Lange went on to photograph Japanese Americans during their internment in WWII; those photos were banned.
NYU historian LINDA GORDON calls Lange “a photographer of demcocracy, and for democracy” — Linda’s new book is Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits.

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The CIA’s secret Predator war: JANE MAYER of the New Yorker reports on the secret war being fought with remote controlled unmanned planes in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The program has dramatically expanded under Obama.  “Nearly all the victims have remained faceless.”  Jane Mayer wrote about Obama’s predator war for the Oct. 26  New Yorker.

Plus: AMIRA HASS is the columnist for Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper who has often told the hard truths about Israel and the Palestinians. Now she has received the International Women’s Media Foundation 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award for her remarkable bravery as an Israeli citizen who lives and reports from Gaza.  READ her column about the Gaza war, “Lucky my parents aren’t alive to see this.”

Also: WAL-MART, the largest private employer in the nation, is notorious for mistreating its workers in both American stores and Chinese factories. Historian NELSON LICHTENSTEIN looks at the company that started out in Bentonville, Arkansas, and built a corporate culture based in a remote region that was all-white, all Protestant, and almost all poor. Nelson teaches at UC Santa Barbara; his new book is The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business.

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How did torture become official US policy?   What arguments did the Bush Justice Dept. use to justify inhuman, cruel and degrading treatment?  And what is being done to bring to justice those responsible?  DAVID COLE looks at the torture memos released by the Justice Department.  He teaches at Georgetown Law Center, he’s also a volunteer staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, legal affairs correspondent for The Nation, and a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. His new book is The Torture Memos.

Plus: THELONIOUS MONK wasn’t a naive, childlike, eccentric character.  Historian ROBIN KELLEY says he was basically a musician trying to make it without compromising his vision.  Robin tells the story of the life, the times, and the music of  “an American original.” Robin teaches at USC; his much-heralded new book is Thelonious Monk.
PLAYLIST: “‘Round Midnight,”  “Well You Needn’t,” “Straight No Chaser,” “Sweet and Lovely” – 1947 Blue Note sessions.
WATCH Robin Kelley on Thelonious Monk HERE.