103 Responses to “Suggest a Show: December 2005”

1. LeeJudt Says:
   December 7th, 2005 at 12:59 pm

   You should do show about how individuals who survive suicide bombers cope. Here is one story you could use:

   http://www.shirleybarenholz.com/PP/NP/KIN/KINS.htm

   Kinneret’s story: The Battle after terror

2. LeeJudt Says:
   December 7th, 2005 at 1:02 pm

   Here is another suggestion I poster earlier:

   Muslim Judeophobia:

   Some examples are quite humorous, but the consequences are anything but!

   Denmark’s offensive Jewish cookies

   http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/4479

   A group of Danish Muslims refuse to eat traditional “Jewish� cookies because they feel offended by the name.

3. Marcel Says:
   December 7th, 2005 at 1:48 pm

   “The Decline and Fall of the American Empire. The beginning of the end?”

   Gibbon’s history began in AD 192, at the murder of Emperor Commodus, the son of Marcus Aurelius who had died in AD 180. By then Hadrian’s Wall had been completed (AD 121) to keep out the Picts of Scotland (read immigration law and Patriot Act), the empire was hiring soldiers because citizens of greater Roman had no longer interest in serving (read “paid security” in Iraq and New Orleans), some areas of the world were trying mightily to get annexed by the empire (read Bulgaria and Poland) while any number of “barbarian” groups were successively fighting Rome to the death (read Iraq, al Qaiada, etc.) Commodus was nothing compared with his father; he was unfit to be Emperor. And he began a series of unfit Emperors, most of whom eroded further citizens’ rights and were in the fullness of time murdered.

   In 2001 through 2002, for 18 months, I led a reading group, meeting fortnightly, reading this amazing work. As chance would have it, we met two days after the 9/11 attacks to discuss the sack of Rome by Aleric in AD 410. The impregnable and safe capital was forever after not either, not in reality, and more importantly not in the minds of its inhabitants.

   Our Gibbon Group spoke repeatedly of the parallels we saw, and nothing since has ruined the analogy. Surely in Cambridge there are scholars who could, with the alacrity required, elucidate this most amazing warning of what we all came to believe as inevitable.

4. Loay Says:
   December 7th, 2005 at 4:59 pm

   As I suggested before Robert Fisks “The Great War for Civilization” is out and a masterpiece. Brings in all the threads that make up the modern middle east

5. RCastro Says:
   December 7th, 2005 at 6:00 pm

   With the recent events in Paris combined with World Cup draw about to take place for next year’s World Cup in Germany, it may be worthwhile to look back at the French team that won the World Cup in 1998. This was the team that sung La Marseillaise, “with an accent,” that the likes of Le Pen did not look too kindly on.

   I would be interested to hear how the French look back on this team in light of the recent events and what kind of legs the goodwill from that victory had vis-a-vis the way France views itself and its immigrant population.

6. schottworld Says:
   December 7th, 2005 at 7:17 pm

   How about this…

   http://bloggingmuseum.blogspot.com/

   Who is going to document all of the public realm? This is such an interesting project.

7. lsteen Says:
   December 7th, 2005 at 7:49 pm

   Stan Freberg was on BBC Radio 4 today. He had been recorded live at a nightclub in London and although he presented no new material, his old material is still very funny and topical. Do you think he would be available for a program?

8. loki Says:
   December 7th, 2005 at 8:51 pm

   Madi Gras the debate. Has the music died in N.O. What will life be without the second line?
   I still recommend Jason Berry and his new writing on Jazz Funerals!

9. cheesechowmain Says:
   December 7th, 2005 at 8:52 pm

   Stan Freberg totally rox!

10. howardpark Says:
    December 8th, 2005 at 1:26 am

    The Fighting Dems — the Class of 2006 — the Veterans of the Iraq 1, Iraq 2 and other wars who are running for Congress, mostly (but not all) as Democrats. Air America’s Majority Report has done some really compelling radio with these candidates (but only the Dems). Check ‘em out, it could be a great show.

11. nbowling Says:
    December 8th, 2005 at 2:24 am

    Better off with Saddam?

    Most people now agree the war was a bad idea. And an additional percentage of the population now thinks that the war has been executed very poorly by the administration. But who among us is willing to propose that the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power?

    After 250 billion dollars, 30,000 dead Iraqis, and 2,000 dead troops is the world any better off? An exploration of what Iraq, the Middle East, and the world would like like if Saddam was not overthrown would look like would be fascinating.

12. nother Says:
    December 8th, 2005 at 4:35 am

    WASHINGTON — The House is to vote next week on legislation to strengthen border security and require workplace enforcement of immigration law but would not offer a guest worker program, a goal of President Bush and many in Congress. Associated Press
    Immigration – In the liberal Northeast we do not appreciate how important this issue is to the right of center in our country. People like Pat Buchanan (can you book him) and Bill O’Reilly are galvanizing a large segment of our country on this issue. President Bush seems to be hovering somewhere between appeasing his base and dealing with reality. (sound familiar?) It would be great if ROS could deconstruct the president’s guest worker plan; is it a hollow compromise or a step in the right direction?

    They say (O’Reilly, Buchanan, my mother) – the illegal immigrants are just using our system and our tax dollars, they are out causing crime, they’re taking jobs for less money, and they do not want to learn English.

    The South Americans I work with say – they have the double indignity of working the jobs that Americans don’t want to do, and then they are ridiculed by those same Americans.

    I say – what about the income taxes that my “illegal� friends are paying and never plan on recouping. What about the damm history of immigration that are country was founded on, and who the hell is going to wash the dishes for Buchanan and O’Reilly the next time they go out for those fancy dinners.

    I only wish for one day we could take away all the illegal immigrants and see what would happen to our nice little American way of life.

    Incidentally, I have many friends from Ireland who are illegal, (or “undocumented� as our government prefers to label them) why don’t I hear Mr. O’Reilly as riled up about the Irish.

13. bogdanakiko Says:
    December 8th, 2005 at 7:51 am

    The Apparent Suicide of Col. Ted Westhusing in Iraq

    I first heard of this disturbing story about how a 44-year old West Point professor of ethics, a devout Catholic since childhood, husband and father of three children, with doctoratres in Russian, philosophy and military strategy, who graduated third in his West Point class, who had served with special forces in Honduras, Italy and South Korea, whose PhD dissertation was on military ethics and honor, who had FIVE WEEKS left before his tour of duty was over, how this extraordinarily vigorous man, in every sense of the word, grew progressively frustrated with the corruption and greed he saw among military contractors (Virginia-based USIS) he had to deal with in Iraq and was found dead with a single gun-shot wound to his head, on the radio show “On Point”:

    http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/12/20051206_a_main.asp

    the L.A. times journalist on that show wrote up a story on November 27 –

    http://tinyurl.com/appbu

    – but i have not seen this picked up by ANY other news outlet, much less major news publication such as the New York Times, the Wasthington Post, the Chicago Tribune, or the cable or network news.

    why not?

    among the many disturbing, and bizarre aspects of this story, one that bothered me the most was in the following three paragraphs:

    —————————–
    About 1 p.m., a USIS manager went looking for Westhusing because he was scheduled for a ride back to the Green Zone. After getting no answer, the manager returned about 15 minutes later. Another USIS employee peeked through a window. He saw Westhusing lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

    The manager rushed into the trailer and tried to revive Westhusing. The manager told investigators that he picked up the pistol at Westhusing’s feet and tossed it onto the bed.

    “I knew people would show up,” that manager said later in attempting to explain why he had handled the weapon. “With 30 years from military and law enforcement training, I did not want the weapon to get bumped and go off.”
    —————————–

    why is nobody looking further into this? is this another story that the media is for some reason ignoring, but that bloggers and online forums will eventually revive and bring to the attention to the world, because it is a story that so naturally demands it?

    it just doesn’t add up for me.

14. Kirt Says:
    December 8th, 2005 at 1:33 pm

    How about a show on Christmas trees? Not so much about what they are, but all the hoopla around what they are called. I could be wrong, but I thought the tree originally was a Pagan ritual, so — if I am right — it’s ironic that there’s all this effort to call them a Christmas tree, when their origin predates Christianity.

15. Huffstar Says:
    December 8th, 2005 at 3:03 pm

    What about a show that discusses (as a precursor) the Olympics….and the sometimes devastating (Athens in 2004) or amazing (Calgary in 1988) effects they can have on a city’s economy?? There seems to be such a disconnect between the cities that end up w/ positive effects and ones that end up w/ negative. Why does this happen??

16. was698002 Says:
    December 8th, 2005 at 3:37 pm

    I would like to hear an interview with Stephen Wolfram together with an assessment of the status of A New Kind of Science after its splash opening a few years agol.

    “If you are so smart, why aren’t you rich.� Well this child prodigy is. He got that way by inventing a product and then merchandising it. A sort of Bill Gates for the mathematical set. He is using the money to promote a self-published book which he views as a sort of latter day Principia (and himself as Newton). He lives locally and speaks with the sort of accent beloved by PBS types.
    Check out-
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Wolfram
    http://www.wolframscience.com
    Here, NKS is used to disprove intelligent design. and this gives a good picture of how it works.
    http://www.math.vanderbilt.edu/~schectex/courses/wolfram.html

17. Potter Says:
    December 8th, 2005 at 5:57 pm

    This is the second “suggest a show” thread this month. In the first offered by Robin I left this post: http://www.radioopensource.org/show-suggestions/#comment-3168

    Here it is again:

    How can I access the original show suggestion thread? I see you have November suggestions still linked. Can we keep all the show suggestions available to refer to if we need to? For instance what if I want to post a link to an article related to a previous suggestion?

    This suggestion from November was not addressed specifically in your weekly roundup. So I’ll risk being a pest. Call me a pest. Is this considered looney wingnut stuff? Those of us who care about this give the media an F on it.

    My posts from November:

    http://www.radioopensource.org/suggest-a-show-november-2005/#comment-3023

    http://www.radioopensource.org/suggest-a-show-november-2005/#comment-3134

    I am adding to my November posts on the subject this little piece which asks the musical question Why the resistance?

