Month: August 2011

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KAREN BASS started out as a community organizer in South L.A.; now she’s a member of Congress.  Today she’s at the Congressional Black Caucus Jobs Fair in L.A. — we’ll ask her about Obama and jobs, and why she voted in favor of the debt ceiling bill when so many of her colleagues in the Black Caucus voted No.

Also: HAROLD MEYERSON with our political update: he says “The Republicans will raise your taxes” — the payroll tax, a tax on working and middle class people.  Harold writes for the Washington Post op-ed page and he blogs for The American Prospect.

Plus: the Battle for COSTA MESA: the Republican city in deep Orange County is under attack from right-wing Republicans — TAD FRIEND says the battle there is “reminiscent of an earlier anti-union era, when the Pinkertons battered the Wobblies with fists and clubs.”  Tad Friend wrote about Costa Mesa politics for The New Yorker this week.

For the record: KPFK on Wed 8/24 & 8/17 pre-empted my show for special fund drive programming. Please pledge — call 818-985-5735, or online at kpfk.org.

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SKIP GATES is the Harvard professor of African American studies who had that “beer summit” at the White House with President Obama and the Cambridge cop who arrested him for breaking into his own house.  He talks about what it means to be “black” in Latin America — and about that White House meeting.  Skip’s new book is Black in Latin America.

We’ll also have a KPFK Sports report!  Views from left field — of pro football’s “concussion culture,” the way sex is used to sell women’s sports, and how NFL players beat owners in their latest battle – DAVE ZIRIN explains all — and all of these are stories in the Nation magazine’s new sports issue, and Dave is the guest editor.   He blogs at EdgeofSports.com.

Plus the media’s role in the fate of the world: MARIA ARMOUDIAN has the bad news about the media’s role in promoting genocide and war – and she also has some good news about places where the media contributed to reconciliation and justice.  Maria has written for the New York Times, the L.A. Times, Salon, and The Progressive .  And she’s the host and producer of Pacifica Radio programs The the Scholars’ Circle and the Insighters, heard here on KPFK Sundays at noon.  Her new book is KILL THE MESSENGER.

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Obama’s surrender to Republicans “savages programs for the lower and middle classes, while hedge fund managers and oil companies probably won’t sacrifice a cent.” JOHN NICHOLS will comment — he writes “The Beat” blog at TheNation.com.

Also: from the archives: our interview with TERRY GROSS of NPR’s “Fresh Air” — her show is heard by  4.5 million people on 450 stations.  Topics:  what went wrong in her interviews with Hillary Clinton, Nancy Reagan, and Bill O’Reilly. Also, I ask  “What is the deal with rumors that you are a lesbian?”  Her book, All I Did was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians and Artists, is out now in paperback.  (Originally broadcast 11/17/04)

Plus: the L.A. Art scene in the 1960s: in 1960 L.A. had no museum showing contemporary art, and only a few galleries — which is exactly what Ed Ruscha, David Hockney, Judy Chicago and John Baldessari liked about it.  HUNTER DROHOJOWSKA -PHILP tells all – her new book is Rebels In Paradise: The Los Angeles Art Scene and the 1960s.  Hunter will be in conversation with Eve Babitz at the Hammer Museum, Westwood & Wilshire, tonight/Wed. at 7:00pm—the event is free.