Your Call 020108 Friday Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call it's our Friday Media Roundtable, where we discuss how the news of the week was reported in the mainstream, alternative and international press. This Friday is the last media roundtable before Super Duper Tuesday; We’ll speak with John Hockenberry, host of PRI’s new morning program and co-host of a national broadcast Tuesday night with KALW, WNYC in New York and KPCC in Los Angeles. We’ll also talk with Frank Russo of the California Progress Report about coverage of all of California's voting constituencies and Nick Gillespie, editor of Reason Magazine about the FISA law and the crumbling economy. What was the best reported story you saw all week? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Frank Russo in Berkeley
Founder and publisher of the California Progress Report.

Nick Gillespie in Washington
editor of Reason Magazine and

John Hockenberry in New York City
Multiple Emmy and Peabody award winning journalist, formerly with NPR and now the co-host of PRI’s new Morning Show, which will launch in April(ish). He will also be co-hosting election night coverage on Tuesday from WNYC with KALW and KPCC in Los Angeles.

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable

Your Call 013108 Is there a Pacific Rim Community?

Is there a Pacific Rim Community? On the next Your Call we replay a show we recorded Tuesday launching a new series creating connections across the ocean. First up, Australia. For the first time in 11 years, conservatives are out of power in Australia. Tuesday night we spoke with a panel of journalists about the issues, challenges and aspirations that influence Australian politics. New Prime Minister Kevin Rudd repudiates Australias involvement in the Iraq war but promises continued close ties to the US. Are closer ties between the two sides of the Pacific in the cards? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Click to Listen: Is there a Pacific Rim Community?

Your Call 013008 Debate about California community colleges

Should California change the constitution to increase funding for community colleges?  On the next Your Call we continue our coverage of the February 5th ballot by considering Proposition 93.  Prop 93 would lower fees and increase funding for community colleges and change the way the state distributes education funds.  Is this the best way to do that?  How do we balance K through 12 with college education and if we have the balance wrong, is the new proposition the right solution?  It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Edward Murray in SF
English as a Second Language instructor at City College of San Francisco for 28 years. He is the current president of American Federation of Teachers, Local 2121, which represents all faculty at CCSF, including teachers, counselors, health care professionals, and researchers.
 
Egon Terplan in SF
Economic Development and Governance Policy Director for SPUR, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, a good government think tank based in the city. 

Click to Listen: Debate about California community colleges

Your Call 012908 The Indian Gaming Propositions

Are the Indian gaming propositions good for California? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about Prop's 94 through 97. Next Tuesday, Californians get their say on deals that allow four southern California tribes to triple their slot machines in return for more money for the State’s General Fund. Are the deals any good? And if they are voted down, what leverage does the state have over sovereign states to get a better deal? It’s been ten years since Californians approved Indian gambling; has it worked out the way you had hoped? It’s Your Call, with guest host Ben Temchine, and you.

Guests:
Nelson Rose, professor of law & attorney
James P. Sweeney, reporter with the San Diego Tribune

Click to Listen: The Indian Gaming Propositions

Your Call 012808 How to decipher a poll

How reliable are Political Polls? On the next Your Call, we’ll have a discussion about the history of polling. The first straw poll was taken in The Harrisburg, Pennsylvanian in 1824. But it was not until the 1960’s that pollsters came up with what today is called “scientific polling”. So, how are the polls funded? How are they conducted? And more importantly, how accurate are these polls? It’s Your Call, with guest host Ben Temchine, and you.

Guest:
Michael Schwartz, professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook

Charles Franklin, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin

Click to Listen: How to decipher a poll

Your Call 012508 Friday Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call, it’s our Friday Media Roundtable. This week, Arab Media & Society’s Lawrence Pintak joins us from Cairo to discuss coverage of the explosions that brought a sudden end to the blockade on Gaza. Amy Gluckman of Dollars and Sense joins us to talk about what is being left out of economic coverage. And the Black Agenda Report’s Glenn Ford gives us his take on how race is being covered in the lead up to the South Carolina primary. Where did you find solid reporting this week? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar.

