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

Programs for the Week of 8/22

Nota Bene: Here on Earth is still looking for two new producers. For more information about the openings, please go to our website:

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): The Food We Brought

Monday: Sufism in the West: One of my most memorable interviews some years ago was with Pir Vilayat Inayat-Khan, then head of the Sufi Order of the West, a man who was hang-gliding in his eighties. His son, Pir Zia Inayat-Khan has succeeded him as the head of the Sufi Order International, an organization begun by his grandfather in the early 20th century to bring Sufism to the West. He joins us to talk about how he bends the mystic tradition and inter-faith work to remedy the world’s most pressing issues.

Tuesday: Redeemers: Power Brokers Who Shaped Latin America: Evita Perón, Che Guevera, Hugo Chavez. Latin America has had its share of strong leaders. Enrique Krauze, one of Latin America's leading intellectuals, brings to life the ideas and figures that shaped a continent.

Wednesday: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Ever Seen (encore): Journalist Christopher McDougall gathered information about the Tarahumara, a little known tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners who live in Mexico's Copper Canyon and can outlast any animal on earth. (Rebroadcast from 8/17/2010)

Thursday: Mindfulness and Medicine: For patients with life-threatening illnesses such as cancer, it can be hard to find comfort in the face of death. Susan Bauer-Wu and Elana Rosenbaum, who both encountered cancer in their personal lives, are medical professionals who teach the practice of mindfulness as a way for patients to rediscover strength and serenity.

Friday: We All Scream for Ice Cream: Be it soft-serve, gelato, Indian kulfi or Isreali glida, some form of ice cream treat can be found throughout the world in restaurants and home freezers. Ice cream’s story is a tale populated with Chinese emperors, English kings, Italian hokey-pokey street vendors and a gourmand American First Lady.

Nobody can say we're not eclectic!

Jean

Programs for the Week of 8/15

Applications for our two openings for Here on Earth producers are beginning to trickle in. Please go to

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): Robert Jay Lifton's Life of Listening: What I liked this week is the way Robert Jay Lifton's perspective on the psychology of war connected to Helen Benedict's expose of what it’s like to be an American woman in combat, and that program led, in turn to Pumla Gobodo-Madikezela's extraordinary exploration of the power of forgiveness in post-apartheid South Africa. Honest, folks, we didn't plan it that way!

Monday: Who Are We?: Gary Younge is a black British male of Caribbean descent who speaks Russian and French and lives the United States. So who is he? Better yet, who are we? We'll discuss the influence of identity in our lives and in our world, and we'll try to discern when its influence is a problem and when it's not.

Tuesday: Elvis Lives!: As of today, the 34th anniversary of the death of the King of Rock n Roll, there are 200,000 Elvis impersonators worldwide, from Mexico's El Vez to Japan’s Yasuma Mori who sings about his blue suede kimono.

Wednesday: Forbidden Lessons in a Kabul Guesthouse: To help the Afghan people, Suraya Sadeed made many harrowing attempts to traffic cash and supplies under the noses of Iranian border guards, drug runners, and suicide bombers. She concealed an estimated $100,000 in U.S. cash by strapping it to her stomach and feigning pregnancy while slipping past the Taliban.

Thursday: Global Word Play (encore): How many ways are there to say "believe me" in the world? In English, we say "I'm not pulling your leg." In Russian, the phrase is "I'm not hanging noodles from your ear." We’re reaching back to 2009 for this incredibly fun hour with author Jag Bhalla about the amusing ways different cultures describe their world. (Rebroadcast from June 24, 2009)

Friday: TBA:

Lori will be filling in for me this Friday while I am at the Christine Center's Interfaith Retreat about the 13th century encounter that took place between St. Francis of Assisi and the Sultan Malak-al Kamil. Rich stuff. I call it l. Rich stuff. I call it "champagne for the soul."

