UCI Students Fight Fee Hikes

Dennis Lopez & Hadeer Soliman at KUCI. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2009

UCI Students Fight Back Against Fee Increases

Updated with audio link: To listen to our interview with Dennis Lopez and Hadeer Soliman, click here: .

Irvine - UCI students, faculty and staff gear up for a huge noon rally
Tuesday (24 November 2009) at the UCI flagpole.
The rally, sponsored by a host of student groups,
comes in the wake of Regental action the
past Thursday to raise student fees a third for the coming year,
starting Spring Quarter.

On the 23 November 2009 edition of Subversity, we talked with Dennis Lopez of UCI's Worker-Student Alliance
and Muslim Student Association member Hadeer Soliman.

According to the rally Facebook page.

"The UC has voted to raise tuition by 32%! Students were brutally
assaulted at UCLA for using their right of freedom of speech! Cuts are
coming from the bottom not the top, while the administrators are
getting raises workers are getting fired and student class sizes get
larger. It is time that we as students come together in solidarity to
tell the UC it's our UC!!!"

and

"Come out and hear stories from those affected and find out what we
can do from here! Please invite at least 10 others. This is our time
in history will we live up to the responsibility?

and

"We stress that this is a peaceful rally, however, we as citizens of
the United States can and will exercise of First amendment Rights of
free speech!"
________

Calling "even studying is now a form of resistance," the organizers
also plan a teach-in outside Langson Library Friday December 4 at 3
p.m. followed by a "study-in" in the library at 4 p.m., followed by an
"all-night" teach-in at 5 p.m., past closing hours. On the next day, a
Saturday, a "general assembly" is slated for the Graduate Reading Room
in the library at 1 p.m.

For details see another Facebook page.

From Liberation Struggle to University President

Dr. Bui Tran Phuong at UCI's Langson Library. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2009.

To listen to our interview with Dr. Phuong, click here: .

On the 9 November 2009 edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we talk with a university president from Vietnam. Dr. Bui Tran Phuong is president of Hoa Sen University in Ho Chi Minh City and she has an interesting story to tell, one that is rarely heard publicly in Orange County, California.

When she was ten, his father, who was in the Viet Minh resistance movement, was arrested with her by the south Vietnamese police under then-Pres. Ngo Dinh Diem. She was released after a day, but her father spent several years in prison, enduring torture.

Thus began her political awakening, that brought her to Paris where she joined in distributing agitprop resisting both the south Vietnamese government and U.S. invaders to her homeland, from the political active and (at the time) leftist Vietnamese diaspora abroad. After graduating from Sorbonne, she returned to Saigon and took part in the liberation movement.

Today she is a university president and grappling with the challenge of improving higher education in Vietnam. In an era of globalization, at her university, juniors and seniors will soon be offered the choice to be taught in English. But her enduring passion remains history; she is hoping to organize an international network of scholars interested in women and war.

Dr. Phuong visited UC Irvine this past Thursday, 5 November 2009.

The show airs Monday 9 November 2009 from 9-10 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

Le-Van Kiet's Dust of Life Premieres; Coco Paris LLC Distributes Film

Lee Ngo, Dan Tran and Le-Van Kiet outside KUCI. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2009.

Updated with audio link: To listen to the 2 November 2009 Subversity show, click here: .

Irvine -- For the November 2, 2009 edition of Subversity, a KUCI
public affairs program, at 9 a.m., we feature again Le-Van Kiet, the director of Dust of Life, a gritty, local film focusing on youth in Little Saigon in an era of police surveillance of Asian youth and gang activity. Dust of Life makes its theatrical premiere this coming Friday. He is joined by the distributors of his film, Dan Tran, President of Coco Paris LLC, and Lee Ngo, marketing consultant. (Clocks have changed in U.S. and Canada 2 November 2009, with "fall back" one hour giving sleepers one more hour of sleep!).

Cocco Paris LLC is "a media distribution company based in Orange County, California. Our mission is to distribute Vietnamese media content and to ensure their accessibility. The plan to achieve these objectives begins with several initiatives of creating awareness about the film industries, and working closely with and engaging filmmakers and the community for innovative marketing solutions to bring the Vietnamese media content to the general mainstream audience.

"Further, the plan is to create an effective and efficient platform to reach a wider audience by including distribution of media content through different venues and other distribution channels worldwide."

The premiere Friday 6 November 2009, starting at 6 pm, at STAR
Performing Arts Center, 16149 Brookhurst St., Fountain Valley, CA
92708. is a benefit for two worthy causes: The Vietnamese American
Cancer Foundation and Project MotiVATe, which seeks to mentor
Vietnamese teenagers and motivate them to civic involvement. Regular screenings of Dust of Life continue November 7 at STAR Performing Arts Center. For more information, see:

www.cocoparisllc.com/premiere_tickets.

The film runs 90 minutes, in English and Vietnamese with English subtitles. Le-Van Kiet did initial research for his film at the Southeast Asian Archive at UC Irvine Libraries.

Our earlier interview with Le-Van Kiet on Dust of Life is: here.

Dust of Life web site and trailer.

We also interviewed him on another feature of his, Sad Fish, which was featured at the 2009 Vietnamese International Film Festival at UCIrvine. Audio of that Subversity interview.

Historic Walkout Rally and Teach-ins at UC Irvine

Video clip from OC Register.

Updated 3:15 PM 10/05/09: To listen to the 5 October 2009 Subversity show, click here: .

Irvine -- In our 5 October 2009 edition, KUCI's Subversity program looks back at the historic walkout rally and teach-ins at UCI on September 24, 2009, with Dennis Lopez and Raul Perez, from the Worker-Student Alliance at UC Irvine. We'll also play audio from the day's noon rally that drew hundreds in a show of unity among workers, students, faculty and staff.

Dennis Lopez, a graduate student in English, and Raul Perez, a graduate student in Sociology, have been major forces in bringing students and workers together to fight for in-sourcing and for social justice, and Lopez has been a guest on Subversity before.

The show airs 9-10 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM and is simulcast via kuci.org.
Resources:

Facebook page for WSA.

WSA Web site

New University coverage of rally

Student Newspapers' interview with
UC President Yudoff

UC's Hidden Wealth: Why is UC Pleading Poverty?

Donohue points to UC's unrestricted assets at CUE event at UCI. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2009.

To listen to the show, click here: .

Irvine -- It sure sounds like the University of California is in financial crisis, with layoffs, paycuts/furloughs, massive student fee increases and campus protests. But economist Peter Donohue thinks otherwise.

Looking at the UC's own financial reports, he has discovered billions hidden away in its unrestricted reserves. The UC likes to say these funds are already committed, but Donohue says these are not legally restricted. They could be freed up to offset the massive loss of state funding. But unlike the CSU system, UC funding is only 13% -18% dependent on state sources. We'll talk to Donohue about why the UC is pleading poverty.