Guest:
Lawrence Pintak,
editor and co-publisher of Arab Media & Society,

Amy Gluckman
co-editor of Dollars and Sense,

Glen Ford
editor of the Black Agenda Report.

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable

Your Call 012408 What is the state of Iraqi government?

What is the current state of Iraqi government? On the next Your Call, we’ll discuss the internal political situation in Iraq. Earlier this week, a suicide bomber walked into a school in downtown Baquba, wounding 20 students and teachers. As the United State is claiming victory with its so-called surge, Iraq is marred with daily violence. What has changed in Iraq? And what role is the Iraqi government playing to keep the country together? It’s your call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
Yanar Mohammed, an Iraqi activist and the director of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq.

Nabil Al-Tikriti, an assistant professor of history at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Click to Listen: What is the state of Iraqi government?

Your Call 012308 Celebrating Simone de Beauvoir’s 100th Birthday

French writer Simone de Beauvoir was born 100 years ago this month. Does her message still resonate today? On the next Your Call, we’ll have a conversation about de Beauvoir’s life and work. One of the most preeminent French existentialist philosophers and writers, her seminal work, The Second Sex, has become a classic in feminist literature. What is the significance of her work today? How far have women come since the publication of her book in 1949? It’s Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
Nancy Bauer, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University in Boston. She is the author of Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman.

Toril Moi, James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University. She is the author of Simone de Beauvoir, Philosophy, and Feminism.

Click to Listen: Celebrating Simone de Beauvoir’s 100th Birthday

Your Call 012208 Can Business End Poverty?

Is a new business model the key to ending poverty? On the next Your Call we welcome Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank to discuss how business will beat poverty. The Grameen Bank made small loans to the very poor and freed millions of people from the bonds of abject poverty. In his new book, Creating a World Without Poverty, Yunus lays out his vision for a global marketplace that values the whole human being, not just profits. How can we harness the dynamism of the free market to end poverty? It's Your Call with Sandip Roy and you.

Guest:
Muhammad Yunus
Nobel Prize winning founder of the Grameen Bank and author of Creating A World Without Poverty: Social Business And The Future Of Capitalism

Click to Listen: Can Business End Poverty?

Your Call 012108 How do we maximize voter turnout?

Click to Listen: How do we maximize voter turnout?

Your Call 011808 Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call, it's our Friday Media Roundtable. This week, Mitt Romney won the Michigan primary. The GOP race is wide open. We'll speak with the Detroit Free Press' Niraj Warikoo about coverage of the race and the tanking economy. Are you seeing the word recession on the front page? The Arkansas Times' Max Brantley is following media coverage of Mike Huckabee and the upcoming South Carolina primary. And Joel Beinin joins us from Cairo to discuss coverage of President Bush's trip through the Middle East. Where did you see solid reporting this week? It's Your call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Max Brantley
Executive Editor of the Arkansas Times;

Joel Beinen, professor of media studies at the American University of Cairo and a professor of history at Stanford;

Niraj Warikoo, staff writer for the Detroit Free Press where he covers the region's Arab-American and Muslim communities.

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable

Your Call 011708 What don’t we know about gang life?

What don’t we know about the realities of gang life? On the next Your Call, we’ll have a conversation with Sudhir Venkatesh, a Columbia University sociologist and author of Gang Leader for a Day. Venkatesh spent almost a decade hanging out with crack-selling gang members and struggling poor residents in one of Chicago’s most notorious public housing projects. How do gang members see themselves as fitting in with society? How do they fit into your community? And what will it take to break the cycle of poverty, drugs, and violence in places like Chicago's Projects? It’s Your Call with Sandip Roy and you.

Guest:
Sudhir Venkatesh
Author of Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets

Click to Listen: What don’t we know about gang life?

