Month: June 2010

Rebecca Skloot on Henrietta Lacks: KPFK 6/16

How racism, poverty and science came together in the case of a poor black woman whose cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medical research.  Rebecca Skloot tells that story; her book is THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS.
We’ll be offering the book as a fund drive premium, along with the documentary about Henrietta Lacks by Adam Curtis, “The Way of All Flesh,” on DVD.  (originally broadcast 4/28/10)
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Also: Legalization of marijuana will be on the Nov. 2 ballot in California: for our fund drive premium today we are featuring The Marijuana Grower’s Handbook: The Indoor High Yield Cultivation Grow Guide, by ED ROSENTHAL, “the guru of ganja” and the same Ed from the “Ask Ed” grow tips column of High Times magazine: everything you need to know in a beautiful 500 page illustrated book.  (originally broadcast 5-19-10)

John Waters & his “Role Models”: KPFK Wed. 6/9

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 JOHN WATERS — filmmaker, actor, writer, mensch — will be live in-studio to talk about his new book ROLE MODELS.  It’s a self-portrait by the man who made cult classics “Hairspray,” “Pink Flamingos,” and “Cecil B. Demented” –writing about the people who have inspired him: Little Richard, Johnny Mathis, and ‘Manson girl’ Leslie Van Houten — he says “it’s time to parole her.”
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It’s the KPFK fund drive: please call 818-985-5735 and pledge during the hour, and we can send you a copy of John Waters’s new book Role Models as a thank you gift — or the DVD of “Hairspray.”
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Also this hour:  HAROLD MEYERSON will comment on yesterday’s primary elections. He’s op-ed columnist for the Washington Post and editor at large of the American Prospect, where he wrote yesterday about “Why Republicans Should Give Up on California.”

Israel’s Attack on Gaza Aid Ships: KPFK Wed. 6/2

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Israel’s attack on the Gaza Movement’s aid ships: ROANE CAREY of The Nation asks, “What madness could have driven the Israeli government to order its navy to attack, in international waters, a flotilla of ships full of human rights activists, MPs from governments around the world, a Nobel Prize winner and two former US diplomats?”  And will the Israeli attack bring international pressure to end the blocade of Gaza?

Plus: A strike in China at an enormous Honda transmission factory has unexpectedly turned into a symbol of the exploitation of Chinese workers.  JEFFREY WASSERSTROM comments; he teaches history at UCI, writes for the Huffington Post and the China Beat blog, and his new book is China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know .

Also: The US role in giving birth to Al Qaeda as an anti-Soviet force in Afghanistan is well-known — but it was not the beginning of enlisting Islamists to fight the Soviets.  Pulitzer-prize winning Wall Street Journal reporter IAN JOHNSON traces the practice back to Hitler in WWII, and then to the CIA in Germany during the Cold War.  He tells the story in A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA, and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West.