Your Call 111708 Iraq Update

How is Obama's victory changing life in Iraq? On the next Your Call we'll broadcast a pre-recorded conversation about the future of the occupation. From the streets to the halls of power, what do Iraqis face each day and what do they believe is possible with the Democrats in charge? Now that Obama is about to take ownership of Bush's war, what forces are constraining what he can do? On the next Your Call with me, Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: Jabran Mansoor in Amsterdam
Former Administrative Coordinator of the International Institute for the Rule of Law in Iraq, which worked with the government of Iraq, and before that the coalition authority, to establish an independent judiciary. Mr. Mansoor left Iraq in left Iraq since September 2007; and is looking for work in the Netherlands.

Leila Fadel in Baghdad
McClatchy's Baghdad Bureau Chief, where she has been, on and off, since June 2005.

Juan Cole in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan and author of InformedComment.com

Nabil Al Tikriti in Fredericksburg, Virginia
Assistant Professor of History at the University of Mary Washington

Click to Listen: Iraq Update

Your Call 111407 Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call it's our Friday Media Roundtable when we look at the week that was in the mainstream, alternative and international press. This week the beneficiaries of the federal bail-out morphed again, President-elect Obama began setting a national policy agenda and the political activists the Yes Men distributed a million copies of fake New York Times announcing the end of the war in Iraq. We'll talk with the editor of BailoutSleuth.com, John Nichols from The Nation and Ken Silverstein from The Atlantic on the next Your Call with me, Rose Aguilar, and you.

Guests: Ken Silverstein in Washington
Washington Editor and author of the Washington Babylon column for Harper's Magazine

John Nichols in Madison Wisconsin
Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine

Chris Carey in St. Louis
Editor and president of Sharesleuth.com and bailoutsleuth.com. He specializes in digging through SEC filings, court records and other documents to find information that companies try to bury, and in tracking the activities of known securities-law violators.

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable

Your Call 111308 Fair Trade Holiday Preview

How can you buy gifts without selling your soul? On the next Your Call we'll talk about how you can make your family and friends happy without supporting industries that make their workers miserable or the planet uninhabitable. This weekend is the 7th annual Green Festival from Global Exchange. How can you be generous this holiday season while also buying sustainable, local and sweatshop-free gifts? Can you make people happy without buying anything at all? What does your ethical shopping list look like? It's Your Call with me, Rose Aguilar, and you.

Guests: Emily Main in New York
Senior Editor of National Geographic's The Green Guide and thegreenguide.com. She joined National Geographic's The Green Guide's editorial team in 2005.

Meaghan O'Neill in Newport Rhode Island
Editor-in-chief of TreeHugger and PlanetGreen.com. She and her team are putting the finishing touches on TreeHugger's annual holiday guide called, "Give Green to Save Green."

Tex Dworkin in San Francisco
Independent Fair Trade Consultant and Director of Marketing for Global Exchange


Click to Listen: Fair Trade Holiday Preview

Your Call 111208 Her Deepness

What can humanity learn by paying attention to the transformation of our oceans? On the next Your Call we welcome Sylvia Earle, one of the most accomplished aquanauts of our time. Earle was recognized by the Library of Congress as a Living Legend, called "her deepness" by the New Yorker and is Explorer in Residence at the National Geographic Society. We'll talk with Earle about her new book, Ocean: An Illustrated Atlas. As climate change transforms our oceans, how can we transform our relationship with the oceans? It's Your Call with Sandip Roy and you.

Guests: Sylvia Earle in Washington DC
Oceanographer recognized by the Library of Congress as a Living Legend. Her new book is Ocean: An Illustrated Atlas.

Click to Listen: Her Deepness

Your Call 111108 Who voted?

Voter turnout was a big story in Election 2008 -- so what do we know about who really turned up at the polls? On the next Your Call, we'll take a look at voting blocks, including young voters, African-Americans and Latinos and find out who played a crucial role in the presidential election. Five southern states set records for voter turnout and we saw second largest youth vote in history. So what kind of lasting impact could these new voters have on the future of politics? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: Peter Levine, Director of Research and Director of CIRCLE, the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement at Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University

Mark Lopez, Associate Director of the Pew Hispanic Center

Brendan McGarry, Deputy News Editor at Army Times

Click to Listen: Who voted?

