Radio Curious

Since the last Ice Age ended about 12,000 years ago, human beings have traveled along the Klamath River and it tributaries in the northwest corner of California and the coast of southern Oregon.  Many people finding an abundance of food, have stayed. The main source of their food was salmon. The power of the myth of the salmon may derive from the fact that wild salmon spread out across the Pacific Northwest about the same time that human beings did, at the end of the last Ice Age.

In this edition of Radio Curious we have an archived visit with Steve Most, author of “River of Renewal, Myth & History in the Klamath Basin,” a book that tells the story of the history of the Klamath River and the people who have continuously lived there for the past 12,000 years. Steve Most is a playwright and documentary storyteller. Among many other works, he wrote the texts of the audio voices and videos for the permanent exhibit of the Washington State History Museum. In this interview recorded in mid-March 2007, I spoke with Steve Most from his home in Berkeley, California. We began our conversation when I asked him to give a perspective of the geological and human aspects of the Klamath River and its place in history.

Stephen Most recommends the “Essays and Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

Originally Broadcast: March 21, 2007

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The United States Postal Service has plans to close post offices in cities, small towns and rural areas across America. This edition of Radio Curious is a case study of how the federal government plans to close the main Post Office in Ukiah, California.  The Postal Service says it operates under a “corporate model” and is not subject to public information requests, even from local government. It is unwilling to share the bases of it cost analyses or even let the City of Ukiah conduct its own evaluations. We visit with three members of the Save the Ukiah Post Office Committee, Ukiah Mayor, Mari Rodin, Alan Nicholson and Mike Sweeney. They discuss the community efforts to save Ukiah’s downtown post office and why.

The interview was recorded April 11th, 2011.

The book Alan Nichols recommends is “House,” by Tracy Kidder.

The book Mari Rodin recommends is “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” by Malcolm Gladwell.

The book Mike Sweeney recommends is, “The Storms of my Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity,” by Dr. James C. Hansen.

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As a lawyer and a student of political science, I have come to appreciate the anomalies and humor of politics. One story that fits both of those categories well is the relationship between Nestle J. Frobish, the Chair-Creature of World-Wide Fair Play for Frogs Committee and the late Jerome R. Waldie, his former nemesis a Member of Congress from Antioch, just east of San Francisco, California. Their dissension arose in 1961 when Waldie was a freshman member of the California State Assembly and chose to introduce what came to be known as the “Frog Murder Bill,” resulting in Frobish organizing what turned out to be a 45 year campaign to get Waldie to renounce, what Frobish called his “vestigial impurities” visited upon him as the “mad butcher of the swamp.” Waldie finally acceded in 2006 and in this interview originally broadcast on June 11, 2007,  tells us why.

The book that Jerome Waldie recommends is, “It Can’t Happen here,” by Sinclair Lewis.

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Frogs play an important role in the world’s ecology and are their occasional demise is sometimes noted as an impending ecological disaster. In 1961, a newly elected member of the California State Assembly, Jerome R. Waldie, introduced a bill that read in full:  “Frogs may be taken using slingshot.” Little did he know that this bill would plague him throughout his political career, in the California Legislature, United States Congress, and as a candidate for Governor of California. Our guest is Nestle J. Frobish, the Chair-Creature of the World Wide Fair Play for Frogs Committee, an organization founded in Berkeley, California soon after Waldie introduced what became to be known as the “Frog Murder Bill.”

“Fair Play for Frogs, The Waldie – Frobish Papers,” the collected correspondence between Nestle J. Frobish and Congressman Jerome R. Waldie was published as political spoof in 1977.  Around that time some misguided people, including Congressman Waldie accused me of being Nestle J. Frobish.  Let me make it clear, here and now:  I Barry Vogel am not now, nor ever have been Nestle J. Frobish. However I did speak the with Chair-Creature Frobish by phone as he lurked near a pond at Frog Central in northern Vermont on May 21, 2007, so this rather preposterous story could be told from at least his perspective. My interview with Jerome R. Waldie, humbly presents his perspective and may be found on this web-site.  The interview with Frobish was originally broadcast May 21, 2007.

The book Nestle J. Frobish recommends is “State of Denial,” by Bob Woodward.