Jean

Programs for the Week of 8/8

***Announcing two Here on Earth producer openings:******
We currently have two producer positions open on Here on Earth: one is three-quarter time with benefits and academic staff status; the other is a half-time position with no benefits but the possibility of a future upgrade. If any of you are interested in applying, or know someone who might be, please go to the above links for full descriptions of both positions, or email me directly: feraca@wpr.org. We are very sorry to be losing our excellent Here on Earth producers, Carly Yuenger and Dominique Haller, within a month of each other, and are anxious to find their replacements. Please help us spread the word. Here on Earth is committed to bringing good news of the earth and its people, to fostering cross-cultural understanding and to encouraging world citizenship. Plus, we have a lot of fun.

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): Norway Responds to Terror: Kudos to ace producer Carly Yuenger who snagged former Norwegian Prime Minister Bondevik for today’s show. A better guest to suss out Norway’s extraordinary response to its recent homegrown terror attacks I cannot imagine. As the founder and president of Norway’s Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights, he was able to give real perspective and depth to his country’s long record on human rights and commitment to openness and freedom. We’ll see what kind of compromises Norway may have to make in the future, but so far, they are inspiring.

Monday: Ramadan: The Feast and the Fast (encore): Since Ramadan began last Monday, which represents a particular hardship for American Muslims, we thought you might enjoy learning about how different the experience of Ramadan can be depending on where you happen to find yourself. Compare fasting here in America in the heat of long summer days to countries like Syria where everyone sleeps all day and feasts all night (unless they happen to be under siege, of course). (Rebroadcast from September 1, 2009)

Tuesday: Robert Jay Lifton's Life of Listening: In his new memoir, psycho-historian Robert Jay Lifton says that he's spent most of his life listening. From talking to victims of Chinese thought reform, to Japanese survivors of Hiroshima, to Nazi doctors, he bore witness to some of the 20th century’s darkest moments and responded with hope and activism.

Wednesday: Sand Queen: In the process of interviewing women veterans of the Iraq war for her book, The Lonely Soldier, Helen Benedict noticed that when questioned about their experiences with sexual harassment, many of these women remained silent. So Helen decided to write the novel SAND QUEEN to give voice to the unspeakable.

Thursday: The Power of Forgiveness: What is it about expressions of remorse and apology that open the door to forgiveness? Few people are better suited to exploring this question than Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a psychologist and commissioner for South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Friday: Rooster Sauce: "Rooster Sauce," as Sriracha (rhymes with Feraca but no relation) is commonly known, can be found in the home, at the corner diner, and behind the scenes in some of America's top restaurants. You'll enjoy exploring the endless possibilities of cooking with this favorite hot sauce with Lori Skelton sitting in for me while I set out for the Christine Center to facilitate this year's Interfaith Retreat with Sufi master Jamal Rahman and Wheaton Franciscan Gabrielle Uhlein. (see last Tuesday's show: Francis and the Sultan – also my favorite.)

For more information about Francis and The Sultan, go to www.christinecenter.org or just call 715-267-7507. I hope to see you there August 12-14. The Christine Center is a very special place of pilgrimage and hermitage set deep in the heart of Wisconsin’s Amish country and I am particularly excited about this year’s timely retreat with Jamal and Gabrielle, two people alive with joy. Come if you can. Dance and sing.

Jean

Programs for the Week of 8/1

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): Is Democracy Coming to China?: MIT Professor Edward Steinfeld cast new light on China as a country that, in his view, is inching its way toward democratic reform, following in the footsteps of Taiwan and South Korea. Particularly fascinating to me were the passing references to artists Han Han and Ai WeiWei who both remind me of Frank Zappa.

Monday: The Dacha Days of Summer: For centuries, Russian city dwellers have spent their summers relaxing and gardening at rural cottages called dachas. (like gotcha!) Mellissa Caldwell spoke to hundreds of "dachniki" about their beliefs in the healing power of land and the strange way time passes in the country, leading to her conclusion: To understand the dacha is to understand the Russian soul.

