March 31-April 4 Programs

Dear Here-on-Earthlings,

Before launching into the line-up for next week, I just want to thank all of you who've been calling in to make our programming come alive this week. I particularly enjoyed your contributions to Thursday’s conversation "Against Happiness" and "Tastes Like Cuba," Friday’s food show.

We’ll start next week with two programs about education:

Monday: They listen to heavy metal, don’t have much homework, dye their hair and waste hours online, so…..American educators are trying to figure out What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

Tuesday: A Sustainable Education: Parker Palmer says American higher education gives people the skills to manipulate the world but very little in the way of self-knowledge. We’ve teamed him up with the director of the Schumacher School in the UK where people attend seminars in ecological and spirituality.

Wednesday: In progress: We’re working with the BBC on a program about the Tibetan struggle for independence.

Thursday: Isabel Allende joins us to talk about her latest book, The Sum of Our Days, a sequel to her elegiac memoir about her daughter, Paula. “We lived as a tribe, Chilean style; we were almost always together” she tells us, writing about her close-knit family.

Friday: To celebrate the start of National Poetry Month, we’ll mix in a little poetry with our Friday food program this week: Jewish-American poet Barbara Goldberg just won the Felix Pollak Award for her latest collection, The Royal Baker’s Daughter. Her poems read like “A Gourmand’s Prayer” – dumplings, head-cheese, pickled beets, mutton and leeks - all this food and I’m starving.

I’m heading north this weekend. I’ll be reading from I Hear Voices and signing books at The Loft in Green Bay at 6:00 on Saturday, and at LaDeDa Books in Manitowoc at 2:00 on Sunday. I’m hoping I’ll see some of you there!

Jean

March 24-28 Programs

Happy Spring Here-on-Earthlings!

I’m happy to be back in the radio saddle after hiking the deserts of Death Valley and performing with No. #2 son Dominick at The Strand in New York City.

Here’s what to look forward to next week:

Monday: Want to know how to live longer? A longevity study pinpoints three isolated communities – in Okinawa, Sardinia, and Linda Loma, California – that seem to have figured it out.

Tuesday: An Iranian and a Jew get together to talk about Middle East politics, religion and society. Reza Aslan, a young Iranian American fiction writer with degrees in Religious Studies, has been traveling with Gideon Yago, his Jewish counterpart. The two are part of this year’s UW Distinguished Lecture Series.

Wednesday: Direct from Kazakhstan: Roksonaki! Kazakhstan’s most experimental folk-rock band. We’ll hear the band play live and talk with director Ruslan Kara, who pioneered arrangements that combine ancient Kazakh instrumentation with contemporary rock and jazz.

Thursday: Sick of all these insufferable exhortations on how to be happy, happy, happy? You’ll find what Eric Wilson has to say about the American obsession with the pursuit of happiness refreshing. He’s the author of Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy.

Friday: Tastes Like Cuba: Esteemed playwright Eduardo Machado tells his life story – from his childhood in Cuba during the revolution to his life in America – through the culinary memories of his homeland. Kudos to Carmen Jackson who worked her charms to get Machado on Here on Earth.

Thanks for lending your ears!

Jean

March 17-21 Programs

Hi, all!

Thank goodness the spring is in the air. And thank goodness Jean is coming back from vacation on Monday. Sorry that we had to shuffle and cancel some programs this week. Next week should be much smoother.

Monday: The Wisconsin Idea Goes to Japan. Robert Gard, the founder and director of the Wisconsin Idea Theater, published a seminal work called "Grassroots Theater" which has just been translated into Japanese. Jean Feraca will talk with the translator and find out why community development through the arts is suddenly such a hot topic in Japan.

Tuesday: You think you know what’s in the Bible? Think again! In a re-configured Manga Bible, Jesus has come as a Samurai.

Wednesday: Here on Earth celebrates Persian New Year with a program about Shiraz: Ancient City of Wine and Song.

Thursday: March 30 is Vincent Van Gogh's birthday. He was named after an older brother, and infant who died. The haunting story of being named for the other, dead brother, is the subject of a beautiful, rich poem by Northern Irish poet Kate Newman. Jean Feraca and Molly Peacock will discuss the Van Gogh poem and others that have a quality of spring light, the light of the equinox.

