Jean Feraca's Blog, host of Here On Earth

Nov. 8-12 Programs

2010-11-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

Friday, November 5, 2010

Note: Please recall that this is the last week this blog will be updated! Future updates will appear on our Blog Without Borders

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): Muslims, Mosques, and American Identity: We really lived up to our series title, and went Inside Islam, with this program, probing with the erudite Akbar Ahmed, author of Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam, exactly what goes on in American mosques – all kinds of things, as it turns out – everything from hostility toward Christians and Jews to committed interfaith dialog. And why shouldn’t it, after all? Why should we expect Muslims to be one of a kind when the rest of us are so determinedly different?

Jean’s Upcoming Presentations: It’s a busy month! I’m in La Crosse this weekend, in New York next weekend, and keynoting an event at the Women’s Expo in Madison on Sunday, Nov. 21. Whew! After Thanksgiving, I’m going into hibernation.

Smalls Jazz Club in Greenwich Village – I’ll be reading poetry and excerpts from my memoir, I Hear Voices, at Smalls Jazz Club in Greenwich Village at 5:00pm on Saturday, Nov. 13 and you don’t even have to be in New York to listen! Smalls broadcasts every show live over their video stream, so people can watch anywhere in the world for free. So come down or watch at www.smallsjazzclub.com. Smalls is located at 183 West 10th Street, basement, between 7th Ave South and West 4th Street.
Madison Women’s Expo – “Bound and Determined:” Jean Feraca talks about her dizzying route to becoming a public radio talk show host at the Madison Women’s Expo, Noon on Sunday, Nov. 21 at the Alliant Energy Center. Book signing to follow.

Here’s the line-up of shows for the coming week:

Monday: Chasing the Sun: No, he’s not a surfer. From the man who wrote a worldwide history of swordplay, comes an around-the-world odyssey in search of an elusive moving target – the sun. Scholar-adventurer Richard Cohen traveled to twenty countries, from Mount Fuji to Antarctica to interpret what the sun has meant throughout the ages.

Tuesday: The Power of Beliefs: In pegging terrorists as fundamentalist believers, have we forgotten that we, too, hold very strong beliefs? Professor and public intellectual Jacqueline Rose reminds us that we in the West are also motivated by stubborn belief, religious, political, or otherwise.

Wednesday: Francophilia Revisited: What images come to your mind when you think of France? While France has always had symbolic meaning for Americans, some of those meanings have changed over time. We’ll find out how Francophilia has evolved and how learning French will give you access not just to the real France, but to an entire francophone world outside of France.

Thursday: TBA: The Here on Earth team has a number of prospects in the works for this Thursday. Tune in and be surprised or check back later on our website for an update!

Friday: Gourmet Cookies for Thanksgiving: Are you scrambling to find unbeatable cookie recipes for the holidays? Join us to discover a selection of the best cookie recipes from all over the world, collected over 68 years of Gourmet Magazine’s existence.

Hope to see you in La Crosse this Friday – I’ll be giving the keynote at the Women’s Fund Luncheon.

Jean

Nov. 1-5 Programs

2010-10-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

I’ll be in La Crosse on Thursday and Friday of this week, appearing at The Wine Guyz for an informal reading and book signing around 7:00pm on Thursday night, and then I have the honor of delivering the keynote at this year’s Women’s Fund Luncheon on Friday November 5th. I hope I’ll get to meet and greet many of you there.

Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): Living in a Global Age: Well, I have to be a chauvinist and say that even though it was a pain in the neck to prepare, and I don’t usually take orders from my guest, yesterday’s program with my son, Giancarlo, and his friend Bali (who were just at my house together last weekend) on Living in a Global Age was my favorite this week, although Ian Frazier’s conversation on Travels in Siberia came in a close second. The wonderful thing about Living in a Global Age was that, without intending it, the discussion about the decline of the nation-state tied together so many of the themes that recur on Here on Earth: world citizenship, international cooperation, universal values, and the rise of Islamophobia. It was an expansive hour with much to chew on. I hope you found it as stimulating as I did.

Note: Tuesday of this week marks the debut of our third official series on Inside Islam: Dialogues and Debates.

Monday: It’s the Day before Election Day – Let’s Lighten Up!: What figure or place in American history makes you feel warm and fuzzy about democracy? Illustrator and Israeli immigrant Maira Kalman set out, Alexis deToqueville style, to document democracy in America circa 2009. The result is an optimistic love letter to America that reminds us all of what we have to be proud of.

Tuesday: Muslims, Mosques, and American Identity: What goes on in mosques in America? Are mosques a part of the tradition of religious pluralism in America? Can a Muslim be an American? Islamic Studies luminary Akbar Ahmed traveled for a year around the country, visiting over a hundred mosques to find out how Muslims are living every day in America. We want to know about the mosques in your hometown, whether you’re a member of the Muslim community or not. What’s your experience? We’ll collect your responses at insideislam.wisc.edu or on our hotline: 1-877-GLOBE07 and use the best of them in the program.

Wednesday: Russia Rocks: What do you know about Russian rock music? Russia’s best known music critic and cultural commentator, Artemy Troitsky, gives us a tour of Russia’s Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, from the early influence of The Beatles to the development of Russian “Bard Rock,” to today’s subversive Russian rappers.

Thursday: Freelance Diplomacy: After 15 years in the British diplomatic corps, Carne Ross found himself disagreeing with UK policies that led to the Iraq War. Disenchanted with conventional diplomacy, he re-invented himself as a "freelance diplomat," and founded Independent Diplomats, a bold nonprofit organization advising populations that would otherwise not have a voice in international relations. How far would you go for what you believe in?

Friday: What’s Home without a Kitchen?: Food world personality Nigella Lawson’s new book is set in the heart of the home and is born of her own love affair with her favorite room in the house. She’ll share her thoughts on the well stocked pantry and how to reclaim the traditional rhythms of the kitchen.

Let us know how we’re doing. Call the hotline 24/7 with your comments: 1-877-GLOBE07. We love to hear from you!

Jean

Don’t forget to follow our Blog without Borders, where these updates will appear starting next week!

Consolidating Our Blogs

2010-10-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

The Here on Earth team has decided to consolidate this blog with the producers’ blog. With this change, we hope to increase the amount of feedback from our listeners by making our internet presence more accessible.

Starting Friday November 5th, you will find the weekly show lineup as well as updates on special events, insights into our work, and extra content such as guest videos on our producer’s blog: Blog without Borders.

As always find us on Facebook, and keep an eye out for more updates to the website and our weekly email bulletin coming soon!

Best regards,
LeeAnn Ziegler
Here on Earth Web Producer

Oct. 25 - 29 Programs

2010-10-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Europe’s Anti-Muslim Politics: I learned a lot from this program. For starters, Pam Geller, our own homegrown American Islamophobe, who writes the blog Atlas Shrugs, is the deep pockets behind Gaert Wilner’s far right wing Party of Freedom in the Netherlands. It was also interesting to explore some of the deep causes underlying the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment, e.g. the creation of the EU itself which brought about an erosion of national identity and pride; and the excesses of multiculturalism which made it politically incorrect to draw any distinctions among people or cultural critiques. And so the pendulum swings to the right.

Monday: Ian Frazier’s Travels in Siberia: Ian Frazier is in love with Russia. He calls it “the greatest horrible country on earth,” and Siberia its swampy backyard. He made five trips there and Travels in Siberia is what came of them.

Tuesday: Mario Vargas Llosa and the Nobel Prize: One of the leading authors of his generation, Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, was finally awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. Like many of his fellow South American writers, he lived his life between literature and politics. We’ll find out what makes him unique.

Wednesday: The People vs. The Mafia: The Mafia still is a bleak reality in much of Italy, but there is a young, courageous generation of Italians who are fighting the mafia with everything they’ve got: ideals, ideas, and smart business. Could this, finally, be the beginning of the end?

Thursday: The West and the Rest: Does living in a global age change the way we understand the past? Over the past few years, world history has become one of the fastest growing – and most controversial – fields. This hour we’ll talk with a historian at its forefront who’s written a book that puts Turkish explorers of the 16th century in the same league – and competing directly - with the Portuguese.

Friday: Feeding the Dead in Oaxaca: No one has done more to introduce the world to the authentic, flavorful cuisines of Mexico than Diana Kennedy. The “Julia Child of Mexican cooking” joins us to talk about her gorgeous new book Oaxaca al Gusto, and to spill the beans on the foods prepared on the Day of the Dead.

Didn’t I promise you a great line-up?

Jean

Oct. 18 - 22 Programs

2010-10-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Upcoming Event: Get Thee to a Winery: A Day of Reflection on Benedictine Hospitality at Holy Wisdom Monastery More than a dozen years ago I spent a formative summer at St. Ben's, as it was called in those days, which I wrote about in my memoir in a chapter called "Get Thee to a Winery." I was at a critical juncture in my life - contemplating a possible third marriage to a Jewish atheist scientist as I reflected on the mistakes of the past. The answers I received during those weeks couldn't have come from a truer or a more surprising source. The Benedictines hold hospitality in its widest meaning at the center of their spiritual life. My experience of that hospitality - being welcomed and received in all my brokenness - was not only deeply healing, but led directly to the work I do now as the "host" of the program you know as Here on Earth. I am looking forward to telling you "the rest of the story" in this Day of Reflection on Benedictine Hospitality at Holy Wisdom Monastery in Middleton on Saturday, October 30. To register or for more information on the day retreat I Hear Voices: A Journey of Faith, Family and Freedom, contact Jerrianne at (608) 836-1631, ext. 158 or jbland@benedictinewomen.org.

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Moral Ground One of my favorite moments on Here on Earth occurred last Wednesday during the program we did with the editors of the new book about the ethical dimensions of the environmental crisis. Toward the end of the program Catherine – I’m pretty sure that was her name – called in to talk about her fight to save a beloved rustic road and its environs from being paved over. Her testimony was so eloquent and so full of love that it actually redeemed the heartbreak she felt at losing the fight. It was a moving moment in the show, and a great example of what it means to hold your moral ground.

Monday: Rabbi Kushner on Conquering Fear How do you face your fears? Fear comes in many guises: fear of losing your job, losing your looks, fear of illness, of aging, fear of a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. Harold S. Kushner teaches us how to confront and embrace fear to live a more fulfilling life.

Tuesday: China’s Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize is not the Nobel the Chinese government has been hoping for. Or is it? We’ll talk with historian Timothy Cheek about how the prize may play into the hands of liberal leaning members of the Communist party and regular citizens who want a more democratic China.

Wednesday: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian Avi Steinberg, a lapsed Orthodox Jew, found his real yeshiva behind the bars of a tough Boston prison. Should prisons have libraries? Who goes to prison, and what do they read?

Thursday: Europe’s Anti-Muslim Politics Starting with the ban on minarets in Switzerland, Europe has been swept with a wave of overt anti-Islam sentiment that has found its way into the political mainstream in the past year. From Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party in the Netherlands to the book written by one German politician that blames Germany’s “downfall” on immigrant Muslims: Can the debate still be saved by reason?

Friday: The Spice Necklace Who hasn’t dreamed about dropping everything and sailing to the Caribbean? Ann Vanderhoof and her husband did just that. We catch her just before setting off on her next sailing adventure to talk about oregano-eating goats in the hills and other essential flavors in great Caribbean food.

Thanks, everybody, for all your support during our Fall Membership Drive, and especially for helping to keep Here on Earth pledge-free for most of the drive!

Jean

Oct. 11 - 15 Programs

2010-10-08T11:20:00.000-07:00

We’re in the middle of our Fall Pledge Drive here at Wisconsin Public Radio. We’ll be taking your pledges in support of Here on Earth and other WPR programming, but Here on Earth will be pledge free all week until Friday. But don’t miss this Food Friday. We’ll be offering as a special Food Friday thank you gift: A World of Cake: 150 Recipes for Sweet Traditions from Cultures Near and Far. How sweet it is!

Jean’s Pick of the Week: In the old days before the advent of Facebook, Twitter, scripts, and editorial meetings, when I never had enough time to prepare for my programs, I used to fly by the seat of my pants and just riff with my guest. It was like a form of jazz; I never knew where the conversation would take us. That was what it was like to spend an hour on the radio with author and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu.

Monday: How do Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving? We’ll ask the two editors of a brand new anthology of Canadian poetry, out later this month, who have agreed to take time out from their respective holiday celebrations to join us on Canada’s Thanksgiving Day.

Tuesday: Where Good Ideas Come From: People often credit their ideas to individual "Eureka!" moments. But Steven Johnson shows how history tells a different story. He takes us from the "liquid networks" of London's coffee houses to Charles Darwin's long, slow hunch to today's high-velocity web.

Wednesday: Moral Ground: Do we have a moral obligation to take better care of the earth? While scientific knowledge tells us what the facts are, it does not tell us how to act. But now, a new book brings together over eighty visionaries from all over the world who embrace a moral vision for environmental repair and sustainability.

Thursday: After Columbus: In honor of Columbus Day, the Day of the Race in Mexico, and the finale of Hispanic Heritage Month, we’ll trace the evolution of today's vibrant Latino culture right back to Columbus and the mixing of Old World and New World. The new PBS documentary about the first hundred years after Columbus, When Worlds Collide, is now available online. We’ll be joined by the documentary’s host, award winning journalist and author, Rubén Martínez.

Friday: It’s a World of Cake! In China you steam them, in Africa you fry them, maybe you grew up baking them; around the globe cake takes a central role in celebrations from births, to weddings, to national holidays. Now that fall is here and it’s finally time to bake, you won’t want to miss this opportunity to globalize your baking repertoire. Tell us about your family cake tradition and pitch in during our Fall Pledge Drive. Krystina Castella’s brand new, picture and history packed book A World of Cake will be our gift to you for pledging $150 or more in support of Here on Earth and Wisconsin Public Radio on the last day of our Fall Pledge Drive.

That’s all, Folks! We really love those pledges. And what we love even more is the privilege of bringing you Here on Earth programs day after day, and all through WPR’s Fall Membership Drive. Please, stay tuned, and thank you so much!

Jean

Oct. 4 - 8 Programs

2010-10-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: I never liked Spanglish – or at least I thought I didn’t until I met Susana Chávez-Silverman and heard her “code switching” between English and Spanish when she read from her two memoirs Killer Crónicas and Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles y otros Natural Disasters on Wednesday’s show. And yes, I do feel handicapped because I know only one language. If we pride ourselves on being a hybrid nation, why do we cling to monolingualism when half of the rest of the world knows how to speak two or more languages? Isn’t it time to claim with Susana the richness of all our mother tongues?

Monday: Andrei Codrescu: Romanian-born poet, writer, and long time NPR contributor, has a new book out and is in town this week for a public lecture at the University. But first, he’ll join us in-studio to talk about his experience as an immigrant writer, swimming between English and his mother tongue, and about why he’s so excited about the upcoming generation of immigrant writers and artists.

Tuesday: The Fate of Nature: As the reporter who spent more time reporting on the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska than any other journalist, Charles Wohlforth has seen a lot of human caused destruction of the environment. But in his new book The Fate of Nature, he makes the argument that our connection to other people, to animals and to wild places is even deeper than our need for material comfort. Do we have it in us to square with nature before it's too late?

Wednesday: The Sheikh’s Batmobile: Pop culture commentator Richard Poplak sets out on an unusual mission: to find out what happens to American pop culture – Hollywood sit-coms, shoot-‘em up video games, muscle cars and punk music – when they collide with the Muslim world.

Thursday: What’s Funny About Canada? Husband and wife team Kerry Colburn and Rob Sorensen have written two humorous books about Canada, our great Northern neighbor, busting—and playing with—the myth that the 2^nd largest nation in the world is more of a 51^st state. Join us in crossing the world’s longest border and in pledging your support to Here on Earth during the kickoff week of our Fall Pledge Drive, and the eve of Canada’s Thanksgiving Day Weekend.

Friday: Heritage Foods From the Americas: In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, food historian and blogger Frederick Douglass Opie is tracing hominy, plantains, spicy peppers, and tomatoes through the Pre-Columbian cuisines of the Aztecs, Incas, and Arawaks to today. Curried Yucca Crab Cakes with Piquillo Pepper Sauce and Mango-Papaya Chutney anyone?

I’m off to hear Kathleen Hill read from her memoir, Who Occupies This House.

Jean

Sept. 27 - Oct. 1 Programs

2010-09-24T11:47:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Raving about Rara! If you were tuning in to Here on Earth on Thursday when we hosted the Brooklyn-based Rara band DJA-Rara live in Buck studio, you might have thought you had the wrong channel. The riotous cacophony of homemade instruments, horns, cymbals, drums, and rattles, played by 15-odd Haitian rabble rousers raised the rooftop and evoked the sound of joyous revolution. To quote our technical director Joe Hardtke: “Every once in a while, public radio needs to take off its white-collared shirt and get a little rough and dirty.”

Monday: Building with Whole Trees: Living in a treehouse is every kid’s dream. Visionary architect Roald Gundersen has turned this dream into an ecologically sound reality: houses made from whole, unmilled trees. We’ll explore our relationship to the forest and the spiritual dimensions of shelter with Roald and with Sister Gabriele Uhlein, a Franciscan nun and future resident of one of his treehouses.

Tuesday: Jerusalem's Sacred Esplanade: Jews and Christians call it the Temple Mount, Muslims call it the Noble Sanctuary, but for the new book Where Heaven and Earth Meet scholars from all three religions call it “Jerusalem's Sacred Esplanade.” We’ll talk with Jewish and Islamic scholars about the meaning of the sites. Plus, Norway’s former Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, joins us to talk about his work in creating a “Universal Code on Holy Sites."

Wednesday: The New Bilingual Literature: Susana Chávez-Silverman’s memoirs might make you look twice unless you, too, grew up in a bilingual family. Susana is one of only a handful of bilingual writers who code switch mid-sentence, moving back and forth between Spanish and English.

Thursday: The Politics of the Brokenhearted: Just when you were about to despair of our democracy, along comes Parker Palmer with an invitation to participate in a conversation on the politics of the brokenhearted for citizens who want to reclaim the heart of American democracy and help heal the deep divides that threaten it.

Friday: The Honey Trail: From the Mississippi Delta, to the jungles of Borneo, to the deserts of Yemen, Grace Pundyk visited ten countries in her pursuit of liquid gold, vanishing bees, and a place to call home. Amazingly enough, she was also eager to get up at 4:00am to join Here on Earth from Singapore for this edition of Food Friday.

Have a great weekend!

Jean

Sept 20-24 Programs

2010-09-17T16:01:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Thursday’s show on Mexican Independence Day. I think we succeeded in getting underneath the steady drum beat of headlines about drug cartel murders and government corruption to a feel for what the real Mexico has to shout about.

Monday: The Syringa Tree: The Syringa Tree is a gripping play about a young girl growing up in an Africaner family in apartheid South Africa. On the boards at APT this season, Colleen Madden turns in an astonishing virtuoso performance, playing all 24 characters. We’ll talk with Colleen and director Michael Wright.

Tuesday: Marrakech Gets a Facelift: In the October issue of Conde Nast Traveler, Raphael Kadushin reports how a dynamic group of local Moroccans and European expats came together to revive Marrakech's medina--one of the world's greatest, intact, walled medieval city centers, effectively salvaging not just the historic quarter but much of its rich culture as well.

Wednesday: Ramsey Clark Speaks Out on American Torture: For his new book, The Torturer in the Mirror, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark teamed up with Iraqi dissident Haifa Zangana and sociology professor Thomas Reifer to reveal the scope of American culpability in the torture carried out during the war on terrorism. Ramsey Clark takes a historical view of torture and Professor Reifer discusses the ways the Obama administration has so far failed to clean up the policies of his predecessor.

Thursday: Madison World Music Festival: For a sneak preview of one of this year’s most exciting performances from this year’s UW-Madison World Music Festival, join us for a special live performance from DJA-Rara, the Brooklyn-based Haitian rara band. There are many explanations of the origins of rara, but whatever its beginnings, this raucous, peripatetic, and subversive music has endured and been embraced by the Haitian American community in New York City as an expression of Haitian pride, culture and identity.

Friday: Eating Animals: Vegetarianism is nothing new, but for some reason Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2009 book, Eating Animals, sparked a nationwide conversation about how we eat. The paperback edition of this bestseller comes out this week and Jonathan Safran Foer joins us to continue the conversation he started, this Food Friday.

Wedding Report: And yes, I did survive three days of wedding festivities in Minneapolis last weekend when my son, UMN Ottoman historian Giancarlo Casale married UMN Ottoman art historian Sinem Arcak. The celebration began with an all-female henna party on Friday night that ended in a ritual mock kidnapping, followed on Saturday by a lamb and camel-rib roast held in Giancarlo’s backyard where an extraordinary Italian feast was prepared and furnished for the rehearsal supper entirely by the father of the groom, followed on Sunday by a mid-afternoon ceremony in Loring Park that featured vows and readings spoken in three languages – English, Turkish, and Aramaic, (I read the from Walt Whitman’s 1855 Preface to Leaves of Grass). The whole bash concluded with a Turkish feast prepared and orchestrated by the mother of the bride. Much dancing and drinking of wine. Altogether an extraordinary and exhausting affair. I came home nursing blisters on both feet.

