The Struggle to Protect Health Care from the Violence of War

REPRISE of an interview for @KGNU in which Claudia Cragg talks for with  who was a bureau chief in Tokyo and London for The Washington Post. His book, “: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care,” is as valid with #COVID19 in 2020 as it was when originally published. It is a great shame that, in the intervening years, the lessons Reid so succinctly and expertly drew on from his wide experience of living outside of the US were not paid more attention to.  His work is a systematic study of the health systems in seven countries that was inspired in part by his family’s experiences living overseas and receiving health care abroad. Mr. Reid also produced a 2008 documentary on the same topic for PBS called “Sick Around the World.”

1 Okt 202029min

Claudia Cragg @claudiacragg speaks here with Katherine Stewart @kathsstewart about her book, 'm.' With a sad nation still mourning the tragic loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stewart's work takes on new relevance in its opinion  that for too long the 'Religious Right' has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In her deeply reported investigation, she reveals a disturbing truth: this is a political movement that seeks to gain power and to impose its vision on all of society. America’s religious nationalists aren’t just fighting a culture war, they are waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy. Stewart pulls back the curtain on the inner workings and leading personalities of a movement that has turned religion into a tool for domination. She exposes a dense network of think tanks, advocacy groups, and pastoral organizations embedded in a rapidly expanding community of international alliances and united not by any central command but by a shared, anti-democratic vision and a common will to power. She follows the money that fuels this movement, tracing much of it to a cadre of super-wealthy, ultraconservative donors and family foundations. She shows that today’s Christian nationalism is the fruit of a longstanding antidemocratic, reactionary strain of American thought that draws on some of the most troubling episodes in America’s past. It forms common cause with a globe-spanning movement that seeks to destroy liberal democracy and replace it with nationalist, theocratic and autocratic forms of government around the world. Religious nationalism is far more organized and better funded than most people realize. It seeks to control all aspects of government and society. Its successes have been stunning, and its influence now extends to every aspect of American life, from the White House to state capitols, from our schools to our hospitals. The Power Worshippers is a brilliantly reported book of warning and a wake-up call. Stewart’s probing examination demands that Christian nationalism be taken seriously as a significant threat to the American republic and our democratic freedoms.

24 Sep 202026min

Claudia Cragg @claudiacragg speaks here with @ about her book : The Illusion of Religious Equality in America.' The United States is recognized as the most religiously diverse country in the world, and yet its laws and customs, which many have come to see as normal features of American life, actually keep the Constitutional ideal of “religious freedom for all” from becoming a reality. Christian beliefs, norms, and practices infuse our society; they are embedded in our institutions, creating the structures and expectations that define the idea of “Americanness.” Religious minorities still struggle for recognition and for the opportunity to be treated as fully and equally legitimate members of American society. From the courtroom to the classroom, their scriptures and practices are viewed with suspicion, and bias embedded in centuries of Supreme Court rulings create structural disadvantages that endure today. In White Christian Privilege, Khyati Y. Joshi traces Christianity’s influence on the American experiment from before the founding of the Republic to the social movements of today. Mapping the way through centuries of slavery, westward expansion, immigration, and citizenship laws, she also reveals the ways Christian privilege in the United States has always been entangled with notions of White supremacy. Through the voices of Christians and religious minorities, Joshi explores how Christian privilege and White racial norms affect the lives of all Americans, often in subtle ways that society overlooks. By shining a light on the inequalities these privileges create, Joshi points the way forward, urging readers to help remake America as a diverse democracy with a commitment to true religious freedom.

17 Sep 202025min

Claudia Cragg @claudiacragg speaks here with Peter Hessler @peterhessler. @NewYorker For @KGNU we discuss here what may be learned from how China managed and appears to have controlled #Coronavirus. #COVID19. Hessler has been teaching and living with his wife, the journalist Leslie T Chang, and their family in Sichuan throughout the pandemic. Peter Hessler joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2000. From 2000 until 2007, he was the magazine’s correspondent in China and, from 2011 to 2016, he was based in Cairo, where he covered the events of the Egyptian Arab Spring. His subjects have included archeology in both China and Egypt, a factory worker in Shenzhen, a garbage collector in Cairo, a small-town druggist in rural Colorado, and Chinese lingerie dealers in Upper Egypt. Before joining The New Yorker, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Fuling, a small Chinese city on the Yangtze River. He is the author of six books, including a trilogy about the decade-plus that he spent in China: “,” “,”which was a National Book Award finalist, and “.“ His book about Egypt, “,” was published in May. He is the winner of an American Society of Magazine Editors award and, in 2011, was named a MacArthur Fellow. He lives in southwestern Colorado.