Friday: Jean Feraca and her guests discuss why yerba mate, an ancient tea-like beverage consumed mainly in South America, is considered a drink of health and friendship.

Have a great weekend!

--
Lisa Bu
Web Producer
Here on Earth

March 10-14 Programs

Dear Hereonearthlings (Better!),

I'm on vacation this week, leaving the program in the capable reins of Lori Skelton and Veronica Rueckert.

Monday: Psycho-Spiritual Healing: Once you have faced a physical trauma, how do you mend the mind and the spirit? Dr. Charika Marasinghe of Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka's largest charitable organization, discusses psycho-spiritual healing, an integration of western science and eastern philosophy.

Tuesday: For the last two millennia human beings have fought the most over religions. And the winner is ...? According to the guest this hour, historians may one day look back on the next few decades, not as yet another era when religious conflicts enveloped countries and blew apart established societies, but as the era when secularization took over the world.

Wednesday: We’re trying to book Eric Wilson, author of "Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy," or the writer/director of “Persepolis.”

Thursday: A writer uses her favorite examples from languages dead, difficult, and just plain made-up to reveal how language study is the ticket to traveling the world without leaving the comforts of home.

Friday: A native Parisian and passionate explorer of the city’s food scene, Clotilde Dusoulier takes us on a mouthwatering tour of the best restaurants, markets, and shops in Paris.

Have a good one!

Jean

March 3-7 Programs

Dear Friends,

It's March! Matso Marzo is how they say it in Italy -– Crazy March. But freakishishness in the weather is fine with me as long as we get some puddles. Speaking of crazy, you might be tempted to think we've gone off the deep end by starting this week with Toilet Talk, but…

Monday: Green urinals, unisex toilets, toilets shaped like soccer balls, fireflies and a baby grand piano. We even found a $4.8 million dollar toilet covered in gold in Hong Kong. Move over Kohler! The Restroom Revolution is coming from "The Far East."

Tuesday: Olympic Athletes Muscle in on Darfur: Getting ready for this summer's Olympics in Beijing, Olympic athletes have been pressuring China to influence the government of Sudan to halt the genocide in Darfur, and it seems to be working. We'll talk with American speedskater Joey Cheek, the founder of "Team Darfur," and Jerry Fowler, chief of "Save Darfur."

Wednesday: "Taxi to the Dark Side," a film about American torture, just won this year's Oscar for Best Documentary. We'll talk with Alfred McCoy (A Question of Torture) who served as a consultant to the film, and Marnia Lazreg (Torture and the Twilight of Empire), who traces the roots of the Bush administration's use of psychological torture back to the Algerian War.

Thursday: Is sailing around the world high on your Bucket List? Beth Leonard, author of Blue Horizons, which just won the 2007 National Outdoor Book Award, shares insights that have come from a deeply felt and fully-lived life circumnavigating the globe on a sailboat, not just once, but twice. She joins us from Patagonia!

Friday: Tapas, Mezze, Sushi. Is "gnoshing" our way through dinner about to displace the great American entrée? How other dining traditions are influencing the way restaurants plan our meals. Join us for a food fight, when Caryl Owens makes her debut hosting this Foodie Friday on Here on Earth.

With the blessings of the gods, I'll be on vacation by the end of the week.

Have a good one!

Jean

The Dancer and the Thief

Friday, February 29, 2008

My "Pick of the Week" goes to Thursday's program with Chilean novelist, Antonio Skarmeta. Every time I started getting academic, using words like "feminist," or raising questions like, "So you reminded Chileans of who they really are" - he always responded by bringing the conversation back to earth, saying "No, not so pretentious..." or "That's too intellectual for me..." He reminded me in this way of Fellini who used to throw his hands up in the air in exasperation at critics and journalists who were forever asking him about "the meaning" of his work.

There are great characters in The Dancer and the Thief, and what I liked best was the way Skarmeta expressed real delight in following his them around Santiago, discovering the surprises life throws at them and what they will do next, exactly the same joy that he grants his reader. It made me realize that a novel is something that is truly alive, that it unfolds as it's being written, unpredictably, just like life. My favorite moment in the program was when he became semi-convulsed remembering the chapter wherein Angel quizzes Victoria on her exam questions while making love to her.