Still recuperating!

Jean

Get Thee to a Winery

2010-09-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

Jean Feraca to Present a Day of Reflection on Benedictine Hospitality at Holy Wisdom Monastery

More than a dozen years ago I spent a formative summer at St. Ben’s, as it was called in those days, which I wrote about in my memoir in a chapter called “Get Thee to a Winery.” I was at a critical juncture in my life – contemplating a possible third marriage to a Jewish atheist scientist as I reflected on the mistakes of the past. The answers I received during those weeks couldn’t have come from a truer or a more surprising source. The Benedictines hold hospitality in its widest meaning at the center of their spiritual life. My experience of that hospitality – being welcomed and received in all my brokenness – was not only deeply healing, but led directly to the work I do now as the “host” of the program you know as Here on Earth. I am looking forward to telling you “the rest of the story” in this Day of Reflection on Benedictine Hospitality at Holy Wisdom Monastery in Middleton on Saturday, October 30.

To register or for more information, contact Jerrianne at (608) 836-1631, ext. 158 or jbland@benedictinewomen.org.

Sept 13-17 Programs

2010-09-10T20:25:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: The Art of Listening: Our conversation with British sociologist Les Back actually slowed me down and brought me back in touch with what I’ve always loved most about radio – its intimacy. So easy to lose sight of in this age of multitasking and social networking. How rewarding to simply listen deeply to what another human being has to say.

Monday: Life With the Maasai: Robin Wiszowaty’s home town couldn’t have been closer to normal, and from a young age she knew the world beyond was more complex and interesting. Into the world she went, ending up in Kenya, adopted into a Maasai family. In her book, My Maasai Life, now out in paperback, she balances the insights gained through living this double life.

Tuesday: Wild Justice: What if Aesop’s fables were actually inspired by real events? There is more and more evidence that animals have an innate sense of cooperation, empathy and justice. How do these findings change the way we see our human morality? We talk to Marc Bekoff, ethologist, and Jessica Pierce, philosopher, about their book Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals.

Wednesday: Who We Are in Antarctica: Lucy Jane Bledsoe is a science writer who has written a lot of award-winning fiction about Antarctica. In her latest book, a novel called The Big Bang Symphony, she describes the impact of Antarctica's extreme environment on three different women who go a long way to find their way home.

Thursday: After Columbus: In honor of Mexican Independence Day, we investigate the evolution of today's vibrant Latino culture. Later this month, PBS will broadcast When Worlds Collide, a special program exploring the century after "Old World" encountered "New World," hosted by award winning journalist and author, Rubén Martínez

Friday: World-Class Wisconsin Cheese!: Cheesemaking has a long and storied tradition in Wisconsin, but it’s also an ever-evolving tradition. In honor of the opening of Green County’s Cheese Days, we’ll talk to one homegrown and internationally acclaimed cheesemaker, Sid Cook of Carr Valley Cheese Company, about his move from commodity, to specialty, to original cheeses. We’ll also be joined by Carol Chen of the Center for Dairy Research who will lead us through the tasty process of “cheese profiling.”

I’m heading to the Twin Cities on Friday to attend my Number One Son’s Turkish-Italian wedding, featuring roast camel! Report to follow, Inshallah!

Jean

Sept 6-10 Programs

2010-09-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

Jean's Pick of the Week: I loved today's program about the kyosho jutaku movement of micro houses in Japan. It always makes me happy when Here on Earth introduces a new idea drawn from another culture that listeners grab and run with. We're planning another program about new ideas in architecture for later this month (Sept. 27th), this one closer to home, featuring the astonishing treehouse designs from a firm called, appropriately enough, Whole Trees in Stoddard, WI. I walked into one of their half-finished houses that's going up at the Christine Center and said, "Oh, my God, this is the future."

Monday: For Labor Day, we've chosen a fun show from our recent archives featuring Canadian Hip Hop artist Baba Brinkman, author of The Rap Guide to Evolution. Having once re-made Chaucer's Canterbury Tales into a very clever Hip Hop album, Baba (that really is his name) was approached by a microbiologist "to do for Darwin what he did for Chaucer." It's a pretty amazing piece of work and a great way to teach evolution.

Tuesday: Virtual Cosmopolitanism: The Internet was supposed to be a tool that would open us to the world. But in his research on its use, Ethan Zuckerman finds that it does just the opposite. What are the dangers of allowing the Internet to form our worldview, and how can they be avoided?

Wednesday: The Art of Listening: British Sociologist Les Back has been thinking a lot about famous listeners like Studs Terkel, about the importance Holocaust survivor Primo Levi placed on the connectivity offered by listening, and about why, despite the central role listening plays in a healthy political sphere, it just seems to be getting harder and harder to be good at it.

Thursday: TBA

Friday: Breaking Bread with Immigrants: While teaching new immigrants English in Boston, Lynne Christy Anderson found that sharing food was the perfect way to get to know her students. Stories of home tend to be the central ingredient in the delicious recipes she shares in her book Breaking Bread: Recipes and Stories from Immigrant Kitchens.

I'll be on my way to my son's wedding in Minneapolis by the time Lori opens up the show on Friday. I'll tell you all about it.

Have a great Labor Day weekend!

Jean

Science and the Public in Europe - 9/1

2010-09-02T11:04:00.000-07:00

Dominique Haller

The guest of yesterday 's show, Dominique Brossard, UW-Madison Associate Professor of Life Sciences and Communication, grew up in six different countries on three continents: Argentina, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Uruguay, France, and the US. This diverse life experience has given her some interesting insight into how other societies deal with controversial scientific issues. She talks with Jean about participatory engagement in Scandinavia and France:

Aug 30 - Sept 3 Programs

2010-08-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

Jean's Pick of the Week: I was very pleased with the way our program about the so-called Ground Zero Mosque controversy turned out yesterday. The way Ed Linenthal and Moustafa Bayoumi complemented each other allowed for a rich diversity of responses, some of them downright inspiring. We talked about it at today’s editorial meeting and all agreed that we learned a lot from that program. Kudos to Here on Earth producer Saideh Jamshidi, our Iranian-American summer intern, whose last day was today.

Monday: Who we are in Antarctica: Lucy Jane Bledsoe is a science writer who's written a lot of award-winning fiction about Antarctica. In her latest book, a novel called The Big Bang Symphony, she describes the impact of Antarctica's extreme environment on three different women who go a long way to find their way home.

Tuesday: Remember Charlie Chan, that grammatically challenged, Chinese-aphorism slinging detective who became an icon of American film? More than just a discarded racial stereotype, his new biographer says we can learn a lot about American attitudes toward China from Charlie Chan.

Wednesday: Science, The Media, and the Public Debates: The debate about stem-cell research has flared up again since a federal judge put a halt to it last week. What are the cultural and political factors that influence such scientific issues? What makes them take a different course in different countries?

Thursday: Smaller Living Designs from Japan: Japanese architects may have a jump on the rest of the world in cultivating what is sure to become a top virtue of the 21st century: doing more with less. A new design trend in Japan -- kyosho jutaku -- is building creative houses on teeny tiny parcels of land. Architect Azby Brown will take us on a tour of the cutting edge in ultra-small living. He has lived in Japan for years and has written about sustainable living during Japan's Edo period, way before anyone was talking about global warming.

Friday: Eating Animals: Vegetarianism is nothing new, but for some reason Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2009 book, Eating Animals, sparked a nationwide conversation about how we eat. The paperback edition of this bestseller comes out this week and Jonathan Safran Foer joins us to continue the conversation he started, this Food Friday.

Now, isn't that a pretty great line-up? But it ain't nothin' without you!

I'm hoping to see some of you avid memoirists at the workshop I'm giving this weekend at Woodland Pattern Bookstore in Milwaukee.

Adios,

Jean

Jean's Pick of the Week for August 16th

2010-08-20T09:12:00.001-07:00

Jean's Pick of the Week: Why People Run:Well, let’s face it, it’s the end of August, school is about to begin again and we felt the need to lighten up. I hope you’ve enjoyed this week on Here on Earth as much as I have. It’s hard to pick a favorite – we even found a way to have fun with Inside Islam – but since I have to choose, I’ll pin my star on Born to Run. Christopher McDougall’s book about the ultrarunners of the Tarahumara has been out for a year, he’s done a slew of interviews, but you’d never know it from his level of enthusiasm, and what a great way to celebrate the gifts of an indigenous tribe. Long may they run.

August 23 - 27 Programs

2010-08-20T08:31:00.000-07:00

Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010

Calling All Memoirists! I’ll be hosting a memoir writing workshop at Woodland Pattern Bookstore in Milwaukee next weekend on Saturday and Sunday. For those of you who don’t yet know, Woodland Pattern is one of the last great independent bookstores in the country, especially dedicated to supporting new and established writers and artists. I was thrilled when they asked me to teach this workshop, and I understand that there are still some places available. For more information, call Jenny Henry at 414-263-5001 www.woodlandpattern.org.

Monday: Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter : is on a crusade to improve the lives of Americans with mental illness. In her new book, Within Our Reach, she says we still have a long way to go to remove the stigma that surrounds mental illness.

Tuesday: The Rise of A Middle Class in the Middle East : As part of the Inside Islam series this week we will discuss the force for change that is welling up in the Middle East - the rise of a mobile middle class of entrepreneurs, investors and consumers. Although almost invisible to the West, our guests see in this newest of social movements the key to tipping the scales of power away from extremism.

Wednesday: Mosque Madness:The proposal to build an Islamic Community Center that includes a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City has roused a hornet’s nest of controversy. Nine years after 9/11, what does it tell us about the state of American values, the purpose of a public monument, and the level of Islamaphobia?

Thursday: Healing From Trauma: Jim Finley grew up in a rough family in Akron, Ohio, and escaped into a Trappist monastery as soon as he could. Today he’s a clinical psychologist who uses principles derived from his monastery training to teach people how to heal from trauma.

Friday: TBA

Have a great weekend!

Jean

Aug 16-20 Programs

2010-08-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

Thursday, August 12, 2010

I have another presentation coming up this month. I will be offering a premium two-day workshop on Writing a Literary Memoir at Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 28-29. For more information, call 414-263-5001, or visit www.woodlandpattern.org. Deadline for sign-up is Friday, Aug. 20.

Jean's Pick of the Week: Having been a student of drama, I can’t resist a topic that leads with Greek tragedy. Theater of War allows us to confront the real psychic cost of warfare across nations and across time. A former West Point graduate I had a talk with recently told me that the only people who come back sane from the theater of war were psychopaths to begin with.

Monday: Roman Catholic Women Priests: The world was shocked when the Vatican recently equated the sin of pedophilia with the sin of women’s ordination. In spite of the ban, the ordination of Roman Catholic women priests goes on unabated. To talk about the issue, we’ll be joined by Maryknoll priest and activist, Roy Bourgeois, who has been excommunicated for his support of women’s ordination, and Reverend Alice Iaquinta, Regional Program Coordinator for Roman Catholic Women Priests in the U.S. who offers a structural critique of the Vatican’s rhetoric.

Tuesday: Why People Run: Born to Run is a book of wild narrative full of insane characters, extreme sports and one crazy idea: running barefoot is the answer to safe, pain-free and endurance. Christopher McDougall gathered information about Mexico’s Copper Canyon unknown tribe of the Tarahumara’s running style and put them in test. The result became a book that goes against all odds of multi-million dollar shoe making industry that promotes the jelly and soft cushion shoes.

Wednesday: Mullah Nasruddin: Islam’s Holy Fool:In his interfaith congregation in Seattle, Jamal Rahman, a Muslim Sufi minister and one of the Interfaith Amigos, usually opens his sermon by quoting his favorite Sufi visionary teacher: Mullah Nasurddin: “I am getting sick and tired of this lousy cheese sandwich,” complained Mullah repeatedly. “Mullah, tell your wife to make something different,” his co-workers advised. “But I am not married,” Mullah replied. “I am the one who is making these sandwiches.”

Thursday: The Adventures of Tintin:is one of Europe’s all time favorite comics. Not only did generations grow up with the reporter hero and his dog, Snowy (called Milou in French) but the comic has been translated into dozens of languages and adapted for television, film, radio and theater. We’re working on a program that will take us through the decades and around the world with this classic comic. My son Giancarlo loved his Tintin comics and I truly believe they were one of his major early influences on his international career.

Friday: Egyptian Comfort Food:

Nabil Seidah is a renowned biochemist, one of my husband’s closest friends, and a great Egyptian cook. He and his wife Anneke rolled out the red carpet for us when we visited them at their home in Montreal last winter where Nabil cooked complex earthy comfort food for us based on recipes, techniques, and ingredients he learned in his mother’s kitchen.

I’m off to Paint the Town Blue…Have a great weekend and stay in touch…

Jean

Aug 9-13 Programs

2010-08-05T15:42:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, August 12 from 6 to 9 p.m. I will attend "Paint the Town Blue," a major fundraising event for the Exchange Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse, being held in the atrium of the Boardman Law Firm, One South Pinckney Street, 4th Floor, overlooking the Capitol in downtown Madison. I will also be signing copies of my award-winning memoir, I Hear Voices, which will be available for sale at the event to benefit the Exchange Center.

Tickets: www.thexchangecenter.org
Contact: Sara at 608-729-1141 or sjohnson@thexchangecenter.org

I'll be facilitating an exciting interfaith retreat which will take place next weekend, Aug. 13-15, at the Christine Center in Willard, Wisconsin. If you've never been to the Christine Center, it's in Amish country north of Black River Falls, where bear and deer and hummingbirds abound. It's a very special place run by a group of enlightened Franciscan nuns who have dedicated their pristine center to global transformation. Tapping into Rich Mystical Traditions will be team-led by Father Thomas Ryan and Rabbi Sigal Brier (see Wednesday's show below) who will explore together the role of creativity in spiritual life, the Sabbath practice, the Body in Prayer, mystical rhythms, and more.

Monday: Theater of War: Sophocles, the ancient Greek general and playwright, depicted the timeless psychological wounds inflicted by war upon warriors in his plays. In the Theater of War project, actors and actresses read Sophocles's plays to active service members and their families in military sites to show them that they are not alone, across time, in dealing with mental pain when they come back from battlefields. Bryan Doerries and Phyllis Kaufman, director and producer of Theater of War, tell us about their experience with the project.

Tuesday: The Oath: Abu Jandal is a taxi driver in Yemen who used to be Osama Bin Laden's bodyguard. His brother-in-law, Salim Hamdan, a Guantanamo Bay detainee and the first man to face the controversial military tribunals, once worked as Bin Laden's driver. In The Oath, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Laura Poitras tells the cross-cut tale of these two men whose fateful meeting propelled them on divergent courses with Al-Qaeda. The film opened this week in Madison.

Wednesday: An Interfaith Mash-Up: This is another program in our ongoing series on Interfaith Dialogue: A rabbi who teaches spiritual practices based on the Kabbalah teams up with a Catholic priest who teaches mediation and yoga as spiritual practice.

Thursday: The Senate has just confirmed Elena Kagan as the newest Justice on the Supreme Court. During her confirmation hearings, one topic especially caught our attention—Kagen's support for the practice of looking abroad for legal inspiration. Recently, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seconded that opinion. We speak with legal scholars about the history and uses of turning to foreign law for good ideas.

Friday: Pickling and Preserving Summer's Bounty: Who better to lead us through the culinary spiritual exercises of mid-August when the garden is at its most robust than Wisconsin's own French chef, Monique Hooker.

Jean

August 2 - 6 Programs

2010-07-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

Producers' Note: Jean is still on her writers retreat this week so we have created a lineup of our five best shows from 2010. We are looking forward to being back in the studio August 9th!

Monday: Crazy Like Us: Ethan Watters is tracking mental illness around the globe, and he is finding that the world is going crazy—American style. As doctors and pharmaceuticals cross borders, illnesses as defined by Western medicine, like depression and anorexia, are popping up in places they never before occurred while local ways of understanding mental health issues—from melancholy to what we call schizophrenia—are being lost. We talk about cultural differences in understandings of the inner life, and why homogenization might not be a good thing.

Tuesday: Jamming with Whales: Remember David Rothenberg, the musician and philosopher who traveled all over the world studying the song patterns of birds to make his music? Well, he's at it again, this time with whales. His new book and album document his jam sessions with humpback whales around the world.

Wednesday: Poet Nick Lantzr: Nick Lantz is a poet like no other. In his book, The Lightning That Strikes the Neighbor’s House, which won the Felix Pollak Poetry Prize, he writes poems about the Challenger explosion, Bigfoot, a love letter written from inside a missile silo, and a plea for post 9/11 redemption.

Thursday: Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination With The Afterlife: What does belief in the afterlife tell us about what it means to be human? What is universal about our differing views of heaven? Join us with Lisa Miller, religion editor for Newsweek, when we wrestle with Heaven.

Friday: Corked: Kathryn Borel was like her father in every way but one: she just didn't get it when it came to wine. So she decided to take him on a drunken father-daughter road trip through the French countryside, where they finally connected, over wine.

Enjoy!

July 26 - 30 Programs

2010-07-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 22, 2010

I will be on a writer’s retreat for the next two weeks, so we’re taking the opportunity to showcase the best programs we’ve done this year. The first week we’re dedicating to our Inside Islam series; for the second week, we’ve chosen five of the shows we think most worthy of re-visiting. We hope you will enjoy these selections and let us know what you think of our choices.

Jean's Pick of the Week: Putting An End to Stoning: The sense of outrage and revulsion that most of us feel at news reports of stonings, like the one we reported coming out of Iran right now that threatens the life of a woman accused of adultery, is a kind of fuel, I think, that can galvanize the international community around this issue and help bring the practice to an end forever. Inshallah.

Monday: Aisha: Mohammed’s Youngest Wife: Kamran Pasha’s novel, Mother of the Believers: A Novel of the Birth of Islam, tells the story of the rise of Islam through the eyes of Aisha, the Prophet Muhammad's youngest and most favorite wife, one of the most influential women in Islamic history. As Mother of the Believers shows, Aisha is more than the controversy around her age; (she was still a child at the time of her betrothal). She was a teacher, political leader, a warrior, and, with her incredible memory, an invaluable source of information on all aspects of the Prophet Muhammad's life.

Tuesday: The Art of Qur’anic Recitation Among Muslims, Qur'anic recitation is a highly advanced art form intended to move, inspire, engage, and transport all those who listen. What is the purpose of Qur’anic recitation? How does it relate to life in the 21st century? What’s your personal experience of hearing the Qur'an recited? Anna Gade did a great job with this program.

Wednesday: Islamic Feminism: A Sister-Wide Global Movement : There are a lot of live wires and firebrands in the Islamic Feminist Movement and they’re determined to do things their way, as you will see from this wide-reaching exploration of what Islamic women really want and how they are going about getting it, using the teachings on gender equality in the Qur’an and the social innovations of The Prophet Mohammed to secure their rights and overcome misogyny.

Thursday: Why Mohammed Matters: Who was the Prophet Muhammed and how do Muslims remember him today: as a mystic, a revolutionary, or a military leader? This is my favorite program so far in this year’s series. Safi was very calm, and dispelled a lot of myths.

Food Friday: Ramadan: The Feast and the Fast: Since Ramadan begins on August 11 this year, which represents a particular hardship for American Muslims, we thought you might enjoy learning about how different the experience of Ramadan can be depending on where you happen to find yourself. Compare fasting here in America in the heat of long summer days to countries like Syria where everyone sleeps all day and feasts all night. , Ramadan there are special programs where Muslims work all day, and young athletes go into training Why is fasting common to almost all faiths? Why do Muslims the world over look forward with joy to a month of fasting? What are the special challenges that American Muslims face? And what are the Ramadan specials that Arab Muslims are watching on satellite TV?

July 19 - 23 Programs

2010-07-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

Before anything else, I want to put in a plug for the Day of Retreat I'm leading at Holy Wisdom Monastery in Middleton next Saturday. More than a dozen years ago I spent a formative summer at St. Ben’s, as it was called in those days, which I wrote about in my memoir in a chapter called "Get Thee to a Winery." I was at a critical juncture in my life – contemplating a possible third marriage to a Jewish atheist scientist as I reflected on the mistakes of the past. The answers I received during those weeks couldn’t have come from a truer or a more surprising source. The Benedictines hold hospitality in its widest meaning at the center of their spiritual life. My experience of that hospitality – being welcomed and received in all my brokenness – was not only deeply healing, but led directly to the work I do now as the "host" of the program you know as Here on Earth. I am looking forward to telling you "the rest of the story" next Saturday. To register or for more information, contact Jerrianne at (608) 836-1631, ext. 158 or jbland@benedictinewomen.org.

