Sept 29 - Oct 3 Programs

It’s been a challenging and eventful week: If you didn’t get a chance to listen to “Heavy Metal Islam,” the first program in our new series, Inside Islam: Dialogues and Debates, please check it out and let us know what you think. We’re producing this series in a whole new way, asking for direct feedback and help in shaping it through our interactive blog: insideislam.wisc.edu.

Our October Membership Drive begins this week but before you start groaning, here’s the good news: Here on Earth gets a reprieve. We will only be actively pitching your support in three out of eight hours. Mercy.

Here’s the line-up:

Monday: WHEN JUDGES MAKE FOREIGN POLICY, Noah Feldman describes the sharp rift in the US Supreme Court that has emerged since 9/11 on international law. The justices, writes Feldman, “are doing as much as anyone to shape America's fortunes in an age of global terror and economic turmoil.”

Tuesday: Hooman Majd, born in Tehran and grandson of an ayatollah, serves as translator for Iranian President Ahmadinejad. He unravels the conundrums of his native country in his book The Ayatollah Begs to Differ.

Wednesday: The Sugar Creek Morland Project: An Anglo-American mission of friendship and understanding uniting children who share a common language but are separated by an ocean. Verona, Wisconsin meets Ipswich, England.

Thursday: Refusing to be Enemies: Twelve women living in Ann Arbor, Michigan – 6 of them Arabs and the other 6 Jews – manage to accomplish together what world leaders have thus far failed to do: make peace across the great divide.

Friday: We’re trying to get Will Allen, ex basketball star turned urban farmer to join us on the air to talk about Growing Power and what he plans to do with his MacArthur genius grant.

N.B. We could really use your help in lining up some great food programs with an international focus in the coming weeks. Mushrooms? Truffles?

Jean

Sept 22-26 Programs

BIG BANNER NEWS OF THE WEEK: HERE ON EARTH LAUNCHES BLOCKBUSTER NEW MEDIA SERIES: INSIDE ISLAM Starts this Thursday, Sept. 25!

Monday: You won't want to miss this one either: For this year’s Fall Equinox Poetry Circle of the Air Molly Peacock has chosen a really edgy poem written by the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam in 1918, on the heels of the Bolshevik Revolution. Very hard-hitting; has much to say about our own sense of sturm und drang in this highly pivotal political year. Check out the poem on our website: www.hereonearth.org.

Tuesday: We discovered a true Here-on-Earthian in Jon Miller, Executive Producer of the NPR series "Worlds of Difference," and "Think Global," the 2005 Public Radio Collaboration on globalization.

Wednesday: Daughters of India: A program that will make you reassess your impressions of Indian women, not as victims of repression, but as spirited and self-empowered professionals competing in a male society, entering the marketplace, and breaking with centuries-old traditions.

Thursday: You've heard tales of the Mujahababes, and the Girls of Riyadh on Here on Earth. Now get ready for Heavy Metal Islam! This premier program in our year-long new media series we’re producing with UW-Madison Global Studies, (and lots of help from our friends– check out our blog: insideislam.wisc.edu) features scholar/musician Mark Levine who jams with Moroccan bands, members of a heavy metal Bagdad band, and Allah only knows who else.

Food Friday: The Big Apple Family and what we all owe to the bears!

It wouldn't be worth doing any of this without you!

Please join us with your ears, minds, and hearts wide open.

Thanks so much,

Jean

Sept 15-19 Programs

Hello Here-on-Earthlings!

I hope you have listened to our program on last Thursday about Nation Beat. They are such a joyful band to listen to that all of us in the studio were clapping and dancing with them. Pure fun.

Jean is coming back on Monday and we have prepared the following programs for the next week.

Monday: Being Young and Arab in America. How does it feel to be a problem? W.E.B. Du Bois first posed this question in his classic, The Souls of Black Folk, and now, over a century later, Moustafa Bayoumi explores the same question through the first-hand accounts of seven young Arab and Muslim Americans.

Tuesday: Field Guide to the British. Sarah Lyall is a London correspondent for the New York Times who has written in the words of critic Malcolm Gladstone, "an exquisite, hilarious, and devastating dissection of the British psyche."

Wednesday: Prescription for Survival. 87-year old Dr. Bernard Lown is a cardiologist who invented the defibrillator before cofounding the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He joins us to talk about his Prescription for Survival.