Tuesday: St. Francis and the Sultan: When St. Francis crossed enemy lines to meet the Sultan Malek el-Kamil during a Crusade, he fully expected to be martyred. Instead, he was embraced as a friend. Hear the full story when I talk with Muslim Sufi master Jamal Rahman and Gabrielle Uhlein, a Franciscan sister, who are teaming up for the Christine Center's third annual interfaith retreat (to be facilitated by yours truly).

To register for this Interfaith retreat, call 715-267-7507 or e-mail the Christine Center at christinecenter@tds.net

Wednesday: Norway's Response to Tragedy: In the wake of the recent massacre in Norway, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told the world, "The answer to violence is even more democracy, even more humanity." Will Norway be able to sustain its commitment to openness and tolerance?

Thursday: TBA:

Friday: Kings of Pastry: Sixteen of France's top pastry chefs compete for the ultimate accolade, the collar of the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, best craftsmen of France, in the "Kings of Pastry" competition. The contest takes place every four years and involves 16 chefs over three exhausting days concocting 40 different recipes in a race against the clock.

On a personal note, our technical wizard, the man usually responsible for all the great sound and music in the program, Joe Hardtke has suffered an injury, having broken his collar bone last weekend, and undergone surgery on Wednesday of this week. Also soon to be among the missing is our beloved Swiss Miss, Dominique Haller, who will be leaving us next month to become a full-time graduate student in the art department. If you happen to know of any likely candidates for the position of Here on Earth producer, we’re anticipating at least one, and maybe two openings to be announced in the near future. Stay tuned and meanwhile, pray for us!


Thanks,

Jean

Programs for the Week of 7/25

We have an amazing line-up next week, beginning with Sarah Chayes unwrapping Afghanistan, followed by some very positive news about the future of China, and then John Nichols weighs in on media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the gathering storm over tabloid email hacking in Britain…

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): Saved By Beauty in Iran: Tough, there have been so many great programs this week, - I dearly loved Tony Perrottet’s Sinner’s Tour of Europe, ditto with yesterday’s show about Terence Malick’s new film, The Tree of Life – as Joe said, “It was a chin scratcher” - but since I must choose, my hat goes off to Saved by Beauty, Roger Housden’s harrowing and yet loving account of his two months in Iran. Given the nature of live radio, we never got to the heart of the matter – the profound shift in essential identity that the experience of detention and interrogation brought about in Housden’s psyche. And then he comes home and goes through a parallel experience when he’s questioned by the FBI! Truly amazing stuff.

Monday: The Karzai Brothers and The Future of Afghanistan: Former NPR correspondent Sarah Chayes has been an insider in Afghanistan since she left NPR to help rebuild a country devastated by decades of war. She says there’s a clear connection between what’s going on there now and the Arab Spring.

Tuesday: Is Democracy Coming to China?: Everyone knows about the changes in the Chinese economy. But while much of our political coverage of China focuses on its human rights abuses, some voices are saying that China is experiencing real political change as well. MIT professor Edward Steinfeld joins us to discuss why he thinks that China is on its way to democracy.

Wednesday: Rupert Murdoch’s Empire in Crisis: With all the ink that’s been lavished on the tabloid crisis in Britain, there’s not much being said about Murdoch’s links to the US. What about Fox and the American media?

Thursday: Unnatural Selection: From Albania to Vietnam, fewer and fewer girls are being born. While we are quick to point to patriarchial traditions to explain the phenomenon, we tend to overlook one important aspect of the problem: recently introduced technology that makes what journalist Mara Hvistendahl dubs "Unnatural Selection."

Friday: Mexican Ice Pops: Cool down the heat, bring out the frozen treats! Paletas are the traditional Mexican version of the ice pop, and Fany Gerson, celebrated pastry chef and paletas enthusiast, knows all about how to make the magic of fruit and ice work to perfection.

Jean