Programs for the Week of 10/31

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): Vikings in the Attic: I’ve lived in Wisconsin almost thirty years; my son flourished at Eggplant Daycare, a parent co-op that operated in Madison back in the eighties; I’ve been a member of the UW Credit Union almost since the day I arrived; I shop regularly at the Willy Street Coop and buy dairy products from Organic Valley Family of Farms, but until last Tuesday when Eric Dregni enlightened us about how the Scandinavians shaped the culture of the Midwest, I never connected the dots. It’s wonderful to know the place where you live, it’s also wonderful to live there. Thank you, Eric. But you can keep the lutefisk.

Monday: Making an Exit: Sarah Murray never thought about what would happen to her body after she died until her own father passed away, sending her off on a survey of funeral rites from around the world.

Tuesday: Guantánamo: An American History: What’s the history of Guantánamo? How did the US come to occupy a part of Cuba? Harvard historian Jonathan Hansen got suspicious when the Bush administration defended its denial of due process to "detainees" at Guantánamo on the grounds that the prison is outside of US jurisdiction. What he reveals in his book, Guantánamo: An American History, illuminates how difficult it is to overcome our imperial past.

Wednesday: A Road from Lubumbashi: Most of us don’t realize that we are directly linked to the violence and poverty that persists in Congo through our choice of cell phones, play stations and other gadgets. Dan Banda’s film, A Road From Lubumbashi tells that story while also illuminating the ways in which we as consumers can help reduce the conflict.

Thursday: TBA (Encore):

Friday: Cooking Like Our Grandmothers: Michael Pollan suggests eating only foods our grandmothers would recognize as real food. Tamar Adler takes it to the next step – showing us how to cook like our grandmothers, with instinct, using all five senses and every part of an ingredient, and elevating simple food to the sublime. (Lori Skelton hosts)

Happy Halloween!

Jean

Programs for the Week of 10/24

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Interfaith Youth Core: Eboo Patel is a solid original thinker who, in my opinion, is moving the culture forward with his Interfaith Youth Corps which is now over 100,000 strong. What a great way to get young people working together in service to others, breaking down faith barriers in the process. W.E.B. du Bois once said that the defining issue of the twentieth century was race; Eboo Patel thinks that the defining issue of our own century is religious discord. By focusing on youth, he’s doing a whole lot to change that.

Monday: Songs of Kabir: Almost 500 years after his death, Kabir remains one of the world's most beloved poets. His poems are full of passion and paradox, of mind-bending riddles and exultant riffs, and a new translation of his poems, by one of India’s most renowned poets, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, brings Kabir’s poetry to life like never before.

Tuesday: Vikings in the Attic: What does it mean to grow up Scandianvian? In his new book, Eric Dregni tracks down and explores the significant, and quite often bizarre. historic sites, tales, and traditions of Scandinavia’s peculiar colony in the Midwest.

Wednesday: Powering the Future: Two centuries from now, when we run out of oil, gas and coal, will we still be able to generate electricity, run cars, and fly jet planes? Nobel Prize winning Physicist, Dr. Robert B. Laughlin believes we will—but only by using alternate sources of energy, like the sun, wind, animal waste, and even trash.

Thursday: India Calling: Anand Giridharadas grew up in America but returned to India, his parents’ country, to get a closer look at how the India they left had turned into the economic powerhouse that the whole world is watching.

Friday: Made in America: Lucy Lean traveled America, photographing and interviewing master chefs, and collecting their recipes that reinvent our classic and most beloved comfort foods.

That’s all, Folks! I’m headed for sunny Tampa. I’ll be back in time for a reading at the Wisconsin Book Festival on Sunday afternoon. It’s in the Wisconsin Studio of the Overture Center starting at 4:00pm. I hope to see you there!

