JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: VP for National Security, Center for American Progress & CHEF ANN COOPER: Director of Nutrition Svs, Berkeley CA Unified School District

Written on December 11th, 2007
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When no WMD could be been found in Iraq, several members of the Bush administration justified the imminent preemptive invasion because we could “not afford for the smoking gun come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” Turns out Saddam had no bomb, probably no bomb program. We've heard consistent fear-mongering from a Bush administration that appears eager to attack Iran. Bush himself recently linked Iran to WWIII! Now comes word from the National Intelligence Estimate that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The administration handles Musharraf with kid gloves as he asserts dictatorial powers to control a very volatile Pakistan, home of Doctor Khan's global atomic sales operation. 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has high praise for JOSEPH CIRINCIONE'S BOMB SCARE. "At a time of challenges and uncertainties regarding the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime, the book offers a comprehensive review of the history and theory of nuclear weapons, as well as of the policy options before us today in our common endeavor to address the most pressing threats; existing arsenals, the emergence of new nuclear-armed states, and nuclear terrorism.” CHEF ANN COOPER is a renegade lunch lady who works to transform cafeterias into culinary classrooms for students - one school lunch at a time. She has transformed public school cafeterias in New York City, Harlem and Bridgehampton, NY, and now in Berkeley, CA, to teach more students why good food choices matter by putting innovative strategies to work and providing fresh, organic lunches to all students. __Currently, Chef Ann is the director of nutrition services for the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD), improving meals at 16 public schools with a population of over 9,000 students. In her work with public schools, Chef Ann is at the forefront of the movement to transform the National School Lunch Program into one that places greater emphasis on the health of students than the financial health of a select few agribusiness corporations. Chef Ann's lunch menus emphasize regional, organic, fresh foods, and nutritional education, helping students build a connection between their personal health and where their food comes from. Chef Ann's newest book, LUNCH LESSONS: CHANGING THE WAY WE FEED OUR CHILDREN, is overflowing with strategies for parents and school administrators to become engaged with issues around school food - from public policy to corporate interest. It includes successful case studies of school food reform, resources that can help make a difference and healthy, kid-friendly recipes that can be made at home, or by the thousands for a public school cafeteria.

ADRIAN LEVY and CATHERINE SCOTT-CLARK

Written on November 26th, 2007
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ADRIAN LEVY and CATHERINE SCOTT-CLARK are award-winning investigative journalists who worked as staff writers and foreign correspondents for the Sunday Times of London for 7 years before joining the Guardian as senior correspondents. They are the authors of The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure and The Stone of Heaven: Unearthing the Secret History of Imperial Green Jade, and their newest, DECEPTION: Pakistan, the US, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons. They have reported from South Asia for more than a decade, and now live in London and in France.

Q&A: TOM HAYDEN & BARBARA BECNEL

Written on November 15th, 2007
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Over 25,000 young people have died in America's gang wars since 1980 - a bit less than half the number of soldiers who lost their lives in Vietnam. In cities across America current and former gang-members are like traumatized war veterans with no way home. Tom Hayden's book STREET WARS indicts the domestic law and order politics that dominate current policy and suffocate inner city youth. It has been almost two years since Stanley Tookie Williams was executed after being denied clemency by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the wake of his death, Stanley Tookie Williams' memoir BLUE RAGE, BLACK REDEMPTION, will be re-released to shed additional light on Tookie's personal and public fight for redemption. Part 1 of the book, entitled Blue Rage, chronicles Tookie's gang life as a co-founder of the Crips. During this time he committed hundreds of crimes and was eventually charged with the murder of four people. In 1981, Tookie was convicted and sent to Death Row for twenty years. Throughout his time in prison, he maintained his innocence for the crimes for which he was convicted. The second part of the book, Black Redemption, looks at the work Tookie completed and legacy he crafted behind bars-his books, awards, anti-gang initiatives, and Nobel Prize nominations.

Q&A: Phil Donahue

Written on November 6th, 2007
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PHIL DONAHUE pioneered the modern television talk show. DONAHUE ran for 29 years and used its time to explore and debate issues that mattered to its audiences. Despite being one of MSNBC's highest rated programs, Donahue's brief return to television was cancelled in February 2003. A leaked internal NBC memo statede that Donahue had to be fired because he would be a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war”. Now PHIL DONAHUE has collaborated with veteran documentary filmmaker Ellen Spiro to give us an unsanitized account of one young man's evolution from enlisted soldier to anti-war veteran. Tomas Young grew up in Kansas City and like many patriotic young men and women, he responded to a call to action after 9/11. After less than one week in Iraq, he received a bullet injury to the spine that paralyzed his body. The film cleverly inter-cuts two parallel stories: Tomas struggles to deal with the complexities of his injuries while we see the congressional deliberations granting President Bush authority to invade Iraq. The effect is a startlingly powerful juxtaposition of cause and effect and the personal consequences of misguided vision.

MILENA KANEVA Producer/Director, TOTAL DENIAL & KATIE REDFORD, Director, EarthRights International

Written on November 2nd, 2007
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TOTAL DENIAL documents abuses of Burmese villagers caused by the Yadana pipeline. Milena Kaneva's “guide” during this journey is Ka Hsaw Wa, one of the leaders of the student movement for democracy in Burma in 1988, who hid in the jungle for more than seven years. Wanted by the police in both Burma and Thailand, Ka Hsaw Wa gathered the evidence of thousands of victims of human rights and environmental abuses. In 1992, two Western oil companies - French TOTAL and UNOCAL, then based in California embark on a joint venture with the Burmese military regime, to build a gas pipeline. The Burmese army, hired by the companies to provide security for the project, forces many in the local population into slave labor. Burned villages, raped women, tortured and killed porters, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children hiding in the jungle is the picture of a silent genocide. In 1995, with KATIE REDFORD, the co-founder of Earth Rights International, Ka Hsaw Wa brought the precedent-setting lawsuit to the U.S. courts. TOTAL DENIAL was shot in Burma, Thailand, Europe, and the U.S. courts between 2000-2005. The identity of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit and in the film are protected under the California state law. Their faces and voices are distorted for their security. The images shot in US courtrooms are exclusive.