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Current Events

LAPL ID: 
13

The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World

In conversation with Sue Horton, Op-Ed & Sunday Opinion Editor, LA Times
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
01:08:55
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Episode Summary
An award-winning investigative reporter exposes the global war on women's reproductive rights and its disastrous and unreported consequences for the future of global development.

Participant(s) Bio
Michelle Goldberg is an investigative journalist and the author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, a New York Times Bestseller which was a finalist for the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. A former senior writer at Salon.com, her work has appeared in Glamour, The New Republic, Rolling Stone, The Guardian (UK) and many other publications, and she has taught at NYU's graduate school of journalism. The Means of Reproduction won the 2008 J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progress Award

The Eco-Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet

In conversation with Patt Morrison, LA Times Columnist and KPCC Radio Host
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
01:04:11
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Episode Summary
A Pulitzer Prize-winning author reveals the inspiring and largely untold stories of the country's foremost environmental conservationists, activists, and visionaries.

Participant(s) Bio
Edward Humes is the author of nine previous critically acclaimed nonfiction titles including Monkey Girl, Over Here, School of Dreams, Baby E.R., and the bestseller Mississippi Mud. A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for his journalism and numerous awards for his books, he is currently writer-at-large for Los Angeles Magazine.

Green to the Street: The Future of Pershing Square

Moderated by Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times Architecture Critic
Co-presented with REDCAT's President's Forum
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
01:30:09
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Episode Summary
Is Pershing Square a study in failed urban design? What would it take to bring it back? Could we take lessons from New York City's beloved Bryant Park? Join us for a discussion on the future of what was once one of the most vibrant and elegant public spaces in downtown Los Angeles.

Participant(s) Bio
Daniel Biederman is the co-founder of Grand Central Partnership, 34th Street Partnership, and Bryant Park Corporation, based in New York City. He currently serves as the President of the latter two organizations and as an advisor to downtown redevelopment management efforts in several other cities.

Since the late 1990s, Mr. Biederman has advised Business Improvement Districts and designed the plan for new or improved parks in Pittsburgh, Newark, Miami, Baltimore, Dallas, Richmond, and Atlanta.

www.bryantpark.org

Kathleen Bullard is Tetra Tech Inc.'s Los Angeles Program Manager. She is also an instructor in the UCLA Extension Landscape Architecture program where she teaches intermediate and advanced design studios in environmental analysis and planning. This year's studios are focused on analyzing and developing plans for parks in downtown Los Angeles including rethinking and redesigning Pershing Square. With a master's degree in landscape architecture and an MBA, Kathleen combines her landscape architecture and finance background to bring a balanced and innovative approach to planning and implementing projects. She is currently assisting the City of Los Angeles with implementation of the Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan. As Director of the Los Angeles River Center and Gardens, she produced a public space with an identity for river revitalization while creating a funding stream for maintenance of the facility. She has also implemented several environmental restoration projects with goals of improved habitat, water quality, and recreational amenities. Kathleen has long been active with non-profit community organizations in the Los Angeles area. She was a recipient of a Loeb Fellowship in advanced environmental studies from Harvard University in 2003.

www.lamountains.com

Honeymoon in Tehran: Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran

Monday, February 23, 2009
01:06:11
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Episode Summary
A longtime Middle East correspondent for Time Magazine-now living in Tehran-- offers a stunning and unforgettable window into the maelstrom of Iranian life and gives voice to the Iranian psyche.

Participant(s) Bio
Azadeh Moaveni is the author of Lipstick Jihad and co-author, with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, of Iran Awakening. She has lived and reported throughout the Middle East, and speaks both Farsi and Arabic fluently. As one of the few American correspondents allowed to work continuously in Iran since 1999, she has reported widely on youth culture, women's rights, and Islamic reform for Time, the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.

Thinking About Earthquakes: A Panel Discussion

Moderated by Judith Lewis, editor, the L.A. Earthquake Sourcebook
Thursday, January 22, 2009
01:28:32
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Episode Summary

It's been 15 years since the 1994 quake. Is L.A. more prepared for the next one? Are WE? A panel of experts air their views: Mariana Amatullo, director, The L.A. Earthquake: Get Ready project at Art Center College of Design; Michael Dear, Professor of Geography and Urban Planning at USC; Lucy Jones, Caltech and USGS seismologist; Dennis Mileti, Director of the University of Colorado Natural Hazards Center; David Ulin, author, The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith.


Participant(s) Bio

Judith Lewis is a senior editor at the LA Weekly, where her writing on technology, the arts, natural resource issues, public health and the environment has appeared since 1991. Her work also appears in High Country News, WIRED, Salon, Sierra Magazine and the Los Angeles Times. She won a first-place Los Angeles Press Club award for her technology column, "Close to the Machine" and an Association of Alternative Newsweeklies award for her reporting on nuclear power and global warming. She is a member of the Society for Environmental Journalists, and is currently at work on a lay person's guide to nuclear energy.

Mariana Amatullo, co-founder and director of the College-wide initiative Designmatters, is the Vice President of the International Initiatives Department of Art Center College of Design, based in Pasadena, California. Through her leadership, Art Center is the first design institution to be formally affiliated with the United Nations as a non-governmental organization (NGO) and has become recognized with numerous public and private agencies as an exemplary effort uniting humanitarian, social and educational objectives. Mariana acted as the Director of The Los Angeles Earthquake: Get Ready Project.

