Author Archives: Maria

The U.S.-Israel “Special Relationship” – Keynote: Stephen Walt

By MariaApril 9, 20142014

The National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel “Special Relationship,” was held March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. It was the most high profile, public response and critique to-date of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Israel’s foremost US Lobby, whose mission is to quote “urge(s) all members of Congress to support Israel through foreign aid, government partnerships, (and) joint anti-terrorism efforts.”   Just days earlier, from March 1st through 3rd, AIPAC had held its annual policy conference in our nation’s capital, celebrating the US Special Relationship with Israel. According to AIPAC’s web site more than half of the Senate, a third of the House of Representatives and countless Israeli and American policymakers were among the [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

Testing the Earth – Radioactivity (TWO of TWO)

By MariaApril 2, 20142014

Part two of Testing the Waters – Our Radioactive Ocean
A program about the phenomenon of radiation and ways to monitor it. Opening with a clip from the song Radioactivity by Kraftwerk, leading into a sketch of the life and death of Madame Curie. She discovered radiation but was unable to understand its danger and died from radiation poisoning.
Next the comedian Dick Gregory who states that radiation is worse than hunger and war: “Because I can feel hunger. I can see war. .. I cannot see radiation. I cannot smell radiation. I cannot hear radiation. I look around one day and I am dead.”
On to the synopsis of 36 years in the life of a Geiger counter builder, Dan Sythe, whose [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

Testing the Waters – Our Radioactive Ocean (ONE of TWO)

By MariaMarch 26, 20142014

Three years after Fukushima
In an age when the ocean currents are as well mapped as river systems on land there has never been any doubt that radiation flowing into the ocean at Fukushima would eventually arrive at the west coast of North America on the Kuroshio Current. It was just a question of time and what the risks might be once they arrived.
Canada was going to be the canary in the coal mine. The Kuroshio Current arrives there first and then branches down along the coast of the US. In February 2014 the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada reported at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Hawaii that they detected the radioactive signal as early as June [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

Helen Caldicott: Nuclear Power, Radiation & Our Health TWO of TWO

By MariaMarch 18, 20142014

ENCORE for Women’s History Month/Fukushima anniversary
This is the conclusion of Helen Caldicott’s keynote presentation at a public forum in Taipei, Taiwan, on July 7, 2013. Caldicott covers essential knowledge: How do radioactive iodine, strontium and plutonium affect the body? Why do the body and placenta mistake plutonium for iron and strontium for calcium and embed them in our organs and the fetus? Caldicott also covers the latest studies on birds in the Chernobyl and Fukushima exclusion zones by biologist Timothy Mousseau and she ends with a personal account of how she, as young med-student, was moved by the novel On The Beach. The author, Nevil Shute, describes how a nuclear world war III can poison the earth with radiation.
The organizer [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

Helen Caldicott: Nuclear Power, Radiation & Our Health, Part ONE of TWO

By MariaMarch 12, 20142014

ENCORE for International Women’s History Month and Fukushima Anniversary
The keynote presentation at a public forum in Taipei, Taiwan, on July 7, 2013. The organizer was an antinuclear alliance of mothers called Mom Loves Taiwan. They are campaigning to prevent the opening of yet another nuclear power plant on that small island and invited Dr. Helen Caldicott to help inform the public and the media.
This is a brief and concise talk covering the nature of power plants accidents, the different forms of radiation released, and how exactly radiation acts on human cells and causes cancer.
Notes
There are very few people currently alive who have given as much time and effort to the whole complex of the nuclear nightmare, as Helen Caldicott. [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:02 — 19.9MB)

The Safe Food Movement VS Agrochemical Giants Monsanto, Dow, DuPont, Syngenta and More (TWO of TWO)

By MariaMarch 5, 20142014GMOs, Organic Farming

With Vandana Shiva, Andy Kimbrell and David Bronner
Biotech corporations are now facing a huge problem of their own making, the so called super-weeds that have adapted to the multi year dousing of Roundup on 50% plus of the corn and soy growing areas in the US. Super-weeds are invading other industrial Ag. land and are spreading into gardens, parks and organic farms. Biotech corporations are currently driving the approval process for more toxic herbicides to eradicate these super-weeds, including 2,4-D, an ingredient of Agent Orange.
Andy Kimbrell covers the history of Michael Taylor’s astounding trip from Monsanto to the FDA. In 1992 the FDA issued a policy, that GMO crops are substantially equivalent to other crops and therefore do not require [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

The Safe Food Movement VS Agrochemical Giants Monsanto, Dow, DuPont, Syngenta and More (ONE of TWO)

By MariaFebruary 26, 20142014GMOs, Organic Farming

With Vandana Shiva (Navdanya in India) and Andy Kimbrell (Center for Food Safety)
Campaigns for labeling genetically engineered food have swept the US from California to Washington and on to Connecticut, Maine, and Alaska, Oregon and Vermont. Actually by January 2014, according to the Center for Food Safety, 26 states had introduced mandatory labeling legislation. People who participated in these campaigns realized with surprise and shock that they were fighting for a right that is already guaranteed in 64 other countries, including all the industrial democracies that we compare ourselves to.
The other shocking discovery was that such a simple and obvious demand, the right to know what food we put into our bodies was challenged wherever it was about to be [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

Fred Gray: Civil Rights Attorney for Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King

