Radio Curious

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Mary Harris Jones, Mother Jones, was born in 1830. She lived a quiet, non-public life until she was approximately 47 years old and then, for almost the next fifty years, she was a fiery union organizer, strike leader, and fighter for safe and humane working conditions, the eight hour day, and child labor laws. Around the turn of the century, she was called the most dangerous woman in America. Her legacy has lived on in the form of a magazine that bears the name, Mother Jones; and in the form of a one-woman play about her life, produced, acted and written by singer and songwriter Ronnie Gilbert.

Mother Jones recommends any books by Leo Tolstoy. Ronnie Gilbert recommends “Hawaii,” by James Mechiner.

Originally Broadcast: March 12, 1997

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Our guest in this program was the 1992 Peace and Freedom Party candidate for the 1st Congressional District in California, Phil Baldwin. We spoke about the differences between the Peace and Freedom Party and the Democratic and Republican parties. Particularly of interest in this discussion are the differences between Mr. Baldwin and the final victor of the 1992 election, former Democrat Dan Hamburg.

Originally Broadcast: December 16, 1991

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This program’s guest is Paul Coverdale, at the time the Director of the Peace Corps, appointed by the first President Bush. He later became a Senator from Georgia. Our discussion concerned the nature of the Peace Corps and Coverdale’s role as the agency’s director.

Originally Broadcast: August 19, 1991

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The place of women in the world and in the American society has changed in many aspects in the recent past.  Many people say this is due to the politics of feminism, and some inquire where it will lead.
I spoke with Professor Estelle B. Freedman by phone in April 2002 and asked her to talk about why feminism did not evolve as people evolved and civilization developed.

The books Professor Freedman recommends are “The Blind Assassin” by Margaret Atwood, and “The Vagina Monologues” by Eve Ensler.

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The economic and cultural changes that have occurred in North American society in the past fifty years have resulted in today’s children looking to their peers, instead of their parents, for direction; for a sense of right and wrong; and for values, identity and codes of behavior. This peer orientation works to undermine family cohesion. It interferes with healthy development and fosters a sexualized youth culture in which children lose their individuality and tend to become conformist, desensitized and alienated.

These concepts—and what to do about them to develop strong families and emotionally healthy children—are explained in the book “Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers,“ by Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D. and Gabor Mate, M.D.

When I spoke with Dr. Gordon Neufeld from his home in Vancouver, British Columbia, we began our conversation with a discussion of the importance of developing an attachment between the adult caregiver and the child, beginning at infancy.

The book Dr. Neufeld recommends is “The Anatomy of Dependence,”  by Takeo Doi. More information about Dr. Neufeld’s work may be found on his website.

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I once had the good fortune of seeing “If Animals Could Talk,” a movie made by Jane Goodall. A segment was about The MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn, Oregon. The boys incarcerated there have committed serious criminal offenses; some of them are given an opportunity to train dogs, develop relationships with the dogs and in doing so learn responsibility, patience and respect for other living creatures. There is a zero recidivism rate among the juvenile inmates who spend time training dogs at MacLaren.

Joan Dalton is the founder and executive director of Project Pooch, a non-profit corporation linked with MacLaren, where incarcerated youths train shelter dogs and find them homes. We visited by phone from her home near Portland, Oregon on February 15, 2010 and began our conversation when I asked her to tell us how Project Pooch came about and then about Project Pooch itself.

The books that Joan Dalton recommends are “Children And Animals: Exploring The Roots Of Kindness And Cruelty,” by Frank R. Ascione and “Rescue Ink: How Ten Guys Saved Countless Dogs and Cats, Twelve Horses, Five Pigs, One Duck,and a Few Turtles,” by Rescue Ink and Denise Flaim.

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Where chickens thrive humans are nearby.  Portable and good travelers, chickens have been carried by humans around the world.  Currently there are three chickens alive at any one time for each individual person alive on earth.  Descendants of dinosaurs, chickens are primarily cared for by women, they’re a never ending source of slang and continue to be depicted in religious and/or political symbols around the world.  Americans eat, on average, 80 pounds of chicken per year—four times the world average. But, chickens raised for food are not considered animals under U.S. law and are generally not subject to humane treatment regulations.

Andrew Lawler and I visited by phone from his home in the North Carolina hills on March 27, 2015, and began our conversation when I asked him how far back the lineage of the chicken goes in world history.

The book Andrew Lawler recommends is “Guns, Germs and Steel:  The Fates of Human Societies,” by Jared M. Diamond.

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Our guest in this edition of Radio Curious is Anthony Adams, Esq., is currently, among other things, a Deputy Public Defender in Mendocino County, California. He’s also poet, formerly a California State Parole Commissioner, and served in the California State Assembly.

At a local Bar Association gathering, Adams recited his poetry and shared stories about his work as a Parole Commissioner. I decided to invite him to be a guest and asked him to tell us about his life.

Anthony Adams visited Radio Curious on August 23, 2018, and described himself and an “interesting fellow… A deeply romantic person.” In the course of our conversation his self description revealed itself. We began when I asked him about poetry related to his work.

The books Anthony Adams recommends are “Nine Horses: Poems,” by Billy Collins, a former national Poet Laureate; “The Dove Keepers,” by Alice Hoffman; and “1492: A Novel of Christopher Columbus, the Spanish Inquisition, and a World at the Turning Point,” by Newton Frohlich.

This program was recorded on August 23, 2018.

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Our guest in this edition of Radio Curious is Indigo Funk, a 2018 graduate of Ukiah High School, here in Ukiah, California. Funk, who will begin his college career at Brown University in Providence Rhode Island, in the fall of 2018, caught my attention when I heard him speak, rather eloquently, at the March 24, 2018, Ukiah version of the national student March For Our Lives, organized here by Ukiah High Students.

When Indigo Funk arrived the Radio Curious studios on June 15, 2018, to record this interview, I asked him if he’d like to read Frank Bruni’s Op-Ed column entitled “How to Lose the Mid-Terms and Re-elect Trump,” that had been published two days prior in the New York Times. Bruni’s article challenges the effectiveness of Robert De Niro’s “profanity-laced comment about President Trump, for which he received a standing ovation at the June 10, 2018, Tony Awards ceremony in New York City.

Bruni shares De Niro’s anger but challenged his expression.  In his Op-Ed piece, Bruni wrote:
“When you answer name-calling with name-calling and tantrums with tantrums, you’re not resisting him. You’re mirroring him. You’re not diminishing him. You’re demeaning yourselves. Many voters don’t hear your arguments or the facts, which are on your side. They just wince at the din. You permit them to see you as you see Trump: deranged.”

Bruni then posed the question: “Why would they (the voters) choose a different path if it goes to another ugly destination?”

When Indigo Funk finished the Bruni Op-Ed piece, he said he had just been thinking about that issue. So we began our conversation when I asked him to share his thoughts.

The book Indigo Funk recommends is “The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League,” by Jeff Hobbs.

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