    And now add this post from BBV: Yipe! Can this be true?

18. Potter Says:
    December 8th, 2005 at 6:07 pm

    Okay I see the ” Your comment is awaiting moderation.” after I submit my comment but I have no idea how to moderate my comment. I am guessing you mean edit. If so this is great and how do I ?

19. Potter Says:
    December 9th, 2005 at 10:32 am

    Hola! I think you guys are doing great work!!!

    Please do not miss the three suggestions on this thread for December: http://www.radioopensource.org/show-suggestions/

    Mine was one of them re-posted above. The subject of my comment of 12/8 at 6:07 is still a mystery to me.

    The library show suggestion echoes ones from the Google show.

    ” A Little Yellow Bird” addresses an issue here about a thread having to be closed because of bad behavior. There should be some way that we do not all have to pay for this by cutting off the discussion entirely. It was a shame to lose that thread.

20. nother Says:
    December 9th, 2005 at 4:46 pm

    “We are NFL obsessives in a soccer-playing world.� Christopher Lydon (in his post from the information summit.)
    I would love to explore your observation with the author David Halberstam. If America is obsessed with Football, and the best coach in football is Bill Bellichek, then let’s have a conversation with an intellectual who has explored Bill Bellichek in a new book. I forget which philosopher I heard describe American football as a representation of Capitalism. Football mirrors corporate America in its structure and specialization. It has top management, middle managers, team leaders, and line employees. The teams have a coach, an offensive and defensive coordinator, a quarterback coach, offensive line coach, defensive back coach. The game plan is an intricate makeup of schemes and plans. What about the anonymous nature of the uniforms? Does the lack of individuality in football speak to a capitalist nature, or is that a more socialist characteristic? Bellichek has been successful by convincing his players to resist individuality (TO!) and truly think of the team first. Larry Brown recently did the same with the Detroit Pistons, no stars-just team. Is that a good lesson for Americans, or just good sports? You could also discuss football’s overt representations of war. The quarterback is known as the “field generalâ€? and the best players are known as “warriors,â€? they play in the “trenches.â€? The players inevitably discuss great games as a “battle.â€? Is the war metaphor of football cathartic for our fighting impulses or is it a reinforcement and instigation of those impulses. “The Nazis saw sports as a preparation for war,” A quote by the architect Michèle Rüegg from the NY Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/sports/soccer/08stadium.html?pagewanted=1
    Is Bill Bellichek the prototype CEO, is he the prototype general, is he the prototype “American?�

21. nother Says:
    December 10th, 2005 at 1:27 am

    The New White Flight In Silicon Valley, two high schools with outstanding academic reputations are losing white students as Asian students move in. Why?
    http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/teen/teencenter/05nov_whiteflight.htm
    This article in the Wall Street Journal about new twist on “white flight� has been getting a lot of attention.

22. Edgar Brown Says:
    December 10th, 2005 at 12:04 pm

    What about ‘brain drain’ or how American society is enriched by the influx of educated people from all over the world, who in a way are ‘subsidizing’ U.S.’s educational system. This could go into a comparison of educational systems around the world, and what is wrong with American education (without disregarding what is ‘good’). And what can be done.

    I personally think that American educational system (specifically middle and high school) are to blame for most problems in the U.S. and a better education system is necessary for the continued survival of this country. I find appalling that in universities from European or South American countries, topics that are comfortably taught in the Junior year, have to wait for a Master or Ph.D. education in the U.S.

    A specific example is the misunderstandings around science education, and how such misunderstanding manages to equate the imperfect-but-always-perfecting-itself science fields to the god-mandated-static-religious fields, so that 70%? of the population decides not to ‘believe’ in science.

    A more to-the-point example is the elimination of accountability, it is normal for a student in a foreign country to fail classes because they had not enough grasp of the material, leading to university _fail_ rates as high as 80%, but the student assumes their responsibility and a reasonably good student would pass the second time around, essentially keeping a fixed level for education. In the U.S. I find this ever-adjusting downward slider, in which the student is the one that sets that bar, and the professor would pass at least 80% of them, without regard for how much the class as a whole has learnt.

    A question like ‘is this going to be on the exam’ is almost unthinkable in other countries, and to the question ‘from where do I have to study for the exam’ a normal answer would be ‘from kindergarten on.’

    Another consequence of this is the slanted culture towards educated people, in other countries the ‘best-of-the-class’ tend to be the social leaders at the schools (in a way, the nerds are at the top), something that seem to happen only in magnet schools without sports teams in the U.S., the culture here seems to be more of ‘the jocks at the top’ kind.

23. don warner saklad Says:
    December 11th, 2005 at 6:34 am

    How about a show with a segment on the phenomenon of the strategy of potential sex partners getting tested together before having sex… for sexually transmitted infections.

    Public health officials haven’t observed this phenomenon happening at doctors’ offices and clinics. People want to reduce ambiguity by detecting infections before rather than after it could be too late.

    Here’s a collaborative blog and a collaborative wiki about
    the strategy
    http://NotB4WeKnow.BlogSpot.com
    http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/not_b4_we_know

    Earlier edits at
    http://zork.net/dsaklad/notb4weknow.html
    http://NotB4WeKnow.EditThisPage.com

24. nother Says:
    December 11th, 2005 at 12:26 pm

    I like Edgar Brown’s education idea – are you planning to tackle race and in education. We’ve also had some time now to look back on mandatory testing and the “No Child Left Behind” act, are they working?

25. nico108 Says:
    December 11th, 2005 at 8:53 pm

    Can we have another show on Valerie Plane-Wilson? It seems with the V. Novak apology in this weeks Time, Bob Wodwards wierd connection and Miller’s humbling departure, that we need another show to get up to date on this. The bsphere is humming right now with Novak’s apology letter in Time… Maybe, while I’m writing this, just a show on the cosiness of these major political reporters with their contacts…? Also of course, we need a show on the “Tragedy and Triumph of Richard Pryor.”

26. nico108 Says:
    December 11th, 2005 at 9:11 pm

    Also, and I apologise for writing twice, but on a less political note I just spent the month of November writing a novel through something called National Novel Writing Month. It was a month of intense work in which some 60,000 of us from Finland to New York to Singapore to Israel all attempted to write a 50,000 word novel. Some 6,000 of us completed the task (myself included, on the thirthieth day squeeking in with 50,129 words.) It was a great experience in a riot of cultural anarchy in which we took the tools of production into our own hands and laptops for over for a month, with the result being, a virtual Paris Commune of new voices. What now? That’s the question. As of december first, six thousand new novels were born into the world and are up at any number of blog sites (mine is http://www.northjerseysanyasin.blogspot.com ) It was an experiment in accessing many voices, in overthrowing the “grande histoire” of the publishing industry for the loud and confusing post modern world of many histories, many stories…. It has now spawned several different “months”, including National Solo Album Month in which one records and produces ones own album. Whats next? Movie Month? In an echo of Marx, thanks to the miracle of Steve Jobsand the i-products (imovie,igarage,itunes…), cultural production has never been easie, nor freer. Should the big movie studios and publishing houses fear this liberating momentum? How will they embrace us? Co-opt us?

27. dchurbuck Says:
    December 12th, 2005 at 8:17 am

    Tags – with Yahoo’s acquisition of del.icio.ous — the time is right to talk about “folksonomies” and the movement of classification and taxonomies out of the hands of the librarians and their Dewey Decimal Systems to the people and Flickr. The wisdom of the crowd comes to pictures and pages as never before.

28. chris7528 Says:
    December 12th, 2005 at 11:07 am

    With the statistical decline in the number of college graduates, the mushrooming tuitions AND Federal deficit. this New York Times/Village Voice Editorial piece raises fascinating points of our govenrment’s business as usual-corporate profiteering, at the expense of the student loans system and college students.

    “Sallie Mae, the private AND FEDERALLY SUBSIDIZED company that makes, buys and sells the most student loans, boasted the second-highest return on revenue in the 2005 Fortune 500. Sallie Mae also happens to be the largest contributor, by far, to members of the House Education Committee. The Chronicle of Higher Education found that the committee chairman alone, John Boehner of Ohio, received $172,000 from student lenders and loan consolidators in 2003 and 2004.”

    This is a subject my peers and I would listen to closely and could help mobilize public will for change to address.

    The article’s closes with strategic political observations that are also intriguing.

    Keep up the good work!

29. chris7528 Says:
    December 12th, 2005 at 11:10 am

    Web link left out of last message – http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/12/opinion/12kamenetz.html?th&emc=th

    Sorry about that

30. allison Says:
    December 12th, 2005 at 3:57 pm

    How about a show on condemnation and redemption. In light of the Stanley Williams execution, where he has been a powerful voice against violence and gang activity, I find myself asking, “What is the point of condemning someone?”

    There is the obvious: condemnation serves to make social rules clear. But does the condemnation of a person have to be permanent? Are we not able to separate the behavior from the person. The behavior is a piece of history. Unchangeable. But the person is ever evolving. Capable of change. I can see testing the person. Being cautious that the change is profound enough to feel confident that the destructive behaviors will not be repeated.

    Why do some people say they cannot feel closure without punishment? Sometimes even killing? What do they mean by closure? Is it simply revenge, so that you don’t feel so powerless? Is revenge part of our social code?

    I have lots of questions about the individual and social psyche around crime and punishment and redemption. Would love to hear from a psychologist or sociologist or spiritual leader or social historian.

31. nother Says:
    December 13th, 2005 at 3:14 am

    If you do look at condemnation and redemption you might want to examine Truth & Reconciliation Commissions. Does the question Allison asks about a persons ability to change, apply to whole groups in society?

32. Potter Says:
    December 13th, 2005 at 9:20 am

    Allison, nother, great ideas! These seem like two program’s worth.

    At some point forgiveness must kick in.

