Subversity Archive

Emmy Nomination for A Village Called Versailles

2011-08-31T19:53:00.000-07:00

In a Subversities update: Director/Producer S. Leo Chiang’s documentary, A Village Called Versailles, has been nominated for an Emmy in the "Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story - Long Form" category. The film, which is about the rebuilding of a community post-Hurricane Katrina, portrays the small New Orleans suburb of Versailles and its inhabitants, made up largely of Vietnamese refugees who have already been displaced once before – after the fall of Saigon.

A Village Called Versailles follows their stories from arriving to evacuating, evacuating to returning. It culminates when their redevelopment efforts are threatened by the unexpected opening of a government-sanctioned toxic landfill two miles away. In all this, the documentary tries to capture the trauma of displacement, and what is lost in translation between a generation of “boat people” and their children – all of whom must co-exist in Versailles.

As many reflect on Katrina this week, and as the comparisons to Irene begin, it will be interesting to see the cultural and generational impacts that are often delayed by time. Relevant, too, is the issue of environmental justice in an area of the United States that is so densely pact with first-generation immigrants and economic disparity.

This is the first Emmy nomination for Taiwanese-born director, S. Leo Chiang. Recipients will be announced on September 26th at New York City’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Click here to learn more about A Village Called Versailles, and here to listen to our extensive K-UCI interview with Chiang - conducted before his film made its PBS debut last year.

Subversities is currently seeking an update from Chiang. We will pass new insights onto readers as we learn them.

Saving Chinatown, Riverside

2011-06-28T16:09:00.000-07:00

Efforts in Riverside, California, to preserve its historic Chinatown may get a boost if enough netizens vote by Thursday early afternoon to support those efforts in the This Place Matters Community Challenge offered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

These grass-roots efforts, with the active support of the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, are among 100 preservation projects seeking to win 3 cash awards.

For more information, you can check out this web site. Voting ends June 30, 2011 at 1:59 PM Pacific time. A link there allows one to vote after registering one's email and zip code and receiving a password. The Riverside Chinatown efforts are listed as: Chinese Historical Society of Southern California - Riverside, California Riverside Chinatown. As of this posting, the group is ranked 29 out of 100 unless more people decide to vote.

The local preservationists have formed a Save Our Chinatown Committee which is seeking to stop development above what has been partially uncovered as the remains of historic Chinatown, first founded in 1870, [CORRECTION: actually the second Chinatown, in 1885, after residents of the first Chinatown were forced out,] with its residents responsible for much of the citrus activity in the county. The Los Angeles Times recently profiled the struggle, including the activism of a UC Riverside librarian, Judy Lee.

A facebook site has also been set up: Save Riverside Chinatown.

Edgy City: Urban/Rural Space and Ho Chi Minh City

2011-06-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

Link to audio of program:

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As Ho Chi Minh City races to be Vietnam's most modern metropolis, some outlying areas are left behind. Yet they become
interesting because they exhibit many of the tensions that face the developing country after decades of war, as Vietnam copes
with being nominally Socialist but practically capitalist, and races to modernize itself, at the risk of leaving behind
peasants in the largely rural country.

Erik Harms, who teaches Anthropology at Yale, has offered a revealing look at
the social lives that intersect each other in the wake of this modernization race. Focusing on Hóc Môn, on the edge of
Saigon, he writes like a journalist [I mean his writing is readable], revealing social lives as otherwise marginalized
residents of this region on the Trans-Asia Highway are able to tell their stories through his new book, Saigon's Edge: On
the Margins of Ho Chi Minh City, now out from University of
Minnesota Press.

Harms is interviewed by KUCI Subversity show host Daniel C. Tsang, in the first show of this 2011 summer online series, as
Subversity takes a break from radio broadcasts for the summer. The interview is exclusively available online, and as
podcasts, with a official posting date of Monday 20 June 2011 but the interview was taped earlier today, 17 June 2011 at
KUCI's studios.

Interview with Harms by Yale University posted on YouTube:

Greg Louganis Speaks at UCI Graduation

2011-06-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

Updated: Link to audio of program:

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Louganis in video feed

In an inspirational speech Olympic twice-gold medalist Greg Louganis, of Samoan/Swedish heritage, and a UCI drama alumnus,
Friday 10 June 2011 addressed graduating seniors at UCI's Arts School graduation (the event also included graduates from the
Physical Sciences).

Louganis, who was HIV-positive when he won the two golds in diving in the 1988 Olympics, said he is proof HIV/AIDS is no
longer a "death sentence." He exhorted UCI's graduating students in the Arts and in Physical Sciences to be imaginative {"to
explore your imagination") and have trust in fellow human beings, even though he himself was at times overly trusting of
others ("I'd rather trust... than be cynical").

The UCI drama alumnus said this was his first graduation he ever attended.

On the last Subversity show of this quarter, we air an edited version of his talk in the first part of Subversity this
evening, 13 June 2011, at 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and simulcast via kuci.org.

Louis Wolf on Investigative Reporting Before WikiLeaks

2010-12-06T17:00:00.000-08:00

Updated 12/7/10, 11:21 AM: To listen to the podcast of this program, click on:

Before there was WikiLeaks there was CounterSpy (1973-1984) and
CovertAction Information Bulletin (later Covert Action Quarterly), which ran from 1978-2005.

These alternative magazines exposed U.S. government shenanigans, sometimes relying on leaked documents.

On KUCI's Subversity show today, we talk with the co-founder of CovertAction, Louis Wolf, who also co-edited the massive CIA-focused missives, Dirty Work (with former CIA operations officer Philip Agee, 1978) and Dirty Work 2 (1979).

We discuss with Wolf how his and Agee's work at exposing U.S. imperialism and covert action was a pioneering prelude to WikiLeaks today.

Agee, like WiikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, was hounded from country to country, a scenario recounted in Agee's biographical "On the Run" (1987). A frequent guest, Wolf last appeared on Subversity in January 2008 when we aired a tribute to Agee.

The show airs today, 6 December 2010, from 5-6 p.m. Pacific time on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

UC Students Face 8% Fee Hike

2010-11-15T17:00:00.000-08:00

Updated: To listen to the 15 November 2010 show, click here: .

As University of California Regents move later this week to raise student fees by 8% and admit more out-of-state and international students, UC students are reacting with frustration. UCI Student Regent Jesse Cheng has already indicated he will vote against the increase.

We talk with two graduate student activists, Fernando Chirino (Sociology) and Robert Wood (Comparative Literature), about what students plan to do in response. Last year UC Regents already raised fees by a third.

The two activists appear on KUCI's Subversity, airing from 5-6 p.m. today, 15 November, 2010, on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and simulcast via http://kuci.org. Today's show will end early, around 5:45 p,m., to allow pre-game broadcast of basketball that formally begins at 6 p.m.

Adam Bereki's Lawsuit vs. Huntington Beach Police Department

2010-06-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

Updated: To listen to the 14 June 2010 edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Irvine -- On the next edition of KUCI's Subversity program, airing Monday 14 June 2010, we talk with Adam Bereki, author of Friendly Fire: The Illusion of Justice, his memoir about his fight against homophobic discrimination within the Huntington Beach Police Department.

We ask him why as a gay teenager in Orange County he wanted to be a cop in the first place and how he found peace after being consumed with his case, which ended up in an out-of-court 2.5 million-dollar settlement. In his book, he critiques the way police interact with residents and calls for law enforcement as well as a foreign policy, that is not based on violence.

A review of Bereki's book by Subversity's host in the Surf City Voice calls it a "stunning indictment of what the author perceived as the deep machismo, laced with homophobia, of the Surf City's police department."

The show airs from 5-6 p.m. on 14 June 2010 on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

Russell Curry on Visiting Gaza

2010-06-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

Updated: To listen to the 7 June 2010 edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Irvine -- On the next edition of KUCI's Subversity program, we continue our focus on the Gaza in the wake of the Israeli military raid last week on the peace flotilla that resulted in nine deaths of peace activists. We talk with a UCI graduate and activist, Russell Curry (left, speaking at UCI's March 4, 2010 rally), who visited the Gaza last year on a separate peace mission.

Russell Curry is a musician, writer and peace activist born and raised in Rancho Cucamonga, California. A recent graduate of the University of California, Irvine, Russell holds a BS in Biological Sciences with a minor in African American Studies.

UCI students protest Israeli peace flotilla massacre.

Last summer he and over 200 other activists from the U.S. had the opportunity to go to the Gaza Strip as part of a humanitarian aid convoy that brought direly needed medical supplies to the people of Gaza in response to the 22-day massacre Israel wrought on Gaza from December 2008-January 2009.

Curry was last interviewed on Subversity on 28 February 2010 to discuss student protests at UCI with other Black Student Union activists. His March 4 speech was also aired on Subversity on 8 March, 2010. See his photo at the rally. He also spoke out on behalf of the Irvine 11; we aired those speeches on 29 March 2010.

KUCI's Subversity show, hosted by Daniel C. Tsang, airs from 5-6 p.m. 7 June 2010 on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

All photographs © Daniel C. Tsang

Israeli Massacre on High Seas: Gaza Peace Flotilla Stopped

2010-05-31T18:48:00.000-07:00

Our 31 May 2010 Subversity show aired just as news was coming out about the details of the Israeli military massacre of peace activists
on the Peace Flotilla heading towards Gaza in an attempt to break the blockade. Show host Daniel C. Tsang brings listeners up
to date on developments.

To listen to the 31 May 2010 edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Vietnamese Americans Mobilize in S. Leo Chiang's A Villlage Called Versailles

2010-05-24T18:52:00.000-07:00

Updated: To listen to the 24 May 2010 edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Irvine -- Hurricane Katrina, instead of just devastating the Vietnamese American community at the edge of New Orleans, galvanized the residents there into mobilizing against a potentially toxic dump site that the mayor imposed on them without consultation.

That mobilization - among young and old - members of the Vietnamese community, is well captured in a documentary by filmmaker S. Leo Chiang, "A Village Called Versailles" -- to air tomorrow on PBS stations nation-wide, as part of its Independent Lens series.

Earlier this month, the film screened at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, where it won the audience award.

Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, will feature an interview with Director Chiang this afternoon, from 5-6 p.m., on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, simulcast via kuci.org.

See: film web site.

Laura Poitras' The Oath; Gilbert G. Gonzalez and Vivian Price's Harvest of Loneliness

2010-05-18T12:22:00.000-07:00

Updated: To listen to the 17 May 2010 edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

The Oath

On today's edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we interview the directors of two important documentaries. In the first half-hour, we talk with Laura Poitras, about her latest documentary, The Oath, which features Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden's former bodguard; in the background in the film hovers Salim Hamdan, incarcerated at Guantanamo, the first man to face the controversial military tribunals, and who won at the U.S. Supreme Court only to see the rules changed in the middle of the "game".

Poitras' revealing documentary shows what attracted Abu Jandal, rehabilitated in Yemen's post-incarceration program -- it paid for his taxicab -- with Hamdan -- to join the jihad and Al-Queda. Hamdan, drawn to the charismatic Abu Jandal, went with him to Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden invited the men to visit. The rest is history. The film also covers Hamdan's military trial, and Abu Jandal's cooperation with the FBI six days after 9/11 -- he was in prison in Yemen during 9/11.

Poitras' earlier film, My Country, My Country, about the U.S. occupation of Iraq, has been nominated for an OScar, Independent Spirit Award, and an Emmy. Her final film in this trilogy will focus on the 9/11 trials. She is currently working on the Guantanamo Project to collect documents and artifacts from Guantanamo Bay Prison.

The Oath opens in Los Angeles May 21, 2010.

Well of Loneliness: The Bracero Program

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Mexican nationals in tomato harvest, Muri Ranch on Roberts Island, San Joaquin Valley.
Photograph published in: California Annual Farm Labor Report, 1951. Sacramento: State of California, Farm Placement Service. Part of Immigrant Lives in 'the O.C.' & Beyond exhibit at UCI Libraries in 2008-2009.

In our second half-hour, we talk with film directors Gilbert G. Gonzalez and Vivian Price. The former is Professor Emeritus at UCI's Chicano/Latino Studies Department, and the latter, who obtained her Ph.D at UCI, is a professor at CSU Dominguez-Hills in interdisciplinary studies who has also made other documentaries on women and labor.

The two academics co-directed Harvest of Loneliness, a searing indictment of the bracero program that brought Mexicans as contract labor to work on farms in the the U.S., creating havoc in their homeland, where they had left their wives and children to fend for themselves. Despite contracts that promised much more, the men were paid peanuts and never got the promised health benefits nor death benefits for those who died under contract. The documentary ends with an analysis of the negatives impact current globalization initiatives have had on the lives of Mexicans.

Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program, makes its World Premiere Thusrday, May 20, 2010 at Humanities Instructional Building Romm 100, UC Irvine, as part of the Cosecha Laina series in the Latin American Film Festival, in association with the UCI Film and Video Center. A reception is at 6:15 p.m.; with screening at 7 p.m., with Q&A with the co-directors to follow. A film trailer is accessible via the film web site: Harvest of Loneliness.

