Radio Curious

The consequences of the control of reproduction and the reproduction of daily life that began about the time of the creation of the moveable type printing press, in approximately the year 1440 is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious.

Our guest is Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner, the Founding Director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation in Fayetteville, New York and member of the Adjunct Faculty at Syracuse University, in Syracuse, New York.   Sally Roesch Wagner was one of the first two women to receive a doctorate for work in women’s studies, with a Ph.D. awarded to her in 1978 from the history of consciousness program by the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Wagner, a Radio Curious veteran guest is the author of “Survival Is Indigenous,” a book that describes the consequences of the societal control shortly after the development of the printing press, fomented by western religions, which she argues exists to the present time.

Sally Roesch Wagner and I visited in the Radio Curious studios on January 6, 2016, to discuss “Survival Is Indigenous,”  and began our conversation when I asked her what is indigenous about survival.

The books Dr. Wagner recommends are “Braiding Sweetgrass:  Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants,” by Robin Will Kimmerer; and “My Life on The Road,” by Gloria Stienem.

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Everybody thinks about love and many people say “I love you”, but how is love defined? The book “How To Love” written by psychiatrist Dr. Gordon Livingston grapples with these and many other questions about love, and how to find a compatible and pleasurable partnership. In this interview, we discuss how to choose more carefully, in matters of love to get what we desire and deserve. The song, “Do You Love Me?” from the musical “Fiddler On The Roof,” is our background music. Dr. Gordon Livingston spoke from his home in Columbia, Maryland on July 13th 2009, where he lives and practices psychiatry. The conversation began when I asked Dr. Livingston to define love.

The book Dr. Gordon Livingston recommends is “All He Ever Wanted,” by Anita Shreve.

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Buzzy Martin began teaching music to at risk kids in Juvenille Hall. He then taught guitar in San Quentin Prison for three and a half years, where he gained a unique “insiders” perspective about prison life, prisoners, and the guards. His book, “Don’t Shoot! I’m the Guitar Man,” chronicles his experiences teaching prison inmates, including rapists, child molesters and murderers how to play the guitar. Martin shares his experiences with incarcerated youth, to teach them that prison is not a “badge of honor,” and he reveals how music can be a universal language to open the hearts of people who may think they don’t have one.

Buzzy Martin’s memoir will be made into a movie. Visit his website for more information. 

The interview with Buzzy Martin was recorded on October 11th, 2010.

The book he recommends is, “The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, A Toltec Wisdom Book,” by don Miguel Ruiz.

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Racism has, for too long, been a part of the American experience: the Civil War and the constitutional amendments that followed, the Supreme Court decisions ordering the desegregation of schools, and the Civil Rights movements did not end racism in America.

Annie S. Barnes, holds a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Virginia and is a retired professor of sociology and anthropology at Norfolk State University in Virginia. She is the author of “Everyday Racism, A Book for All Americans,” a book based on the racist experiences suffered by 146 black college students. Professor Barnes describes the effects of racism on black people, and what all people can do to combat it.

The book Annie S. Barnes recommends is “Driving While Black: Highways, Shopping Malls, Taxi Cabs, Sidewalks: How to Fight Back if You Are a Victim of Racial Profiling,” by Kenneth Meeks.

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How to identify the narcissists in our lives is the topic of our conversation with Joseph Burgo, Ph.D. He is the author of “The Narcissist You Know: Defending Yourself Against Extreme Narcissists in an All-About Me Age.”

Dr. Burgo describes narcissism as a more-common-than-we think personality type, based on shame, that covers a wide spectrum of frequently and cleverly disguised deceptive behaviors. 

Once a narcissist’s behavior is identified, it is possible to learn how to coexist and avoid being trapped.  This may be achieved without compromising one’s own mental health, integrity, or ability to succeed, or losing ourselves in the process.

When Dr. Joseph Burgo and I visited by phone from his home in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, on October 5, 2015, we discussed two of the eight most common types of narcissists:  the bullying narcissist and the seductive narcissist.  We began our conversation when I asked him to describe narcissism.

The book Dr. Joseph Burgo recommends is “Why is it Always About You?: The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism,” by Sandy Hotchkiss.

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This is third conversation in our series on near term human extinction, the most disturbing group of interviews in the twenty-five year history of Radio Curious.  In this program, faced with a grim future of the human species on earth, we consider the role of hospice for all of us and for our planet.