Jean

Programs for the Week of 10/17

UPCOMING EVENT: Jean Feraca will be reading from the new edition of her memoir, I Hear Voices, at the Wisconsin Book Festival on Sunday, October 23, from 4:00 to 5:30 in the Wisconsin Studio of the Overture Center.  The reading will feature her new essay,

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Global Citizen Year: Earlier this year I attended the Summit of the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy at Wingspread in Racine, Wisconsin, where I met many visionary people including Abby Falik who is the founder and CEO of Global Citizen Year, “the Peace Corps for a new generation.” What’s thrilling about Abby’s story is that when she discovered she couldn’t join the Peace Corps after graduating from high school because she wasn’t old enough, she just wouldn’t take no for an answer. With her parents’ blessing, she took off on her own for Nicaragua and then Brazil, and with the hard lessons learned from those experiences plus a Harvard business degree , twelve years later she founded Global Citizen Year, a program that sends promising high school graduates into countries such as Guatemala and Senegal for a year of immersion in language, culture, and service. Kids come out transformed, young leaders ready for almost anything. I was so inspired by the spirit of the summit that I decided to launch a new series on citizen diplomacy this year on Here on Earth. Abby made for a grand start.

Monday: Upside: Good News About the World: Using the best available data, sociologist Bradley Wright shows us that things are not as bad as the media make them out to be. In his new book Upside: Surprising Good News About the State of Our World, Wright reveals surprisingly uplifting facts about global poverty, disease, the environment, and sexual morality.

Tuesday: Jerusalem, Jerusalem: In James Carroll's Jerusalem, the city embodies the world’s greatest philosophies, and its worst impulses. It is a city of faith, wracked by war, a city constantly engaged in "a contest of life and death." And yet, it is also a place of hope, resurrection, consolation, and holds the key to understanding world history and reimagining world peace.

Wednesday: Bridging the Faith Divide: Eboo Patel and the Interfaith Youth Core: In 1998, Eboo Patel noticed that increased religious diversity in America was causing increased conflict. If religious extremists were recruiting young people, he reasoned, then those who believe in religious tolerance should do likewise, a realization that inspired the Interfaith Youth Core, an organization dedicated to service to others as a way of overcoming conflict.

Thursday: TBA:

Friday: TBA:

This is a short week for me as I’ll be heading to Tampa for the American Italian Historical Association’s annual conference on Thursday, but will be back in time to read from the new edition of my book at the Wisconsin Book Festival on Sunday. I hope to see you there!

Jean

Programs for the Week of 10/10

We’re heading into the fall pledge drive this week, and , as usual, we’ve put some extra thought into our programming. Expect lighter fare, and lots of uplift!

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): Comics in the Classroom: If you’ve never yet had the pleasure of reading a really good graphic novel, I highly recommend American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang, who must surely have been a wunderkind. (sorry, I don’t know the Chinese for that). I probably wouldn’t have taken the trouble to read it had I not been a whole hour early for a physical therapy appointment yesterday, but think about what I would have missed – the Monkey King, a lesson on the four disciplines of kung-fu, what it’s like to be the only Chinese kid in an American classroom, and what an unexpected joy it is to read a really grown up comic book about kids! I loved it all. And Gene himself is now a grown up whiz kid without the attitude. Great stuff.

Monday: Columbus: When I saw that Laurence Bergreen had written a biography of Columbus, I jumped. The last time I had him on the show he talked about his amazing biography of Al Capone, which prompted Capone’s nephew to call in from somewhere near Al’s old hideout in northern Wisconsin. Bergreen’s biography of Magellan - Over the Edge of the World - kept my husband up in the middle of the night it was so mesmerizing. So my expectations for this one are very high. I don’t care how much has been written about Columbus – Bergreen will make it fresh. Consider this excerpt from a review: While we judge the man for being a plunderer, a harbinger of genocide and a megalomaniac, we see in Bergreen portrayal a man ridden with self doubt, who eventually lost royal backing and died destitute.