Jean's Pick of the Week: Again I surprise myself in choosing this week’s program Cars of the Future, about the Automotive X Prize since I know very little about cars, and happen to enjoy driving a 1998 Buick Le Sabre I call Delilah – hardly a car of the future. But having visited Chris Beebe’s garage and seen for myself a wizard at work, and hearing from the mavericks who called into the show with their own accounts of having converted or designed their own electric cars, I was inspired all over again by the spirit of ingenuity that is propelling us forward.

Monday: Pearl Buck in China: Pearl Buck was the first author to open American audiences to everyday life in rural China, and the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. Today, she is read but not admired in America, and admired but not read in China. We rediscover her fascinating bicultural life story with biographer Hilary Spurling, author of Pearl Buck in China: Journey to the Good Earth.

Tuesday: The Fate of an Iranian Woman Sentenced to Be Stoned: Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two who was convicted of adultery, was sentenced to 99 lashes for committing adultery by a court in May 2006. Four months later, another court sentenced her to death by stoning. Her fate remains uncertain. We'll talk with Norma Claire Moruzzi, director of International Studies at University of Illinois in Chicago, an expert on women's issues in Iran, and Cyrus Nowrasteh, director of The Stoning of Soraya M.

Wednesday: Turkey's Tomorrow: Things have mostly cooled down, but the recent attack on an aid flotilla carrying Turkish activists off the coast of Gaza has widened a painful rift in Turkish/Israeli relations. Turkish Jewish philosopher Seyla Benhabib has just returned from a trip to both countries and joins us to talk about what went wrong, what’s going on inside Turkey today, and what the future looks like for this secular Muslim nation that has linked Europe and the Middle East for centuries.

Thursday: Gay in Argentina: Argentina has just passed a law making gay marriage legal. Jean and her guest will discuss this gay rights breakthrough and what it means for the global movement.

Friday: Breaking Bread with Immigrants: (To Be Confirmed)Chef and teacher Lynne Anderson has gone into immigrant kitchens and discovered that, for those who have left much behind, food holds the power to recover a lost world.

I'm off to a concert with my husband.

Have a great weekend!

Jean

July 12 - 16 Programs

2010-07-09T12:07:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Jean’s Pick of the Week: World Cup 2010: Community-building and Soccer: Diego in Rome said it best in his Facebook message, “I would never believe that NPR would devote an entire program to the World Cup.” Actually, yesterday’s program was the second time we’ve talked about South Africa’s World Cup, and I am equally astonished to report that this was my Pick of the Week. It was so much fun gathering messages and perspectives from all over the world. It really felt like we had come another step closer to achieving The Dream of Radio’s Great Global Radio Conversation that we imagined when Here on Earth went on the air seven years ago. Thanks to all!

Monday: Dracula’s Guest: Vampires are all the rage these days with the recent Twilight blockbusters. But who knew about the grueling real life circumstances that made people believe in vampires in the first place? And what do vampires look like in Africa and Asia? We’ll talk with Michael Sims, editor of the anthology Dracula’s Guest: A Connoisseurs Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories.

Tuesday: Green cars, on your marks! Every ten years, the X Prize Foundation challenges teams of thinkers and doers around the world to make the impossible become real. Challenge 2010 is to build a car that goes 100 miles per hour and gets 100 miles per gallon. We’ll talk with Chris Beebe, a team leader based right here in Madison, WI, about the new ideas inspired by the competition and what he thinks it will take to revolutionize transportation for the 21st century.

Wednesday: The Party: While China’s economic successes are gaining a lot of attention in the Western media, the central role of the Chinese Communist Party often remains overlooked. How does the Party keep the balance between firm communist control and liberal economic expansion? We’ll get a glimpse into the world largest political organization with Richard McGregor, author of The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers.

Thursday: International Spookdom: With the recent outing of eleven Russian spies in the United States, we’ve all begun looking over our shoulders. But is the undercover agent really the model of espionage in the 21st century? We’ll talk with intelligence experts about the growing role of cyber, corporate and government espionage around the world, and about why we love to romanticize their world of secrets.

Friday: Mastering the Art of the Wok: Chinese-American chef and cookbook author Grace Young joins us with tips on the economical, simple, and ancient method of Chinese cooking — the stir-fry. She’ll explain what to use if you don’t have a wok and open flame, the basics of the traditional Chinese stir-fry, and the many Chinese fusion variations from South Africa, Jamaica, Libya, and beyond!

I’ll be in North Carolina at a family wedding this weekend. Y’all come back now, hear?

Jean

July 5 - 9 Programs

2010-07-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird: What’s more fun than a really great conversation about an All-American Book that is more popular in the UK than the Bible!

Monday: Paul Robeson: An American Master: We’ve chosen one of our favorite programs from the Here on Earth archives to celebrate our national holiday. Our program on Paul Robeson was originally broadcast on the Fourth of July, 2004.

Tuesday: Milestones for a Spiritual Jihad: Muslim women can stand side by side their male counterparts at Mecca, the holiest city in the Muslim world, to pray, but once they’re back home, they’re most likely to find themselves crowded into a small, dark room at the back of a mosque. Asra Nomani, former Wall Street Journal correspondent and a visiting scholar at Georgetown University thought she needed to take a stand against the unwritten rule of the mosque. We will talk with Nomani and her journey to her spiritual jihad.

Wednesday: The Political Power of Soccer: With the final matches of the 2010 World Cup coming up this weekend, all eyes are on soccer. We are working on a program on the political power of soccer in Africa and around the world.

Thursday: The Interfaith Amigos: Three clergymen from the three Abrahamic faiths used friendship to create a dialogue: Rabbi Ted Falcon, Sheikh Jamal Rahman and Pastor Don Mackenzie met every week for nine years after 9/11 in search of common ground. They sum up their collective discoveries in the book, Getting to the Heart of Interfaith: The Eye-Opening Hope-Filled Friendship of a Pastor, a Rabbi and a Sheikh.

Friday: A Garlic Geek: A whole program about garlic? How about a whole lifetime? Allium scientist Eric Block has spent his career studying garlic, onions and leeks, and their many cousins. He’s a garlic geek! He’ll walk us through the compounds in onions that make us cry, the different-flavored compounds found in garlic, and how their flavors change when you chop them up and cook them.

I’ll be celebrating this Fourth of July big time, with fireworks, cheesecake, and my son and his Turkish fiancée in the Twin Cities. Viva L’America!

Jean

June 28 - July 2 Programs

2010-06-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: I was sick as a dog on Monday, but I still feel privileged to have had the opportunity to talk with Bobby McFerrin. As I mentioned on the show, his rendition of Psalm 23 with a feminist/mother motif from his album Medicine Man was a life-changer for me. I never imagined I would actually be able to tell him that on the radio. But, come to think of it, isn’t that what live radio is all about?

Monday: Deep Blue Home: The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has redirected our attention to the tremendous fragility and richness of oceanic life. As dependent on oil as we might be, we are even more dependent on healthy oceans. We’ll explore our intimate ties to the ocean and discover working solutions to preventing oil spills and other human caused environmental disasters with Julia Whitty, filmmaker, journalist and author of Deep Blue Home, and Rick Steiner, formerly Marine Conservation Professor at the University of Alaska.

Tuesday: Pearls on the Ocean Floor: There’s more to Iran than uranium. In his first documentary, The Rising Tide, Mexican-American filmmaker Robert Adanto looked at young Chinese artists using video to capture the tumultuous changes sweeping through China. In his new film, he features some of the most influential Iranian women artists working in and outside of Iran.

Wednesday: To Kill a Mockingbird: Anticipating the Fourth of July next Sunday, We are working on a program based on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. Why has this novel, which is so firmly rooted in the American South, become so popular the world over? And what makes it particularly relevant to Europe right now?

Thursday: Iraq: What Now? June 30th marks the one-year anniversary of American troops pulling out of Iraqi cities, and the legacy of the war there can already be seen. We’ll talk with journalist Anthony Shadid about his Pulitzer-prize winning coverage of the pull out and the year since as Iraqis have gone about the messy business of shaping their nation’s future.

Friday: The Best Steak in the World: Slate Magazine’s columnist Mark Schatzker was serious when he said he would find the best steak in the world. On the way to a unifying theory of steak, Schatzker traveled to Texas, Scotland, Japan, and even raised his own cows for slaughter. That’s dedication!

My husband and I spent a glorious couple of days in Door County last weekend. We even got as far as Rock Island, which is much more developed than the way I remembered it when I first visited the island back in the eighties with Ron Mason, the archeologist who, together with his wife Carol, discovered a major prehistoric site there. Just off the path to the pristine white sand beach where La Salle first landed the ill-fated Griffin, you can still see part of the palisade which once protected the site for no less than three separate tribes – the Potawatami, the Wyandot, and the Ontario. We watched two families of wild swans sail into sight. And the wild roses still smell sweet.

We live in a beautiful state.

Jean

June 21 - 25 Programs

2010-06-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Jean’s Pick of the Week: The Rap Guide To Evolution: How can you not like a guy who starts off planting trees with his family in Vancouver, morphs into studying medieval English literature and ends up creating a rap version of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and from there, the ultimate Rap Guide to Evolution. Hurrah for Baba Brinkman, and thanks to my husband for encouraging more programs based on science!

I’m spending the weekend in Door County and Washington Island, leaving Food Friday in Lori Skelton’s capable hands, but I wouldn’t miss talking with Bobby McFerrin on Monday for the world. You come too!

Monday: Bobby McFerrin: To some, Ten-Time Grammy-winner Bobby McFerrin will always be the guy who sang “Don’t Worry Be Happy”. But Bobby McFerrin’s work just can’t be reduced to one song. Throughout his inspiring career, he’s been pushing the frontiers of vocal music and collaborating with artists from all kinds of backgrounds. He joins us to talk about his new album VOCAbuLarieS, his life’s work, and his gift of bringing the world together through music.

Tuesday: Middle Eastern Women Get Political: About 20 young women from 10 Middle Eastern countries are gathering this month in Madison to sharpen their political skills at the National Democratic Institute or NDI. Among them is a young woman from Egypt, the founder of a new political party for the advancement of women’s rights. We’ll meet Sally El Baz and find out what her Reform and Development Party is all about.

Wednesday: God is Not One: Are we so afraid of conflict that we’ve become unable to disagree? Religion Scholar Stephen Prothero thinks it’s time we accept the fact that the world’s eight largest religions are not all eight sides of the same coin; on the most basic questions, like “How many gods are there?”, they can be completely contradictory. Can we learn to appreciate our differences while sticking to our own beliefs?

Thursday: LGBT Rights Groups Around the World: June is Gay Pride Month and major cities across the United States are celebrating with parades and festivals next weekend. We’re working on a show that will showcase stories and successes of LGBT rights groups around the world.

Friday: Spoon Fed: New York Times food writer, Kim Severson, joins us to talk about her new confessional food memoir, Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life. In it she documents food goddesses—from Alice Waters to Marcella Hazan—who helped her gain the confidence to overcome alcoholism while taking her career from Alaska to New York City.

Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers! Here’s a tip: Never say to a daughter with acne, “Don’t worry, Jeannie, looks aren’t everything.” In spite of your good intentions, It might set her back by a few centuries.

Jean

June 14 - 18 Programs

2010-06-11T13:26:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 11, 2010

Monday: The Life of Language: With a language disappearing every two weeks and neologisms springing up almost daily, understanding the origins and currency of language has never seemed more relevant. From an infant’s first words to the peculiar dialect of text messaging, we’ll explore the intricacies and quirks of our daily words with one of the world’s preeminent language specialists, David Crystal, as a part of our World Language Series.

Tuesday: The Rap Guide To Evolution: After having put Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales into a Hip Hop album called The Rap Canterbury Tales, Baba Brinkman was approached by a microbiologist “to do for Darwin what he did for Chaucer”. Not one to be intimidated by a challenge, Baba Brinkman wrote The Rap Guide To Evolution, telling the story of evolution all while drawing insightful analogies to the way Hip Hop culture works.

Wednesday: The Emotional Side of Math: Alex Bellos wants us to understand the emotional side of math. He has traveled all over the globe to report from the secret world of numbers and has met with the tribe that counts up to five only, the man who sets the odds for half the world’s slot machines, and the two Ukrainian brothers who consider themselves one mathematician.

Thursday: The Council of Dads: We’ll look ahead to Father’s Day with bestselling author Bruce Feiler. After being diagnosed with cancer, Feiler reached out to men from important passages in his life and asked them to carry forth his legacy should his young twin daughters grow up without him. The experience was a “passport to intimacy” with his friends and the story calls us all to consider the many roles of father figures in our lives.

Friday: Soul Food: Juneteenth celebrations, coming up this weekend, commemorate June 19, 1865 when the Emancipation Proclamation was finally enforced in the state of Texas, two and a half years after Abe Lincoln made his famous decree. I’ll be out of town so Lori Skelton will step in to talk with professor and food writer Frederick Douglass Opie about the celebratory foods of Juneteenth, as well as the rich history of soul food in the United States and the many foods of the African Diaspora.

Lend us your ears!

Jean

June 7 - 11 Programs

2010-06-04T13:32:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Courage and Light: Parker Palmer and Jim Brandenburg talking about burn-out and renewal– the A team, or better, the Yeah team.

I’ll be at a conference organized by the Social Science Research Council which funds our Inside Islam: Dialogue and Debates multi-media series beginning on Wednesday of next week, so we’ve been digging into the Here on Earth archives for some goodies while I’m gone. Meanwhile: Monday, it’s summer reading, and Tuesday, we take a long look at The World Cup super-soccer event about to begin in South Africa.

Monday: Summer Reading Without Borders! Are you looking for a great read to sink your teeth into? Chad Post brings panache to the literature without borders he publishes. He’s eager to share his list of “must reads,” and we’re eager to hear yours as well.

Tuesday: World Cup 2010 - Global Soccer: The World Cup, which starts this weekend, is easily the planet’s biggest global event. If Americans aren’t crazy about soccer yet, the rest of the world certainly is! Why does a simple game have the power to mobilize such a huge part of the world population? We’ll talk with Steven and Harrison Stark, a soccer-fanatic father-and-son team, co-authors of World Cup 2010: The Indispensable Guide to Soccer and Geopolitics.

Wednesday: Finding Beauty in a Broken World: While I was tramping on forced marches through the deserts of Utah last week, Terry Tempest Williams was at large in all the bookstores we visited. The conversation we had about her latest book, Finding Beauty in a Broken World, now out in paperback, was one of my favorite programs of the year.

Thursday: Why Him? Why Her? In honor of June, the wedding month, do tune in for this encore presentation of one of our most popular 2009 programs: “Why Him? Why Her?” with research professor of anthropology Helen Fisher. She answers the question that continues to befuddle humankind: What makes us choose the mates we do?

Friday: Never Trust a Thin Cook: If you’ve been grounded by the vertigo-inducing airfares this summer, join us for the next best thing – a sojourn in Modena (think white truffles, balsamic vinegar, and parmigiano) with Minnesota-based writer, Eric Dregni, author of the delightful and light-hearted memoir, Never Trust a Thin Cook.

Lend us your ears!

Jean

May 31 - June 4 Programs

2010-05-28T10:03:00.000-07:00

Friday, May 28, 2010

Pick of the Week: It's Pig: King of the Southern Table! Lori talks about this week and shares why she chooses Friday's show as her favorite. Check out the video below.

Monday: Wandering Souls: Join us on Memorial Day for an encore broadcast of our memorable Veterans Day program, “Wandering Souls.” Writer and Vietnam War veteran Wayne Karlin publishes stories about Vietnam from vets on both sides. His recent book, Wandering Souls, tells the story of Homer Steedly, one veteran who returned to Vietnam to meet the family of a man he killed.

Tuesday: Female Nomad and Friends: In 1987, Rita Golden Gelman set out to live her dream. She sold all her possessions and became a nomad. She wrote a book about her ongoing journey and, in 2001, insisted on putting her personal e-mail address in the last chapter—against all advice. She presents some of the stories her readers sent to her in the anthology Female Nomad and Friends and joins us to talk about the golden rules of breaking free.

Wednesday: New York City: Endangered Language Sanctuary: We’ll talk with linguist Daniel Kaufman, co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance, about finding and preserving the many endangered languages represented in New York City. Some languages, he says, have more speakers living in New York City than in the area of the world they came from!

Thursday: Courage and Light: As a photographer for the National Geographic, Jim Brandenburg took hundreds of pictures every day – until he burnt out. In an effort to rediscover his passion for photography, he set out to take just one picture a day for 90 days. He joins us with Parker Palmer to talk about their Courage & Light Project, aimed at helping people to rediscover their passion and creativity at work.

Friday: Cakewalk: Growing up with capricious and perpetually embattled parents, Kate Moses found refuge in the kitchen, where she taught herself to bake and finally found the one realm where she felt she had control. She joins us to talk about her new memoir-with-recipes, Cakewalk.

May 24 - 28 Programs

2010-05-21T10:42:00.000-07:00

Friday, May 21, 2010

Jean’s Pick of the Week: China’s Green People Power: It was heartening in the midst of all the bad news coming out of China to discover that there’s a genuine grassroots environmental movement underway, with courageous leaders such as former journalist Mu Jian leading the charge, accruing lots of successes. Would that it were so here in the U.S.!
P.S.: Jean changed her mind after our Food Friday show and talks about 52 Loaves as her favourite for our Pick of the Week Video!

Monday: It’s an encore presentation of Einstein's God with Minnesota Public Radio’s Krista Tippett. Science and religion are often portrayed as being in conflict, but Tippett’s new book brings together the many scientists she’s interviewed who find spiritual enlightenment on their way to proving scientific truth.

Tuesday: Crying Over Spilt Milk: We'll discuss the fight to protect access to raw or fresh food in this country and beyond.

Wednesday: Pakistan’s Dilemma: With the recent attention to Fajsal Shahzad’s failed terrorist attack in New York City’s Time Square, Pakistan has become the cornerstone of the debate about the war on terrorism. We’ll talk to Hassan Abbas, Quaid-i-Azam Chair Professor at Columbia University and a former government official in Pakistan, and with Tariq Ali, journalist and author of three books about Pakistan’s history and political landscape.

Thursday: Bonobo Handshake: In 2005, Vanessa Woods accepted a marriage proposal from a man she barely knew and agreed to join him on a trip to war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo to study Bonobos, a human relative far less aggressive than our other cousin, the Chimpanzee. In working with Bonobos she learned a few lessons about life and love that all humans can take to heart.

Friday: Pig: King of the Southern Table: If pig is indeed king, then there is trouble at the castle. James Villas, author of 13 cookbooks and winner of two James Beard awards, has stormed the gates and had at him, leaving no sweetbread, shoulder, or chop untasted. We’ll talk with him about his new book: Pig: King of Southern Tables.

I’ll be tromping around the southwest next week, leaving Lori Skelton in the driver’s seat.

Happy Memorial Day a week early!

Jean

Here On Earth in Bayfield!

2010-05-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

Many of us trooped over to Wild Rice Restaurant in Bayfield after our live broadcast of Here on Earth last Friday, where I gave a reading and signed copies of my memoir, I Hear Voices. It was a spectacular setting at the end of a perfect spring day, looking out over Lake Superior and the Northwoods in bloom. Since I spotted so many people in the audience holding wine glasses, I decided to read an excerpt from the chapter in the book entitled “Get Thee to a Winery.” It wasn’t until later that I discovered that people in the back rows had a hard time hearing me. Al Chechik, who owns Artesian House, complained that the only words he heard were “purple bikini.” I left him a book with the inscription, “Going beyond purple bikini.”

May 17 - 21 Programs

2010-05-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

Friday, May 14, 2010

Jean's Pick of the Week: Why The Prophet Muhammad Matters. See our video below!

Monday: Haiti's Artisans: The Comité Artisanal Haitien has been supporting the artisans behind Haitian handicrafts since 1973. Today, the CAH is hoping to rebuild the workshops that were destroyed by the January earthquake and to offer new artisanal products, placing Haitian art at the center of Haiti's recovery. Gisèle Fleurant, CAH Director since 1980, joins us, as does Cheryl Musch, director of international development for SERRV, one of CAH's partner organizations.

Tuesday: Growing Chinese Environmentalism: China’s hunger for energy to power its runaway industrialization has dammed every major river in the country — almost. The Chinese Government has put a moratorium on damming the Nu, or Angry, River after an uproar from China’s burgeoning environmental movement. We’ll talk about what we can and can’t expect from a growing Chinese environmentalism.

Wednesday: Care of the Soul in Medicine: Few experiences throw a person into crisis as illness does, affecting not only the body but the spirit and soul. Yet the current health care system is not structured around these considerations. We'll talk to Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul in Medicine, about his vision for improving health care.

Thursday: Through African Eyes: For centuries, Westerners have created mostly negative images of the African continent and its inhabitants. But we rarely seem to be aware that during all that time, Africans have been looking back at us, producing their own depictions of Europeans. We'll talk to Nii Quarcoopome, curator of the Detroit Institute of Art's current exhibition, Through African Eyes: The European in African Art, 1500 to Present.

Friday: 52 Loaves: How far would you travel for the perfect load of bread? William Alexander tracked the aroma of freshly baked bread from Morocco and France to yeast factories and the New York State Fair, even going so far as to grow his own wheat, all on a quest for the perfect loaf.