The only thing that bothers me is that, almost invariably, when I host programs that are based on newly translated novels like The Dancer and the Thief which hardly anybody has ever heard of, nobody calls. So, is there any way to remedy that? It's wonderful to share the joy of discovering and introducing listeners to new literature from other countries, but I can't help feeling that a talk show that fails to attract callers is a failed talk show. Any comments, or ideas?

Feb 25-29 Programs

Dear Friends,

Just in case you noticed, Here on Earth's entire schedule for last week got scotched or scrambled, all except for Wednesday's program about the Turkish Ban on Head Scarves. We'll hope for better luck this week:

Monday: Ever wonder what it's like to fly the friendly skies over Africa and India? We'll get the skinny from Patrick Smith, who writes a wonderful column, "Ask the Pilot," for Salon.com.

Tuesday: If you're against hope, don't listen to this program! We'll talk with seasoned reporter John Parker who actually wrote an article called "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" for The Economist, detailing the evidence indicating that the world, unexpectedly, is becoming a prosperous and more peaceful place.

Wednesday: Jesus as a Samurai? The Bible re-configured as a Japanese cartoon.

Thursday: I recently spent a delightful Sunday during one of the worst storms of the season buried in The Dancer and the Thief, a bestselling new novel by the great Chilean writer, Antonio Skarmeta, who gave us Il Postino. The plot is set in post-Pinochet's Santiago and revolves around a cast of underworld characters who alternately horrify and charm you.

Friday: The Fortune Cookie Chronicles. You thought fortune cookies were Chinese, right? Think again.

I'm off to Philadelphia for a family reunion this weekend. But I'm sorry I'll miss seeing you at the Open House on Sunday.

Jean

Feb 18-22 Shows

Dear Hereonearthians,

Salve! And yes, thank God it's over. Thank you all for your support, and let's all look forward to Here on Earth the way God intended it.

Monday: Joe Hardtke scored a big one for us in getting Iranian exile Marjane Satrapi to join us at the start of her American tour to talk about the huge success of Persepolis, her graphic novel, now an animated film (currently at Sundance in Madison) nominated for Best Animated Feature at this year's Academy Awards. (Feb. 24)

Tuesday: We've just learned that Steven Spielberg is boycotting this year's Olympic Games in support of Darfur and to protest China's support of the government of Sudan. We think it might be the start of a boycott movement and we're working to find the right guests. Any ideas out there?

Wednesday: Turkish Head Scarves. Many Turkish women are devout Muslims who are clamoring for the right to wear their head scarves in public buildings, a practice Turkey's traditionally secular government disallows. (It's the reverse of what you'd expect) Will the new Islamist government reverse the law? And does this portend a swing to Islamic conservatism for secular Turkey?

Thursday: Latin America: The Forgotten Continent. Michael Reid argues in his book that in spite of Latin America's struggles to create fairer communities, making it one of the world's most prosperous laboratories for democracy, it remains The Forgotten Continent.

Friday: What is the origin of the fortune cookie? Los Angeles and San Francisco both lay claim to it. Chinese and Japanese restaurants both offer them. But is it only American after all? This hour we crack open the fortune cookie.

We need each other to get through February. Please stay plugged in, and check out my blog entry, "Broccoli Rape for Breakfast."

Jean

Broccoli di Rape for Breakfast

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

We Italian Americans have a special fondness for broccoli di rape, a bitter green vegetable that, like arugula, has started showing up regularly in some American supermarkets in the last several years. Who eats it besides us, I wonder? It is one of those foods, like rice to the Japanese, or lutefisk to the Norwegians, that carries identity. We take a perverse delight in relishing it, because we think it belongs to us and to nobody else. There are jokes about it, because it induces fatulence; and there is even a poem written about it by an Italian American woman named Rosella I met the last time I was in New York. She has perfected the art of steaming it with olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, and caramelized onions.

So I had it for breakfast this morning, thinking of Rosella, who makes it better than I do. There was a bunch of it, and not much else in the refrigerator, and it had started to turn yellow. Wasting a bunch of broccoli di rabe is a sin for an Italian American, and I'm trying to avoid sinning during Lent.

