Debate over Whittaker Chambers: Salon.com 10/14

Whittaker Chambers’ grandson David  says “Dr. Jon Wiener needs to set some facts straight”  in his article at Salon.com about visiting the Pumpkin Patch National Historic Landmark . . . .
And Dr. Wiener replies, “Readers can be assured I did indeed visit the site.”
. . . continued at Salon.com HERE

 

Gay Baiting Gore Vidal: 1960 Politics – HuffPost 10/8

Gore Vidal was not just a novelist and essayist; he also ran for Congress in 1960 in upstate New York. In a 1988 interview I asked him whether there was any gay-baiting in that campaign.

“Even then it was considered bad karma to fuck around with old Gore,” he told me. . .

. . . continued at the Huffington Post HERE

Tribute to Hobsbawm: LA Review of Books, 10/4

ERIC HOBSBAWM, who died October 1 at age 95, was one of the world’s greatest historians, and also a Marxist. He was not just an academic — he was also a lifelong Communist with a capital “C,” a full-fledged member of the Party since his teenage years.. . .
. . . continued at the LA Review of Books HERE.

Bob Dylan’s ‘Tempest’: Q&A with Greil Marcus: The Nation 10/2

Jon Wiener: How does Dylan sound to you on Tempest?

Greil Marcus: He sounds like himself. He sounds sly, as he’s always sounded. He sounds as if there’s a twinkle in his eye; as if there’s a joke he’s letting you in on, maybe halfway, and you’ll have to find your way to the end of the joke yourself.  That’s pretty much been his mode all along.
. . . continued at TheNation.com HERE

Rick Perlstein’s Presidential Debate Prep: KPFK 10/3

Romney debates Obama tonight at 6: we’ll get ready for the debate at 4:00 with RICK PERLSTEIN: will the candidates say anything they haven’t said a thousand times already?  Will the pundits declare Romney the winner because he didn’t make another terrible “gaffe”?  Rick is the author of the classic Nixonland; he wrote about the Republican National Convention for The Nation.
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Also: with BOB DYLAN’s new album “Tempest,” we’re back in the old, weird America: SEAN WILENTZ will comment; he’s the official historian-in-residence at the official BobDylan.com website, and author of Bob Dylan in America, our featured thank-you gift in the KPFK fun drive today (along with the beautiful vinyl version of “Tempest.”)   Please call and pledge during the show: 818-985-5735, or online at kpfk.org.

The FBI and the “Subversives”: KPFK 9/26

The product of a decades-long battle with the FBI, SETH ROSENFELD’s book SUBVERSIVES  exposes the FBI’s illegal surveillance of students at Berkeley in the 1960s.
READ about how Reagan used the FBI to spy on his children HERE.
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Plus: Our political update from HAROLD MEYERSON, he’s editor-at-large of The American Prospect and he writes a column for the Washington Post, where  his latest piece is “Redistributing Wealth Upward.”

Also: The news from China: anti-Japanese demonstrations—JEFF WASSERSTROM will comment—he’s chair of the history department at UCI and writes for the L.A. Times,  the New York Times, the New Left Review, the TLS, and The Nation.  But China’s diversity is often overlooked; a fascinating antidote can be found in Chinese Characters: Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land, edited by Angilee Shah and Jeff Wasserstrom.  “Chinese Characters” event at USC: 4pm Thurs 9/27: Info HERE.