We were live in Bayfield, WI today for our Food Friday show - it was a lot of fun!

Jean

The Hidden Lives of Vermont's Mexican Immigrants

2010-05-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

Being a third-generation immigrant from an Italian-American family, and raised with a strong ethnic identity, I find myself in sympathy with all new immigrants, but especially those Mexicans who risk their lives and shoulder their losses all because they’re desperate for work. And work is what America has always been about. The jobs the migrant workers do, as we have heard over and over again, are the jobs Americans shun – sixteen hour days mucking out the barns on dairy farms, or picking crops under a blazing sun. My grandfather arrived with a pick and a shovel and became one of the immigrant builders of the great city of New York. B. Amore’s grandfather helped excavate the foundations of Harvard University. They were prepared to make great personal sacrifices for the benefit of their children and future generations of new Americans. Why do we deny the same right and privilege to those who follow in their footsteps?

B. Amore in front of one or her pieces

May 10 - 14 Programs

2010-05-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

Friday, May 7, 2010

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Two Photographers: I loved exploring the fascinating, if not so obvious, connections between two photographers who are pushing the boundaries of portraiture: Alan Luft, the German American whose Berlin Portfolio reveals the otherwise overlooked lives of the city’s newest immigrants, and Paul Baker Prindle, whose series Mementi Mori, honors the lives of gay men by photographing the otherwise banal American landscapes where they were murdered.

Monday: The Hidden Lives of Vermont’s Mexican Immigrants: Italian-American artist B. Amore, whose involvement in immigration issues has been life-long, coaxed her Mexican neighbors to tell their hidden stories in the form of dioramas.

Tuesday: Muck Raking the Meat Industry: If you didn’t catch Michael Moss’s extensive report in the New York Times back in October detailing the systemic problem of E. coli contamination rampant within the beef processing industry, you won’t want to miss today’s show. His report just won a Pulitzer Prize and Michael Moss will join us to discuss the changes it has already brought about.

Wednesday: Why The Prophet Muhammad Matters: We’ve found the perfect guest to round out our Inside Islam series this semester: he is Omid Safi, a professor of Islamic Studies at UNC whose highly readable biography of Muhammad treats him in all his aspects, as a mystic, a political leader, and a cultural revolutionary, and explains why Muslims today look to the Prophet primarily as a hero and a nation builder.

Thursday: While I’m on the road to Bayfield, we’ve chosen to repeat one of our most popular shows: Crime Literature, Scandinavian Style. The film, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, based on the first part of Stieg Larsson's widely successful crime trilogy, is playing in U.S theaters now.

Friday: Bayfield in Bloom: Larry Meillor and I will be broadcasting live from the Bayfield Lakeside Pavilion. I’ll be talking with Bayfield notables: Jerry Phillips, proprietor of The Old Rittenhouse Inn, and Jim Webster, chef at the famed Wild Rice Restaurant, about the way they create exquisite regional cuisine.

I’ll be reading from my memoir, I Hear Voices, and signing books at Wild Rice starting at 5:00pm on Friday. Hope to see you there!

And all you moms - Happy Mother’s Day!

Jean

May 3 - 7 Programs

2010-04-30T12:30:00.000-07:00

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Jean’s Pick of the Week: We couldn’t have found two more perceptive, well-informed, or articulate guests to talk about the gritty topic of Securing the Bomb than Pulitzer Prize winner David Hoffman (The Dead Hand – check it out. If you’ve lived through the Cold War you’ll want to know what was really going on while we were watching Lassie) and Matthew Bunn (Securing the Bomb). It’s particularly wonderful when great guests know each other and respect each other’s work, as these two obviously did.

Monday: The Secret World of Doing Nothing: Waiting, daydreaming and doing nothing might seem like empty spaces in our busy daily lives, but they are actually full of meaning. We talk to Orvar Löfgren, co-author of The Secret World of Doing Nothing, and find out why taking a close look at doing nothing can be enlightening.

Tuesday: The Shanghai Expo: To many Americans, the World Fair is a spectacle gone the way of the dodo, but to the rest of the world — which knows them as “Expos” — they are still a regular and awe-inspiring event, and Expo 2010-Shanghai, opening this weekend, will be no exception. It’s set to become the largest, best-attended, and highest-tech Expo in world history.

One-Day Pledge Drive on Wednesday: John Nichols on International News: Nobody does it better than our own Here on Earth Correspondent John Nichols. John weighs in on the top international stories of the year to date.

Thursday: We’re working on a program about endangered languages that still survive in the great ethnic melting pot of New York City.

Friday: The Pasta Cure: If food is love and love heals, does that mean that food heals? After Paula Butturini’s husband John was struck by a single sniper bullet that almost killed him, the couple’s life was turned upside down. John plunged into deep depression. But the restorative powers of Italian meals, shared three times daily, brought the couple back to life.

Catch you later!

Jean

April 26 - 30 Programs

2010-04-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

Thursday, Earth Day, April 22, 2010

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Well, how can you not pick Heaven? I was expecting a more secular perspective from a Newsweek editor, but Lisa Miller seemed unapologetic about expressing her Jewish beliefs, even in an area as curious as bodily resurrection. As for my own skepticism about that particular item in the Apostles’ Creed, I’m sorry to have upset a number of you, but, after all, isn’t belief in the spirit of free inquiry part of what public radio stands for?

Monday: The Virgin of Guadalupe in New York: (Oh, God, not another program about religion – actually, this one’s about Mexican immigration ) Almost 500 years ago, the dark-skinned Virgin of Guadalupe is said to have appeared to an indigenous Mexican Indian. In today’s New York City, Mexican immigrants rely on her image to guide them through hardship and help mobilize their fight for their rights.

Tuesday: Being With Animals: Beginning with the cave paintings in France to the Elephant God, Ganesh, to the American Bald Eagle, animals have dominated our psyches thousands of years. But, why? What accounts for their enduring power?

Wednesday: Securing the Bomb: Was President Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit a success? We’ll talk with Harvard scientist and author of the annual report, Securing the Bomb, Matthew Bunn and journalist David E. Hoffman, who just won a Pulitzer for his book on the dangerous legacy of the Cold War about what was accomplished and what remains to be done in securing the world’s nuclear material.

Thursday: And Now: From Inside Islam - The Program You’ve All Been Waiting For: Jihad: We’ll talk about its several meanings, how it developed in the Qur’an, in Islamic law, and inside Al Quaeda with scholars who understand its use in both the West and the East (by both Napoleon and Ronald Reagan!), and how terrorists use it to justify operating outside the law.

Friday: A Cooking Tour of Japan: Are you sushi fan? Or do seaweed and tofu turn you off? Sarah Marx Feldner shares her story of how she fell in love with the cuisine while traveling through Japan.

I’m on my way to the Earth Dinner at the Wisconsin State Historical Society.

Happy Earth Day!

Jean

April 19 - 23 Programs

2010-04-16T09:47:00.000-07:00

Thursday, April 15 (!), 2010

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Nick Lantz: A Poet’s Way of Knowing and Not Knowing: Everybody seemed to really dig Nick’s poetry. To tell the truth, I had to wrestle with it at first. It's so different from the way I was taught to write with Donald Hall and the Imagist School back in the seventies! Then, too, his subject matter is so dark. I had to really work to find the light that shines through the cracks. But it’s there. And it’s luminous. We didn’t have time for him to complete his reading of “The Year We Blew Up the Whale – Florence, Oregon,” but he waited long enough after the show to allow us to take his picture for our website and record him reading the rest of the poem. Click here to watch the video.

Monday: To Uphold The World: Over 2000 years ago, Afghanistan was part of a peaceful, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural empire ruled by the Indian emperor Ashoka. Ashoka was the first political figure to think of leadership in global terms. Bruce Rich, author of To Uphold the World, argues that Ashoka’s political legacy can help us find the path towards a peaceful 21st century.

Tuesday: Local Identity in the World Market: The idea of an indigenous entrepreneur seemed like an oxymoron until not too long ago. But in South America, some indigenous communities have recently marketed their indigenous identity to be a part of the world market, with success. What are their options and possible limitations in participating in a global economy?

Wednesday: Heaven! Dante and Milton both attempted to describe Paradise, but now, with Newsweek’s religion editor Lisa Miller’s new book, Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination With The Afterlife, we have a journalist’s diverse perspectives on the way we imagine life after death.

Thursday: Earth Day: The Greenest Building in America: Three Benedictine Sisters have quietly built the greenest building in America on a tranquil prairie setting outside Madison, Wisconsin. The new chapel at Holy Wisdom Monastery was not only awarded a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum rating by the US Green Building Council but received 63 out of a possible 69 points – the highest LEED Platinum rating in the country to date.

Friday: Food and Identity: Why do Jews keep kosher and shun pork? What is the purpose of food taboos? Jordon Rosenblum has some interesting explanations.

I’m on my way to my annual retreat at Cedar Valley Center. We’ll talk again on Monday.

Jean

Madison Country Day School - Oxfam Hunger Banquet

2010-04-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

Friday, April 16th, 2010

I had a remarkable experience at the Madison Country Day School last January when I was invited to give a little talk at the Oxfam Hunger Banquet the school was hosting. If you haven’t yet experienced an Oxfam Hunger Banquet, I really recommend it. While one group was dining sumptuously by candlelight, I chose to sit on the floor under a tent, Bedouin style, with the group that was offered just a handful of rice served in a banana leaf with a cup of water. In spite of the meager provisions, there was a cozy feeling under that tent, and the rice was cooked to perfection and seemed to me quite delicious even though the whole point of the exercise was to experience solidarity with the millions of poor people on earth who live in extreme poverty. What impressed me most about the event was the quality of the students who presented themselves with real compassion and professionalism and who were also extraordinarily warm and welcoming. I was especially grateful to Sandra Fernandez who helped organize the event and sent me the invitation. What made the evening all the more poignant was the fact that news of the earthquake in Haiti had just broken and the uppermost in my mind was the fact that even before the quake had hit, many Haitian children were subsisting on mud cookies made with water from Port o’ Prince sewers.

2010-04-09T10:36:00.000-07:00

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Islamic Feminism on Inside Islam: Dialogues and Debates: For sheer exhilaration, inspiration, and a real intellectual work-out, this program about the growing Islamic feminist global movement really stands out in our ongoing Inside Islam series. And we even got a tweet from Malaysia!

Monday: Marrying Out: Where better to test the potentials of interfaith relations than a marriage? Join us with Professor of History and Religious Studies and director of the Lubar Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions, Charles Cohen, (he’s Jewish) along with his wife Christine Schindler, (she’s Christian) as they lead a conversation about the challenges and rewards of marrying out.

Tuesday: The Music of Vodou: In the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti, the government has been calling back its vodou priests from the Diaspora to assist in the nation’s healing. Erol Josue is one of them. An accomplished musician whose music reflects his immersion in Haitian religious practices and beliefs, he says music is as central to vodou as the Bible is to Christianity.

Wednesday: Nick and the Candlestick: Nick Lantz’s new collection of Poetry, We Don’t Know We Don’t Know, takes its title and inspiration in part from this and other cryptic Rumsfeldisms from Bush’s former Secretary of Defense, but just to show how eclectic he is, this amazing and puzzling new poet also borrows from Pliny the Elder and has written a scalding long poem about torture, “Will There Be More Than One Questioner?” which you may remember from our program about the Guantanamo cover-up. Come help me get inside this remarkable new poet’s head.

Thursday: The Desert of Forbidden Art: How does art survive in a time of oppression? During the Soviet rule, artists following their own vision were persecuted. But Igor Savitzky, a passionate young art collector, tricked the Soviet rulers into giving him money to salvage 40,000 works of forbidden art and to create a unique collection of Russian Avant Garde paintings in the desert of Uzbekistan. We talk with the filmmakers of the film Desert of Forbidden Art, featured at this month’s Wisconsin Film Festival.

Friday: What We Eat When We Eat Alone: We’re resurrecting this archived program from our collection of Food Friday favorites: What do you eat when no one is watching? Fried spam with grape jelly? Left-over spaghetti sandwiches? A glass of zabaglione? Cookbook author Deborah Madison has been collecting answers to that question and the results may make your jaw drop.

Think daffodils and help me bring back the spring!

Jean

April 5 - 9 Programs

2010-04-02T09:56:00.000-07:00

Thursday, April Fools’ Day!

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Jamming with Wales: There’s something so delightfully whimsical about the idea of chasing whales around the world, playing your clarinet and hoping that the whales will jam with you. But David Rothenberg is quite serious about his interspecies musicianship, first with birds and now with whales, and he’s broken through some amazing barriers with his experiments in making music with animals. I think of him as a first-class 21st century man.

Monday: The Wall: The story of the West Bank Barrier separating Israel from the Palestinian territories, which will be completed later this year, is a sad tale. And we wouldn’t be telling it if we hadn’t found a Here on Earth angle: French journalist René Backmann has been covering the conflict for 25 years and has written a book about the wall from both sides. He joins us with an Israeli couple whose organization, Yesh Din, helps carry Palestinian grievances through the Israeli justice system.

Tuesday: Mixing the Races: In his first memoir, John Phillip Santos traced his father’s Mexican mestizo family back into an indigenous world that flourished before the Spanish conquest. In his new memoir—or, you could say the other half of his first—he turns his gaze to the conquerors—his mother’s ancestors. How far back do you have to look on your family tree to find someone of another nationality, allegiance, or race?

Wednesday: A Different Way to Fight Extremism: “Do I like the legacy I’m leaving behind?” After asking herself that question, Julia Bolz, who was once practicing law in Seattle, is now devoting her life to fighting extremism by building schools in Afghanistan.

Thursday: Islamic Feminism: A Sister-wide Global Movement: Saudi Arabia’s recent plan to remove women from praying near the Ka'ba was scotched by a huge global outcry coming from Islamic feminists, even from inside Saudi Arabia, claiming gender discrimination that violates the Qur’anic principle of equality. What does Islamic feminism have to offer? Where does it come from and where is it going? Expect some surprising revelations and illuminations to come from this next program in our Inside Islam series.

Friday: Corked: Kathryn Borel was like her father in every way but one: she just didn’t get it when it came to wine. So she decided to take him on a drunken father-daughter road trip through the French countryside, where they finally connected – over wine.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a believing Christian or not, this is one weekend to celebrate all that rises!

Happy Easter!

Jean

March 29 - April 2 Programs

2010-03-26T09:35:00.000-07:00

Thursday, Mar. 25, 2010

Jean’s Pick of the Week: The best thing about hosting Here on Earth is the way it opens my mind and challenges my most carefully guarded stereotypes. Last Friday’s food show with Colman Andrew’s did that for me on the subject of Irish Country Cooking (even though they don’t know how to cook brussel sprouts!), and yesterday’s show on Nordic Noir with the completely delightful Nete Schmidt shattered some of my most deeply held beliefs about the morbidly morose Swedes who turn out to be a rather happy bunch after all! But the golden ring this week goes to sound artist Matthew Burtner whose wildly eclectic ecoacoustical music reminded me of just how astonishing it is to be here on earth!

Monday: The Ethical Traveler: On a par with oil, tourism has become one of the world’s biggest industries. But let’s face it, most of us would rather think of ourselves as “travelers” than “tourists.” Jeff Greenwald, founder of The Ethical Traveler, talks about the power of travel, his top destinations for 2010, and what it takes to travel with a conscience.

Tuesday: Jamming with Whales: Remember David Rothenberg, the musician/philosopher who traveled all over the world studying the song patterns of birds to make his music? Well, he’s at it again, this time with whales. His new book and album document his jam sessions with humpback whales around the world.

Wednesday: Leadership Lessons From Nelson Mandela: This is the book we’ve been waiting for: Mandela’s Way, by Richard Stengel, Nelson Mandela’s biographer and long time friend.

Thursday: Jesus the Man: The story of Jesus will be retold many times this week, but not the way filmmaker Paul Verhoeven (Robo Cop, Showgirls) tells it. The only non-theologian member of the Jesus Seminars, Paul Verhoeven, talks about his lifelong pursuit of the historical Jesus of Nazareth and how it has formed and reformed his faith.

Friday: Memories of a Croatian Easter: Stephanie Vuljanic-Lemke left her native Croatia while still a teenager in the aftermath of World War II when Easter meant big bonfires, nettle soup, and piscanica, the traditional Croatian art of embroidered Easter eggs.

I’ll be spending a few days in Montreal this weekend. Thanks to Veronica Rueckert and Lori Skelton for sitting in for me.

Jean

March 22 - 26 Programs

2010-03-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Celebrating International Poetry Day: It’s no secret that I love poetry. I don’t always love it in translation, however, so when the new Ecco Anthology of International Poetry arrived this week, I was completely thrilled to discover a real treasure trove of poets from all over the world translated by other poets. There’s something about the book I can’t quite put my finger on that makes it easy to peruse and quite inviting. Plus, there’s a marvelous introduction by the Russian poet Ilya Kaminsky (co-editor with Susan Harris) that makes the most convincing argument I have yet come across for poetry in translation. It really opened my mind.

Monday: New Interfaith Visions: The last time Jim Wallis appeared on Here on Earth, people at the supermarket were collaring me to tell me how much they enjoyed the program. Since Monday is a furlough day at the UW, we thought you might enjoy listening again to Jim as he talks about the search for common ground between Christians and Muslims and how to move beyond a polite ecumenical dialogue to make peace.

Tuesday: Engineers Without Borders: I bet you don’t think of engineers as people- people. I didn’t. It turns out that a whole generation of young engineers is re-thinking the way they go about helping people in the developing world by using community-based design.

Wednesday: Crime literature, Scandinavian style: The film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, based on the first part of Stieg Larsson’s widely successful crime trilogy, will be released this Friday, March 19th, in the US.Why is it that Scandinavia, with its notoriously low crime rates, has produced such an abundant and successful body of crime literature? Guest: Nete Schmidt, Senior Lecturer of Scandinavian Studies at UW-Madison.

Thursday: Sounds of melting ice and wandering sand: Matthew Burtner, visiting sound artist at UW-Green Bay this week, makes wildly evocative eclectic sound pieces out of the natural environment. This program should be a real treat for the senses.

Friday: A Food Friday Favorite: Lake Winnebago Caviar: "I spoon out some eggs to taste and am struck by how firm they are," Jean Feraca remembers her first taste of caviar. "When I gently bite them they explode with a delightful creaminess. I’m swept away into a daydream of seaside villages and Volga River fishing boats, but then I remember I haven’t left Wisconsin."

Now that it is spring
And raining,
Might we have a slightly different expression, O Owl?

I’ve been thinking about that little poem by Basho, translated by Robert Bly, all day. Now it’s yours.

Jean

March 15-19 Programs

2010-03-12T10:01:00.000-08:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: On Inside Islam: The Art of Qur’anic Recitation: Working with Anna M. Gade and Reem Hilal on this program made me understand how Muslims who memorize the Koran without knowing Arabic can still be getting the message. Perhaps we in the West over-emphasize cognition in our pedagogy. There are other ways of learning, as anyone who studies poetry can tell you. Being a multifaceted text that defies ordinary notions of what a book is supposed to be, the Qur’an lends itself to many different levels of understanding. Donald Hall, who taught me how to write poetry, used to talk about the difference between semantics – i.e. the dictionary meaning of a word – and somatics (soma meaning body) – i.e. meaning that is conveyed primarily through the sounds that words make. When you combine these two ways of understanding, and more as in Qur’anic recitation, it’s like combining body, mind, and soul.

Monday: Bringing Hope to Liberia: In the wake of a prolonged and particularly vicious civil war, Liberia is still a country without roads, banks, toilets, or even a postal system. So, given those circumstances, how did one former Peace Corps volunteer manage to return to the country and build a school there?

Iron Ladies of Liberia, a film about President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and the Liberia in the aftermath of its civil war, will be shown at Edgewood College in Madison, Wi, on March 23, call 233-0775 for more information.

Tuesday: The Fight for a Better Burma: Burma is home to the longest-running civil war in the world, which has been taking place between the ethnic group of the Karen and the Burmese state for over 60 years. Mac McClelland spent time with Karen refugees who risk their lives to make their story known. We talk with her about her new book, For Us Surrender Is Out Of Question.

Wednesday: Faith in Schools: The work of American missionaries in places like Eastern Africa is accompanied by promises for a better world but also surrounded by a lot of controversy. We talk with Amy Stambach, Professor of Educational Policy and Anthropology at UW-Madison, about the two-way exchange between missionaries and local people.

Thursday: International Poetry Day: In honor of the spring solstice, we celebrate poetry from around the world with Susan Harris of Words Without Borders.

Friday: Irish Country Cooking: If Irish food makes you think of boiled potatoes and cabbage, Colman Andrews’ new cookbook The Country Cooking of Ireland will change your view. A country rich in bakers, farmers, and cheesemakers, and with sea coasts teeming with fish and fields verdant with produce, Ireland has been a hotbed of farm-to-table dining for centuries. We’ll learn its culinary secrets as we explore its flavorful and earthy fare.