The show airs Monday 28 September 2009 from 9-10 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

Peter Donohue is an economist and head of San Francisco’s PBI Associates. Since 1982, he has assisted union, nonprofit, community and business groups with research, financial analysis, bargaining, arbitration and government relations. He advises clients in transport, construction, semiconductor, utility, printing, health care, retail, design, engineering, hospitality, transit, insurance, education and government. Donohue has taught at Portland State University, San Francisco State University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Texas at Austin and University of Missouri-Columbia.

He is currently compiling, for CUE (Coalition of University Employees), an updated analysis of the UC budget; see his earlier 1992 study: UC's Hidden Wealth: An Analysis of 10 Years of UC's Financial Reports.

See also Prof. Emeritus Charlie Schwartz's web site that tracks UC budget issues: UniversityProbe.org.

CUE's website, contains links to other resources, including our 20 July 2009 Subversity interview with CUE local president at UCI, Dianna Sahhar, and with Juan Castillo, union organizer with AFSCME local 3299.

Meanwhile, UC janitors are seeking to be in-sourced and represented by SEIU-United Service Workers West. A noon rally at UCI's flag pole is slated for October 2, 2009. 37 UCI janitors are under threat of layoff by cleaning contractor ABM. With workers laid off, UCI Labs are slated to be cleaned weekly only, but UCI offices only three times a year!

On the broadcast show, we also aired a clip from the 24 September 2009 rally at UCI of popular Sociology lecturer Chuck O'Connell talking about neoliberealism.

UCI Disorientation Week

To listen to the show, click here: .

Irvine -- As incoming UC Irvine students converge on campus this week as part of Orientation Week, they will encounter a UCI in turmoil Not only will their fees increase, UCI's faculty and staff are undergoing paycuts, furloughs and in some cases layoffs. Opposing the increasing privatization of the university are local activist groups who will be out in force this week, which starts off with an Anteater Involvement Fair on campus. And on Thursday, faculty plan walkouts and teach-ins, while the UPTE union stages a strike.

UCI's Radical Student Union is premiering a historic first, UCI's Disorientation Guide, aimed at uncovering what is not widely known about the institution, and seeking to provoke students and other readers into action. In its introduction, its anonymous authors state: "Between these covers, you have a guide into the belly of the University. Use it wisely. But don’t let this be your only map of this place, add your own experiences into the mix." It adds, cryptically: "Just remember what you don’t see is probably more interesting and important than what you do."

In the show's first half hour, we talk with members of the Disorientation Guide collective, about why they put out this first Disorientation Guide.

John Bruning is a second-year graduate student in Sociology, and a member of the Radical Student Union and the Disorientation Guide collective. John was first exposed to radical ideas after receiving a Disorientation Guide during Welcome Week as a freshman at the University of Wisconsin, and got involved in campus activism shortly thereafter.

Tim Brown is a second year grad student, studying the art of sound design. He previously lived in Oregon and and sought out the RSU after being immersed for too long in the terribleness that is the home territory of the New Majority.

The paper version of the Disorientation Guide will be distributed at the Radical Student Union table at the Anteater Involvement Fair on Monday, 21 September at UCI, and throughout the week on Ring Road. KUCI is cited in the first Guide as a "voice of freedom" while Subversity is mentioned as follows: "It's like Disorientation on the radio!"

See also other campus disorientation guides: UC Santa Cruz | UC Berkeley | NYU.

******

Michael Moore speaks on Subversity. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang

In our second hour, we talk with a union leader from UPTE, which will be on strike on September 24 university-wide, to call attention to the misplaced priorities of the current central administration, where administrative salaries have headed skyward even as the university claims it is in a budget crisis.

Michael Moore is UPTE's Leadership Development Coordinator for the past four years.
Active in the labor movement for 14 years, he has worked for various unions throughout the U.S., organizing and representing a cross section or workers. Originally from Georgia, he was mentored by Hose Williams, one of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.'s organizers. His grandmother was one of the first presidents of the Newtown Florist Club, an environmental organization in his home town of Gainesville, Georgia.

The show airs Monday 21 September 2009 on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, Calif., and is simulcast via kuci.org.

For more on the hidden wealth within the UC's corporate structure, see UC Berkeley Prof. Emeritus Charlie Schwartz's latest analysis, posted at: UniversityProbe.org.

His analysis jibes with that of economist Peter Donohue, who last week held public sessions at UCI providing analysis with documentation on UC's hidden wealth. If the UC were really in an economic crisis, why would bond agencies increase UC's rating? Financial reports submitted by UC show clearly that millions are stashed away in the University's accounts, and are not legally restricted despite what the administration claims. The funds may be "committed" to some projects in some budget projections, but they are not legally restricted. See Donohue's earlier report

September 24, the first day of classes at UC Irvine, is also a day when faculty across the UCs plan to hold "walkouts" and teach-ins about the future of UC education. For more information, including flyers for a noon event at UCI's flagpole, see: Defend UCI.

See also: Remaking the University

And on Monday, 21 September, students protesting the closure of SAAS, which served first-generation, disabled and low-income students, plan to hold the first of two consecutive days of SAAS LOVE events at UCI, starting at 11 a.m. on Monday. See: Facebook page, SAAS Love.

UCI Dean Sharon Salinger on Closing SAAS

Dean Sharon V. Salinger. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2009

On the 14 September 2009 Subversity Show, we aired our exclusive interview with Sharon V. Salinger, Dean of Undergraduate Education at the University of California. The interview was taped the previous Thursday.

Under fire for closing an important unit on campus, SAAS (Student Academic Advancement Services), which served first-generation, low-income and disabled students, Salinger says it was budget cuts that led to the closure and layoffs of five staff members, including the SAAS director. The U.S. Department of Education recently renewed funding to UCI for the same services provided to SAAS, which closed August 31, 2009. A faculty member, with two academic advisors, will constitute the new team. The new federal grant provides more student financial aid as well as additional funding for student advisors. Salinger is hoping former SAAS student peer advisors will continue to work in the new restructured unit. Salinger is interviewed by show host Daniel C. Tsang.

In addition, we aired audio from the students' Save SAAS at UCI video (posted on YouTube) and part of UCI Chancellor Michael V. Drake's pep talk at a recent townhall, where he called on UCI employees to work more with less pay.

SAAS supporters, meanwhile, have organized a "SAAS Love" sit-in slated for Monday 21 September 2009 and the next day from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. outside the old SAAS offices. Salinger says she may bring pizza. A Facebook event page has been set up: SAAS Love. The original Save SAAS at UCI Now! Facebook page continues. A video from SAAS supporters is posted here: video. OC Weekly recently covered the SAAS closure: Navel Gazing blog

To listen to the show, click here: .

John Prados on the CIA and Vietnam

On the August 31, 2009 edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we talk with National Security Archive senior fellow John Prados, about his research into declassified CIA documents from the Vietnam War. He has just compiled the National Security Archive's new analysis, The CIA's Vietnam Histories which shows the extent of CIA intervention in Vietnam. He is also the author of numerous intelligence-related books, including the latest, Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War,
1945-1975 from the University Press of Kansas.

