LOVE RADIO

• Been a busy couple days of radio.  My weekly radio show at WBOR (along with co-host Peter Woodruff) in Brunswick got moved to Wednesday from 6-8 pm for the summer season.  Our theme this week was war trauma and we played some of the talk by Dr. Paula Caplan from last weekends Veterans for Peace symposium on the same subject.  Peter rounded up a bunch of good music to go along with the theme as well.

• Last night I was invited to do an interview on WMPG radio in Portland about drones.  The timing was quite perfect as Obama had just given his big drone and Guantanamo speech yesterday as well.  (I watched the speech on C-SPAN and heard the familiar voice of Medea Benjamin interrupting Obama's slick words until they dragged her out of the hall.)  I needed to find a ride to Portland to do the show so Regis Tremblay took me and I promised him I'd buy dinner as a thank you gesture.  It's always fun to spend time with Regis and hear his latest stories about wrapping up his documentary about Jeju Island, South Korea.

• I spent much of yesterday working on my talk (The Militarization of American Life) that I will do at the Moana Nui 2013 Teach-In on June 1-2 in Berkeley, California.  I will be one of 45 speakers and it's a real pleasure to be invited along with these wonderful folks.  Moana Nui means "great ocean" in Polynesian.  The conference program says: 

As militarization and corporate globalization rapidly advance in the Pacific, we urgently need deep collaboration and dialog with, and among, Pacific peoples. They are being directly confronted by the expansionist drives of the world’s most dominant powers (U.S., China, Russia, as well as Indonesia and Japan) all seeking economic and political control of Pacific territories. Resource battles, giant trade agreements, and rapidly accelerating preparations for wars across the region, are threatening the lands, environment, rights, cultures and sovereignities of all Pacific nations and Indigenous peoples. As the saying goes, “When elephants battle, the ants are crushed.” New resistance is required.

• In anticipation of the Moana Nui event I've been asked to be part of an hour-long radio interview [with Jerry Mander and Kyle Kajihiro] on Saturday on KPFA (10 am Pacific time).  I love doing radio more than practically anything else.  It's a real challenge to speak into the great unknown and try to create mental images that keep people listening.  Years ago in Florida, back in the 1980's during the Cold War, one of the best local talk show hosts named Clive Thomas used to have me on his show which ran four hours long.  He taught me alot about doing radio during those grueling, but exciting, experiences.  During those interviews the conservative Central Florida audience would vilify me as pro-Soviet and call me every name in the book.  During the breaks Clive would critique my performance and we'd go at it again once back on the air.  He was a great teacher.  Sadly he was eventually chased off the air by right-wing Christian fundamentalists who bought the station but I have always felt lucky that I got to learn from one of the best.  
• On Sunday, May 26 Regis Tremblay will be showing his just completed film The Ghosts of Jeju for the first time at the public library in Brunswick, Maine.  The show begins at 3:00 pm.  All are invited to attend what should be an exciting event.