I’m on my way to St. Croix Falls to participate in their Big Read festival honoring Thornton Wilder. I may catch a film at the Arab Film Festival while enroute through the Twin Cities to see my son.

Enjoy the snowdrops while they last!

Jean

March 8 - 12 Programs

2010-03-05T11:35:00.000-08:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Our Food Friday program on hunger in America garnered so many donations from you, our listeners, so much so that I'm thinking about volunteering! How 'bout you?

Monday: International Adoption: How does the witness of adult adoptees give us a broader understanding of what it means to adopt and be adopted across borders?

Tuesday: Global Shifts in Liberal Arts Education: Today’s global economy is exerting its power on higher education around the world. As technical skills gain in value, broad liberal arts education is losing its popularity. But in two of the world’s economic powerhouses, the United States and China, there are still those who argue for the enduring value of the liberal arts in creating creative, critical thinkers and citizens. We’ll discuss global shifts in higher education and why it matters.

Wednesday: Tea on the Axis of Evil: A film about daily life in Syria featured in next weekend’s Arab Film Festival in the Twin Cities.

Thursday: Inside Islam: Art of Qur’anic Recitation: Among Muslims, Qur’anic recitation is a highly advanced art form intended to move, inspire, engage, and transport all those who listen. What is the purpose of Qur’anic recitation? How does it relate to life in the 21st century? What’s your personal experience of hearing the Qur’an recited?

Friday: Medicinal Foods: We have a lot to learn from how other cultures approach health and medicine. The authors of Ancient Wisdom, Modern Kitchen: Recipes from the East for Health, Healing, and Long Life, offer dishes as tasty as they are therapeutic: Five Color Stir Fry with Scallops and Ginkgo, Soba Noodles with Miso-Sesame Sauce, and Soothing Shrimp with Asparagus and Gogi Berries.

Spring is on the way!

Jean

March 1-5 Programs

2010-02-26T13:37:00.000-08:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Crazy Like Us: Not only did Ethan Watters critique of our mental health industry and its exports provoke an interesting on-air discussion, it also stimulated our very first simultaneous live Facebook chat –- how cool is that?

Our February membership Drive will be in full swing by Monday, March 1, and since Here on Earth has been granted a selective reprieve from active pitching, we hope that our programming line-up for the week ahead will serve both to satisfy and soothe. (Look for The Return of the Craft Series.) Have mercy on the loyal WPR listener, we heard you say.

Monday: Charles Dickens: This new biography by Michael Slater, Emeritus Professor of Victorian Literature at the University of London, has been named a Best Book of 2009. Although there are not many mysteries about Dickens’ life, you may not really know him until you hit Hard Times.

Tuesday: Solastalgia? Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht has coined a new term - solastalgia – for the feeling of loss we experience when the environment we live in undergoes drastic change. We’ll talk with him and with ecological artist Aviva Rahmani about what it takes to keep our environment healthy.

Wednesday: Negotiating with the Taliban? What about the War? At a recent conference in London, broad international support was expressed for the reintegration of Taliban fighters into Afghan society and President Karzai has already opened the door to those who would lay down their weapons. Is it time to negotiate with the Taliban? We’ll talk to two experts about the non-military solution in Afghanistan.

Thursday: Craft Series returns: The handmade garments from Alabama Chanin are “grown-to sewn” in the U.S.A, but if you ask Natalie Chanin what her company is all about, she’ll say it’s about something bigger than sustainable fashion. That’s why she holds workshops, collects histories, and why her new book contains a recipe for deviled eggs.

Food Friday: Hunger in Wisconsin: You’ll be surprised to learn about how it’s escalating, and how easy it is to help. We’ll talk with the CEO of Second Harvest and Helen Hazelmare of the Goodman Center.

It’s nearly March. In Italy, the Italians call it Matzo Marzo –- Crazy March. Thanks for helping me get through a rather beautiful winter. It only took me 26 years to appreciate it!

Jean

Feb 22-26 Programs

2010-02-20T13:53:00.000-08:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Bread of Angels, hands down. I so delighted in Stephanie Saldana’s memoir about the year she spent in Damascus, learning Arabic, exploring her ancient Christian roots and diving into the Qur’an, that I called her up and told her Bread of Angels is a book I’d like to sleep with. On top of all that, it’s the most delicate love story I think I’ve ever come across. It explained so much about the greater jihad, the Muslim Jesus, and Maryam, the Muslim Virgin Mary, that this could easily have been an official part of our Inside Islam series.

Monday: A Road Trip Through China: Peter Hessler, in his new book, Country Driving, views China through the windshield, showing us how the automobile is at the constantly moving boundary of modernization in China, from farm to factory.

Tuesday: The Future of Journalism: Media critics John Nichols and Bob McChesney are at it again. In their latest critique, they’re saying traditional journalism is in trouble and needs to reinvent itself in order to survive.

Wednesday: Crazy Like Us: Ethan Watters is tracking mental illness around the globe, and he’s finding that the world is going crazy—American style. As doctors and pharmaceuticals cross borders, illnesses as defined by Western medicine, like depression and anorexia, are popping up in places they never before occurred while local ways of understanding mental health issues—from melancholy to what we call schizophrenia—are being lost. We’ll talk about cultural differences in understandings of the inner life, and why homogenization might not be a good thing.

Thursday: The Routes of Man: Roads bind our world both metaphorically and literally and transform landscapes and the lives of the people who inhabit them. Ted Conover, author of the book The Routes of Man, explores six of these key byways worldwide. From highway checkpoints in the West Bank to congestion and chaos on Nigerian freeways to a road that will forever change the lives of the inhabitants of the Indian Himalayas, he tells us harrowing stories of the impact that roads have on our world and our lives.

Friday: Lucid Food: How do you integrate food politics into a daily cooking practice that is convenient, affordable, and delicious? Sustainable chef and caterer Louisa Shafia will show us how to make simple, earth-friendly choices in the kitchen, and share recipes from her new cookbook, Lucid Food: Cooking for an Eco-Conscious Life.

Despair not! Spring is in the air! Have a lovely weekend,

Jean

Feb 15-19 Programs

2010-02-14T12:50:00.000-08:00

Jean's Pick of the Week: Valentine’s Day in Ghana: for sheer novelty and the surprise of discovering that when it comes to love and dating, Ghananians and Americans are amazingly alike.

Monday: The Bread of Angels: When I heard about this book, I jumped all over it. In 2004, twenty-seven-year-old Stephanie Saldaña moved from Harvard Divinity School to Damascus, Syria, to study the role of the Prophet Jesus in Islam. At a time when the Iraq war towers over the presence of this young American woman in the Middle East and Syria faces serious political turmoil, she lived among war refugees, Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and gradually worked her way to a deeper understanding of herself, her faith, and the possibility of true love. (P.S. She lived for a time in a monastery thinking she might become a nun, but ran away with a monk instead!)

Tuesday: Avatar vs. Confucius in China: The Chinese government’s efforts to censor the sci-fi film Avatar and replace it with a movie about the life of Confucius seems to have backfired. Scholar of Chinese philosophy and politics, George T. Crane joins us to explain why.

Wednesday: The March issue of Harper’s Magazine, out this week, includes contributing editor Scott Horton’s devastating exposé on the deaths of three Guantánamo detainees. His report challenges the widely accepted official account that the men committed suicide, reveals a secret black site at Guantánamo, and finds evidence for a massive three and a half year cover-up of possible prisoner homicides. Scott Horton joins us as does Pardiss Kebriaei, a lawyer for two of the deceased men.

Thursday: We return to our Inside Islam series with a provocative look at Islam and Science, Past and Present. Did you know that the Islamic empire was once at the forefront of scientific development? So, what caused the decline in modern times, and what have we overlooked?

Friday: Noodle Wars. Tagliatelle, ramen, semolina, and soba -- noodles are central to both Italian and Japanese cuisines. Chefs Francesco Mangano and Justin Carlisle are gearing up for two “Noodle War” dinners at Madison’s Osteria Papavero and Restaurant Muramoto.

Dare I say it? – Happy Valentine’s Day!

Jean

Feb 8 - 12 Programs

2010-02-07T10:13:00.000-08:00

Jean's Pick of the Week: My heart tells me "Whales," but my head says, "Equity vs. Equality." I have had a soft spot for the movie Moby Dick ever since my brother took me to see it when I was a kid and my parents asked him to babysit for me one night. Philip Hoare apparently has the same soft spot. His account of going nose to nose with a sperm whale was heart-stopping. I loved the show, but I learned more from our two epidemiologists who managed to persuade me that the more equitable the society, the happier and healthier the people therein. Hosting Here on Earth has taught me a great deal about the world.

Monday: Einstein's God: Science and religion are often portrayed as being in conflict. But, according to Krista Tippett who hosts the Peabody award-winning program Speaking of Faith heard on Minnesota Public Radio, scientists often find spiritual enlightenment on their way to proving scientific truth. Tippett has a new book, Einstein’s God, based on her interviews with scientists.

Tuesday: Perfection: We are hardwired to desire perfection, says communication scholar Michael Hyde, but, whether it's war or anorexia, it's a desire that can kill us. From the idea of God to the film As Good As It Gets, Professor Hyde constructs a history of human perfection and explains why this most basic of human virtues both threatens and motivates everything good about the human project.

Wednesday: Mandela's Free! – 20 years later: Twenty years ago, Nelson Mandela was released from prison after having been incarcerated for 27 years. What gave South Africans the strength to keep up the struggle against apartheid during his incarceration? And what can South Africa do to keep Mandela's legacy alive in the future? Our old friend Harold Scheub joins us for this special occasion along with Invictus writer John Carlin.

Thursday: Valentine's Day in Ghana: In the last few years Ghanaians have started to ask some fundamental questions about love and dating. Is it ok to move in with someone before you get married? How do you share a household? Can you expect men to wash their wives' underwear? Scholar Jo Ellen Fair joins us to explain how Valentine's Day is changing everything about love in Ghana.

Friday: The Hmong Cookbook: Anne Bramley included a recipe for Hmong slaw in her Eat Feed Autumn Winter Cookbook. Now we've got a whole cookbook full of Hmong recipes to choose from –- and it's about time. Since the 1970s, more than 130,000 Hmong have settled in the United States, many of them in Wisconsin. Many Hmong have continued their agrarian traditions in the U.S. by growing urban gardens filled with traditional plants. A new cookbook featuring specialty dishes from Hmong cooks in the Chippewa Valley has recently been released. The authors will share their knowledge of Hmong culture and cuisine.

Happy cooking, happy eating, happy listening!

Jean

Feb 1 - 5 Programs

2010-01-29T14:00:00.000-08:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: For sheer breadth of thought and intellectual challenge, my choice is Jeremy Rifkin’s The Empathic Civilization.

Monday: Punk Astronomy: Punk astronomer Doug Reilly thinks that you are not spending enough time looking up. He explains why looking up at the awe-inspiring night sky is punk and why it might be the best way for us humans to expand our horizon of possibilities, and our consciousness.

Tuesday: Equality vs. Inequality: British husband and wife Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett join forces to show that one common factor links the healthiest and happiest societies: not wealth, not resources, not culture, but the degree of equality among their members. So, by that measure, how does America stack up? They are co-authors of the new book, The Spirit Level.

Wednesday: In The Whale: Winner of the 2009 BBC Prize for Nonfiction, Philip Hoare investigates the dark, shadowy beasts who swim below the depths only to surface in a spray of spume to find out what it is about them that exerts such a powerful grip on our collective imagination?

Thursday: Committed to the World Project: Get Engaged!: Christina Ammon inherited a diamond ring worth $22,000 from her grandmother. She did some quick calculations: $22,000 could restore sight to 660 people in Bangladesh; send 133 Nepalese children to school, protect 220 acres of rainforest, or provide 220 micro-beans to women in the Congo. Her question: do I want a diamond ring, or a better world?

Friday: Teaching Kids to Cook: Reformed picky eater Jill Colella Bloomfield believes that teaching kids to cook is the way to avoid the pitfalls of picky eating. She’ll share her strategies for helping kids discover there’s more to life than peanut and butter and jelly.

Have a great weekend.

Jean

Jan 25 - 29 Programs

2010-01-22T15:39:00.000-08:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: From Witnessing to Solidarity: We wracked our brains trying to come up with a Here on Earth angle for the crisis in Haiti, and thanks to our brilliant Here on Earth producer Carly Yuenger, I think we did it. Not just dead bodies and babies being born in the street and families with nothing more than a sheet over their heads, but some real solid information from experts in the new field of “Witnessing” to show us how to move from empathy to understanding and solidarity. We’ll continue this theme on Monday with a program about Haiti’s political history and legacy of vodou.

Monday: The Way We See Haiti: After the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Vodou has once again become a part of the public discussion about Haiti. Pat Robertsons remarks are only one of many examples of how the Euro-American perception of Vodou influences the public opinion about Haiti and its people. We’ll talk to Gina Athena Ulysse, Haitian-born anthropologist at Wesleyan University, and to Kate Ramsey, historian of Haiti at the University of Miami, about the complicated relationship between Haiti’s history, vodou and the West.

Tuesday: Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters? The prosecution of Alfred Dreyfus in nineteenth-century France, known as the Dreyfus Affair, exposed misconduct at the highest levels of the French Army and left France painfully divided and disgraced abroad. Author, lawyer, and Holocaust survivor, Louis Begley, transforms this history into a lessons and warnings for the United States as it heals itself from the misdeeds of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

Wednesday: The Empathic Civilization. In this century, the human species will need to solve some very big problems, but does our changing world demand humans change, too? Bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin joins us to talk about his new book, The Empathic Civilization, which argues that beyond technological innovation, we need to change our consciousness and transform our idea of human nature itself.

Thursday: We're still working on it.

Friday: Winter Cooking. After the frenzy of holiday cooking, baking, and feasting, and with no major holidays until Easter, it often seems that winter cooking is an afterthought. Anne Bramley, a self-proclaimed lover of winter, disagrees. She'll show us that winter is full of inspiration in the kitchen, and that the holidays are not the only reason to look forward to a long cold snap.

Have a great weekend,

Jean

Jan 18 - 22 Programs

2010-01-15T15:18:00.000-08:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: While I’m writing this on Thursday, anticipating a delightful program on monastery cooking when Madeline Scherb joins us for A Taste of Heaven on tomorrow’s All About Food, I have to say it would be hard to beat the inspiration of Wednesday’s show with Dacher Keltner on The Compassionate Instinct, or the mental stimulation of today’s program with virtual reality guru Jared Lanier. Suffice it to say, it’s been a good week.

Monday: Dickens in Hard Times: Although there aren’t many mysteries about the life of Charles Dickens, you don’t really know Dickens until you hit hard times.

Tuesday: Ink yourself!: Almost one in four Americans has a tattoo today. Gone are the days when only bikers, sailors and self-declared rebels displayed their tattooed arms; today, even academics are getting into the act by tattooing their favorite formula or graph on their bodies. We’ll explore the history of this phenomenon and the reasons for this increased popularity with UW-Madison Professor of Anthropology, Neil Whitehead.

Wednesday: Dark Green Religion: Religious conservatives often reject evolution, religious liberals incorporate it, and secularists embrace it. But there is a little-recognized, rapidly growing fourth reaction to the Darwinian revolution. It is emerging from those engaged in what we might call nature spirituality, or nature religion.

Thursday: Committed to the World: Christina Ammon joins us from Nepal to explain why she’s auctioning off a three carat diamond ring she inherited from her grandmother to fund social causes around the world.

Friday: The Wonder in Wonder Bread: One in seven people in the world doesn't have enough to eat. What's the key to eliminating world hunger? According to Louise Fresco, the answer may lie in mass-produced white bread.

That’s all folks!

Jean

Jan 11-15 Programs

2010-01-10T08:32:00.000-08:00

Pick of the Week: Lori's pick is Life Behind the Iron Curtain. Here's why.

Jean is coming back on air on Monday. Here's what we producers have prepared for her.

Monday: Life at Dawn. Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light? In Diane Ackerman's latest book, Dawn Light, she asks, Do you see? Do you hear? Do you smell and taste and touch everything the light reveals? What better way to get a fresh start on the new year.

Tuesday: A Journey To Iran's Musical Past. For a talented group of Iranian poets and composers enjoying fame, the Iranian revolution of 1979 extinguished hopes, dreams and careers. After first encountering their silenced music in 2003, singer Monika Jalili turned her career and life around to bring it back to life.

Wednesday: Born to Be Good. Led by Dacher Keltner, the Greater Good Science Center is at the forefront of the positive psychology movement. We hear stories and research from Greater Good magazine and about Keltner's research on the evolution of positive emotions.

Thursday: You Are Not A Gadget. We talk with Jaron Lanier, father of virtual reality, about his new manifesto, You Are Not A Gadget, and why we should not put our technology on a pedestal above our selves.

Friday: A Taste Of Heaven. Ever wondered what food is served in heaven? While we might not find a question to that answer, Madeline Scherb's book, A Taste of Heaven, can give us hints by introducing us to the food prepared and eaten by nuns and monks in monasteries and convents around the world.

Thanks for listening,

Here on Earth team

Jan 4 - 8 Programs

2010-01-02T17:20:00.000-08:00

Going…going…gone! That goes for 2009 and also for me. I’ll be on vacation the first week of January, leaving that wild redhead, Lori Skelton, filling in for me.

Monday: Elephants on the Edge: G. A. Bradshaw marshals research from neuroscience, psychology, and animal behavior to argue that the mind of the elephant is remarkably similar to our own. The shock of violent death,the grief of losing an infant, and the loss of freedom affect them in much the same way as people.

Tuesday: Dartmouth Students Help Build a School That Booms in Dar es Salaam: Two decades ago, Fatuma Gwao, a single Tanzanian mother of four, started a day care for orphaned children in her own living room. Today, with the help of an American woman and students from Dartmouth College, she runs a school that offers education, health services and opportunities to children who would otherwise have no one to turn to.

Wednesday: The Lost Art of Letter Writing: In his new book, Yours Ever, Thomas Mallon explores this endangered literary genre with letters from Florence Nightingale, Henry Miller and the Duchess of Windsor.

Thursday: Life Behind the Iron Curtain: Then and Now: Kapka Kassabova escaped from Communist Bulgaria as a 17 year old. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, she returned to the country of her childhood and was forced to face the emotional consequences of growing up in Bulgaria’s repressive regime. Her book, A Street Without A Name, tells the story of her return to Bulgaria.

Friday: TBA

Happy New Year, Everybody!

Jean

Dec 28 - Jan 1 Programs

2009-12-27T12:10:00.000-08:00

This is a short week for Here on Earth staff, with holidays on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Jean's Pick of the (Short) Week: How Shamans Heal: I’ve always been fascinated by this stuff ever since my trip to the Amazon (I wrote about it in my memoir, I Hear Voices) and had a good chance to sink into Hope Edelman’s harrowing tale of how she rid her daughter of a nasty ‘imaginary friend’ by allowing her to be treated by local healers in Belize. Sure beats Prozac. The story gained credibility through Edelman’s skepticism, but the program was really enhyanced by the participation of the very shaman who worked the magic – Rosita Arvigo, a Chicago-born healer whom I happened to meet at that gathering of healers I attended in the rainforest.

Monday: Global economic recession, climate change, the war in Afghanistan—it’s easy to name the stories that defined 2009. But what about the people behind the news? We sit down with the Managing Editor of Foreign Policy to talk about their special end of the year issue: The 100 Top Global Thinkers of 2009.

Tuesday: Inside Islam Open Line: Inside Islam, our interactive series on Muslim issues and ideas recently received a Brass Crescent Award. But we want to know what you think about it. Are we hitting the mark? Are your questions and concerns about Islam being addressed in this series? Join us for a mid-year open line with Inside Islam producer, Reem Hilal and series advisor, Uli Schamologlu.

Wednesday: John Nichols Looks Back at the Big International Stories of 2009: 2009 brought the first African-American to the White House, gave us a world-wide financial crisis, scaled down the war in Iraq, scaled up the war in Afghanistan, finally passed a health care bill and got serious about climate change.

Thursday: Global Word Play: How many ways are there to say "believe me" in the world? In English, we say "I'm not pulling your leg." In Russian, the phrase is "I'm not hanging noodles from your ear." Author Jag Bhalla collects this and other amusing, often hilarious phrases that provide a unique perspective on how different cultures perceive and describe the world.

Friday: The Woman Who Ruled a Champagne Empire: In the wake of the French Revolution, Madame Clicquot became a widow and single mother at age 27. But widowhood also gave her social permission to run her own business. And she started building a champagne empire and a legacy.

Jean

Dec 21-25 Programs

2009-12-20T08:57:00.000-08:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Olly and Susy, hands down. How can you beat two wildlife artists who work as one, paint-praising the tigers who are about to eat them?

Monday: 2009 Parliament of World Religions: On December 3rd, thousands of religious and spiritual leaders and practitioners convened in Melbourne for the 7th gathering of the Parliament of the World’s Religions. We’ll talk to two attendees—one Pagan, the other Muslim—about the visions of Justice, Peace, and sustainability that the Parliament hopes to bring about.