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Until September 11, 2001, The Triangle Shirtwaste Fire on March 25, 1911 was the deadliest workplace disaster in the history of New York City.  David Von Drehle, a political writer for the Washington Post, is the author of “Triangle, the Fire That Changed America.” It’s a detailed examination of how one event changed the course of the 20^th century politics and labor relations.

At the end of his book Von Drehle concludes that the workers who fought the management in 1909 and died in the fire of 1911, where they were locked in the building during the fire, did not die in vain.

This conversation with David Von Drehle, was recorded in September, 2003 from his office in New York.

The book David Von Drehle recommends is, “Plunkitt of Tammany Hall,” by William Riordan.

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A sports icon of the first half of the 20^th century, Jim Thorpe, was a Native American athlete who rose to athletic stardom at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, winning two gold medals at the 1912 Summer Olympics and continued, despite some controversy, to gain fame in professional baseball and football. In this edition of Radio Curious we visit with Tom Weidlinger, the director and co-writer and co-producer of the movie “Jim Thorpe, The World’s Greatest Athlete.”  Tom Weidlinger spoke from his home in the San Francisco bay area on Sunday, May 30^th 2010.  I began by asking him “Who is Jim Thorpe?”

The book  Tom Weidlinger recommends is “Cutting For Stone” by Abraham Verghese.

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What would it be like for you if you were deaf? If you could not speak your first word until you were six? If you had three years of education, your first language was German, and you later emigrated to another country where they speak English?  Ingelore is the first name of a woman who was born in Germany in 1924, and came to America in 1940 at the beginning of the Third Reich, right after Kristallnacht. The film “Ingelore” was made by Inglelore’s son Frank Stiefel, and it tells his mother’s story.  This edition of Radio Curious begins with we a piece from the movie “Ingelore” in which she explains who she is and a little of her story. As we hear is her ability to articulate words in English it’s important to remember  she cannot hear.

This interview was recorded on May 29th, 2010 with Frank Stiefel from his home in Santa Monica, California.

The books that Frank Stiefel recommends are “Hand Of My Father,” by Myron Uhlberg, and “The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy.

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Howard Zinn’s productive insights into history came to an end with his death in January 2010.  This edition of Radio Curious shares a previously not broadcast interview with Howard Zinn, recorded on July 7, 2006, where he discusses the important role of civil disobedience in creating new social and legal policies which he states are impossible to foment using established legislative or judicial practices.  Radio Curious host, Barry Vogel, Esq. begins this memorial program with the last few paragraphs of the first chapter of “A People’s History of the United States, 1492 to Present,” written by Zinn and published in 1988.  Vogel also shares his recollection of Zinn when they met in Greenwood, Mississippi in 1963.  The song “Ain’t Gonna Let Segregation Turn Us Around,” sung by the Freedom Singers is found on Broadside Records #301, recorded in 1962.

The books Howard Zinn recommends are “Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal,” by Anthony Arnov, and “Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq,” by Stephen Kinzer.

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25 years before the Battle Of The Little Bighorn, 40 years before the Battle Of Wounded Knee, there was the Bloody Island Massacre in the spring of 1850 in Lake County, California, near a community which is now called Kelseyville. The massacre of the Lake County Pomo people, which was an immediate prelude to the massacre of the Mendocino County Pomo people in the Yokayo valley (where the community of Ukiah, the county seat of Mendocino County is now situated), was in retaliation for the Pomo’s murder of Charles Stone and Andrew Kelsey, brought about by the way Stone and Kelsey and other European settlers of that time treated the Pomo people. Ukiah resident Bill Walls has written a play about the events that led up to the massacres – “A Time Before Dogs: A True Tale of Two Executions That Led To The Bloody Island Massacre”. This massacre occurred in 1850, the play however ends in December 1849. Our guests in this edition of Radio Curious are Bill Walls and Denise Kawkeka, they read portions of the play and talk about the issues that led up to the massacre. I visited with Bill Walls and Denise Kawkeka in the studios of Ukiah Valley Community Television and began by asking Bill Walls what drew his attention to the background of this play.

This interview was recorded in the studios of Ukiah Valley Community Television on January 18th 2010.

The book that Denise Kawkeka recommends is “The Mutant Message Down Under,” by Marlo Morgan. Bill Walls recommends “Homer and Langley,” by E.L. Doctorow.

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