Saturday, May 26, 2012

The Slippery Slope of Memorial Day

To download an audio file (save it on your hard disk): Click on this link for instructions.

New World Notes News
Vol. 5, No. 21 -- May 26, 2012

This week in New World Notes, radio program #221, May29, 2012

The Slippery Slope
of Memorial Day

In brief

An anti-war, anti-militarism perspective on Memorial Day.

Features journalist Robert Fisk's antiwar reflections (there's no "Good War"--not after 1945--he concludes). Plus Howard Zinn's 1976 newspaper column on whom Memorial Day ought to honor (which got him fired from the Boston Globe) ... plus commentary by me and Steppenwolf's antiwar classic, "Monster."

This installment is a rerun of NWN #65 (May 2009).


A Zinn Personal Anecdote

After recording this installment in 2009, I sent an email "fan letter" to Howard Zinn expressing my admiration for his Memorial Day essay.

An old English major, I decribed the essay enough to show that I understood how it works. I thought its framing device was especially clever. The essay begins and ends by discussing highway smashups--an American Memorial Day tradition. But by the end, smashup doesn't mean just vehicular carnage. It becomes a metaphor for (you might say) the collision of American values, ethics, and government policy. A metaphor for where American militarism is leading us.

I told him that the essay was my favorite, of the many Zinn essays I had read. That's still true.

Within two hours, the eminent historian had written and sent me a gracious personal reply. He thanked me for my kind remarks and told me that, in fact, the Memorial Day essay was one of his favorites too.

Zinn died, four months after our exchange, in January 2010.

Howard Zinn in May, 2009

Notes, credits, & links

Fisk talk courtesy of tucradio.org. Zinn essay, "Whom Will We Honor Memorial Day?"--and much other good stuff--from The Zinn Reader (Seven Stories Press, 1997).

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "nihil obstat") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both radio4all.net and (from #90 onwards) The Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio. See the gray sidebar on the right ("CONTENTS [Links]") for a table of contents.

Series overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.
Above: Graphic by Eric Drooker.
Below: "Spain, 1936" by Robert Capa.

Coming soon (Tuesday air debut date shown)
  • June 5 & 12 -- "Unsustainable": Michael Pollan on Factory Farming
Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):
A-Infos Radio Project http://www.radio4all.net
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Saturday, May 19, 2012

Eugene Jarecki: The Drug War

To download an audio file (save it on your hard disk): Click on this link for instructions.

New World Notes News
Vol. 5, No. 20 -- May 19, 2012

This week in New World Notes, radio program #220, May 22, 2012

Eugene Jarecki: The Drug War
In brief

Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki's new documentary on the drug war, The House I Live In, just won a top award at Sundance. Now Jarecki talks about some things he learned while making the film.

Among them: 90% of crack arrestees--but only 13% of crack users--are Black. Drug laws, always a means of race control, are now also a means of class control, with poor whites increasingly targeted. And the original "War on Drugs"--launched by Nixon in 1971--devoted two-thirds of its budget to treatment programs (vs. almost nothing today).

Introductory & concluding remarks by K.D.
Notes, credits, & links

Jarecki's remarks are taken from an interview by Michael Slate, broadcast on The Michael Slate Show on KPFK, Los Angeles. The hour-long program is available here. Many thanks for permission to rebroadcast.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "gun") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both radio4all.net and (from #90 onwards) The Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio. See the gray sidebar on the right ("CONTENTS [Links]") for a table of contents.

Series overview:Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.

Coming soon (Tuesday air debut date shown)
  • May 29 -- The Slippery Slope of Memorial Day
Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):
A-Infos Radio Project http://www.radio4all.net
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Saturday, May 12, 2012

Lawrence Lessig: Our Corrupt Congress


To download an audio file (save it on your hard disk): Click on this link for instructions.

New World Notes News
Vol. 5, No. 19 -- May 12, 2012

This week in New World Notes, radio program #219, May 15, 2012

Lawrence Lessig:
Our Corrupt Congress

In brief

Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig brilliantly discusses the many ways that our Congress is corrupt. Some of his examples surprised even me.

His October 2011 lecture in Seattle--based on his book Republic, Lost--combined an excellent discussion of the problem with (IMHO) a long-shot, pie-in-the-sky solution (a Constitutional Convention to establish campaign finance reform). Our condensed version of the talk focuses on the problem.


Notes, credits, & links

Our selections from Lessig's talk are taken from the hour-long recording broadcast by Mind Over Matters. Many thanks to that program and to producer Mike McCormick. The full recording is here.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "average quality") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both radio4all.net and (from #90 onwards) The Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio. See the gray sidebar on the right ("CONTENTS [Links]") for a table of contents.

Series overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.

Coming soon (Tuesday air debut date shown)
  • May 22 -- filmmaker Eugene Jarecki on the Drug War
Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):
A-Infos Radio Project http://www.radio4all.net
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Saturday, May 5, 2012

The News as Propaganda


To download an audio file (save it on your hard disk): Click on this link for instructions.

New World Notes News
Vol. 5, No. 18 -- May 5, 2012


This week in New World Notes, radio program #218, May 8, 2012

The News as Propaganda
In brief

First, veteran news critic Jeff Cohen explains how the news media mislead the public to serve the interests of Established Power.

He focuses on two related techniques: (1) presenting a very narrow spectrum of opinion (while pretending to cover "both sides") and (2) ignoring all voices--including experts'--that contradict government and corporate claims. War opponents especially.

Then--courtesy of Project Censored--we look at some important stories that the major news media decided not to report.

Above: FAIR co-founder Jeff Cohen. Below: Other
good media analysts head up Project Censored.

Notes, credits, & links

Jeff Cohen's remarks are taken from a half-hour interview on Barry Vogel's Radio Curious. Many thanks to Barry and the show. Find the complete interview--and hundreds of other installments--at http://www.radiocurious.org/

Jeff Cohen was a founder of the media watchgroup Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) -- http://www.fair.org/.
http://www.jeffcohen.org/
http://www.projectcensored.org/

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "Yum-yum tree") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both radio4all.net and (from #90 onwards) The Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio. See the gray sidebar on the right ("CONTENTS [Links]") for a table of contents.

Series overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.
Coming soon (Tuesday air debut date shown)
  • May 15 -- Lawrence Lessig on the Corruption of Congress
Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):
A-Infos Radio Project http://www.radio4all.net
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