Tuesday: On Creativity and Slowing Down: Christian McEwen believes we get our best creative ideas in the most unlikely places-in the bathroom, on vacation, when we're daydreaming or just twiddling our thumbs. Drawing on literary and spiritual thinkers from Henry David Thoreau to Pablo Neruda, she extols the virtues of slowing down, and making time for creativity.

Wednesday: Integrative Medicine Man: Can empathy cure colds? Can art relieve the pain of hospital patients? For the last decade, Dr. David Rakel has been using integrative medicine, combining conventional and alternative medical treatments to transform the lives of his patients, and promote their long-term well-being.

Thursday: Global Citizen Year: An Alternative Peace Corps: Abby Falik was dismayed when she discovered she couldn’t join the Peace Corps after graduating from high school only because she hadn’t yet turned eighteen. So she started a Peace Corps of her own. Because of her, each yea, a corps of graduating seniors defer college to become Global Citizen Year Fellows in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Abby won the attention of the Clinton Foundation for her work.

Friday: Trout Caviar: Recipes from a Northern Forager: You may have heard Brett Laidlaw on a recent episode of Wisconsin Life. This guy’s the real thing: he forages truly wild foods – chanterelles, nettles, berries, and trout fresh from the stream. He lays out the laws for mushroom hunting, curing bacon, laissez-faire gardening, and more. And best of all, he lives in a rural Wisconsin cabin.

I’ll be in Bayfield this Saturday with Jeffrey Potter, WPR Marketing Director. Come on by!

Jean

Programs for the Week of 10/3

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): Time for Outrage!: Stephane Hessel has been around: He was captured by the Germans during the French occupation, he escaped and made his way to London where he teamed up with General de Gaulle and became one of the leaders of the Resistance. He was captured again by the Gestapo, and again escaped, but not before being water boarded three times. At 94, the man is like tempered steel, and his message, captured in 4,000 words that are resounding throughout the world, is that It’s Time for Outrage! Stand up for what you believe in, take to the streets and fight against injustice wherever you find it.

Monday: The Hare With Amber Eyes: When ceramic artist Edmund de Waal inherits a collection of ornamental Japanese carvings known as "netsuke," he becomes drawn to the story behind them, which becomes the story of his family that stretches through the centuries and across several countries.

Tuesday: Is There a Pan-Hispanic Culture? What is la hispanidad?: Half a billion people worldwide, from the United States and Latin America, to Spain and the Philippines, supposedly share a common identity, called la hispanidad. But what is la hispanidad, and how unified is Hispanic culture really? In their new book, Ilan Stavans and Iván Jaksic come up with a flexible understanding of the elusive concept, one that transcends borders and cultures.

Wednesday: Comics in the Classroom: Since its inception in 1933, the modern comic book has drawn the ire of parents, preachers, and teachers. But graphic novelist and teacher, Gene Luen Yang, believes the tradition of pictorial story-telling has deep historical roots and particular relevance in today’s classroom.

Thursday: Pico Iyer on Chucking it All (encore): Have you ever felt the urge to chuck it all, slip out the back door, and start life anew? That's just what the main character does in Finland's best loved novel, "The Year of the Hare" by Arto Paasilinna. Renowned travel writer Pico Iyer, who wrote the forward to the book, did the same thing when he left for Japan many years ago. He joins us to talk about the new North American edition of the book and about the benefits of leaving it all behind. (rebroadcast from 3/15/2011)

Friday: Apple Love: When you're looking to make that killer apple pie, should you opt for Granny Smith or Esopus Spitzenburg, Thomas Jefferson's favorite? Food writer Amy Traverso has written the definitive guide for all things apple, from recipes and preparation tips to history and lore.

Lori Skelton will be filling in my apple pie while I’m on my way to the glorious Bayfield Apple Festival this weekend. Go ahead. Eat it!

Jean

Programs for the Week of 9/26

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): India's Anti-Corruption Movement: I’ve been reading about Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement in the New York Times, but it wasn’t until today’s show with New York Times correspondent Jim Yardley and political science professor Sumit Ganguly that its full import came home to me. I’ve been a little sad watching how the great figure of Ghandi has shrunk to a caricature in Bollywood movies and other expressions of Indian popular culture. It’s heartening now to witness the resurgence of his influence in what has become a special moment in Indian political history. Long live Ghandi, and hurrah for Hazare!

