The KPFK Fund Drive continues!Today: the award-winning documentary “Iraq in Fragments” presents a stunning portrait of three worlds. We see the war in Baghdad through the eyes of an 11-year old boy, who has been apprenticed to the domineering owner of a Baghdad garage; next, followers of Moqtada al-Sadr enforce Islamic law at the point of a gun; and finally a family of Kurdish farmers welcomes the US presence.American director James Longley’s film won Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Editing awards at Sundance in 2006.”This one demands to be seen,” said Kenneth Turan of the LA Times.It “mesmerizes with its insight and, rarer still, its beauty.”We’ll be featuring the film as a fund drive premium.
Watch the trailer for “Iraq in Fragments”

PLUS: DANNY SCHECHTER the News Dissector talks about the crisis of credit card debt – and the financial forces profiting from it. Danny is an Emmy-award winning TV news producer and documentary film maker, and executive editor of MediaChannel.org, the world’s largest online media issues network.
His new film, “In Debt We Trust,” is about the money we owe, and the bill that’s coming due.We’ll be featuring the DVD as a fund drive premium.

Do you want lies with that? Brutal working conditions, food poisoning, animal cruelty, low wages, plus sex and drugs in the packinghouse: all those stories are told in the film FAST FOOD NATION, out now on DVD, which will be our featured premium in the KPFK Fund Drive today. Manohla Dargis of the New York Times called it “The most essential political film from an American director since Michael Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit 9/11.’” The film stars Patricia Arquette, Greg Kinnear and Kris Kristofferson. ERIC SCHLOSSER wrote the book and co-wrote the screenplay for “Fast Food Nation”; he was also executive producer on the film, and we’ll be speaking with him about it.

Also: Hitchens v. Hedges, arguing about religion and politics. In Berkeley last month, Christopher Hitchens, author of the bestselling God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, debated Chris Hedges, author of American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. Although Hedges denounces the Christian Right, he also praises the pious, while Hitchens, a supporter of the war in Iraq, argues that “human emancipation begins when this nonsense ends.” We’ll play highlights of the debate, and offer the books and a DVD of the debate as fund drive premiums.

More stuff to read: my interview with Christopher Hitchens, “Religion Poisons Everything,” at TruthDig.com

no show today — I’m out of town. It’s the 40th anniversary of Israel’s Six-Day War –you can read my interview with Tom Segev about it at TheNation.com.

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CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS says “Religion poisons everything.” The Old Testament is “a nightmare,” and the New Testament “exceeds the evil of the ‘old” one.” Religion doesn’t make people behave better, and Eastern religions are no better than the Western ones. You say religion might not be true, but it provides comfort in the face of suffering and death? Hitchens replies: “How contemptible.” His new book is God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Christopher will be reading and signing Mon. June 4 at 7pm at the downtown LA Public Library in the ALOUD Series— the event is officially “full-standby only” — and also Tues. June 5 at 7pm at Barnes and Noble on the 3rd St. Promenade in Santa Monica.

Also: What would it take to build a nuclear bomb today? William Langewiesche set out to see how hard it would be for a buyer to get his hands on a nuke—just one device, powerful enough to devastate a city like L.A.. He finds the necessary highly enriched uranium in a closed nuclear city in Russia’s southern Urals – and figures out how to get it out, through Georgia or Turkey. But it wouldn’t be easy. Langewiesche’s new book is The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor.

More stuff to read: my piece “A Day in the Life: Sgt. Pepper Turns 40,” at TheNation.com.

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Today’s show features our Washingon political update from JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation, who says the Iraq war funding bill is “not a compromise, it’s a blank check. . . . The willingness of Pelosi and Reid to advance a measure that does not include a withdrawal timeline allows Bush to conduct the war as he chooses for much if not all of the remainder of his presidency.” John’s new book is The Genius of Impeachment.

Also: GOD ON TRIAL: PETER IRONS talks about legal battles over the separation of church and state – from the placement of a 43-foot cross in a public park in San Diego to teaching “intelligent design” in high school biology class in Dover, PA. His new book is God on Trial: Dispatches from America’s Religious Battlefields. Peter taught constitutional law at UCSD and is a member of the Supreme Court bar.
Peter Irons will be speaking and signing at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd in Pasadena, Wed at 700pm.
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Plus: the rise and fall of cigarettes in America.
ALLAN BRANDT talks about “the drama of consumer desire” in which advertising made cigarettes the tobacco of choice for nearly half of all Americans in 1950. Brandt is a professor of the history of medicine at Harvard medical School; his new book is THE CIGARETTE CENTURY: The Rise, Fall, and Dedly Persistence of the Product that Defined America.

More stuff to read:
–my new piece in The Nation on Alan Dershowitz’s campaign to block tenure for Norman Finkelstein;
–and my interview with Michael Chabon at the Dissent magazine website about his new novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.

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HAROLD MEYERSON talks about the LAPD’s May Day riot in MacArthur Park, and the tide of troubles rising around George Bush—Harold is an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post and executive editor of The American Prospect.

Also: The “Frozen Chosen:” MICHAEL CHABON won the Pulitzer Prize for The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay – now after seven years he’s back with another one that’s wildly imaginative and dazzling fun, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. In the wake of WWII, the US permits immigrant Jews to settle in Sitka, Alaska (which was in fact proposed by FDR) after the defeat of the nascent state of Israel. Our hero is detective Meyer Landsman, “a noz for 18 years,” “a prince of policemen,” and “a crazy little Jew with a question and a gun.”
Michael Chabon will be speaking in the ALOUD series at the downtown LA Public Library Wed. at 7pm—and at Book Soup on Sunset Strip Thurs. at 7.