Our guest is Carolyn Baker, Ph.D., co author with Dr. Guy McPherson of “Extinction Dialogues:  How to Live With Death in Mind.” She is also the author of “Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse: Cultivating the Relationships We Need to Thrive.” As an author and psychotherapist, Carolyn Baker discusses the importance of emotional and spiritual preparedness for the cataclysmic changes that abrupt climate change will bring.

“Extinction Dialogues” presents credible scientific evidence that global warming is pushing our planet to a swift apocalyptic end, more rapidly that we comprehend.  Dr. Guy McPherson discusses the scientific evidence that suggests a looming extinction of the human species in part one and part two of this series.  In the second half of ”Extinction Dialogues,” Carolyn Baker encourages and recommends a hospice approach, which we present to you as part three in this series.

When Carolyn Baker and I spoke on September 20, 2015 from her home in Boulder, Colorado, we discussed ways to practice hospice as the earth’s temperature increases to a point at which humans cannot endure. We began our conversation when I asked her how hospice treatment can be applied to the dying planet.

The book Carolyn Baker recommends is “Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul,” by Stephen Jenkinson.  

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Polygamy used to be a central aspect in Mormon beliefs.  However, it has not been for over 100 years now, due partly to considerable effort by Ann Eliza Young, one of Brigham Young’s many wives.

In this edition of Radio Curious we visit with David Ebershoff, author of “The 19th Wife,” the story of Ann Eliza Young, and her realization and then quest to let the world know that marriage should only pertain to two people, instead of one man and a plethora of wives who were referred to as “sister wives.”  We discuss what marriage is, how religion plays a large role in many people’s lives, and how the quest that Ann Eliza had effected her world and the world we live in today.

Our conversation, recorded on August 29, 2008, began when I asked David Ebershoff why Ann Eliza wanted to apostate (or leave without approval) from the Mormon Church in relationship to the politics then and now.

The book that David Ebershoff recommends is, “American Wife: A Novel” by Curtis Sittenfeld.

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In this program we visit with David Ebershoff, author of “Pasadena,” a book about storytelling.  “Pasadena” is the story of Linda Stamp, a young girl born and raised on a rural coastal area near San Diego, California, beginning when she was born in 1903.  Linda learned the many different ways of the sea as she grew and married into a wealthy Pasadena family.

This is also a book about choices, some which we think through, and some which determine our fate even when we were unaware of the magnitude of the moment. 

With the novelist’s freedom to he uses his sense of story, where it begins and where it ends.  As the middle part of the story is built, so are the character’s lives, juxtaposing the times and places in their lives times.

In many ways, California itself is the novel’s main character. We get to see what the land must have been like when it was a wild, teeming frontier, just on its way to being transformed by fishermen, farmers, land developers and tourists.

David Ebershoff is currently an executive editor at Random House, and lives in New York City.  When and I visited by phone in July 2002, I asked him to describe the kinds of things in his life that prompted him to write his second novel “Pasadena.”

The book David Ebershoff recommends is “Middlesex,” a novel by Jeffrey Eugenides.

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Marriage, divorce and the role of women in the Catholic church are some of the topics of this edition of Radio Curious, the second of two visits with Father Tom Reese, a member of the Society of Jesus.  In the first visit, we discussed his view of Pope Francis, the role of prayer, and the possibility of opening the priesthood to women. 

Father Tom Reese entered the Jesuits in 1962 and was ordained in 1974.  Currently he is a senior analyst with the National Catholic Reporter. He was appointed by President Obama to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan federal commission that reviews the facts and circumstances of religious freedom violations and makes policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress. 

Martha McCabe, our guest host, is a retired higher education legal counsel and civil rights attorney with masters degrees in history and creative writing.  Brought up as a Roman Catholic, she graduated from Jesuit Santa Clara University and is now a secular Buddhist.  As a novelist, she was a guest on Radio Curious in 2006. 

When Martha McCabe visited with Father Tom Reese by phone on August 14, 2015, she began their conversation by inquiring about marriage in the Catholic Church.  While the Vatican views marriage as a sacred pact between two people, it forbids its priests from entering into that union.

The book Father Tom Reese recommends is “Laudato Si,” Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical on climate change. 

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