In the massive book, Prados weaves together U.S., South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese perspectives, as well as those from the anti-war movement. UCI is included in the book: Surveillance of UCI students protesting the war in the 1960s at the El Toro Marine base gets a paragraph, relying on Naval Intelligence surveillance files declassified to Subversity's host Dan Tsang which Tsang wrote up as: The Few, the Proud, the Spies: Spying on civilians was part of El Toro's mission, OC Weekly, 15 July 1999.

Prados was last on Subversity talking about then-CIA Director Robert Gates, George W. Bush's nominee as Defense Secretary in 2006.

To listen to that 13 November 2006 show, click here: .

Prados' bio:

John Prados is an analyst of national security based in Washington, DC. Prados holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University and focuses on presidential power, international relations, intelligence and military affairs. He is a senior fellow and project director with the National Security Archive, leading both the Archive's Iraq Documentation Project and its parallel effort on Vietnam. His current book is Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975 (University of Kansas Press). Now out in paperback is Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Ivan Dee Publisher). In addition Prados is author or editor of sixteen other books, with titles on national security, the American presidency, intelligence matters, diplomatic history and military affairs, including Iraq, Vietnam, and World War II. Among them are Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War; Inside the Pentagon Papers (edited with Margaret Pratt-Porter); Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of U.S. Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II; Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby; White House Tapes: Eavesdropping on the President (written and edited); Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh (with Ray Stubbe); America Responds to Terrorism (edited); The Hidden History of the Vietnam War; Operation Vulture; The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War; Presidents' Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World War II Through the Persian Gulf; Keepers of the Keys: A History of the National Security Council from Truman to Bush; and The Soviet Estimate: U.S. Intelligence and Soviet Strategic Forces. The works Keepers of the Keys and Combined Fleet Decoded were nominated by their publishers for the Pulitzer Prize. Combined Fleet Decoded was the winner of the annual book award of the New York Military Affairs Symposium and a 'notable naval book of the year' for the U.S. Naval Institute. The Soviet Estimate was the winner of the annual book prize of the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence. Valley of Decision became a 'notable naval book of the year' for the U.S. Naval Institute. Prados has chapters in thirty-two other books, and entries in six reference works. He is also an award-winning designer of board strategy games for many publishers. Prados is a contributing editor to MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, and a former contributing writer to The VVA Veteran. His articles and op-ed pieces have appeared widely, including Vanity Fair, The Washington Post Outlook, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Naval History, The American Prospect, Scientific American, and elsewhere. His internet articles have appeared at NeimanWatchdog.com, Tompaine.com, TNR.com, American Prospect Online, and elsewhere. His book reviews have also appeared widely.

To listen to the 31 August 2009 show, click here: .

Lincoln Cushing on American Labor Posters

Lincoln Cushing returns as a guest on KUCI's Subversity show Monday 24 August 2009 to talk about a new book of labor posters he has co-compiled, Agitate! Educate! Organize! American Labor Posters from Cornell University Press.

His bio:

Lincoln Cushing, born 1953, Havana, Cuba.

Lincoln Cushing is an artist, librarian, archivist, and author. At U.C. Berkeley he was the Cataloging and Electronic Outreach Librarian at Bancroft Library and the Electronic Outreach Librarian at the Institute of Industrial Relations (now Institute for Research on Labor and Employment).

He is involved in several projects to document, catalog, and disseminate oppositional political culture of the late 20th century. He is the author of Revolucion! Cuban Poster Art, Chronicle Books, 2003; editor of Visions of Peace & Justice: 30 years of political posters from the archives of Inkworks Press,, 2007; co-author of Chinese Posters: Art from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Chronicle Books, 2007; and co-author of Agitate! Educate! Organize! American Labor Posters, Cornell University Press, 2009. His research and publishing projects can be seen at his website http://www.docspopuli.org.

To listen to the show, click here: .

Mark LeVine on UC's Future

On our 17 August 2009 show, Subversity looks at the future of the University of California with UCI History Prof. Mark LeVine. Prof. LeVine has been active in efforts to look beyond the current crisis at what the future bodes. An ad hoc group he has helped organize meets regularly; for more information contact Prof. LeVine at mlevine@uci.edu.

For latest updates on how this crisis affects faculty in the UCs and elsewhere, check out this blog, Remaking the University.

In the second half of the show, we aired a program from National Radio Project's Making Contact on Breaking through the Blue Wall of Silence about civilian review boards.

The show airs from 9-10 a.m. on 17 August 2009 on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County, Calif., and is simulcast via kuci.org.

To listen to the first half of the show featuring our interview with Mark LeVine, click here: .

UCI Students & Alumni Organize to Save SAAS!

Photo credit: Daniel C. Tsang © 2009
Irvine -- Citing budget woes, the University of Calfiornia, Irvine has moved to eliminate a key federally funded student services resource, effective August 31, 2009. After three decades of its existence, UCI administrators plan to eliminate the Student Academic Advancement Services Student Academic Advancement Services and lay off its entire staff. The office serves first-generation, low-income and disabled students, and runs the well-known Summer Bridge Program for incoming UCI first-year and transfer students meeting program criteria. The planned closure and layoffs were announced by Undergraduate Education Dean Sharon Salinger 30 July 2009.

As a result, students and alumni have organized to oppose this drastic move by the UCI administrators. We talk with recent UCI graduates Debbie Lee, who started a Facebook page, Save SAAS at UCI Now! and Luz Colin, about what one can do to reverse this retrograde act.

The show airs from 9-10 a.m. 10 August 2009 on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

Bios of our guests:

Deborah Lee

As a first generation college student and product of the Student Academic Advancement Services (SAAS), Deborah Lee (left in photo) recently graduated Magna Cum Laude with a major in Criminology, Law and Society in the School of Social Ecology. In addition to graduating with honors, as a junior, Deborah was also nominated by the UCI Faculty and administration into UCI's National Honors Society, Phi Beta Kappa. Only 1% of juniors are nominated each year. She has also been awarded the President's Service Award for Outstanding Community Service. Deborah's involvement on campus also include: UCI Cheer Squad, Middle Earth Community Service Committee, Alpha Phi Omega (Community Service Fraternity), UCDC, Travel Study, Social Ecology's Mentor-Mentee Program, Criminology Outreach Program, SAAS, and much more. Within SAAS, she has been a peer advisor for three years and her involvement with Summer Bridge includes being a Resident Assistant and also the Head Resident Advisor. She plans on attending a tier-one law school in Fall 2010 with the academic and personal support she has received from SAAS, including a scholarship they have provided with the Princeton Review.

Luz Colin

Luz Colin (right in photo) is a 2008 graduate from UCI with a B.A. in political science and Chicano/Latino studies. This past June, she completed a Masters in Arts in Higher Education and Organizational Change (HEOC) at UCLA's Graduate School of Education. Luz currently works as a research analyst for the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) also at UCLA. Luz believes that her success is a result of the support she received from SAAS beginning with Summer Bridge and her entire time as an undergraduate at UCI. SAAS gave her the confidence to get involved and was a Peer Advisor for 2 years and was a Summer Bridge Assistant Head Resident Advisor for three years. She was also actively involved with Alpha Phi Omega (a service fraternity). She still comes back to SAAS as an alum to talk about her experiences with the new SAAS students. Her research focuses on first generation/low-income students like herself and hopes to one day return to UCI and work with this population.

