The Jeff Farias Show

Monday, March 23 2009

At 3:30 Richard Ray Perez, Executive Producer Richard Ray Perez produced and directed the seminal political documentary Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election, an official selection at over 50 international film festivals, winner of nine festival awards, and the project that helped launch Brave New Films and Public Interest Pictures. IN THEIR BOOTS To Launch National Tour Highlighting the Home Front Impacts of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Set to launch just after the 6th anniversary of the war in Iraq, the tour will visit 10 cities over 10 months. IN THEIR BOOTS is hitting the road for a 10-month national tour to raise awareness about the challenges facing our brave men and women in uniform and exploring ways to improve veteran care. A new documentary film highlighting an aspect of this complicated challenge will be released in each of the 10 cities on the tour. IN THEIR BOOTS is a documentary film project that began early in 2008. In its first year, it produced 12 documentaries, released them in a weekly webcast online at http://www.InTheirBoots.com, and generated substantial media coverage in its effort to raise awareness for the sacrifices service members, veterans, and their families are making as our country continues to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A three-minute summary of the work from 2008 can be seen here: http://blip.tv/play/AfDhfozINg In 2009, IN THEIR BOOTS is set to produce 10 more documentary films, and in addition to releasing them on the web IN THEIR BOOTS is taking them on the road. The tour begins in March, where the first stop will be San Francisco. The Roxie theater will host a who’s who crowd of the veteran’s community in Northern California for the Premiere of Broken Promise. Broken Promise raises the issue of mental health care for returning veterans, and offers a model for the VA to consider to improve its mental health care treatment. Here is a sneak preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVLZf2z-KNA

At 4 PM Curt Ellis is a Food and Society Policy Fellow with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. He co-produced the documentary KING CORN, which was released in theaters in 60 cities and aired on PBS nationwide. He produced THE GREENING OF SOUTHIE, a documentary that aired on the Sundance Channel and is showing this Earth Week in union halls around the country. Curt is getting ready to launch BIG RIVER, a follow-up film to KING CORN. He lives in Austin, TX. http://www.kingcorn.net/

At 4:30 Author Riki Ott, a rare combination of commercial salmon “fisherm’am” and PhD marine biologist, describes firsthand the impacts of oil companies’ broken promises when the Exxon Valdez spills most of its cargo and despoils thousands of miles of shore. Ott illustrates in stirring fashion the oil industry’s 20-year trail of pollution and deception that predated the tragic 1989 spill and delves deep into the disruption to the fishing community of Cordova over the following 19 years. In vivid detail, she describes the human trauma coupled inextricably with that of the sound’s wildlife and its long road to recovery. Ott critically examines shifts in scientific understanding of oil-spill effects on ecosystems and communities, exposes fundamental flaws in governance and the legal system, and contrasts hard won spill-prevention and spill-response measures in the sound to dangerous conditions on the Alaska pipeline. Her human story, varied background, professional training, and activist heart lead readers to the root of the problem: a clash of human rights and corporate power embedded in law and small-town life. Not One Drop is as much an example of how too many corporate owners and political leaders betray everyday citizens as it is one of the universal struggle to maintain heart, to find the courage to overcome disaster, and to forge a new path from despair to hope.” http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/i … :paperback http://www.RikiOtt.com http://www.UltimateCivics.com http://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott

At 5PM Pepe Escobar THE ROVING EYE “An extreme traveler, Pepe’s nose for news has taken him to all parts of the globe. He was in Afghanistan and interviewed the military leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Masoud, a couple of weeks before his assassination (Masoud: From warrior to statesman , Sep 11, 2001). Two weeks before September 11, 2001, while Pepe was in the tribal areas of Pakistan, ATol published his prophetic piece, Get Osama! Now! Or else … (Aug 30, 2001). Pepe was one of the first journalists to reach Kabul after the Taliban’s retreat, and more recently he has explored and reported from Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, US and China.” Globalistan: How the Globalized World Is Dissolving Into Liquid War. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/Escobar.html The Best of Pepe Escobar on ‘The Real News’: http://tinyurl.com/cujglo

we also spoke with Thomas Walkom, Toronto Star national affairs columnist, writes on political economy. We spoke on the bizzare event in Canada last week on the banning of British MP George Galloway. The winner of two national newspaper awards (foreign reporting and column writing), he was the Star’s Queen’s Park columnist for eight years. Before that, he wrote for the Globe and Mail - first as an Ottawa parliamentary reporter, then as Tokyo bureau chief. He has a PhD in economics from the University of Toronto and is author of Rae Days: the rise and follies of the NDP, a book on Ontario’s first New Democratic Party government, that managed to make the best sellers’ list for about five minutes. http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnis … cle/606073

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcasts [176:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (171)

Read Full Post »