Laura Poitras on Edward Snowden: KPFK 10/29

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LAURA POITRAS: her terrific new film Citizenfour documents the week she and Glenn Greenwald met Edward Snowden in Hong Kong and he revealed the existence of mass NSA surveillance. The film is playing now in LA and other cities. WATCH the trailer HERE

Plus: our political update with JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation.

Also: Demon Dog radio!  JAMES ELLROY has written an an amazing new novel, Perfidia. It’s set in LA and begins the day before Pearl Harbor. Ellroy is the author of the L.A. Quartet: The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz.  Both  L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia were made into memorable Hollywood films.

“Drop the Pen!”: Laura Poitras Q&A:
LA Review of Books 10/23

Laura Poitras’s documentary about Edward Snowden, “Citizenfour,” opens 10/24: “One Homeland Security agent says, ‘Drop the pen! If you don’t stop taking notes, we’re going to handcuff you.’  Why? They say my pen potentially was a weapon. I am facing two Homeland Security agents with guns, and they are shouting, ‘Drop the pen! Drop the pen!'”
. . . continued HERE

Charles Blow Q&A: The Nation 10/17

At Grambling “I joined a fraternity, a tremendous exercise in violence. The hazing of pledges is masculinity run off the rails. It’s an obscenity. It takes advantage of young men wanting to prove themselves physically—by submitting to abuse and enduring it—and then keeping it secret.”  continued HERE

Naomi Klein: “This Changes Everything” -KPFK 10/1

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Our hero NAOMI KLEIN has written the political book of the year: THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING: Capitalism vs the Climate.  The problem of climate change, she says, is not carbon – it’s capitalism.   Naomi talks about how the climate crisis gives us the opportunity to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better.
WATCH the amazing trailer for This Changes Everything HERE.
READ Naomi in The Nation HERE.
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Plus: TOM FRANK on the wild world of Kansas politics—where the Democrats have pulled out of the Senate race–but an independent, Greg Orman, seems to be ahead of the incumbent Republican Pat Roberts.  Tom writes about politics for Salon.com – he is the author of the classic What’s the Matter with Kansas?

 

The Case Against the Supreme Court:
Erwin Chemerinsky on KPFK 9/24

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ERWIN CHEMERINSKY says the Roberts Court’s conservative agenda is well known—but nothing new. The Court has largely failed throughout American history at its most important tasks and at the most important times. Erwin is founding dean of the law school at UC Irvine; his new book is The Case Against the Supreme Court.

 Also: Football head injuries — and domestic violence: DAVE ZIRIN asks whether the brutality of the game plays a role in the prevalence of players committing acts of violence against women.  Dave is sports writer for The Nation, and host of Sirius XM Radio’s weekly show, Edge of Sports Radio.

Plus: For-Profit Colleges: how they crush the American dream and create a mountain of debt for students: HANNAH APPEL will explain – she’s a mother, activist, and assistant professor of anthropology at UCLA who has been active with Occupy Wall Street since 2011. She wrote about for-profit colleges for TomDispatch.

The People’s Climate March: KPFK 9/17

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This Sunday New York City will be the site of the largest march in history for climate action—100,000 people. As part of the march, our hero NAOMI KLEIN is releasing her first book in seven years: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. JOHN POWERS will comment: he interviewed Naomi for Vogue this month.
WATCH the trailer for This Changes Everything HERE.  READ Naomi in The Nation HERE.  SEE Naomi at the Hammer in Westwood 9/30, info HERE.
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Plus: ANDREW BACEVICH has grim & eloquent critique of our military system—he was an army officer for 23 years and now teaches at Boston U.  His book Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed their Soldiers & Their Country is out now in paperback. READ Rachel Maddow’s review in the NY Times Book Review, HERE.
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Also: trouble in Wisconsin: a panel of Republican judges reinstated the voter-ID law which had been thrown out by a lower court after careful scrutiny of its effects. JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation will explain – he’s in Scotland covering the vote on independence.

The Threat of Peace in Gaza: KPFK 9/10

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“Peace may be the biggest threat to Hamas and to Israel’s leaders”: That’s what AMY WILENTZ says, she was The New Yorker’s Jerusalem correspondent, and is author of several award-winning books, including Martyrs’ Crossing, a novel set in Israel and the West Bank.  She’s written for the New York Times, Reuters and The Nation, and she teaches literary journalism at UC Irvine.

Plus: Remembering CHUCK BOWDEN: a fearless reporter and a fantastic writer who he died August 30 at age 69.   He saw before anyone else how Mexico’s drug war was coming to the borderlands, and he called America’s war on drugs “A wheel of pain that just keeps rolling.”  We spoke with him in February, 2003, just after he published Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder, Family.
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 Also: LAILA LALAMI has written an amazing novel, The Moor’s Account, a fictional memoir of the first black explorer of America—a Moroccan slave who arrived with a group of conquistadores in Florida in 1527. Laila was born and raised in Morocco and teaches creative writing at UC Riverside; her work has has won many awards and been translated into ten languages.
She will be speaking tonight/Wed at 7:30 at Skylight Books, 1818 N Vermont in LA.

Bad Cops: Erwin Chemerinsky on KPFK 9/3

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How the Supreme Court Protects Bad Cops: ERWIN CHEMERINSKY says the Court has created “often insurmountable obstacles” to justice for victims of police abuse. Erwin is founding dean of the law school at UC Irvine and wrote about bad cops for the New York Times op-ed page.

Also: despite the suffering and misery in Gaza, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere in the Mideast, JUAN COLE says, a new generation of Arab men and women are using innovative notions of personal rights to challenge the authoritarianism, corruption, and stagnation that had afflicted their societies. Juan’s new book, The New Arabs, offers a provocative and optimistic argument about the future of the Arab world.
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Plus: How the black community of Ferguson, Missouri have shed their fear and asserted their humanity in ways big and small, beautiful and ugly: GARY YOUNGE was an eyewitness. He writes for The Guardian and The Nation—and he will be talking about his book The Speech: The Story Behind Dr Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream at Esowon Books on Sept 9, next Tues, at 7pm –4327 Degnan Boulevard in Liemert Park.