We dedicate this show to the legacy of Tam Tran and Cinthya Felix, DREAM Act activists who tragically lost their lives in a car accident last Saturday.

Subversity airs from 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org. The film directors are interviewed by show host Daniel C. Tsang.

Orange County Treasurer's Race

2010-05-10T19:00:00.000-07:00

Updated: To listen to our interview with David Lang, click here: .

It is election season again with a June 8 Primary coming up next month. We delve into Orange County, California economics
with David Lang, who is seeking to become the next Orange County Treasurer and Tax Collector. We talk with long-time
accountant Lang, a long-time community college trustee, about what this position entails and why the two tasks are lumped
together. What are the risky investments he would avoid? And what is the legacy of the Orange County bankruptcy of a decade
or so ago.

We'll also ask him what he means by arguing that the OC investment "focus must be on return of principal over return
on principal"? See his bio.

In the second half of the program, we hope to bring you another episode of National Radio Project's Making Contact program,
this one on: Tax the Rich, Help Save America? There's a tax revolt movement going on -- to tax the rich!

The Making Contact program features:

Jim McDermott, Oregon lawyer; Chuck Sheketoff, Oregon Center for Public Policy Executive Director; Jon Shure, Center on Budget
& Policy Priorities Deputy Director; Marcy Westerling, Rural Organizing Project, Scappoose Executive Director; Marcy
Westerling, Rural Organizing Project Executive Director; Tom Duley, Alabama Arise board chairman; Kimble Forrister, Alabama
Arise coordinator; Gwendolyn Gray, Alabama Arise member; Steven Hill, Political Reform Program Director at the New America
Foundation & author of ‘Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way Is the Best Hope for an Insecure Age’.

The show airs Monday 10 May 2010 from 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, Calif., and is simulcast via href="http://kuci.org">kuci.org.

AOKI: On Asian American Co-Founder of Black Panther Party

2010-05-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

Richard Aoki (left). Updated: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: . Technical difficulties precluded recording the entire show, however.

Not many people know that an Asian American radical helped start the Black Panther Party. That may now change with directors Ben Wang and Mike Cheng's documentary, AOKI, profiling the life of Richard Aoki, a militant Japanese American, interned as a kid in Topaz during WWII, who hung out with Black militants Huey Newton and Bobby Seale and was part and parcel of the Black Panther Party that formed out of the neighborhoods of Oakland, California, advocating self-determination for oppressed Blacks.

Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, talks with directors Wang and Cheng about their documentary on Richard Aoki, who was a radical student at Merritt College and UC Berkeley. He served as Field Marshall in the Black Panther Party, training its members to stand up against police abuse and police occupation of their community. Aoki also founded the Asian American Political Alliance at Berkeley and was active in the Third World Strike there. Aoki is the subject of an ongoing biographical project, Sumurai among Panthers, by UC Santa Barbara Prof. Diane Fujino, who appears in the documentary.

The Subversity interview airs 3 May 2010 from 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, Calif., and is simulcast via kuci.org.

The documentary AOKI will show Tuesday, 4 May 2010 at 7 p.m. at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, screening at the Downtown Independent Theater, 251 South Main St (Between 2nd and 3rd Streets), Little Tokyo, Downtown Los Angeles.

DVD copies of AOKI are available from Eastwind Books. See link for more information including where to request institutional orders.

The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival closes Thursday 6 May 2010 with a screening of the Hong Kong film, "Bodyguards and Assassins" (Teddy Chan, director), at the ARATANI/JAPAN AMERICA THEATRE, JAPANESE AMERICAN CULTURAL COMMUNITY CENTER(A/JAT, JACCC PLAZA), 244 South San Pedro St., (Between 2nd and 3rd Streets), Little Tokyo, Downtown Los Angeles. The film depicts a plot to kill later Chinese Republic founder Sun Yat-sen in 1906 in Hong Kong. The real-life Sun actually attended my secondary school in Hong Kong before he overthrew the Ching dynasty.

Two Film Festivals: Interviews

2010-04-27T13:20:00.001-07:00

Updated: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

We're covering two film festivals this week -- the Newport Beach Film Festival, which began last Thursday highlighted by an after screening bash with Cirque du Soleil plus a Fashion Island fashion show -- and this Thursday's opening of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

On KUCI's Subversity radio program, we talk with two film directors 26 April 2010 (today): Miao Wang of Beijing Taxi, Quentin Lee of The People I've Slept With and with UCI graduate Ben Jarvis, active in Affirmation, which is profiled in 8: The Mormon Proposition.

Miao Wang directs Beijing Taxi, which profiles several cab drivers in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. She brings you the realities behind the glitz, glamor and hype for the Olympics as we visit with her cab drivers in their daily lives, on and off their jobs. Her film screens at the Asian Pacific Film Festival at the Directors Guild of America (DGA), 7920 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood this Sunday May 2 at 6:30 p.m.

Quentin Lee, a regular guest on this show, is a quirky and subversive independent filmmaker (such as his 0506HK, Ethan Mao, Drift, Shopping for Fangs [co-director]). In The People I've Slept With, Quentin Lee manages to poke fun at hetero and homosexual ONS (one night stands) while exploring the quest for LTR (long-term relationships), as well as marriage (gay and str8). The film features Karin Anna Cheung (Better Luck Tomorrow) as the polyamorous Angela (who wonders who is the father after she becomes pregnant) as well as Gabriel (the talented Wilson Cruz) as her gay best friend who is also sexually active. Screen legend James Shigeta (Flower Drum Song) also plays a role, as does model, director and actor Edward Gunawan, as Cruz's onscreen lover. Gunawan was interviewed on Subversity back on 31 March 2008. The film screens at the Asian Pacific Film Festival at DGA, 7920 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood this Saturday May 1 at 7 p.m.

Ben Jarvis, a 1994 graduate of UCI, has left the Latter Day Saints Church, and unlike those portrayed in the documentary 8: The Mormon Proposition, has had wonderful, supportive parents who welcomed him as their gay son and his partner as their son in law. His parents were NOT [corrected] among those Mormon families who contributed to California's Proposition 8, which banned gay marriages. 8: The Mormon Proposition screens at the Newport Beach Film Festival, Wednesday April 28, at 8:30 p.m. at Edwards Islands 3, Fashion Island.

Subversity airs 26 April 2010 at 5-6 p.m.on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, and is webcast simultaneously via kuci.org.

Among other upcoming films at the Newport Beach Film Festival is Woman Rebel, about a Maoist rebel's journey from revolution to the halls of Parliament in Nepal. That film screens at Edwards Island 2 in Fashion Island this Wednesday, April 28 at 3:30 p.m.

The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival opens Thursday April 29 at the DGA in West Hollywood, screening Au Revoir Taipei. There are two screenings: Opening night April 29 at 7 p.m. at the DGA; and Sunday May 2 at 10 a.m. at DGA.

Other films screening at Asian Pacific Film Festival this week include Lt. Watada by Freida Lee Mock, covering Lt. Ehren Watada's principled refusal to be sent to Iraq. That film screens with another Freida Lee Mock film at DGA on Saturday May 1 at 2 p.m.

My Lai Documentary Director Barak Goodman

2010-04-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

Updated: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

The My Lai massacre was the iconic event that brought world attention to the moral failure of the U.S. invasion of Vietnam. PBS's American Experience will air Monday, April 26, 2010 a new documentary, "My Lai" that documents the horrific reality of the U.S. military massacre of 507 unarmed Vietnamese women, men and children in the village located in Quang Ngai Province in central Vietnam in 1968. The documentary features the first in-depth interview with Aubrey Daniel, the prosecutor in the case against the convicted perpetrator, Lt. William Calley, as well as searing recollections by Vietnamese survivors of the massacre.

On its edition airing today (19 April 2010), Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, show host Daniel C. Tsang interviews Barak Goodman, a seasoned director (The Boy in the Bubble, The Lobotomist, The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, etc) who wrote, produced and directed "My Lai".

Subversity airs 19 April 2010 from 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

To see a trailer clip of My Lai, click here: http://video.pbs.org/video/1451980822/.

Today's broadcast kicks off two weeks of on-air KUCI fund drive for garner support for the UCI independent public radio station. For online donations, please click on the Fund Drive banner on the top of the kuci.org web site. We urge your support for shows like Subversity that for decades have brought you interviews and talks not likely to air on commercial radio.

Remembering People's Historian Him Mark Lai

2010-04-13T01:17:00.000-07:00

To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Fresh from the Association for Asian American Studies conference in Austin, Texas that ended Saturday 10 April, 2010, we bring Subversity listeners portions of the tribute to Him Mark Lai, the "Dean" of Chinese American History, who died in May 2009. Bilingual in English and Chinese, Him Mark Lai forged a pathway to today's Chinese American -- and Asian American -- studies by researching and documenting life in Chinese America over the decades. The panel discussion at AAAS included colleagues and friends of Him Mark Lai as well as those mentored by him. Chairing the April 8, 2010 session was Prof. Madeline Hsu (University of Texas, Austin), who has edited a collection of Him Mark Lai's publications, many never widely distributed before. The new work, out later this month, is Chinese American Transnational Politics from University of Illinois Press.

Speakers at the session whom we aired included Emeritus Prof. L. Ling-chi Wang (UC Berkeley), Poet and Amerasia Journal editor Prof. Russell Leong (UCLA) and Prof. Jack Tchen (New York University).

The show airs from 5-6 p.m. 12 April 2010 on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org. Podcast will be posted later on.

We dedicate this show to radical actor Corin Redgrave, who died a week ago, and whom we interviewed back in 1999 at the Toronto Film Festival, where he was appearing in a movie that screened there. Redgrave played a white gay communist who helped smuggle Nelson Mandela back into South Africa at the start of the underground struggle against the then-Apartheid regime, in "The Man Who Drove with Mandala." In our 1 June 1999 interview then, he discussed his father's bisexuality, the ruling class, socialism, and his own (and sister Vanessa's) involvement in the Marxist Party in Britain. The segment introducing his interview begins at 10:10 minutes of the audio: .

Police Misconduct and Community Strategies for Justice

2010-04-06T15:14:00.001-07:00

UCI law students Denisha McKensie, David Rodwin and Vivian Lee interviewed on KUCI. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010. UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Why is it that police misconduct cases keep showing up in the news? And what can we do about it? On the next edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, airing this afternoon at 5 p.m., we talk with several UCI law students as well as a community activist about this important issue.

Joining us in the discussion are three UCI first-year law students, Vivian Lee, Denisha McKensie, and David Rodwin. Denisha and David cofounded the Orange County Human Rights Association, and Vivian is a member of its Advisory Board. Community activist Keith Muhammad from the Bay Area also joins the discussion.

The UCI students are part of Orange County Human Rights Association, which is presenting a forum on the same topic this Thursday at UC Irvine. The Association "strives to engage with the community – Orange County and beyond – to learn about and take action on local human rights issues, focusing on the interaction between people and institutions and the interaction between different institutions and between institutions themselves."

Subversity airs today from 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org. Podcasts available after the broadcast and will be posted here.

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“Police Misconduct and Community Strategies for Justice”
Panel Discussion and Q & A

Thursday, April 8, 2010
5:00 to 6:30 p.m.
UC Irvine Cross-Cultural Center
Dr. Joseph L. White Conference Room

Panelists will address the issue of police misconduct and community response, highlighting the case of Oscar Grant III, the young black man who was shot and killed, while handcuffed, by a Bay Area Rapid Transit Officer on January 1, 2009. Video footage of the shooting was captured by onlookers and posted on YouTube, drawing international attention to an issue that impacts the lives of families and communities across the United States.

Representatives of the Grant Family will speak about the grassroots movement for justice that is growing in the Bay Area and gaining momentum in Los Angeles. Joining us will be Oscar Grant's uncle Cephus Johnson, Bay Area activist Keith Muhammad, and police misconduct attorney Jamon Hicks.

Informal reception with light refreshments to follow.

For more information: ochra.uci@gmail.com.

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This April 8 event is co-sponsored by: UCI Black Law Society, Black Student Union, Flying Sams, Public Health Law Brigades, Radical Student Union, and SAGE Scholars for Scholars.

Irvine 11 Speak-Out; Angela Davis; New Show Time

2010-03-29T18:53:00.001-07:00

Angela Davis after March 8, 2010 talk at UCI. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010. UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Kicking off a new spring quarter, Subversity now airs from 5-6 p.m. on Mondays instead of 9-10 a.m. The edition for 29 March 2010 features speakers from a 2 March 2010 Irvine 11 speak-out at UC Irvine's student center as well as the talk given by UC Santa Cruz Emeritus Prof. Angela Davis the day before on the prison industrial complex and privatization of the University of California, where she mentioned the Irvine 11. She also spoke the following week at UCI, when she noted that in 1970, when she was a graduate student activist at UC San Diego, the University did not arrest protesters for actions similar to those at UCI.

At the speak-out, organized by the Black Student Union, speakers include: Ryan Davis (MC), Abraham Medina (a rousing poetic rant on the rights of undocumented students), Russell Curry, Dennis Lopez, and KPFK show host and National Lawyers Guild-Los Angeles' Jim Lafferty, who argued that Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was able to finish his speech: "Nobody pulled the plug on his microphone." Hence there was no "heckler's veto". The NLG is representing the Irvine 11.

