Radio Curious

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Police misconduct and accountability is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious. Out guest is Dr. Joseph Marshall, a member of the San Francisco Police Commission where he leads the Commissions efforts to reform policing policies at the San Francisco Police Department. In addition Dr. Marshall is the executive director of Alive & Free, a non-profit organization that teaches inner city youth violence prevention and offers higher education scholarships.  He is the host of Street Soldiers Radio aired every Sunday evening live online from 8 to 10 pm on KMEL FM 106.1 in San Francisco, California.

I spoke with Dr. Joseph Marshall on August 15, 2016 from his office in San Francisco, California and began our conversation when I asked him about Black Lives Matter.

The book Dr. Joseph Marshall recommends is “The Autobiography of Malcom X.”

Free & Alive’s website is: http://stayaliveandfree.org/.
Street Soldiers can be heard at: http://streetsoldiersradio.org/listen-watch/.

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Guns: Who has them, how are they obtained and what are they used for, is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious.

In this two part series on guns, we visit with Sheriff Tom Allman, of Mendocino County, in rural northern California. Tom Allman has worked in law enforcement for 38 years and has been sheriff for the last 10. He is outspoken yet respectful about marijuana cultivation and equally so about guns, when asked. Sheriff Allman is, among many other things, the person who issues a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Mendocino County.

When Sheriff Allman visited the Radio Curious studios on August 8, 2016, we began the second part of our conversation with his statement that law enforcement is trained to stop people, not to kill.

The book Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman recommends is “Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses “No But” Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration—Lessons from The Second City” by Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton.

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Guns: Who has them, how are they obtained and what are they used for, is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious.

In this, the first of a two part series on guns, we visit with Sheriff Tom Allman, of Mendocino County, in rural northern California.  Tom Allman has worked in law enforcement for 38 years and has been sheriff for the last 10 years. He is outspoken yet respectful about marijuana cultivation and equally so about guns, when asked.  Sheriff Allman is, among many other things, the person who issues a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Mendocino County.  We visited at the studio of Radio Curious on August 8, 2016, and began our conversation when I asked Sheriff Allman to describe the gun he was carrying on his belt.

The book Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman recommends is “Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses “No But” Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration—Lessons from The Second City” by Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton.

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Radio Curious revisits a conversation with Mendocino County Deputy Sheriff Orell Massey who, for the past 20 years has been the only black law enforcement officer in the county’s history. A native of South Carolina, Deputy Massey was a 21 year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps assigned to the Foreign Service Embassy detail before he moved to Mendocino County. When I asked Sheriff Massey to be a guest on this program and share his experience as a black Deputy Sheriff, he asked: “Are the people of Mendocino County ready to hear what I have to say?”

In this program, Part One of our conversation, Deputy Massey describes some people’s reaction to him while he is in on duty.

In Part Two, recorded on February 1, 2015, in the Radio Curious studios, Deputy Massey gives his personal response when asked, “what is it like to be the only black Deputy Sheriff ever in the history of Mendocino County?” Later he shares stories about his off duty life, his goals and aspirations.

The book Deputy Massey recommends is “Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir By One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of World War Two,” by Chester Nez and Judith Schiess Avila.

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The silence of doctors, nurses and medics in cases of torture and physical abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious.
Our guest is Dr. Steven Miles, the 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 and more than thirty-five thousand pages of documents, autopsy reports and medical records. His work explores the information provided by physicians and psychologists to determine how much and what kind of mistreatment could be delivered to prisoners during interrogation. Dr. Miles is a professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and its Center for Bioethics.  He is a recognized expert in medical ethics, human rights and international health care.

This interview with Dr. Steven Miles was recorded in mid-July 2006 from his office in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  We begin when I asked him about his motivation to write a book about the treatment of people who are disarmed and imprisoned.

The book Dr. Steven Miles recommend is “Bury The Chains: Profits and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves,” by Adam Hochchild.

This interview with Dr. Steven H. Miles was recorded in mid July 2006.

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Welcome to this special edition of Radio Curious with Congressman Sam Farr. We spoke with Congressman while he and approximately 150 other Democratic members of Congress were participating in an unprecedented sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives. The issue is gun control. These members of Congress are demanding that the Republican leadership of the House allow the a vote on gun control.

We visited by phone with Congressman Farr at midnight on June 23, 2016, from the floor of the House of Representatives. The Republican leadership of the House had turned off all the microphones as well as the live television from C-Span. The background noise you hear is from the activity and speeches going on while we visited. We asked Congressman Farr to describe the scene, the issue and what may occur as a result of this novel political action.

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Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, of Hawaii, is our guest in this edition of Radio Curious. She visited Ukiah, California on May 7, 2016, to speak on behalf of Presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders and stopped by Radio Curious for a visit.

Congresswoman Gabbard represents the 2nd Congressional District of Hawaii, the most culturally diverse congressional district in the United States, which encompasses the entire state, except Honolulu. She was twice deployed to the Middle East, is a Major in the Army National Guard, and is a member of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

In this interview, Tulsi, as she likes to be addressed, shares some of her personal background, her perspectives on the impacts and consequences of war, and the type of military mentality that the Commander in Chief of the United States Military should have to best serve our country.

The book Tulsi Gabbard recommends is the “Bhagavad Gita” scriptures.

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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 1920′s. 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 1950′s.

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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Richard Nixon and the movies he watched while he was president is the topic of this archived edition of Radio Curious. On his third night in office, January 22, 1969 Nixon saw “The Shoes of the Fisherman” in the White House movie theater. From then until August 1973, when he resigned the presidency, Nixon watched over 500 movies in the White House, at Camp David, and other places he frequented. This is an average of 2½ movies per week during his presidency.

The book, “Nixon at the Movies: A Book About Belief,” by Boston Globe journalist Mark Feeney examines the role movies played in forming Nixon’s character and career, and the role Nixon played in the development of American film. Ronald Reagan may have been the first movie star president, but Feeney argues that Nixon was the first true cinematic president. In this program, recorded in January 2005, Mark Feeney begins by commenting on the effect the 500 plus movies that Nixon watched had on him and his presidency.

The book Mark Feeney recommends is, “The Whole Equation,” by David Thompson.

This interview was originally broadcast on February 22, 2005.

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