Monday: Healing the Heart of Democracy: In this year of the Arab spring, it's a good time to be reminded that democracy is a never-ending process. In his new book designed to re-invigorate American democracy in its most localized settings, and to connect it to those larger global movements that both inspire and disappoint us, Parker Palmer spells out what we can do to form habits of the heart conducive to embracing democracy's endless conflicts.

Tuesday: The Ride of Your Life (encore): Biking season isn't over quite yet! Whether you’re crazy about bikes or just appreciate a leisurely ride, you’ll fall in love with Robert Penn's story about circling the globe on a bike. In his book It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels, he explains how the bike continues to change our world. (rebroadcast from May 3rd, 2011)

Wednesday: Time for Outrage!: Stéphane Hessel is many things: former French Resistance leader, concentration camp survivor, diplomat, ambassador, former UN speechwriter, and in 1948, he helped draft the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In his new book, which has sold more than 4 million copies across the globe, he calls for a return to the ideals that fueled the French Revolution...and for discontented citizens to stand up, get outraged and fight back against injustice.

Thursday: Bridging the Faith Divide: Eboo Patel and the Interfaith Youth Core: In 1998, Eboo Patel noticed that increased religious diversity in America was causing increased conflict. If religious extremists were recruiting young people, he reasoned, then those who believe in religious tolerance should do likewise, a realization that inspired the Interfaith Youth Core, an organization dedicated to service to others as a way of overcoming conflict.

Friday: Mission Street Food and the Pop-Up Restaurant: When Anthony Myint and Karen Leibowitz opened a food cart on Mission Street in San Francisco, they had no idea that it would catapult them into a "pop-up" restaurant. (If you're new to the term, a pop-up restaurant is one that typically operates clandestinely, sometimes in the middle of the night, inside a pre-existing restaurant.) With an ever changing menu of unique offerings concocted by guest chefs, Mission Street quickly gained a huge following and caused people to rethink the whole idea of a restaurant.

I can't believe it’s finally almost Friday!

Have a great weekend, everybody, and if you’re anywhere near Sundance Theater in Madison, I hear Werner Herzog’s 3D movie, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, with an extended run through the weekend,  is not to be missed.

Jean

Programs for the Week of 9/19

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): Ayn Rand and American Politics: I've decided that the Ayn in Ayn Rand's name stands for irony. There are so many ironic inferences to be drawn from her life story, but chief among them, it seems to me, when you consider what a big footprint she’s left on the American political landscape is the fact that we are all suffering from a huge Cold War hangover. And that's supremely ironic given the fact that the Soviet Union doesn't even exist anymore! Why are we so upset about the auto industry and the banking bailout? Why are the Republicans so uncompromising? Why does the Tea Party hate Obama's plan for health care reform? It's all because we’re afraid of a Communist takeover! And what did Ayn Rand herself become? An inverse Marxist fundamentalist. Think about that for a moment. Our current political reality is based on fear of a bogeyman who's already imploded. And she was all about REASON. How rational is that?

Monday: Indigo - The Color that Seduced the World (encore): Indigo, "the bluest of blues," is not just a color, but, as Catherine McKinley puts it, "an attempt to capture beauty." Inspired by her own ancestral entanglement with Indigo, Catherine set out to learn from the last master dyers of West Africa and discovered amazing stories of wealth, power, and divine meaning (rebroadcast from June 1st, 2011).

Tuesday: Murder in Lascaux: The mysterious prehistoric caves in the south of France are the scene of a murder in a new novel by Betsy Draine and Michael Hinden, professors emeriti at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Typical of this dynamic husband and wife team who lived near Lascaux, it's mystery and murder with art, history, and, of course, a great dollop of French food thrown in for good measure.