The speak-out, two days before the March 4, 2010 rallies around the state and in the country against privatization, occurred in the wake of racist and homophjavascript:void(0)obic incidents at various UCs.

This edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, airs from 5-6 p.m. today on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

Hyde Amendment & Health Care; Immigration Reform

2010-03-22T11:38:00.001-07:00

UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Last night the U.S. House of Representatives passed historic legislation to provide health-care coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. What's behind Obama's executive order enforcing the Hyde Amendment that barred federal funding of abortion?

And over the weekend, thousands rallied for immigration reform. What's the view on the ground about immigration reform and the legacy of Bush-era immigration raids?

For the next edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we bring you two dispatches from Making Contact, the National Radio Project's program on topical issues.

1. ‘Hyde-ing’ the Right to Choose: While lawmakers in Washington mull over the nuts and bolts of health care reform, advocates are concerned that a woman’s fundamental right to reproductive health services is endangered. On this edition, Stupak, the Hyde Amendment, and religion. We take a look at some of the threats to abortion access, more than thirty-five years after Roe V. Wade legalized a woman’s right to have an abortion.

Featuring:

Stephanie Poggi, National Network of Abortion Funds Executive Director; Jenny, shares her story about having an abortion; Jon O’Brien, Catholics for Choice President; Guadalupe Rodriguez, ACCESS/Women’s Health Rights Coalition Program & Public Policy Director. This Making Contact program was funded in part by the Mary Wohlford Foundation.

URL: http://www.radioproject.org/2010/01/hyde-ing-the-right-to-choose/.

2. Immigration Reforms, How a Broken System Breaks Communities:
If there’s one thing to be said about the U.S. immigration system, it’s that there’s universal support for change. But when it comes to answers, the viewpoints are all over the map. Congress is planning to make some changes in 2010, but in the meantime, state and federal immigration laws remain confusing and are sporadically enforced. On this edition, we go to two communities sorting through the aftermath of Bush-era federal immigration raids, and to Los Angeles, where American Apparel became the first test case of the Obama administration’s new approach to workplace hiring violations. This Making Contact program was funded in part by spot.us, a community supported journalism project.

Featuring:

Andrea, Las Americas store manager; Angelica Olmedo & Eber Eleria, Howard Industries workers arrested in Laurel Raid; Bill Deutch, Catholic Charities & Hispanic ministries bi-lingual counselor; Meyer, kosher grocery store owner; Mark Grey, University of Iowa Anthropology professor and co-author of ‘Postville: Surviving Diversity in Small-town America’; Scott, Agriprocessors employee; Former Agriprocessors workers; Michelle Devlin, University of Iowa Public Health professor and co-author of ‘Postville: Surviving Diversity in Small-town America’; Maryn Olsen, Postville Response Coalition coordinator; Bill Chandler, Mississippi Immigrant’s Rights Alliance Executive Director; Noami Perez, Maricela Perez & Sergio, laid-off American Apparel workers; Roberto Suro, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism Professor; Peter Schey, American Apparel attorney and Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law Foundation Executive Director; Natalia Garcia, UCLA Downtown Labor Center Administrative Assistant; Anonymous, unidentified Fake ID salesman in MacArthur Park.

URL: http://www.radioproject.org/2010/01/immigration-reforms/.

Subversity airs today (22 March 2010) from 9-10 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

Suspicious Activity Reporting Goes National

2010-03-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

PRA's Tom Cincotta speaks at CAIR forum on Suspicious Activity Reporting. Photograph © Daniel C. Tsang, 2010. UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Ratting on your neighbors or anyone looking "out of place" -- such as Middle Easterners taking photographs at Orange County Airport -- will be how John Q. Public will be able to help authorities spot "terrorists".

That is the chilling message given at a packed, evening forum in Anaheim last Wednesday at the offices of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of Los Angeles, the activist group, which heard from several Muslim young men reported for "suspicious" behavior -- including a then-UCI student who was dropping of British leftwing Member of Parliament George Galloway at SNA, after the MP spoke at UCI. The student was later contacted by authorities about why he was taking photographs at the Orange County Airport. Galloway had posed for the student's camera at SNA.

On KUCI's Subversity program this Monday morning, we air talks at the forum given by Tom Cincotta, who heads a project at the Political Research Associates (PRA), researching threats to privacy in the war on terrorism, and Peter Bibring, the expert on police practices at the ACLU of Southern California. Bibring has been researching the LAPD's protoype for citizen reporting -- iReport -- on the LAPD's I-Watch web site. PRA is issuing a research report, Platform for Prejudice(s), later this week tracing Suspicious Activities Reporting and its use in the various anti-terrorism centers set up across the United States.

Chairing the CAIR forum was Ameena Mirza Qazi, CAIR deputy executive director and its staff attorney.

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

March 4, 2010 Rally at UC Irvine

2010-03-08T12:33:00.001-08:00

Russell Curry ("Sonny Boy") rallies crowd to "Put your fist in the sky" at March 4 rally at UC Irvine. Photograph © Daniel C. Tsang. UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

On March 4, 2010, UC Irvine erupted in a day of lively protest actions as students, faculty and unionized staff joined their comrades across the state and the nation in protesting the privatization of education. At UCI a spirited group of speakers rallied hundreds at a rally at the flagpole, followed by crowds of protesters marching across campus, into Langson Library, and the Gateway Commonjavascript:void(0)s by mid afternoon, ending in a smaller crowd gathered on the lawn outside Aldrich Hall, the scene of a sit-in the previous week.

On today's edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we air speeches from the March 4 rally at UC Irvine, as a document of UCI activism reaching a new scale.
The show airs 9-10 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

See also: Democratize Education: Taking Control of Our Education blog.

A Look Back at a Tumultous Week (UCI Sit-in...); Iranian Women Agitate

2010-03-01T21:25:00.001-08:00

After sit-in, UCI protesters outside Aldrich Hall with pink citations for "failure to disperse." Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010. UPDATED: To listen to audio of our interview with Irvine activists Ryan Davis (with citations in photo), Russell Curry and Samiyyah Tillman, click here: . To listen to audio of our interview with Iranian activist Sussan, click here: .

Irvine -- On the next edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we look back at a tumultous week, not just at UC Irvine but also across the UCs. At UC Irvine, the arrest of 17 protesters sitting in at the administration building, seeking "in-sourcing" of service workers accompanied by a large action outside raised the stakes in advance of a state-wide March 4, 2010 movement against the privatization of education in California. A protest blog argues: "Yesterday the dumpsters, Tomorrow the World!".

We'll talk with UC Irvine protesters who give their take on what's happening and their long list of demands. Some protesters believe that with UC Regents and UC Student Association endorsing the March 4 actions, the struggle has been co-opted. We'll discuss that.

In part 2 of the show, we'll talk with an activist who has been trying to organize Iranian women in advance of International Women's Day in Iran. We talk with:

Sussan, who is is part of the March 8 Women’s Organization (Iran-Afghanistan), living in exile in Europe: In the late 1970s Sussan lived in the US and was part of the Iranian student movement against the brutal US-backed Shah of Iran. She returned to Iran after the Shah’s overthrow and took part in the struggle against the Khomeini regime. She and her family were imprisoned and tortured for their political activity and her husband was executed by the Islamic regime. See a recent statement by the March 8 Women's Organization (Iran-Afghanistan), March in Support of Women Warriors in Streets of Tehran. She was last on Subversity last year.

The International Women's Day Coalition is organizing a march and rally in Westwood on Saturday, March 6th, aiming to break open a spirit of resistance to the horrors committed against women throughout the world, and led by the slogan: Break the Chains! Unleash the Fury of Women as a Mighty Force for Revolution.

The shows airs Monday 1 March 2010 at 9 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, Calif., and is simulcast via kuci.org. Show host is Daniel C. Tsang.

UCI Student Affairs Vice Chancellor Manuel Gomez on 1st Amendment & Student Activism

2010-02-22T15:31:00.000-08:00

Manuel Gomez in his plush office. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang, 2010. UPDATED: To listen to audio, click here: .

Irvine -- In a broad look back at his student activism days (when he hung the Black Flag of anarchism in his apartment), UCI Vice Chancellor Manuel Gomez, in the wake of growing controversy over the student disruption of the talk earlier this month of the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, and the arrests of 12 students, discusses the First Amendment on campus, and states that UCI's Muslim Student Union will not be kicked off campus. He also states that images on student protest blogs of UCI Police taking down leaflets announcing protest events is "disturbing," but he is waiting for students to file formal complaints with his office.

Gomez says he grew up in a poverty-stricken "barrio" in Santa Ana and was active in various struggles in his student days, including fighting police abuse. He says he understands the passion and quest among young people for opposing oppression: "I understand it in my bone." His verdict on his protesting past: It was wrong to distrust people over 30. We also discuss cooptation.

In "Imagining the Future: Cultivating Civility in a Field of Discontent," Gomez focuses on the situation at UCI as tensions were addressed in the wake of the Zionist Organization of America's initial complaint to the U.S. Office of Civil Rights over the alleged mistreatment of Jewish students. ZOA has since also claimed UCI students solicited donations for Hamas during a talk at UCI of British Member of Parliament George Galloway.

In the article, written for Change Magazine, as well as on Subversity, Gomez argues that hate speech has been upheld by the courts as allowed under the First Amendment. The ZOA more recently has called for a boycott of UCI in terms of donations and enrollment.

UCI has also sent disciplinary letters to the 8 UCI students arrested, including MSU President Mohamed Abdelgany, a first step in campus administrative proceedings.

In response, the various Muslim activist groups, including the Muslim Public Affairs Council, have called on UCI allow "free speech" for protesters.

Gomez's interview is being aired this morning on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, at 9 am (simulcast via kuci.org). He is interviewed by Subversity host Daniel C. Tsang.

UCI Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky on the First Amendment

2010-02-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

Erwin Chemerinsky, left, with students after his talk. Photograph © Daniel C. Tsang 2010. UPDATED with audio link: To listen to audio, click here: .

Erwin Chemerinsky, the founding dean of the new UCI School of Law, February 11, 2010 talked at UC Irvine about the First Amendment in the wake of the shouting down of the recent lecture at UCI by the Israeli Ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren and the arrests of the students involved.

Chemerinksy's talk, previously scheduled, happened several days after the Oren lecture, in a larger lecture hall to accommodate the crowd of mostly students who packed the room.

As a public service, KUCI's Subversity program airs Chemerinsky's entire talk and the subsequent Q and A session. The show airs today (15 February 2010), airing 9-10 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and simulcast via kuci.org.

Meanwhile, student activists have rallied to urge support for the 11 students (3 from UC Riverside, 8 from UCI) arrested by UCI Police, asking why they had to be arrested. One statement circulating among activists suggests making these points to UCI Chancellor Michael Drake and to the UCI Dean of Students, who would be imposing any administrative sanctions on the UCI students, including potential expulsion:

· It was unjust to arrest students for simply having the courage to
stand up and speak out against a man responsible for propagating the
deaths of thousands of innocent people.
· Civil disobedience has historically played an instrumental role in
the civil rights movement in America the eventually ensured equality
and human rights for all minorities.
· Michael Oren is a representative of a state that is condemned by
more UN Human Rights Council resolutions than all other countries in
the world, and he should not be honored at UC Irvine.

The statement said "we will not support an educational
institution that threatens to punish its’ students with suspension and
expulsion for standing up for their principles."

Supporters of the arrested students have started a Facebook page, "Drop All Charges Against the Eleven", which as of this morning has 4,657 members.

Meanwhile the controversy has again enraged the Jewish community, with Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie, who heads the Rabbinical Council of Orange Council, even suggesting that Chancellor Drake consider expelling the students. [An earlier version incorrectly attributed a call for ending donations to UCI to Rabbi Elierzrie; but another group has formally called for that.] At the same time, the Muslim Public Affairs Council weighed in, calling for an investigation into the arrests.

Sexual Minorities to March in Little Saigon Tet Parade

2010-02-09T16:12:00.000-08:00

Gina Masequesmay. Photo from CSUN web-site. UPDATED with audio links: To listen to audio, click here: .

In a historic first, Vietnamese American lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered [LGBT] plan to march as part of Little Saigon's Tet parade this coming Saturday, Lunar New Year Eve. While they have marched in Orange County before (at the OC Pride march in Irvine) and in San Jose and San Francisco, this is the first time they plan a march in the heartland of the overseas Vietnamese community in the U.S.

On KUCI's Subversity show Monday 8 February 2010, at 9 a.m., we talk with CSU Northridge scholar Gina Masequesmay
about queer life within the Vietnamese American communities. The CSU sociologist did her Ph.D dissertation at UCLA in 2001 on one of the groups marching, Ô-Môi, which came out with a zine in 2005. She is the lead co-editor of a new collection of essays, Embodying Asian/American Sexualities (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2009).

Four groups plan to join together in this march, according to march organizers, embracing "marriage equality" in the context of the Prop. 8 controversy.

