Host Marianne Barisonek speaks with journalist Russ Baker, author of "Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, The Powerful Forces that Put it in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America." With the recent publication of his memoir, former President George W. Bush is very much in the news and the media. This is a good time to get another perspective on the man and his family.

Russ Baker is an old-fashioned muckraking journalist and pamphleteer using the newest technologies. In his reporting and writing he brings the best of mainstream methods (balance and rigor) to the alternative media, and the best of the alternative media (passion for the truth and the larger story) to the mainstream. He focuses on getting past the rhetoric to expose the hidden levers and machinations that shape our world. Baker’s investigative reporting, analysis pieces, features, and essays on politics, power, and perceptions have appeared in many of the world’s finest publications.

Over the past two decades, Baker has produced hundreds of stories, most of them for magazines and newspapers — but also for television and radio — on a broad range of topics, from political revolutions to revolutionary humor. He is currently directing and producing his first documentary film.

Baker has received Society of Professional Journalists, Mencken and Common Cause awards, served as a panelist for the national conference of Investigative Reporters & Editors, and been a member of the adjunct faculty at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He appears frequently in the electronic media to discuss current events. He is the co-founder of the journalism soirees that evolved into the company, MediaBistro.

http://russbaker.com/

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Host Jacob Rosenblum interviews Israeli columnist and commentator Bradley Burston. Bradley Burston is a columnist for Israel's Haaretz Newspaper, and Senior Editor of Haaretz.com. During the first Palestinian uprising, he served as Gaza correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, and was the paper's military correspondent in the 1991 Gulf War. In the mid-1990s he covered Israeli-Arab peace talks for Reuters. He is a recipient of the Eliav-Sartawi Award for Mideast Journalism, presented at the United Nations in 2006.

Bradley Burston will discuss “Pro-Mideast in America: Getting Past ‘Pro-Israel’ and ‘Pro-Palestine’” on Thursday, October 28th, 7:00 pm at Bridgeport United Church of Christ/Shir Tikvah. The event is hosted by J Street Portland. Bridgeport U.C.C./Shir Tikvah is at 621 NE 76th Avenue, Portland

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 Former German central banker Thilo Sarrazin has provoked a heated debate in Germany with the publication in August of his book:  Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab -- or Germany Does Away with Itself. In the book Sarrazin says Muslims are either unwilling or incapable of integration and that immigrants are more of a negative than a positive for the country. Politicians roundly condemned the statements, but some Germans say Sarrazin has publicly stated what many actually think. Host Miriam Widman discusses the book and immigration with Feridun Bek, a German of Turkish descent who is an auto industry executive now living in Detroit and with Sergey Lagodinsky, a Russian-Jewish immigrant to Germany who is a lawyer and member of the Social Democratic Party. He is currently at Yale University as part of the Yale World Fellows Program. Here are some links for this program.

Thilo Sarrazin:    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thilo_Sarrazin

Sarrazin's Book:   http://www.amazon.de/Deutschland-schafft-sich-unser-setzen/dp/3421044309

Sergey Lagodinksy:  http://www.gppi.net/about/team/sergey_lagodinsky/

Feridun Bek:  http://tacam.org/board/

 

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Host Kathleen Stephenson speaks with Stan Cox, Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer)

Stan Cox looks at the consequences on our environment and on our health of air-conditioning in this enlightening study. He documents how greenhouse emissions increased and ozone depletion skyrocketed once air conditioners became prevalent.

He explores air conditioning as a potential spreader of contagions—of asthma and allergies and possibly even sexual dysfunctions.

Before joining the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, as senior scientist in 2000, Stan Cox worked as a U.S. Department of Agriculture geneticist for thirteen years. His environmental writing has been widely published. He is the author of Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine.

 

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