Wednesday: The Poetry Circle of the Air: In a variation on an old and beloved theme, poet Molly Peacock joins us again this September 21, the day of the fall equinox, together with guest editor Priscila Uppal to give us a preview of the 2011 Best Canadian Poetry in English anthology due out next month.

Thursday: India's Anti-Corruption Movement: Sixty-four years after Gandhi's non-violent movement brought an end to British rule in India, the Indian masses are back in the streets. Led by Anna Hazare, a man whom many hail as a new Gandhi, the movement is going after their own leaders this time, protesting the government's failure to address wide-spread and rampant corruption.

Friday: Eating Smart in France: Don't know your escargot from your maquereau? Ronnie Hess is here to help. Whether you’re searching for an authentic restaurant in Paris, or cooking coq au vin in your own kitchen, here's what you need to know to experience the essence of French culture through its cuisine.

Bon Appetit!

Jean

Programs for the Week of 9/12

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): The Little Free Libraries Project: What is it about the appeal of the miniature? Rick Brooks and Tod Bol really hit it big time with their Little Free Libraries, which are now popping up everywhere. Even my friend in Oxford has seen them. Still, it’s a bit mysterious to me exactly why they have caught on. Is it our hankering for community, both visible and invisible? For books themselves as cultural artifacts as they begin to disappear? For something that does an end run around the consumerism trap? I’m really curious. If you have some idea about why big birdhouses filled with books that are free for the taking would go viral and become a global phenomenon, please let me know.

Monday: Rediscovering the Lost City of Machu Picchu: In 1911, American explorer Hiram Bingham climbed into the Andes Mountains and "discovered" the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu. One hundred years later, the site remains as fascinating, yet mysterious, as ever. In his new book, travel writer Mark Brooks journeys to Peru to retrace Bingham's steps to try and finally answer the question: Just exactly what was Machu Picchu?

Tuesday: Ayn Rand: Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged, has become one of the most polarizing figures in American culture, but how much do we really know about her life? History professor Jennifer Burns spent years poring over Rand's private papers and journals, offering a reassessment of the author's life, and her impact on the current conservative political movement.

Wednesday: The King's Speech (encore): While the American public sees the Oscar-nominated film "The King's Speech" as a story about the king heroically overcoming his personal limitations in the face of great adversity, the same film in the UK is perceived as being a story about class differences. What does the film teach us about class in the UK? How did you see "The King's Speech?" (rebroadcast from February 21st, 2011)

Thursday: The Wabi-Sabi Way (Encore): Do you love your rusty, dented old wheelbarrow? How Wabi-Sabi of you! A philosophy of seeing and homemaking, wabi-sabi has its roots in Japanese Zen Buddhism, but it's all about the imperfection of dried leaves, rather than the perfection of a fresh cherry blossom. (rebroadcast from June 2nd, 2011)

Friday: The Golden-Bristled Boar: When Jeffrey Greene moved to Burgundy, France, he had no idea he was entering prime boar country. After a neighbor presented him with a gift of half a boar stuffed into a black garbage bag, he became fascinated and began studying the history and lore of "the last ferocious beast of the forest," compiling some interesting recipes along the way.

While we’re hunting for wild boar, let me remind you that our two current openings for Here on Earth producers (go to www.hereonearth.org for info.) are still not filled. So, if you know of a likely candidate, please encourage him or her to apply.

Thanks!

Jean

Programs for the Week of 9/5

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): Slow Violence: Rob Nixon (Slow Violence...) opened my eyes to a whole different environmental ethos coming from the Global South. He piqued my appetite for wanting to know more about writers such as Nigeria’s Ken Saro-Wiwa, Africa’s first environmental martyr, and India’s Indra Sinha who wrote the novel Animal’s People about the afterlife of the Bhopal disaster. Unlike their North American elder cousins – Thoreau, Muir, and Leopold - these writers do not separate humans from nature, and they are passionate about bringing to light the fact that environmental degradation violates people every bit as much as it violates the earth itself.Our Guest producer Chris Malina picked his program Odd Bits as his favorite of the week; watch the video to hear why!