33. unbob Says:
    December 13th, 2005 at 11:42 am

    The strange tale of Peter Quinn. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051210103842722 Were the Globe’s editors pushed or did they trip over their own. . .shoelaces? How many who saw the front page splash on 11/26 saw the back page retraction on 12/10? And it’s all about the Mass. government, open source (software), industrial titans clashing. With a distinct whiff of political intrigue. Seems like a natural for Mr. Lydon.

34. avecfrites Says:
    December 14th, 2005 at 11:00 am

    I’d like an exploration of why college costs rise so much. Let’s take a hypothetical example of an English literature major: all one needs is some books and some teachers, right? Thee are no expensive labs. And the books are mostly in the public domain. And the teachers are increasingly low-paid transient non-tenure-track types. So why does getting a BA in English or other liberal arts cost $30k+ per year? Where does the money go?

    Someone must have taken apart a college budget to analyze the ins and outs. I’d love to have a discussion with such a person.

    A related topic: why not charge different tuition by major? For example, high energy physics instruction probably costs more than art history because of the equipment (and the professors’ salaries).

35. nother Says:
    December 14th, 2005 at 1:43 pm

    1-The Face Transplant! At the intersection of rampant plastic surgery and the coming of cloning. Is all this body manipulation harmless, only reminding us that the soul is where we find our true identity, or are we losing our soul in a quest for external identity and immortality?
    From Dolly (Parton) to Dolly (the sheep), let’s look in the mirror for an hour or so.

    2-I would like to hear ROS spend an hour examining Dick Cheney. What makes this man (one of the most powerful in the world) tick? Where did he come from and how did he get here? Is Jesus his favorite philosopher? A man of Halliburton, of FIVE presidents; a man who is a “hawk� on war yet had draft deferments as a student, and then as a registrant with a child. A man whose outrageous statements however hollow, have not slowed him down, his rhetoric and demeanor is as solemn yet biting as ever.
    If anyone questions the power he wields, check out this exchange I found in the Chicago Tribune:
    During a trip to China earlier this year, a student asked Cheney to explain his role as “the most powerful vice president in U.S. history.”
    “Well, that’s not a question I had anticipated,” Cheney said. “The amount of influence you have, or authority if you want to put it in those terms, is based strictly upon your relationship with the president.
    “So I’ve been fortunate.”

    3- I seem to remember hearing about a forum recently on the state of theatre, in which Christopher Lydon participated (I think). You could bring that forum to the show or you could have a show specifically on Chekhov whose play “Three Sisters� is at the A.R.T. From the three daughters of King Lear and Shakespeare to the three sisters of Chekhov and Lupa. I went to see “Three Sisters� last night and although I appreciated much, including the unnerving use of silence, I came out thinking about jumping off the Tobin Bridge I was so depressed. There are great theater people in the Boston area and I hope you’ll tap into them: Robert Woodruff, Krystian Lupa (directing “Three Sisters�), Ed Siegel (from the Globe), John Kuntz (the actor), Rick Lombardo(New Rep).

    4- ”Arab Australians have had to cope with vilification, racism, abuse and fear of a racial backlash for a number of years, but these riots will take that fear to a new level,” said Roland Jabbour, chairman of the Australian Arabic Council.
    How do these riots fit into global dynamics of today? What is the thread here?

36. scribe Says:
    December 15th, 2005 at 6:39 pm

    I am surprised you didn’t do a show today about the Iraqi elections.

    many bloggers are chatting about nothing else.

37. h wally Says:
    December 15th, 2005 at 8:50 pm

    I started suggesting you do a show on the red cross several months ago. I voiced my concerns about the way they were handling their funds and their lack of presence during Katrina, at least in the earlier parts. I wonder why, in light of recent developments, you found no interest in my comments and suggestions.

38. vinylTape Says:
    December 15th, 2005 at 10:32 pm

    Very much enjoyed your show tonight on Don Quixote. I’m reminded that Samuel Beckett’s centenary is coming up, April 13, 2006. I’m sure you could make a fascinating few nights out of that. Might “Molloy” and “Malone Dies” prefigure what future awaits us profligate boomers after the empire crumbles? (Is Molloy a post-industrial Don Quixote?)

39. Nikos Says:
    December 16th, 2005 at 12:40 am

    After last night’s excellent ‘GOP: Shift to the Right’, it occurs to me that an EX-conservative might make a fascinating central guest. So how about David Brock, the ex-con(servative) author of “Blinded By The Right”? How, I wonder, does he see the latest evolutions of his former movement?

40. David Weinstein Says:
    December 16th, 2005 at 7:14 am

    Dear Chris and staff,

    First let me express how much I have enjoyed your show since I started listen in a few months ago here on the west coast. I find every show pertinent and intelligently executed.
    I have been thinking about responding to your invitation to suggest a topic for some time, this one being election fraud in 2004, which from what I can ascertain from here was highly organized and wide spread. The Jim Crow style disenfranchisement that spread from African Americans and minorities to the general public was reported on by the mainstream media but soon forgotten. The credible case for even greater election fraud by highly partisan republican owned and controlled vendors or voting machines and systems has really only been discussed and reported on the web.
    So when your guest Jacob Hacker advanced his and Paul Pierson’s case of their book, The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy, it rang the bell for me. The same thinking, mentality if you will, of the extreme wing of the republican party and that well oiled machine that put and keeps George Bush in office, that has demonstrated a brazen ruthlessness in legislative proceedings, has also demonstrated, to my lights, the same ruthlessness in the electoral system.
    I do not think that Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan would have resorted to election fraud to advance their radical republican ideas. The nature of their conservatism was also fundamentally patriotic, it seems to me, in the sense of American democracy, and the tenants of that first revolution with its checks and balances within popular government. But I believe with NYU Mark Crispin Miller, that in gamin the electoral system in 2004, this extremist brand of the republican party overturned the very ideals that founded this country.
    I will leave perhaps to a future show of yours, and the historians, political and social scientists you might invite, to examine, in my opinion, poisonous exceptionally, the cynicism, and brutal sense of entitlement that would lead to the potential destruction of this beautiful experiment in democratic government.
    But first the Bush/Rove political machine has been able to cower the mainstream media by making it afraid to be labeled fringe elements, “the buzz of cyberspace.” And, of course, there is the censorial effect of the media consolidation under a few integrated mega corporations (thank God for NPR). And yet there is a growing body of investigation and evidence pointing to the fact that something went horribly wrong in the 2004 presidential election. The first is the groundbreaking and courageous work of blackboxvoting.com who were on to the potential dangers of dangers of ‘black box,’ or voting machines that have no paper or other trail (I like to call it ‘faith based voting”) and the connection to politically partisan vendor corporations. I think Jim March of black box is the Paul Revere of our age. Jim is a registered republican outraged by the affront to our rights that this kind of electronic/cyber age election rigging represents. They have discovered how the Bush/Rove machine and the partisan vendors were able to program the voting machines themselves to switch, fabricate or delete votes, and how the GEMS central tabulators could easily be hacked by outside phone lines to rig final election results. Even the department of Homeland Security notified Diebold that their voting machine system was a security risk because it could be hacked. Diebold never did anything about it while its CEO famously said he’d do anything in his power to get George the junior re-elected at a campaign fund raiser. Jim March even has some of the code that was used to hide this election rigging from the prying eyes of election officials.
    Next is the 767 page book by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld, and Harvey Wasserman, Did George W. Bush Steal America’s 2004 Election? I believe they are all from Ohio where the 2004 election turned and were republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, and Ohio co-chair for the Bush/Cheney campaign, did his dark best to give the election his boys. Similar election fraud happened in New Mexico and Florida where, again, the paperless touchscreen voting machines were controlled by republican partisan corporations of Diebold, Triad, ES&S, Triad and Sequoia.
    Then there is republican John Conyors report, What went wrong in Ohio, that the republican controlled Congress basically suppressed.
    Also active and important on the scene is the Open Voting Consortium lead by Alan Dechert whose mission is to ensure transparent voting systems for all elections.
    Finally there is mark Miller’s fine book that sheds new light and brings forth fresh evidence on what should be a scandal. For example, 3.4 million citizens reported to the national census bureau that they voted than were tallied in the last election. I find this book most disturbing because it puts this rigged election in perspective. This is above and beyond those citizens who unfairly couldn’t register, couldn’t vote because of to few precinct voting machines, were illegally purged from the rolls, or by tampering of absentee ballots. This figure is from the United States government. Professor Miler is an independent who holds the democratic party in some disdain. His point is that the Bush regime is not conservative. They’re profoundly un-American. They do not believe in the vote.
    All this being said (and there is so much more to be said), I would like to alert you to a pending decision by acting California secretary of state McPherson whether to approve the infamous blackbox touchscreen voting machines for the 2006 elections by January. I think this would be a timely way into this tragic story for American democracy and citizen rights. Governor Schwartenegger seems to be running scared and more and more under the influence by the far right, and McPherson seems to only be going through the motions of investigating the danger of the Diebold/blackbox threat and taking citizen advisement on the matter. Happily there is a coalition in California opposing Diebold, the California election Protection Network, trying to persuade McPherson to not approve the blackbox machines. You might invite Jim March who has been active in fighting election fraud in California, a spokesman for Diebold, secretary McPherson, and perhaps Mr. Fitrakis or one of his co-authors to debate the pros and cons of whether to approve Diebold voting machines and systems in California. Alan Dechert would be ideal here. And why not invite governor Schwartzenegger to get his point of view.
    I think this would be a lively debate to say the least. This would naturally lead, it seems to me, to a desire for a general discussion on the part of your listeners about if and how Bush/Rove/Diebold et al stole the 2004 election and what it means America. I think professor Miller would be ideal in this debate with Mark Hertsgaard of Mother Jones on the other side. Jim March and the other folks at blackbox should be invited. John Conyors should be asked to participate. Howard Deane recently responded to a caller on an open DNC web call that he believed what is being reported on the web abut election fraud in 2004 is substantially true. You should ask him to join in on the conversation. And why not ask his opponent at the head of the RNC? Barbara Boxer is another possibility with some republican luminary in opposition.
    I think there is a third and final show on this burning issue about what the man and women in the street are doing about ht every possible stealing of their fundamental right of one person one vote in the nation. The Open voting Consortium is one such effort. Recently I received an e-mail about an ongoing law suit in new Mexico, Patricia Rojas et al, against the state and state officials to ensure that their votes are fairly counted in the next election (I will forward the e-mail). The contention is that Hispanic votes were grossly undertallied in the 2004 election. Perhaps you can find some other examples of citizens rising up to protect their right to free and fair elections, and to protect democracy itself in this great nation of ours.
    As professor Miller put it, our founding parents knew that it is civic virtue and vigilance for our basic rights that is the final bulwark against tyranny.
    Thank you so much for reading and considering this rather long e-mail. But I can think of no more relevant issue and no more apt place for this issue to be examined than on radio open source.
    Please let me know if you decide to air any shows on the suggestions advanced here, and if I can be of any further assistance to you.

