Radio Curious

In 1990 Earth First! activists from Mendocino County were on a road trip to rally support for a summer effort to help protect old growth redwoods in Northern California. For years prior, logging practices took well over 90% of the original redwood growth in the area. Darryl Cherney and Judi Bari, the organizers, were in their car in Oakland, California, in May 1990 when a bomb exploded underneath the driver’s seat where Judi Bari sat.  She and Darryl Cherney were immediately arrested and suspected of bombing themselves. Although charges were never filed against the two, authorities have yet to locate the bombers.  Darryl Cherney and Judi Bari sued and won a jury award of four million dollars against the Oakland Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for violating their 1st and 4th amendment rights.

The film, “Who Bombed Judi Bari?” produced by Darryl Cherney, attempts to answer the question posed in the title; it examines their struggle with law enforcement in finding the real bomber and chronicles the history of the local environmental movement here in Northern California.

Christina Aanestad, the Radio Curious assistant producer spoke with Darryl Cherney about the film he produced and his experiences resulting from the bombing. They visited on March 29, 2011, at the studios of KMEC radio, inside the Mendocino Environmental Center, which has a long history of supporting social and environmental movements, including Earth First! They began when Christina asked Darryl Cherney to describe the attempted assassination against him and Judi Bari.

The website for Darryl Cherney’s film is www.whobombedjudibari.com.

The book he recommends is, “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess” by Alan Shlain.

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Radio Curious Assistant Producer, Christina Aanestad speaks with performance artist and poet, La Tigresa about art and activism. La Tigresa made national headlines in 2000 for blockading a logging truck bare breasted while reciting poems of the Goddess, to save old growth redwood trees in Northern California.

The book La Tigresa recommends is “Pronoia is the Antidote to Paranoia,” by Rob Brezsny.

La Tigresa’s website is www.latigresa.net.

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Radio Curious brings you an archived interview with Maria Stewart, as portrayed by Sandra Kamusukiri.  Maria W. Stewart, was a free black woman who lived in Boston, MA, from the 1820s to the early 1840s. She was the first American born woman to lecture in public on political themes and likely the first African-American to speak out in defense of women’s rights.

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Radio Curious brings you an archived conversation with Eve Ensler, creator of the Vagina Monologues.

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Imagine Darya, a twelve year old girl in a remote village of Afghanistan.  Her father forces her to marry a drug lord as part payment for an opium drug trade.  Her father is not home and she is about to be taken from her family.  Desperately, her hands trembling, she implores you, a complete stranger:  “Please don’t let him take me.”

In this edition of Radio Curious we visit Fariba Nawa, author of “Opium Nation: Child Brides, Drug Lords and One Woman’s Journey Through Afghanistan.”  Fariba Nawa was ten years old when her family fled Afghanistan shortly before the Soviet invasion in 1979.  Eighteen years later Fariba Nawa met twelve year old Darya when she returned to her native Afghanistan as an Afghan-American investigative journalist.  Her book tells Darya’s story, and reveals what the Afghan opium drug trade is doing to her native land in the midst of war.

Fariba Nawa and I visited by phone from her home near San Francisco, California on January 23, 2012. We began with her description of coming to the United States and flight from Afghanistan.

Fariba Nawa’s website is www.faribanawa.com. The book she recommends is “Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love and War,” by Annia Ciezaldo.

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In response to the attempts to end “Occupy” movements in different parts of the United States beginning the November 2011, local people in and near west coast sea ports on Monday, December 12, 2011 gathered to occupy their local port.

Radio Curious Assistant Producer, Christina Aanestad, went to the Port of Oakland where she met with and interviewed organizers, participants and bystanders. Her journey began at 5:30 am on a cold Monday morning at the West Oakland Bart Station. The first person with whom she spoke was a woman cloaked in a bright blue tarp with the words “The People’s TARP” inscribed thereon.

Before we hear the voice of this woman it is important to remember that TARP is an acronym for the U.S. government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program established to purchase assets and equity from financial institutions purportedly to strengthen its financial sector to address the subprime mortgage crisis. TARP originally authorized $700 Billion Dollars in 2008 to cover unorthodox real estate loans. 50 year old Karen Mackley wore what she called the people’s tarp.

The books Christina Aanestad recommends are “Pronoia is the Antidote of Paranoia: How the Whole Workd is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings,” by Rob Brezsny, and “Angry Women” by Andrea Juno.

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Imagine if you will an artist instead of a politician in the White House.  This possibility existed in 1984 in reality, not in the George Orwell novel.  Susanna Dakin, a sometimes resident of Santa Monica, California and sometimes of Mendocino County, California, a sculptor by training conceived of her national campaign for the presidency as a one-year durational art performance piece.  Although Sue Dakin as she is now known, was defeated having been effectively overshadowed by the second term campaign of Ronald Reagan, Dakin has continued to practice what she calls “system sculpture” in her political, spiritual and art life.

This unusual episode in American Presidential Campaign History is revealed in Dakin’s book An Artist for President:  The Nation is the Artwork and We are the Artists, published in 2011.

Maria Gilardin, host and producer of TUC Radio, and a friend of Sue Dakin and me, joined us in the studios of Radio Curious on November 25, 2011 in conversation with Sue Dakin about about her life and book.  Maria Gilardin’s website is www.tucradio.org.

The book Sue Dakin recommends is, “The Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History,” by S.C. Gwynne.

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One of the things I learned in law school about bankruptcy was that if you have to borrow money to take a trip and then go bankrupt, the judge can’t take the trip away from you. In this edition we have a travel report from Christina Aanestad the Associate Producer for Radio Curious. Christina recently returned from a 6 week exploratory, journalist visit from Ecuador, a favorite country of mine.

We visited at the Radio Curious studios on August 29, 2011, to discuss her adventures and what she learned about oil drilling, gold mining and dam construction, as well as what motivated her to take this trip.

The books that Christina Aanestad recommend are, “Now is the Time to Open Your Heart,” by Alice Walker and “Pronoia is the Antidote to Paranoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings,” by Rob Brezney.

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Join us for part two of an interview with Dr. Mira Dakin-Sadgopal, an obstetrician and gynecologist living and working in rural India and an organizer of the Jeeva Project, which in part, studies an indigenous midwifery practice that uses the placenta to revive newborn babies who are unable to breathe.  In this two part series we discuss  current and traditional midwifery practices in India’s rural countryside. For part one and more information on Dr. Mira Dakin-Sadgopal, visit our first interview here .

This second interview with Dr. Mira Dakin-Sadgopal was recorded in the studios of Radio Curious on September 6th, 2010.

The book Dr. Dakin-Sadgopal recommends is, “Anila’s Journey,” by Mary Finn.

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