Song That Radio is a grass-root organization which has the dual task of operating a radio program to focus on enhancing community awareness of LGBT issues, with the aim to create social change in attitude towards LGBT people and to organize social and political events that advocate, support and empower the Vietnamese-American LGBT community by increasing LGBT visibility and inclusiveness. Its goal is to improve the quality of life of Vietnamese LGBT people by reducing and eliminating the disparities within the Vietnamese-American community in dealing with LGBT issues.

Ô-Môi is a support group for lesbians, bisexual women, and transgender of Vietnamese descent. Its goal is to provide a support and resource space for queer, female Vietnamese to come out and network.

Gay Vietnamese Alliance provides a safe and supportive environment for gay, bisexual, and transgendered men of Vietnamese descent from all over the world to network, voice issues, promote wellness and foster leadership.

The Vietnamese Lesbian and Bisexual women Network and Friends is a support network of women, young and old alike, who provide support to Vietnamese women who are questioning their identities or simply proud to be lesbians or bisexual women.

The Subversity show airs on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, and is simulcast via http://kuci.org. Podcasts are available later.

The march is slated to begin after 9:30 a.m. Saturday 13 February 2010 at Bolsa and Magnolia in Westminster, California.

Dang Nhat Minh's antiwar film, Don't Burn

2010-02-01T17:05:00.000-08:00

The diarist, Dang Thuy Tram (left).

UPDATED with audio links: To listen to the entire Subversity show on Dang Nhat Minh, including the USC panel discussion, click here: .

To listen to just the USC panel discussion: click here: .

Vietnam's top filmmaker, People's Artist Đặng Nhật Minh, has made a moving anti-war film based on captured diaries of a National Liberation Front doctor, whose intimate and revealing thoughts about war and the Party are put on paper in between treating soldiers during the "American War." The diarist is a young surgeon, Đặng Thùy Trâm, known as "Thuy." Tragically, at age 27, she was killed by an American bullet through her forehead, in 1970. The film, Don't Burn (Đừng Đốt) is Vietnam's entry to this year's Academy Awards.

In her diary, only two volumes of which survived the war, Thuy rails against the American invaders (whom she calls "devils") while wondering why the Party took so long to admit her. Was she too bourgeois? In a telling entry, she admits "Bourgeois sentiments are always suspect. It's strange that I still prefer to be like that than to be clear and simple like a farmer." The Party later did admit her and she is now considered a martyr in Vietnam. The diary has been published in the U.S. as Last Night I Dreamed of Peace.

"Don't Burn" not only brings to life events described in the diary, but also brings the story up to date, showing how an American soldier, and his military family, came around to read the diary of an enemy doctor, in the process struck by the futility of warfare. The film describes how the diaries ended up at Texas Tech, whose library contain the largest non-governmental collection on the war, and shows how Thuy's family came to read their daughter's writings almost four decades later.

Thuy's father was also a noted surgeon and his mother a pharmacology lecturer specializing in medicinal plants. Thuy gave up her dream to be a ophthalmologist and instead, like many of her compatriots, went south to serve the state.

The parallels with the film director's own family upbringing are stark. Dang Nhat Minh's father, Dang Van Ngu, was also a noted doctor, leading efforts to fight malaria with penicillin. Indeed, he also was killed by the Americans, in 1967, a year before the entries in Thuy's recovered diary begin.

Dang Nhat Minh himself has stated: "I have no regrets at all about being a film director as it is destiny. But if I could choose again, I would rather be a doctor and follow in my father's steps." Both father and son have won the Ho Chi Minh Award.

This is the first film to portray the views of America's "enemy" so starkly.
It seeks to reconcile the two nations who fought so bitter and deadly a war.

Dang Nhat Minh & Kieu Chinh at USC 23 January 2010. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010

And perhaps as a sign of possible reconciliation between Vietnamese in the homeland and here, director Minh was embraced warmly by Little Saigon's most famous film personality, Kieu Chinh (left), after a recent showing at the University of Southern California(USC).

Indeed, in California the past few weeks, the film has been shown to audiences young and old in northern and southern California.

Dang Nhat Minh answers a question during panel discussion at USC. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010.

On KUCI Subversity's 1 February 2010, from 9-10 a.m. we discuss this film and diary and present the panel discussion after the film showing at USC, with Director Dang Nhat Minh. Also on the panel are Oh, Saigon director Doan Hoang (whose film was also shown that day), interpreter Gianni Le Nguyen and USC Prof David James, who kicked off the session. Thanks to Prof. Viet Nguyen, who co-organized the "Dreaming of Peace: Vietnamese Filmmakers Move from War to Reconciliation" event, for permission to record that session and air it. Prof. Nguyen prefaced the showing of Don't Burn with a moving tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. by quoting from the civil rights leader's writings against the Vietnam War.

The Subversity program airs on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org. Podcasts will be made available later and posted here. See trailer of Don't Burn.

Peter Donohue on UC's Hidden Wealth: Another Look

2010-01-25T08:06:00.000-08:00

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

UPDATED with audio link: 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 still thinks otherwise, in another interview on KUCI's Subversity show.

Looking further at the UC's own financial statements, Donohue will let us know if he still finds that the UC has billions hidden away in its unrestricted reserves. The UC would 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 again about why the UC is pleading poverty.

The entire show airs Monday 25 January 2010 from 9-10 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org. Donohue appears on the first part of the show.

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 has compiled, for CUE (Coalition of University Employees), an updated analysis of the UC budget, which will be released shortly; we get a preview on this show. See, however, 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.

In out second part of the show, we air a dispatch from Making Contact.

To listen to our earlier 28 September 2009 show with Peter Donohue, click here: .

UCI Chancellor Drake Grilled by Students

2010-01-18T22:27:00.001-08:00

Chancellor Drake listens as the spouse of an outsourced worker asks in Spanish to be treated with dignity, captivating the audience. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010

UPDATED with audio link: To listen to the show, click here: .

Irvine -- UCI Chancellor Michael Drake, for the first time since a critical UCI Faculty Senate blasted him for (initially) firing founding Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky in 2007, faced Wednesday 13 January 2010 another hostile audience at a public forum organized by student protesters who gave what OC Register's Gary Robbins called a "verbal drubbing" -- with all but one student criticizing his leadership of the campus. It was a P.R. disaster for Drake.

Unlike previous "town hall" meetings where Drake managed to be in control, students criticized him for deferring to aides and not answering the questions "man to man". Asked pointedly if he would still continue to stay at UCI should his pay be further cut, he never answered the question, nor did he made a commitment to remaining at UCI.

While Drake and UCI police chief Paul Henisey declined to comment on the police abuse at UCLA protests (saying they were not there to see what happened) -- after the public forum, Subversity managed to ask the police chief if he would drop charges against sociology graduate student John Bruning, who had been arrested at a protest late last fall. Chief Henisey said it was up to the Orange County District Attorney.

At the forum, students laughed when Drake declared that UCI's commitment to free speech was nationally known. The chief then denied his cops were ripping down protesters' posters on campus. Both Drake and Henisey said they knew nothing about that. See photos of a UCI police officer ripping down posters on the Occupy UCI! blog.

Subversity has also learned that in another sign of intimidation by campus police, protesters who have been chalking on campus recently -- writing statements such as "UCI is Racist" on walls and the ground -- have been confronted by campus police who take down their name and threaten to charge them with "defacing" university property should the chalk not be able to be removed. This week's rains are likely, however, to wipe away the chalk.

The only time Drake seemed moved and did not act like a CEO of a corporation was after the wife of an outsourced worker who has worked at UCI for 20 years pleaded with him to provide benefits to the workers. Drake responded that he was committed to "quality experience" for everyone at UCI and said he had been working to help the disadvantaged and dispossessed in his career.

A day after the forum, dozens of outsourced workers demonstrated on campus and a smaller group of workers and student supporters gave Ramona Agrela, an associate to Drake, posters of workers who had been laid off.

Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, airs today (18 January 2010) at 9-10 a.m. audio from the public forum as a public service. The program airs on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

UCI Students Fight Fee Hikes

2009-11-23T19:15:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-09T13:20:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-02T13:55:00.001-08:00

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

2009-10-05T15:19:00.001-07:00

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?

2009-09-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-21T12:43:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-14T15:39:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-24T15:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-03T18:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-27T18:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-13T17:12:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-06T17:14:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-22T17:19:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-08T17:22:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-05-18T17:24:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-05-11T17:27:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-27T16:54:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-23T09:00:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

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.

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

2009-01-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-12T09:00:00.000-08:00

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:

Katrina's Hidden Story: Race War?

2009-01-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

Irvine -- For the edition of Subversity airing 5 January 2009, after we re-air our recent interview with Bill Ayers on education, we focus on a Katrina story that was largely unreported until last week. We plan to talk with the reporter exposing this story, A.C. Thompson, in The Nation (5 January 2009 issue).

AC Thompson is an experienced reporter currently on the staff of Pro Publica, a public interest journalism organization. His 18-month "Katrina's Hidden Race War" investigation for The Nation magazine can be found at thenation.com, along with a companion video.

According to The Nation:

Last week The Nation released an 18-month investigation supported by The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, Katrina's Hidden Race War. The article (and a related sidebar) exposed a series of univestigated shootings in New Orleans of black residents by white vigilantes. Additionally, the investigation alleged serious misconduct by law enforcement.

On Christmas Eve, the New Orleans Police Department offered a response, citing intense media scrutiny. Police Superintendent Warren J. Riley issued a statement that his department "is currently looking into the allegations," and noted that they did not receive any calls at the time to corroborate the report in The Nation. The statement did not offer any details about the shape or form of an investigation, and pointedly did not mention the other main allegation in the piece: that the NOPD may have played a role in the death of Henry Glover. See: www.thenation.com/doc/20090105/thompson2?rel=hpbox.

Additionally:

* Congressman John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has spoken out voicing concern about the incidents. Conyers, in a statement released last week, said that he is "deeply disturbed" by the report, especially evidence that "local police fueled, rather than extinguished, the violence." The Nation is encouraging Conyers, and House Judiciary Sub-committee on Civil Rights chairman Jerrold Nadler, to launch a full investigation.
The Race War? section aired at 9:30 a.m. after hearing from our recent interview (re-aired) with Bill Ayers.

We chat with former Weather Underground member and Prairie Fire theoretician and current education professor (U of Ill. at Chicago) Bill Ayers. We asked him what are the prospects for educational reform in the new administration, as well as to reflect his days under the national spotlight during the recent presidential campaign.

To listen to the Bill Ayers 15 December 2008 interview that was excerpted 5 January 2009, click here: .

To listen to the interview with investigative reporter A.C. Thompson, click here: .

Bill Ayers on Reforming Education

2008-12-15T09:00:00.000-08:00

For the Monday 15 December 2008 edition of Subversity, we chatted with former Weather Underground member and Prairie Fire theoretician and current education professor (U of Ill. at Chicago) Bill Ayers. As Obama is about to name a new cabinet member in charge of education, we asked him what are the prospects for educational reform in the new administration, as well as to reflect his days under the national spotlight during the recent presidential campaign.

Ayers was last on Subversity 12 April 2002, promoting his book, Fugitive Days, which has just now been reissued by Beacon Press with a new afterword. After we re-aired our 2002 interview during the last month of the recent presidential campaign, the rightwing media "discovered" the audio. Unauthorized clips of the broadcast were aired by such conservative hosts as Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, while text from the interview made it on to The National Review. The audio also showed up in a video that tried to smear Obama. The smear campaign, of course, did not stick.

The rightwing media seemed especiallly concerned that he revealed during his Subversity interview that "I'm as much an anarchist as I am a Marxist which is to say I find a lot of the ideas in anarchism appealing." The rightwing media made a big deal that later that week (of our 2002 interview) he served on an academic panel with Obama.

Were the World Mine Director & Lead Actor Discuss Musical Romp through Small-Town America

2008-12-08T09:00:00.000-08:00

Irvine -- For the 8 December 2008 edition of Subversity, we talked with director Tom Gustafson and lead actor Tanner Cohen about "Were the World Mine," a musical fantasy about queer teen love.

Tanner Cohen with fellow-actor Nate David Becker,
his love object in Were the World Mine. Photo source:
SPEAKproductions.

The fun and captivating feature film, which has captivated audiences at Frameline and other film festivals, takes a romp through small-town America and pokes fun at traditional "family values" and homophobia. The film is based on director Gustafson's short, "Fairies," as well as William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Nights' Dream."

Set in a boys academy, it stars Tanner as Timothy, a queer teen who's often the target of homophobic attacks. A sympathetic English teacher recruits him to star in the school's adaptation of A Midsummer Nights' Dream, and in the process, he creates a love potion that turns the object of his teenage lust (a rugby star) queer, as well as many others in his small town. Tanner is currently a UCLA student (in Cultural Studies).

More info. on the guests:

Tom Gustafson - director/ co-writer/ producer

Tom made his first film, a Super 8 claymation, at the age of 9. That film premiered in the very gymatorium responsible for the memories that inspired his award-winning musical short, Fairies, which has screened in over 75 international film festivals (including Tribeca), aired on the Viacom network, Logo (as a winner of the short film series in the episode The Click List: Best Shorts Ever!) and is available on iTunes. Tom made his feature directorial debut with his multi-award-winning, critically acclaimed and wildly popular, Shakespeare inspired musical film about the truth of love: Were the World Mine. Among the awards presented to WTWM, Tom received the Heineken Red Star Award and the Scion First-Time Director Award.

While a student at Northwestern University, Tom received the coveted Major Studio 22 grant to make a side-show inspired film, The Need. After receiving the William Morris Filmmaking Award and graduating Cum Laude from NU, Tom explored Chicago's art scene. He wrote and directed an experimental theatre piece, exhibited his investigative portraiture photography, shot a doc about queer youth, received grants from the Chicago Community Arts Program, worked on Michael Moore's Bravo show, The Awful Truth and created SPEAKproductions.

A freelance foray into "Hollywood" film led him down an unexpected path when he landed his first job: Key Additional Casting Assistant on Road To Perdition followed by Additional Casting Associate on Master & Commander. He then took on solo projects as Location Casting Director of Pirates Of The Caribbean (Dead Man's Chest and At Worlds End), The Good Shepherd, The Weather Man and The Dark Knight. For a young Director, this path proved to be an invaluable learning experience, allowing him to work creatively alongside directors including the unparalleled Peter Weir, Sam Mendes and Robert DeNiro.

Tanner Cohen . timothy

Tanner is a New York based actor currently getting a BA in Cultural Studies at UCLA. He recently appeared as Nate in Vadim Perelman's The Life Before Her Eyes (starring Uma Thurman), which premiered at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival and he was first seen as Tad Becker on CBS in As The World Turns. He also portrayed the role of Flute in Creative Arts Projects' A Midsummer Night's Dream, which toured throughout Brooklyn parks in the summer of 2004. Tanner is also one half of the emotronic pop duo The Guts. He is thrilled to be a part of this unique film and thanks the incredibly devoted cast and crew and his family.

For additional info, check out the film site.Trailer

To listen to the show, click here:

Privileging (Gay or Straight) Marriage is Misplaced

2008-11-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

For the November 24, 2008 edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we talked with law professor Nancy D. Polikoff, author of a new book, Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families Under the Law (Beacon Press, 2008).

She argues that by privileging marriage under the law over other relationships, many people suffer, including those in domestic partnerships. She breaks with fellow queer activists who are now flowing into the streets to defend gay marriage after California voters approved Prop. 8 that banned gay marriage in California. She challenges those activists to see beyond gay "equality" arguments that restrict marriage benefits only to those willing to get married.

Nancy D. Polikoff is Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law, where she teaches in the areas of family law, civil procedure, and sexuality and the law. Previously, she supervised family law programs at the Women's Legal Defense Fund (now National Partnership for Women and Families), and before that she practiced law as part of a feminist law collective. For 30 years, she has been writing about and litigating cases involving lesbian and gay families. Her articles have appeared in numerous law reviews, and her history of the development of the law affecting lesbian and gay parenting appears as a chapter in John D'Emilio, William B. Turner, and Urvashi Vaid, eds., Creating Change: Sexuality, Public Policy, and Civil Rights (St, Martin's Press, 2000). She helped develop the legal theories in support of second-parent adoption and visitation rights for legally unrecognized parents, and she was successful counsel in In re M.M.D., the 1995 case that established joint adoption for lesbian and gay couples in the District of Columbia, and Boswell v. Boswell, the 1998 Maryland case overturning restrictions on a gay noncustodial father's visitation rights.

For more on the book, go to http://www.beyondstraightandgaymarriage.com/.

Her blog is at: www.beyondstraightandgaymarriage.blogspot.com/

To listen to the show, click here:

UCI's Olive Tree Initiative; Obama's Ascendancy and the Future of Radical Opposition to the U.S. State

2008-11-17T09:00:00.000-08:00

For the next edition of Subversity, to air Monday 17 November 2008 at 9 am, we first talk with several UCI students who had a chance to travel recently to the Middle East to see first-hand the situation there. And in part two of the program, we talk with a UC Riverside professor about the future prospects for progressive struggles in the wake of Barack Obama's election.

A group of UCI students recently visited Israel and the occupied territories to observe the situation there, under the auspices of the Olive Tree Initiative

In part 1 of the show, we ask UCI senior Omar Bustami and UCI sophomore Moran Cohen why they went on the the trip, what they found and what lessons they learned.

To listen to part 1 of the show, click here: .

In part 2, we talk with UC Riverside ethnic studies Assoc. Prof. Dylan Rodriguez about what is the future for progressive anti-racism struggle when the U.S. President is for the first time an African American. He's not optimistic. He believes an Obama administration will continue to "domesticate, discipline, and contain a politics of radical opposition to a U.S. nation-building project that now insists on the diversity of the American "we," while leaving so many for dead." See his essay, Inaugurating Multiculturalist White Supremacy, posted on Racewire. We also discussed this collection of essays, to which he contributed a chapter: The revolution will not be funded : beyond the non-profit industrial complex, edited by Incite! Women of Color Against Violence. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2007; Table of Contents. The book addresses the limits of civil society and NGOs.

To listen to part 2 of the show, click here: .

Immigrant Lives Past and Present

2008-11-10T09:00:00.000-08:00

Hong Kong Independent Filmmakers Oppose Corporate 'Hijacking' of Asian Film Festival; California Prop. 8 on Parental Notification

2008-10-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

In our 13 October 2008 show, KUCI's Subversity program focuses first on a controversy in Hong Kong over an apparent corporate "hijacking" of the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival (HKAFF). Independent filmmakers associated with Ying E Chi a nonprofit independent film distribution company, are accusing the owners of the territory's Broadway Cinematheque chain of taking over the annual festival that Ying e Chi founded in 2004. We talk with independent filmmaker Simon Chung, a director of Ying E Chi, from Hong Kong about what led to this impasse.

Simon Chung was born in Hong Kong. A graduate of Toronto's York University, he majored in film production before returning Hong Kong. Since then, he has been active within the local film and television industry, including Ying E Chi. His second short, Life is Elsewhere ('96), was given the distinguished award at the Hong Kong ifva (Independent Short Film& Video Awards). Innocent ('05) is his directorial debut. Filmography: Chiwawa Express ('92 short), Life is Elsewhere ('96 short), Stanley Beloved ('97 short), First Love & Other Pains ('99 short), Innocent ('05), End of Love ('08).

See also: "Variety" coverage: varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/7186/1/ Background on HKAFF from HKAFF 2007: bc.cinema.com.hk/adhoc/hkaff_2007/about/index.html

In Part 2 of our show, we air a dispatch from National Radio Project's Making Contact on "Parental Notification: Protecting Our Youth?" "This November, parental notification (Prop 4) will be on the ballot in California. Prop 4 requires parents to be notified if a minor seeks an abortion. Does this law really protect our youth? If passed, will it affect how young women access reproductive health care?" asks the program.

"On this edition of Making Contact, we hear from a group of young women in California organizing against Prop 4. They say the measure threatens the health, safety and rights of young women, especially communities of color and immigrant communities. Also, we hear from a proponent of Prop 4 who explains why many others support this law. Lastly, we visit the state of Texas where both parental notification and consent laws have transformed the ways young women handle unexpected pregnancies."

This Making Contact program was partially funded by the Mary Wolford Foundation and features: Heidi, Meuy, Marn, Tiffany, Maly, Susan, Celia, Mimi, Mae, Quy, Sandra, SAFIRE youth members; Amanda Wake, SAFIRE coordinator; Dana Ginn Paredes, ACRJ organizing director; Dr. Paula Hillard, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health member, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Stanford University School of Medicine, Division of Gynecologic Specialties director; Dolores Meehan, Friends of Sarah and the Yes on Proposition 4 Campaign; Rita Lucido, Jane's Due Process attorney; Brandi Bedford, Whole Woman's Health of Austin executive director; Terry Sallas Merritt, Whole Woman's Health corporate executive director; Tina Hester, Jane's Due Process hotline coordinator.

URL: www.radioproject.org/archive/2008/4108.html.

To listen to the entire show, click here: .

Saving Marriage; Bill Ayers on his Fugitive Days

2008-10-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

Mug shot from Chicago Police of Ayers

In our the next edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we delve into two controversial issues this election season.

In part 1 of the program, we talk with two filmmakers, Mike Roth and John Henning, who directed a documentary, "Saving Marriage," on the ultimate success in Massachusetts to forestall a voter-ban on gay marriage. We'll ask them what lessons can be learned given that California voters will vote in November whether or not to ban gay marriage (Prop. 8) and overturn the state Supreme Court's recent ruling allowing it.

In part 2, given the controversy over Barack Obama's "palling around" (allegedly) with former fugitive Weatherman Bill Ayers (now a respected education professor in Chicago), we re-air portions of a past interview we conducted with Prof. Ayers. We asked him then to reflect on his fugitive days.

To listen to the entire show, click here: .

More online:

Saving Marriage web site: www.savingmarriagethemovie.com/home.html

Saving Marriage trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmjfKgnnCdA

Ballotpedia Proposition 8 entry: ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=California_Proposition_8_(2008)

Obama and Ayers:

NY Times:www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04ayers.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin (needs free registration)

NY Times Ayers profile: topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/william_c_ayers/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=bill%20ayers&st=cse

Online Petition to Support Bill Ayers:

http://www.supportbillayers.org/

Pallin on Ayers:

www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/us/politics/05palin.html

Our 12 April 2002 interview with Bill Ayers on Subversity: .

Charlie Nguyen, Director, "The Rebel"

2008-09-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

On our September 29, 2008 show, we talk with Charlie Nguyen, director/producer/writer of The Rebel, a period piece set in French colonial Vietnam that deals with a Vietnamese traitor in the struggle for national independence, with exciting scenes of martial arts. The film stars Charlie Nguyen's brother, Johnny Tri Nguyen and established actor Dustin Nguyen (21 Jump Street, Heaven and Earth) as well as Vietnamese actress/singer Ngo Thanh Van.

For Charlie Nguyen, a Viet Kieu (Overseas Vietnamese), the Rebel marks his return to his homeland. He also directed and wrote Chances Are and produced Finding Madison.

The film won the VIFF (Vietnamese International Film Festival)'s 2007 audience award at UCI among other awards.

The film will be screened Friday October 3 for free at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana in connection with a DVD release party; events start with a prescreening reception at 6 pm followed by the screening at 7 pm. Both Charlie Nguyen and actor Dustin Nguyen will be present for a Q and A.

The OC event is co-sponsored by VAALA. Founded in 1991 by a group of Vietnamese American journalists, artists and friends, Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA) is a community-based non-profit organization that seeks to promote and enrich arts and culture by, for, and about the Vietnamese communities. VAALA has organized numerous cultural events such as art exhibitions, book fairs, book signings, recitals, plays, lectures, the biennial Vietnamese International Film Festival (ViFF), the biennial Cinema Symposium, the annual Children's Moon Festival Art Contest and year-long art and music classes. VAALA recently developed smART Program, which offers free art workshops for non-profit youth organizations in the Orange County and Los Angeles areas.

Bowers Museumio is at 2002 North Main Street, Santa Ana 92706, telephone: (714) 567-3695.

To listen to the program, click here:

Remembering Third Party Candidate Peter Camejo

2008-09-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

Irvine - On our 15 September 2008 show, Subversity remembers the life and times of third party candidate Peter Miguel Camejo, a Venzuelan American who died the past Saturday in Folsom, California.

Camejo, who was Ralph Nader's running mate in 200 in the presidential race, also ran for governor of california three times before. In the 2002 race he garnered 5 percent of the California vote.

As Ralph Nader remembers him:

Peter was a student leader, civil rights advocate, leader in the socially responsible investment industry with his own investment firm, Progressive Asset Management, Inc., and author of books on investment and history including Racism, Revolution, Reaction, 1861-1877, The Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction, California Under Corporate Rule, and his recent book, The SRI Advantage: Why Socially Responsible Investing Has Outperformed Financially.

www.votenader.org/blog/2008/09/13/in-honor-of-peter-miguel-camejo/

We talk with his comrades, including Matt Gonzalez, who is currently Ralph Nader's running mate in Nader's return bid for the presidency. Gonzalez, a former San Francisco supervisor, is a civil rights attorney in the bay area and Green Party activist. We also talk with Donna Warren, who was the Southern California Chair for Peter Camejo in the California Recall election when he ran on the Green Party ticket for governor.

Paired with Camejo who ran for California governor, Warren ran for Lt. Governor in November 2002 and 2006. In November 2002, she garnered almost 400,000 votes statewide.

To listen to the program, click here: .

Ping Pong Playa Director Jessica Yu and Actor Jimmy Tsai

2008-09-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

Ping Pong Playa star Jimmy Tsai with his buddy, Andrew Vo, from Orange County

Irvine -- For our next edition, KUCI's SUbversity show airs a live interview with the director and star of a new Asian American feature film, Ping Pong Playa.

The comedic take on the travails of a basketball star wannabe who ends up becoming a ping pong paddler pokes fun at both mainstream and Asian American stereotypes.

The director (and co-writer), Jesscia Yu, is an established documentary filmmaker undertaking her first feature film. Yu's documentaryshort, Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien, on a writer who lived for four decades paralyzed by polio and confined to an iron lung, won her many awards including an Oscar and an Emmy.

Yu is perhaps best known as the director of In the Realms of the Unreal, her riveting look at the life and erotic obsessions of "outside artist" Henry Darger, whose prolific art formed the basis of her documentary, shown on the PBS series, POV. Yu is based in Los Angeles.

Jimmy Tsai is both the star of Ping Pong Playa and a co-writer. A production accountant turned indie filmmaker and now actor, Tsai was production accountant on such films as Justin Lin's Finishing the Game and Quentin Lee's Ethan Mao.

A young actor from Orange County, Andrew Vo, then 11, also appears in the film as Tsai's buddy.

The film opened in selected theaters nationally Friday 5 September 2008. In Orange County, it screens at Edwards University Town Center 6 across from the UCI campus.

Our interview with Yu and Tsai aired Monday, 8 September, 2008, from 9-10 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County, Calif.

Film web site: http://www.pingpongplaya.com/.

OC Register:

Review: www.ocregister.com/articles/ping-pong-movie-2144278-review-comedy.

KUCI alum Richard Chang's article: www.ocregister.com/articles/asian-american-tsai-2145420-ping-pong.

LA Times review:

NY Times review: movies.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/movies/05play.html?em.

Fandango listing: www.fandango.com/pingpongplaya_115690/movieoverview.

To listen to the program, click here: .

Celebrating the Life of Prof. Lindon Warren Barrett: Remembering Lindon

2008-07-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

Irvine -- On the 21 July 2008 edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we commemorated and celebrated the life of Prof. Lindon Warren Barrett, who was murdered in his home in Long Beach 7 July 2008.

Joining in reflecting on his life and scholarly career are colleagues and students who knew him, both during his long tenure at UCI and, more recently, at UC Riverside, where he ended up last year. He was a beloved English and African American studies professor at both schools, and for several years, director of the African American studies program at UCI. His family in Winnepeg, Canada, has posted this obituary in the Winnipeg Free Press: Obituary.

Born in 1961 in Guyana, he migrated to England when he was just one, moving to Canada in 1966. He grew up in Winnipeg, earning his BA from York University, an MA from the University of Denver, and ultimately a Ph.D from the University of Pennsylvania in 1990. His Ph.D thesis was titled: "In the dark: Issues of value, evaluation, and authority in twentieth century critical discourse" (216 pages, AAT 9101135; .Callalloo

Faculty participating in the memorial program are Katherine Kinney, who chairs the English department at UC Riverside, and her UCR colleague, George Haggerty and from UCI, History Prof. Winston James, who was until last month chair of African American studies program here.

Former UCI Ph.D students Arnold Pan (now teaching at UCI) and Lelia Neti (now at Occidental College) will also be participating. Jamie Park, former UCI undergraduate student and now pursuing her Ph.D at UCR, will also be on the program.

We'll also be reading tributes from other colleagues and friends of Lindon during the program.

This special program was also simulcast on KUCR, 88.3 AM in Riverside County via kuci.org. Our appreciation to KUCR for this collaboration.

To listen to the program, without the music, click here: .

A podcast of this program is now available at: podcasts.

Corrected Sunday July 20: There is no public memorial service in Long Beach Tuesday; the family plans to scatter his ashes in accordance with his wishes into the Pacific Ocean.

On Saturday August 23 a Canadian memorial service will be held in Winnipeg, MB, Canada.

Other services are envisioned at UCR and UCI later in the fall.

The family suggests in lieu of flowers, "[b]ecause of Lindon's love of reading, if so desired a donation to the Winnipeg Public Library or a charity encouraging literacy would be most appreciated. WPL donation page.

Other links:

OC Register's College Life blog:

Radio Tribute to Slain English Professor Lindon Barrett (about this program)

More on Death of English Professor Lindon Barrett

English Professor Found Slain

Los Angeles Times:

Slain Man Identified as UC Riverside Professor

Press-Telegram (Long Beach):

Popular professor found slain in LB

Press-Enterprise (Riverside):

Professor found dead hoped for change at UCR

Ned Ragget's Ponder it All blog:

RIP Lindon Barrett

Facebook page:

Lindon Barrett

Police report:
Murder

Remembering Photographer Dolores Neuman

2008-06-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

On the 23 June 2008 edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, in the first half-hour, we celebrated and remembered the life of photographer Dolores Neuman. The Washington-D.C.-based photographer documented social movements and the people within them. She was involved with CovertAction Information Bulletin (later CovertAction Quarterly), co-founded by her husband, Louis Wolf. She provided photography for "Northern Lights", a documentary about farmers in North Dakota, and Rob Epstein's "The Times of Harvey Milk," a documentary about the slain gay San Francisco supervisor. She was instrumental in promoting many independent films and independent directors. She was a founder of the Jewish Film Festival. She passed away June 5.

We talked with friends of Dolores Neuman, including Amanda Spake, former managing editor of "Mother Jones" magazine, and a writer and investigative reporter for national magazines and news outlets, specializing in health and medicine, environmental issues, education, food and drug safety, and consumer protection, focusing recently on post-Katrina investigations as a Katrina Media Fellow. She is a UC Irvine graduate.

We also talked with Janet Cole, a social-issue documentary film producer ("Absolutely Positive", "Regret to Inform," "Paragraph 175" and others) who had a close friendship with Dolores for almost 30 years.

During the late 1970s through the mid-1980s when the American independent film genre was first being coined and documentary films were initially being shown in U.S. theaters, Dolores was one of the first grassroots specialists in creative audience development: Working with independent theater owners and distributors to attract audiences to see such social-issue films. She worked with Janet Cole on two films, first "The War At Home," which they promoted together in SF and a few years later, "Soldier Girls".

Also joining in the conversation was another long-time friend, Rob Epstein, the director of "The Times of Harvey Milk."

See the obituary adapted from the Washington Post: "Dolores Neuman, 66; photographer, promoter for public interest causes."

See: Guest Book on Washington Post site

To listen to the show, click here: .

Earthquake Relief: Organizing to Help

2008-06-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

Irvine -- On our show airing 16 June 2008, KUCI's Subversity looks at how concerned UCI students and others helped spark relief efforts over the devastating earthquake in Sichuan, China last month.

We talk with Wei Li, a UCI doctoral student in Social Ecology, who spearheaded a relief drive at UC Irvine, raising over $30,000 in just days. He also organized a candlelight vigil at UCI for the victims of the earthquake.

Wei Li was born and raised in Shangqiu, Henan Province. He graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration from Renmin University of China (Beijing), after working as an undergraduate for the Chinese Young Volunteers Association. He begin his interests in environmental planning in 2003 by joining the MA program in Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo (Canada). He came to UCI in 2006 as a PhD student in Planning, Policy and Design, focusing on environmental policy and economics. He is currently working on a research project on how trees in Los Angeles influence house values.

Wei Li can be contacted at: mailto:%20wli3@uci.edu.

He is working with the Orange County Chinese Professional Association on handling further donations.

UCI news profile: Campus responds to crisis.

To listen to the show, click here: .

Demystifying Diasporic Vietnamese Politics

2008-06-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

On our 9 June 2008 edition, Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, features a conversation with an editor and journalist who was fired from the country's top Vietnamese-language newspaper in a failed attempt to appease anti-communist protesters, and who has now resurrected himself as a blogger writing about Vietnamese diasporic politics in and beyond Little Saigon. We talk with the writer who goes by the moniker "Bolsavik".

The Bolsavik's meek alter ego is Hao-Nhien Vu, a mathematician with a knack for telling the truth, he says. He was previously employed at Nguoi Viet Daily News, the largest Vietnamese-language newspaper in California and probably in the country. For four years he was the Managing Editor, until anti-communist protests over an artwork involving a pedicure spa caused the paper to fire him. Since then, he has been writing and editing the blog Bolsavik.com, which is playing a major role demystifying all that's happening within the Vietnamese American community here in Orange County and elsewhere.

Our interview with The Bolsavik (coined from Bolsa, the main drag in Little Saigon, and Bolshevik) is set against continuing demonstrations against his former newspaper, Nguoi Viet, as well as against Viet Weekly, another publication in the region. Our earlier interview with Publisher Le Vu of the Viet Weekly appears here: mp3 audio.

To listen to the show with the Bosavik, click here: .

A new profile of Subversity's show host appears on the KUCI web site: "Spotlight on Dan Tsang.".

An earlier Subversity interview with outgoing UCI History Prof. Mike Davis is extracted in AMASS, issue 29 (2008), pp. 32-35: "The War at Home: Interview with Mike Davis" by Dan Tsang. (The issue is available from Atomic Books, or directly from the publisher, Society for Popular Democracy, see: Subscriptions).

Filming Up the Yangtze; APIAVote Town Hall Highlights

2008-05-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

Irvine -- On the 19 May edition of KUCI's Subversity program, we talked with independent film director Yung Chang, whose exquisite documentary, "Up the Yangtze," has opened nationally. In the second part of the program, we bring you highlights from the APIAVote Town Hall at UC Irvine, which heard from Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, as they reached out to the API community. John McCain did not appear but sent a surrogate, Assemblyman Van Tran. Third party candidates were not included.

Just days after a devastating earthquake hit southwestern China, the opening of "Up the Yangtze" gives audiences a cinematic look at more of the travails faced by ordinary Chinese as their county embraces modernization. Yung Chang, a Canadian Chinese filmmaker, talks about why he made his film, an "Upstairs. Downstairs" take on the crew and tourists on a luxury cruise ship that traverses the Yangtze as the Three Gorges dam project moves inexorably to its completion. His film focuses on two workers on the ship: a cocky and handsome young man who explains how he charms tourists to part with their tips, and a more quiet young girl who toils to clean dishes, a job she needs to help bring income to her family whose home is destroyed and flooded by the Three Gorges project. Chang talks about how progress in China is very complicated. He also explains how his film led to brighter futures for both workers; the film's web site indicates how one can help.

In OC, the film is showing at Regency South Coast Village in Santa Ana; it is also in Los Angeles etc. A Sundance documentary film award winner, it screened earlier at the Newport Beach Film Festival last month and won a special grand jury award at the Asian Pacific American Film Festival in Los Angeles.

We also bring you highlights from the historic first town hall organized by Asian/Pacific Islander Americans, that took place this past Saturday at UC Irvine. Hilary Clinton appeared on a live video screen, answering questions submitted earlier, while Barrack Obama, on a live telephone feed, took questions from a panel of API activists; Obama, born in Hawaii, also identified himself as a Pacific Islander and a "Native Hawaiian". The event was ignored by the mainstream media.

News Update: Show host Dan Tsang was quoted in Sing Tao (Chinese) after the California Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage:

LA edition: www.singtaousa.com/051608/la080516c1.php

HK edition: singtao.com/oversea/0517ao27.html

Other Resources:

Up the Yangtze: http://www.uptheyangtze.com/

LA Times review: www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/reviews/la-et-yangtze16-2008may16,0,1167214.story

Variety coverage: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117984283.html?categoryid=2520&cs=1

NY Times review: http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/movies/25yang.html?ref=movies

APIAVote: http://www.apiavote.org/

Early town hall news and blog coverage:

Nikkei View: www.nikkeiview.com/blog/2008/05/17/twittering-the-apia-vote-town-hall/

Vien Dong (Vietnamese): www.viendongdaily.com/Contents.aspx?contentid=3888&item=Tin%20Hoa%20K%E1%BB%B3

Sing Tao (Chinese): www.singtaousa.com/051808/la080518a1.php

To listen to this show, click here: .

The Man of Two Havanas Director Speaks Out vs. U.S. Embargo of Cuba

2008-05-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

Irvine -- In our next edition, airing Monday May 5 2008 at 9 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County, and on the web simultaneously via kuci.org, we talk with the director of "The Man of Two Havanas".

Max Lesnik, the director's father, with Fidel Castro

Vivien Lesnik Weisman, in her documentary, takes a look back at her father and her life with him as he survived numerous bombing attempts by Cuban exiles in Little Havana, not unlike the situation of intimidation and domestic terrorism faced by some outspoken Vietnamese exiles in Little Saigon. We talk about her film and why she wanted to make it, as well as what it was like to live in Miami as a small girl. The film argues that the U.S. embargo against Cuba hurts the people in Cuba as well as Cuban exiles abroad.

Biographical info: Vivien Lesnik Weisman was born in Havana, Cuba. After graduating from Barnard College and New York Law School, she received an M.F.A. in directing from the UCLA School of Film and Television.

Her numerous awards include the presti- gious UCLA Spotlight Award for Best Dramatic Short, the Houston Film Festival Best Short Award and a Golden Eagle for Excellence in Latino Filmmaking.

A student of acclaimed documentarian Marina Goldovskaya, Weisman recently won IFP New York's Fledging Fund Award for a Work-in-Progress for The Man of Two Havanas, her first documentary. She resides in Santa Monica with her son, Richard Jr.

Her father, Max Lesnik, director of Radio Miami, has been the number one target of anti-Castro terrorists and considered the most controversial figure in the Cuban exile community. He was a prominent revolutionary when he left Cuba due to ideological differences with his then-friend, Fidel Castro. In Miami, he took a position that was both against the Cuban government as well as against the U.S. policy toward Cuba. Mr. Lesnik became the publisher of Replica. The magazine was a forum for debate, as well as for Mr. Lesnik's incendiary point of view. Mr. Lesnik's position soon evolved to include dialogue with the Cuban government and recently he revived his friendship with Castro. Mr. Lesnik has been the target of anti-Castro terrorists. They have tried unsuccessfully to murder him; nine bombs have gone off at his office in Little Havana.

The film recently aired in Orange County at the Newport Beach Film Festival.

Film web site: manoftwohavanas.com/About.html

The show airs during KUCI's pledge drive. Please support the only public-radio station from OC and to support shows like Subversity. To pledge, go to www.kuci.org/funddrive.html.

Meanwhile, the Asian Pacific Film Festival continues in Los Angeles: http://www.vconline.org/.

To listen to this show, click here: .

Films on Boys in Jordan; Women in Indonesia

2008-04-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

Irvine -- For the April 28, 2008 edition of Subversity on KUCI, we talk with the directors of two new films from Jordan and Indonesia showing at the Newport Beach Film Festival and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival respectively.

In part 1 of the show, we talk with Director/Writer/Producer Amin Matalqa about his new film, "Captain Abu Raed" which screened at Sundance (where it won the World Cinema Audience award this year) and is the first feature film from Jordan in decades. Set in contemporary Jordan, the title character is a lonely janitor at Amman's international airport who befriends a group of neighborhood boys. Matalqa immigrated to the U.S. from Jordan at age 13, who decided to move from the telecommunications industry in Ohio to become a filmmaker in Los Angeles. Among the cast members is established Jordanian actor Nadim Sawalha, in the title role. Sawalha has been featured in British televsion as well as in two James Bond films, "The Spy Who Loved Me" and "The Living Daylights." He also appeared in "Syriana" opposite George Clooney. Sawalha won the 2007 best actor award at the Dubai International Film Festival.

Captain Abu Raed is the closing night film of the Newport Beach Film Festival, on Thursday, 1 May, at the Regency Lido Theatre in Newport Beach.

Film festival site: http://www.newportbeachfilmfest.com/

Film showing info: newportbeach.bside.com/2008/films/captainaburaed_newportbeach2008

Trailer: " blog.spout.com/2008/01/23/sundance-trailer-captain-abu-raed/

In part 2, we talk with Co-director Fatimah Tobing Rony, a UCI film and media studies professor. "Chants of Lotus" (Perempuan Punya Cerita) is a four-part film dissecting the social situation of women in frenetic, modern-day Indonesia. The film stars some of the major Indonesian actresses and the premiere showing in Indonesia was heavily censored. This Los Angeles showing is of the 35 mm original print, and uncensored. The film has its U.S. premiere Sunday, May 4, at 5 p.m. at the Directors Guild of America, Theater 2 as part of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

Film festival site: http://www.vconline.org/

Film showing info: www.vconline.org/festival/program.cfm?program_id=38

Trailer: www.kalyanashira.com/perempuanpunyacerita/trailer_tinggi.php

To listen to the entire Subversity show, click here:

Actor, Director, Model Edward Gunawan

2008-03-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

Irvine -- On the next edition of Subversity, broadcasting Monday, 31 March, 2008, we talk with actor, director and model Edward Gunawan about his career in film and modeling. Gunawan, who was born in Indonesia and grew up in Singapore, lives in southern California. He's graced the cover of Frontiers, a local gay magazine and appeared in print ads for Honda and Nokia as well as TV ads. As a filmmaker, Gunawan is making his directorial debut with Laundromat, a short film he also wrote and produced. His short film Just (as writer, actor & producer) recently won the Top 5 Films Award at the 9th PlanetOut Short Movie Competition. He recently earned an MBA from Loyola Marymount University and completed a filmmaking fellowship at the Film Independent' (formerly IFP West) Project:Involve in 2007, with Academy Award� winner Chris Tashima as his mentor.

His website: www.edwardgunawan.com
Interview on Fridae: www.fridae.com/newsfeatures/article.php?articleid=2174$
Frontiers interview: www.frontierspublishing.com/2621/agenda/agenda_fd.html

To listen to the entire Subversity show, click here: . Apologies for the background audio for the first part of the interview.

Behind America's Obsession with Sex Scandals

2008-03-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

Why the national obsession with sex scandals, most recently in the governor's office, before and after (New York and New Jersey)? And is the stoic wife all that unknowing? Is monogamy doomed for straight couples?

On our next show, 24 March 2008, Subversity talks with activist writer and former sex worker Tony Valenzuela. He worked in the commercial sex industry for about 5 years, including being an escort during that time (1997 to around 2002). A leader of the national Sex Panic activism of the late 1990's, he continues today to be a critic of how mainstream culture, including the gay community, handles matters of sexuality, especially publicly.

A long-time activist based in Southern California, he works on sexual politics, HIV and gay men's health. He writes for LA Weekly, Frontiers, Zyzzyva and is working on a book on gay men and risk.

He last appeared on Subversity in November 1997.

To listen to the entire Subversity show, click here:

Winter Soldier 2008: Anti-war Veterans Speak Out

2008-03-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

As anti-war activists observe the 5th anniversary of the Iraq Invasion by the U.S., more and more veterans are themselves speaking out against the war; this past weekend as many anti-war activists took to the streets, veterans of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and other countries testified at Winter Solder: Iraq and Afghanistan 2008, about what they experienced while supposedly spreading "democracy" abroad.

We listen to the travails of a U.S. permanent resident, who signed up for the Marines, was among the first Marine units to be deployed to Iraq, but when he returned from Iraq, was taken from Camp Pendleton and incarcerated in San Diego, on deportation charges.

Courtesy of Pacific radio KPFA's War Comes Home project, archived testimony is available online and portions will be aired on Subversity this Monday 17 March 2008.

The audio is made available through a creative commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

Resources:

War Comes Home site: http://www.warcomesehome.org/

Iraq Veterans Against the War: http://www.ivaw.org/

To listen to the entire Subversity show, click here:

Summer of Love and the Origins of the Counter-Culture

2008-03-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

How did the counter-culture and its music get started back in 1967? On our 10 March 2008 of Subversity, courtesy of the Commonwealth Club of California radio program, we look back at the Summer of Love at 40, with a program that the club first aired last August, as we recall the contributions of George "Skip" Gay. Dr. Gay, who died last month, pioneered drug treatment at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, whose founder, Dr. David E. Smith, is featured on the program (and the only one wearing a tie).

Other guests on the program are: Paul Krassner, founder, the Realist Magazine; Wavy Gravy, activist and clown, former Frozen Dessert; Wes "Scoop" Nisker, author, radio commentator, former DJ, KSAN, with moderator Peter Finch, co-host of KFOG Morning Show. Smith is now executive director of the Prometa Center for Addiction.

Subversity thanks Commonwealth Club radio producer Ricardo Esway for permission to air this historic program.

Obituary of Dr. George "Skip" Gay:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03$

https://www.commonwealthclub.org/broadcast/

To listen to the entire Subversity show where this program aired, click here:

Talking Sex: In Hong Kong and in the U.S.

2008-02-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

In our next edition of KUCI's Subversity show airing Monday, 25 February 2008, we focus on sex talk -- in Hong Kong as well as stateside.

In Part 1: We air a dispatch from National Radio Project's Making Contact, "Still Talking About Sex," which features former U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders. In 1993, Elders became the first African American Surgeon General of the United States. Criticized and attacked for her public statements promoting comprehensive sex education, the distribution of condoms in public schools, and the possibility of the legalization of drugs, Elders was forced to resign about a year later. The statement Elders is often remembered for is when she said masturbation is a part of human sexuality, and so perhaps it should be taught to children. On this edition, of Making Contact, we'll hear from the former surgeon who to this day remains a fierce advocate for health related policies.

In Part 2: We delve into the Edison Chen sex scandal that has gripped Hong Kong and the surrounding region for a month. The hip hop singer and actor has now admitted taking most of the hundreds of photographs circulating on the Internet showing him in bed (separately) with up to a half dozen local starlets. We discuss the legal and civil rights implications in the current law enforcement crackdown in the wake of the theft of his images.

Links:

Latest Edison Chen apology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewAKWEeC0IU

Earlier Edison Chen apology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIIwhbMRXe4&feature=related

Jeff Chang 2006 profile of Edison Chen: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/11/DDGOLLLO541.DTL

To listen to the entire Subversity show, click here:

The Passion & Politics of Coffee

2008-02-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

For Subversity's 11 February 2008 show at 9 am on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County, Calif., we talked with Martin Diedrich, the founder and master roaster of Kean Coffee in Newport Beach. Best known for Diedrich's Coffee which he ran for many years, Diedrich grew up in Guatemala, where his family owned a small coffee farm. He founded the first Diedric$ Coffee in Costa Mesa in 1984. Under his direction, Diedrich Coffee became well-known as an OC institution. In its new permutation, Kean Coffee (named after his son), Diedrich attempts to continue social responsibility and community values tha$ he believes a social entrepreneur must commit himself to.

We talked about the Starbucks, the Irvine Company, and how to maintain an independent and unique coffeeshop amidst all this homogenization and Starbucksization. We also discussed how Vietnam entered the world coffee market and what is fair trade coffee.

For more information, see:

Kean Coffee: http://www.keancoffee.com/

Selected Articles in OC Weekly:
Coffee. Talk. No. 9: Kean Coffee keeps it real in this mixed-up, crazy corporate world, by Nick Schou.

'Back to Square One': Martin Diedrich Celebrates the Death of His Family's Coffee Chain, by Nich Schou.

A Reality Shrine for a Wired World: The Year in Coffeehouse Founder Carl Diedrich, by Nathan Callahan

The Politics of Food show on KUCI An interview with coffee guru Martin Diedrich about his new Coffeehouse in Costa Mesa named after his son Kean. 2/9/06

To listen to the entire 11 February 2008 Subversity show, click here:

Satire: Christian Zionism in Bush's America

2008-02-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

On our 4 February 2008 show, we talked with Irving Wesley Hall, the author of a new satirical work, ."Einstein Sisters Bag theFlying Monkeys: A Political Satire about Christian Zionism in Bush's America"

To listen to the entire show, click here:

Ngugi on Being a Writer in a Society in Crisis on the occasion of his 70th Birthday

2008-01-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

Irvine -- As UC Irvine prepares to celebrate "Ngugi's Spirit," on Saturday (see below), for our Martin Luther King Day show this Monday at 9 a.m., Subversity converses with Distinguished Prof. Ngugi wa Thiong'o on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Ngugi is the Director of the acclaimed International Center for Writing and Translation at UCI. He is also a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature with Comparative Literature as his home department.

Joining us in the conversation on "Being a Writer in a Society in Crisis" is Gabriele Schwab, Chancellor's Prof. of English and Comparative Literature at UCI. We'll focus on the current turmoil in Kenya.

One of the foremost contemporary African writers and an exile of Kenya and former political prisoner, Ngugi's work as literary figure, activist, and academic testify to his relentless passion and commitment to deliver much needed critique. In 2006 Ngugi published his first novel in nearly two decades, the critically lauded and lengthy The Wizard and the Crow, which went on to win the California Gold Award for fiction in 2007.

To listen to the entire show, click here:

In Ngugi's Spirit: Saturday 26 January 2008 at UC Irvine
The University of California, Irvine is delighted to announce the event, In Ngugis Spirit, to be held at the University of California, Irvines Crystal Cove auditorium on January 26th. Gabriele Schwab, Chancellors Professor of English and Comparative Literature, and David " Theo Goldberg, Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Humanities Research Institute, invite the community to join them in honoring the life and work of the world-renowned poet, playwright, novelist and post-colonial theorist Ngugi wa Thiongo on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Ngugi is the Director of the acclaimed International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine, a university treasure originally made possible through the endowment of Humanities alumnus Glenn Schaeffer. He is also a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature with Comparative Literature as his home department.

One of the foremost contemporary African writers and an exile of Kenya and former political prisoner, Ngugis work as literary figure, activist, and academic testify to his relentless passion and commitment to deliver much needed critique. In 2006 Ngugi published his first novel in nearly two decades, the critically lauded The Wizard and the Crow, which went on to win the California Gold Award for fiction in 2007.

Opening at 5:30 pm, In Ngugis Spirit will begin with remarks from UC Irvines Chancellor Michael Drake and Kenyan Ambassador Zachary Dominic Muburi-Muita and proceed with a special talk from Professor and fellow activist Angela Davis, poetry readings by poet, critic and activist Mukoma Wa Ngugi (Ngugis son) and acclaimed indigenous poet, writer and activist Simon J. Ortiz. Following this opening, guests will be invited to a reception and book signing with Ngugi and the guest speakers. At 8 pm, Humanities Dean Vicki Ruiz will open the next session, which will include poetry readings from much-admired African American poets Sonia Sanchez and Jerry Quickley. The evening will conclude with Chinese Music/African Dance: Translation and Performance, a unique event featuring Liu Sola, internationally reknowned Chinese composer, singer, writer and performer, and Koffi Koko, internationally acclaimed African Dancer.

In Ngugis Spirit is sponsored by The UC Humanities Research Institute; The Executive Vice Chancellors Office; The Dean of Humanities; The Departments of Comparative Literature, English, African-American, East Asian Languages and Literatures, German, Spanish and Music; The Critical Theory Institute; The Critical Theory Emphasis; and the Chancellor Professors Research Fund.

Remembering Former CIA Officer/Whistleblower Philip Agee

2008-01-14T09:00:00.000-08:00

Irvine -- On our next show, Subversity honors the progressive work of a friend of Subversity, Philip Agee, who resigned after 12 years as a case officer in the CIA and began exposing the CIA's "dirty tricks" in the covert operations the U.S. engaged in around the world. He leaves as his legacy his principled and consistent efforts in counteracting U.S. subversion of people's struggles around the world. He died 7 January 2008 in Havana, Cuba from complications from ulcer treatment.

We talk with his close friend, collaborator, co-author and fellow traveler, Louis Wolf, a co-founder of CovertAction Information Bulletin (later Quarterly) about Phil Agee's progressive work.

A. Selected Articles by Philip Agee:
A Shameful Injustice: Cuba's 50-year defiance of US attempts to isolate it is an inspiration to Latin America's people:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/mar/10/comment.cuba
Terrorism and Civil Society: The Instruments of US Policy in Cuba:www.counterpunch.org/agee08092003.html
Terrorismo y Sociedad Civil como Instrumentos de la Politica Estadounidense en Cuba:www.manueltalens.com/ultima_hora/46agee.htm
Tracking Covert Actions into the Future:mediafilter.org/MFF/CovOps.html
A Stunning Contrast: The Descent of the US; The Rise of Latin America:www.counterpunch.org/agee03142007.html
Producing the Proper Crisis:groups.google.com/group/alt.journalism.newspapers/browse_thread/thread/45777d57195aad22
B. Philip Agee on Video:video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&resnum=0&q=philip+agee&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv

C. Philip Agee on Democracy Now:www.democracynow.org/2005/7/27/flashback_renegade_cia_officer_phillip_agee

D. Obituaries:
New York Times: www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/obituaries/10agee.html?_r=1&oref=slogin (free login)Guardian: www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2238010,00.htmlLondon Times: www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3162281.eceIndependent: news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article3328353.ece El Pais: www.elpais.com/articulo/Necrologicas/Philip/Agee/ex/agente/CIA/elpepinec/20080110elpepinec_1/TesDie Tageszeitung: www.taz.de/1/politik/amerika/artikel/1/der-beste-feind-der-cia/?src=SE&cHash=703d9224f5

To listen to the entire show, click here:

Anis Shivani on What's Behind the Current Pakistan Crisis

2008-01-07T09:00:00.001-08:00

Irvine -- To kick off our new Winter 2007 season on KUCI, Subversity Monday 7 January features a discussion with a freelance writer, poet and fiction writer, Anis Shivani, about what has led to the current crisis facing Pakistan.

Shivani is also a literary critic based in Houston, Texas. He was born in Pakistan, but has spent most of his life in the U.S. He wrote for the leading Pakistani newspaper Dawn throughout the 1990s, engaging with the democratic politics of that era. His fiction typically deals with the difficulties of attaining true pluralism and tolerance in today's multicultural societies, and with the assorted disorders of postcolonial culture. His writings also engage with the present rise of fascistic tendencies in the U.S. His novel in progress, Intrusion, is about an American anthropologist studying an urban squatter settlement in contemporary Pakistan.

His essays have often appeared in CounterPunch.

To listen to the entire show, click here:

Remembering Community Historian Allan Berube

2007-12-31T09:00:00.000-08:00

Irvine -- As 2007 comes to an end, we remember friends and activists who have passed on.

On Subversity's New Year's Eve show, we celebrate and honor the engaged life of Allan Berube, a community historian, who documented the lives of gays in the military, and who received a MacArthur Foundation award. His book, Coming Out Under Fire, was developed into a film by documentary filmmaker Arthur Dong. Berube, who helped found the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco, died December 11, 2007.

We talk with several fellow travelers of Berube's, including fellow historian Gerard Koskovich and activist Amber Hollibaugh about Berube's role in the gay liberation movement and his impact on a whole new generation of queer scholarship and activism.

Gerard Koskovich is a San Francisco-based editor, writer, historian, and rare book dealer and collector. He is the staff liaison for the American Society on Aging's Lesbian and Gay Aging Issues Network. His entry on LGBT archives and libraries in the United States is forthcoming in the three-volume reference work LGBTQ America Today (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2008). Recent publications include an extensive French-language portfolio on the GLBT Historical Society published in volume 6 of Triangulere (Paris: Editions Christophe Gendron, December 2006), an annual review of queer arts and culture, and "The 'Modest Collection' of Bud Flounders: How 5,400 Gay Novels Came to Green Library," published in the fall 2005 issue of Imprint, the journal of the Associates of the Stanford University Libraries. Amber Hollibaugh, senior strategist at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, formerly was the director of education, advocacy and community building at SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders). She was the first director of the Lesbian AIDS Project at Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) in New York. She is a well-known activist, artist, writer and community organizer. She is author of My Dangerous Desires: a Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home. She also co-produced and directed The Heart of the Matter, a documentary about women's sexuality and HIV risk, which won the 1994 Sundance Festival Freedom of Expression Award and ran on the PBS series, P.O.V.

Have a safe and productive new year!
See obituaries:
New York Times: obit.
Los Angeles Times: obit.
Bay Area Reporter: obit
Sullivan County Democrat: obit.

To listen to the entire show, click here:

Hoang Tan Bui Case Settlement

2007-12-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

Irvine -- On this Christmas Eve edition of Subversity, we look back at the Hoang Tan Bui case, where a Westminster police officer, later fired, ran over Bui, causing massive injuries that killed him. This past week, his family settled the case against the City of Westminster for less than $1 million.

We look back at the case that we first covered over two years ago, when we interviewed Hoang Bui's wife, Phuong, who was then spending her first Thanksgiving with her two children without their father, a Caucasian-Vietnamese. The case sparked intense community protest with community meetings as well as a march against police headquarters. The case continues with the Bui family's lawsuit against the city over a ban on grieving their loss at the site of the incident. That case goes to court in March, 2008, where the family is represented by attorney Michael Avila.

See Deepa Bharath's article: "Court Oks Westminster Police Settlement," Orange County Register, 19 December 2007, as well as the reader comments.

See also Trinh Luu's article, "The Hoang Tan Bui case: What are they not telling us?" in the Fall 2005 edition of Jaded, a UCI alternative Asian Pacific American magazine, p.7. The piece was written right before two years before the settlement.

We dedicate the show to the memory of a fellow traveller, Alan Berube, a community activist cum historian, who won the MacArthur Foundation award after his work on gays in the military. He passed away 11 December 2007 at the age of 61.

To listen to the entire show, click here:

What Constitutes Torture?

2007-12-17T09:00:00.000-08:00

Irvine -- As Congress and various agencies begin investigating the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes and as Congress moves to restrict certain types of interrogation techniques, Subversity talks with a Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) staff member about what constitutes torture. For example, does forcing someone to stand for hours constitute torture? Hint: Watch: Waiting for the Guards video from Amnesty International.

On our Monday, 17 December, 2007 show we chatted with Lynne Kates. She is the CCR's Organizer for the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative. She is an active member of the National Lawyers Guild and co-chair of its Middle East subcommittee, and is a community activist with New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine and Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition. She received her JD in 2006 from Rutgers University School of Law, and her BA in 2002 from Rutgers University.

Kates cited the case of Maher Ara, the Canadian national who was "renditioned" and tortured by the CIA. See Ara Commission from Canada.

We also aired a segment from National Radio Project's Making Contact, on "The War on Torture: U.S. Policy Exposed," with analysis from Law and Philosophy Prof. David Luban of Georgetown University.
To listen to the entire show, click here:

Government Surveillance post-9/11: Student Activist Gets FBI Visit

2007-12-10T09:00:00.000-08:00

Irvine -- US law (the Privacy Act) prohibits the federal government from collecting or retaining information about the First-Amendment-related activities of citizens and permanent residents but since 9/11, all bets are off it seems. A Washington Asian American student activist was visited 29 November (last month) by the FBI at his residence after he spoke out against "Islamo-Fascism" week.

On the 10 December 2007 edition of Subversity, we chat with Shemon Salam about what happened, what this portends for activists today and more generally about the state of activism today, especially among Asian Americans.

Salam is a University of Washington graduate student and an Asian American Muslim. He has been an anti-war and Palestine solidarity activist for the past six years. He has also been involved with anti-fascist organizing, and been active countering police brutality and immigrant deportation.

See his: "A Visit from the FBI: When Fear is Not an Option," CounterPunch, 1 December 2007.

To listen to the show, click here:

Subversity Archive

Emmy Nomination for A Village Called Versailles

Saving Chinatown, Riverside

Edgy City: Urban/Rural Space and Ho Chi Minh City

Greg Louganis Speaks at UCI Graduation

Louganis in video feed

Louis Wolf on Investigative Reporting Before WikiLeaks

UC Students Face 8% Fee Hike

Adam Bereki's Lawsuit vs. Huntington Beach Police Department

Russell Curry on Visiting Gaza

UCI students protest Israeli peace flotilla massacre.

All photographs © Daniel C. Tsang

Israeli Massacre on High Seas: Gaza Peace Flotilla Stopped

Vietnamese Americans Mobilize in S. Leo Chiang's A Villlage Called Versailles

Laura Poitras' The Oath; Gilbert G. Gonzalez and Vivian Price's Harvest of Loneliness

Mexican nationals in tomato harvest, Muri Ranch on Roberts Island, San Joaquin Valley.Photograph published in: California Annual Farm Labor Report, 1951. Sacramento: State of California, Farm Placement Service. Part of Immigrant Lives in 'the O.C.' & Beyond exhibit at UCI Libraries in 2008-2009.

Orange County Treasurer's Race

AOKI: On Asian American Co-Founder of Black Panther Party

Two Film Festivals: Interviews

My Lai Documentary Director Barak Goodman

Remembering People's Historian Him Mark Lai

Police Misconduct and Community Strategies for Justice

UCI law students Denisha McKensie, David Rodwin and Vivian Lee interviewed on KUCI. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010. UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Irvine 11 Speak-Out; Angela Davis; New Show Time

Angela Davis after March 8, 2010 talk at UCI. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010. UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Hyde Amendment & Health Care; Immigration Reform

UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Suspicious Activity Reporting Goes National

PRA's Tom Cincotta speaks at CAIR forum on Suspicious Activity Reporting. Photograph © Daniel C. Tsang, 2010. UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

March 4, 2010 Rally at UC Irvine

Russell Curry ("Sonny Boy") rallies crowd to "Put your fist in the sky" at March 4 rally at UC Irvine. Photograph © Daniel C. Tsang. UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

A Look Back at a Tumultous Week (UCI Sit-in...); Iranian Women Agitate

UCI Student Affairs Vice Chancellor Manuel Gomez on 1st Amendment & Student Activism

Manuel Gomez in his plush office. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang, 2010. UPDATED: To listen to audio, click here: .

UCI Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky on the First Amendment

Erwin Chemerinsky, left, with students after his talk. Photograph © Daniel C. Tsang 2010. UPDATED with audio link: To listen to audio, click here: .

Sexual Minorities to March in Little Saigon Tet Parade

Gina Masequesmay. Photo from CSUN web-site. UPDATED with audio links: To listen to audio, click here: .

Dang Nhat Minh's antiwar film, Don't Burn

The diarist, Dang Thuy Tram (left).

Dang Nhat Minh & Kieu Chinh at USC 23 January 2010. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010

Dang Nhat Minh answers a question during panel discussion at USC. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010.

Peter Donohue on UC's Hidden Wealth: Another Look

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

UCI Chancellor Drake Grilled by Students

Chancellor Drake listens as the spouse of an outsourced worker asks in Spanish to be treated with dignity, captivating the audience. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010

UCI Students Fight Fee Hikes

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

UCI Students Fight Back Against Fee Increases

From Liberation Struggle to University President

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

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.

Historic Walkout Rally and Teach-ins at UC Irvine

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.

UCI Disorientation Week

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

UCI Dean Sharon Salinger on Closing SAAS

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

John Prados on the CIA and Vietnam

Lincoln Cushing on American Labor Posters

Mark LeVine on UC's Future

UCI Students & Alumni Organize to Save SAAS!

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

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

Unions Speak Out on UC Furloughs/Pay Cuts

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

Hai Vo on Sustainable Eating

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

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

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

UC's Budget Cuts and Disciplining Academic Labor

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

California Propositions; Tax Me?

Campus Activism Not Dead!

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

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/.

Mexican nationals in tomato harvest, Muri Ranch on Roberts Island, San Joaquin Valley.
Photograph published in: California Annual Farm Labor Report, 1951. Sacramento: State of California, Farm Placement Service. Part of Immigrant Lives in 'the O.C.' & Beyond exhibit at UCI Libraries in 2008-2009.