Your Call 111008 America's Arab and Islamic Roots

How much have Arab and Islamic traditions influenced American culture? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation with Jonathan Curiel, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer and author of Al' America. According to Curiel, from its beginning, America intersected with Arab and Muslim culture, borrowing from it, admonishing it, fearing it and coexisting with it. So how do these common traditions challenge stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims? And can this shared history change hearts and minds? It’s Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest: Jonathan Curiel, author of Al' America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic Roots.

Click to Listen: America's Arab and Islamic Roots

Your Call 110708 Friday Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call it's our Friday media roundtable where we examine the week that was in American media. Barack Obama had a convincing victory at the polls Tuesday night. How is the story of that vote recounted, developed, spun and manipulated through the national media? As the country chews over the realignment, who gets a seat at the table of that conversation and who is being left out? It's Your Call with Sandip Roy and you.

Guests: Mark Danner in Florida
A contributing writer for the New York Review of Books

Betsy Reed in New York
Managing Editor of the Nation.

Click to Listen: Friday Media Roundtable

Your Call 110608 Physics for Future Presidents

Can we make smart decisions about renewable energy, global warming, terrorism or sustainable agriculture without understanding the science that drives them? On the next Your Call we speak with Richard Muller, Berkeley professor of Physics and the Macarthur Genius award winning author of Physics for Future Presidents. Muller teaches 1,000 undergrads a course of the same name, exploring scientific concepts underlying political questions. Now it's our turn. Can we build a better democracy through chemistry and physics and math? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: Richard Muller in Berkeley
Professor in the Department of Physics at UC Berkeley, and Faculty Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in the Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics. Author of Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines.

Click to Listen: Physics for Future Presidents

Your Call 110508 Now What?

Now what? The votes are cast and the spin has begun about what it all means. What kind of change do you expect for your vote? How can the hopeful energy the Obama campaign has generated continue into the reality of governing? How do the people who've given the energy to the Obama campaign many of whom are well to his left politically stay engaged without becoming disillusioned? After 8 years in the opposition, can the left build an effective movement that supports progressive change? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: Karen K. Narasaki in DC
Executive Director of Asian American Justice Center

Chris Kromm in North Carolina
Executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies

Sujatha Jahagirdar in Washington DC, normally in LA
Program director for the New Voters Project of the Student Public Interest Research Group.

Maya Rockeymoore in DC
President and CEO, Global Policy Solutions and author of The Political Action Handbook: A How to Guide for the Hip-Hop Generation

Vida Benevides in DC
Executive Director of Asian Pacific Island American Vote

Click to Listen: Now What?

Your Call 110408 Election Day Reports

What is happening at polling stations across the country? On the next Your Call, we'll check in with voters nationwide and we want to hear from you. Voter turnout has already surpassed the expectations. On Election Day, we expect long lines, electronic voting machine malfunctions and ballot shortages in several swing states. So what was your experience like at the polling booth? And how did it feel to finally vote? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: Suzanne Gravette Acker, Communications and Development Director of Coalition on
Homeless and Housing in Ohio

Bob Hall, Executive Director of Democracy North Carolina.

Tomas Garduno, the statewide organizer for the SouthWest Organizing Project, a
non-partisan, non-profit group in New Mexico

Bob Schaeffer, with Florida's Center for Civic Participation

Joe Szakos, Executive Director of Virginia voting project

Carmen Rhodes, executive director of Front Range Economic Strategy Center
(FRESC) in Colorado

Click to Listen: Election Day Reports

Your Call 110308 Judging Pelosi

How effective has Nancy Pelosi been as Speaker of the House? On the next Your Call, we will have a conversation about Congresswoman Pelosi and her voting record. Her seat is about as safe as they get. So, how should San Francisco voters weigh their decision to endorse or protest the role she has played in Washington? What is her position on issues such as Iraq, the environment and the economy? Has she adequately represented her district as Speaker of the House? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: David Hawkings, Managing Editor Congressional Quarterly Weekly

Marc Sandalow, political analyst and author of Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi's Life, Times, and Rise to Power.

Click to Listen: Judging Pelosi

Your Call 103108 Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call it's our Friday media roundtable where we discuss how the news of the week was covered. This week was the final full week before Election 2008. We'll have a look back with British reporter Andrew Gumbel and Gail Chaddock from the Christian Science Monitor. The monitor shuttered their printing presses and went fully electronic this week. How many other papers are likely to follow? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: Joshua Holland in San Francisco
Senior Writer & Editor for AlterNet

Gail Chaddock in DC
Congressional Correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor

Andrew Gumbel in LA
Former U.S. correspondent for the London newspaper The Independent. He has been writing stories this election season for the Nation.

Click to Listen: Media roundtable

Your Call 103008 The Future of Nuclear Power

Where does nuclear energy fit into our future? On the next Your Call we'll look at where Senators John McCain and Barack Obama stand on the future of nuclear. Many people have a vision of nuclear power frozen decades in the past by the disaster at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Has nuclear energy technology advanced as much as boosters say? Should nuclear compete in the market of ideas alongside coal, solar and wind, or is it a special case? It's Your Call with Sandip Roy and you.

Guests: Jim Riccio in Washington
Greenpeace's Nuclear Policy Analyst. He has worked for the Nuclear Information Resource Service as well as the Critical Mass Energy Project at Public Citizen.

Michael Mariotte in Washington
Executive Director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Peter Schwartz in San Francisco
Chairman and cofounder of the Global Business Network. Previously headed scenario planning for Royal Dutch/Shell in London and directed the Strategic Environment Center at SRI International; he is the author of Inevitable Surprises and The Art of the Long View.

Click to Listen: The Future of Nuclear Power

Your Call 102908 The Shadow Factory

When you start a secret program to spy on everyone, how can you ever be sure it's been unplugged for good? On the next Your Call we'll be joined by James Bamford, who has done more to pull back the curtain on the ultra-secret National Security Agency than anyone else. Bamford's new book The Shadow Factory recounts how the Bush Administration transformed epic failures by American intelligence agencies into arguments for massively increasing their power. How does the NSA skim the emails, faxes, phone calls and Internet traffic of the entire world? What is the NSA listening to right now? It may be Your Call, with me, Sandip Roy and you.

Guests: James Bamford in DC
Our nation's chronicler of the dark side. He's a regular contributor to the New York Times Magazine, Harpers and his article in Rolling Stone "The Man who Sold the War" won the National Magazine Award for Reporting. Mr. Bamford joins us from DC.

Click to Listen: The Shadow Factory

Your Call 102808 California Budget's Greatest Hits

Who took the hit in the long-delayed California budget? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about the 2009 California budget. Last month Governor Schwarzenegger signed the budget, almost three months into California's new fiscal year. The $143 billion spending plan includes $7.1 billion in spending cuts. At a time that most people are hurting financially, who is being affected the most? And how is the international financial crisis affecting state and local government? It's Your Call, with Sandip Roy and you.

Guests: Lenny Goldberg, Executive Director of the California Tax Reform Association

Frank Russo of California Progress Report

Allison Pratt, Director of Policy & Services with Alameda Community Food Bank

John Laird, Assembly Budget Chair (D-Santa Cruz)

Click to Listen: California Budget's Greatest Hits

Your Call 102708 Tax policy and the economy

What does tax policy have to do with the economy? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about the impact of taxes on economic growth. Based on a Congressional Budget Office study, President Bush's tax cuts have offered the biggest benefits to people at the very top. With economic recession, how would McCain's and Obama's tax proposals affect the economy? How does our tax structure contrast Europe's? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: Joel Slemrod, the Paul W. McCracken Collegiate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the Ross School and director of its Office of Tax Policy Research

Jeff Madrick, editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union, and director of Policy Research at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, The New School

Lee Farris, Senior Organizer on Estate Tax Policy with United for Fair Economy

Click to Listen: Tax policy and the economy

Your Call 102408 Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call, it's our Friday media roundtable, the day we discuss coverage of the week's news. This week, we'll talk about the election and the economic meltdown with Martin Wolf of the Financial Times and Carolyn Said of the San Francisco Chronicle. We'll also be joined by longtime foreign correspondent Mort Rosenblum. He's out with a new book called Dispatches: Beyond Iraq. The journal goes beyond the "what" and "who" to the more crucial "why" and "what can be done?" Where did you get the context you needed to make sense of this week's news? It's Your Call with Sandip Roy and you.

Guests: Carolyn Said of the San Francisco Chronicle

Martin Wolf of the Financial Times

Mort Rosenblum, longtime foreign correspondent, with a new book called Dispatches: Beyond Iraq

Click to Listen: Media roundtable

Your Call 102308 New Voters, New Politics

How will new voters from immigrant and ethnic communities change the Democrats? On the next Your Call we'll discuss the deeper impacts of these new voters on American politics. A record 130 million voters are expected to cast ballots this year, up from nearly 126 million in 2004, and many of those new voters are not part of the white majority. What are the issues and values that are attracting Asian-American and Latino voters to the Democrats? How will the politics of social issues like same-sex marriage and parental notification about abortion shift? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: Roberto Lovato in New York
Contributing Associate Editor with New America Media and a frequent contributor to The Nation and the Huffington Post. Roberto was the Executive Director of the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), then the country's largest immigrant rights organization.

Vida Benevides in Washington DC
Executive Director of Asian Pacific Islander American Vote, a national nonpartisan, nonprofit that promotes civic participation of APIA community in national, state and local politics.

Josh Norek in New York
Deputy Director of Voto Latino, is voter registration and get out the vote organization, founded by in 2004 by the actress Rosario Dawson.

Karen K. Narasaki in San Francisco
President and Executive Director of the Asian American Justice Center, a national organization defending and advancing the civil and human rights of Asian Americans.

Click to Listen: New Voters, New Politics

Your Call 102208 Picking winners in the Green Economy

Should the state play a primary role picking winners in the green economy? On the next Your Call we'll discuss who should take the lead creating the new jobs and new technologies that will reverse the damage of the oil-based economy. Measures on November's ballot in California would boost high-speed rail, natural gas cars, and certain kinds of renewable energy. Should the state favor specific technologies, like cars that use natural gas? Should the state just set general rules and leave the rest to the market? It's Your Call with Sandip Roy and you.

Guests: Huey Johnson in San Francisco
Founder and president of the Resource Renewal Institute (RRI), a nonprofit organization that incubates ideas and practices for environmental sustainability. From 1976-1982, Mr. Johnson served as Secretary of Resources for the State of California where he conceived and implemented "Investing for Prosperity," a hundred-year plan for managing the state's natural resources.

Bernadette Del Chiaro in Sacramento
Clean energy advocate with Environment California, a statewide, citizen-based environmental advocacy organization. They are urging a split vote on the fall ballot's clean energy propositions.

Professor David Orr in Oberlin, Ohio
Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College. He is author of many books including Ecological Literacy and Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect.

Click to Listen: Picking winners in the Green Economy

Your Call 102108 Is voter suppression widespread?

How widespread is voter suppression? On the next Your Call, we'll have a discussion about tactics used by political parties to discourage or prohibit eligible voters from casting their votes. From voter purges to electronic voting, thousands of voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering. What are voters doing to fight back? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar, and you.

Guests: Adam Skaggs is counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice and an attorney for the voting rights organizations challenging Florida's "no match-no vote" law.

Bob Schaeffer with Florida's Center for Civic Participation

Tomás Garduño, the statewide organizer for the South West Organizing Project, a non-partisan, non-profit group in New Mexico that educates minority citizens.

Brian Rothenberg, Executive Director of Progress Ohio

Click to Listen: Is voter suppression widespread?