Monday: Remembering the Triangle Factory Fire (encore): 2011 marks the one hundred year anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City. We celebrate Labor Day by remembering its victims and the labor law successes of the early 20th century. (Rebroadcast from April 11, 2011)

Tuesday: Chasing Carnegie: The Little Free Libraries Project: Rick Brooks and Todd Bol, two Wisconsin men, are promoting worldwide literacy and building community, one Little Free Library at a time...and one could soon be coming to a neighborhood near you. Together, they’re on a quest to break Andrew Carnegie's record of creating over 2,500 free libraries.

Wednesday: Somalia through Nuruddin Farah's Eyes: Winner of the Neustadt Prize and frequent nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah has been writing about his homeland for over 40 years. His works are full of love and longing for the country he left behind, and concern for the direction in which Somalia is heading.

Thursday: Transforming a Nation's Trauma: Nationally recognized citizen diplomat Sahar Taman and Rev. Robert Chase, head of Intersections International in New York City, are collecting and planning affirmative commemorations for the decade anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Beyond Islam, beyond terror, they see the anniversary as a time to deepen community and seek transformation as individuals and as a nation.

Friday: The Cuban Kitchen: Raquel Rabade Roque's The Cuban Kitchen was such a hit in Spanish that she rewrote it to be published in English. She'll give us a tour of the Cuban coffee counters of Miami and the tastes of an ever evolving Cuban-American cuisine.

Wishing you a labor-free Labor Day weekend and juicy end-of-summer bash -

Jean

Programs for the Week of 8/29

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): Redeemers: Power Brokers Who Shaped Latin America: Just before going on the air on Tuesday, I got a call from Wisconsin’s former Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton who has an abiding interest in the politics of Latin America. She was effusive. “Oh, I just found out that you have Enrique Krauze on your show today. What a coup! He is so great!” And so he was, blazing a path through Latin America’s complicated political and intellectual history, bringing to life the great literary and revolutionary figures from the past whose legacy endures today. Best of all was the overall message: the image of the caudillo that began with Simon Bolivar who famously prophesied, “Out of my grave a thousand dictators will spring,” may very well end with the post-modern caudillo Hugo Chaves. Democracy has taken hold south of the border. Maybe we should pay closer attention. We might learn something.

Monday: The Inter-Species Language of Grief: Ever since her husband lost the ability to speak after suffering a stroke, Diane Ackerman has been grieving. She finds that, out of empathy, her acute sense of loss has connected her with the losses and grieving of others, including animals.

Tuesday: Environmental Degradation as Slow Violence: Nigerian activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, refused to let the oil industry's disastrous effect on his community go unnoticed. He's just one voice showcased in Rob Nixon's new book urging us to see environmental degradation as a kind of slow violence affecting the poorest in our communities.

Wednesday: Pearl Buck in China (encore): A blond blue-eyed daughter of a Presbyterian missionary, Pearl Buck grew up in rural China amid bandit raids, beheadings and battles, when infant girls were strangled and thrown to the dogs. Helen Spurling's biography looks at the years that shaped Buck as a writer and gave her magic power. (Rebroadcast from July 19, 2010)

Thursday: Rambunctious Nature: Environmentalist Emma Marris says it's time to abandon the idea of preserving nature in its pristine state, and move forward instead with creating the "rambunctious garden," which she describes as "a hybrid of wild nature and human management."

Friday: Odd Bits: When it comes to meat, the prime cuts seem to get all the attention. Australian Jennifer McLagan, author of the infamous "Fat," explores why we shy away from odd bits, from tongues and brains, to gizzards and trotters, their taste potential, and how we can approach them with more confidence in the kitchen.

It’s sad to see summer fade away, especially after such a glorious – and mosquito free – month in Wisconsin. No dog days this August. Happy grilling!

Jean