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05-30-09 :
Agony Column Podcast News Report — Three Books With Alan Cheuse
A Moveable Feast, Restored Edition
by Ernest Hemingway
American Rust
by Philip Meyer
The Strain
by Guillermo Del Toro
and Chuck Hogan
"Half way through vampire novel, it's giving me nightmares..."
That was Alan Cheuse's reaction to 'The Strain' by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan.
I'm a devil, I know, asking him to read literature that tramples down the borders of taste with buckets of blood and scenes of physical horror so gruesomely disturbing that you can practically hear the icky sound effects that would accompany the movie version.
But whatever the topic, be it the restored edition of Ernest Hemingway's 'A Moveable Feast' or 'American Rust' by Philip Meyer, a piercing look at life in the rotting remains of what was once an industrial power, Alan Cheuse and I had a grand time discussing today's selection of three books. The Hemingway pretty much comes under the must-buy banner; there are 60 new pages of new material here, and much of what was elided by the book's first editor, Hemingway's fourth wife Mary, really proves to have mattered. You can hear our conversation by following the link to the MP3 audio file.
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05-29-09 :
Agony Column Podcast News Report : UCSC Students Protest Budget Cuts : Hunger Strike
Of course what takes the hit first are my plans. I had the UCSC students scheduled for last in the show, but, they showed up before the Ramayana folks, so all change! I had a great time talking to Solymar Sola-Negron and Dominic Prado, who were kind enough to send me the "Student of Color Collective Mission Statement." You can hear our conversation by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
Now here's the statement:
The Student of Color Collective (SOCC) is a coalition of student of color organizers actively working for an equitable, more accessible higher education for all students. Comprised of student leaders, ethnic organizations, and concerned students of color, the collective works to take back ownership over the system of higher education that has historically excluded/exploited communities of color. The collective recognizes the particular struggle of students of color to access, engage, and retain themselves in an institution that has, through the use of institutionalized racism, undervalued, underutilized, and overlooked the importance of a diverse student body. The collective asserts that as a public institution, it is the duty of the university to serve the public justly by reflecting the demographics of California.
Following a long legacy of student of color activism, and a thirty year long fight to maintain vital resources for students of color on this campus, the collective asserts that students of color are valuable assets to the UCSC campus and must be treated by the university as such. During times of budget cuts and economic uncertainty, it is the duty of the university to prioritize those who are most immediately impacted, students of color from historically marginalized communities. It is the duty of the university to therefore, adequately fund, promote, and support resources for these students of color in order to maintain a healthy, diverse campus.
The Student of Color Collective maintains the needs of students of color include but are not limited to access to effective outreach and retention programs which work to target marginalized communities, access to effective resource centers that work to address the needs of students of color as stated by students of color, people of color representation on all levels of administration, retention of faculty of color, decision making power in all proposed or actual budget cuts which effect student of color resources, and accountability and transparency by all UCSC administrators over all budget decisions.
The collective holds the university accountable to its claim “To serve society as a center of higher learning, providing long-term societal benefits through transmitting advanced knowledge to all California students” (University of California Mission Statement). As active stakeholders in this institution of higher learning the Student of Color collective reclaims the university as a taskforce for creating a strong, diverse, and educated generation of leaders.
Student of Color Collective Demands
Short Term:
• Hire full-time AIRC (American Indian Resource Center) and WC (Women’s Center) directors with student voice in hiring process
• Maintain academic integrity and current structure of Community Studies Dept. by keeping field study coordinators Mike Rotkin and Flor Marchetti and Department Manager Penny Stinson.
• Retain two LALS professors Guillermo Delgado and Susan Jonas
• Make UCSC a sanctuary campus
• UCSC publicly support the Dream Act (state/federal)
• Permanent funding for Ethnic- Year-End Ceremonies from college C.A.O.s and Provosts
• RC (Resource Center) rep as liaison to between local tribes and UCSC. Maintain respectable relationships with local tribes.