Plus: THE AGE OF BETRAYAL: THE TRIUMPH OF MONEY IN AMERICA is the new book by JACK BEATTY. He says “This book tells the saddest story: how, having redeemed democracy in the Civil War, America betrayed it in the Gilded Age.” In the late 19^th century, business men like Jay Gould manipulated the American government and oppressed the common man. Of course nothing like that exists today.
Jack Beatty is a senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly and winner of the American Book Award.

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ISRAEL: A PALESTINIAN VIEW. SARI NUSSEIBEH is a leading Palestinian intellectual and political figure, a long-time advocate of a two-state solution, and the PLO’s chief representative in Jerusalem in 2001. He is president of Al Quds University, the only Arab university in Jerusalem. His new book is Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life. He’ll talk about the July War in Lebanon, Israel’s Gaza pullout, and the recent electoral victory of Hamas.
READ about this interview at TruthDig.com

Also: LENI RIEFENSTAHL: she was Hitler’s filmmaker. Her “Triumph of the Will” and “Olympia” are seen  by many as our greatest documentaries.
She and her defenders have long claimed that her art transcended politics, that she devoted her life to Beauty, and that, in the words of critic John Simon, she is “the greatest woman filmmaker ever.” But STEVEN BACH found the facts about her passionate enthusiasm for Hitler and the way that shaped her “art.” His new book is LENI: THE LIFE AND WORK OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL. Steven Bach will be reading and signing Leni in the ALOUD series at the downtown LA Public Library Wed at 7pm. The event is “Standby Only.”
MORE STUFF TO READ: My article in The Nation on Alan Dershowitz’s efforts to block Norman Finkelstein’s tenure

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RY COODER has a new album out: MAVIS STAPLES – ”We’ll Never Turn Back,” reinterpretations of classic songs of the Civil Rights movement. “When I listen to this music, it takes me back. It takes me back to the red clay hills of Georgia . . . It takes me back to the moans and groans and pains of an oppressed people yearning for freedom. It takes me back to the time when hundreds and thousands of us decided we were “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” as Fannie Lou Hamer said.”—John Lewis.

Also: The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is this Saturday and Sunday at the UCLA Campus – we’ll get a preview from DAVID ULIN, editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, and also talk about the changes at the Book Review and the paper. At the BookFest Dave will be doing a Q&A with Jane Smiley Sunday at 1230 in Ackerman —
–and I’ll be doing a Q&A with GORE VIDAL Saturday at 100pm in Royce Hall—tickets are officially “sold out” but there will be a standby line.

Plus: JOHN SINCLAIR, a champion of justice, art, and fun. He was manager of the MC5 in their 1960s street revolutionary heyday, pot/political prisoner, and subject of a John Lennon song decrying his incarceration. After he won an early release, he produced the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival, and did a long stint in New Orleans in the ’90s as radio deejay. Now his 1960s classic book Guitar Army is being reissued. John will be headlining an evening of high-energy music & verse at 8:00pm Thurs, Apr 26, at Artshare Theater, 801 E. 4th Place in downtown LA, and Friday at 730 at Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd. in Venice.

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How DONALD RUMSFELD pushed America into military and strategic disaster—and why the repercussions of his actions will linger for decades to come: ANDREW COCKBURN will explain. He’s written many books as well as articles for The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair. His new book is Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastropic Legacy.
READ Andrew Cockburn’s interview at TruthDig.com.

Plus: Eyewitness Peshawar: Mark LeVine just returned from Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, gateway to the region controlled by the Taliban and Al Qaeda, where Osama bin Laden is probably hiding. Mark teaches history at UC Irvine and is the author of Why They Don’t Hate Us and the forthcoming Heavy Metal Islam. He’s written for Mother Jones and The Nation, and wrote about Peshawar for the Boston Globe.

Also: How the press covered – and failed to cover – the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s: HANK KLIBANOFF of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution explains – he won the Pulitzer Prize in History on Monday along with Gene Roberts for their book The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation.
READ my review of The Race Beat in the LA Times, Nov 12, 2006: “You might think there was nothing left to say about the civil rights movement.  But just when you thought you were finished with that story, a new book pulls you back in. . .”

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M*A*S*H made MIKE FARRELL famous, and he’s used that fame to fight against the death penalty and for human rights in Latin America and the Middle East — he’s shown what a committed artist’s life can be. His new book is Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist. Mike will be speaking and signing Sunday April 15 at 10:15am at All Saints Church, 132 N. Euclid Ave. in Pasadena.

ALSO: JOHN NICHOLS, Washington correspondent for The Nation, says “The real story of the U.S. Attorneys scandal that has so endangered the tenure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is not that of the eight fired prosecutors. It is that of the 85 U.S. Attorneys around the country who were not let go.”

PLUS: DANNY SCHECHTER the News Dissector talks about the crisis of credit card debt — and the financial forces profiting from it. Danny is an Emmy-award winning TV news producer and documentary film maker, and executive editor of MediaChannel.org, the world’s largest online media issues network. His new film, “In Debt We Trust,” is about the money we owe, and the bill that’s coming due. It’s screening at the Fine Arts theater on Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills Friday at 7pm.