Your Call 011608 The Bay Area’s Multicultural Landscape

Who lives in the Bay Area? On the next Your Call we will have a conversation with curators of “Trading Traditions: California’s New Cultures,” a photography exhibition at Oakland Museum of California. Based on Census 2000, there were 112 languages spoken in the Bay Area. Of course, the Bay Area’s multicultural landscape is nothing new but how do people with different cultures, languages and traditions relate to each other? What challenges do they face? And how immigrant friendly is the Bay Area? It’s Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Lonny Shavelson is a writer, photojournalist, radio journalist, and physician whose articles and photographs have appeared in numerous publications

Fred Setterberg is the author of The Roads Taken: Travels through America’s Literary Landscapes

James LeBrecht is co-author of the book “Sound and Music for the Theatre: The Art and Technique of Design” with Deena Kaye and he is the president of Berkeley Sound Artists.

Click to Listen: The Bay Area’s Multicultural Landscape

Your Call 011508 Born in the USA

How do medical fads and insurance companies change the way America gives birth? On the next Your Call we talk with the makers of the Business of Being Born, a documentary about how unnatural birth has become. Cesarean section deliveries are up 50% in the last decade. Are women’s bodies so different since Bill Clinton was president that surgery is necessary? How did you have your children and how do you hope they will have theirs? It’s your call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Maria Lorillo
Licensed midwife
 
Teresa McClean Doula
Studying to be a midwife. 

Click to Listen: Born in the USA

Your Call 011408 Big and Green

Can you be big and green? On the next Your Call we’ll discuss the future of organic companies that have been bought by bigger, conventional ones. Burt’s Bees was bought by Clorox, Colgate-Palmolive owns 84 percent of Tom’s of Maine and Wal-Mart is now the largest retailer of organic vegetables in the country. Can green grow and still mean anything? If you buy an organic juice made by Coke are you being responsible, or buying a lie? It’s Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Professor Dara O’Rourke
Associate Professor of Environmental and Labor Policy at UC Berkeley
 
Gary Hirschberg
President and CEO of Stonyfield Farms
 
Rinku Sen
Publisher of Colorlines, a national, multi-racial magazine devoted to the creativity and complexity of communities of color and winner of Utne Magazine’s Independent Press Award for General Excellence.

Click to Listen: Big and Green

Your Call 011108 Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call it's our Friday Media Roundtable. This week we’ll discuss the New Hampshire primary and how the polling got it wrong. What would be a better way of covering polls? It was a year ago this week that the president announced the Surge. Is coverage telling the whole truth about life in Iraq a year later? And what is the status of the investigation into the destruction of the CIA torture tapes? It’s Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Gail Chaddock
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Dina Temple-Raston
FBI correspondent for NPR News and author of The Jihad Next Door about the Lackawanna Six, America's first so-called "sleeper cell."
 
Rinku Sen
Publisher of Colorlines, a national, multi-racial magazine devoted to the creativity and complexity of communities of color and winner of Utne Magazine’s Independent Press Award for General Excellence.

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable

Your Call 011008 Sex Ed in the Era of Ubiquitous Porn

What should sex-ed be teaching kids today? On the next Your Call we discuss where kids raised in the Internet age learn about sex and what schools and parents should be telling them. A December report said teen pregnancy was up 3% in 2005, the biggest increase since the first George Bush was president. Is the rising teen pregnancy rate a rebuke to abstinence-only classes? When any and every sexual act is available with the click of a mouse, what should middle and high schools be teaching their students about pregnancy, STDs, intimacy and abstinence? It’s Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Shelby Knox
Shelby is a sex education activist and the subject of the documentary The Education of Shelby Knox about her crusade to get sex ed taught in her Texas high school.
 
Luis Galdama
Luis is on the national board of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, a non-profit based in South Dakota dedicated to abstinence-only sex education.

Click to Listen: Sex Ed in the Era of Ubiquitous Porn

Your Call 010908 Care For What We Share: Space

How do we care for the things we share? On the next Your Call we launch a new series on Global Commons.  We'll look at the heritage, ideas, medicines and places that we all hold in trust and use together. Our first show will examine the largest commons, Space. Space starts just outside our atmosphere and goes on forever. Is it a limited resource that needs care in its exploitation or is it vast enough for private companies and governments rich and poor to share? What rules should apply there and who should enforce them and should the space cops be packing heat when they're up there? It's your call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Mike Moore
Author of Twilight War: The Folly of U.S. Space Dominance.