So I stood there at the kitchen counter and ate the whole thing with my hands right out of the pot, stripping the delicate leaves from the limp green stems, relishing the oil as it annointed my lips and mouth, enjoying the sting of the hot pepper flakes, and the crunch of the fibers between my teeth. I thought of Annie Lanzilotto and her search in downtown New York for a lunch that "would honor her ancestors."I thought too of St Teresa of Avila who said, when she was caught wolfing down roasted quails all by herself in the convent's refectory, without apology,"When I pray, I pray, and when I eat quail, I eat quail." Later in the morning as the bitter taste kept coming back to me, I remembered these lines from a poem by Stephen Crane, ..."ah, it is good, because it is bitter, and because it is my heart."

I am not in the habit of eating broccoli di rape for breakfast. Why did I do so this morning? Because I suffer from the winter cold and I needed something to kick my heart up, to assert my identity, my ancestry, my perverse lineage. And it worked.

Feb 11-15 Programs

Dear Friends,

It’s always a challenge to come up with programming that represents us at our best and is likely to inspire your support during pledge drives. If you have ay suggestions for future drives, we’d love to hear from you. Please send your ideas to hereonearth@wpr.org.

Here’s what’s coming up:

Monday: It’s the Bob and John Show: John Nichols and Bob McChesney team up to talk about how the 2008 presidential race is being covered in international media, and which presidential candidate is most likely to restore our tarnished image.

Tuesday: Just in time for the Wisconsin Primary, the editors of The Rough Guide have come up with a new, totally updated Rough Guide to Climate Change that includes an expanded “What You Can Do” section and profiles of each candidate’s position on global warming. We’ll gladly send you a copy in return for a modest pledge of support.

Wednesday: Where in the World is Stephanie? We catch up with Stephanie Griest, our ever-ebullient wandering modern nomad just as she returns from a trip to Mozambique.

Thursday: For a special Valentine’s Day program, what could be better than a bouquet of some of the world’s best love poems.

Friday: Hot Plants for Hot Pants! Find out if there really is such a thing as a Spanish fly when we talk with an ethnobotanist whose specialty is aphrodisiacs.

Pray for us!

Jean

With The Wine Guyz

Friday, February 1, 2008

I had a terrific time in La Crosse last weekend. First off, meeting Cajun Tim Hall was worth the trip in itself. Accomplished cook, raconteur, and all around great guy, Tim was born in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana and knows the bayous and by-ways of his native state like a muskrat knows his swamp, which would have been obvious to anyone who was listening to Here on Earth last Friday. Tim and his wife Carol showed off their southern hospitality on Friday night, serving us a marvelous Cajun meal. My my, but that chicken and andouille sausage was out of this world - so lip-smacking I had to have two helpings. And that was only the second course.

Tim was such a big hit we invited him to come back again this Friday when we'll be featuring his cookbook, Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez, and DVD as a pledge premium. And he's also agreed to host a WPR Cajun Barbeque which will be held at Larry Meillor's bayou in June.

Saturday noon I arrived at The Wine Guyz, which is right across from The Pump House in La Crosse and adjacent to Piggy's, following the weekend's theme. The Wine Guyz turned out to be the perfect place for me to read from "Get Thee to a Winery," the third chapter in my book, I Hear Voices, which flips back and forth between the time I spent in St. Benedict's Monastery and the California wine country. Dan, the owner of The Wine Guyz, another perfect host, handed me a glass of Writer's Block zinfandel halfway through the reading which added immeasureably to the whole gestalt. The best thing was, everybody there seemed to enjoy themselves quite as much as I did!

There will be more readings coming up at various venues throughout the state in the next several months. Look for postings on our website.

Jan 28 - Feb 1 Programs

Dear Here-on-Earthians,

We need each other in this cold weather more than ever, don't we? We've put some extra care into planning this week's programs. Here goes:

Monday: Temple Grandin is considered one of the world's top animal behavior experts. She attributes her understanding of animals in part to her autism, which enables her to "think like an animal." She joins us to talk about her latest book, Animals in Translation.

Tuesday: The Art of the Obit: Two writers of obituaries, one British, one American, team up to tell us what obituaries say about our cultural differences.

Wednesday: Genesis Farm: If the names Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme mean anything to you, you'll relish this opportunity to talk with the founder of Genesis Farm, an Ecological Learning Center located in New Jersey.