    David Z. Weinstein
    Berkeley, CA

    (510) 527-1764

41. Nikos Says:
    December 16th, 2005 at 3:13 pm

    Since many of your Open Sources (Potter, Allison, elphaba, D.W., and many more) are terribly concerned about the perceptible failure of the American democratic experiment, how about a show featuring Daniel Lazare, author of ‘The Frozen Republic: How The Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy’ ?

42. dolma Says:
    December 16th, 2005 at 5:20 pm

    Or, if you do a show on American democracy – how about giving us some hope? Francis Moore Lappé’s new book – Democracy’s Edge shows what our fellow citizens are doing out of the limelight of the mainstream “news” media. By telling the stories of ordinary people whom she has met and interviewed, who are taking action to improve things in their communities she talks about the idea, beyond partisan politics, of living democracy.

    She defines this as, “the evolving practice of citizens reframing democracy’s meaning – from something done to us or for us to democracy as an engaging, life-enhancing, everyday practice.�

    Then goes on to say, “Growing numbers of Americans recognize that today’s problems are too pervasive, deep and complex to be solved by experts from above. So they are rethinking power, self-interest, and public life to put themselves at the center of problem solving.�

    From Fair Trade Coffee being sold by McDonalds, the continued success of clean elections campaigns (Connecticut just passed new laws on the first of this month), and the Coalition of Immokalee Worker’s breakthrough labor agreement with Taco Bell – there does seem to be a shift in consciousness happening in some areas. So, are things really as bad as they seem?

    Has American democracy gone too far over the edge of corporate control and consolidation, or will we see a huge shift in the next elections?
    Are the stories Lappé brings up just small ripples, or really, as she argues, the emergence of a new stage of democracy?
    Blogging gives the average person a voice – how does this contribute to living democracy?
    If we focus on these positive stories, will people regain confidence in the democratic process?

43. h wally Says:
    December 17th, 2005 at 12:35 am

    Hello all of you with comments. How do you know they read your comments? I wonder. I’ve seen no actual responses or proof that they actually look at our comments. Any one out there who can relate any experience with the above. I think we’re all just wasting our time.

44. Nikos Says:
    December 17th, 2005 at 4:07 am

    h wally: u dont lissen enuf. they credited a suggestion (Potter’s?) just the other night. Pay Attention!

45. icantgoon Says:
    December 17th, 2005 at 10:10 am

    Your show is excellent. I recently discovered it and am totally addicted.

    I want to second vinyltape’s suggestion to celebrate the literary god of all gods Beckett’s centenary… Along those lines, what about a look at experimental theater in this country? Why is theater in Boston so tepid, so fearful of any kind of risk, spoonfeeding the masses something tidy and easily digestible? What is the function of theater in today’s society and how do theater communities differ around the country and the world?

46. Potter Says:
    December 17th, 2005 at 12:08 pm

    The last four suggestions are wonderful. About a show on theater I totally agree, Beckett and how about August Wilson who recently passed away?

    Francis Moore Lappe- did’t she write “Diet for a Small Planet”? Yes!

    I welcome ( I need) the programs that lift the spirit in this discouraging atmosphere. Being a stickler for punishment however I propose a program about war-profiteering. There are these defense contracted related stories buzzing around and around and those are bad enough but the big one seems to be about the rip-off that is about to happen of Iraq’s oil wealth by American and UK oil companies. I do remember the solemn promises made to the contrary. This for me is another heart sinker.

    Crude Designs: The Rip-Off of Iraq’s Oil Wealth

    This is a substantial report but the summary tells enough. Here’s a little of it:

    While the Iraqi people struggle to define their future amid political chaos and violence, the fate of their most valuable economic asset, oil, is being decided behind closed doors.

    This report reveals how an oil policy with origins in the US State Department is on course to be adopted in Iraq, soon after the December elections, with no public debate and at enormous potential cost. The policy allocates the majority (1) of Iraq’s oilfields – accounting for at least 64% of the country’s oil reserves – for development by multinational oil companies.

    Iraqi public opinion is strongly opposed to handing control over oil development to foreign companies. But with the active involvement of the US and British governments a group of powerful Iraqi politicians and technocrats is pushing for a system of long term contracts with foreign oil companies which will be beyond the reach of Iraqi courts, public scrutiny or democratic control.

    COSTING IRAQ BILLIONS

    Economic projections published here for the first time show that the model of oil development that is being proposed will cost Iraq hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue, while providing foreign companies with enormous profits.

    Our key findings are:

    At an oil price of $40 per barrel, Iraq stands to lose between $74 billion and $194 billion over the lifetime of the proposed contracts (2), from only the first 12 oilfields to be developed. These estimates, based on conservative assumptions, represent between two and seven times the current Iraqi government budget.

    Under the likely terms of the contracts, oil company rates of return from investing in Iraq would range from 42% to 162%, far in excess of usual industry minimum target of around 12% return on investment.
    A CONTRACTUAL RIP-OFF

    The debate over oil “privatisation� in Iraq has often been misleading due to the technical nature of the term, which refers to legal ownership of oil reserves. This has allowed governments and companies to deny that “privatisation� is taking place. Meanwhile, important practical questions, of public versus private control over oil development and revenues, have not been addressed.

    The development model being promoted in Iraq, and supported by key figures in the Oil Ministry, is based on contracts known as production sharing agreements (PSAs), which have existed in the oil industry since the late 1960s. Oil experts agree that their purpose is largely political: technically they keep legal ownership of oil reserves in state hands (3), while practically delivering oil companies the same results as the concession agreements they replaced.

    Running to hundreds of pages of complex legal and financial language and generally subject to commercial confidentiality provisions, PSAs are effectively immune from public scrutiny and lock governments into economic terms that cannot be altered for decades.

    In Iraq’s case, these contracts could be signed while the government is new and weak, the security situation dire, and the country still under military occupation. As such the terms are likely to be highly unfavourable, but could persist for up to 40 years.

    Furthermore, PSAs generally exempt foreign oil companies from any new laws that might affect their profits. And the contracts often stipulate that disputes are heard not in the country’s own courts but in international investment tribunals, which make their decisions on commercial grounds and do not consider the national interest or other national laws. Iraq could be surrendering its democracy as soon as it achieves it.”

    Also from Global Policy Forum there’s this piece on Empire? which I post in support of Chris’s post game analysis ( which exacerbated my depression) from the show GOP Shift to the Right It begins with:

    “The United States is the most powerful nation in the world and it often acts unilaterally, but is it an Empire? Though some insist that “empireâ€? means only direct rule over large-scale conquered territory, the United States today looks decidedly imperial. The term empire has entered common usage, not only among critics but also among advocates of muscular US policy and global superiority. Economist Niall Ferguson has written about the British Empire as a lesson-book for contemporary US power. Influential Washington neo-conservatives are using the E-word freely, insisting that the United States is the world’s most benevolent nation and that it should use its imperial power robustly to expand “freedomâ€? across the globe. This section considers not only the utility of the Empire concept but also the way in which the United States (empire or not) deploys its economic, political and military power globally, limiting the force of international law, shrinking the capacity of international organizations, and reducing the possibility of multilateral action and democratic self-governance in an increasingly interdependent world. We ask also: what limits will this empire encounter, can it sustain “full spectrum dominance” for the forseeable future or will it provoke such broad opposition that its era of hegemony and prosperity comes swiftly and decisively to a close?”

    A report follows.

47. Potter Says:
    December 18th, 2005 at 9:06 am

    In today’s New York Times on the editorial page (finally) The Business of Voting

48. scottbenbow Says:
    December 18th, 2005 at 11:53 am

    I have been enjoying the shows on Mondays exploring race and class in the US, especially the show on artists’ perspectives.

    A show about white privilege in this country would be an interesting new direction for Open Source. The authors Robert Jensen and Paul Kivel would make exciting and provocative guests. Jensen, provocatively and accurately, in my opinion, posits that ours is a society of white supremacy. Both authors insist that it’s up to white people to learn how to become better allies for people of color in the United States and to act on what they learn. Their books are

    Heart of Whiteness– http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-0872864499-0

    and

    Uprooting Racism– http://www.powells.com/s?kw=uprooting+racism

49. syntax343 Says:
    December 18th, 2005 at 6:10 pm

    i’m really interested in a show about TAC (Treatment Action Campaign) started by Zackie Achmat in South Africa to be able to provide antiretrovirals to the millions of HIV positive people there.

    His journey is very inspiring and I think the chatter surrounding World AIDS Day must be continued.

    Here’s Zackie’s site and some info about him:

    Treatment Action Campaign

    Zackie in Time Europe

50. Brendan Says:
    December 19th, 2005 at 11:32 am

    H Wally – We read all of these suggestions, and respond on a weekly basis. Take a look at some of our November roundups. We’re a little behind this month, because I was out for a week, but we talked through all of the show suggestions on Friday, so I’ll post a new roundup soon.

51. icantgoon Says:
    December 20th, 2005 at 1:11 pm

    A show about vegetarianism and veganism, please. Why we as a society find it acceptable to torture, mutilate, slaughter then munch on cow, bird and pig corpses by the billions because… well, they’re so damn “yummy”. They’re only animals… the, uh, edible kind. Are we a planet of cannibals?