To listen to the 10 August 2009 show, click here: .

Director Susan Morgan Cooper on "An Unlikely Weapon" about Vietnam War photographer Eddie Adams

Irvine -- On the 3 August 2009 edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we talked with a documentary filmmaker about her latest film, a profile of Pulitizer-Prize winning photographer Eddie Adams.

"An Unlikely Weapon," directed by Susan Morgan Cooper, profiles the life of Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams, who shot the iconic photograph of national police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan shooting to death a captured Viet Cong prisoner, Nguyen Van Lem on a Saigon street in 1968.

The photograph, capturing the shooting at the exact moment of impact, won Adams a Pulitzer Prize. The photograph was credited with turning the American public against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Adams, after the war, also documented the plight of Vietnamese refugees leaving their homeland.

An Unlikely Weapon won the Best Documentary award at the Avignon Film Festival in 2008 and was shown earlier this year at the Newport Beach Film Festival.

Cooper, born in Wales, has also made another documentary, one focusing on the Balkan War. She made it after she met a young Croatian girl. The result was "Mirjana: One Girl's Journey." She is currently developing a film on street children in Rio and the death squads that routinely murder them.

Resources

An Unlikely Weapon web site

Wikipedia entry on Eddie Adams

To listen to the 3 August 2009 show with the Susan Morgan Cooper interview, click here: .

We also aired a Making Contact program on the Single-Payer Health Plan, something now rejected by the Obama Administration even as many health activists continue to clamor for it: Many Voices for a Single-Payer System.

New UC Student Regent-Designate Jesse Cheng on Students and the Future of UC Education

Jesse Cheng campaigning on campus. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2009

On our 27 July 2009 Subversity show, we talked with new University of California Student Regent-Designate Jesse Cheng, a highly visible and endearing UCI student advocate, about the future direction of the UC in these dire economic times, and what his plans to counter escalating student fees and the calls to expand foreign student enrollment. He said he supports the UC pay cut and furlough plan that has been imposed on non-unionized faculty and staff. (The current UC student regent actually voted for it.) Interviewer is show host Daniel C. Tsang. Both Jesse and Daniel both were pulled over in recent years (Jesse just a couple months before the show) by Irvine PD in what they consider to be separate cases of racial profiling.

Jesse Cheng is an Asian American Studies major with an Education minor at UC Irvine. He has a secret passion, he says, to write superhero comic books as a career. Jesse is not naturally politically inclined, a quality to which his co-workers regularly attest. Jesse was first introduced to politics and public policy through work with the Asian Pacific Islander community on issues of education, bilingual services, and immigration.

He is only the second UC student regent from UCI. Jenny Doh, who currently heads the UCI Alumni Association, and also an Asian American, was the first from UCI.

You can follow Jesse's exploits, thoughts, and first-hand facts and news about California higher education on twitter.

He is featured on the UCI web site: Voice of the People.

To listen to the 27 July 2009 show, click here: .

Unions Speak Out on UC Furloughs/Pay Cuts

Juan Castillo (AFSCME 3299) and Dianna Sahhar (CUE) on KUCI. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2009

University of California Regents the previous Thursday imposed a furlough/pay cut plan on thousands of UC employees, but for the UC's unionized workers, the University has to negotiate with them or the plan does not apply. On the 20 July 2009 edition of Subversity, we continue to bring you the union response.

We talked with Dianna Sahhar, a long-time Library Assistant at UCI, just back from negotiations as a CUE leader, and asked her what the University is proposing and her union's reaction. News flash: Because the plans call for monthly pay cuts, the furloughs when taken will not entail further cuts, and thus will be recorded as "paid" leave. The University had previously announced that furlough days will be banked like vacation days (for those who have them).

Sahhar is President of CUE Irvine, Local #9 from March 2008 to2010. She is a graduate of UCI with a BA in Social Ecology from 1983, and has worked at the Library for almost 20 yrs now.

We'll also talk with Juan Castillo, Lead Organizer for AFSCME 3299, who was at Friday's town hall meeting and his attempt to question the UCI Chancellor from the floor got Chancellor Michael Drake stymied for a second -- with Drake finally saying he was not "negotiating" with Castillo.

Castillo was born in El Salvador and worked with the labor movement as an organizer since he was a teenager. He arrived to the US in 1981 as a political refugee due to the human right viloations of the then-Salvadorian government and studied Biology and Chemistry at OCC and Cal State Long Beach.

Audio of the UCI Town Hall meeting as recorded by Subversity is posted here; the audio has Chancellor Drake already speaking: Twnhall090717.mp3.

For faculty reaction, see: Remaking the University: utotherescue.blogspot.com/

and Emeritus Prof. Charles Schwartz's UniversityProbe.org: A Critical Forum on Research Universities...universityprobe.org/

Earlier Subversity interview with Bob Samuels, UC-AFT President (first half of show): kuci.org/~dtsang/subversity/Sv090622.mp3. (In part II, Jeffrey Schmidt, a UCI Ph.D graduate, and author of Disciplined Minds, talks about his days at UCI and how academia "disciplines" its graduate students etc.)

Cal State staff and faculty are also facing furloughs and its faculty are currently voting on it; on Cal State faculty, see: The California Faculty Association site: www.calfac.org/headlines.html. and its California at the Edge report: www.calfac.org/cakattheedge.html.

To listen to the show, click here: .

Hai Vo on Sustainable Eating

Hai Vo at Mother's Market. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2009

On our 13 July 2009 edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we talk with Hai Vo, who started the local UCI chapter of Real Food Challenge, a national initiative to shift college dining investments to more sustainable systems. We talk to Vo about what sustainable food means.

Hai Vo is a recent Social Ecology graduate from UC Irvine studying sustainable food systems. During his senior year, Hai was chosen to be a UC Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) Fellow sponsored by UC Santa Cruz's Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS). As part of his fellowship, he co-conducted a food assessment of UC Irvine that sought to discover how ecologically-sound, community-based, humane, and fair the food served on campus was. Hai is a coordinator for the Real Food Challenge. Post-graduation plans include farm apprenticeships, advocating for real food, and reading books he never got a chance to the last four years of college. Vo was recently profiled by UCI here: "Sustanable Eater", with video clips linked. His "We are How We Eat" blog is also linked there.

To listen to the show, click here: .

Looking back at Vietnam War Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and his Mea Culpa

Irvine -- With the passing earlier Monday morning 6 July 2009 at age 93 of Robert McNamara, architect of the Vietnam War, we look back at his mea culpa ("In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam," 1995) and regret for waging war against the Vietnamese people.

Obituaries:

NY Times (by Tim Wiener): www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07mcnamara.html?_r=1&hp

LA Times (by Stephen Braun): www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-robert-mcnamara7-2009jul07,0,4810762.story

We'll also air a 2006 program from National Radio Project's Making Contact on Daniel Ellsberg, who released with the late Tony Russo the Pentagon Papers, commissioned by McNamara to study the origins of the Vietnam War: " Truth-Telling in a Time of War."

The show aired 6 July 2009 from 9-10 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County, and is webcast via kuci.org.

