Hamburg, Dan — Rule By Fear Or Rule By Law

In this edition of Radio Curious, our guest is Dan Hamburg, a long time political activist, a former member of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors and a former member of Congress who represented the North Coast of California. In our conversation, recorded in the studio of Radio Curious on February 26, 2008, we discuss the concept of, “rule by fear or rule by law,” and what rules at the national level and legislative level, as well as at the local level.

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Beth Wenger — Jewish Americans: Three Centuries of Jewish Voices in America

North America, as we have known for millennia, has been populated by ethnic groups looking for a new place to live. Beginning in the early 17th Century and through the present time, Jewish people from around the world have seen North America as a favored place to live and in waves of migration over time have come here to make a new life as part of the American fabric. In the winter of 2008 the Public Broadcasting System presented a major six hour television series: “The Jewish Americans: Three Centuries of Jewish Voices in America.” A companion book to this series with the same name, written by Beth Wenger, the Director of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania, is a collection of first person stories about lives of American Jews who maintained their own culture as they became part of the American culture. Our visit with Beth Wenger in January 2008, by phone from her office at the University of Pennsylvania, began when she described the distinctions and similarities of the Jewish American experience as compared to other immigrant groups.  This program was originally broadcast January 30, 2008.

The book she recommends is, “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union,” by Michael Chabon.

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Michael Shuman — Keeping the Culture of Small Towns

Years ago, before the myriad of things to buy were as available as they are now, retail businesses were most often locally-owned and operated, often for generations. This all began to change in the middle of the last century, as many of the items in the Sears Catalogue became available in towns and cities across the nation for consumers to feel and touch. But, it wasn’t until approximately 25 years ago when Wal-Mart, Target and other big-box stores appeared nationwide in small communities, to the detriment of locally-owned businesses and the social and economic benefits those businesses provided to their communities.  Michael Shuman, an attorney and an economist, is the author of, “The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses are Beating the Global Competition.” This book addresses the issues and problems of locally owned businesses and how they can successfully compete with the big-box stores owned by corporations foreign to the region. We began our conversation, which occurred on January 21, 2008, when I asked Michael Shuman to describe how a corporation comes into being, as a basis to understand some of the problems of locally owned businesses in competition with the big box stores.


The book he recommends is, “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,” by John Gottman.

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