Radio Curious

The Jewish celebration of Hanukkah which means “dedication” in Hebrew, commemorates the rededication during the second century B.C. of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, where according to legend Jews had risen up against their Greek-Syrian oppressors in the Maccabean Revolt. It begins every year on the 25th day of Kislev and usually falls in November or December.  The Jewish calendar is based on lunar cycles, and Hanukkah, often called the Festival of LIghts always starts five days prior to the last new moon before the winter solstice.

Thanksgiving is a celebration common to cultures and religions world wide, often after harvest.  It is held in the United States on the fourth Thursday of November which. 

In this the Hebrew calendar year 5774 and the Gregorian calendar year 2013 these two holidays converge with Thanksgiving falling on the second day of Hannukah.  Thus some people will eat latkas, also known as potato pancakes, with turkey and/or stuffing. 

In this edition of Radio Curious we combine two archive editions and tell the story of two very fun holidays.  We start with our 2011 conversation with Mark Binder, author of “A Hanukkah Present!” followed by a 2002 conversation with Professor Hugo Freund about the history of Thanksgiving in the United States.

We begin with Mark Binder explaining the purpose of telling stories around Hanukkah.

We continue with a 2002 visit about the roots of Thanksgiving with Sociology Professor Hugo Freund recorded in a noise hotel lobby at the American Anthropology Association in New Orleans, Louisiana.  

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In this edition of Radio Curious assistant producer Christina Aanestad speaks with Leonard Benally, a Dine’ elder. Dine is the indigenous name for the Navajo people. Leonard Benally lived in an area called Big Mountain on the Navajo and Hopi reservations close to the Arizona-New Mexico border. He died on October 11, 2013 from cancer.

In the 1970′s a Hopi – Navajo land dispute erupted on Big Mountain; some claim it was devised to move the Navajo out of the area because Peabody Coal wanted the coal rich land below their feet. As a result, an estimated 20,000 Dine’ were displaced. A few hundred remain to this day-refusing to leave. Leonard Benally was one of them.  

In August, 2012 Leonard Benally agreed to talk about his life.  He began the conversation by describing the boarding schools he was forced to live in, as a child, one being the school for Navajo children in Tuba, Arizona.

Leonard Benally recommends people listen to XIT an indigenous rock band from the 1970′s. This conversation with Leonard Benally was recorded in August of 2012 and first aired on Radio Curious in October 2013.

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This is our second interview with Steven Czifra, a 38 year old undergraduate student at the University of California at Berkeley who spent almost 16 years in prison beginning when he was 14 years old.  For almost eight of those years he was held in solitary confinement. 

Having been held in a solitary confinement facility known as the SHU, security housing units of California’s juvenile and adult prisons, for almost eight years, he recently participated in the hunger strikes in solidarity with current prisoners to end the use of those facilities.

In the first of a two-part series on prisons from the prisoner’s perspective, Steven Czifra shared his story and experiences.  Our first conversation ended when he was about to explain his desire to give a voice to the segment of the population which ends up in prison, and is otherwise not heard.  Who they are and why they are there. 

In this second conversation recorded from his home in Berkeley, California in September 14, 2013, Steven Czifra tells more of his personal story, his background and reflections and how he chose to turn his life around.  

The book Steven Czifra recommends is “We’re All Doing Time:  A Guide to Getting Free,” by Bo Lozoff.  

Click here to listen to part two of our interview with Steven Czifra or on the media player below.

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In this edition of Radio Curious we visit with Steven Czifra, a 38 year old undergraduate student at the University of California at Berkeley who spent almost 16 years in prison beginning when he was 14 years old. 

Having been held in a solitary confinement facility known as the SHU, security housing units of California’s juvenile and adult prisons, for almost eight years, he recently participated in the hunger strikes in solidarity with current prisoners to end the use of those facilities.

In the first of a two-part series on prisons from the prisoner’s perspective, Steven Czifra shares his story and experiences. In part-two we talk about his reflections and how he chose to turn his life around. 

Our conversation, recorded from his home in Berkeley, California on September 14, 2013 began when I asked him what led up to his first incarceration. 

The book Steven Czifra recommends is “The New Jim Crow:  Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” by Michelle Alexander.  

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The traditional rights of families to care for their dead is the topic of this two-part interview on the funeral industry in the United States, with Josh Slocum and Lisa Carlson, co-author’s of “Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death.”

