KPFA - Against the Grain

How can people be moved from sympathy to solidarity with an oppressed group? Juliet Hooker considers how the legendary writer and activist Ida B. Wells and Harriet Jacobs, whose slave narrative was the first authored by a woman in the U.S., balanced grief and grievance in an effort to mobilize white people to act to end Black suffering. (Encore presentation.) Juliet Hooker, Black Grief/White Grievance: The Politics of Loss Princeton University Press, 2023 (Image on main page by kkfea.) The post Portraying Black Loss appeared first on KPFA.

Medicines – we’re told by the pharmaceuticals industry – are expensive by necessity owing to the high costs of research and development. Yet, as with the vaccines for Covid, much research is publicly-funded, and much comes out of universities. And, as Nick Dearden argues, only 3% of new drugs even represent actual breakthroughs. Instead most are “evergreened” drugs that Big Pharma tweaks in order to prolong its intellectual property rights. He discusses why the business of pharmaceuticals companies is not public health, but private profit. Resources: Nick Dearden, Pharmanomics: How Big Pharma Destroys Global Health Verso, 2023 The post The Price of Big Pharma appeared first on KPFA.

In “The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg,” Jerry Aronson paints a compelling portrait of the legendary writer, visionary, activist, and spiritual seeker. The post Fund Drive Special: Allen Ginsberg appeared first on KPFA.

We are living through the 6th great extinction of species — and governments are doing almost nothing to curb it. Scientist Douglas Tallamy, however, proposes a blueprint for a grassroots effort to restore habitat in a meaningful way, seeing nature not as something to be preserved in parks and reserves far from us, but all around us in our cities and suburbs, farmlands and ranches. The post Fund Drive Special: Rebuilding Habitats in Our Yards appeared first on KPFA.

In “The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg,” Jerry Aronson paints a compelling portrait of the legendary writer, visionary, activist, and spiritual seeker. The post Fund Drive Special: Allen Ginsberg appeared first on KPFA.

It is hard to measure the impact of social stress and political turmoil on our bodies and minds, but we know they does damage. The physician Gabor Maté has made it his life’s work to examine how stress and trauma make us sick, alienated, and often prone to harmful behaviors. He draws on the ideas of Stephen Porges, originator of Poly-Vagal Theory, and we feature the work of both men today. The post Fund Drive Special: Gabor Mate and Steven Porges appeared first on KPFA.

World-renowned teacher Sharon Salzberg talks about her book “Real Happiness: A 28-Day Program to Realize the Power of Meditation.” The post Fund Drive Special: Meditation Pioneer Sharon Salzberg appeared first on KPFA.

The death toll from Israel’s assault on Gaza continues to climb. Nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since October, two-thirds of them women and children, and almost 70,000 people have been injured. Yet this unspeakable crime has been rationalized by much of the U.S. media. Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé says that such justifications rest partly on a distorted view of the history of Palestine/Israel, including of the multiethnic society that existed in Palestine before the establishment of the state of Israel. The post Fund Drive Special: Ilan Pappé appeared first on KPFA.

Philip Shepherd on the importance of recovering “radical wholeness” and experiencing a new way of being. The post Fund Drive Special: Embodied Intelligence appeared first on KPFA.

Our food system, as well as our ecosystems, are clearly in crisis. Should we look to technological fixes and lab-grown meat to provide food for our future? Or, as writer Taras Grescoe argues, should we look backwards instead to the lost foods of our past? Grescoe argues that a sustainable future necessitates cultivating food and plant diversity, while reclaiming collective practices, including those drawn from contemporary indigenous peoples. The post Fund Drive Special: Recovering Ancient Foods appeared first on KPFA.