Radio Curious

Are you jealous?  Have you ever been?  Do you know the origin of your jealousy? Jealousy often goes hand in hand with feelings of love, but where does this emotion come from, and how can we manage it?

In this edition of Radio Curious we visit with Marcianne Blevis, author of “Jealousy: True Stories of Love’s Favorite Decoy.”  In this book Marcianne Blevis,  a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who lives and works in Paris, France, reveals different ways jealousy affects different people and suggests methods to understand and manage what can be a very destructive yet elusive emotion.

She examines the deeper consequences of jealousy and inquires if jealousy is useful to us, and is this ‘extraordinary passion’ in reality ‘a strategy for survival’.

I spoke with Marcianne Blevis from her home in Paris, France on February 2, 2009, and began by asking her to explain what jealousy is?

The book Marcianne Blevis recommends is “Aux confins de l’identité” (title translated by Marcianne Blevis as “At the Frontier of Identity”) by Michel De M’uzan. This book is currently published only in French.

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Lack of trust is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious, the second of a two part series with Ron Arkin and John Kirchiro. 

Ron Arkin is a Family Empowerment Facilitator with Mendocino County, California, Child Protective Services.  John Kirchiro spent 13 years working as a Crisis Counselor, Intervention Specialist and Substance Abuse Counselor in multiple school districts throughout Mendocino County before becoming the Director and Principal of the Willits, California, Charter School, Grades 6 to 12. 

Their counseling work focuses on youth from families where abuse of drugs and alcohol is common, often among both the parents and children.  This abuse frequently results in serious family dysfunction and lack of trust, making school and home life more than difficult.

In part one, recorded on March 21, 2014, we began with John Kirchiro’s description of the substance abuse problem in rural northern Mendocino County. 

In part two, we begin with John Kirchiro’s description of his counseling work, known as the “Laytonville model.”

The book Ron Arkin recommends is “YOU: The Owner’s Manual: An Insider’s Guide to the Body That Will Make You Healthier and Younger,” by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz.

The book John Kirchiro recommends is “The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time,” by Matthew Fox. 

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Lack of trust is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious, the first of a two part series with Ron Arkin and John Kirchiro. 

Ron Arkin is a Family Empowerment Facilitator with Mendocino County, California, Child Protective Services.  John Kirchiro spent 13 years working as a Crisis Counselor, Intervention Specialist and Substance Abuse Counselor in multiple school districts throughout Mendocino County before becoming the Director and Principal of the Willits, California, Charter School, Grades 6 to 12. 

Their counseling work focuses on youth from families where abuse of drugs and alcohol is common, often among both the parents and children.  This abuse frequently results in serious family dysfunction and lack of trust, making school and home life more than difficult.

We begin part one, recorded on March 21, 2014, with John Kirchiro’s description of the substance abuse problem in rural northern Mendocino County. 

In part two, John Kirchiro and Ron Arkin discuss the counseling work they do, known as the “Laytonville model.”

The book John Kirchiro recommends is the “The Warrior’s Journey Home:  Healing Men, Healing the Planet,” by Jed Diamond. 

The book Ron Arkin recommends is “The Soul’s Code:  In Search of Character and Calling,” by John Hillman. 

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The ways different creatures, especially us humans, use our senses to guide ourselves through life has long attracted my curiosity.   I’ve often wondered how blind people seem able to orient themselves, and also wondered about their dreams. 

From time to time, over the years, I would see an attentive woman walk past my office window next to a young person of student age.  They would walk together talk, and the young person almost always carried a white cane with a red tip. 

Laura Fogg is this woman, the author of “Traveling Blind:  Life Lessons from Unlikely Teachers,” and our guest in this archive edition of Radio Curious.  

Laura Fogg worked as a Mobility and Orientation Instructor for the Blind in Mendocino County for over 35 years beginning 1971.  She pioneered the use of the red tipped white cane with very young blind students some of whom had multiple impairments.  She traveled long distances over the rather spectacular back roads of Mendocino County to work with each student his or her home.

When she visited the studios of Radio Curious on December 1, 2008, I asked her about the lessons that she learned that have changed her life. 

The book Laura Fogg recommends is “My Year of Meats,” by Ruth Ozeki. Published in 1999.

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Political intimacy is closely related to personal intimacy, just as social change is related to personal change. In this edition of Radio Curious we visit with Bettina Aptheker, the author of “Tapestries of Life: Women’s Work, Women’s Consciousness, and the Meaning of Daily Experience.” At the time the program was recorded in 1997, Bettina was a professor of women’s studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz and open about identifying herself as a lesbian. When we spoke in February of 1997, we explored the relationship of personal intimacy and political intimacy.

The book Bettina Aptheker recommends is “Ceremony” by Leslie Marmon Silko. 

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In the second of two conversations about issues facing transgender people, we visit once again with Eli Erlick, a woman, who was born a male, and her mother Dr. Carla Longchamp. 

Eli Erlick is the Founder and Executive Director of Trans Student Equality Resources, based in San Francisco, California and a student at Pitzer College in Claremont, California.  Dr. Carla Longchamp is a family physician in a rural northern California community.

In our first conversation, our guests share their family’s experience when Eli realized she is female.

In part two, we discuss support for transgender people, what is available and how to find it, recent societal changes and some medical issues.

We begin part two with Eli Erlick describing what Trans Student Equality Resources is. 

The book Eli Erlick recommends is “Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity,” by Julie Serrano.  Eli’s mother, Dr. Carla Longchamp recommends “The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals,” by Stephanie Brill, and “She’s Not There:  A Life in Two Genders,” by Jennifer Boylan. 

The Radio Curious interview with Jennifer Boylan is on our website.

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This edition of Radio Curious is the first of two conversations with Eli Erlick, a woman, who was born a male, and her mother Dr. Carla Longchamp.  

Eli Erlick is the Founder and Executive Director of Trans Student Equality Resource, based in San Francisco, California and a student at Pitzer College in Claremont, California.  Dr. Carla Longchamp is a family physician in a rural northern California community.

Together they share their family’s experience when Eli realized that she was female, and her parent’s subsequent acceptance of who she is.  Our conversation, recorded on January 15, 2014, at Radio Curious, began when I asked Eli, when she knew she was a girl. 

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Fears of interracial relationships, influenced over the centuries by racial biases and fantasies, still widely linger in American Society today.

Randall Kennedy, a professor at Harvard University Law School is the author of “Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption,” in which he takes an in depth look at the issue of black and white relationships set against the ever-changing social mores and laws of this country.  From pre-civil war to the present, this book explores the historical, sociological, legal and moral issues that continue to feed and complicate those fears.

Professor Kennedy and I visited by phone in March 2003 and began by our conversation with his description of what he calls a “pigmentocracy” in the United States.  

The book Professor Randall Kennedy recommends is “The Biography of Walter White,” by Robert Jankin.

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In our unsatisfied curiosity about the difference between nature and nurture we visit with Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein.  These women are identical twins separated as infants and reunited in 2003 when they were 35 years old.  They are the authors of “Identical Strangers:  A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited.” 

Their mother, as we will hear was unable to care for them and as babies they were placed for adoption.

When we visited by phone on November 10, 2007, we discussed their separate childhoods, how they learned that they had a twin, their similarities and differences, and their attempt to learn about a study of twins in which they unknowingly participated.

We began when I asked them to describe aspects of their twin-ship which they still find strange.

The book that Elyse Schein recommends is “Later, At The Bar:  A Novel in Stories” by Rebecca Barry. The book that Paula Bernstein recommends is “Borrowed Finery:  A Memoir” by Paula Fox.

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