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From the Center for Obama Studies at KPFK: DAVID REMNICK, editor of The New Yorker, talks about his new book The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama. He’s speaking Thursday at 7:30pm at the Writers Guild Theatre, 135 S. Doheny Dr., Beverly Hills– tickets are $20 at writersblocpresents.com.

Also: KPFK Sports! the Dodgers’ won their home opener yesterday 9-5 against the Arizona Diamondbacks –we’ll speak with MARK KURLANSKY about the Dodgers who started out in Dominican Republic. Mark’s new book is The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris. He’ll be at the BookFest at UCLA Sunday April 25 at 1:30 in Young Hall.

Plus: China today has more millionaires, more skyscrapers, and more internet users than any other country. But what happened to Mao? What happened to the Cultural Revolution?  Everything you need to know about China – but were afraid to ask: UCI historian JEFF WASSERSTROM will explain. His new book is China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know.
Jeff will be at the BookFest at UCLA on the China panel Sunday April 25 at noon in Young Hall.

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Only one State Department official has resigned in protest over our war in Afghanistan: MATTHEW HOH.  Now he has been awarded The Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling.  At a time when Afghanistan was still looked at as the “good war,” Hoh came forward, publicly and at great personal risk, to challenge the war’s fundamental rationale. His passionate and informed letter of resignation lit a spark and was, for many, a crucial argument against our war in Afghanistan.

Plus: our Washington update with HAROLD MEYERSON, he writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page and he’s editor-at-large of The American Prospect.

Also: “SAVING STATE U.”: NANCY FOLBRE says public universities and colleges need a commitment to “an economic system that nurtures hope, curiosity and confidence in the future citizens of our country.” Nancy is a staff economist with the Center for Popular Economics; she teaches economics at UMass Amherst, and she writes for the New York Times Economix blog, where she wrote recently about “The World’s Best Countries for Women.” She also won a MacArthur “genius” award.
Read about misuse of UC student fees HERE

Your Minnesota Moments: Sarah Palin in Minneapolis HERE;  Fact-Checking Michelle Bachman HERE

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Obama can follow the example of Bill Clinton, move to the center, and “triangulate” between Democrats and Republicans.  Or Obama can follow the example of Harry Truman and become an effective partisan and a resolute progressive — That’s what ROBERT KUTTNER says – he’s founding co-editor of The American Prospect.

Also: Is Obama’s health care bill constitutional? 14 state attorney generals say it isn’t.   ERWIN CHEMERINSKY comments – he’s dean of the law school at UC Irvine.

Plus: TOM FRANK asks, When will the GOP stop whining about the ‘elites’? Glen Beck & Co. claim to be victims — of those darn liberals who control everything.  Tom is the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? and he writes a column for the Wall Street Journal. He’s also founding editor of The Baffler. WATCH the TRAILER for the documentary “What’s the Matter with Kansas” HERE

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Maybe you heard the news: yesterday President Obama signed the health care bill into law — the most sweeping social legislation enacted in decades and the true end of the Age of Reagan. We’ll have comment from HAROLD MEYERSON of the Washington Post op-ed page and JOHN NICHOLS, Washington correspondent of The Nation magazine, each assessing the achievements, and the limitations, of what the Democrats did.

Scary new Harris poll: GOP Beliefs about Obama: “He’s a Socialist”: 67% agree;  “He’s a Muslim”: 57% agree;  “Not born in the US”: 45% agree;  “May be the Anti-Christ”: 24% agree.  (And I thought the antiChrist was . . . Johnny Rotten!)  More info HERE.

Also: How a well-connected oil company revolutionized the way America makes war – and why Obama still needs them: PRATAP CHATTERJEE talks about the past and future of Halliburton and its former subsidiary KBR. Pratap is senior editor of CorpWatch and has written for the Financial Times, the Guardian and The Independent of London. His book Halliburton’s Army is out now in paperback.

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ERIC FONER looks at the changes in the social studies curriculum approved by the Texas Board of Ed – and what the new standards tell us about conservatives’ vision of American history. Their favorite topics: the Confederacy, the military, and religion; topics they cut include slavery, labor, and feminism.  WATCH Eric on “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central Tuesday night HERE;  READ the Texas curriculum changes HERE.

Also: Columnist HAROLD MEYERSON says “the road to America’s economic recovery starts in LA”: with a sales tax increase passed in November 2008 by L.A. County’s voters to construct new rail and bus lines — a major environmental and stimulus program that won’t add to the federal deficit.  He wrote about it in his column for for the Washington Post op-ed page.

And historian IRA BERLIN analyzes four epic migrations of African-Americans: the slave trade; then the relocation of a million slaves to the interior of the antebellum South; then the move by six million blacks to northern cities a century later; and since the late 1960s, the arrival of black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean.
Ira teaches at the University of Maryland; his new book is The Making of African America: The Four Great Migrations.

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The largest open pit mine in California is the the US Borax/Rio Tinto mine in Boron, where  the company has locked out neary 600 members of the ILWU Local 30 after workers rejected demands that they surrender any union role in the labor process. MIKE DAVIS reports on the Boron workers in the new issue of The Nation magazine; TERRI JUDD is a union activist who drives a 1600-horsepower loader in the mine.  More info: http://www.boraxminers.com/

Also: “Consider the Germans”: TOM GEOGHEGHAN notes that, since 2003, it’s not China but Germany, “that colossus of European socialism,” that has led the world in exports. Germany has somehow managed to create a high-wage, unionized economy without shipping all its jobs abroad or creating a massive trade deficit, or any trade deficit at all.  Tom is a labor lawyer who wrote about Germany for the March Harper’s.

Plus: Debunking 9-11 Conspiracy Theories: DAVID AARONOVITCH is a columnist for The Times (London) and a recipient of the Orwell Prize for Political Journalism. (Other winners: Patrick Cockburn and Robert Fisk.)  His new book Voodoo Histories is “a brilliant, sparkling, and witty demolition” of  9-11 conspiracy theories, “and an analysis of why otherwise intelligent people are so ready to believe in them.” – Ian Kershaw, author of Hitler.

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The fastest-growing, most dynamic capitalist country in the history of the world is the People’s Republic of China today.  PETER HESSLER has lived in China for the last ten years as a staff writer for The New Yorker; he spent months in a development zone, hanging around with businessmen and with workers.  Peter’s new book is COUNTRY DRIVING: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory.

Plus: HAROLD MEYERSON says “Like earthquakes, Goldman Sachs can strike anytime. Its work can slumber undetected for years, only to erupt, unanticipated, with catastrophic consequences.”  He looks at how Wall Street greed and secrecy are bringing misery to Greece and endangering the European Union.  Harold writes an op-ed column for the Washington Post.

Also: The past and future of capitalism: historian JOYCE APPLEBY says capitalism isn’t an expression of human nature, but the specific result of some unlikely developments, mostly in England.  She emphasizes that capitalism is as much a cultural as an economic system.  Joyce’s new book is THE RELENTLESS REVOLUTION: A History of Capitalism.