“Final Rights” tells the story of the loss of control over what to do at the time of a death in the family, the euphemisms regarding death, and the laws and regulations in each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C.  The chapter “Tricks of the Funeral Trade” tells how, when grieving the loss of a loved one, many people fail to compare prices, and become vulnerable to suggestions that their love for the deceased is measured by the amount of money paid for the funeral, the casket and the burial.   

Josh Slocum directs the Funeral Consumers Alliance.  Lisa Carlson directs the Funeral Ethics Organization. 

In part two Josh Solcum discusses the cultural pathology about death that led to the loss of our rights to deal with our dead at death and allows the state to regulate private family activities that we’d never tolerate in any other sphere.

Josh Slocum and I visited by phone from his office near Burlington, Vermont, on August 30, 2013 and began with his description of how we as a culture deal with death.

The book he recommends is “The Selfish Gene,” by Richard Dawkins.

Our interview with Lisa Carlson, recorded from her home in Vermont, on August 26, 2013, can be heard here. 

More information on this topic may be found on our website’s law department.

Click here to listen to our interview with Josh Slocum or on the media player below.

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The traditional rights of families to care for their dead is the topic of this, the first of two interviews on the funeral industry in the United States, with Lisa Carlson and Joshua Slocum, co-author’s of “Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death.”

“Final Rights” tells the story of the loss of control over what to do at the time of a death in the family, the euphemisms regarding death, and the laws and regulations in each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C.  The chapter “Tricks of the Funeral Trade” tells how, when grieving the loss of a loved one, many people fail to compare prices, and become vulnerable to suggestions that their love for the deceased is measured by the amount of money paid for the funeral, the casket and the burial.   

Lisa Carlson directs the Funeral Ethics Organization.  Josh Slocum directs the Funeral Consumers Alliance. 

In our first interview with Lisa Carlson, recorded from her home in Vermont, on August 26, 2013, she describes how the common lore of what to do at the time of death has been lost.

 Lisa Carlson and Josh Slocum are co-authors of “Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death.” The books website is finalrights.org.  The books she recommends are those written by John Grisham.   

Our interview with Josh Slocum will be posted here soon.  More information on this topic may be found on our website’s law department.

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Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have a history of illegal break-ins to homes and offices as well as conducting wiretaps without a search warrant.  In the years when J. Edgar Hoover was the Director of the FBI, these warrantless break-ins came to be known as “black-bag jobs”.

This archive edition of Radio Curious is a December 1995 interview with Wesley Swearingen a former FBI agent and author of “FBI Secrets: An Agent’s Expose.”  This book describes some of the “black-bag” warrantless searches in which he was involved, and his opinion of those activities.  Swearingen concludes his book by saying that the Hoover era will continue to haunt the FBI because Hoover knowingly undermined the United States Constitution. When I spoke with Wesley Swearingen from his home near Tucson, Arizona, in December 1995, I asked him what he meant by that.

The book Wesley Swearingen recommends is “Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover,” by Anthony Summers.

Originally Broadcast: December 20, 1995

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In the 1970s and 80s the use of the telephone or credit card, could have been and probably was recorded and saved in an international database called Echelon.

This is the second part of a two part series on international spying, recorded in 1999 with Mike Frost, author of “Spy World: Inside the Canadian and American Intelligence Establishments.” We talked about Echelon, the code name given to the capability to intercept all of the word’s communications all the time. Mike Frost worked for over 30 years as a spy for the American and Canadian Governments. He wrote the book, which describes many of his experiences, because he felt the privacy rights of innocent people were then regularly violated. I spoke with Mike Frost in April 1999, from his home near Ottawa, Canada and I asked him to tell us about Echelon.

Mike Frost recommends the movie “Wag the Dog.”

Part one of our conversation with Mike Frost is here.

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The fact that governments spy on each other is no secret. The fact that they also collect data about lives of millions of innocent citizens, world wide, may be unknown to many people.  Mike Frost, the author of “Spy World: Inside the Canadian and American Intelligence Establishments”, worked as a spy for over 30 years. Mike traveled world wide, setting up devices to intercept what were thought to be secret international communications. Mike Frost has since retired as a spy and has many thoughts and considerations about his former job that he is willing to share with us.  Our discussion led to a two-part series, recorded and originally broadcast in April of 1999.

The movie Mike Frost recommends is “October Sky.”

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