Then, we replay our 2013 interview with filmmaker Tia Lessin, about the documentary she co-directed with Carl Deal, Citizen Koch. It’s about how the Koch Bros. and their rightwing advocacy organization, Americans For Prosperity, helped Wisconsin governor Scott Walker beat back a recall campaign after he devastated public employee union rights. Continue reading →
Stephen Kurkjian talks about his new book Master Thieves. It’s about the record-breaking art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990 and who might have done it.
Investigative journalist Jenny Nordberg talks about her book, THE UNDERGROUND GIRLS OF KABUL: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan. It’s about how some young girls in Afghanistan are disguised as boys — an ancient practice in a gender-apartheid society.
And feminist writer Katha Pollitt discusses how access to safe, legal abortions is under threat in America and what that means for women’s rights. Her book is PRO: Reclaiming Abortion Rights.Continue reading →
Bob Herbert talks about his penetrating new book, Losing Our Way: An Intimate Portrait of a Troubled America. It connects the dots between our crumbling infrastructure, the jobs crisis, mass defunding of public education and the multi-trillion dollar tab for ongoing wars to explain why America is falling apart.
And former New York Governor Mario Cuomo was buried this week to throated praise for his liberal legacy. But how liberal was that legacy, really? Investigative reporter Greg Palast talks about the two Marios he knew and worked for: the golden throated defender of the working man and the back room dealer.
Martin Blank talks about the dangers of cell phones,microwaves and other devices that emit electromagnetic radiation. His book is Overpowered: The Dangers of Electromagnetic Radiation (EMF) and What You Can Do about It.
And Argentina teeters on the brink of default because of hedge fund vultures like Paul Singer, who buy up national debt for pennies on the dollar and then demand payment in full. Today WV re-airs a 2011 interview with investigative journalist Greg Palast about his book, Vulture’s Picnic. Continue reading →
Investigative journalist Jo Robinson tells how to choose the most nutritious plant foods in her book, EATING ON THE WILD SIDE: The Missing Link To Optimum Health.
And Maker and author Wendy Jehanarah Tremain talks about her book THE GOOD LIFE LAB: Radical Experiments in Hands-On Living. It’s about living well by living free or cheaply within Earth’s eco-budget.
Marina Sitrin talks about her essay that appears in the book,  THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING — the first book out about the Occupy Movement. And investigative reporter Greg Palast talks about his latest shocker, VULTURES’ PICNIC: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates, and High-Finance Carnivores.
Host Francesca Rheannon talks with comix master Art Spiegelman. When Spiegelman’s [amazon-product text=”Maus I: A Survivors Tale: My Father Bleeds History” type=”text”]0394747232[/amazon-product] was published in 1986, (followed by [amazon-product text=”Maus II: A Survivors Tale: And Here My Troubles Began” type=”text”]0679729771[/amazon-product] in 1991), it exploded notions about the limited role of comix as art and literature.
Winning a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992–the only comic book ever to do so–Maus is a memoir in graphic form of Spiegelman’s father’s experiences in Auschwitz and the impact that had on the artist’s own childhood growing up in New York City. His mother was also a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. In 1968, she committed suicide, soon after Spiegelman himself was released from a mental hospital after suffering a nervous breakdown.
Maus was prefigured in an earlier work, Prisoner on the Hell Planet and in 1978 Spiegelman included that and other works in a collection of his underground comix called [amazon-product text=”Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!” type=”text”]0375423958[/amazon-product]. Innovative and drawn in a variety of styles in large format–the book sank like a stone. But now Spiegelman has “re-birthed it”, as he told me, with a new 20 page introduction and an afterword. We talk to him about BREAKDOWNS and breaking conventions in the comix.
Also, investigative journalist Greg Palast talks about the new comic book he produced with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., [amazon-product text=”STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE!” type=”text”]061525781X[/amazon-product]. With illustrations by Ted Rall and other artists, the book is about the threat of massive voter suppression in the upcoming election and how to counter it. [Note: the audio to this segment has been removed.]
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