The Winnemen Wintu people of California, having lived near Mount Shasta, along a tributary of the McCloud River for over 10,000 years celebrate the Balas Chonas, or Puberty Ceremony when girls mature into women. The ceremony, celebrated on July 3, 2012 was extraordinary, when Balas Chonas was held for the next Winnemem Wintu chief and spiritual leader. However, the Balas Chonas ceremonies may come to an end, if the United States government continues with a plan to raise Shasta Dam and flood out most of the tribes remaining sacred sites.
Our guest is Lyla Johnston, currently a student of Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University who is documenting the culture and sacred sites of the Winnemem Wintu.
Christina Aanestad the Assistant Producer of Radio Curious visited with Lyla Johnston at the July 3rd, 2012 Balas Chonas. They began their conversation when Christina asked Lyla how many sacred sites the Winnemem Wintu have along the McCloud River.
The book Lyla Johnston recommends is “The Red Tent,” by Anita Diamont.
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Radio Curious brings you an archived, 2-part conversation about death and forensics with Dr. Michael Baden, the Chief Medical Examiner for the New York State Police and author of “Dead Reckoning, the New Science of Catching Killers.”
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A former dump site at the edge of the Pacific Ocean in Ft. Bragg, California, is part of the story in this edition of Radio Curious.
Captain Cass Forrington, creator and owner of the Glass Beach Museum, and the author of “Beaches Of Glass, a History & Tour of the Glass Beaches of Fort Bragg, California,” is our guest. He is also a Master Mariner, holder of an unlimited Master’s Certificate, allowing him to be the captain of any size sea going vessel. He has many stories to tell.
Captain Cass and I sat on Glass Beach No. Two in Ft. Bragg, on a windy afternoon, June 2, 2012, with the waves lapping ten feet away. We began when I asked him to describe Glass Beach. But keep listening to hear his story about putting his hands in acid 40 years ago.
Captain Cass Forrington’s website is: captcass.com
Capt. Cass Forrington recommends a movie and a book. The book is “The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology,” by Ray Kurzweil. And the movie is “What the Bleep Do We Know?”
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Sean, a four year old child living with his parents in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco in 1969 was the star of a short film about his life. He spoke openly his free-spirited parents, his crash pad home, watching cops bust head, and smoking pot. Ralph Arlyck made the film while a student at San Francisco State University.
Thirty years later he located Sean and his family, and created the film Following Sean. Ralph Arlyck, our guest on this edition of Radio Curious has produced and directed more than a dozen prizewinning films. Following Sean, is a film as much about Ralph Arlyck’s life as it is about Sean’s. It will be shown at the Mendocino Film Festival, held in Mendocino, California, the first weekend of June, 2012, where Arlyck will receive the Albert Maysles Award for Excellence in Documentary Film Filmmaking.
Ralph Arlyck and I visited by phone from his home in Poughkeepsie, New York, on May 14, 2012, and began when I asked him how Following Sean also became a story of Arlyck’s own life.
The film Ralph Arlyck recommends is “Patience (After Sebald,)” a British Film by Grant Gee.
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As we all know every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The reaction, however is not necessarily equal in time or unity. It’s often spread over time with serial impacts.
In this edition of Radio Curious we focus on the treatment of workers in the automobile industry in the United States beginning in the early years of the 20th century. The story is portrayed in “Brothers on the Line,” a film about Walter, Ray and Victor Reuther, three brothers from West Virginia who organized the United Auto Workers Union beginning in the 1920s. With access to the National Archives, the Wayne State University Labor History Library and family records, Sasha Reuther, Victor’s grandson, directed the film. It chronicles the working conditions and the successful strikes at the big three auto plants in Michigan; the political power of the United Auto Workers Union, and its involvement in the civil rights movement. It also explains why Detroit, Michigan became the richest city in the United States in the 1950s.
“Brothers On The Line” will be shown June 3, 2012 at the Mendocino Film Festival, in Mendocino, California.
Sasha Reuther and I visited by phone from his office in New York City on May 7, 2012. We began when I asked him what happened once the automobile became a useful, if not necessary tool of life.
The book that Sasha Reuther recommends is “U.A.W. and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945 -1968,” by Kevin Boyle.