To listen to the show minus the Making Contact Daniel Ellsberg segment, click here: .

For the 2006 Making Contact Ellsberg segment, go here.

Obama's Immigration Reform Plans; Michael Jackson as Queer Icon

Irvine -- On our Subversity show airing 29 June 2009 on KUCI, we focus on two topics hot in the news. In the first half hour, we talk about President Obama's plans for immigration reform, with Mary Giovagnoli, the director of the Immigration Policy Center.

In the second half hour, we discuss the late Michael Jackson as a queer icon, with Kaelin Alexander, a graduate student at Cornell whose research has focused on queer studies.

Mary Giovagnoli is the Director of the Immigration Policy Center. Prior to IPC, Mary served as Senior Director of Policy for the National Immigration Forum and practiced law as an attorney with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, serving first as a trial attorney and associate general counsel with the INS, and, following the creation of DHS, as an associate chief counsel for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Mary specialized in asylum and refugee law, focusing on the impact of general immigration laws on asylees. In 2005, Mary became the senior advisor to the Director of Congressional Relations at USCIS. She was also awarded a Congressional Fellowship from USCIS to serve for a year in Senator Edward M. Kennedy's office where she worked on comprehensive immigration reform and refugee issues. Mary attended Drake University, graduating summa cum laude with a major in speech communication. She received a master's degree in rhetoric and completed additional graduate coursework in rhetoric at the University of Wisconsin, before receiving a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School. She spent more than ten years teaching public speaking, argumentation and debate, and parliamentary procedure while pursuing her education.

Kaelin Alexander is a Ph.D. student with Cornell University's Department of English. His most recent work focuses on violent queers, queer loneliness, and the perceptual limits of film. He is also working towards a longer project which explores the phenomenology of heartbreak and longing in the Victorian novel. He received a B.A. from Kenyon College in 2007. When he isn't in the library, Kaelin enjoys playing his ukulele and hiking the trails around Ithaca, New York.

To listen to the show, click .

UC's Budget Cuts and Disciplining Academic Labor

Irvine -- On the 22 June 2009 edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, in the first half hour, we address the University of California's proposal to impose as high as an 8% pay cut on UC employees.

We talk with union leader Bob Samuels, who has been the president of UC-AFT, the union representing lecturers and librarians at the University of Calfiornia system. The University would have to get the UC-AFT's consent to impose the pay cut on them. Samuels, a writing lecturer at UCLA, believes the University has discretionary funds that could help alleviate the budget crisis.

Samuels is the author of six books, including an upcoming book on university politics. He has PhDs in English and Psychoanalysis from Kent State and the University of Paris. See his Q and A on the budget crisis. And also the letter to UC President Mark Yudof from emeritus Physics Prof. Charles Schwartz, a UC budgeting critic, Budget Lies .

On the second half of the show, we re-air portions of our November 2005 interview with Jeffrey Schmidt, the author of "Disciplined Minds," a critique of how academic and other salaried professional labor is "disciplined", with universities and other employers eager to serve idelological (corporate or government) interests. Himself a UCI graduate student from 1975-1980, Schmidt relates how he managed to form a progressive group, Science for the People at UCI, and how he stood up for a Japanese American fellow graduate student, who had passed away before he finished his Ph.D, and the resistance from a university physics professor (who brought in Pentagon contracts and who would later win a Nobel prize) when Schmidt and other graduate students wanted the university to award the student a Ph.D posthumously. Schmidt's book led to his firing from the American Institute of Physics, his long-time employer, and his ultimately successful campaign to seek redress and vindication is a model of public organizing. See his website: disciplinedminds.com. The catalog entry for his 1980 dissertation is here: antpac.lib.uci.edu/record=b1580253~S7.

To listen to the show, click here: .

From Red Guard to Film Director: Anna Chi's Journey to Dim Sum Funeral

Irvine --- On the 8 June 2009 edition of KUCI's Subversity, we talk with independent director Anna Chi, about her new film, Dim Sum Funeral, that unravels the secrets and tribulations of a Chinese American family based in Seattle.

In an earlier incarnation, Chi was a poster child for the Chinese Cultural Revolution, when her letter to her father, written as a child, urged her dad to listen to Chairman Mao and the Party. She became known as Yong Hong ("Forever Red").

Filmed in Surrey, British Columbia, the film uses the occasion of the Chinese funeral of the family matriarch to bring a dysfunctional family together, sparking surprising conversation and new understandings -- as well as an unexpected ending.

The daughters in the family give strong roles, including one who plays a lesbian and brings along her lover to the remembrance ceremonies, that lasts seven days. The sole son, played by longtime Chinese American actor Russell Wong, is a philandering doctor. Wong shows a special vulnerability in this role. A cute monk also becomes a sperm donor, in the process giving more than just sperm.

Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVSuts-Okk0

Interview with Jonathan W. Hickman: www.einsiders.com/features/columns/show_article.php?article=433

Interview on what brought the director from China: www.einsiders.com/features/interviews/annachi.php

Article in Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-chi7-2009jun07,0,6255908.story.

To listen to the show, click here: .

California Propositions; Tax Me?

As Californian voters set to vote on whether or not to extend taxes on sales, car regsitration, etc., plus other budget stop-gap measures, we bring you pros and cons of the state propositions Californians will vote on Tuesday. (See: http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/title-sum/prop1a-title-sum.htm).

Subversity aired Monday 18 May 2009 at 9 a.m.

We also aired a program, "Tax Me, I'm Yours" from Making Contact, the National Radio Project, courtesy of NRP.

First produced for tax time, the Making Contact program, talks to folks who say we need to reframe the tax structure to support and sustain "the commons"... those public spaces and common grounds we all share. From upper income New Yorkers to public school teachers in Nevada, many are saying, 'tax me, I'm yours.'

Featuring:

Jo Comerford, National Priorities Project (NPP) executive director; Mike Lapham, Responsible Wealth project director (Project of United for a Fair Economy); Allen Bromberger, Manhattan law firm attorney; Bob Fulkerson, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) executive director; Anne Peer, Grady Tarbutton and others who testified at a Reno Town Hall Budget meeting; Kim Klein, Building Movement Project member.

For more information, see: http://www.radioproject.org/archive/2009/1509.html

Campus Activism Not Dead!

Irvine -- Campus activism is not dead. Up north at UC Berkeley, activists are currently rallying to the cause of Jesus Gutierrez, an AFSCME activist who was arrested at his job on a campus eatery for allegedly using a stolen Social Security number. He now faces possible deportation as a result. (See Daily Californian story. Activists are upset over the involvement of the campus authorities with ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Students have also called for making UC Berkeley a sanctuary from ICE raids, just like the city of Berkeley. (See the Facebook advocacy page.

NOTE: May 11, 2009, KUCI marked the last day of its 40th anniversary fund drive (You can contribute at: pledge site, or call 949 824 5824 to make a pledge.

On KUCI's Subversity Show, from 9-10 a.m. May 11, 2009 we talked with Hoku Jeffrey, Southern California Coordinator for BAMN. BAMN stands for the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary.