Dr. Lucy M. Jones has been a seismologist with the US Geological Survey and a Visiting Research Associate at the Seismological Laboratory of Caltech since 1983. She is currently serving as the Chief Scientist for the Multi Hazards Initiative in Southern California, developing a new program to integrate hazards science in urban areas with economic analysis and emergency response to increase community resiliency to natural disasters. She is also a Commissioner of the California Seismic Safety Commission, which advises the governor and legislature on seismic safety and she serves on the California Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council. Dr. Jones has authored over 80 papers on research seismology with primary interest in the physics of earthquakes, foreshocks and earthquake hazard assessment, especially in southern California.

Michael Dear is Professor of Geography and Urban Planning at the University of Southern California, and Honorary Professor in the Bartlett School of Planning at University College, London. He has been a Guggenheim Fellowship holder as well as Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy. His book The Postmodern Urban Condition was selected by Choice magazine as an "Outstanding Academic Title." His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, La Opinion, the Times Literary Supplement, and National Geographic.

David L. Ulin is book editor of the Los Angeles Times. He is the author of The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith, and the editor of Another City: Writing from Los Angeles and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. He has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, LA Weekly, Los Angeles, and National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."


Out of Exile: The Abducted and Displaced People of Sudan

Co-presented with Voice of Witness and Not on our Watch
Thursday, December 11, 2008
01:20:56
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Episode Summary
Decades of conflicts and persecution have driven millions from their homes in all parts of the northeast African country of Sudan. Many thousands more have been enslaved as human spoils of war. Writers and surprise guests read alongside Sudanese refugees who recount their lives before their displacement, the reasons for their flight, and their hopes of someday returning home.

Participant(s) Bio
Panther Alier was born in the village of Kolnyang in South Sudan. Displaced from his home by civil war, he walked with many other young men-the so-called "Lost Boys"-across Sudan seeking safety in the refugee camps of Ethiopia and Kenya. Years later, he made his way to the United States, and now studies sustainable international development at Brandeis University.

Craig Walzer, who edited and compiled Out of Exile: Narratives From the Abducted and Displaced People of Sudan has traveled extensively in Sudan, Kenya, and Egypt. He is working toward graduate degrees from Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government.

Truth on the Ground in a Time of War: A Conversation Between Foreign Correspondents

Thursday, September 18, 2008
01:14:50
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Episode Summary
Two pre-eminent war correspondents offer a visceral understanding of America's overseas involvement-from the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan to the heat of the battle in Iraq, from Marine battalions in Ramadi to ordinary Iraqis whose voices have remained eerily silent.

Participant(s) Bio
Farnaz Fassihi is the senior Middle East correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, now based in Beirut, Lebanon. She joined the Journal in January 2003 and was immediately sent to Iraq. Her family is Iranian-American; she has degrees in English from Tehran University and in journalism from Columbia University. Prior to joining the Journal, she was a roving foreign correspondent for the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., and for the Providence Journal, RI.

Dexter Filkins, a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, has worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and, from 2003 to 2006, in Iraq. He has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist and has received a George Polk Award and two Overseas Press Club awards. In 2007-2008 he was a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries

In conversation with Martin Kaplan, Director, Norman Lear Center, USC Annenberg School for Communication
Monday, October 6, 2008
1:28:18
Listen:
Episode Summary

A call to arms to every voter to remember what it means to live in a free democracy, and a reminder that it's possible for ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things-to get inspired and make a difference on their own.


Participant(s) Bio

Naomi Wolf made a sensation with her landmark international bestseller The Beauty Myth in 1991. The author of six other books, including the New York Times bestselling The End of America, Wolf is the cofounder and president of the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership and cofounder of the American Freedom Campaign, an American movement for democracy and the rule of law.

www.americanfreedomcampaign.org


Unintended Consequences: How the Iraq War Hurt America and Helped Its Enemies

In conversation with Mike Shuster, NPR Foreign Correspondent
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
1:03:47
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Episode Summary
A leading authority on Iraq-and architect of the partition plan endorsed by both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates and many members of Congress-reports on the real consequences of the U.S. invasion.

Participant(s) Bio
Peter W. Galbraith, author of the critically acclaimed The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War without End, is the leading authority on Iraq and a widely respected commentator on foreign affairs. He is the architect of the partition plan that is considered the main alternative to Bush's Iraq strategy, and which has been endorsed by both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, and many members of Congress. Galbraith served as the first US Ambassador to Croatia where he mediated the 1995 Erdut Agreement that ended the Croatia War. He has held senior positions in the United Nations and, as a cabinet Minister in East Timor's UN-sponsored transitional government, played a key role in that country's emergence as an independent state. He has worked on Iraq for more than 25 years, having uncovered and documented the start of Saddam Hussein's genocide against the Kurds in 1987 and his use of chemical weapons in 1988. He was the author of the Senate-passed Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988 that would have imposed comprehensive sanctions on Iraq and was with Kurdish rebels during their doomed 1991 uprising. Galbraith has made more than twenty trips to Iraq since Saddam Hussein's overthrow in 2003, and was a news consultant in Baghdad for ABC news in the chaotic weeks immediately following the regime's collapse.

Can Religion and Reason be Reconciled?

Moderated by author and L.A. Times Book Critic Jonathan Kirsch
Thursday, January 25, 2007
01:27:49
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Episode Summary
Aslan (No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam) and Harris (The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason; Letter to a Christian Nation) square off for the first time to debate the future of religion and its role in society.

Participant(s) Bio
Reza Aslan, an internationally acclaimed writer and scholar of religions, is Middle East Commentator for NPR's "Marketplace" and Muslim Affairs Analyst for CBS News.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from Santa Clara University, a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard University, a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from the University of Iowa, and is currently a Doctoral Candidate in Sociology of Religions at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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