Tuesday: Berlusconi Must Go: An angry Italian threw a statuette at Italy’s Prime Minister this week, breaking his nose and several teeth at the same time that protestors have been calling for his resignation. We’ll take a look behind the headlines and find out why he’s the man Italians either love or loathe.

Wednesday: How Shamans Heal: A long time ago, I traveled to the Amazon for a conference called “Pharmacy From the Rainforest” where I met many native healers including the very remarkable Rosita Arvigo, who had just convened a historic gathering of women healers in Belize. Come to find out, she’s the very same healer that journalist Hope Edelman consulted to cure her daughter of an imaginary friend. turned mean.

Thursday: Christmas in Auschwitz: The great Italian humanist, Primo Levi, much to his surprise, received a package of goodies for Christmas while he was in Auschwitz.

Friday: Christmas Food Rituals: On Dec. 24, la vigilia di Natale, Guissepe Scarlata's family will sit down in their home in Trapani to a seven course fish feast: marinated octopus and squid salad, smoked swordfish and thin slices of cured tuna. And that's just for starters. Join us for Christmas food rituals in Sicily.

I’m on my way to Santa Catalina, the island of romance, romance, yadda dah dah dah dah…..

Lori Skelton will be keeping my chair warm until I return on Tuesday.

Jean

Dec 14-18 Programs

2009-12-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: What’s more fun than talking about lutefisk and baccala? I loved Toni Lydecker’s Christmas Eve Seven Fish Feast From Sicily – it’s even fun to say, and I especially enjoyed horrifying Joe Hardtke, our technical producer, who sent me this message during the show: “Octopus for Christmas? That’s just wrong.”

Monday: Hunting as a Rite of Passage: Does hunting encourage violence or can it teach empathy and compassion? Randall Eaton is a behavioral scientist with an international reputation in wildlife conservation who teaches boys how to hunt in the Native American way. He is the author of From Boys to Men of Heart.

Tuesday: War and Peace: Obama’s Nobel Prize Speech: You might say that President Obama’s pro-war Speech that he gave in Oslo on Thursday was something of a brain-twister. We’re hunting down a rhetorician who can untwist it for us.

Wednesday: American Idol Goes Global: Would it surprise you to learn that there are singing contests in Afghanistan and poetry contests in the United Arab Emirates that look a lot like American Idol? We’ll speak with cultural diplomacy scholar Cynthia Schneider about the universal appeal of talent competitions and how they differ from culture to culture.

Thursday: Painting with Animals: Olly & Suzi, are London-based artist-explorers who have portrayed wild dogs and lions in Tanzania, killer whales in Norway, polar bears and Arctic foxes in Siberia, and many others. The artists collaborate with one another and induce wild creatures to interact with their canvases. Bites, footprints, rips, and slithers are "proof of where they are now,” they say, “but might not be for much longer."

Friday: Let’s call this our annual Christmas Cookie Show. Lori Skelton hosts. I’ll be celebrating my birthday in the Anza Borego desert.

Have a lovely winter wonderland weekend,

Jean

Dec 7-11 Programs

2009-12-04T14:47:00.000-08:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: As much as I enjoyed having Nicholas Kristof on Here on Earth – I’ve followed his column in the New York Times for years and have always been impressed with his activist journalism especially in the area of women’s rights – it was really the extraordinary Tererei Trent, who really stole the show. Had it not been for the intercession of Heifer International, Tererei would be an illiterate cowherd in Zimbabwe. She grew up doing her brother’s homework to teach herself how to read and write because as a girl she wasn’t allowed to go to school. Now she holds a Ph.D. from Western Michigan University, setting a great model for her five children. My favorite moment was when she talked about achieving reconciliation with her abusive husband nursing him through the final stages of AIDS.

Lots of themes of myth and ritual coming up in next week’s programming: -- must be something in the air!

Monday: Invictus: Shortly after becoming the president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela found an unusual cause to unite the country after the apartheid -- rugby. How did he turn a white supremacist team into a world champion and symbol of unity? Learn about the true story behind the new film, Invictus, released next weekend in Wisconsin.

Tuesday: Learning Arabic: We’re celebrating World Languages Day a little late this year, talking with the authors of the most popular Arabic textbook in the world, the husband and wife team, Kristen Brustad and Mahmoud Al-Batal. It turns out more people are studying Arabic these days and finding out it’s not so difficult after all.

Wednesday: Hunting as a Rite of Passage: Does hunting encourage violence or can it teach empathy and compassion? Randall Eaton is a behavioral scientist with an international reputation in wildlife conservation who teaches boys how to hunt in the Native American way. He’s the author of From Boys to Men of Heart.

Thursday: The Power of Ritual: What’s the difference between saying, “I’m going to get a cup of coffee,” and saying, “I’m going to get my cup of coffee.” Dr. Bradd Shore wants to debunk the idea that rituals are only powerful in the exotic sphere of The Other. He says, for Americas, the most meaningful rituals may very well be the hidden ones we most easily overlook.

Friday: Christmas Eve Food Rituals: The Sicilians have an amazing Christmas Eve ritual that involves making thirteen different kinds of fish. I once attended one such celebration and ended up with shrimp scampi poured over my head which I took as a blessing. We’ll talk with Toni Lydecker, the author of the all new Seafood Alla Siciliana and find how much he knows about it.

Have a lovely weekend!

Jean

Nov 30 - Dec 4 Programs

2009-11-29T11:40:00.000-08:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Well, we probably OD’ed on Glen Beck and his pals, but I found last Monday’s program about Fort Hood to be quite stimulating. It made me think hard about political correctness and how it disallows honest questions and, therefore, the possibility of arriving at any real understanding of an event as troubling as the shootings. Why shouldn’t we be allowed to ask hard questions about Islam? Nidal Hasan, however confused and misguided, was obviously at least in part motivated by his religion. I myself wonder what it is about Islam -- its history, its culture, or perhaps a mis-reading of certain passages in the Koran -- that lends itself to acts of violence? When the scandal of priest pedophilia came to light in the media, as a Roman Catholic, I didn’t hesitate to ask hard questions about the Church: was it the doctrine of celibacy in the priesthood, or the worship of the Virgin Mary, or the teachings about sex, that had nurtured this kind of perversion? Never did I think to confuse sexual deviance and the abuse of boys with the fundamental teachings of Jesus himself. As freedom loving people who practice open-mindedness and critical thinking, a vigorous pursuit of the truth is what I would expect, and even demand, from any such inquiry.

Monday: Have you ever made soap? Did your grandmother make soap? Melinda Coss, author of The Handmade Soap Book, taught herself how to make soap and then started teaching soap-making in countries like Tanzania and Nigeria where soap is power!

Tuesday: Half the Sky: Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn join us to talk about why the oppression of women and girls in the developing world is the single most important human rights issue of our time, and how helping them can radically alter our world. Dr. Tererai Trent, part of the hopeful story Kristof and WuDunn tell, will join us this hour as well.

Wednesday: Traveling the Silk Road: I was in New York City last weekend and had a chance to see this exhibit on opening day at the Museum of Natural History. I still remember the smell of the jasmine, the roses, and the patchouli! My husband was mesmerized by the astrolabe. For almost three thousand years, a web of trading routes connected the civilizations of China, Northern Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, transporting everything from silk and religion to disease across the ancient world. We’ll travel from Xian, the old capital of China, to ancient Baghdad with Dr. Mark Norell, curator of the exhibit.

Thursday: “Finishing the Job”: Obama’s War in Afghanistan: After much pondering, President Obama is expected to announce his decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan this week. Who will he please? Who will he alienate? And how will Afghan people respond?

Friday: The New Moosewood Cookbook: Vegetarianism has been given a shot in the arm of late. if you’re interested in a diet that’s not only better for you but better for the planet where better to go than to the Moosewood Restaurant? Join us and Moosewood insiders Nancy Lazarus and David Hirsch for recipes from the new Moosewood Cookbook, Cooking For Health.

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody! It’s still great to be an American.

Jean

Nov 23-27 Programs

2009-11-20T14:56:00.000-08:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Hajj: The Trip of a Lifetime: It’s not easy to explain why 2 million people circling a black box seven times is something worth investigating. Or why those same two million people run back and forth between two hills, or stand all afternoon in 100 degree desert heat, or throw 49 pebbles at three stone pillars, all of which are part of the rites required of all Muslims who undertake the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The answer? In a word: Transformation.

Monday: Reflecting on Fort Hood. As we try to make sense of the Fort Hood tragedy, how should we understand the Muslim faith of the alleged gunman, Nidal Hasan? We’ll discuss our national and personal reactions with expert inter-faith and inter-cultural advocates Leena El-Ali of Search for Common Ground and Prof. John Esposito, of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

Tuesday: Becoming Americans. Perhaps no story gets to the heart of what it means to be American more than the immigrant story. Prof. Ilan Stavans and Richard Rodriguez join us to discuss Stavans’ new anthology, Becoming Americans, which features 400 years of writing from the hands of people who have come to America to remake themselves, their lives, and their identities.

Wednesday: Gratitude: How many times a day do you say Thank you? And what do you really mean by those words? Different times and different cultures have produced different ways of handling the complex matters of giving, receiving, and returning favors and presents. In her new book, The Gift of Thanks: The Roots and Rituals of Gratitude, Margaret Visser delves into the complexity of saying thanks.

Thursday: On Kindness (encore). What is the thing that scares us most? The monster hiding under the bed? Not sex, not violence, not money, but kindness has become our forbidden pleasure, according to psychoanalyst Adam Phillips. By involving us with strangers, he says, kindness is potentially far more promiscuous than sexuality.

Friday: In Praise of Fat (encore). You have heard of good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. What about good fat and bad fat? After thirty years as the most maligned food, fat is making a comeback. Dishes made with lard, bacon, marrow and butter are appearing on chefs' menus and Jennifer McLagan has written a cookbook in praise of it.

Have a great weekend,

Jean

Nov 16-20 Programs

2009-11-13T14:28:00.000-08:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Wandering Souls: The Ghosts of Vietnam. What a powerful metaphor for vets suffering from PTSD on both sides of the Vietnam War. If you still need to be convinced that remembering the personal costs of war is the best way to heal from its wounds, just listen to the clarity and alacrity in Homer Steedley’s voice when he tells the story of killing the man whose ghost he brought back home (and check out the video for my reading of one of the most hair-raising stories in the book).

Monday: The Language of Cancer: I’m not really fond of cancer memoirs which have become so commonplace (like the diagnosis itself) that they constitute a genre of their own. But Mary Cappello’s Called Back is in a class all by itself. Well, she’s a writer after all, and she uses her own clear-sighted intelligence and razor-sharp sense of language to scrutinize the culture of breast cancer and to blaze right through it, port scar and all.

Tuesday: Global Competence: it’s one of those vague slippery terms that might mean almost anything. Why is it suddenly so important to have it? President Obama is said to have it; President Bush did not. You can’t get it just by carrying around a passport. You have to be willing to leave your comfort zone, and become a stranger in a strange land.

Wednesday: Responding to Fort Hood: What bothers you most about the killings at Fort Hood? The Muslim faith of the psychiatrist, the alleged gunman at Fort Hood, is a central piece of the picture in this unfolding tragedy. We’ll talk about our national, personal, and media reactions to Nidal Hasan’s Muslim identity.

Thursday: Inside Islam: The Hajj: One of the world's longest-lived religious rites, the hajj to Mecca is even older than Islam. It’s been described as a universal journey for transcendence and peace, but will that change this year given the fear surrounding H1N1? To find out what it means to 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, check out www.insideislam.wisc.edu and join us live at 3:00.

Friday: The Wonder in Wonder Bread: One in seven people in the world doesn’t have enough to eat. What’s the key to eliminating world hunger? According to Louise Fresco, the answer may lie in mass-produced white bread.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Jean

Nov 9-13 Programs

2009-11-06T14:39:00.000-08:00

Jean is out sick this week. She'll be back next week. Look what we producers have prepared for her:

Monday: Do you remember November 9th, 1989? Journalist Michael Meyer and scholar Konrad Jarausch join us as we relive that day when the Berlin Wall fell and retrace Germany’s difficult transitions through unification and integration, up to today.

Tuesday: Throughout her life and her work, German-Romanian writer Herta Muller has fought a lonely fight against repression. Even though winning the Nobel Prize in Literature this year has catapulted her into the media spotlights, few people are familiar with her unsettling and meticulous prose and poetry. In the light of Romania's painful past under communist dictatorship, we explore the meaning of Muller's life and work for our world today.

Wednesday: We planned to speak last week with Vietnam veterans Wayne Karlin and Homer Steedly about Wandering Souls, Karlin’s new book documenting Steedly’s return to Vietnam to meet the family of a man he killed. They'll tell their story this Wednesday instead, as the nation celebrates Veteran's Day.

Thursday: Similarly, we missed out on having scientist James Lovelock on our show last week so we’ve rescheduled our interview with him for Thursday. Best known as the originator of Gaia Theory, which envisions the world holistically as a giant, living organism, Lovelock will explain why he thinks it's time for humans to prepare to live on a radically warmer Earth.

Friday: French food is not what it used to be. Or so says journalist and wine columnist Michael Steinberger. In his latest book Au Revoir To All That, he investigates the decline of quality in French cuisine and finds reasons that go beyond food.

Thank you for listening,

Here on Earth team

Nov 2-6 Programs

2009-10-30T14:02:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: It’s a short week for me, which means fewer options to choose from, but for hope and inspiration it would be hard to beat The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, the story of a boy growing up in Malawi during a devastating famine who figured out how to make windmill from a photograph he found in a science textbook in the local library. It worked, and now his dream is to bring rural electrification to all of Africa. I would vote this program with William Kamkwamba and his American co-author Bryon Mealer a Here on Earth classic.

Monday: Storytelling seems to be a huge coping skill for Vietnam vets, and Wayne Karlin has quite a story to tell in Wandering Souls, about the courage of a soldier who returned the soul of the man he killed to that man’s family.

Tuesday: Scientist James Lovelock is best known as the originator of the Gaia Theory, which has taught scientists and laypeople alike to see the Earth holistically as a giant living organism. He joins us to discuss his new book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia, in which he issues a dire warning: It’s too late to halt global warming, we must now learn to live in an altered climate.

Wednesday: Poker: An American Metaphor: Playing poker was a key networking tool in Barack Obama’s early political career. Bill Gates collected many of his business strategies and a sizable fund to start Microsoft from his all-night poker games. Eisenhower and JFK used poker tactics to resolve crises with China and the Soviet Union. How did a French aristocratic parlor game turn into a training ground for American risk-takers and power brokers?

Thursday: Garbage Dreams: There’s more to garbage than meets the eye. For several decades, the garbage collectors of Zaballeen in Cairo have made their living by collecting garbage, recycling over 80% of what they collect. In her documentary film “Garbage Dreams,” director Mai Iskander follows three young men who grow up in Mokattar, Cairo’s garbage village. What can we learn from the Zaballeen’s garbage expertise?

Friday: Pastrami on Rye with a kosher pickle, anyone? Join us, and add to our list of reasons why it’s imperative to save the Jewish Deli!

I’ll be in Baton Rouge this weekend, reading poetry and hanging out with Annie Lanzillotto at AIHA, the American Italian Historical Association’s annual conference.

Happy Halloween!

Jean

Goldengrove Unleaving

2009-10-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

Goldengrove Unleaving: (that's a quote from Gerard Manley Hopkins) Jean took advantage of the brief appearance of the October sun this past weekend to play in the leaves.

Oct 26-30 Programs

2009-10-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Chickens in the City: A Backyard Revolution. We had a good time today. Dennis even brought some just laid eggs to the studio so we can crack them during the show.

Monday: William Kamkwamba is The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. He grew up in Malawi as an enterprising African teenager who he figured out how to construct a windmill from scraps to create electricity for his entire community.

Tuesday: Harvard scholar Harvey Cox broke new ground when he published his international bestseller, The Secular City, in 1965. Now, on the eve of his retirement, he’s come out with a new book, The Future of Faith, in which he analyzes why Christian beliefs and dogma are giving way to new grassroots movements rooted in social justice and spiritual experience. An echo of Jim Wallis’ message to us last Wednesday.

Wednesday: The Best International Reporting: Words Without Borders is featuring literary journalism in its October issue. Editor Susan Harris says “Literature is news that stays news. Literary reporting is even more so.”

Thursday: TBA

Friday: Exciting new ingredients are available everywhere, expanding our culinary horizons, and a new culinary world calls for a new cookbook. Ruth Reichl, long-time editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine and a best-selling author in her own right, joins us to talk about her new book Gourmet Today.

After all this rain I’m sending you a few words of encouragement from Denise Levertov: Wear Red! Don’t forget what has burned in you…”

Jean

Oct 19-23 Programs

2009-10-17T20:51:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: I grew up in a family that celebrated both Columbus and the Indians, so Mark Dowie’s Conservation Refugees, the “good guy vs. good guy story” which we featured last Monday, Columbus Day, really hit home. I have long been aware of the misanthropic streak that runs through our environmental movement and was certainly present in John Muir’s Presbyterian psyche, so it was particularly interesting to me to have our whole National Park philosophy parsed in terms of foundation myths.

Here’s the line-up for next week:

Monday: Mercedes Sosa: A Voice for Social Justice: It is hard to overestimate the influence of Mercedes Sosa’s music and voice in South America. In a career that spanned over six decades and produced 40 albums, the Argentine folk singer, who died on October 4th , united an entire continent in her ongoing struggle for human rights, peace, and social justice in South America.

Tuesday: Hope for the Middle East Conflict: The world watches as hopes are raised for a restart to talks in the Israel/Palestinian conflict. What age-old mindsets need to shift before a peaceful resolution can be found? Rich Cohen joins us to discuss his new book on the history of the Jewish people, Israel is Real.

Wednesday: Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy, joins us to discuss his new organization, 350, which works to bring atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide down to 350 parts per million. They’ve organized the International Day of Climate Action which will be held on October 24.th Activists in 158 countries are set to participate.

Thursday: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is the true account of an enterprising African teenager who constructed a windmill from scraps to create electricity for his entire community. William Kamkwamba shares his remarkable story of growing up in Malawi, Africa.

Friday: Chickens in the City: A Backyard Revolution: The return of the chicken to American backyards is now no longer an uncertainty. Since the chicken disappeared from urban American settlements half a century ago, city dwellers all over the nation are now re-discovering the advantages – and challenges – of keeping their own flock in their backyards. What is it about the chicken that makes it the urban bird of the moment?

Thanks to all of you friends and allies who pledged your hard-earned bucks to support WPR and especially Here on Earth during our Fall Membership Drive, and welcome to all new members!

Jean

October 12-19 Programs

2009-10-09T18:54:00.000-07:00

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

Oct 5-9 Programs

2009-10-04T13:33:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: No one so spirited as Karen Armstrong who can handle any attack with her own form of intellectual jiu-jitsu. “Why, I quite agree with you,” she kept saying to all her nay-sayers in her perfect Oxford accent, deflating their hostility on the instant and then trumping the argument by co-opting their best points and turning them to her advantage! The thing she said that stuck with me in her Case for God was that she was a miserable failure at meditation and for her the path back to faith was through her own chunky scholarship. She is my favorite public intellectual.

Our October Membership Drive begins this week, and thanks to you, we’ve already chopped a day off the drive and are hoping for another. At any rate, pledge days or not, we have some dandy programs in store for you:

Monday: I met Joe Kilikevice, the founder of the Shem Center for Interfaith Spirituality in Oak Park, Illinois, last summer when he was leading Sufi Dances for Universal Peace at the Christine Center in Willard, Wisconsin. Joe is a Dominican brother who has adopted Sufism as a spiritual practice. Among other things, he offers Male Spirit retreats inspired by Rumi’s poem: “You set out to find God, but then you keep stopping at meanspirited roadhouses.” You gotta love him.

Tuesday: In Elephants on the Edge, G. A. Bradshaw, Director of the Kerulos Center for Animal Trauma Recovery and Co-founder of the Trans-Species Institute, marshals research from neuroscience,psychology, and animal behavior to argue that the mind of the elephant
is remarkably similar to our own. The shock of violent death,the grief of losing an infant, and the loss of freedom affect them in much the same way as people. A fascinating study.

Wednesday: The Cartoneres Literacy Movement: Few of us think too much about where books come from, but amidst poverty and low literacy rates, it is an important question. The Cartonera publishing movement of Latin America addresses poverty and literacy through employing cartoneros, garbage pickers, to collect cardboard to be used as covers for colorful, handmade, and cheap books. UW-Madison holds one of the largest collections of these books and editors from some of the most well-known Cartonera publishing houses will be in Madison this week for the first ever Cartonera Publishers Conference.

Thursday: This is your chance to get your name into a drawing for a state-of-the-art Apple iPod nano 16GB with MP3 Player loaded with the Best of Here on Earth! And interact with John Nichols about the Future of Journalism.

