Month: March 2007

Guest host on the radio today–I’m going home to St. Paul for a visit. My home town will be the site of the 2008 Republican National Convention! Today’s news from the St. Paul Pioneer Press: “Protesters who show up for next year’s Republican National Convention in St. Paul will be welcomed with the ‘same respect and honor afforded to conventioneers,’ a draft City Council resolution promises. The council is aiming to protect First Amendment rights.”

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America’s official reaction to terrorist threats has been more harmful than the terrorist threats themselves: That’s what John Mueller argues in his new book OVERBLOWN: How Politicans and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. The war on terror, he shows, has been a wild overreaction to a rare event; the odds of any American being killed by international terrorism are microscopic. John Muller holds the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies at Ohio State University.

Also; VERLYN KLINKENBORG of the New York Times talks about the UglyRipe tomato, dying beehives across America, and Minnesota’s “concealed carry” gun laws. His book The Last Fine Time is a gorgeous recollection of Buffalo after WWII. He’s a visiting writer in residence at Pomona college this term. Verlyn Klinkenborg will be speaking in the downtown LA Public Library ALOUD series on Sunday, March 25 at 3pm.

Plus: Attorney General ALBERTO GONZALEZ twisting slowly, slowly in the wind: In Washington, where the discussion about Alberto Gonzales’ removal has moved from “if” to “when” speculation, the talk is already turning to the question of who will take over for the scandal-plagued Attorney General.
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JOHN NICHOLS comments – he’s Washington Correspondent for The Nation, he writes “The Online Beat” blog at TheNation.com, and his most recent book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism (The New Press).

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The last few weeks have seen a vast outpouring of reports on mistreatment of wounded Iraq war outpatients following the Washington Post’s revelations of conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Stories of neglect and substandard care have flooded in from soldiers, their family members, veterans, doctors and nurses working inside the system. The official response has been swift — but the reaction outside official Washington has been much deeper. ANNE HULL of the Washington Post explains – she broke the story of the shocking conditions at Walter Reed. Also: SEE Washington Post photos of the wounded.
Your Minnesota Moment: The suicide of a marine came after he served in Iraq.

Also: OIL ON THE BRAIN: Americans consume 10,000 gallons of gas a second – three gallons per person per day. Where does all this oil come from? And where is it taking us? LISA MARGONELLI explains – her new book is Oil on the Brain. Barbara Ehrenreich says: “from the corner gas station to the oil fields of Nigeria, there couldn’t be a better traveling companion than Margonelli. She’s fast, fearless, funny, and a brilliant observer.”
Lisa Margonelli will be in conversation at the downtown LA Public Library ALOUD series at 700pm tonight/Wed – the event officially is “Full – standby only.”

Plus: THE TROUBLE WITH DIVERSITY: Our celebration of “difference” masks our neglect of America’s vast economic divide—that’s what WALTER BENN MICHAELS argues in his new book. Affirmative action in schools has not made them more open, it’s just guaranteed that the rich kids come in the appropriate colors. Diversity training in the workplace has not raised anybody’s salary (except maybe the diversity trainers’), but it has guaranteed that when your job is outsourced, your culture will be treated with respect.

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RY COODER’s new CD, “My Name is Buddy,” released today, is a parable of the radical imagination—it details the life, rambles, and political education of Buddy Red Cat. Ry is joined on the CD by Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger, Van Dyke Parks, and Flaco Jiminez, among others. The CD comes with a book of vignettes about each song and drawings by Vicent Valdez. Ry Cooder’s last CD was Chavez Ravine; his Buena Vista Social Club changed the world.

Plus: President Bush says Iran is “meddling” in Iraq: ADAM SHATZ says Iran “might have legitimate interests in what is, after all, its own geographic neighborhood.” Adam is literary editor of The Nation; recently he wrote about Iran and Iraq for the LA Times “Current” section.

Also: MICHAEL ERIC DYSON talks about race: how it is conceived; how it is expressed; how it is lived; how it confers power; how it undermines social stability; how it ruins or revives lives; how it is embraced and discarded. “Michael Eric Dyson is the most courageous and visionary public intellectual on the scene today.” — Cornel West. Dyson is the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania; his new book is Debating Race. He will be speaking tonight/Wed in the downtown LA Public Library ALOUD Series at 700pm. The event is officially full – standby only.