By MariaFebruary 19, 20142014

Black History Special – ONE self contained 29 min.program
Re-broadcast every two years
Who was the attorney for Rosa Parks and later Martin Luther King at the beginning of the Civil Rights struggle? Fred Gray, just out of law school, had made a commitment to destroy everything segregated in his home state of Alabama when he was in high school. Rosa Parks was only his second case, after Claudette Colvin, a teenager, who nine months earlier had been the first to refuse to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus and in turn inspired Rosa Parks.
When Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 for violating the segregated seating ordinance, 26-year-old Martin Luther King was chosen to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

ITHACA COMMUNITY MONEY (TWO of TWO)

By MariaFebruary 12, 20142014

A radio documentary on the ITHACA HOURS community currency
UPDATE
This is the conclusion of a one hour documentary on the Ithaca Hours, the oldest printed paper community currency in the US. Founded in 1991 by Paul Glover, Ithaca Hours have been in continuous use, their popularity rising and diminishing with fluctuations in the overall economy.
You will hear interviews with an employee of Green Star, the Ithaca food coop, and with a woman who accepts Ithaca Hours for rent and describes traditional New England farm barter. The program ends with a long interview with a banker. Bill Myers was manager of the Alternatives Federal Credit Union in Ithaca. He explains why the bank supports the community currency, and accepts Ithaca [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

ITHACA COMMUNITY MONEY (ONE of TWO)

By MariaFebruary 5, 20142014

A radio documentary on the ITHACA HOURS community currency
UPDATE
During the Great Depression, when banks were closed so they could be audited, over 400 currencies called SCRIP were used in the US to buy food and services. When the banks reopened, sometimes several months later, SCRIP was replaced with the federal currency. Since the beginning of the financial crisis a resurgence of interest in alternative money systems has led to many new initiatives.
The Ithaca Hours are the oldest printed paper currency in the US. Founded in 1991 by Paul Glover Hours have been in continuous use, their popularity rising and diminishing with fluctuations in the overall economy.
Each paper bill is a small piece of art and a commentary on [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

Rethinking Money: How new currencies turn scarcity into prosperity (TWO of TWO)

By MariaJanuary 29, 20142014

with Bernard Lietaer and Jacqui Dunne
This is part two of a 2013 global survey of community currencies, grassroots credit clearing and regional mutual aid systems. These are creative attempts to fill a role that the current monopoly system of money that is created by banks not only fails to fill but often undermines.
Bernard Lietaer is a former central banker and fund manager turned university professor and the Irish journalist Jacqui Dunne is CEO of an enterprise that assists entrepreneurs to restore the earth. Published in 2013 their book, Rethinking Money, is the most up to date international overview over complementary currencies and alternative systems of credit.
The real live projects that they describe, fall roughly into two categories, exchange [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

Rethinking Money: How new currencies turn scarcity into prosperity (ONE of TWO)

By MariaJanuary 22, 20142014

with Bernard Lietaer and Jacqui Dunne
This is a new book by the former Belgian central banker, fund manager and now university professor Bernard Lietaer and the journalist Jacqui Dunne. Published in 2013 the book is the most up to date international overview over complementary currencies and alternative systems of credit. The diversity of these systems is quite staggering, examples come for Poland, Brazil, Japan, the US and even the center of all banking, as some see it, Switzerland. But what they all have in common is their response to and critique of the current system of banking and money management.
Edgar Cahn, the creator of one such complementary system, Time Banking, legal scholar and speech writer to Robert F. [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

The Prospects of War in 2014: Professor Francis Boyle, interviewed by Jeff Blankfort

By MariaJanuary 15, 20142014

ONE self-contained 29 min. program
Recorded in the early days of January 2014, the focus, with some urgency, is on the prospects for war in 2014. University of Illinois College of Law Professor Francis Boyle, well known teacher of Constitutional Law, attorney and engaged critic of U.S. Foreign Affairs, was interviewed on January 8 by Takes on the World Radio host Jeff Blankfort. Jeff Blankfort is a veteran journalist and commentator on the Middle East.
Flash-point one is Iran. While negotiations are currently (January 2014) under way to lift sanctions a bill, S. 1881, has been introduced in the US Senate (Dec. 2013), over President Obama’s objections, that could bring these efforts to an end. Even worse, S. 1881 has language imbedded [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

Tom Greco: THE END OF MONEY AND THE FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION

By MariaJanuary 7, 20142014

Tom Greco demystifies money and banking and explains the destructive power of the current financial system. He says that our dreams of a sane, just and ecologically sound future can become reality only if we change the way in which money is created and used.
THIS IS NOT A DOUBLE PROGRAM BUT ONE self contained 29 minute program)
THE END OF MONEY AND THE FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION is Greco’s third book on alternatives to the money that is in use today.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:03 — 20.0MB)

Ellen Brown: Bypassing Wall Street (TWO of TWO)

By MariaDecember 31, 20132013

A Public Bank for Mendocino County
This is the second half of a one hour program on how to set up a public bank. Ellen Brown, in her most recent acclaimed books, describes the functioning of the Federal Reserve in “The Web of Debt” and gives a blueprint on how to set up a public bank in her 2013 book: “The Public Bank Solution”. She came to Mendocino County, 100 miles north of San Francisco, to meet with people who already embarked on the path of creating such a county bank. You heard in part ONE of this program that a model for such a public bank exists since 1919 in the Bank of North Dakota(BND).
Maybe the biggest impact comes from [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)