Radio Curious

The “Middle Water People” are a small tribe near Mount Shasta, in Northern California. During World War 2, they were relocated and their homeland was flooded to make the Shasta Dam.  After an 80 year lapse, the tribe has reinvigorated a ceremony there, called the Puberty Ceremony, which honors a girls transition into womanhood.  For 3 days and nights, men sing and dance on one side of a river, while the women, pass on traditions to girls on the other side.

The summer of 2011, the tribe will be holding the puberty ceremony for it’s future chief.  But holding a ceremony on stolen land can be a challenge. The forest service refuses to grant the tribe private access to their ancestral land along the McCloud river, because they are an “unrecognized” tribe.  Their ceremony is held with recreational boaters driving by, and camping as the tribe holds it’s right of passage. Under the guidance of their Chief and Spiritual Leader, Caleen Sisk Franco, the Winnemem-Wintu have sued the federal government to protect their rights and their ancestral land. She describes the puberty ceremony and it’s importance to their way of life.

Radio Curious Associate producer Christina Aanestad spoke with Caleen Sisk Franco, the chief and spiritual leader of the Winnemem Wintu tribe in Northern California in August 2011.

The Book Caleen Sisk Franco recommends is “Winnie the Pooh,”  by A.A. Milne.

For more information on the Winnemem Wintu you can visit their website: www.winnememwintu.us

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The United States Postal Service has plans to close post offices in cities, small towns and rural areas across America. This edition of Radio Curious is a case study of how the federal government plans to close the main Post Office in Ukiah, California.  The Postal Service says it operates under a “corporate model” and is not subject to public information requests, even from local government. It is unwilling to share the bases of it cost analyses or even let the City of Ukiah conduct its own evaluations. We visit with three members of the Save the Ukiah Post Office Committee, Ukiah Mayor, Mari Rodin, Alan Nicholson and Mike Sweeney. They discuss the community efforts to save Ukiah’s downtown post office and why.

The interview was recorded April 11th, 2011.

The book Alan Nichols recommends is “House,” by Tracy Kidder.

The book Mari Rodin recommends is “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” by Malcolm Gladwell.

The book Mike Sweeney recommends is, “The Storms of my Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity,” by Dr. James C. Hansen.

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This edition of Radio Curious is a visit with Congressman Sam Farr, who represents Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties in the U.S. House of Representatives. We discuss the importance of public radio, the new Tea Party members in congress and some of the differences between the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration.

The interview with Congressman Sam Farr was recorded April 3rd, 2011.

The book he recommends is “When the World Calls: The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and it’s First Fifty Years,” by Stanley Meisler.

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Sometimes in peoples lives, something happens that changes them, forever.  Especially when a child dies.  In this edition of Radio Curious, we visit with Cindy Sheehan, the mother of Casey Sheehan who was killed in the Iraq War shortly after he enlisted, about 7 years ago.  This event changed her life, dramatically.  She discusses her personal transformation from being an every-day working class mother, to becoming an outspoken peace activist, author and congressional candidate.

The conversation with Cindy Sheehan was recorded March 16^th, 2011.

Cindy Sheehan’s book, “Myth America” is available for free on her website: http://cindysheehanssoapbox.com.

The book she recommends is, “Hegemony and Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance,” by Noam Chomsky.

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The best spy system ever created and what the internet does and how it’s controlled by national forces is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious.  We visit with Columbia Law Professor Eben Moglen, a developer of the Freedom Box, which prevents government, businesses and other intruders from obtaining your personal information and internet uses. His blog is:  http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/blog.

For more information on the Freedom Box Foundation go here: http://freedomboxfoundation.org/.

The book that Eben Moglen recommends is, “Free Software, Free Society,” by Richard Stallman.

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Radio Curious hosts a conversation with Susan Crane, founder of plowshares who will be discussing her lifetime commitment to ending nuclear proliferation through non-violent direct action.  She’s awaiting sentencing,scheduled for March 2011, for pouring her blood on trident submarine machine bombs in the state of Washington.  A grandmother, in her 60s Susan Crane faces up to 10 years in federal prison for her actions.  In this edition of Radio Curious, Susan Crane discusses practicing a code of non-violence in every day life as well as using non-violent civil disobedience as a means to creating peace in the world.

The interview with Susan Crane was recorded in the studios of Radio Curious in Ukiah, California, on January 29th, 2011.

The articles Susan Crane recommends instead of a book, are by Judge C.J. Weeramantry and  be read on the links below:

http://www.jonahhouse.org/Disarm_Now_Plowshares/judge-weeramantry-trident.pdf

http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com

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In 1988, rather than comply with an ecclesiastical summons issued by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, to move to Chicago and give up his work on Creation Spirituality in Oakland California, Matthew Fox, a Dominican Priest, left the Dominican Order, remained in Oakland, and established the University of Creation Spirituality.   Matthew Fox is the author of 28 books and most recently published “The Hidden Spirituality of Men:  Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine,” and is our guest on this edition of Radio Curious.

Matthew Fox first visited Radio Curious in 1999 when his book “Sins of the Spirit, Blessing of the Flesh: Lesson for Transforming Evil, in Soul and Society,” was published.  So, when we came across “The Hidden Spirituality Men,” the latent curiosity of Radio Curious about spirituality was awakened.

Fox and I spoke by visited again, by phone from his home in Oakland, California on January 11, 2011.  Our conversation, which explores male and female spirituality, began with Matthew Fox distinguishing spirituality, faith, religion and dogma.

The book Matthew Fox recommends is “Walt Whitman: Shamanism, Spiritual Democracy and the World Soul,” By Steven B. Herrmann.

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In this edition, we visit with Denis Dutton, author of ‘The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution.”  A quote from this book, at page 46, provides a good idea of who we are and what the book is about.  “As much as fighting wild animals or finding suitable environments our ancient ancestors faced social forces and family conflicts that became a part of evolved life.   Both of these force fields acting in concert, eventually produced the intensely social, robust, love making, murderous, convivial, organizing, technology using, show off, squabbling, game playing, friendly, status seeking, upright walking, lying, omnivorous, knowledge seeking, arguing, clubbing, language using, conspicuously wasteful, versatile species of primate that we became.  And along the way in developing all this, the arts were born.”

Denis Dutton was a professor of ‘Philosophy of Art’ at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. We visited by phone from his home in Christchurch, New Zealand on July 17th, 2009 and began our conversation by asking him to further explain the birth of the arts.

The books Denis Dutton recommends are “Before The Dawn: Recovering The Lost History Of Our Ancestors,” by Nicholas Wade and “The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution,” by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending. You can listen to a radio curious interview with Gregory Cochran by visiting the 2009 Radio Curious archives on our website www.radiocurious.org.

Denis Dutton died on December 28, 2010.

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The power of any criminal prosecutor and especially a local district attorney, is immense.  The given job of the DA is to serve justice, and the on-going question is what process to employ in order to achieve justice.  Not all prosecutors have experience as a defense attorney and as a prosecutor.  In Mendocino County, California, David Eyster, an attorney with experience on both sides of criminal cases, was elected to the office of District Attorney and will assume the position of chief law enforcement officer of the county on January 3, 2011.  When he visited the studios of Radio Curious on December 27, 2010, we had a conversation about the role of a criminal defense attorney and how that will affect his new role as prosecutor; his attitude toward “overcharging” criminal violations, what he calls “leveraging the defendant;” the use of the grand jury in criminal cases; and his plans to prosecute unfair business practices.  We began when I asked him about the role of the criminal defense attorney.

The book David Eyster recommends in the “Autobiography of Mark Twain.”

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