Chatting Up A Storm - Claudia Cragg

This interview is a special KGNU pre-publication interview (the book comes out in February 2021 from The authors, Joanne Samuel Goldblum, (@jgoldblum), founder of the National Diaper Bank Network, and journalist Colleen Shaddox who argue that the systems that should protect our citizens are broken and that poverty results from flawed policies—compounded by racism, sexism, and other ills—rather than people’s “bad choices.” Federal programs for the poor often fall far short of their aims: The U.S. has only 36 affordable housing units available for every 100 extremely low-income families; roughly 1 in 3 households on Navajo reservations lack plumbing; and inadequate counsel by public defenders can lead to harsher penalties for crimes or time in “debtors’ prisons” for those unable to pay fines or court fees. An overarching problem is that the U.S. determines eligibility for government benefits with an outdated and “irrationally low” federal poverty level of $21,720 for a family of three, which doesn’t take into

We can only hope, going forward from increasingly alarming climate change horrors of the past few years, that the Biden-Harris administration will make climate change a top policy concern after COVID19. The appointment of John Kerry as The Special Presidential Envoy for Climate certainly suggests this intention. And, just in time, since this past August saw the US facing unprecedented climate emergencies, . And for climate at the world at large, for the first time on record, This interview is a reprise of a conversation we had for @KGNU with Dr Todd Sanford during his time at The Union of Concerned Scientists.  UCS is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. The organization "strives for independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices."   What began as a collaboration between students and faculty members at the  in 1969

Five years on from this interview, it should NOT be necessary to remind people that with #COVID19, poverty and inequality are at record levels. Through the roof, they are, as foodbanks around the country increasingly bear witness. As Scott Myers-Lipton, , showed us @KGNU in his book, ": an Economic Bill of Rights to Eliminate Poverty", there are possibilities for real and long-lasting solutions.  Conditions have renewed demands for a new , an American idea proposed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Martin Luther King Jr. The new Economic Bill of Rights has a coherent plan and proclaims that all Americans have the right to a job, a living wage, a decent home, adequate medical care, a good education, and adequate protection from economic fears of unemployment, sickness, and old age. Integrating the latest economic and social data, his book explores each of these rights. Each chapter includes an analysis of the social problems surrounding each right, a historical overview of the attempts to implement t

On Election eve, Claudia Cragg speaks for @KGNU with k about Joe Biden, 2020 Presidential Candidate for The Democratic Party. Former vice president Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been called both the luckiest man and the unluckiest—fortunate to have sustained a fifty-year political career that reached the White House, but also marked by deep personal losses and disappointments that he has suffered. Yet even as Biden’s life has been shaped by drama, it has also been powered by a willingness, rare at the top ranks of politics, to confront his shortcomings, errors, and reversals of fortune. As he says, “Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.” His trials have forged in him a deep empathy for others in hardship—an essential quality as he addresses Americans in the nation’s most dire hour in decades. Blending up-close journalism and broader context, Evan Osnos, who won the National Book Award in 2014, draws on his work for The New Yorker to capture the characters and meaning o

Claudia Cragg @claudiacragg speaks with about her new book, . Schroedel is professor emerita of political science at Claremont Graduate University and in this work she weaves together historical and contemporary voting rights conflicts as they related particularly to Native Peoples. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, South Dakota encouraged voters to use absentee ballots in the June 3 presidential primary election. Although the state received almost 89,000 absentee ballots in the primaries — five times the number of absentee ballots cast in the June 2016 primaries — and voting increased across the state, voter turnout on the Pine Ridge Reservation remained low, at approximately 10%. As Schroedel explains in her book, barriers to Indigenous voting are nothing new. Absentee ballots may only make them worse. Though the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act granted citizenship to all Indigenous people born within the United States, voting can still be difficult for tribal communities. During South Dakota’s 2020 primary

Claudia Cragg (@claudiacragg) talks here to Heather Lende, (@HeatherLende) a New York Times bestselling author who writes about her hometown  -- Haines, Alaska, She has been discussing what community means since she published If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name in 2006 (selling more than 125,000 copies).  After the 2016 elections, Lende was inspired to take a more active role in politics and decided to run for office in Haines.And…She won! In  (Algonquin Books), Lende uses her trademark humor, wit, and compassion to tell the funny and entertaining story of her first term on her small-town assembly, where we learn that the political, social, and environmental issues her community faces are not so different from the issues that are being played out on the national stage.  The book is a "how to guide" for anyone thinking of beginning a career in local politics.  She explains how the local government makes decisions on things that impact us everyday -- roads, schools, zoning for housing and stores, libraries, a