• Equitable rent for family student housing. No rent increase for year of 09-10
• Fair transparent negotiations with workers and unions to ensure equitable pay, working condition and representation
• No layoffs!
• No worker deportations by ICE
• Freeze on cuts over the summer
Long Term:
• Chancellor support/funding of SIO programs for Students of Color
• Institutionalized scholarships and other resources for under-resourced immigrant students
• Access and affordability to higher education for underrepresented communities- STOP STUDENT FEE HIKES!
• Outreach and retention of faculty and staff of color (CPS)
• Fill Asian American “specialist” position for American Studies
• Movement towards an Ethnic Studies Program
• Affordable and quality housing for under sourced immigrant students
• No cuts to D resources
• No cuts to rape awareness
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05-28-09 :
Agony Column Podcast News Report — Robert Scheer On Obama and the War : "Who's gonna win the war?"
Well, if you're struck by a mind-virus there's no better way to kill it dead than speak to the experts, and when it comes to the current jangle of political no-win situations, there is no better expert than Scheer. Such has been my luck that I've ended up hosting and helping get guests for KUSP's Talk of the Bay during, count 'em Easter Sunday, Mother's Day and now Memorial Day. Given that KUSP has (un)wisely chosen to slot this call-in talk show from 7-8 PM on Sunday evenings — yes, we're goin up against 60 minutes on TV and on the local AM radio — my luck getting guests seems pretty damn amazing. After a horrific and elided in this podcast attempt to navigate the Jurassic call-in system from the studio itself, I did manage to get Scheer on the air and engage him in the conversation he does best. It's so great to hear him think and speak because he ruthlessly cuts to the chase. Here's a link to the MP3 audio file to demonstrate just that. As to "Who's gonna win the war?" Frankly it seems more likely that Dave Brock and the boys in Hawkwind shall than any of the great nations.
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Terry Bisson and Richard Kadrey |
05-27-09 :
Agony Column Podcast News Report — Terry Bisson, Richard Kadrey and Heather Shaw at SF in SF, May 16, 2009 : Panel Discussion
One never knows how a panel discussion will go, where it will lead, what subjects will be discussed. So I can't say why the panel discussion went almost straight to the efficacy of writing workshops. With three writers of vastly different experience and lots of it — Terry Bisson, Heather Shaw and Richard Kadrey — it's given that there will be lots of variety and opinions on the subject. And this without the contributions of the audience. You can get the lowdown on writing workshops from professional writers by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
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05-26-09 :
A 2009 Interview with Logan and Noah Miller : "We put our laptop on this greasy dumpster"
The boys were running late; surprisingly, I had for once arrived early. I set up upstairs in the Capitola Book Café, instead of the office downstairs I usually use. They'd called me from their car on the road as they left Corte Madera, a good two-hour drive from Capitola. It seemed to me unlikely that they would arrive early enough for us to do a real interview. But then, the Miller bothers have a history of beating the odds.
In fact the Logan and Noah did make it in time, and the fine folks at Capitola Book Café let me run a little long. When you read a book about exuberant, entertaining guys written by those same exuberant, entertaining guys, there's a tendency to suspect that those entertaining, exuberant guys will be, well, not to put too fine a point on it, annoying in person. That was definitely not the case with Noah and Logan — they were slightly discombobulated, and still moving at freeway speeds when they arrived, but they were just as genuine and funny as the prose in their book. Sure they were a little hyper. But I'll chock that up to their hectic schedule, and even go so far as to say that hyper works for the Millers.
I hope that readers can imagine the perils of the name-forgetting interviewer are exponentially magnified in the presence of identical twins. And I sure you'll hear me stumbling, because not only am I name-challenged, I'm also left-right challenged so it took me a while to figure out who was on the left and who was on the right. But look, these guys could complete one another's sentences; something I'm sure you'll hear, and much more, when you follow the link to the MP3 audio file of our conversation.
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