Katrina's Hidden Story: Race War?

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

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.

See also:

Bill Ayers blog: billayers.wordpress.com

Bill Ayers, "The Real Bill Ayers," New York Times, 5 December 2008 (op ed).

Beacon Press' Fugitive Days site: www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?SKU=3277

Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn on Democracy Now:

14 November 2008: Part 1

24 November 2008: Part 2

Rightwing video using Subversity audio: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xBlTdsnOh8 This youtube video has now been viewed over 82,000 times, most of the viewings before the election;at 5:32 credit for audio is given to "University of Irvine" Subversity show.

Blogger with clip from Fox News crediting KUCI-FM for Ayers quote: patriotroom.com/ayers-2002-radio-interview-i-am-a-marxist-i-am-an-anarchist-i-regret-nothing/

To listen to the show, click here:

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

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

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

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

More on Subversity blog.

Immigration will surely be one of the issues the incoming Obama administration will be addressing. Latest federal ICE statistics show 349,041 immigrants were deported in the past year (through Septembe 2008), up from 288,663 the previous fiscal year (see jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/11/us-deporting-record-levels-of.php).

For our November 10, 2008 edition, Subversity, a KUCI public affairs show, presents our interview with UCI labor historian Gilbert Gonzales on Mexican Labor migration and its roots in U.S. imperialism. He addresses the tumultuous history of Mexican labor in the United States and in Orange County.

This is a repeat show from May Day 2006 and we present it as the UCI Libraries opens the following Tuesday (November 18) a Fall exhibit on "Immigrant Lives in 'The OC' and Beyond," curated by the show host. Prof. Gonzales' research on a citrus strike in 1930s Orange County is among the areas featured in the exhibit.

To listen to the entire show, click here:

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

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: .