Claudia Cragg @claudiacragg speaks here with Samuel Myers of the . In a recent  with his colleague, Howard Frumkin, Myers states that, of course, elections impact health through changes in both health-care delivery and upstream social and environmental policies. The upcoming US election presents stark contrasts in environmental policies that will affect health in the USA and globally. His new book with Frumkin is .  Elections impact health through changes in both health-care delivery and upstream social and environmental policies. The upcoming US election presents stark contrasts in environmental policies that will affect health in the USA and globally. Here we examine these contrasts through the lens of planetary health. A hallmark of the current US administration, say Myers and Frumkin, has been its hostility to environmental stewardship and its embrace of an antiregulatory agenda. President Donald Trump has appointed administration officials from the ranks of polluting industries and their lobbying firms;

Claudia Cragg speaking for @KGNU to on and and her new book is the former deputy director and chief operating officer of the Massachusetts Health Connector—the model for the Affordable Care Act. She is the director and chief operating officer of the Massachusetts Health Connector—the model for the Affordable Care Act.  Medical insurance is complicated and, like virtually everything in American public life these days, has been politicized and in the process made still more confusing. Yet the present collection of crises—a pandemic, the challenge of accessing quality medical care, unemployment and its attendant loss of health insurance—has made clear more than any other moment in modern memory the importance of universal coverage. Add to this the fact that women are responsible for up to 80% of healthcare decisions for their families. Day has written a primer specifically for women on the ins and outs of medical insurance, with the objective of transforming our healthcare system using feminism as th

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.”

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

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 experim

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 Nati

@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

@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 some

@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.  

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.   

Fire season is upon us and for @KGNU Claudia Cragg @claudiacragg speaks here with @Dani_Anguiano and @alastairgee for an update on their reporting work for The Guardian @guardian about the devastating in California of nearly two years ago. is the harrowing story of the most destructive American wildfire in a century. There is no precedent in postwar American history for the destruction of the town of Paradise, California. On November 8, 2018, the community of 27,000 people was swallowed by the ferocious Camp Fire, which razed virtually every home and killed at least 85 people. The catastrophe seared the American imagination, taking the front page of every major national newspaper and top billing on the news networks. It displaced tens of thousands of people, yielding a refugee crisis that continues to unfold.

@claudiacragg speaks here with J Chester Johnson about a side of his grandfather, Lonnie Burch, that he never knew and only discovered late in his own life. His new book is and is he says a 'story of reconciliation'. The 1919 Elaine Race Massacre, arguably the worst in US history (see more details below), has been widely unknown for the better part of a century, thanks to the whitewashing of history. In 2008, Johnson was asked to write the Litany of Offense and Apology for a National Day of Repentance, where the Episcopal Church formally apologized for its role in transatlantic slavery and related evils. In his research, Johnson happened upon a treatise by historian and anti-lynching advocate Ida B. Wells on the Elaine Massacre, where more than a hundred and possibly hundreds of African-American men, women, and children perished at the hands of white posses, vigilantes, and federal troops in rural Phillips County, Arkansas. Johnson would discover that his beloved grandfather had been a member of the KKK and

Claudia Cragg @claudiacragg speaks here for @KGNU with Lacy Crawford @lacy_crawford about her memoir, One night in October 1990, a young Lacy Crawford took a phone call at her dorm, surprised to hear an older boy pleading for her to come help him. Crawford was mystified but convinced there must be a reason, so she slipped across her boarding school campus and met the boy at his dorm window. When she climbed inside, she was confronted by the boy and his roommate, both stripped down to their underwear. That night would haunt her for decades to come. Crawford emphasizes that the sexual assault she experienced was not unusual. “It’s so simple, what happened at St. Paul’s. It happens all the time,” she writes. “First, they refused to believe me. Then they shamed me. Then they silenced me.” She describes St. Paul’s as a lauded, sometimes lonely place where privileged teens were obsessed with their academic futures. (The author, when faced with the possibility of not returning for her senior year, pleaded with her

When our younger son finished reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar some years ago, he commented that it was not only an extraordinary literary work but also, of course, a source for rare insight into the complications of mental illness. This reminded me  of a conversation (not so much a formal interview, you understand) I had a few years ago with the fabulous and extraordinary author, Joanne Greenberg, who as Hannah Green wrote I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. This work is a fictionalized depiction of Joanne Greenberg’s own treatment experience decades ago at Chestnut Lodge Hospital in Rockville, Maryland, during which she was in psychoanalytic treatment with Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. The book takes place in the late 1940s and early 1950s, at a time when Harry Stack Sullivan, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, and Clara Thompson were establishing the basis for the interpersonal school of psychiatry and psychoanalysis, focusing specifically, though by no means exclusively, on the treatment of schizophrenia. Greenberg ha