Thursday: What happens to our cast-off computers and cell phones? Find out when we talk with Chris Carroll, the author of an article on High-Tech Trash in this month's issue of National Geographic that examines the environmental and health impacts of discarded electronics dumped on places like New Delhi.

Friday: Delizia! Okay, it's not just another excuse for Feraca to talk about Italian food. Think epic history. Think why Mussolini loved risotto, how early pizzas were disgusting , and how pasta really got to Italy. Could an Englishman appointed Commendatore by no less than the president of the Italian Republic not be worth listening to? Join me with John Dickie who doesn't just know about Italian food; he also wrote Cosa Nostra, hailed in Italy as the best book about the Mafia ever written. (Do I sound defensive?)

Tune in, stay warm, and come see me at The Wine Guyz in La Crosse this Saturday, if you can. I'll be reading at noon from Chapter #3, "Get Thee to a Winery," from my memoir, I Hear Voices.

Jean

Jan 21-25 Programs

Cari Amici!

(Somehow that sounds better than "Dear Friends," which is usually the way fundraising letters begin).

This week on Here on Earth begins fittingly enough with a tribute to that great American, Martin Luther King, Jr., but I think we've found an unusual way in…

Monday: Join us with the co-founders of Atlanta's International Community School, inspired by the vision of MLK, where American students learn together with immigrants and refugees from 40 countries.

Tuesday: The International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, a group of women working to preserve their collective tribal wisdom and pass it on to the next generation before it's all lost. We'll meet two Council members and talk with a journalist whose work has made them famous.

Wednesday: Now here's a twist: Searching for Nebraska in France? Kent Cowgill wrote a book called Back in Time, an account of his nostalgic journey through the countryside of France in search of the rural life and culture of his own native Nebraska. Guess what? He found it!

Thursday: Satish Kumar, the editor of Resurgence Magazine and a great spiritual thinker, is the subject of a BBC4 special broadcast, Earth Pilgrim. He joins us from England to talk about reverential ecology.

Friday: Live from La Crosse, Wisconsin, Join us for special "Food Friday" edition of Here on Earth when I'll be joined by Tim Hall, Cajun chef and Louisiana transplant who will deliver a real Mardi Gras feast, I guarantee!

Lend us your ears, and may the Packers win!

Jean

Jan 7-11 Programs

Dear Friends of Here on Earth,

Have you seen Charlie Wilson's War yet? The movie tells the true story of a Texas Congressman who funded a covert war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. We'll be talking about it on Monday's show with the director of the nation's only Afghanistan Studies Institute, and Martin Frost, Charlie Wilson's Congressional peer from Texas.

Tuesday: Northern Ireland: The Latest Tourism Destination! Belfast is in the process of turning its violent history into a tourism attraction. We'll be talking with a columnist for the Boston Globe who's been covering Northern Ireland for 20 years – the sites of bomb blasts and killings are now opportunities for tourist dollars.

Wednesday: Songs of the Holocaust: We're working on a program with recording artist Anne-Sofie von Otter who just released an album of songs from the Terezin concentration camp.

Thursday: As India accelerates its rapid modernization, we take some time to remember that its mythic past is still alive and well in a country where disciples of Lord Shiva still walk barefoot, and dreadlocked holy men speed around on bicycles. Tales from Mythic India told by poet and playwright Kamla Kapur, author of Ganesha Goes to Lunch.

Friday: The program on Japanese food we promised you last week with tips on how to stay slim and healthy in the new year.

I'll be with you on Monday, Veronica will be filling in for me the rest of the week. Don't touch that dial!

All best wishes for the New Year,

Jean

Dec 24-28 Programs

Dear Friends,

I hope you enjoyed our week of holiday programming as much as we enjoyed producing it. As one faithful listener pointed out, last Friday's program about Primo Levi (Last Christmas of the War) - which left everybody in tears including gentilissimo Ernesto Livorni, my guest who actually slapped himself when he started to cry – was reminiscent of the Thanksgiving Day programs I used to do with Connie Kilmark when we asked listeners to tell us about the best gift they ever gave, or received. Powerful stuff. My favorite kind of radio.