Friday: What’s fall without Apples? Every year, Wisconsin's Bayfield Apple Festival heralds the beginning of fall. This Food Friday we will speak to some local and some non-local apple growers about heritage varieties, cider-making, and this year's pick.

Jean

Sept 28 - Oct 2 Programs

2009-09-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

Jean's Pick of the Week: I do have a secret. It's probably shared by most of the people of my generation -- I have always hated Hip-Hop. That's is until Wednesday's show where not only did I have fun, but actually overcame a lot of my prejudices.

Monday: A memorial service in honor of Thomas Berry, the beloved and revered author of The Dream of the Earth, and The Great Work will be held this Saturday at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City. Miriam Macgillis, a Berry disciple and the founder of Genesis Farm, will be in attendance. We’ll talk with Miriam about the life and legacy of the man who called himself a “geologian.”

Tuesday: God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, Dao; humankind has gone to great lengths to experience a sacred reality. So why is God so unbelievable in our modern world? This is what Karen Armstrong set out to understand in writing her new book, The Case for God.

Wednesday: The Khaarijee is a memoir about six orphans, a dog, a Muslim man, and an inexperienced American journalist from the Midwest -- thrust together in post-9/11 Afghanistan. Author J. Malcolm Garcia joins us to tell this story of friendship in the midst of war.

Thursday: From the depths of history, to the classroom, to the stage, how do we understand the enduring influence of the story of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl? Francine Prose, adoring fan and author of Reading Like a Writer will join us to discuss the book, the life, and the afterlife.

Friday: I simply wanted to live in a place with the best food in the world. Is it any wonder then, that Eric Dregni, ended up in Modena, Italy, the birthplace of balsamic vinegar, parmigiano cheese, Ferrari, and Luciano Pavarotti? He joins us to talk about his three years in Italy and his memoir Never Trust a Thin Cook and Other Lessons From Italy’s Culinary Capital.

Have a good weekend,

Jean

Sept 21-25 Programs

2009-09-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

Jean's Pick of the Week: I went home Tuesday night with a headache and spent the rest of the evening on the couch reading Juan Gabriel Vasquez wonderful book, The Informers. About halfway through, my husband, who grew up in Latin America, asked me if I was learning anything about Columbia. After I thought a minute, I had to say, "No." The whole first third of the novel -- and this is one of the reasons it was so absorbing -- is devoted to an exploration of the intricacies of a complex relationship between a father and a son who both share the same name -– Gabriel Santoro. The son writes a book that causes his father to denounce it and reject him. The son shows up unannounced in his father's class and sits in agony for a whole week while his father steadfastly ignores him. It's only after the father has a heart attack that the two reconcile, and it's fascinating to watch the power dynamic shift between them. I really recommend this novel. You will learn a lot about Columbia, but you'll also learn a lot about family dynamics.

It's been a scramble this week, but we got it together:

Monday: U.N. International Peace Day: Former Prime Minister of Norway, Kjell Magne Bondevik, and his colleague, Ambassador Thomas Loftus, share the ongoing work of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights. (These are the folks who brokered the Middle East peace accord). They’ll be participating in the Lubar Institute symposium, "Negotiating Religion Internationally" in Madison on Friday, September 25.

Tuesday: Bronx Princess: Breaking away from family is never harder than when you’re growing up between two cultures. In this POV documentary, we meet Rocky Otoo who grows up in the Bronx rebelling against her mother’s strict rules and flees to her father, a chief in Ghana. Out of the frying pan into the fire?.

Wednesday: Teaching Through Hip-Hop: Alex Kajitani [kah-ji-TAH-ni] was a struggling new teacher at a tough, inner-city school in San Diego. Fed up with students unable to remember simple math concepts but every word of the latest rap song, he began teaching math through hip-hop. It worked so well that his math rap is now a teaching tool used nationwide. We’ll talk with Alex and other educators about the pros and cons of hip-hop in the classroom.

Thursday: Beethoven in Afghanistan?: William Harvey is a young classically trained violinist, but he sees a role for music well beyond the doors of symphony hall. He’s the Executive Director of Cultures in Harmony, an organization that uses music as a medium for cross-cultural understanding. And he’s heading to Afghanistan.

Friday: Rosh Hasahana, the Jewish New Year begins today (Sept. 18) at sundown, but since we couldn’t find a Jewish cook with an hour to spare just before the holiday meal, we’ve decided to postpone our conversation about Syrian Sephardic holiday cooking until next Friday, (Sept. 25th) when the holiday season will still be in full swing. Jennifer Abadi, author of A Fistful of Lentils will be joining us.

Shana Tovah!

Jean

Sept 14-18 Programs

2009-09-13T17:16:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Thursday’s program with Helen Fisher, author of Why Him? Why Her?, the research biologist who’s been studying the brain chemistry of romantic love for thirty years and hasn’t lost her sense of its mystery, its poetry, and its romance! (check out her Ted Talks – you’ll find links on our website)

Monday: Death Panels and the Fear of Dying: When Georgia Weithe’s father was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1997, she approached his impending death with absolute terror. To her great surprise, the experience deepened her life in ways she could not have anticipated, and she came to the conclusion that death is a teacher and a friend. Georgia is the author of Shining Moments: Finding Hope in Facing Death.

Tuesday: Whenever Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Tracy Kidder comes out with a new book I always pay attention. His latest, Strength in What Remains, is the story of a young medical student named Deogratias (!) who narrowly survives civil war and genocide in Burundi before arriving in New York City with no English and $200 in his pocket. Two years later he’s enrolled in Columbia University. The storyline might be a bit clichéd, but what’s really illuminating is the way Deo manages his PTSS.

Wednesday: Juan Gabriel Vásquez is the first Columbian novelist since Gabriel Garcia Marquez to start a literary buzz. His debut novel, THE INFORMERS, explores the dark history of Nazism in post-World War II South America.

Thursday: The World Has Curves: It’s not just American women who have a thing about their bodies: journalist Julia Savacool takes us on a world tour—from China, where the plastic surgery industry is booming; to South Africa, where a heavier shape signals health in a country ravaged by disease; to Afghanistan, where the burka once again reigns supreme. Exploring the topic of women's bodies and our collective judgment of the perfect shape.

Friday: We’re hoping to book The Occidental Brothers, on their way to Madison for the Forward Music Fest. They’re a five-person band that combines the traditional music of West Africa with jazz, and underground rock

I hope you’re enjoying this gorgeous end–of-summer weather.

Jean

Sept 7-11 Programs

2009-09-06T08:59:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: (soon to arrive by video!) Here on Earth producers are constantly scanning for practical visionaries – big picture guys who are working with ideas that have to potential to change the way we think and work. Mark Shepard is one of those people. I had my eye on him when he and his wife Jen were just starting their great pioneering experiment at New Forest Farm, which is now the first model for successful permaculture farming in the US. Listen to him. He’ll tease your brain cells. And he makes great apple cider too.

Monday: Labor Day! The Here on Earth team gets the day off, and we’ve chosen a program we think worthy of re-airing and just right for the holiday: “Playing for Change:” Mark Johnson and his film crew traveled to four continents to capture the power of music. Listen to musicians from South Africa, New Orleans, Barcelona, India and elsewhere all singing the same song, Stand By Me. Really fun.

Tuesday: When the World Health organization rated the national health care systems of 191 countries, the US ranked 54th. How is it that all the other industrialized democracies provide health care for everyone at a reasonable cost, except the US? We’ll ask T.R.Reid, author of The Healing of America.

Wednesday: Don't believe the hype you hear about the decline of America and the dawn of a new Asian age. Minxin Pei, director of the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies, joins us to pick apart this familiar narrative.

Thursday: A World Without Love: Helen Fisher, the author of Why Him? Why Her?, a new book about love, talks about why we fall in love with one person rather than another, brain scanning and her data on the evolution of the brain systems for lust, romantic love and attachment.

Friday: He loves his mother’s light Chinese cooking; she loves her father’s heavy Italian cooking: Is there hope for this marriage? Join us for The Gastronomy of Marriage: A Memoir of Food and Love by Michelle Maisto.

Have a great Labor Day weekend!

Jean

Aug 31 - Sept 4 Programs

2009-08-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: As the host of Here on Earth, I relish every opportunity to bring great breakthrough stories in world news to the airwaves, so Tuesday’s program about the women of Liberia and their extraordinary success in ending a particularly brutal civil war and bringing Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to power was a joy for me. That having been said, I also greatly enjoyed Wednesday’s program with British psychologist Adam Philips talking about the forgotten pleasures of kindness. It brought out so many wonderful responses from callers.

NB: Get ready on Tuesday for Ramadan: The Fast and The Feast, another program in our ongoing series Inside Islam.

Monday: Elle Es el Matador: Just when bullfighting per se is going out of fashion, along comes this POV documentary about Female matadors. In Elle Es el Matador (She is the Matador) Spanish filmmakers Gemma Cubero and Celeste Carrasco discover a long and surprising history of women with a passion for this theatrical and bloody ritual.

Tuesday: *Inside Islam: Ramadan: The Fast and the Feast: Why is fasting common to almost all faiths? Why do Muslims the world over look forward with joy to a month of fasting? What are the special challenges that American Muslims face? And what are the Ramadan specials that Arab Muslims are watching on satellite tv? Guests: Naeem Randhawa, director of American Ramadan; Souheila Al-Jadda, producer of Ramadan Primetime. Don’t miss this fascinating and fun show.

Wednesday: Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories: In 2003 Anna Baltzer visited the West Bank to discover for herself the realities of everyday life for Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation. Apart from details about checkpoints, land settlements, etc. what’s new here is accounts of non-violent resistance that remain largely ignored by mainstream Western media.

Thursday: Permaculture Made Real: Mark Sheperd’s New Forest Farm: We talked with one of the gurus of permaculture in the Midwest during our broadcast from the Energy Fair earlier this summer. In this follow-up program we explore with Mark Sheperd what it’s like to be a permaculture farmer. Mark Shepard’s New Forest Farm in southwestern Wisconsin was one of the very first examples of permaculture farming in the United States. Can you design a farm to be as self-sufficient as a forest?

Friday: To be announced.

What’s YOUR pick of the week? We’d love to know. Please write to us at hereonearth@wpr.org or leave a message on our hotline: 1-877-GLOBE07. And thanks for listening.

Jean

Aug 24-28 Programs

2009-08-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the (Short) Week: I really enjoyed the mental workout on Wednesday’s program Into the Wild on international nature writing. There was a moment of real revelation when I surprised myself by blurting out, “There is no such thing as nature.” The fact is – and this is what emerged in the course of the conversation – what we call “nature” differs dramatically from culture to culture and is heavily influenced by religious belief. The transcendentalists looked to nature as a way to get beyond ordinary experience. But our Pilgrim ancestors thought of the wilderness as an evil place full of heathens and devils. I still think we need a new kind of nature writing, one that displaces Adam from the Garden of Eden, and comes to terms with the new evolutionary understanding that we are as much the product of evolutionary processes as trees and bats and wolves – all those things that we persist in thinking are “Out there.” There is no escaping nature or ourselves, and whatever fate lies in store for the planet - i.e. “Nature” - is entirely in our hands.

Next Week on Here on Earth:

Monday: Cold: With the mind of a scientist and the heart of a poet, Bill Streever, author of Cold, takes us into places most people never venture : the coldest places on earth. In July, he immerses himself in 35 degree F. water on a beach three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, to experience firsthand the laws of thermodynamics!

Tuesday: Pray the Devil Back to Hell: The amazing story of how Liberian women forced an end to a brutal civil war and brought Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman to lead an African nation, to power. We’ll talk with producer Abigail Disney.

Wednesday: On Kindness: British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips argues that a life lived in instinctive, sympathetic identification with others is the one we should allow ourselves to live.

Thursday: We’ll be commemorating the 46th anniversary of the March on Washington—at which Marion Anderson sang—with composer Bruce Adolphe and librettist Carolivia Herron, creators of the one-act opera, Let Freedom Sing: The Story of Marian Anderson.

Friday: The Psychology of Wine: Writer/sommelier son and psychologist father, Evan and Brian Mitchell present their case with humor and verve: that wine has evolved to be a mirror of ourselves.

Nice line-up?

Have a great weekend,

Jean

Aug 17-21 Programs

2009-08-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Well, you know me, I always go for the fun show. So, even though we had a lot of meat this week, what with Hooman Majd sorting out some of the complexities in Iran, and Christopher Caldwell dancing around Muslims in Europe, my pick goes to Paul Theroux. I’m taking my copy of Ghost Train to the Eastern Star with me to read to my husband on our road trip this weekend. And didn’t Joe do a great job finding the perfect train music?

Lori Skelton will be filling in for me on Monday and Tuesday of this week while I’m at a family reunion in North Carolina. Thanks Lori! Here are Lori’s notes for Monday and Tuesday’s shows:

Monday: Life Lessons from West Africa: Wisconsin graduate student Katie Krueger went to Senegal intending to improve her French and expand her knowledge of economics, but soon discovered that “Man plans, God decides.” In adopting the Senegalese way of life, Katie learned to replace efficiency with meaning, eventually creating a non-profit program to feed schoolchildren in Dakar. Her book is Give With Gratitude – Lessons Learned Listening to West Africa.

Tuesday: The S/V Denis Sullivan: In 1991, a small group of Milwaukeeans dreamed of building a tall ship to honor Wisconsin’s maritime heritage and work to improve the health of Wisconsin waters. Today, The S/V Denis Sullivan is a floating classroom and laboratory for freshwater exploration, science education and nautical training, sailing throughout the Great Lakes, the Atlantic Ocean and the Carribean.

Wednesday: Into the Wild: International Nature Writing: Words Without Borders is devoting the first of two issues of the online mag to nature writing, but don’t expect to find any Wordsworths, Thoreaus, or Leopolds in this packet. It’s not nature writing in the usual sense that the editors are after, but rather the confrontation between humans and their environment. Interesting stuff. From lyrical reports about life in unfamiliar territories, both hot and cold, to brooding accounts of the fever that nature puts into the mind and work of writers around the world.

Thursday: We’re working on a program about Afghanistan's presidential election.

Friday: The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Too many tomatoes? (there can never be too many tomatoes). Tune in for classic and exotic recipes from around the world with Brian Yarvin, author of The Too Many Tomatoes Cookbook.

I hope you’re enjoying these lazy hazy last days of summer as much as I am.

Jean

Aug 10-14 Programs

2009-08-07T19:07:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Apologizing for Slavery: What a head spinning show this was, with multiple perspectives coming from both guests and lots of great callers.

Here’s what’s in the works for the coming week on Here on Earth: What a line-up!

Monday: Imperial: William T. Vollmann’s latest blockbuster concerns the tragic and volatile U.S.-Mexico borderland of extreme southeastern California Imperial County, where he spent ten years talking with everyone from farmers to border patrolmen to prostitutes in his search for the fading American-Mexican dream.

Tuesday: Instability in Iran: As Iranian President Ahmadinejad is sworn in for a second term, the ceremony itself shows deep riffs in Iran’s ruling elite. Hooman Majd, author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, joins us with analysis of the complexities of the current situation.

Wednesday: Travel writer Paul Theroux took a train from Europe to East Asia half a lifetime ago and wrote about it in the book now considered a classic, The Great Railway Bazaar. Thirty-three years later he retraces his steps and finds a vastly different world in Ghost Train to the Eastern Star.

Thursday: Muslims in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West: Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe has been called a how not-to book about immigration. P.J. O'Rourke says "Thanks to Caldwell’s careful reporting and keen analysis we know exactly what we shouldn't do when new people move to our country."

Friday: Here’s Julie!: Julie Powell joins us to talk about her misadventures with Julia Child. The New York administrative assistant wrote a 2003 blog about her yearlong effort to cook all the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The blog inspired Julie and Julia, the new culinary movie starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child.

Is that enough for one week on Here on Earth? Does it make up for some of the goofs we’ve had lately? Tell us about your ideas for topics and guests on our show. August is a difficult month to book. We could use your help. Send your program ideas to hereonearth@wpr.org. And thanks!

Jean

Aug 3-7 Programs

2009-08-02T09:38:00.000-07:00

Friday, July 31, 2009 (Primo Levi’s 90th birthday!)

July is dust; here’s what’s coming up on Here on Earth on the first week in August:

Jean’s Pick of the Week: China Safari: Beijing’s Expansion into Africa: How refreshing to get a balanced view of China’s adventures in Africa from two European journalists. Paolo Woods’ photographs were particularly telling and so much fun to describe. Neocolonialism? Or China testing its master plan to take over the world – not militarily, but through capitalism at its most ruthless. Ouch!

Monday: Interested in coaching a kids’ soccer team in Senegal? Helping to protect sea turtles in Georgia? Monitoring climate change in the Arctic? Maybe work with AIDS orphans in Zambia? Pam Grout joins us to talk about the best of 100 Volunteer Vacations to enrich your life.

Tuesday: The Power of Apology: The recent arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates re-ignited the national conversation about racism. Not so, the apology for slavery that just went through Congress with hardly a whisper. What’s the purpose of such an apology and can it really contribute to racial healing? Join us to advance the conversation with Professor Roger Conner, and professional mediator Marvin Johnson.

Wednesday: Tracking the Global Gumshoe: In the last 20 years Noir has gone global, with Swedish fiction writer Stieg Larsson copping the number two place as best selling author in the US, and crime fiction showing up in countries like Algeria, Turkey, and India. Join us with Detectives Beyond Borders blogger Peter Rozovsky and Delhi Noir editor Hirsh Sawhney.

Thursday: Are we “wired” to cooperate? Primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy makes her case based on her study of the social and caretaking activities of our great ape ancestors. Join us as we discuss her latest book, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding.

Friday: The Beer Summit and who the heck wants to drink Bud Lite? (And I thought he had class) . Join us on the eve of the Great Taste of the Midwest to find out about the latest innovations in the world of microbreweries.

All good?

Have a great weekend and don’t forget to tune in next week!

Jean

July 27-31 Programs

2009-07-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: I was very happy with the way this week’s Inside Islam program about Aisha, the Prophet Mohammed’s favorite wife, turned out. Kamran Pasha is Hollywood’s only Muslim producer and writing the historical novel, Mother of the Believers , was a labor of love for him. In general, I’m not much of a fan of historical novels, but I did learn quite a bit about the origins of Islam from reading it and Aisha was a genuine little spitfire – my kind of woman, and Pasha has a such a cinematic imagination, I kept seeing the book as a movie. Alas, that will never happen since portraying the Prophet is forbidden in Islam. Jennifer Heath provided a great counterpoint to Pasha and the callers – a convert, a Jew, and a young woman – contributed quite a bit. Check it out if you haven’t heard it already.

We got quite a bit of feedback from our show on Reforming Health Care last Wednesday, and you’ll notice that we’re continuing the theme this week:

Monday: Will to Live: Aids Therapies and the Politics of Survival: Success stories about HIV-AIDS are scant, but we found one in Princeton University anthropologist Joao Biehl’s moving account of how Brazil got its act together and became the first nation to provide free treatment to all, in spite of inequities.

Tuesday: China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa: China's growing investment in Africa is causing both excitement for those who see better trade, infrastructure, and resources finally being invested in the continent, while others worry about corruption and exploitation. Author Serge Michel is former West Africa correspondent for Le Monde; we’ll also talk with photo-journalist Paolo Woods.

Wednesday: Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, is being considered by the Obama administration to head up USAID. Since 1987, his NGO has been highly successful in delivering health care in poor countries like Haiti. We'll talk with PIH Executive Director Ophelia Dahl.

Thursday: Primo Levi: I’m a great fan of the Italian humanist Primo Levi, best known as a memoirist of Auschwitz, but he was also a scientist, fiction writer, and poet: in short, a Renaissance man. Primo Levi’s Universe by Sam Magavern, published to coincide with Levi’s 90th anniversary on July 31st, gives us a chance to find out what made this great humanist tick.

Friday: We’re hoping to book Bittman to talk about his new book, Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express, featured this week in the New York Times article, “The Minimalist: 101 Simple Salads for the Season.”

It’s been a long week. Have a great weekend, everybody!

Jean

July 20-24 Programs

2009-07-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

Jean is returning on Monday! Here's our lineup for next week.

Monday: Best Volunteer Vacations. Pam Grout is author of several travel books and in her new book, The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations to Enrich Your Life, she has compiled everything you need to start planning your first (or second) "feel good" vacation. Join our conversation about how to bring added value to your vacations through volunteer work.

Tuesday: Mother of the Believers. Kamran Pasha will join us for our next Inside Islam program to talk about his book, Mother of the Believers: A Novel of the Birth of Islam. This novel tells the story of the rise of Islam through the eyes of Aisha, the Prophet Muhammad’s youngest wife and one of the most influential women in Islamic history. As Mother of the Believers shows, Aisha is more than the controversy around her age; she was a teacher, political leader, a warrior, and, with her incredible memory, an invaluable source of information on all aspects of the Prophet Muhammad’s life.

