October 12-19 Programs

HERE ON EARTH WILL HAVE A SILENT PLEDGE DRIVE ALL THIS WEEK UNTIL FRIDAY SO DON’T TUNE US OUT OR YOU’LL MISS OUR GREAT PROGRAMS!

Jean’s Pick of the Week: No hesitation this time, my vote goes to Elephants on the Edge. This was not just another sad story about the threatened extinction of a unique species, but a whole new way of thinking that connects us on a deep, and I would say even spiritual, level with our fellow earthlings. Gay Bradshaw is a visionary who is working to bring about trans-species integration.



Monday: Columbus Day: If you’ve been following Ken Burns’ PBS series on our National Parks, (yawn) here’s an interesting contrarian point of view: Mark Dowie is an investigative journalist who reports on the hundred year conflict between global conservation and native peoples in his book, Conservation Refugees.

Tuesday: Can meditation make us into world citizens? Richard Davidson thinks so. His findings on the increasing plasticity of the brain combined with long term effects of meditation have led to an intriguing projection: Happiness 2050: Neuroscience, Education, and the Compassionate World Citizen.

Wednesday: Does the Sunni/Shia conflict contribute to the image of Islam as a violent religion? How much does it account for the violence in Iraq? We’ll look into the origins of the Sunni/Shia split, consider the bombing of the Shia shrine in Karbala, and talk with a Muslim scholar working on promote intrafaith harmony.

Thursday: Green Metropolis: When you imagine a green future do you picture backwoods country living or futuristic city dwelling? While “green” usually brings to mind more natural surroundings, David Owen, author and staff writer for The New Yorker, wants to argue the opposite—it’s cities that teach us what a sustainable future looks like.

Friday: Tune in to hear regional food specialist Therese Allen talk about her revised and expanded edition of The Flavor of Wisconsin: An Informal History of Food and Eating in the Badger State, with 460 recipes, but not a single one for badgers! This is a winner.

Happy Pumpkin Hunting!

Jean