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In 1990 Earth First! activists from Mendocino County were on a road trip to rally support for a summer effort to help protect old growth redwoods in Northern California. For years prior, logging practices took well over 90% of the original redwood growth in the area. Darryl Cherney and Judi Bari, the organizers, were in their car in Oakland, California, in May 1990 when a bomb exploded underneath the driver’s seat where Judi Bari sat. She and Darryl Cherney were immediately arrested and suspected of bombing themselves. Although charges were never filed against the two, authorities have yet to locate the bombers. Darryl Cherney and Judi Bari sued and won a jury award of four million dollars against the Oakland Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for violating their 1st and 4th amendment rights.
The film, “Who Bombed Judi Bari?” produced by Darryl Cherney, attempts to answer the question posed in the title; it examines their struggle with law enforcement in finding the real bomber and chronicles the history of the local environmental movement here in Northern California.
Christina Aanestad, the Radio Curious assistant producer spoke with Darryl Cherney about the film he produced and his experiences resulting from the bombing. They visited on March 29, 2011, at the studios of KMEC radio, inside the Mendocino Environmental Center, which has a long history of supporting social and environmental movements, including Earth First! They began when Christina asked Darryl Cherney to describe the attempted assassination against him and Judi Bari.
The website for Darryl Cherney’s film is www.whobombedjudibari.com.
The book he recommends is, “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess” by Alan Shlain.
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Cheating Justice: The criminal activity of President George W. Bush, and his Vice President Dick Cheney, is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious. Our guest is Elizabeth Holtzman, author of “Cheating Justice: How Bush and Cheney Attacked the Rule of Law and Plotted to Avoid Prosecution and What We Can Do About It.”
A former District Attorney of Brooklyn New York, and former congresswoman from New York, Holtzman was a member of the House Judiciary Committee that voted to Impeach President Nixon. Her book, “Cheating Justice,” concludes former president George W. Bush and top members of his administration conspired to violate the laws of the United States. From illegal wiretapping to authorizing torture, Holtzman analyzes what her research shows to be serious criminal acts of the Bush presidency. She asserts that without accountability our democracy is a stake.
Elizabeth Holtzman and I visited by phone from her office in New York City on April 2, 2012, and began when I asked her to describe the crimes set forth in her book.
The book she recommends is “The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family’s Century of Art and Loss,” by Edmund De Waal.
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Radio Curious brings you an archived interview with Maria Stewart, as portrayed by Sandra Kamusukiri. Maria W. Stewart, was a free black woman who lived in Boston, MA, from the 1820s to the early 1840s. She was the first American born woman to lecture in public on political themes and likely the first African-American to speak out in defense of women’s rights.
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Radio Curious brings you an archived conversation with Eve Ensler, creator of the Vagina Monologues.
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The decision of the United States Supreme Court, in the case of Citizen’s United v. Federal Elections Commission in January 2010, substantially changed the political process in the United States. That decision held that corporations have the same constitutional rights as have individual people. Four of the nine Supreme Court Justices believe the Citizen’s United was wrong. So many other American’s share that belief that a nationwide grass roots effort called Move to Amend has been organized to promote the 29th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This new amendment would change the result of the Citizen’s United decide and declare:
“The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only. Artificial entities, such as corporations, limited liability companies, and other entities, established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law.”
An amendment to the Constitution requires a two thirds vote of approval in both the House of Representatives and in the United States Senate. It then must be adopted by three-fourths, or thirty-eight, of the fifty states to become the law of the land.
Many city councils including those of Los Angeles, New York, and Portland, Oregon, have passed resolutions urging their congressional representatives to support this amendment. Listeners in Mendocino County, the home of Radio Curious, may soon sign petitions to put a similar resolution on the November 2012 ballot.
Our guest in this edition of Radio Curious is David Cobb, an attorney from Texas, on leave from his trial practice to promote the adoption of this constitutional amendment. David Cobb visited the studios of Radio Curious on February 13, 2012, to talk about Move To Amend. We began our conversation when I asked him to explain why the constitution should be amended to repeal the effect of the Citizen’s United decision.
The books David Cobb recommends are “Gangs of America, The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy,” by Ted Nace, and ”Corporations Are Not People: Why The Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About it,” by Jeff D. Clements.
The Move To Amend website is www.movetoamend.org.
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