Wednesday: Global views on healthcare. A healthcare bill is slated to be up for a vote in the House by the end of the month. Wednesday we speak with doctor, educator, and international healthcare advocate, Cynthia Haq, about her work to increase access to healthcare both here in the United States and abroad and the lessons she’s learned about public healthcare in China, Mexico, Uganda, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Thursday: Young Russia, Old Russia. President Obama stopped in Moscow on his recent trip abroad to discuss nuclear proliferation, hoping to find an opportunity for the two nations to finally move away from a Cold War mentality. But what does civil society look like in Russia and does Russian youth really represent a turn away from old ideologies? We’ll speak with UW-Madison sociology professor and Director of the Center for Russian, East Europe, and Central Asia who participated in a meeting between the President and civil society leaders in Moscow.

Friday: Feasting in the Ottoman Empire, circa 1550. Have you ever wished you could experience an historical period first hand? What do you know about the Ottoman Empire? This Food Friday, professional chef and food historian Channon Mondoux invites us to Sarayi in Turkey to relive an ancient feast in the palace of Suleyman the Magnificent. Join us for the history, food, and music of this culturally distinct time and place.

Happy listening,

Here on Earth team

July 13-17 Programs

2009-07-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

Jean will be on vacation next week. But the show goes on. Here's what we have prepared for you:

Monday: Welcome to Ghana! Obama speaks from Ghana over the weekend and on Monday we’ll bring on some experts on Ghana and Africa to talk about Ghana’s place in Africa and what Africans can expect during the Obama administration. With us are: Vincent Odamttenk, professor of English at Hamilton college, and Adotei Akwei, vice president of government affairs at Care USA.

Tuesday: Mozambique’s Majestic Gorongosa National Park: Did you catch the 60 Minutes segment with Gregory Carr, social entrepreneur and founder of the Carr foundation? We’ll continue this week’s focus on Africa with a conversation with Gregory Carr about his work in Mozambique to preserve its natural resources and native animal species.

Wednesday: The Happiness Project: There are so many studies these days that try to figure out who are the happiest people in the world. The verdict is still out, but Charles Spearin has found a unique take on the question through his music. You might know Spearin as a member of the Canadian supergroup Broken Social Scene. With his new solo album, The Happiness Project, he asked his friends and neighbors to speak about what makes them happy and then transformed their voices into musical notes and songs. Listening to the musicality of unique people talking about their happiness might just give us a new way to measure the good things in life. You can read more about Spearin’s Happiness Project, watch a music video and leave questions for the upcoming interview at the Blog Without Borders.

Thursday: International Noir Fiction. Do you think of hot and dusty offices in LA and New York when you think of Noir? It has expanded to Scandinavia, Ireland, Italy, and even Israel, India, and Trinidad! We explore the ever-widening popularity of crime fiction and noir around the world. What international crime fiction are you reading?

Friday: Today we rebroadcast one of our favorite Food Friday shows from our archive: Cuisines of the Axis of Evil, which aired last November. Author Chris Fair dishes out a culinary feast of facts on ten controversial countries, hoping to find an edible approach to foreign relations.

Happy listening,

Here on Earth team.

July 6-10 Programs

2009-07-04T13:21:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Bruce Adolphe on Self Comes to Mind: From the first moment I spied the headline in the New York Times: Music as the Evolution of Human Consciousness and read the review of the performance that took place at the Museum of Natural History in New York City the night before (ouch! I missed it by three blocks), I knew I wanted to do a program about it. We didn’t have the benefit of Hanna Damasio’s brain imagery to watch, but we did have the composer himself and his music, plus some of the best moments from the conversation that took place between Bruce, Antonio Damasio and Yo Yo Ma directly following the performance. Not as good as being there, but, all in all, pretty terrific. God bless radio.

Here’s what’s coming up on Here on Earth the first week in July:

Monday: Sex and the City (Beirut, that is): She’s very brave and very beautiful. Poet Joumana Haddad has launched Jasad in Beirut, a quarterly magazine in Arabic featuring sex and the human body that’s breaking all the taboos.

Tuesday: Biomimicry: Forget the notion that technology improves upon nature. Science writer Janine Benyus introduces us to pioneering engineers making technological breakthroughs by uncovering and copying nature's hidden marvels.

Wednesday: Travels Along the Camino De Santiago: An international bestseller, and soon to be released as a major motion picture, I’m Off Then is German comedian Hape Kerkeling’s account of his travails along the Camino De Santiago, Spain’s most traveled pilgrim’s route since the first century AD.

Thursday: President Obama will be giving his next big speech on July 11, this time from Ghana. Although it’s angered a lot of other African nations, the choice of Ghana seems calculated to reinforce the idea of Africa as a place of emergence rather than of despair since Ghana is Africa’s success story in terms of its economy and its democracy. Guest to be announced.

Friday: All about Ice Cream (repeat): Enjoying a cool sweet treat on a hot day is a beloved pastime for people around the world. We explore the history, culture, and flavors of ice cream in America, gelato in Italy, and kulfi in India.

Jean

June 29 - July 3 Programs

2009-06-26T19:56:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: John Nichols nailed it on Monday’s show about Obama’s response to Iran when he predicted that the President would make a stronger statement before the week’s end. As it turned out, we had only to wait another 24 hours. And the for sheer fun, I really enjoyed Wednesday’s hilarious conversation with Jag Bhalla, author of I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears, about idioms from around the world. Contributions from callers were every bit as funny as those in his collection, eg: “I’m going to play chess with the Pope.” That’s Icelandic for “I have to go to the WC.”

Here’s what’s ahead on Here on Earth as we lean into the Fourth of July:

Monday: Persian Girls: Having grown up female in Iran just prior to the 1979 Revolution, Nahid Rachlin knows a thing or two about social unrest, Iranian politics and what the experience of both are like for women. Author of the memoir Persian Girls and a professor at the New School University, Nahid Rachlin joins us to provide context and insight into the current Iranian controversy.

Tuesday: Music of Human Consciousness: Musical inspiration can come from a lot of places but Composer Bruce Adolphe found the inspiration for his latest piece in a particularly unusual spot: the research of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. Self Comes to Mind is the end product of this collaboration between scientist and musician and it was recently performed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Video imagery and projected texts accompanied Yo-Yo Ma’s performance of the duo’s cello and percussion composition.

Wednesday: Flowers That Kill: Here on Earth listeners will remember UW-Madison anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney for her groundbreaking work on Kamikaze Pilots, the ‘cherry blossoms’ of Japan. Emiko has been spending spring semester at the Library of Congress in D.C. where she just gave a lecture on Flowers that Kill comparing the Emperor’s symbolic use of cherry blossoms with the way Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler used roses for a similar purpose.

Thursday: Summer Reading from Words Without Borders: Editor Susan Harris and blogger Bud Parr share selections designed for those who want to know more about what’s going on in Pakistan, China, and Iran, and those who want to escape from them.

Food Friday: It’s strawberry season and French chef Monique Hooker is ready to teach us how to make a red, white, and blue strawberry pie for Fourth of July.

Wow! And I thought we were lightening up!

Have a great weekend and please keep listening!

Jean

2009-06-21T16:06:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Wednesday’s show with Margaret Wertheim on the amazing psychedelic Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project, a combination of feminine handicraft, non-Euclidean geometry, beauty, science, and social activism. Truly.

Here’s what’s coming up on Here on Earth in the week ahead:

Monday: Back by popular demand, Satish Kumar, Indian sage and editor of Resurgence Magazine, joins us from the UK to talk about his own lifestyle: Elegant Simplicity which is the theme of the current issue of the magazine.

Tuesday: Scientist Leads Institute for the Study of Compassion: James Doty, neurosurgeon turned biotech investor, made a fortune and lost it in the dot-com bubble. Something similar, albeit on a much smaller scale, happened to a lot of us in the recent financial meltdown. James Doty started re-examining his values. Today he’s the director of an institute he founded for the study of compassion.

Wednesday: Global Word Play: Years ago when I was hosting my old morning show, we used to have a fun segment called “They Have a Word For It.” Howard Reingold, who wrote a little book with that title, would listen into our conversation for a while and then come up with whatever word from the book seemed appropriate. The book was a collection words from foreign languages for which there is no English equivalent. So when Carmen Jackson proposed doing a program with the author of the new book, I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World, of course I said yes. Join in with Jag Bhalla. It’ll be fun.

Thursday: The Compelling Moment: Richard Harwood of the Harwood Institute for Innovation has a knack for reading a crisis as an opportunity. He calls this “The Compelling Moment,” citing what’s going on in Tehran, Detroit, and elsewhere in these worst of times/best of times.

Friday: Milkshakes With a Twist!

Have a great weekend and thanks for lending us your ears.

Jean

June 15-19 Programs

2009-06-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

Picks of the Week: My husband and I happened to be in Cordoba, Spain, on 9/11, and there we were again, this time in Barcelona, when Obama gave his speech from Cairo. So it was quite the thrill to be able to talk about the impact of that amazing speech on my first day back at work. I also thoroughly enjoyed exploring the Darwinian dimensions of art with philosopher Denis Dutton, author of The Art Instinct, on Tuesday – there were so many interesting callers that day. And Wednesday’s Bead for Life program with Torkin Wakefield, the American psychologist who is transforming the lives of so many impoverished war widows in Uganda through, of all things, a paper bead exchange, was truly inspiring and very Here on Earth.

Here’s what’s happening on Here on Earth in the week ahead:

Monday: Out of Poverty: The new issue of Dispatches Magazine puts itself among the poor: the traditional underclass and the newly impotent – in America, in Africa, in India, and in Europe. We talk with Dispatches editor and former Milwaukee native Mort Rosenblum.

Tuesday: The Blue Sweater: Can you imagine the shock of giving an outgrown sweater to Goodwill and then finding it eleven years later on the back of some poor kid in Rwanda? That’s what happened to Jacqueline Novogratz who subsequently left a career in international banking to found Acumen Fund, an organization dedicated to tackling global poverty.

Wednesday: Saving the Coral Reefs One Stitch at a Time: Join us for a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft. Margaret Wertheim, co-director of the Institute for Figuring, is joined by a bevy of women who are in the process of creating a stitched coral reef as a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.

Thursday: Well Blow Me Shivers!: Were you surprised when stories of pirates on the high seas began appearing in daily headlines? Had you thought that the days of pirates were long past? The history of piracy is a long one, and there are certain similarities that link the pirates of centuries past with those working off the coast of Somalia today.

Friday: Urban/Suburban Permaculture: People in cities and suburbs are learning how to produce their own fruit, vegetables, herbs, honey, and more using Permaculture design strategies that reduce work and increase success. Live from Stevens Point, we’ll talk with Bill Wilson from Midwest Permaculture who’s giving introductory workshops at this year’s Energy Fair.

I’m traveling to Green Lake today to give a presentation on Evolutionary Theology to members of the United Church of Christ.

Have a terrific weekend!

Jean

June 8-12 Programs

2009-06-06T14:15:00.000-07:00

Jean is coming back on Monday! Here's the line-up for her:

Monday: Reaching Out to the Muslim World (part 2): Since his days on the campaign trail, President Obama promised a speech to the Muslim World to define US policy and change perceptions of America. Did his speech in Cairo succeed? We will analyze Obama's speech and look at the international reaction as we talk with Prof. Uli Schamiloglu, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Tuesday: The Art Instinct: Can you imagine what our cave people ancestors were thinking as they relaxed by the side of a fire and enjoyed a beautiful sunset? If you think that we’ve only learned to appreciate beauty more recently, think again. We’re celebrating Darwin’s bicentennial year with author Dennis Dutton and his book The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution which explores the evolutionary role of aesthetic appreciation.

Wednesday: Bead for Life: Bead for Life is a non-profit organization dedicated to overcoming extreme poverty in Uganda through the support of an international grassroots movement rather than aid. Through the work of Bead for Life, women in Uganda make and sell paper beads to people around the world. Join us and Bead for Life’s Torkin Wakefield as we explore how feminine handicraft becomes the base for eradicating extreme poverty.

Thursday: Travel as a Political Act: They say the world is shrinking, so what can we do to feel more comfortable with our neighbors? Travel! Acclaimed travel writer Rick Steve’s new book argues that we can’t understand our world without experiencing it. Travel as a Political Act will teach us all what it means to travel with our place in the world in mind.

Friday: We're still working to find a food program for this hour. Any suggestions?

Thanks for listening,

Here on Earth team

June 1-5 Programs

2009-05-31T11:02:00.000-07:00

Jean is still away this week. Veronica Rueckert will bring you the following programs.

Monday: Guerrilla Gardening: What do you get when you cross a desire to go green and the nerve to takeover land owed by someone else? It's called Guerrilla Gardening, and while it was first practiced in 17th century Britain, it's become a movement in places like New York City, where abandoned lots are turned into lush gardens by local "Green Guerrillas." Join us and Richard Reynolds, author of On Guerrilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening Without Boundaries, as we explore the history of activist gardening.

Tuesday: The Book of Dead Philosophers: What can you tell about a person from the way they die? In The Book of Dead Philosophers, Simon Critchley, Professor of Philosophy at the New School in New York, explores death, our last taboo, from a most unusual perspective. He recounts the demise of famous philosophers, revealing how their variously tragic, amusing, and bizarre ends can help us lead richer lives.

Wednesday: Iceland's Story: Iceland is the site of an aluminum smelting industry, it's been at the forefront of renewable energy development, and, most recently, it's seen what is perhaps the most spectacular fall of any nation during the global economic crisis. Andri Magnason's book Dreamland and the recent film made from it takes us on a journey through Iceland's struggle to recover a sustainable identity for itself but its story has something to teach us all about what it means to honor what's valuable about a nation.

Thursday: Take Back Your Time: TAKE BACK YOUR TIME is a major U.S./Canadian initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens our health, our families and relationships, our communities and our environment. Join us to explore work and workers around the world.

Friday: Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human: Have you ever seen an otter fry a fish? Maybe you haven't thought too much about how cooking is a strictly human activity, but Richard Wrangham has. In his latest book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human, Richard Wrangham, renowned primatologist, argues that humanity itself began when we started cooking our food. This food Friday we go deep into our human ancestry to discover how cooking itself may be responsible for our biological and sociological evolution into what we are today.

Best,

Here on Earth team

May 25-29 Programs

2009-05-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: Taqwacores: A New Way to be Muslim in the West. For anyone who has ever grappled with doctrinal religion, Michael Muhammad Knight’s very American, very punk rock take on Islam is really refreshing. His novel, The Taqwacores, about a group of punk rock Muslims who live together in a house in Buffalo, New York, really does read a lot like Catcher in the Rye. We didn’t talk much about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but we did talk quite a bit about idolatry, the problems with organized religion, and how to relate directly with the Divine. Interestingly enough, callers connected not as punk rockers, but as seekers.

Monday, Memorial Day: An Ecology of Music: You’ll enjoy listening again, if you haven’t heard it before, to this program with John Luther Adams, one of our most original composers. It was one of my favorite programs of 2008. John Luther Adams lives in Alaska where he immerses himself in the primal, grandiose soundscapes of the arctic out of which he makes music that will make your hair stand on end.

Tuesday: What can you tell about a person from the way they die? In The Book of Dead Philosophers, Simon Critchley, Professor of Philosophy at the New School in New York, explores death, our last taboo, from a most unusual perspective. He recounts the demise of famous philosophers, revealing how their variously tragic, amusing, and bizarre ends can help us lead richer lives.

Wednesday: “Fugee” Soccer (as in Refugee) When New York Times journalist Warren St. John wrote about a soccer team in Georgia made up of child refugees from all over the world, Universal Studios jumped on the film-rights. Warren St. John’s new book about the team, Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, An American Town, chronicles the hard work and heroic journeys of the players and sheds light on what it takes to build a community when we seem to have little in common.

Thursday: Samuel Charters, one of the very first musicologists to study Afro-American music, has summed up his life's work in A Language of Song, which details his journey to Africa and to find Africa-influenced music in the United States, Brazil, and the Carribean.

Friday: Sex, Death, and Oysters: When food writer Robb Walsh discovered that the local Galveston Bay oysters were being passed off as Blue Points and Chincoteagues in other parts of the country, he decided to look into the matter. His new book, Sex, Death and Oysters: A Half-Shell Lover's World Tour, documents a five-year adventure that docks everywhere from oyster reefs to oyster bars and from corporate boardrooms to hotel bedrooms in a quest for the truth about the world’s most profitable aphrodisiac.

I’m going to be gone for a couple of weeks. Veronica Rueckert will be hosting Here on Earth until my return on June 8.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Jean

May 18-22 Programs

2009-05-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

Jean’s Pick of the Week: (I’ve reverted to referring to myself in the third person): Certainly Reza Aslan, very slick, very smart, very articulate and, I venture to say, one of our most trusted interpreters of Muslims and Islam. But, scholar of religions though he may be, he really goofed right at the end of Wednesday’s show when he misquoted Jesus in that much misunderstood line, “I come not to bring peace but a sword.” Jesus was a reformer, not a militant. Almost everything he said was intended as a spiritual message. The Christian gospel was spread not by the sword but by the blood of the early Christian martyrs, the “the seed of the Church.”

Monday: Going Back to Cuba: For decades, Cuba has been a place we were only allowed to imagine, but now, with small cracks in the formidable barrier between us, we find ourselves with a lot of catching up to do. So did journalist Carlos Frias, the American-born son of Cuban parents who went to Cuba for the first time in 2006 and wrote about his impressions in the memoir, Take Me With You.

Tuesday: Memoir as An American Art Form: I went to hear Natalie Goldberg read from her latest book about memoir writing, Old Friend From Long Ago, when she was at Border’s in Madison a short time ago. Natalie used to be a regular on my old show. When she talked about memoir as an American cultural phenomenon I knew I just had to bring her on Here on Earth. She’s my old friend from long ago, and once you hear her, she’ll be yours too.

Wednesday: Evicted From Eternity: Have you ever lived in a place you loved and thought you knew, and then gone back years later only to find it completely changed? That’s what happened to me when I revisited Trantevere, the oldest neighborhood in Rome where I lived for a year in 1968 when the little boys were still playing marbles and peeing in the street, just as they had been doing for thousands of years. How could it change? Harvard historian Michael Herzfeld wrote about the people of Monti, another Roman neighborhood that has undergone the same gentrification in his book with the soulful title, Evicted From Eternity: The Restructuring of Modern Rome.

Thursday: Taqwacores: Muslim Punk Rock: Michael Muhammad Knight is known as a provocateur, a rebel, and a heretic among many American Muslims for his book, The Taqwacores, which describes a group of Muslim punk-rockers living a religious yet fiercely individualistic lifestyle. The book gained notoriety as it went viral and inspired a movement. We’ll talk with the man himself, a convert to Islam who grew up as an Irish Catholic.

Friday: In Praise of Fat: People who have been listening to me for a long time know my iconoclastic streak. So when I heard that there’s a new James Beard Prize winning cookbook by Jennifer McLagan called Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes, I jumped. It has a picture of one of the fattiest lambchops I’ve ever seen on the cover.

Jean

May 11-15 Programs

2009-05-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

My Pick of the Week: Rag and Bone. I can’t help it, even as a lapsed Catholic, I do love my relics. I’ve seen a good number of some of the best specimens too: Catherine of Siena’s blackened and shriveled head raised above an altar in her favorite church; St. John the Baptist’s baptizing finger on display at Topkapi Museum in Istanbul; frayed pieces of St. Frances of Paola’s robe and portions of his feet in Calabria. But I had an early start. When my dear Aunt Tootsie, my mother’s only sister, was dying, my mother took me on many pilgrimages all over New York City in search of healing relics and holy oils. Most impressive was the body of Mother Cabrini laid out in a glass coffin in her motherhouse, an image which later served me as the prototype for my Women of Spirit series. When Mother Cabrini was officially canonized, her body was dismembered, the head sent to Rome and other parts made into relics. Even I was appalled to learn about that.

Here’s what’s coming next week:

Monday: Bar Culture in Congo: If you were to major in French literature these days, you would undoubtedly come across the work of Alain Mabanckou, a Francophone writer from Congo Brazzaville who has been sweeping all the most prestigious French awards. His latest book to be translated into English is Broken Glass, a witty novel set in a bar called Credit Gone Away owned by the Stubborn Snail.

Tuesday: Harold Varmus, the Nobel Prize-winning cancer biologist who also serves as science advisor to President Obama is the author of the new book, The Art and Politics of Science. He’s coming to the UW-Madison to give a lecture and a reading at Borders. We get a sneak preview.

Wednesday: Reza Aslan, author of the bestseller No God But God, has become one of our most trusted defenders of Islam. His new book, How to Win a Cosmic War, recommends that we strip the religious rhetoric out of our “war on terror” and pay more attention to the war that can be won: the battle for the minds and hearts of young Muslim men.

Thursday: Not Now, Voyager: Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s memoir of her years as a reluctant traveler.

Friday: Forager’s Harvest: Gardens aren’t the only place where you can pick your own food. The trained eye can find all sorts of edibles in woods and backyards, from dandelions to mushrooms.

Happy Mothers’ Day from an old cowhand!

Jean