Thursday: Beatrice's Goat is a children's book that tells the story of a little girl growing in Uganda too poor to go to school. The gift of a goat named Luck changed her life. Beatrice is now working on her masters degree at the Clinton School for Public Service in Arkansas.

Friday: We are still looking for a food program. Any suggestions?

Lisa Bu
Web Producer
Here on Earth

Sept 8-12 Programs

Dear Here-on-Earthlings,

Here on Earth: Radio Without Borders is a program that was conceived to show who we humans are at our best, and how much we have in common. We set out when we began five years ago in a spirit of adventure and delight to explore other cultures, increase our understanding of our interconnectedness, and bind the world a little closer together. This in the wake of 9/11. So you can imagine how pleased we were this year to be named the recipient of a grant from the Social Sciences Research Council to produce a series of programs called Inside Islam: Dialogues and Debates.

The first program in the series will be broadcast on Thursday, September 25. It will feature Mark Levine, author of Heavy Metal Islam, and explore heavy metal bands in Iraq, Iran, Morocco, and other parts of the Muslim world. Apart from the fact that the project suits our mission so well, we’re excited about it because we get to experiment with a whole new way of producing radio that has the potential to expand our impact and grow our audience. So we’re asking you for input. Watch for information on our Inside Islam blog which should go online within a week.

While we’re waiting to get up and running, and while I’m out of town this week, we’re offering two encore programs we think will get you primed:

Monday: Salman Rushdie talks about his latest novel and gets huffy when I ask him about his relationship with Islam.

Tuesday: Former NPR reporter-turned-activist Sarah Chayes reports on her latest trials and misadventures as the head of a start-up cottage industry making soaps and perfumes in Kandahar, Afghanistan, a notorious Taliban stronghold. Brave woman.

Wednesday: They call him the Jimi Hendrix of India, but that’s only part of the story. Today at 3:00, enjoy a live performance by Prasanna, an electric guitarist who deftly combines rock, jazz and classic Indian carnatic music into a sound all his own. We’ll feature him in advance to his performance this weekend at the UW-Madison World Music Festival.

Thursday: We’re also working on a show with Syrian jazz singer Gaida Hinnawi. She’s also slated to play the World Music Festival, but if things go according to plan, you’ll get to hear her Here on Earth first. When Lori Skelton, subbing for me last month, introduced Gaida’s mix of New York jazz cool with Middle Eastern dynamics she had our blog bursting with comments like “who was that?!?” and “where can I get her CD?”

Friday: Calling all beer lovers! Okay, you’ve already tried matching wine with food, but how about beer? Omnivore Caryl Owens will try anything. Join her for this special Food Friday.

I’ll be back on Monday, September 15, with Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does It Feel To Be A Problem: Being Young and Arab in America. He’s one of the featured writers in this year’s Madison Book Festival.

Caio! Y’all come back now, heah?

Jean

Here on Earth's Inside Islam Series

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

We're about to launch an exciting new interactive series called Inside Islam. This is a year-long pioneer project we're producing in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Global Studies Center and with funding from the Social Sciences Research Council in New York. Not only does it have the potential to change the way most Americans think about Muslims and Islam, but also the way we Here-on-Earthians think about radio and produce our program!

Let me be specific: A few weeks ago, as part of the preparation for our launch, the Here on Earth team took part in a two-day seminar/workshop on social networking. Not only did the presenters, Sue Schardt and Mary McGrath, teach us how to use some nifty new tools, but more importantly, they opened our minds to the great benefits of getting all of you more actively involved in the process. Open up the gates, they said...there's nothing to be afraid of, and everything to be gained. Hmmm...I had to think about that for a while. This is my baby, after all. Was I really ready to hand it over to day care?

What does all this mean, exactly? Bottom line: we're asking you, our listeners, to partner with us in producing this experimental series. How can you do that? By going to our blog: insideislam.wisc.edu and posting your thoughts, your contacts, your ideas; stories that you've heard; issues you think we should tackle; people we should interview. The first program in the series will focus on Islamic Heavy Metal bands. (You may have heard Mark Levine, author of Heavy Metal Islam interviewed on Talk of the Nation. It will be broadcast on Thursday, September 25, but we're hoping you won't wait until then to let us hear from you. Touched you last.