Anyway, because we had such a favorable response to The Christmas Package (Dec. 15), we've decided to repeat it on Christmas Day. We're also repeating our program about the Evolution of Santa Claus (Dec. 18) on Christmas Eve. So here's how the week looks on paper:

Monday: The Evolution of Santa Claus, from his origins in ancient Turkey to Jolly Old St. Nick

Tuesday: The Christmas Package: an unforgettable story told by an Italian Jew who gets a Christmas package from home delivered to him in Auschwitza month before the end of the war.

Wednesday: Back to the Bonobos with the great Swiss biologist Frans De Waal, author of The Inner Ape, who insists we got it all wrong by claiming chimpanzees as our evolutionary ancestors instead of the peace-loving bonobos, the hippies primates who make love instead of war.

Thursday: In 1969, young Kirin Narayan's older brother, Rahoul, announced that he was quitting school and leaving home to seek enlightenment with a guru. Another familiar motif from the sixties, and a link to our evolutionary past, explored with Indian anthropologist, Kirin Narayan, author of the memoir, My Family and Other Saints.

Friday: Just when you're sick of the whole idea of food: delicious and healthful slimming secrets from the author of Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat.

Merry Christmas! And to all a Good Night!

Jean

Jean in The Big Apple

Friday, December 21, 2007

I can't let this year slide away without giving an account of my magical four days in The Big Apple. On Tuesday night, December 11, I gave a reading from my memoir, I Hear Voices, at the Borders bookstore on Park Ave. and 57th Street. For those of you who may not know New York, that's considered a pretty swanky part of town, right next to Bloomingdale's in the heart of the toney upper eastside. It's also a part of the city that holds special resonance for me since my Uncle Dominick's office used to be just off 58th St., and my great-grandfather actually helped build the German section of the city known as Yorktown. What a thrill - to find my book displayed in the window facing 57th St.!

Anyway, in spite of all my apprehensions and actual nightmares that nobody would show up, over 100 people were there! - quadruple the crowd that the store usually draws. Borders had to keep adding more and more chairs and finally put a second sound system in the back of the room so that everybody could hear.

Much like the launch of the book back in October at our own Borders on University Ave. in Madison, I felt once again, looking out at the crowd and recognizing so many people from so many different decades and sectors of my life, that I had died and gone to heaven. Stomping around in my new boots and embroidered black velveteen coat that my husband says makes me look like one of the founding fathers (not exactly the look I was striving for!), I read for over an hour and had to be cut off by the management when the Q@A went on a little too long.

I spotted old friends in the crowd: Mariana, my Cuban roommate from college in the crowd; Mara, my best friend from fifth grade, and new friends too, like Annie Lanzillotto. Jacki Lyden was there, all the way in the back, looking exceedingly glamorous in a sweater with a full yoke of white fur; Diane Ackerman came too, all the way from Ithaca. My friend Melanie's father was among the first to arrive, displaying his birth certificate to prove that he really is 96 years old; my son Giancarlo sent four of his friends; my husband made sure there were a few scientists in the crowd, and Dominick, my son, the artist, looking lushly Byronic in a black velvet jacket, leaned back in his chair in the front row, his eyes closed, drinking in my words. I tell you, it was the thrill of a lifetime. And we sold a lot of books too.

Dec 17-21 Programs

Dear Friends,

We've decided to go for broke this week and test your tolerance by lining up a whole week's worth of Christmas programming! Don't touch that dial! We have a hunch you're really going to like it.

Monday: Navan, the singular a cappella group starring the polyglotton-ous Sheila Shigley, joins us to celebrate Celtic songs of the season: (sung in the original languages) mostly hair-raising, sometimes jazzy, mysterious songs that give fascinating insights into the pagan underpinnings of Yuletide.

Tuesday: The evolution of the modern-day Santa from its origins in Turkey (!), to Holland where Santa arrives with a boatload of Negroes who beat you up with sticks if you're bad (and nobody thinks it's racist), to The Miracle on Forty-Second Street. Now how could you not like a program like that?

Wednesday: Theologians John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg have teamed up again to give us a brand new and controversial interpretation of The First Christmas.

Thursday: Get ready for the Winter Solstice Poetry Circle of the Air with Molly Peacock. Molly has chosen a set of sonnets poet Marilyn Hacker wrote while undergoing surgery for breast cancer during the holidays, an irony all too commonplace. Look for the poems on our website and bring a solstice poem of your own choosing to the circle.

