Radio Curious

Click here to begin listening Once, fishes as big as turkeys and sheep swam the seas. Now, most of their few remaining descendants would fit into a frying pan. Dr. Elliot A. Norse, president of the Marine Biology Conservation Institute in Redmond, Washington, believes that this radical reduction in the size and number of the […]

Click here to begin listening Legal Notebook: How to Keep Open Meetings Open and Public Meetings Public The right of the public to know how our government acts is basic to our American system of democracy. Most states and the federal government have enacted laws requiring public meetings to be open, with minimal secrecy provisions. […]

Click here to begin listening We all know that people listen to radio and watch television. The difference between radio and television is in the image. When you listen to radio, your mind creates the image for you. When you watch television, a ready-made image is flashed before your eyes. The early days of television […]

Click here to begin listening Vladivostok, Russia, at the very eastern end of Siberia, is a city of about 800,000 people. It is the same distance north of the equator as is central Oregon and Rome, Italy. It’s close to the border of China and North Korea. This city was closed to everyone, including Russians, […]

Click here to begin listening In this edition of Radio Curious, we visit Dennis del Castillo and Mercedes Lu, two environmental activists from Peru. I met with them in Lima, Peru on February 5th, 1998. Dennis del Castillo, who holds a Ph. D. from Mississippi State University in soil science and in this interview describes contemporary […]

Click here to begin listening Bill Zacha, the leading force behind the creation of the Mendocino Art justify was a person with vision and moxie and one who made a dream come true. In August 1957, Bill Zacha, was a young married teacher and lived near San Francisco. On a short trip to the village […]

Click here to begin listening John Sutter was an émigré from Switzerland who came to California to establish his New Helvicia in the land of opportunity, located in what is now close to Sacramento, California. A man with vision and organization, and a liking to drink, Sutter built an economically thriving Anglo-American settlement outpost in […]

Click here to begin listening In this program, we are going to go back into California history about 150 years, and visit with the last Mexican governor of California, Pio Pico. Pio Pico was born at the San Gabriel Mission in 1801, of Spanish, Italian, Indian and African ancestry. Both as a politician and as […]

Click here to begin listening The Wonder of Boys & A Fine Young Man Boys do not have an easy time growing up and maturing in our complex world these days. The same standard of behavior is frequently expected of boys and girls, often without recognizing the special and different needs of boys. Testosterone is […]

Click here to begin listening The Wonder of Boys & A Fine Young Man Boys do not have an easy time growing up and maturing in our complex world these days. The same standard of behavior is frequently expected of boys and girls, often without recognizing the special and different needs of boys. Testosterone is […]

Click here to begin listening The governments of most countries in the world send an ambassador to other countries to talk about and promote what their country is like and carry on political affairs between the two countries. These ambassadors often have assistants that are called “cultural attaches”. They present the culture, the folklore and […]

Click here to begin listening The Eugene “Bear” Lincoln murder trial ended in the fall of 1997 in Ukiah, California, with an acquittal of the defendant, Mr. Lincoln, on charges of first degree and second-degree murder, and with the jury divided ten to two, on acquittal from manslaughter charges. Apart from the divisive nature of […]

Click here to begin listening The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls Advertising has had a major effect on how we view our bodies and on our individual self-image. The history of how this advertising has come to affect American girls as they pass through menarche and adolescence is presented in a book […]

Click here to begin listening The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls Advertising has had a major effect on how we view our bodies and on our individual self-image. The history of how this advertising has come to affect American girls as they pass through menarche and adolescence is presented in a book […]

Click here to begin listening Spoiled: The Dangerous Truth About a Food Chain That Has Gone Wild In this Halloween, 1997, edition of Radio Curious, I spoke with Nicols Fox, the journalist who has written a terribly scary book called “Spoiled: The Dangerous Truth About a Food Chain That Has Gone Wild.” It’s truly disgusting; […]

Click here to begin listening Terminal Velocity The concept of memoir versus fiction leads many authors to transform their personal experiences and life to fiction. Blanche Boyd is a native of South Carolina and a Professor of Literature at Connecticut College. She is also the author of the book entitled, “Terminal Velocity.” This is a […]

Click here to begin listening Blue Streak: Swearing, Free Speech and Sexual Harassment Certain words, said at the wrong time or place, may get a person into a heap of trouble. The laws surrounding freedom of speech do not permit us, for example, to shout out “fire” in a theater or advocate the immediate and […]

Click here to begin listening Some people’s memories of President Richard Nixon are negative due to his role in escalating the Vietnam War, the student demonstrations at Kent State University, and Nixon’s ultimate downfall in Watergate. But who was the man? And how could another individual get close to him? “Crazy Rhythm: My Journey from […]

Click here to begin listening The word millet is a term from the Ottoman Empire that ruled parts of Europe Central to the Near East from 1430 to 1921 and means “a recognized people or cultural group who have no homeland.” Millet now applies to the Kurdish people, who live in the Zagros Mountains, where […]

Click here to begin listening The Wisdom of the Body From developmental perspectives, both in individuals and in mankind as a whole, the brain, language, and civilization have separated our species from the rest of the animal kingdom. In May of 1997, I discussed these issues with Sherwin Nuland, a professor of Medical History at […]

Click here to begin listening Wayne Knight, an artist based in Mendocino County, California with over 40 years of experience, traveled very little before he found himself in Phnom Phen, Cambodia in 1995 and 1996. He spent just under a year there, looking, seeing, and painting scenes that previously were beyond his imagination. Wayne Knight […]

Click here to begin listening Stockton, CA, has been called the most diverse community in the world. Fourteen distinct and primary languages are spoken in the Stockton area elementary schools. This enormous cultural diversity has, in the past, resulted in automatic rifle fire at a Stockton elementary school. Scott Spears, a young man who grew […]

Click here to begin listening Few moments in American history have held the tension of the early 1970s. The nation was fundamentally divided between the jaded counter-culture and Nixon’s ‘silent majority,’ a rupture particularly connected to the still-escalating Vietnam War. The release to the public of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 focused […]

Click here to begin listening Grace Carpenter Hudson was known as the painter-lady in her hometown of Ukiah, CA. She started her career as a painter when she was a teenager in the 1870s. By the time of her death in 1937, she had produced over 600 canvas paintings and numerous other works. Her skills […]

Click here to begin listening Attorney Linda Kremer, a Public Defender in Marin County, California, worked for thirteen months in Phnom Phen, Cambodia, in 1996 and 1997 as Director of the Cambodian Defenders’ Project. The Cambodian Defenders’ Project recruits and trains Khmer men and women to serve as Public Defenders in the criminal courts of […]