Jeffrey is helping organize protests at southern California campuses over the Jesus Gutierrez case. BAMN has been actively building the new youth-led integrated civil rights movement.

Upon graduating from UC Berkeley, Jeffrey moved to Los Angeles to organize the Los Angeles chapter of BAMN. He helped mobilize area youth in the historic Spring 2006 immigrant rights marches. He also led successful campaigns of youth to win recognition of the Cesar Chavez Holiday in the Los Angeles Unified School District and has also led struggles for the DREAM Act to win the right to financial aid and a pathway toward citizenship for undocumented immigrant students.

And here at UCI, the Radical Student Union is appealing to UCI students, faculty and staff to come to Disorient UCI! Planning meeting for the 09-10 UCI Disorientation Guide Tuesday, May 12, 8:00pm, Anthill Pub, UCI Student Center. For more information, see the Subversity blog.

Thanks for listening. And do contribute to help make KUCI and shows like this stay on the air. As usual, podcasts will be posted sometime after the broadcast.

To listen to the show, click here: .

Grace Rowe in I Am That Girl; So Yong Kim's Treeless Mountain

On our next edition of KUCI's Subversity show, airing Monday 4 May 2009 from 9-10 a.m., we interview Grace Rowe, an actress/writer/producer of an indie film, I Am That Girl. We also interview director So Yong Kim of Treeless Mountain.

Both films have been showing at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival organized by the community-based visual arts group, Visual Communications (http://www.vconline.org).

Grace Rowe has has appeared in many TV shows and also in American Seoul (2003) (see http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1451149/). She stars in I am that Girl, as a party girl maxing out on her credit cards who on a lark decides to go into the Sierras with a guy. The film covers what leads up to the Sierras trip, what happens on the road trip and a surprise development in the Sierras. I Am That Girl trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3gFTCS9I10.

We also talk with director So Yong Kim, whose Treeless Mountain, is her second feature film. (She directed In Between Days, which won the Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance). The current feature is inspired from her early childhood days in Pusan, South Korea. The film tells the story of a six-year-old girl, Jin and her journey to early maturity with a younger sister. The film opens May 8 at Laemmle's Music Hall and Mpark Theatre. So Yong Kim also made several short films, including A Bunny Rabbit, shot by renowned cinematographer Christopher Doyle. She was named one of the "25 Filmmakers to Watch" in Fimmaker Magazine in 2006. See an interview with her on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osp92F4jC1M

Treeless Mountain Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9ermzhKx54

The show airs during our current KUCI 40th anniversary fund drive. Please consider contributing to keep KUCI and such shows on the air. For more information go to: http://www.kuci.org/fund09/index.html where you can pick the premiums and donate!

To listen to the show, click here: .

Christopher Wong's Whatever It Takes; Tze Chun's Children of Invention

Two films showing at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival -- organized by the dedicated folks at Visual Communications -- will be featured on Subversity 27 April 2009 from 9-10 a.m. The festival runs April 30-May 7; for more information, go to http://www.vconline.org/.

We talk with Director Christopher Wong about his gritty documentary, Whatever It Takes, on students at an inner city school headed by a Chinese American headmaster in the Bronx, New York; and Tze Chun about his Sundance-selected Children of Invention, about two young Chinese children in Boston left to fend for themselves when their mother is incarcerated.

Children of Invention opens the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Thursday 30 April 2009 at Directors Guild of America, 7920 West Sunset in West Hollywood at 7 pm (VIP reception at 5:30 pm). Whatever It Takes screens at the same location, Saturday May 2 at 4 p.m.

Meanwhile, Newport Beach Film Festival continues; see: http://www.newportbeachfilmfest.com/.

On Tuesday, 28 April at 3:30 pm at Edwards Island 1, Fashion Island, there is a screening of a Japanese film with exquisite vignettes of locals encountered at a lost and found office in a train station. See: Lost & Found, directed by Nobuyuki Miyake: http://newportbeach.bside.com/2009/films/lostfound_newportbeach2009.

To listen to the show, click here: .

Director Doan Hoang on Oh, Saigon; Radical Student Union Gears Up Protests

We dedicate this program to the victims of the Binghamton massacre, including former librarian Layla Khalil, a Muslim from Iraq. See: New York Times story. Rest in Peace. She leaves behind her husband (who teaches at SUNY Binghamton), a son (studying at the Sorbonne), a daughter (a Fulbright fellow at Binghamton) and another son (in high school). Irvine -- Continuing our focus on the the Vietnamese International Film Festival that continues this week, we talk with Doan Hoang, the director of a daring and revealing documentary, Oh Saigon (Saigon Oi), exposing to the world family fissures in the Hoang family -- the last family airlifted out of Saigon at the impending fall of Saigon in April 1975. Director Hoang exposes dark secrets in the family, including a communist uncle who fought for the liberation of Vietnam and a half-sister left behind initially in Vietnam. The film will be airing in May on PBS and may air on Hanoi TV eventually. Director Hoang is also active in Vietnam Relief Effort, celebrating its 10th anniversary today with the New York Stock Exchange ringing closing bells in its honor 6 April 2009.

Oh, Saigon screens at Chapman University Law School, in Donald Kennedy Hall in Room 237AB on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 @ 5:30 p.m. Admission is free. Chapman University School of Law is located at 1 University Dr., Orange, CA 92866.


We also talk with John Bruning, of UCI's new Radical Student Union, which is mounting several protests this month. One raises concern over sweatshops that are said to produce UCI-logo apparel. RSU and other groups have written an open letter to UCI Chancellor Drake on the issue.

Another RSU protest is over the UCI visit of former Mexican President Vicente Fox to speak April 8 at UCI. RSU protests the visit former Mexican Pres. Vicente Fox to UCI April 8. RSA is hosting a discussion with documentary filmmaker Simon Sedillo planned for April 8 at 5 pm at UCI's Parkview Classroom Building room 1300, on Fox's poor history on human rights. More information on Fox's talk at UCI is linked here A bibliography I compiled on Fox is linked here




To listen to the show, click here:

Sad Fish Director Le-Van Kiet: World Premiere at 4th Biennial Vietnamese International Film Festival

Orchid Lam Quynh in Sad Fish
The Vietnamese International Film Festival in its fourth permutation returns to UC Irvine and the Southland starting Thursday, 2 April, with 60 films from the diverse Vietnamese diaspora as well as from Vietnam.
Monday's (March 30, 2009) Subversity radio show highlights Sad Fish, a locally made new independent film with its world premiere Saturday 4 April at UCI's HIB 100 at 7:30 p.m. as part of VIFF.

Directed by indie filmmaker Le-Van Kiet, Sad Fish stars established actress Kieu Chinh (Joy Luck Club, Journey from the Fall) , newcomer Orchid Lam Quynh (a UCI aluma), Long Nguyen (Journey from the Fall) and Jayvee Hiep Mai (Journey from the Fall). Exquisitely filmed, Sad Fish, a drama tinged with comedy, tells drenching stories of unconventional lives from Little Saigon, California, portrayals of nostalgia for homeland but also of daily routines of longings, relationships and domestic turmoil that transgress conventional boundaries. The film also depicts male intimacy and tension between "Happy Together"-type characters played by actors Jayvee and Long.