10 Sep 202037min

@claudiacragg speaks here with @motazhmatar about his new book, The Pigeon Whispeer. It is a magical book which, nevertheless, raises such important issues such as hope, hopelessness, belonging, war, migration, love, and loss Dabbour is a 25-year-old Syrian refuge and introvert and a pigeon herder. He fled with to Berlin with Yasser, his childhood friend and the two have succeeded in finding a new home using fake passports. Dabbour is trying to learn the ropes in this new country; while trying to learn German he's fallen for his German teacher, Zara. One day, Dabbour jumps on the railway tracks to save an injured pigeon and almost gets himself killed. For this, he gets arrested by the police – and realizes how much he misses home and the birds. Yasser asks Dabbour to use his talents as a "pigeon whisperer" and steal stray pigeons to transport drugs. Dabbour agrees, then realizes it was a big mistake. Dabbour is forced to choose between his loyalty to his friend and the promise of a new "family" and doing the right thing. Dabbour sinks further and further into the world of crime and drug smuggling. Website: Facebook: LinkedIn: Blog: Motaz Matar is an award-winning Palestinian Film and TV Director and Screenwriter. He holds an MFA degree in Cinematic Arts, and an MA in Serial storytelling from Cologne, Germany where he was the first Arab selected in the third cohort amongst 10 International students. For four years he taught university-level film production, and design in Dubai, Sharjah, and Jordan. With his experience as an independent film and TV director, Motaz achieved recognition in several regional TV Channels and Film Festivals in the Middle-East and throughout the world. In 2012 he was awarded the Golden Award at the PromaxBDA Arabia for a Television teaser he wrote and directed. In 2017 Motaz’s first feature film “Slingshot” was officially selected in the Mediterranean film festival in Cannes and the Calcutta International film festival. Motaz is the founder of the First Arab Chat Fiction Mobile Application “Hakawaty” which aims to revolutionize the way stories are consumed in the Arab world. His creative vision, he believes, is try to use his passion for storytelling to share meaningful human experiences through art and education.

3 Sep 202039min

@claudiacragg speaks here for @KGNU with archeologist Dr. who, for over a decade, has been studying The # and its California location.  Her studies continue this year even though the festival has gone virtual due to #COVID19. Because the event requires participants to “leave no trace,” the site is according to White “an archaeologist’s worst nightmare.”  And yet she finds that #BlackRockCity is also the perfect site at which to conduct “active site” research, which looks not at ancient ruins, but at places that are currently inhabited.  How does one do archeology in a city that is at once growing and disappearing?  And what can we learn about cities from looking at one so ephemeral? In her forthcoming book, , White explains that there is something distinctive about active-site archaeology.  When conducting this type of research, one must “confront on a minute-by-minute basis the ways that the city’s residents are the creators, users, and destroyers of the city…. Black Rock City is not just a place where something curious is happening; it is a place where the rhythm of daily life is accelerated and where all archaeologists might imagine the role that similar elements may have played at other sites.” White’s work sheds light on the noise, disruption, and movement that mark all cities: “Cities are built and cities are destroyed, and in between their birth and death people inhabit them. In the interval between construction and devastation there are thousands and thousands of small and messy events of building and undoing.” Burning Man is interesting because of the tension between it being an amazing place and a typical place.  And this is true of everyplace.  Every place is both typical and unique.  In the end,  “All cities are temporary,” writes White, “but some are more temporary than others.”

27 Aug 202028min

@claudiacragg speaks here for @KGNU with Pawan Dhingra, @phdhingra1 author of Hyper Education Why Good Schools, Good Grades, and Good Behavior Are Not Enough? In this book, Dr. Dhingra offers an up-close look at the arms race in at home/after-school learning, academic competitions – and the perceived failure of even our best schools to educate children. Dhingra offers a useful critique of how privileged families are skewing the educational system in pursuit of advantages for their kids.  He also makes a case that all of this "hyper-ness" is about achieving and exceeding the American Dream, something some immigrant communities, in particular, take very seriously. Dr. Dhingra is Professor of American Studies; Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Officer @AmherstCollege.

20 Aug 202024min

speaks here for @KGNU #ItsTheEconomy with Brad Feld @bfeld. He has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding , he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures. Brad is also a co-founder of . Brad is a writer and speaker on the topics of venture capital investing and entrepreneurship. He’s written a number of books as part of the  series and writes the blogs  and . Boulder, CO, he says is important as an example right now, not not only exemplifying his , but laying out a blueprint that other communities can follow.

13 Aug 202027min