52. JasonB Says:
    December 20th, 2005 at 2:16 pm

    Like most grandfathers, he is frequently combative, pedantic, repetitive, and frequently misquoted. I would enjoy hearing an hour of Richard Stallman in his own voice concerning the health of Open-Source and Free-Software.

    http://www.stallman.org/

53. cheesechowmain Says:
    December 20th, 2005 at 7:22 pm

    With respect to current events, a discussion about the use of the NSA to monitor communications. Some constitutional scholars, some intelligence experts with a historical perspective would be extremely useful. Toss in a journalist like James Bamford and you’d probably have a pretty decent show.

54. David Weinstein Says:
    December 21st, 2005 at 4:46 am

    Hey, Potter,

    Thank you for posting the NY times editorial about the risks and repsonsibilities of electronic voting and Diebold. This barely scratches the surface of what could be a fascinating show (or series) about how these private voting machine and system vendors, partisan republican all, have corrupted our electoral system, perhaps beyond repair.

    Brendan, please see my detailed post on this subject this month that mistakenly ended up in the discussion about the how the Bush machine has coopted the political middle.

    I also agree that a show about so-called president Bush’s approval of NSA spying in the U.S.A. could be interesting. In addition to Cheesechowmain’s suggestions for guests, I’d like to add trying to get some insight into the psychology of George W. about how he feels he has the absolute right to bypass laws and citizen rights.

55. cheesechowmain Says:
    December 21st, 2005 at 7:57 pm

    Minor suggestion for the commenting threads, which has probably been addressed elsewhere. Threaded comments and/or numbered comments would be helpful.

56. anhhung18901 Says:
    December 22nd, 2005 at 3:30 am

    Bart Ehrman’s book, “Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why,” has gotten a lot of attention at npr.org since it was featured on “Fresh Air with Terry Gross” on December 14, 2005 — it has been one of the top e-mailed stories since it aired. Gross and Ehrman did not talk about religions that already preach what the book asserts. For instance, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka “the Mormons”) have taught that the Bible is not completely translated correctly ever since its founding prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr. Perhaps “Open Source” could get perspectives from officials of churches like the LDS Church for a story on the show.

57. anhhung18901 Says:
    December 22nd, 2005 at 3:36 am

    Pete Ashdown is running against Utah Senator Orrin Hatch in 2006, and Ashdown is using a wiki page to help him develop grassroots support and draft a platform. Howard Dean used the Internet to raise funds, but Ashdown is using it so much more as he is trying to develop a way for a politician to remain in direct contact with his/her constituents. Invite Ashdown on the show to find out why he decided to run his campaign in this innovative way and to find out how wiki pages and other Internet related developments can help with the political process.

    Wiki page: http://pashdown.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
    Main page: http://vote.peteashdown.org/

58. Nightwatchman Says:
    December 22nd, 2005 at 8:40 am

    Another idea concerning the erosion of democracy:

    Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich, authors of the new book, “The Fox In The Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy.”

    In the book the authors expose the damage privatization has done in several areas of society including, schools, prisons and the military. The authors argue that instead of privatization serving the public good, it rewards powerful corporations intent on replacing the government with a “private profit culture,” in which there is limited public accountability.
    THEME OF THE BOOK:
    SI KAHN: That they’re serious about wanting it all. That Grover Norquist means it, about shrinking government to where we can drown it in a bathtub.
    ON HURRICANE KATRINA:
    SI KAHN: Amy, part what I love is the common argument that, oh, the administration wasn’t prepared. They were absolutely prepared for Katrina, but they were prepared for an agenda that they were prepared to move. Here’s what I think is remarkable about the Bush administration and their cronies. They take every disaster, they take every national trauma as an opportunity to move forward on a privatization agenda, a centralization agenda, an authoritarian agenda.
    ON IRAQ:
    ELIZABETH MINNICH: A number of different areas in which private corporations are making monstrous profits — Halliburton is being covered, Brown & Root is all over the newspapers now, so we probably don’t even need to mention that – it’s war-profiteering of the first order. The contractors that we hear about regularly, we’re talking about mercenaries. We’re talking about people who are fighting for pay. They’re hired. There are large private military firms, international, super-national. They like now to call themselves “security firms,â€? so you’ll hear, “security personnel.â€? They are private military companies. The U.S. military is said by those who have studied it to be probably the most privatized military in the world.
    ON U.S. DOMESTIC PRISONS:
    SI KAHN: And efficiency, in corporate terms, means efficiency in generating a profit. It means efficiency in returning the maximum amount of money to the corporate directors and executives and to the majority shareholders. So, for example, in the case of private prisons, this means keeping them full at all costs. As a result, what we have is people transported thousands and thousands of miles from home for the convenience of the private prison.

59. chagor Says:
    December 22nd, 2005 at 11:42 am

    This sounds like a shocking, unsupportable sentence, but here goes: We would not have invaded Iraq without Anne Bradstreet. Who is she? She was America’s first poet and was a best seller on both sides of the Atlantic in 1650. She was a Puritan who felt that it was the job of true New English Protestants to kill “the Turk,” the Catholic, and the Muslim. Later generations read her, including Chris’ hero Emerson, and she helped shape many of our ideas about what it means to be an American: We should be the light of the nations. We should use “plain terms” when we talk and write. We should be Puritans!! She was also a great poet, despite her politics. And, she was a proto-feminist. Many of her poems are about being a woman, a mother, a wife, a daughter. They are smart, funny, and speak to us today. How about a show that discusses Anne Bradstreet: How a pious Puritan woman helped shape our ideas about what it means to be an American? Charlotte Gordon has written a biography of her called Mistress Bradstreet (Little, Brown, March 2005).

60. laila Says:
    December 22nd, 2005 at 12:10 pm

    Yes-absolutely a show on Anne Bradstreet. Reading Gordon’s book opened my eyes to the harsh conditions and suffering of the early colonists and to the inspirational life of this remarkable woman. That she managed to raise 8 children to adulthood and run a household would have been enough but she also wrote and published social criticism in the form of poetry that still speaks to us today and she had enormous influence on the early leaders of America. I would love to hear more about her and to hear more from Charlotte Gordon.

61. t_haskell Says:
    December 22nd, 2005 at 12:11 pm

    I find chagor’s comments fascinating. Mistress Bradstreet is a wonderful and interesting read. And I have heard Charlotte Gordon (the author) talk. I think she would be a GREAT guest on your show. I know I would be tuned in!!

62. Richon Says:
    December 22nd, 2005 at 2:33 pm

    I heard about Mistress Bradstreet on NPR and want to hear more.

63. avecfrites Says:
    December 22nd, 2005 at 4:48 pm

    I’m surprised we haven’t yet covered the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and Pastafarianism. For details, please refer to: http://www.venganza.org/

64. jenika Says:
    December 22nd, 2005 at 9:21 pm

    Another vote for Mistress Bradstreet; I read the book last month and couldn’t put it down.

65. David Weinstein Says:
    December 22nd, 2005 at 10:24 pm

    Great ideas all for shows. I’d certainly tune into a show about Mistress Bradstreet.

    Re: Nightwatchman’s idea about the downside of privatizing certain areas of governement function : What about the big story of letting private vendors who were and remain highly politically partisan design and run our voting systems in this country. I am sthink about Diebold, whose former CEO resigned in an insider trading scandal a few days ago, who was also a high member of the committee to re-elect Bush cheney in Ohio.

    What other democracy on the planet allows private corporations to run their voting sytems?

66. jlardner Says:
    December 23rd, 2005 at 12:24 am

    On the theory that a self-interested proposal can be a good one, i urge you to do a show on the growing concentraion of wealth, income and economic and political power in America, using the newly published book “Inequality Matters,” as a juming-off point.

    That book , which takes the form of a series of connected essays by (among others) Bill Moyers, Barbara Ehreneich, William Greider, Christopher Jencks, Theda Skocpol, Meizhu Lui, and Miles Rapoport, is an attempt to tote up the multidimensional damage wrought by nearly three decades of growing economic inequality.

    I am one of several contributors who are associated with Demos, a New York City-based think and action tank. We worked closely with the Boston-based United for a Fair Economy, whose founder, Chuck Collins, has coincidentally come out with a new edition of his book (co-written with Felice Yeskel), “The Apartheid Economy.” Both titles would provide good fodder for a program on this subject. (Both, incidentally, are published by the New Press.)

    United for a Fair Economy will be holding a reception for “Inequality Matters” from 4:30 to 6:30 pm on January 6th, at the Christian Science Center, a few blocks from the annual conference of the American Economics Association., which has any number of presentations that touch on growing inequality.

67. anhhung18901 Says:
    December 23rd, 2005 at 3:17 am

    An interesting story would be about new ways to share information via the Internet. For instance, Yahoo! launched a new beta service called Yahoo! Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/). People post questions, and other answer them. Sometimes new questions come within seconds of each other. It is very active and can be addictive. Why are services like this catching on?

68. anhhung18901 Says:
    December 23rd, 2005 at 3:23 am

    Concerning Huffstar’s suggestion about the Olympics and their effects on a region economy, why aren’t the Torino games in the limelight now? This is the first time in a long time since I can remember that no one seems to notice that the winter olympics are almost here? Why don’t people seem to care? Is this going to have major effects on Torino’s economy?

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10413804/site/newsweek/

69. hatchville Says:
    December 23rd, 2005 at 7:39 pm

    I read that book people mentioned, Mistress Bradstreet. It was amazing! Both for the depth of knowledge about that period in our history, about A. Bradstreet, and making poetry understandable, AND for the eery parallels between the Puritans and our present political climate in our country. I heard the author, Charlotte Gordon, speak at a local historical society, and she was riveting! A friend of mine’s bookgroup read this biography and found it promoted a great evening’s discussion.

