Now Playing: Going Big November 10, 2009
08.14.2009 Originally aired 09.26.2008
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364: Going Big
Stories about people who take grand, sweeping approaches to solving problems of all sorts. Prologue.Host Ira Glass introduces a story on the most ambitious and hopeful solution to urban poverty in the country—the Harlem Children’s Zone. The project’s goal is nothing less than changing the lives of thousands of children in Harlem, starting at birth and continuing until they go to college. (2 minutes) Act One. Harlem Renaissance. Paul Tough reports on the Harlem Children’s Zone, and its CEO and president, Geoffrey Canada. Among the project’s many facets is Baby College, an 8-week program where young parents and parents-to-be learn how to help their children get the education they need to be successful. Tough’s just-published book about Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem’s Children Zone is called Whatever It Takes. You can see a slideshow of more photographs from the project here. (30 and 1⁄2 minutes) Act Two. Lonely Hearts Club Band . . . Of One. Musician David Berkeley has gotten a lot of requests in his life, but none quite like the offer his agent got last year. A fan wanted Berkeley to come to his house and help save his relationship by serenading the troubled couple with a personal concert. Ira Glass talks to Berkeley about why he took the gig, and what happened when he got there. Berkeley’s newest album is called Strange Light. His website, along with free downloads, is here. (12 and 1⁄2 minutes) Song: “Isn’t It Romantic,” Ella Fitzgerald Act Three. Prisoner of the Heart. Writer Doug McGray tells the story of a daughter who wanted to be closer to her mom, and went to extremes to do it. Doug McGray is a fellow at the New America Foundation. (9 and 1⁄2 minutes) Song: “The Confluence,” David Berkeley |
Yes We Did (Marianne Willamson) November 6, 2009
YES WE DID
By Marianne Williamson
America has had a non-violent revolution.
As long as there are historians writing about the United States, this moment of fundamental re-alignment of our national purpose will be remembered, pored over and analyzed. It will be seen as one of the shining points along the evolutionary arc of the American story. Yet it will never submit itself to being summed up in a nice little package that reason alone can understand.
It’s been noted before that Americans get excited about politics every forty years. Then, in the words of comedian Will Rogers, “We have to go sleep it off.”
We were certainly excited in the l960’s. And this is 2008; exactly forty years since the most dramatic and violent year of the Sixties decade: the year when both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were literally killed before our eyes.
At that point, a generation of young people — looking much like the youthful army so out in full force today, only grungier — marched in the streets to repudiate an oppressive system and to try to stop an unjust war. And then bullets stopped us. The shots that killed the Kennedy’s and King carried a loud, unspoken message for all of us: that we were to go home now, that we were to do whatever we wanted within the private sector, yet leave the public sector to whomever wanted it so much that they were willing to kill for it. And for all intents and purposes, we did as we were told.
According to ancient Asian philosophers, history moves not in a circle but in a spiral. Whether as an individual or as a nation, whatever lessons we were presented once and failed to learn will come back again but in a different form. For the generation of the Sixties and for our children, the lessons of that time — as well as its hopes and dreams and idealism — came back in 2008.
During our forty years in the desert, we learned many things. Then, we marched in the streets; this time, we marched to the polls. Then, we shouted, “Hell no, we won’t go!” This time, we shouted, “Yes, we can.” Then, we were so angry that our anger consumed us. This time, we made a more compassionate humanity the means by which we sought our goal as well as the goal itself.
In the words of Gloria Steinem, “I feel like our future has come back.” And indeed it has. For in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “No lie can last forever.” What Bobby Kennedy tried to do, and was killed for trying; what Martin Luther King tried to do, and was killed for trying; what the students at Kent state were trying to protest, and were killed for daring to; Barack Obama and his army of millions of idealists with the audacity to hope have now succeeded at doing.
Praise God. Praise God.
And that praise to God didn’t just go out last night, when Obama’s election to the Presidency was finally achieved. That praise was part of what allowed the waters to part here in the first place. Millions of Americans have been deeply aware that this kind of historic and fundamentally positive effort has not gone well in the recent past, and the spiritual understanding of this generation of Americans — an understanding not yet fully formed forty years ago — created an invisible light around the Obama campaign. How many people over the last twenty-one months have posted, in their own way, angels to Obama’s left and angels to his right, angels in front of him and angels behind him, angels above him and angels below him? I know I have, and so has everyone I know. Hopefully we will continue to do so.