Kim Alaine Rathman
She received a doctorate in Ethics and Public Policy, with an emphasis in Outer Space Law and Policy, from the cooperative program between the Graduate Theological Union and the University of California, Berkeley; a Master of Divinity with a concentration in Religion and Society from Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Click to Listen: Care For What We Share: Space

Your Call 010808 The Christian Right and the Neocons

What's in store for the Christian right and the neoconservatives? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation with investigative journalist Craig Unger about his new book, The Fall of the House of Bush. In the book, Unger focuses on the history of the Christian right and the neocons. What brought this unholy alliance together? What impact have they had on U.S. policy? And more importantly, what impact will they have on the next U.S. President? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Craig Unger is an award winning investigative reporter and a contributing editor to Vanity Fair magazine. He is out with a new book The Fall of the House of Bush.

David Boaz is executive vice president of the Cato Institute and author of the upcoming book The Politics of Freedom.

Click to Listen: The Christian Right and the Neocons

Your Call 010708 Who are the Iraqi insurgents?

Who are the men and women resisting the occupation in Iraq? On the next Your Call, we spend the hour with the filmmakers behind the documentary Meeting Resistance. Starting in August of 2003, Molly Bingham and Steve Connors spent almost a year with 10 Iraqi insurgents. They documented their lives, motivations and goals. How much popular support does the resistance have in Iraq? How has it changed? And what does it mean when ordinary people resort to violence? It’s Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Steve Connors and Molly Bingham, directors of the
documentary film, Meeting Resistance.

Click to Listen: Who are the Iraqi insurgents?

Your Call 010408 Friday Media Roundtable

On the next Your Call it is our Friday Media Roundtable, where we look at how the news of the week was reported. This week voters' voices were finally heard in election 2008. We’ll hear from a panel of reporters about who in the media got the story right, and who got stuck in the spin. We’ll also discuss the coverage of the riots in Kenya. What was your story of the week? It’s Your Call with me, Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Dana Boone, independent journalist with the Iowa Independent and Brown Iowa, a blog that documents the lives of African Americans in Iowa. 

Ari Melber, regular contributor to The Nation, focusing on American politics, public policy and Internet activism, and a writer for The Nation's Campaign 08 blog.
 
Will Dobson, managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. He is responsible for managing the editorial planning and editorial production of the magazine, as well as editing and commissioning feature articles, reviews, and essays.

Click to Listen: Media Roundtable

Your Call 010308 Have You Ever Seen a Rational Voter?

How do people decide who to vote for? On the next Your Call we look back at our own On the Record series and what research shows about how voters choose between candidates. We focused on their voting records; do you? Does emotional response predominate over rational analysis? Has that changed as you’ve gotten older? We’ll be joined by political psychologist Drew Westen on Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Drew Westen
Author of the Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation. He is the founder of Westen Strategies.
 
Bruce Gronbeck
Professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa. Professor Gronbeck is an expert in the politics of scandal and what has come to be called the "character issue.”

Click to Listen: Have You Ever Seen a Rational Voter?

Your Call 010208 Pakistan After Bhutto

What has been the fall-out of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination? On the next Your Call we speak with a panel of South Asians about the events since the bomb in Liaquat National Park. Bhutto’s 19-year-old son has been pushed to the helm of the Pakistan People’s Party. President Musharraf says elections will be delayed until February but can the weakened Musharraf stay in power until then? The United States has had close involvement in the politics of Pakistan for nearly four decades: what role should it play now? It’s Your Call, with Sandip Roy and you.

Guests:
Anil Kalhan in New York
Visiting Professor of Law at Fordham University Law School
  
Sharmeen Obaid in Pakistan
Documentary filmmaker and reporter who has covered the aftermath of terrorism’s rise in South Asia
 
Ahmed Junaid in Williamsburg, VA
Author and a leader in Pakistan’s expatriate community of liberal Muslims.

Click to Listen: Pakistan After Bhutto