On Monday's show, we talk with Sad Fish director Kiet, who was last on Subversity in April, 2007, when VIFF then showcased his earlier gritty visual depiction of OC gang life in Bui Doi, The Dust of Life.


Audio of that earlier interview: http://kuci.org/~dtsang/subversity/Sv070416.mp3.


A wine reception for Sad Fish hosted by UCI's new Vietnamese alumni group, Vietnamese American Community Ambassadors (VACA), starts this Saturday at 5 p.m. at UCI's Cross Cultural Center. For more information and ticket info,, see: ttp://www.vietfilmfest.com/2009/viff/program-schedule/#april4 For more information on the film and other films showing at VIFF, go to: http://www.vietfilmfest.com/2009/




To listen to the show, click here:

Surveillance of Muslims in Orange County and Beyond

Recent revelations that the FBI has been infiltrating local mosques to spy on mosque-goers have cast a chill on the local Islamic community. On our 23 March 2009 show, we discuss the impact with Ameena Mirza Qazi Staff Attorney of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Greater-Los Angeles Area Chapter.

News about such surveillance is not new. According to OC Register columnist Frank Mikadeit back in May 2006: "Earlier in the week,Pat Rose, head of the Orange County's FBI al-Qaida squad, told me and about 25 others at the breakfast that her agency was seeking out terrorists here through a variety of electronic eavesdropping techniques and that her agency is 'quite surprised' that 'there are a lot of individuals of interest right here in Orange County.'


"When asked by someone whether we should be concerned about all the Muslim students at UCI, she responded, 'Another tough question to answer.' Not only does UCI have a lot, she said, but so does USC. 'I think we need to be concerned with everybody ... with our next-door neighbor.' " [Source: Frank Mikadeit, Monitoring by the FBI and a mea culpa Local Muslims react to FBI spying, OC Register, 30 May 2006.].


Although the FBI denied it was spying on UCI students, in 2007 an FBI agent was involved in an altercation with a UCI student. See: FBI actions at UCI questioned: Muslim student says he feared agent was going to run him over; bureau says cinderblock was thrown at car. By Marla Jo Fisher, OC Register, 18 May 2007.


Recent news:


OC Weekly:

A Look at Craig Monteilh, Who Says He Spied on the Islamic Center of Irvine for the Feds by Matt Coker, OC Weekly, 4 March 2009:


LA Times:

OC Muslims say FBI surveillance has a chilling effect: Use of an informant in Orange County leads some to avoid mosques and cut charitable giving, by Teresa Watanabe and Paloma Esquivel, Los Angeles Times, 1 March 2009:


CNN:

The Chinese in North Vietnam

The issue of overseas Chinese and the politics of the homeland are often studied by scholars but relatively little attention has been paid to the Chinese who lived in North Vietnam before the country was reunited.

In our next show, airing Monday 16 March 2009 from 9-10 a.m. Pacific time on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County, California, we talk with one scholar, Han Xiaorong from Butler University, who has done just that, focusing his research on Chinese living in North Vietnam from 1954 to 1978. The show is also simulcast via kuci.org.

See: "Spoiled Guests or Dedicated Patriots? The Chinese in North Vietnam, 1954-1978" by Xiaorong HAN, International Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 6, Issue 01, January 2009, pp. 1-36 (access licensed to UCI users)

HAN Xiaorong was born in China. He received his BA in history from Xiamen (Amoy) University, an MA in ethnic studies from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, an MA in anthropology from Tulane University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii. He was a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for five years and has taught Chinese and Asian history at the University of Hawaii-West Oahu, Trinity College, the National University of Singapore, and Butler University in Indianapolis. He is now associate professor of the Department of History and Anthropology at Butler University. His research interests focus on state and ethnic minorities, intellectuals and peasants, and nationalist and Communist movements in twentieth century China, as well as Sino-Vietnamese interactions. Other publications include The Chinese Discourses on the Peasant, 1900-1949 (SUNY Press, 2005), "Who Invented the Bronze Drum?--Nationalism, Politics and a Sino-Vietnamese Archaeological Debate of the 1970s and 1980s," and "Localism in Chinese Communist Politics Before and After 1949--The Case of Feng Baiju."

To listen to the show, click here:

A Reporter's Life: David Reyes and the Los Angeles Times

This past Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times killed its Orange County edition. We look back at an era in print journalism when the newspaper won Pulitzers and covered ethnic communities and OC and San Diego counties, in depth. Tune in Monday 9 March at 9 a.m. for a conversation with longtime Times staff writer, now retired, David Reyes.

David Reyes has had more than 30 years reporting experience for major dailies and weeklies in Los Angeles, Orange County, Oregon, and San Diego. He has shared in two Pulitzer prizes, a 1992 spot news reporting of the Los Angles riots while at the Los Angeles Times and in 1984 the Gold Medal for in-depth series on Latinos in Southern California, again with the LA Times. He has covered education, the legal system, immigration, government and transportation. While in Orange County, he wrote The Times� first surfing column for the edition. He is a member of the Chicano News Media Assn., and a founding member of the National Assn. of Hispanic Journalists.
Joining us in the conversation is OC Voice publisher John Earl, who remembers growing up reading a meaty Los Angeles Times.

To listen to the show, click here: http://kuci.org/~dtsang/subversity/Sv090309.mp3

David Reyes also profiled Subversity and its host 15 years ago (March 14, 1994) in the L.A. Times: "UCI Lecturer, Mentor Out `to Change Society' " From that article:
...
His [Dan's] newest project, a one-hour radio talk show on KUCI, the student radio station, is billed as an "alternative view of what's behind the Orange Curtain." Guests and subjects have included supporters of gay teen-agers at Fountain Valley High School, decriminalizing prostitution, and gang hysteria in Orange County.

"This is a call-in format," Tsang, .. said. "I'm asking critical questions of my guests, and people get to call in."

The program doesn't attempt balance. "I don't do the other side," Tsang said. "All my shows are like that." After all, he said, the 4 p.m. Tuesday show is titled "Subversity."
..........
______________________________________________________

For those with UCI access the URL for the full text is here.

Subversity now airs 9 am Mondays, on KUCI, 889 FM in Orange County, Calif., and is simulcast via the web via http://kuci.org. No callins though (I can't interview and answer calls).

Iranian Women Today

To commemorate International Women's Day, Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, focuses on its Monday 2 March 2009 show (9-10 a.m.) on the struggles of Iranian women within and without Iran.

We talk, through an interpreter, with C. Sussan, an Iranian women living in exile in Europe, who has traveled to southern California to build for the International Women's Day events at Pico and Westwood in Westwood on March 7 (1 pm rally and march kickoff).

In the late 1970s Sussan lived in the U.S. and was part of the Iranian student movement against the brutal U.S.-backed Shah of Iran. She returned to Iran after the Shah's overthrow and took part in the struggle against the Khomeini regime. She was imprisoned for her political activity, was tortured and later released. After many years she was allowed to leave Iran. Throughout the years in exile she has continued to oppose and organize resistance against the Iranian regime as part of the March 8 Women's Organization.