The Obama phenomenon did not come out of nowhere. It emerged as much from our story as from his — as much from our yearning for meaning as from his ambition to be President; as much from our determination to achieve collective redemption as from his determination to achieve an individual accomplishment. And those who fail to recognize the invisible powers at work here — who see the external drama of politics yet fail to discern the profound forces that moved mountains by moving the American heart — well, they’re just like Bob Dylan’s Thin Man to whom he sang, “You don’t know what’s going on here, do you, Mr. Jones?”
Back then, Mr. Jones didn’t know what was going on, but many of us did. We knew what was going on then and we knew what needed to happen; we simply weren’t mature enough and we were too wounded then, as people and as a culture, to pull it off.
This time, we both knew and we did. We knew who we had to become and we knew what we had to do. The violent American revolution of 1776 entailed separating from another country. The non-violent revolution of 2008 — a non-violent revolution that did not quite fail, yet also did not quite succeed in the l960’s — has entailed separating from who we used to be.
In the l960’s, we wanted peace but we ourselves were angry. This time, after hearing Gandhi’s call that we must be the change we want to see happen in the world, we came to our political efforts with an understanding that we must cast violence from our hearts and minds if we are to cast it from our world; that we must try to love our enemies as well as our friends; and that when a genius of world-historic proportions emerges among us, we cannot and we must not fail to do everything humanly and spiritually possible to support him. For his sake…and for ours.
Having gone to a higher place within ourselves, a higher level of leadership began to emerge among us. A higher level of leader now having emerged among us, he calls us to an even higher place within ourselves. And from this spiraling dance, these two forces together can and will, as Obama has told us, truly change the world. Having moved one mountain, we will now go about the work of removing the ones that remain.
With God’s help, yes we can. Yes we did. And yes we will.
— by Marianne Williamson,
author of Healing the Soul of America Visit www.marianne.com
Full-Time Position November 5, 2009
“my job as an artist is to find beauty where there’s ugliness.” – sufjan stevens
Now Playing: Rocky Mountain Activist Carole King November 5, 2009
Rocky Mountain Activist Carole King
[17 min 11 sec] on Talk of the Nationadd to playlist|download
Enlarge Shore FireDuring the height of her success, Carole King moved to the mountains of Idaho and became a dedicated advocate for the environment.
Shore FireDuring the height of her success, Carole King moved to the mountains of Idaho and became a dedicated advocate for the environment.
November 3, 2009 – In 1971, Carole King’s Tapestry was one of the best selling albums of the year. King’s No. 1 hit, It’s Too Late, spent 15 weeks at the top of the charts. She won four Grammy Awards for the record, and it became a landmark album for many baby boomers.
Tapestry has since become one of the biggest selling albums of all time.
Now, the singer-songwriter is focused on environmental activism, and is working to push Congress to pass a bill to help the Northern Rockies. Carole King talks with Rebecca Roberts about her work to protect the land and natural resources of the mountain west, and her legendary album.
Sunday Night – Raymond Carver November 5, 2009
Sunday Night
Make use of the things around you.
This light rain
Outside the window, for one.
This cigarette between my fingers,
These feet on the couch.
The faint sound of rock-and-roll,
The red Ferrari in my head.
The woman bumping
Drunkenly around in the kitchen . . .
Put it all in,
Make use.
- Raymond Carver
Now Playing: Satellite Heart November 3, 2009
Keeps getting better and better and better!
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Check Out "<a href=”http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=100364684″ rel=”nofollow”>Satellite Heart</a>"
Click here for my old skool <a href=”http://www.archive.org/details/Sugarmamapr.comInterviewAnyaMarina” rel=”nofollow”>interview with Anya</a>
She Keeps getting better and better and better!
Visit www.anyamarina.com/
Check Out "Satellite Heart"
Click here for my old skool interview with Anya
now playing: all songs considered / bjork November 3, 2009
Icelandic singer Bjork chats with All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen about some of her favorite artists and spins an eclectic mix of music, from Syrian musician Omar Souleyman to Russia’s neo-folk group The Pokrovsky Ensemble and the wildly eccentric London-based rock group Micachu and the Shapes. Bjork’s latest album is Votaic, a collection of live, studio performances of songs from past albums, including Medulla, Post, and Vespertine.