70. anhhung18901 Says:
    December 23rd, 2005 at 10:20 pm

    Consumers with values (part of “conscious capitalism�)

    On “Open Sourceâ€? station KCPW, Patricia Aburdene — author of “MegaTrends 2010″ — was interviewed on the local program “Midday Metro” on December 19, 2005. She talked about how consumers are beginning to use their values more when they decide where to shop. For instance, some people like going to get coffee at Starbucks because Starbucks gets the coffee beans through fair trade, instead of normal free trade.

    I had an interesting experience as a consumer with values earlier this month when I was in a group going to buy gifts for a needy child. A typical shopping venue for an event like this is Wal Mart because it has low prices, but I did not want to go there because I feel that Wal Mart focuses too much on the bottom line while giving their employees sub-par wages and benefits. Thus, I suggested that we go to Target, but the two girls in the group fought (and won) to go to Wal Mart. I thought it was because Wal Mart is cheaper (however, Target has very modest prices), but I was wrong. One of the girls said that she did not want to go Target because it “doesn’t support the war [in Iraq].” I should have been cheeky and said, “Well, it is also taking Christ out of Christmas because it will only carry items with generic wording like, ‘Happy Holidays.’â€? I wasn’t cheeky, but this vignette proved to me that people are beginning to incorporate their values into where they shop.

    I think that this would make for an interesting “Open Source” show. Patricia Aburdene would be an interesting guest on this topic.

71. anhhung18901 Says:
    December 25th, 2005 at 2:26 am

    FYI: Right now I have many ideas, and I like to share them.

    The meaning or symbolism of comic characters would make an interesting topic for a show. Two of the most prominent are Batman and Superman, and they originally appeared in the late 1930s. My question is, do they represent something from American culture of the time? Do other characters like Spiderman who came later (in the 1960s) represent aspects of the time that they began? Are there connections to the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, etc.? Both Batman and Superman are two decent, intelligent men who have exotic alter egos that make any modern body builder look puny. Their lives and alter egos are full of symbolism; some deep meaning has to exist. For instance, does their duality mean anything? Does their extreme physical strength also represent something? Needless to say, their colleagues and enemies also could symbolize different things. There are so many similarities between Batman and Superman that makes me think that there was some sort of common theme going on.

    I guess what inspired this idea is the fact that if L. Frank Baum’s book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” has so much symbolism (heck, Toto supposedly represents prohibitionists in the 1890s…), then comic books could have deep symbolism as well. Did Bob Kane and Bill Finger (who created Batman), Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel (who created Superman), and other comic book writers have aspirations to clandestinely offer social commentary about the world?

72. BigAl Says:
    December 26th, 2005 at 4:28 pm

    I believe you should do show on the death Penalty. Here in Australia there has been a lot of debate about this as a result of a 25 year old Australian being hanged in Singapore for drug smuggling. Just recently there was of course the 1000th execution in US and then just in the news today I see that the city of GRAZ is in dispute with the Arnold Schwarzenegger’s over his decsion not to grant a stay of execution recently. Is opinion on the death penalty chaning in USA and around the world? What rights/obligations do people have aruond the world to speakout for or against the death penalty in other countries? Can we speakout while still respecting the legal rights of other countries to enforce their own laws. You shodul try and discuss this with Sister Helen Prrejeans who has witnessed several executions and believes executions should be televised to make people more aware of the issues

73. ChuckSL Says:
    December 26th, 2005 at 11:23 pm

    I would appreciate a program on collective responses. It seems that we are each encouraged to do what feels good to us, with NO CONSIDERATION for the effect on the rest of the world.

    It’s one thing if one person wants to drive a Hummer, but the results of a couple million people wanting to drive the things is staggering. Same goes for family size – if one couple wants to have a large brood of children, that’s one thing, but if everyone wants a large brood, you have to start thinking of Malthus and population explosions. I’d love to see, as a consideration of any significant action, the question “What would happen if EVERYBODY did this?”

    Unfortunately, this would take a significant bite out of the drive to consume that makes our economy operate. I’d love to hear some spirited discussion on this topic.

74. longfellow Says:
    December 27th, 2005 at 2:54 pm

    Mistress Bradstreet is a must! I wholly support and will anxiously await your radio show devoted to this fascinating work. Author Charlotte Gordon, unlike some perhaps staid authors, is passionate, articulate and an absolute joy to listen to. I was thoroughly entranced during one of her speaking engagements a few months ago. Thought provoking, entertaining, witty, down-to-earth, with a warm friendly demeanor, this is the intellectual scholar Charlotte I yearn to hear. I’m especially interested in her views on how America today has been influenced by “our” first lady of poetry and political intellectual communicant. I remain, E.W.

75. anhhung18901 Says:
    December 28th, 2005 at 2:22 am

    Dr. Scott Sprenger of Brigham Young University asserts that “As a ‘peninsula of Asia,’ the identity of Europe and Europeans has never been defined by natural geographical borders nor by a common, transhistorical essence: it is a social construction with contingent origins, a conflicted historical evolution, and a flexible and often strategic self-definition” (http://frenital.byu.edu/classes/honors330copy/about.html). Taking a step back from Europe, is national identity an articificial construction? How does this affect those who feel very patriotic of their country? Is it all right for us to owe allegiance to an identity that is nothing more than a mere social construction?

    PS
    I’ll jump on the bandwagon…Anne Bradstreet sounds like an interesting topic. However, please address chagor’s statement, “We would not have invaded Iraq without Anne Bradstreet.”

76. Nikos Says:
    December 28th, 2005 at 3:55 am

    Just spent most of the evening laughing myself into genuine soreness at the Flying Spaghetti Monster site: http://www.venganza.org/
    Its creator Bobby Henderson has purportedly got an FSM / Pastafarianism BOOK coming out in February.
    Since so many of Open Source’s hours are (rightfully) given to the discussion of religion-in-contemporary-culture can we please-please-please have a hour featuring Bobby Henderson in late January, or February, or March? We “real-world religious skeptics/agnostics” would feel, uh, mollified. Or something akin to it.
    Thanks!

77. vgfalcao Says:
    December 29th, 2005 at 5:43 am

    The Internet has been a wonderful repository for birth stories:
    http://www.childbirth.org/articles/stories/categories/homebirthstories.html
    http://www.waterbirthinfo.com/Frame.html
    http://www.childbirth.org/articles/stories/categories/index.html
    http://www.naturalbirth.freeservers.com/
    It has also been a great incubator for ideas about innovative birth and chidrearing practices:
    Lotus Birth – Leaving the placenta attached to the baby until it falls off naturally:
    http://www.pregnancy.com.au/Lotus_birth.htm
    Unassisted childbirth – the idea that involving professionals has more risks than benefits: http://unassistedchildbirth.com/
    Delayed clamping of the umbilical cord – waiting at least five minutes after the birth so the baby gets the extra blood needed to expand the blood vessels to the lungs and to receive oxygen while completing the conversion to breathing air:
    http://cordclamp.com/
    Waterbirth – Lots and lots of information being shared:
    http://waterbirth.org/spa/index.php

78. terdube Says:
    December 29th, 2005 at 12:06 pm

    Mr. Lydon, I am so pleased to find you again doing Open Source. I truly rely on the in-depth attention you give each subject and am thrilled to find you on the air nightly, doing what you so clearly have a passion for – BRAVO!

    I would love to have/hear a discussion on current cancer treatments. Cancer impacts all of us at some point, either as a patient or as a loved one of someone dealing with a cancer diagnosis. We will be faced with making decisions about an onslaught of treatments, often without all of the important information (i.e. long-term side effects) that may influence the decisions we must make.

    Without the necessary information, it is impossible to make decisions based in reality, perhaps delaying important conversations about how to die, or allowing treatments that have no long-term benefits. Treatment protocols at the some of the ‘finest’ cancer specialist hospitals are so aggressive, patients suffer excruciatingly and die from their treatments, not their cancer.

    I would love to hear from doctors that practice ‘humanistic medicine,’ as well as patient advocates, cancer survivors, family members of the deceased, and a Naturopathic Doctor that can offer dietary/supplemental support patients during treatment. This discussion would be extremely beneficial to patients currently facing treatment, as well as their treating doctors. Thank you for considering this topic – it is so important to all of us!

79. Liz Tracey Says:
    December 29th, 2005 at 1:45 pm

    1. I’d like to second Nikos’ suggestion regarding the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

    2. I’m wondering if you might think about a Passion show on…organization. I know this sounds rather dry, but in fact has taken on a bit of “histper” glow with websites like 43 folders, Lifehacker, the concepts and practices of “life hacking” and David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. The people behind the sites (Gina Trapani, Merlin Mann) would make excellent guests for a conversation about how technology makes us both more organized and more busy, how people are looking for solutions that may seem counterintuitive in the 21st century (e.g., the Hipster PDA), and how beauty may be found in just the right notebook.

    A Happy New Year to all.

80. ChuckSL Says:
    December 29th, 2005 at 2:25 pm

    The more I think about it, the more I like Marcel’s idea from Dec. 7 about the end of empire. It feels to me like the US is standing on some kind of brink if it hasn’t already gone over the edge.

    We (as a country, at least) are acting like we are above challenge, but I can’t make any sense out of this assumption when China, India, and the European Union are all starting to get their feet under them. Each of these will be getting on to the same order of magnitude of economic size individually before too much longer, and if you consider them collectively, they’ll certainly be large enough to challenge the US SOON, if they’re not already.

    This administration’s “Damn the Torpedoes – Full Steam Ahead” attitude is certainly not winning us any friends around the world. I can’t help but imagine that it also gives other nations reason to look elsewhere for allies, and ultimately, reason for them to ally against us.

    I’ve been trying to figure out parallels to the fall of the British empire. It seems that the arrogance of King George certainly has some relevance here in that it got the American Revolution started – VERY COSTLY to the crown. I hadn’t thought about parallels to the fall of the Roman empire, but it feels like there should be SOMETHING of value to be learned from comparisons among these three.

81. anhhung18901 Says:
    December 29th, 2005 at 3:13 pm

    In honor of the Olympics in Torino, Italy in February, why not do a show on sports that Americans are not familiar with? For instance, what are Korfball, Pelote Basque, and Wushu (among others; http://www.olympic.org/uk/sports/recognized/index_uk.asp)? Also, we cannot forget the many types – Rugby League, Rubgy Union, Aussie Rules – of football that Americans (a gridiron crazed people) don’t follow. Highlighting some little-known winter sports would interest us, too.

82. Dan2me Says:
    December 29th, 2005 at 4:44 pm

    We had a good interview with James Larkin on “Thinking Out Loud” on WUML last week. He has edited a book of essays called “Inequality Matters-The Growing Economic Divide in America and Its Poisonous Consequences”. A number of the contributers to the book live in the Boston area such as Meizhu Lui, and Bob Kuttner. The organizations “Demos” and “United for a Fair Economy” is hosting a book signing at the Cristian Science Center on January 6. A number of the essayists will be there. You might get some interesting interviews from them. Our contact was Ina Howard [ihoward@thenewpress.com]. Hope that’s helpful

83. dwarnersaklad Says:
    December 30th, 2005 at 7:41 am

    How about a broadcast about Boston Public Library’s http://overdrive.bpl.org that is not accessible for public Llbraries’ Mac users?… Interviews with Richard Stallman rms@gnu.org Jay Sulzberger jays@panix.com and Seth Finkelstein http://sethf.com would develop the politics of this issue.

84. dwarnersaklad Says:
    December 30th, 2005 at 7:43 am

    See also
    by Hiawatha Bray
    http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/12/30/library_audiobooks_now_just_a_few_mouse_clicks_away/?page=full

    ”It’s probably something that makes fewer libraries
    want to get it,” said Jonathan Zittrain, visiting
    professor at the Berkman Center for Internet and
    Society at Harvard Law School. Zittrain predicted
    that because iPods are so popular, some librarians
    may resist an audiobook service that many of their
    patrons can’t use.

85. A little yellow bird Says:
    December 31st, 2005 at 1:29 pm

    How ’bout a show on ethics issues in scientific research? I just read a thrilling article at Counterpunch that could be made into a very exciting series of movies. The trouble is, it’s real–and absolutely terrifying. “Synthetic Biology: Genetic Engineering on Steroids…A Darker Bioweapons Future” http://counterpunch.org/montague12312005.html Why does this cause some insurgent faction of neurons in my bent head to begin playing Steisand doing Nyro’s “Stony End” in my head, with the “mama” in the song being Gaia? Oy vay.

86. skozzie Says:
    January 2nd, 2006 at 8:04 am

    My suggestion is to cover off the story of Van Nguen. A Vietnamese born, Australian national who was recently hanged in Singapore. This story received widespread global coverage because of the barbaric nature of the sentence for a man with no prior convictions/or crimes apart from bringing in 14 ounces of heroine into Singapore. He was denied physical contact with his family throughout his inprisionment leading up to his hanging.
    This has highlighted both the specific situation of Singapore which, though a modern society, is a world leader in capital punishment, but also the basis of human rights in a developed society. Here’s a BBC link covering the story http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4490754.stm Appeals from the Australian Prime Minister through to Amnesty International fell on ‘deaf ears’ in this case. Is this right? What if this was your son who made a mistake?

87. Potter Says:
    January 4th, 2006 at 9:02 am

    On the left of this page you have categorized links to shows/discussions such as “recently aired”, “warming up”, “on deck”. How about another list of “interesting ongoing discussions” or “ongoing discussions” or “hot discussions” or “hot topics”? This could include a previous show whose link would be otherwise buried in archives but that has generated a lot of posts and interest. It may also indicate the need for another related show.

    How about a show on how the Somali refugee community is doing in Lewiston, Maine?

    A Collision of Cultures leads to Building Bridges

88. mcasemo Says:
    January 6th, 2006 at 12:26 am

    A New Orleans Show, or two, or three. Recovery, lack thereof. History of the levees, and how they failed New Orleans. How to live in a city that was 80% under water for weeks. Bus tours of the destruction organized before all the bodies have been found. No bid contracts, who looses? A hugely under and misreported story/saga that deserves some attention. Suggestions for guests: Lolis Eric Elie (Times Picayune Columist), Oliver Thomas, Representatives from The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, Kalamu Y Salaam, someone from the Common Ground Collective…

89. mcasemo Says:
    January 6th, 2006 at 9:53 am

    I forgot to include some links for the New Orleans stuff, and have other guest suggestion:

    Jordan Flaherty, of LeftTurn
    http://www.leftturn.org/articles/SpecialCollections/jordanonkatrina.aspx

    Lolis Eric Elie
    http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/elie/?archive

    People’s Hurricnae Relief Fund
    http://cluonline.live.radicaldesigns.org

    Chris Kromm – Executive Director, and Publisher, Southern Exposure
    http://southernstudies.org/southernexposure/
    http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/

    Common Ground Collective
    http://www.commongroundrelief.org

    Kalamu Ya Salaam
    http://www.speakersandartists.org/People/KalamuYaSalaam.html
    http://www.kalamu.com/listen/

90. desertrose Says:
    January 6th, 2006 at 11:31 am

    Since it seems that all the news we hear about Iraq is death & destruction, how about doing a show with the Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef. In his poems he chronicled the life & times of his country from afar. He lived “a life of forced departures� as he described it. Saadi Youssef is well known & respected throughout the Middle East, because he ALWAYS spoke truth to power(s). There is an English translation of one of his book of poems titled Without an Alphabet, Without a Face.

    http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/issue7/youssef.html

    Here is an excerpt from one of his famous poems:
    America
    let us exchange your gifts.
    Take your smuggled cigarettes
    and give us potatoes.
    Take James Bond’s golden pistol
    and give us Marilyn Monroe’s giggle.
    Take the heroin syringe under the tree
    and give us vaccines.
    Take your blueprints for model penitentiaries
    and give us village homes.
    Take the books of your missionaries
    and give us paper for poems to defame you.
    Take what you do not have
    and give us what we have.
    Take the stripes of your flag
    and give us the stars.
    Take the Afghani Mujahideen’s beard
    and give us Walt Whitman’s beard filled with butterflies.
    Take Saddam Hussain
    and give us Abraham Lincoln
    or give us no one.
    I hope I don’t run into trouble by posting this.

91. jtop Says:
    January 6th, 2006 at 9:46 pm

    To Desertrose,

    WPR’s global talk program “Here on Earth” produced a wonderful show on Saadi Youssef last month. I think it’s even being podcast now. Here’s a link to that show… http://www.wpr.org/hereonearth/archive_051217j.cfm

92. desertrose Says:
    January 7th, 2006 at 3:25 am

    To jtop:

    Thanks for the link. I added it to my iTunes. It was a superb show! I liked his the reading of his poem ‘Candle’.

    Tusind Tak!!!

93. desertrose Says:
    January 7th, 2006 at 3:52 am

    To Brendan, my apologies for posting an excerpt from Saadi Youssef’s poem. I don’t know if it’s covered under fair use. Please delete it if needed. I was just too excited.

94. A little yellow bird Says:
    January 8th, 2006 at 9:28 pm

    This suggestion is for something utterly visual, and yet shows about tailoring and candy have been loved and even repeated, and people tend not to stick candy and suits in their ears (don’t ask, don’t tell…): ORIGAMI! I had to say this, after seeing this brilliant artist’s site http://www.langorigami.com/index.php4, which I found at http://www.neatorama.com. Maybe the man does interviews, and maybe some brainiac math wizard from MIT who also can interpret the divine to mere mortals; i.e., is a good teacher, could help. Gosh dang, but you gotta see this stuff! I think this guy Lang could design and fold a peaceful solution to the world’s woes.

95. A little yellow bird Says:
    January 8th, 2006 at 11:57 pm

    Response to entry: Liz Tracey Says:
    December 29th, 2005 at 1:45 pm As far as organization goes, another good guest might be Howard Rheingold: http://www.smartmobs.com/, and his book, “Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution”.

96. roma Says:
    January 9th, 2006 at 2:08 am

    In spring of 2005, the National Geographic, no less, ran an article entitled “Sea Gypsies.” My Roma (Gypsy) friend scanned the article avidly for news of the Roma, but found only travelling homeless boat people, without any Roma heritage. We wrote a letter to the editor about confusing nationality with lifestyle in nomenclature, but there has been no response.

    Our Western settled culture is Gypsy-crazy–putting Gypsy in front of something is a great marketing ploy–everywhere from the “Gypsy soup” in the Moosewood Cookbook (vegetarian–very rarely found in Russian Roma cuisine, let me tell you), to ‘Gypsy’ rock, ‘Gypsy’ skirts, ‘Gypsy’ soul and now ‘Sea Gypsies.’ Gogol Bordello recently headlined the GypsyFest in New York City–noone in that band is Gypsy in the capital ‘G’ sense of the word. Now there’s a real Roma musician who wants to bring a lawsuit against the GypsyFest for false advertising.

    What makes a Gypsy a Gypsy? or rather, Roma ? the language? the lifestyle? the relatives? After a Holocaust during WW2 as severe to them as to the Jews, in fact called “The Devouring” in Roma, how is it that the Gypsies are still so nebulous a nation in the consciousness of Europe and the Western world. Why are there still the forced sterilisations, skinhead attacks and host of other forms of discrimination, in Eastern Europe especially, while their music is regarded as some of the finest of the 20th-century folk traditions (Django Rhinehart, Taraf de Haidouks, Kolpakov Trio, the list goes on and on. . .)

    For interviewees, I’ve got the first openly Roma PhD candidate at Harvard (and founder of the Harvard Roma student association, who incidentally just adopted a Roma child from an orphanage in the Czech Republic, where Roma kids are often lifers), a professor of ethnomusicology specialising in Roma music, people at the World Music Institute in NYC, and a musician from the Romen Theatre in Moscow, Russia here on an O-1 visa (artist of extraordinary ability).

97. bicyclemark Says:
    January 10th, 2006 at 4:37 am

    The Canadian parliamentary elections and the decline of the liberal party; Is the tradition of a strong canadian social system and center-left policies on the way out?

98. Potter Says:
    January 10th, 2006 at 8:17 pm

    The Cost of the War. Trillions of Dollars for the War in Iraq. That’s trillions. The real cost is not billions, bad as that seemed, but trillions. Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel economist does a calculation.

99. KateV Says:
    January 12th, 2006 at 1:11 am

    I just read this incredible piece in the San Francisco Chronicle Insight section on Sunday, January 8. It was about the relationship between Iran and Nazi Germany. Definitely worth exploring due to events in the region today! Read it here:

    Denial of Holocaust nothing new in Iran
    Ties to Hitler led to plots against British and Jews
    - Edwin Black
    Sunday, January 8, 2006

    Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has shot to the forefront of Holocaust denial with his rabble-rousing remarks last month. But it’s more like self-denial. The president of Iran need only look to his country’s Hitler-era past to discover that Iran and Iranians were strongly connected to the Holocaust and the Hitler regime, as was the entire Islamic world under the leadership of the mufti of Jerusalem.

    Iran’s axis with the Third Reich began during the prewar years, when it welcomed Nazi Gestapo agents and other operatives to Tehran, allowing them to use the city as a base for Middle East agitation against the British and the region’s Jews.

    Key among these German agents was Fritz Grobba, Berlin’s envoy to the Middle East, who was often called “the German Lawrence,” because he promised a Pan-Islamic state stretching from Casablanca to Tehran.

    Relations between Berlin and Tehran were strong from the moment Hitler came to power in 1933. At that time, Reza Shah Pahlavi’s nation was known as Persia. The shah became a stalwart admirer of Hitler, Nazism and the concept of the Aryan master race. He also sought the Reich’s help in reducing British petro-political domination.

    So intense was the shah’s identification with the Third Reich that in 1935 he renamed his ancient country “Iran,” which in Farsi means Aryan and refers to the Proto-Indo-European lineage that Nazi racial theorists and Persian ethnologists cherished.

    The idea for the name change was suggested by the Iranian ambassador to Germany, who came under the influence of Hitler’s trusted banker, Hjalmar Schacht. From that point, all Iranians were constantly reminded that their country shared a common bond with the Nazi regime.

    Shortly after World War II broke out in 1939, the Mufti of Jerusalem crafted a strategic alliance with Hitler to exchange Iraqi oil for active Arab and Islamic participation in the murder of Jews in the Mideast and Eastern Europe. This was predicated on support for a pan-Arab state and Arab control over Palestine.

    During the war years, Iran became a haven for Gestapo agents. It was from Iran that the seeds of the abortive 1941 pro-Nazi coup in Baghdad were planted. After Churchill’s forces booted the Nazis out of Iraq in June 1941, German aircrews supporting Nazi bombers escaped across Iraq’s northern border back into Iran.

    Likewise, the mufti of Jerusalem was spirited across the border to Tehran, where he continued to call for the destruction of the Jews and the defeat of the British.

    His venomous rhetoric filled the newspapers and radio broadcasts in Tehran. The mufti was a vocal opponent of allowing Jewish refugees to be transported or ransomed into Jewish Palestine. Instead, he wanted them shipped to the gas chambers of Poland.

    In the summer of 1941, the mufti, with the support of key Iranian military and government leaders, advocated implementing in Iran what had failed months earlier in Iraq. The plan once again was for a total diversion of oil from the Allies to the Nazis, in exchange for the accelerated destruction of the Jews in Eastern Europe and the Nazis’ support for an Arab state. Through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., Iran had already been supplying Hitler’s forces in occupied Czechoslovakia and Austria.

    Now, the mufti agitated to cut off the British and the Allies completely and supply Germany in its push against Russia.

    In October 1941, British, USSR other allied forces invaded Iran to break up the Iran-Nazi alliance. Pro-Nazi generals and ministers were arrested, and the shah’s son was installed in power. The mufti scampered into the Italian embassy, where he shaved his beard and dyed his hair. In this disguise, he was allowed to leave the country along with the rest of the Italian delegation.

    Once the mufti relocated permanently to Berlin, where he established his own Reich-supported “bureau,” he was given airtime on Radio Berlin. From Berlin and other fascist capitals in Europe, the mufti continued to agitate for international Jewish destruction, as well as a pan-Islamic alliance with the Nazi regime.

    He called upon all Muslims to “kill the Jews wherever you see them.” In Tehran’s marketplace, it was common to see placards that declared, “In heaven, Allah is your master. On Earth, it is Adolf Hitler.”

    When the mufti raised three divisions of Islamic Waffen SS to undertake cruel operations in Bosnia, among the 30,000 killers were some volunteer contingents from Iran. Iranian Nazis, along with the other Muslim Waffen SS, operated under the direct supervision of Heinrich Himmler and were responsible for barbarous actions against Jews and others in Bosnia. Recruitment for the murderous “Handschar Divisions” was done openly in Iran.

    Iran and its leaders were not only aware of the Holocaust, they played both sides. The country offered overland escape routes for refugee Jews fleeing Nazi persecution to Israel — and later fleeing postwar Iraqi fascist persecution — but only in exchange for extortionate passage fees.

    Thousands of Jews journeyed to Israel via Iran both during the Holocaust and during the years after the fall of Hitler, when Arab leaders, especially in Iraq, tried to continue Germany’s anti-Jewish program. Iran profited handsomely.

    Since the shah’s downfall, Iran has become a center for organized international Holocaust denial and has helped elevate the endeavor from fringe hate speech to a state-approved pseudo-intellectual debate.

    In international forums and on state-controlled radio, Iranian university experts and journalists help validate the revisionist views that Jews were never gassed or murdered in great numbers during the Holocaust.

    Indeed, Iran has become a refuge for the biggest names in European Holocaust denial. When in 2000, revisionist author Jürgen Graf was sentenced in Switzerland to 15 months in prison for Holocaust falsification, Graf fled to Tehran “at the invitation of a group of Iranian scholars and university professors who are sympathetic to Holocaust revisionism,” according to the Institute for Historical Review, a denial clearinghouse.

    What’s more, in May 2000, Iran’s embassy in Vienna granted asylum to Austrian Holocaust denier Wolfgang Fröhlich, who testified as a so-called expert witness during Graf’s 1998 trial. This saved Fröhlich from Austria’s severe anti-Holocaust denial statutes. Fröhlich argued that evidence proved no Jews were killed by Zyklon B gassing.

    Earlier, about 600 journalists and 160 members of the Iranian parliament signed petitions supporting French revisionist Roger Garaudy, who was fined $40,000 by French authorities for his book claiming the Holocaust was a myth. When Garaudy landed in Iran, the country’s supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Sayyad Khamenei, granted him an audience and lauded his work.

    Iran has played a leading role in the Holocaust drama and now tries to deny it. That should be very hard in a nation that was named for Hitler’s master race.

    Edwin Black is the author of “Banking on Baghdad” about the Nazi-Arab alliance. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com.

    Page D – 1
    URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/01/08/INGODGH99Q1.DTL

100. anhhung18901 Says:
     January 12th, 2006 at 3:19 am

     Remember when Anne Bradstreet and Charlotte Gordon’s book about her were all the rage on this thread? I do, and I finally got my hands on a copy of the book. After reading the first third of the book, I’m hooked. Bradstreet is worthy of a show on Open Source.

101. sidewalker Says:
     January 15th, 2006 at 9:44 am

     My suggestion is a show on the rapidly aging and now shrinking population of Japan (and several other OECD nations–Italy, Germany) and what the implications are/will be. The Japanese Cabinet Office predicts a population of half that now, or 60 million, by 2100. I am wondering, has a wealthy capitalist country ever faced a decining population? How will this affect the national and global economy? Economic growth, in addition to the ever greater use of fossil fuels, seem dependent on an increasing population. Japan, though, has been very reluctant to accept large numbers of immigrants to off-set population decline–for fear of social unrest–and have instead held out hope that young families can be induced into having more children. This seems highly unlikely, especailly with the pending pension crisis and the tax burden it will place on the young. Also, at present only 4% of social welfare spending is for children and their families. Putting off the retirement age and getting more women into the workforce is the proposed answer to rising pension costs.
     Already schools and amusement parks are closing. How long can this shrinking process go on before the economic and social impact brings about a real crisis. Or should we celebrate population decline, despite the human hardships, as a boost to the sustainability of the natural environment?

102. Mark Says:
     January 17th, 2006 at 9:50 am

     I suggest a show about Literary Journalism–from its beginnings as “New Journalism” as envisioned by Tom Wolfe, to its more recent examples. There are several possibilities for content.
     One possibility could be to trace the terminology: from New Journalism, to Literary Journalism and Narrative Journalism. Other terms include Narrative Nonfiction and the Nonfiction Novel. I know that Norman Sims, a U-Mass professor who has edited Literary Journalism volumes and written about the authors, is currently working on a history of Literary Journalism.
     Also, you might talk about the controversies that have assaulted this genre. I would love to hear about some of the pioneers of this genre, such as John Mcphee and Gay Talese, and also from some contemporary practitioners such as Susan Orlean.

103. Scarequotes Says:
     January 17th, 2006 at 4:05 pm

     It’s easy to measure the costs of some kinds of ignorance. People who are illiterate in American society have severely limited opportunities. People who are bad at math or probabilities make bad financial decisions or just buy a lot of lottery tickets.

     Other kinds of ignorance are harder to measure.

     I propose a show that examines the cost of not believing in evolution. For whatever reason. What does it cost an adult American in 2006 to not believe in evolution? What limits does that place on his or her career options or social opportunities? What are the costs to society as a whole if evolution isn’t accepted as a basic piece of knowledge about how the world words? Do we lose out on scientists, get worse health care, lose bright minds to Europe or Asia?

     I’ve heard plenty of stories about evolution vs. faith, but I’d love to see a more pragmatic discussion of what disbelief in evolution means for society.