To listen to the show, click here:

Indonesian Film "Chants of Lotus"; Homeless Crisis

For the edition of Subversity airing Monday 23 February 2009, we started off about film, but it's not about Hollywood nor the Oscars. We featured (in a repeat airing) an interview with UCI's film and media studies Professor Fatimah Tobing Rony, who is one of the co-directors of a film from Indonesia (that was released theatrically there) showing at the UCI Film and Video Center the coming Thursday. She introduces the unexpurgated version of the film at the event.

The screening highlights women directors, and the film, Chants of Lotus ("Perempuan Punya Cerita"), covers women's own stories about such controversial subjects as teenage sex, abortion, child trafficking and AIDS. Our interview was first aired last April 28 on Subversity. See the film trailer .
To listen to the interview with Fatimah Tobing Rony as edited for rebroadcast, click here: .

We also aired National Radio Project's Making Contact program on the Homeless, "How We Survive: The Deepening Homeless Crisis." Making Contact says: "We spend the day with a family who lost their home and now lives inside their cramped trailer at a city parking lot. And we heard how two different communities are dealing with the economic crisis by taking matters into their own hands." Featured were:

David Clements, homeless, lives in trailer with family; Jennifer, Chloe, Yanni, Enya, and Kierlan, David's family; Nancy Kapp, New Beginnings Counseling Center homeless outreach coordinator; Max Rameau, Take Back The Land founder; Eric Evinowskis, Pinellas Hope facilities manager; Sheila Lopez, Pinellas Catholic Charities CEO and Pinellas Hope director; Rocco Mariano, Laura Letziati, James Stockstill, Pinellas Hope clients; Marie Nadine Pierre, Take Back the Land participant; Kelly Penton, City of Miami spokesperson. Also, Nancy Folbre, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is also a blog writer for the The New York Times "Economix." She speaks with Making Contact's executive director, Lisa Rudman about the U.S. economy.

For audio of and information about the segment: www.radioproject.org/archive/2009/0709.html.

Sex and Race in Vagina Monologues at UCI

On our President's Day show (February 16): An interview on sex and race with folks from the UCI production of The Vagina Monologues.

The Vagina Monologues is an annual benefit performance, which aims to raise awareness and funds for anti-violence against women groups within local communities. The Vagina Monologues is part of a global movement to stop violence against women and girls called V-Day. Half of the proceeds of the UC Irvine Vagina Monologues production supports the entire budget of the Campus Assault Resource Center. The other half of the show's proceeds go to Planned Parenthood, stage costs, and this year's national V-Day campaign against Rape in the Congo. The 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina.

Appearing on the Subversity show (updated list):

Lead Director: Hailee Pollard. She's a fifth year undergrad in the theater department. This is her second year as a director of the Vagina Monologues.

Cast Member: Playing The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy (sex worker), Natalie Newton is a 3rd year graduate student in anthropology, a 2nd generation Vietnamese American, and a long-time queer and feminist activist.

Cast Member: Playing They Beat the Girl out of my Boy (transwoman), Mani Dhaliwal is a 4th year majoring in Biomedical Engineering/ Pre-med, she immigrated from India when she was 7, and this is her first time participating in the Vagina Monologues.

To listen to the show, click here:

Labor Update: Union Democracy Needed

Irvine -- As the U.S. enters a new Obama era, what are the prospects of a better future for American labor?

In the next edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we talk with a former KUCI Public Affairs host who has been a labor activist locally as well as a labor organizer from Northern California.

John Earl is a former organizer and researcher for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, Local 681 (now UNITE HERE) in Orange County. He was also one of the organizers of a democratic reform movement in that union that led to the formation of a breakaway union, Local 50 UNITE HERE a the Disneyland resort in 2005. Since then he has been involved in efforts to help organize day laborers in the county. He is currently the publisher of the Orange Coast Voice newspaper. The OC Voice website is under construction but its blog is here: ocvoice.wordpress.com.

Steve Zeltzer is active in United Public Workers for Action and is the founder of Labor Video Project.

See also:

Two Unions in Marriage Now Face Divorce Talks

and

U.S. Labor Against the War.

To listen to the show, click here:

Obama's Silence on Gaza; In Bed with Neocons?

For the pre-inaugural edition of KUCI's Subversity, we delve into President-Elect Barack Obama's foreign policy on the Middle East, in the wake of his silence over the Israeli killing of children and families in Gaza, and his naming of a neocon to be his envoy on Iran. As the historic inauguration takes place Tuesday, is Obama not already failing to make any change in a foreign policy that is wedded to Zionism?

We talk with Gary Leupp, professor of history at Tufts University in Boston, while specializing in the history of Japan (also adjunct professor of religion) since 1988, has been writing columns on world affairs for such alternative pubications as Counterpunch and Dissident Voice since 2002.

He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.

His most recent article, "Obama's Necon" covers the appointment of Dennis Ross to the envoy position.

Leupp has also defended William Ayers, who has also appeared on Subversity. See: "Raising the Specter of the '60s".

Articles by Leupp archived in Dissident Voice: www.dissidentvoice.org/author/GaryLeupp/

See also Leupp's "Revisiting the Tale of Samson: A Gaza Bible Story"

Articles by Leupp archived in CounterPunch:

See also Simon Tisdall in the Guardian on Obama's silence on Gaza:

"Obama is Losing a Battle He Doesn't Know He's In: The President-Elect's Silence on the Gaza Crisis is Undermining his Reputation in the Middle East".

To listen to this show, click here:

Director Stephane Gauger and Executive Producer Timothy Linh Bui on The Owl and the Sparrow

Director Gauger (right) with Le The Lu (Hai, the elephant handler) at Ho Chi Minh City zoo

For the edition of Subversity airing 12 January 2008, we talked with Saigon-born Stephane Gauger, director of a new feature film from Vietnam, and his executive producer, Tim Linh Bui.

Gaugher is director of The Owl and The Sparrow, to open in OC and LA this weekend.

The film, set in bustling Ho Chi Minh City, focuses on the travails of a young orphaned girl runaway who ends up becoming matchmaker between an elephant handler at the local zoo and an airline stewardess.

This is Gauger's first feature film. He played a French colonial officer in The Rebel. Owl and the Sparrow has won numerous festival awards, including one at the LA Film Festival last year.

Gauger was last on Subversity back in 1999 discussing Vietnamese American filmmaking: kuci.org/~dtsang/subversity/Sv990323.ram.

Tim Bui leads an effort to promote Vietnamese film distribution in the West, called Wave Releasing. A director himself, he was last interviewed by Subversity's show host for a review in OC Weekly in 2001 on his role directing Green Dragon starring Forest Whitaker: www.ocweekly.com/2001-05-17/film/history-vs-memory/

The film opens Friday 16 January in OC at Irvine Westpark 8 and Regal Garden Grove 16, as well as in Los Angeles at Laemmle Sunset 8.

The film web site is: http://www.owlandthesparrow.com/

Trailer: www.owlandthesparrow.com/Trailer.mov

To listen to this show, click here: