Your Call 092309 Is the best health care system in America the VA?

Is the best health care system in America the VA? On the next Your Call we speak with Phillip Longman, author of Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Health Care is Better Than Yours, about the results produced by the most government controlled healthcare system maybe on the planet. Doctors for the VA are government employees, working in government owned hospitals, and proponents of a single payer say the VA is a shining example of what socialized medicine can do. Are they right?


Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. What lessons can we learn from the successes and failures of the VA system? It's Your Call with Sandip Roy and you.

Guest:
Phillip Longman in DC
Author of Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Health Care is Better Than Yours

Click to Listen: Is the best health care system in America the VA?

Your Call 092209 What's in store for the future of biofuels?

What's in store for the future of biofuels? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about biofuel technology. Most ethanol-based biofuels are produced in Brazil and the U.S. More than 30 million acres of agricultural land has already been turned over for biofuel production. What are the consequences of this technology on the environment and food production?

Drop us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. Will biofuels help us become energy independent? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Erik Nelson, a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior and the Department of Applied Economics at University of Minnesota.

Patricia Monahan, director of the California office and deputy director for Clean Vehicles at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Click to Listen: What's in store for the future of biofuels?

Your Call 092109 Is GDP a good method to measure economic progress?

Is GDP a good method to measure economic progress? On the next Your Call we'll have a conversation about gross national product or GDP, which a number of economists, psychologists and sociologists have argued to be an imprecise measurement of economic performance. Is it time to go beyond GPD? Join us live at 11:00 or drop us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. What would the alternative to GDP look like? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Sarah Burd-Sharps, co-director of American Human Development Project.

Richard Wilkinson, an economic historian and social epidemiologist. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Nottingham Medical School and Honorary Professor at University College London.

Click to Listen: Is GDP a good method to measure economic progress?

Your Call 091809 Why has the religious right remained so strong?

Why has the religious right remained so powerful despite a string of political losses and embarrassing scandals? On the next Your Call we speak with Max Blumenthal, author of the NY Times best seller, Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party. Blumenthal traces the roots of the American religious right, the people who laid the philosophical groundwork, and the obscure people at its helm today. How much power do they actually wield?

Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. Can the religious right really stop the progressive agenda a majority of American voters chose a year ago? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
Max Blumenthal in New York
NY Times best selling author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party. Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast, writing fellow at The Nation Institute and won the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Award for his investigative print journalism.

Click to Listen: Why has the religious right remained so strong?

Your Call 091709 Two Hour Special: David Kessler, then Ralph Nader

First Hour: Can the obesity crisis be solved by changing individual behavior?
Can the obesity crisis be solved by changing individual behavior? On the next Your Call we speak with David Kessler, former FDA commissioner under Presidents Bush and Clinton, about his new book The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. Kessler brings together the disparate scientific studies that lay out a devastating case that the obesity epidemic in the United States is the result of food companies hooking us on food that makes us momentarily happy, very unhealthy and coming back for more. He has a plan to get us out of our addiction to hypereating.

Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. Can individual choices to resist compete against the food advertising juggernaut?

Guest:
David Kessler in San Francisco
Former FDA commissioner under Presidents Bush and Clinton. Author of The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite.

Click to Listen: Why do disasters bring out the best in us?

Second Hour: Consumer advocate Ralph Nader
What if some of America's most powerful individuals decided it was time to fix our government and return the power to the people? On a special noon hour of Your Call, we'll have a conversation with consumer advocate Ralph Nader; he is out with a new book Only the Super-rich Can Save Us! In his new book of fiction, Ralph Nader explores the idea of what would happen if a cadre of "superrich" individuals focused on unionizing Wal-Mart, advancing clean elections, and improving the environment with alternative forms of energy. Join us live at 12 noon or send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
Ralph Nader, attorney, author, lecturer, political activist, and former candidate for President of the United States.

Click to Listen: Consumer advocate Ralph Nader

Your Call 091609 Why do disasters bring out the best in us?

Why do disasters so often bring out the best in people? On the next Your Call we speak with writer, critic and activist Rebecca Solnit about her new book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster. She tells the story of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake, Halifax Nova Scotia after a devastating munitions explosion that shattered windows 50 miles away, 9-11 and New Orleans after the levies failed among other disasters. In that time of shock and dislocation, when everything familiar has been leveled, Solnit found generosity, altruism, heroism and joy.

Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. What is it about catastrophe that frees people to be good? It's Your Call with Sandip Roy and you.

Guest:
Rebecca Solnit in San Francisco
Writes about the environment, politics, place, and art from her home here in San Francisco. Solnit has received many awards for her writing: a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship for Literature and the 2004 Wired Rave Award for writing. Her latest book is called A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster.

Click to Listen: Why do disasters bring out the best in us?

Your Call 091509 What do American fundamentalists want?

What do American fundamentalists want? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation with Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. The Family, a powerful, secretive evangelical organization is best known for leading the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. each year. Who are they?

Join us live at 11:00 or send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. Why are they so powerful? And who are the members? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
Jeff Sharlet is a contributing editor for Harper's and Rolling Stone, and a visiting research scholar at New York University's Center for Religion and Media, where he has taught journalism and religious studies.

Click to Listen: What do American fundamentalists want?

Your Call 091409 How does the military invade our everyday life?

How does the military invade our everyday life? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation with award-winning journalist and essayist Nick Turse. He is out with a new book entitled The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives. In 1961, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower warned us of "acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex." Where are we now four and half decades after he made his historic speech?

Send us an email to feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11:00. What role is the military playing in our lives? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
Nick Turse, an award-winning journalist, historian, and essayist, and the associate editor of The Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com

Click to Listen: How does the military invade our everyday life?

Second Hour: Novella Carpenter

Can a city feed itself? On a special 2nd airing of Your Call on Monday we'll speak with Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer. Carpenter bought a dilapidated house next to a vacant lot in West Oakland and converted the open space into an urban homestead with chickens, goats, rabbits, pigs, 2 turkeys named Harold and Maude, and a vegetable garden all growing in a neighborhood without a supermarket.

We'll take your emails at feedback@yourcallradio.org and your questions live. Can urban food production feed more than fantasies of rural life? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
Novella Carpenter in San Francisco
Author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer and proprietor of Ghost Town Farm, an urban farm in West Oakland

Click to Listen: Farm City author Novella Carpenter

Your Call 091109 What can the world teach us about healthcare?

What can we learn from the rest of the world about how healthcare can work? On the next Your Call we'll speak with T.R. Reid, author of The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, about his round the world trip comparing health care systems. Why do Americans spend so much more on staying healthy, but get sicker, go bankrupt more often and regularly die from diseases the rest of the world handles easily?

Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. Can good health care be part of the American way? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
T.R. Reid in San Francisco
Veteran foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, a commentator for National Public Radio and the author of 10 books, including three in Japanese. His latest is called The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.

Click to Listen: What can the world teach us about healthcare?

Your Call 091009 Do you know where your money is?

A year after the collapse of Fannie Mae and Lehman Brothers, do you know where your money is? On the next Your Call we'll speak with Nomi Prins, author of It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, about the death and rebirth of the financial industry on your dime. Why did the bankers get a bail-out and not foreclosed homeowners? Where did all that TARP money end up?

Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. How do we get rid of the banking system we have and get one that works for us? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
Nomi Prins in Los Angeles
Former managing director at Goldman Sachs, author of several books on corruption in Washington and on Wall Street, including her latest It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street. Prins writes for Mother Jones, Fortune, Alternet, the Nation, and is a senior fellow at Demos, the New York-based think tank.

Click to Listen: Do you know where your money is?

Your Call 090909 What's the way out of poverty?

With the economy getting worse, how do we build a pathway out of poverty? On the next Your Call we speak with Wade Rathke, founder of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) a nationwide activist network engaged in community organizing and author of the new book Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families.

Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. Is owning a home still the best way out of poverty and into the middle class? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
Wade Rathke, in San Francisco
Founder of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), a nationwide activist network engaged in community organizing, and currently chief organizer of ACORN International. He is also a founding board member of the Tides Foundation, chief organizer of SEIU Local 100 in New Orleans, and chair of the Organizers' Forum. He authored the new book Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families.

Click to Listen: What's the way out of poverty?

Your Call 090809 Does health care define the Democrats?

What does the healthcare debate tell us about the future of the Democratic and Republican parties? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation with Thomas Frank, author of The Wrecking Crew. He says what is at stake in the debate over healthcare is the identity of the Democratic Party. How do you rate the Democrats' performance in the healthcare debate as well as in other critical issues facing us today?

Send us an email to feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
Thomas Frank is the author of What's the Matter with Kansas? and One Market Under God. The founding editor of The Baffler and a contributing editor at Harper's, he is also The Wall Street Journal's newest weekly columnist.

Click to Listen: Does health care define the Democrats?

Your Call 090409 Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call, it's our Friday Media Roundtable. This week in Japan, voters gave power to a new party for only the second time in a half-century. Meanwhile in Afghanistan, results from a presidential election are in limbo pending a fraud investigation. Here at home, two perennial California stories are dominating the headlines: Wildfires and child abductions. We'll be joined by James Korben of the San Bernardino Sun, independent journalist Reese Erlich, who's just back from Kabul, and Jerry Roberts of Calbuzz.

Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. Where have you seen the best reporting this week? It's Your Call, with Ben Temchine and you.

Guests:
Jerry Roberts, former managing editor for the San Francisco Chronicle and co-founder of Calbuzz.com

James Rufus Koren, staff writer with San Bernardino County Sun

Reese Erlich, veteran independent journalist

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable

090309 Why do some schools thrive?

Why do some schools thrive when similar schools fail? On today’s Your Call, we rebroadcast our conversation with a range of educators and policy makers about what we're learning about how to teach. How do successful principals and school systems shift resources, motivate teachers and students and increase parent involvement? Can passion and best practices make up for low education funding? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Kimi Kean in Oakland
Principal of ACORN Woodland Elementary in Oakland, one of the state's five highest-improving schools. They raised their API, or Academic Performance Index, 120 points in one year and nearly 300 in five. Kean, a former Skyline High School dropout, taught at Acorn Woodland before talking over as principal in 2006.

Robert Manwaring in Washington, DC
Senior policy analyst for Education Sector, a left-leaning but independent national education policy think tank. Before joining EdSector, Mr. Manwaring was the director of policy for the Governor's Committee on Education Excellence, a committee California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed to develop a comprehensive long-term reform strategy for improving K-12 education in the state. Manwaring served as the K-12 education director of the California Legislative Analyst's Office.

Merril Vargo in Santa Rosa
Executive Director of Pivot Learning Partners, a nonprofit organization that works in nearly 50 school districts statewide, nearly all low income or low performing. Pivot trains and coaches teachers and administrators to transform broken school systems.

Click to Listen: Why do some schools thrive?

Your Call 090209 How does gay marriage change society?

How does gay marriage change society? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation with professor Lee Bagdett, author of "When Gay People Get Married." She argues that marriage changes gay people more than gay people change marriage. How has concept of marriage changed over time? Send us an email to feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m.

Are there ways you're hoping gay marriage will change our society? It's Your Call with Ben Temchine and you.

Guest:
M.V. Lee Badgett, an economist at the University of Massachusetts and the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies

Click to Listen: How does gay marriage change society?

Your Call 090109 What can we learn from the passage of Medicare?

What can we learn from the passage of Medicare? On the next Your Call, we'll talk about President Lyndon Johnson's successful push for Medicare in 1965. The political climate at the time was just as divisive and fierce as it is today. So how did it pass? We'll be joined by James Morone, co-author of The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office, and Bay Area Dr. Henry Abrons.

Shoot an email to feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. What can health care proponents learn from the strategies used in the 60s? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
James A. Morone, Chair and Professor of Political Science, Brown University, co-author of The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office

Dr. Henry Abrons, Physicians for a National Health Program

Click to Listen: What can we learn from the passage of Medicare?

Your Call 083109 Hurricane Katrina Four Years Later--What's Changed?

What has changed since Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of Louisiana and Mississippi four years ago? On the next Your Call, we'll speak with two women whose lives have been forever altered by the tragedy. Katrina was the largest hurricane of its strength to reach the United States in recorded history. More than 1800 people were killed and 700,000 displaced. Who's returned since the hurricane? And how are people surviving both the aftermath of the storm and the economic crisis? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar.

Guests:
Colette Pichon Battle, president of the board of Moving Forward and program director of the Gulf Coast Fellowship for Community Transformation

Sharon Hanshaw, executive director of Coastal Women for Change

Click to Listen: Hurricane Katrina Four Years Later--What's Changed?

Your Call 082809 Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call it's our Friday Media Roundtable where we bring in reporters from the mainstream, alternative and international press to discuss the week in American media. We'll talk about the coverage of Teddy Kennedy's death, the release of a less redacted torture memo and Binyamin Netanyahu's visit trip to Europe. Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. Where did you see the best reporting this week and where did it fall short? It's Your Call with Ben Temchine and you.

Guests:
Peter Waldman in San Francisco
Former editor at the Wall Street Journal and the Conde Nast Business magazine, Portfolio.

Danny Schechter in NY
Independent author, producer and media critic. He is executive editor of MediaChannel.org, and his writing is collected at the News Dissector blog. He is the producer and director of many films including In Debt We Trust and WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception.

Mort Rosenblum in Paris
Long time AP foreign correspondent, he reported from 200 countries in his career, several of which no longer exist. He is the author of Escaping Plato's Cave: How America's Blindness to the Rest of the World Threatens Our Survival. He is editor of the news, commentary and photography quarterly Dispatches.

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable

Your Call 082709 What is the right response to hate speech in the media?

On the next Your Call we'll try to define the line between appropriate and inappropriate statements on the airwaves. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has called on the FCC to investigate hate speech in the media. What effect will that have? Email us at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. What exactly qualifies as hate speech? And when hateful words go viral online, do broadcast regulations still matter? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Rory O'Connor in New York
Journalist, blogger, filmmaker and media critic. He's the author of Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radio and is a contributing columnist to Alternet and MediaChannel. Rory's also the president of the media firm Globalvision Inc. and the author of the blog Media is a Plural.

James Rucker in Berkeley
Co-founder and executive director of Color of Change, an online activist organization that strives to strengthen the voices of African Americans. James has also served as director of Grassroots Mobilization for MoveOn.org.

Click to Listen: What is the right response to hate speech in the media?

Your Call 082609 Is there a new colonial rush on in Africa?

Is there a new colonial rush on in Africa? On the next Your Call we will speak with Serge Michel, author of China Safari and scholar Nii Akuettah about increasing Chinese efforts to exploit - and develop - Africa. How is the Chinese approach different from the way the American government has operated on the Continent? Is either a good deal? Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. Can African nations make it without being a client of a major power? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Serge Michel in Geneva
Author of China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing's Expansion in Africa. Michel was the West Africa Correspondent for the French newspaper Le Monde after stints in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans. He won the Albert Londres Prize, France's most prestigious journalistic award, for his work in Iran and is the founder of the Bondy Blog, a citizen journalism project in the suburbs of Paris.

Nii Akuetteh in Washington DC
Independent Africa policy analyst and researcher. He is the former executive director of the Washington, DC-based group Africa Action.

Click to Listen: Is there a new colonial rush on in Africa?