Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass were good friends from the mid 19th century to the late 19th century, and were active leaders in the fight for the rights of women and blacks throughout their lives. From time to time they got together to visit and talk about America, as they knew it. In this archive edition of Radio Curious recorded in May 1996, I met with Chautauqua scholars Sally Roesch Wagner and Charles Pace who portrayed Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass. We began our conversation when I asked them each to tell us what it was like to be an American during their life time.
Originally Broadcast: July 3, 1996.
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Few words in the English language have caused so much pain, hurt and emotion as the N-word. It is arguably the most consequential social insult in American history. The long history of the pejorative use of the N-word has given it an unusual power that extends to the judicial system, literature and social settings.
Randall Kennedy, a professor of Law at Harvard University Law School, is the author of “Nigger-the Strange Career of a Troublesome Word.” His book chronicles the history of this word, in an effort to diffuse and neutralize it.
Originally Broadcast: March 19, 2002
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Crime and criminal justice is the topic. Our guest is Emeritus Law Professor Gary T. Lowenthal, at the Sandra Day O’Conner College of Law at Arizona State University. He’s the author of the 2003 book, “Down and Dirty Justice: A Chilling Journey into the Dark World of Crime and the Criminal Courts.”
This program, recorded on January 7, 2004, and first broadcast in February 2013, began with our discussion about the power structure in the American criminal court systems, where the judge has the authority, but the power often rests with the prosecutor. We later visit the background of sentencing laws first promoted by President Richard Nixon.
The book Gary Lowenthal recommends is “Seabiscuit” by Laura Hillenbrand.
You may learn more about Professor Lowenthal’s work here.
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We continue our conversation about sexuality with Eric Berkowitz, author, journalist and lawyer. His book, “Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire” is a story of the struggle to regulate the most powerful engine of human behavior. This engine that drives the human species is substantially different in us than in other mammals. In our million years of evolution, physically and socially we have developed the ability to communicate ideas and the expected, if not “required” behaviors of women and men and children regarding sexual thought, expression and procreation. The history of these ever changing definitions and controls of this fundamental aspect of our lives are visited in this two part series of conversations with Eric Berkowitz, recorded in the Radio Curious studios on December 29, 2012.
Part One discusses the effect the topic of sex has on other people; the development of laws dealing with adultery and women as property; enjoyment of sex; and the way humans dress compared to other animals.
Part Two discusses the issues of young women having sexual relationships with considerably older men; the intention and effect of religion in relationship to sex; prostitution; and same sex intimacy.
The books Eric Berkowitz recommends are “Nemisis,” by Philip Roth, “Love and Exile: An Autobiographical Trilogy,” by Issac Bashevis Singer, and “Jerusalem: The Biography,” by Simon Sebag-Montefiore.
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Life, culture and racism is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious, in conversation with attorney/novelist Martha McCabe, author of “Praise at Midnight.”
Martha McCabe worked as a civil rights and criminal trial lawyer in deep east Texas from 1974 to 1985. Her goal was to pour the raw material from her personal experiences as a lawyer into her story. It took Martha McCabe ten years to complete “Praise at Midnight,” her first novel. The deeper level into which she fell during that ten year period was recognizing the importance of consciousness and self awareness in avoiding the projection of one’s own dark side onto other people and then killing them, not only on a local level, but an international level as well.
Martha McCabe and I have been associates, good friends and colleagues since 1969 when we met at the University of Santa Clara where I was a law student.
When I spoke with Martha McCabe from her home in San Antonio, Texas on July 29, 2006, we began with her description of the culture of deep east Texas when she lived there from 1974 to 1985.
The books she recommends are “Reading Lolita in Teheran” by Azar Nafisi and “Caballero: A Historical Novel” by Jovita Gonzalez and Eve Raleigh.
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In the years between 1915 and 1970 almost six million black American citizens from the south migrated to northern and western cities seeking freedom and a better life. Our guest is Pulitzer Prize winner, Isabel Wilkerson author of “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.” Her book tells the untold experiences of the African-Americans who fled the south over three generations.
Wilkerson interviewed more than 1,000 people for her book. She is the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize and is a recipient of the George Polk Award and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. Her parents were part of the great migration, journeying from Georgia and southern Virginia to Washington D.C.
In the first of two interviews recorded from Isabel Wilkerson’s home near Atlanta, Georgia, on September 28, 2012, she begins with a description of the “biggest untold story of the 20th century.”
The book Isabel Wilkerson recommends is “The Ark of Justice,” by Kevin Boyle.
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Radio Curious brings you an interview about torture from our archives in 2006. Our guest is Dr. Steven Miles, author of “Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and the War On Terror,” a book based in part on eyewitness accounts of actual victims of prison abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan and more than thirty-five thousand pages of documents, autopsy reports and medical records.
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This edition of Radio Curious is dedicated to Gerard “Tiger” Hill and those who died, when Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans in 2005. Our guest is New Orleans Artist, Alex Santiago, who lived through the hurricane and eleven days later sought protection in the New Orleans Convention Center. In a conversation recorded in his kitchen in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward, Alex Santiago shared his memories with Radio Curious Assistant Producer Christina Aanestad on August 15, 2012.
The book Alex Santiago recommends is “A Better World,” by Eckhart Tolle.
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Radio Curious brings you part two of 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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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.