Saturday, November 17, 2012

Class, Health, and Health Care

To download an audio file (save it on your hard disk): Click on this link for instructions.

New World Notes News
Vol. 5, No. 46-47 -- November 17, 2012

This fortnight in New World Notes, radio programs #246-247, November 20 & 27

Susan Rosenthal on
Class, Health, and Health Care

In brief

In a phone interview with me, health care activist Susan Rosenthal, M.D., discusses the causes and cures of North Americans' bad health and (relatedly) bad health-care systems.

Her new book on these subjects is Sick and Sicker: Essays on Class, Health and Health Care.

In Part One she discusses the root cause of much disease--social inequality--the practice of psychiatry, why depression is so common (and so poorly treated), and why, each year, for-profit medicine kills 23 times as many Americans as criminal use of firearms.

In Part Two (available by November 25) she discusses working-class life in England during the Industrial Revolution (ca. 1845), the problems with Canada's single-payer healthcare system (though it's still better than the U.S. system), how the profit motive and computers have brought us "assembly-line medicine," and the health-care reforms established in Chile, under Allende, in the 1970s.

We originally broadcast these two instalments in July-August 2010.

Notes, credits, & links

Susan's Sick and Sicker: Essays on Class, Health and Health Care is available in paperback (from her) or as a "Kindle" electronic book from Amazon. For more information on the book--and for more by Susan--please see http://www.susanrosenthal.com/

See also the Web site of the International Health Workers for People Over Profit. 

Music in Part One: David Rovics, Oppositional Defiant Disorder

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "aegis") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both radio4all.net and (from #90 onwards) The Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio. See the gray sidebar on the right ("CONTENTS [Links]") for a table of contents.

Series overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.


Coming soon (Tuesday air debut date shown)
  • December 4 -- The Censored News
Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):
A-Infos Radio Project http://www.radio4all.net
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Saturday, November 10, 2012

Noam Chomsky: Three Short Talks

To download an audio file (save it on your hard disk): Click on this link for instructions.

New World Notes News
Vol. 5, No. 45 -- November 10, 2012

This week in New World Notes, radio program #245, November 13, 2012

Noam Chomsky:
Three Short Talks


Most of Noam Chomsky's public speeches are brilliant, erudite, judicious, intricately constructed ... and long. Each resists excerpting, and it resists being heard in installments. You really have to listen to it all at once, in one sitting.

Chomsky admirers with half-hour radio programs are usually out of luck.

But in March 2011, in London, Chomsky agreed to answer questions on current affairs submitted by six notable writers. He responded to each question with a spontaneous, unrehearsed mini-lecture. Each of these six talks is fairly brief--no more than 10 minutes--but otherwise classical Chomsky.

We heard one a few months back (on the "Arab Spring"), and this week we'll hear three more. Chomsky discusses
  • how intellectuals almost always support Established Power
  • how the U.S. got into our current economic mess
  • what are the best solutions to the crisis of Palestine
If you're new to Chomsky, these three talks make a good introduction to one of America's best political thinkers. And if you're not new to him ... here's a nice treat.

Notes, credits, & links

The audio is taken from a 45-minute video. I have gently edited the passages I selected (mostly removing hesitations and stumbles). The complete video is available from The Internet Archive. 

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "counter") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both radio4all.net and (from #90 onwards) The Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio. See the gray sidebar on the right ("CONTENTS [Links]") for a table of contents.

Series overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.


Coming soon (Tuesday air debut date shown)
  • November 20 & 27 -- Susan Rosenthal on Class, Health, and Health Care
Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):
A-Infos Radio Project http://www.radio4all.net
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Saturday, November 3, 2012

The Firesign Theatre

To download an audio file (save it on your hard disk): Click on this link for instructions.

New World Notes News
Vol. 5, No. 44 -- November 3, 2012

This week in New World Notes, radio program #244, November 6, 2012

The Firesign Theatre


Clockwise from top left: Philip Austin, Philip Proctor, David Ossman, Peter Bergman. 42 years later, it finally dawns on me: the mammals represent the artists' astrological signs (all "fire" signs)--Aries, Leo, and 2 Saggitarius. I'm still working on the fish.

In brief

We belatedly mark the death (March 9) of Peter Bergman--a founding member of The Firesign Theatre--by playing a large portion of the group's 1970 classic LP, Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers.

Masters of irony, parody, travesty, and sound effects, Firesign created surrealistic radio dramas. They consistently satirized a nation unable to tell reality from the nonsense on TV--nonsense concocted by prostitute politicians and corporate greedheads. The perfect program for Election Day 2012!

Notes, credits, & links

Here's the plot (such as it is): Flipping TV channels late at night, retired actor George Leroy Tirebiter finds dreck galore plus two old movies starring him, playing simultaneously on two different channels. These are Parallel Hell (a war movie set in Korea) and High School Madness (featuring all-American teenagers Porgy and Mudhead)....

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "Freedom of Information Act") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both radio4all.net and (from #90 onwards) The Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio. See the gray sidebar on the right ("CONTENTS [Links]") for a table of contents.

Series overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.

40th Anniversary photo (ca. 2006): Proctor, Bergman, Osman, Austin

Coming soon (Tuesday air debut date shown)
  • November 13 -- Noam Chomsky: Three Short Talks
Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):
A-Infos Radio Project http://www.radio4all.net
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