Free Forum Q&A: SARAH VanGELDER Editor-in-Chief, YES! Magazine 10 Hopeful Things That Happened in 2013
Written on January 7th, 2014 |
Aired 01/05/14
These days the media are full of lists – the best and worst of 2013 – movies, TV, music, books, etc. as well as lists of resolutions and tips for 2014. So when I got an email from SARAH VanGELDER, co-founder and editor-in-chief of YES! Magazine, in which she wrote. “I just posted my end-of-year column on the stories from 2013 that could make 2014 transformative,” , I invited her to join me today. She actually titled her article, “10 Hopeful Things That Happened in 2013 to Get You Inspired for What’s to Come,” and that sounds like a great conversation to start the new year.
We’ll look back and ahead with an eye toward catching the waves or the winds of change, building on the best of last year to make 2014 even better. Let’s commit to taking action to move us all a bit closer to a world that just might work.
Q&A w/ DOUG FINE, Author of TOO HIGH TO FAIL: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution
Written on June 25th, 2013 |
Aired: 06/23/13
This week, in the second of a two-part series (Part One with CARL HART, author of HIGH PRICE: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything You Know about Drugs and Society) I’m joined by DOUG FINE to talk about the accelerating movement to change the rules on marijuana. According to Fine, as the economy continues to limp along for most Americans and California cities declare bankruptcy, one action — the legalization of marijuana — would save government billions per year while raising huge sums in taxes. According to TIME, the legal medicinal cannabis economy already generates $200 million annually in taxable proceeds from a mere five hundred thousand registered medical users in just sixteen states. 51% of Americans support full legalization (cannabis regulated for adults like alcohol), and 80% support medicinal cannabis legalization.
Fine’s book, TOO HIGH TO FAIL: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution, is just out in paperback. In a postscript added to the new edition, Fine writes,” On November 6, 2012, Colorado and Washington voters ended the Drug War. That is to say, voters in both states overwhelmingly legalized adult social use of cannabis (Colorado’s new law, vitally, also allows industrial cannabis cultivation). It is no stretch to say that the Berlin Wall of the Drug War fell.” We’ll talk about how quickly the landscape is changing and look ahead to the era of legal marijuana.
Q&A: VANDANA SHIVA, Physicist, Ecologist, Activist, Editor, & Author
Written on December 27th, 2010 |
Aired 12/26/10
Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecologist, activist, editor, and author of many books. In India she has established Navdanya, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmers` rights. She directs the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy. Her books include Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply, and her newest, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis. Shiva has been awarded several awards for her efforts including the Right Livelihood Award and the United Nations Environment Program [UNEP] Global 500 Award in 1993, and most recently the 2010 City of Sydney Peace Prize.
Q&A: MIKE LUX, Author – THE PROGRESSIVE REVOLUTION: How the Best in America Came to Be
Written on May 7th, 2009 |
Aired 05/05/09
One of Ronald Reagan's most famous and successful quotes is from his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter, "There you go again..." No one can remember what it was about or whether it was accurate, but it worked.
I bring it up because a new book makes clear that that same line applies all too well to the right in this country. "There you go again..." - bringing up the same old stereotypes, same old fears, same old prejudices...
Today's first guest MIKE LUX has a new book out -- THE PROGRESSIVE REVOLUTION: How the Best in America Came to Be -- in which he traces the role progressives have played in leading the US to so many of its best advances, battling every time the right's determination to keep progress at bay. Needless to say, we are at another of those moments today. After 30 years of dominance by the right, disaster is clear to all, and change is on the move. We'll talk about the history, the present moment, and what we all need to do to keep moving forward to a more progressive future.