Friday: Wisconsin-born/Paris-based chef Patricia Wells joins us to give a French twist to the Christmas feast.

Have a great weekend. I'm outa here.

Jean

Dec 10-14 Programs

Hi Folks,

I'm headed for The Big Apple this week to give a reading from I Hear Voices at the Border's on 57th St. in mid-town Manhattan on Tuesday. Whoop-de-doo! Hopefully, more than five people will show up. I've worked so hard to drum up a crowd, I've even invited my best friend's brother from high school!. In my absence, Lori Skelton will be hosting the show to kick off the week and she's come up with a couple of dandy topics:

Monday: Lori Skelton talks with James Devita, APT actor and author of the recent novel "The Silenced," and Deborah Ellis, award-winning author of children's books, about contemporary literary role models for young girls and the challenge of crafting an identity when the world around you is far from stable.

Tuesday: Lori Skelton and guests discuss Winter Solstice celebrations, through time and across cultures.

Wednesday: Curious about what international students think of America? We'll talk with four winners of a UW international student essay contest representing four continents.

Thursday: The Paradox of the Ganga: India's Most Sacred River and its Pollutants, a journey narrated by a British documentarian.

Friday: (My Pick of the Week) The great Italian humanist, Primo Levi, much to his surprise, received a package of goodies for Christmas while he was in Auschwitz. Poet Ernesto Livorni of the Italian Department, UW-Madison, reads and discusses Levi's essay, "Christmas in Auschwitz." You'll love it!

Wish me luck!

Jean

Dec 3-7 Programs

Dear Friends,

We have an unusually political line-up to kick off the month of December:

Monday: The UN gets a report card on its Declaration of Human Rights created in 1948, almost 60 years ago. We'll talk with members of Wisconsin's Governor's Commission on the UN, the only body of its kind in the US.

Tuesday: Do scientists play God? Turns out, that depends on your religion. We'll talk with Lee Silver, the author of Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality, About the East/West Scientific Divide..

Wednesday: Beyond Caudillo: How Michelle Bachelet is changing the legacy of August Pinochet in Chile.

Thursday: At long last, we catch up with Jonathan Groubert and his new program from Radio Netherlands. This week's edition is, appropriately enough, about Overconsumption.

Friday: Spice: Want to know what it took to get those pumpkin pie spices into your Thanksgiving feast? Join us with the author of The Taste of Conquest: The Three Legendary Cities: Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam: how their single-minded pursuit of spice helped create the Western diet and set in motion the first great wave of globalization.

Hope you'll be listening and calling!

Jean

Nov 26-30 Programs

Hi Here-on-Earthians,

Question of the Week: Have we dropped the ball in Afghanistan? (See Wednesday's program with former NPR foreign correspondent Sarah Chayes).

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and here's what we have to look forward to when we groan our way back to work on Monday:

Monday: How do you measure the distance from an African village to an American city?: We'll talk with Anne Makepeace, the maker of Rain in a Dry Land, a POV documentary about the challenges faced by Somali refugees confronting racism, poverty, and 21st century culture shock.

Tuesday: Beyond Caudillo: We're working on a program about Chile's woman president, Michelle Bachelet, who is taking her country beyond the legacy of Pinochet.

Wednesday: Once again, we catch up with our gal in Afghanistan, the redoubtable Sarah Chayes who has been helping Afghani entrepreneurs to develop a soap and body-oil business while they all dodge the Taliban's bullets. Have we dropped the ball in Afghanistan? Let us know what you think by sending a message to hereonearth@wpr.org and posting it on my blog at www.hereonearth.org.

Thursday: The Seed Bank: It's a project ongoing in Norway to preserve all the seeds on earth in case of catastrophe.

Friday: Space Food: in the future we may all be eating what the astronauts eat. God forbid.

I hope you can join us, and I mean that in more ways than one. We are in the process of developing a more interactive production process, hoping to solicit your input on issues we tackle in advance of the broadcast so you can play a more active role in helping to shape the program. The first step is in introducing The Question of the Week. See Sarah Chayes' article, “Scents and Sensibility,” in the November issue of Atlantic Monthly for more background on what's going on in Afghanistan.

Enjoy your turkey!

Best,

Jean