Susie Bright & me, tonight
I’ll be interviewing Susie Bright about sex, politics, and memory, to celebrate the publication of her book, Big Sex, Little Death. Tonight at 7, at the Strand Bookstore, 828 Broadway (at 12th St.), Manhattan. The Strand event page: Strand Books.
WBAI not paying Chuck D
So the person who “confirmed” to me that WBAI was paying Chuck D $2,000 a week mistyped: he said “Chuck D is getting $2,000 a week” when he meant to say “Chuck D is not getting $2,000 a week.” What a difference four keystrokes make. He was getting $2,000 a month until October 2010; now he’s getting nothing. He’s still not fundraising, though. Sorry.
Another purge at WBAI
WBAI’s program director Tony Bates has ousted another critic of his fondness for quackery and conspiracy theories: Bill Weinberg’s Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade has been “terminated.” Read about it here. It’s highly likely that these purges—coming along with those at KPFA (recap here)—are being directed by Pacifica management. It all makes me wonder how much longer I’ll be on at KPFA. So a radio network with strong signals in five major metropolitan areas, with the capacity to reach about 20% of the U.S. population on terrestrial radio, is being turned over to advocates of… Read More
New radio product
Freshly posted to my radio archives: March 19, 2011 Abe Sauer, who’s been covering Wisconsin for The Awl, on Walker, the protests, privatization • Steve Early, author of The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor, on the fights in & around Andy Stern’s SEIU
More Zimbabwe solidarity
Scott McLemee asked me to circulate this, as a follow-up to this post from earlier in the week: Solidarity With Zimbabwean Political Prisoners. They’re getting screwed and they need support.
Me at Bluestockings…
…though just as supporting cast: Sasha Lilley, Greg Albo, and me, talking about Sasha’s book Capital and its Discontents: Conversations with Radical Thinkers in a Time of Tumult, a collection of her excellent interviews for Against the Grain. Sunday, March 20, 7–9 PM Bluestockings 172 Allen St, New York More info here.
Me at Left Forum
I’m on three – count ’em, three! – panels at this weekend’s Left Forum: Catastrophism and the Crisis of the Left E. Panel Session 2—Saturday 12:00 p.m. – 1:50 p.m., W626 Sponsored by: Retort • Doug Henwood—Left Business Observer • Eddie Yuen—San Francisco Art Institute • James Davis—Retort • Ramsey Kanaan—PM Press, Retort • Sasha Lilley—Retort, Spectre Post-Financial Crisis: Neoliberalism and the Global Economic Recovery O. Panel Session 7—Sunday 3:00 p.m. – 4:50 p.m., student union • David Harvey—Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center; Author, A Companion to Marx’s Capital • Doug Henwood—Left Business Observer • Mark Weisbrot—Center for Economic and Policy Research …and, just… Read More
My tribute to Bob Fitch
My tribute to Bob Fitch, who died on March 4, is now up at The Nation‘s website: “Remembering Robert Fitch.”
Solidarity with Zimbabwean political prisoners
[Scott McLemee asked me to circulate this.] Six people in Zimbabwe are now imprisoned on charges of treason for organizing a meeting to discuss the mass movements in Tunisia and Egypt. For this “crime” they face a possible death sentence. They have been tortured and are now in solitary confinement. An international day of action to demand their release will be held on Monday, March 21, when they are scheduled for a court hearing. Our message is simple and urgent: We demand that the government of Zimbabwe drop all charges and release them… Read More
Meanwhile at KPFA…
Two updates on the KPFA situation (and apologies to those of you who find Pacifica news sleep-inducing): • A few weeks ago, I reposted the news, which I originally got from KPFA Worker, that “Amit Pendyal resigned because Pacifica executive director Arlene Engelhardt wouldn’t let him do his job.” Official circles denied this. An example of such: WBAI board chair Mitch Cohen commented, “[H]ere’s what a member of the KPFA Board just wrote to me when I inquired: ‘It’s not true. He is still on the job, despite efforts by Doug’s allies to… Read More
WBAI fundraiser: snake oil sells
WBAI—where I used to do my radio show until program director Tony Bates got other ideas—just finished a fundraiser. Management—meaning Bates, station manager Berthold Reimers, and local board chair Mitch Cohen—have been bragging about its success, and the station’s return to financial health. Close examination of the results make you doubt this analysis. Management has circulated a spreadsheet showing the fundraising results by show. Here it is, for those wanting to score at home (and those are my calculations of the Null vs. ex-Null performance at the bottom of the sheet called… Read More
RIP, Bob Fitch
My old friend Bob Fitch died yesterday. I’m going to say more at some point, but for now, check out Josh Mason’s excellent obit: The Slack Wire: Fitch.
New radio product
Freshly posted to my radio archive: March 5, 2011 Jodi Dean, keeper of the I Cite blog and author of Blog Theory,interviewed in December on what digital culture is doing to us, returns to tell us how events in Cairo and Madison may have changed her mind • Joel Rogers of the University of Wisconsin on that state and its labor uprising
LBO News from Doug Henwood 
Posted on March 5, 2011 by Doug Henwood
Radio commentary, March 5, 2011
[The Dean and Rogers interviews referred to below are part of this show. The version of these comments delivered on that show, however, don’t include the analysis of the February employment report, which was written just for this “blog.”] contribute to KPFA It’s been a while since I’ve done this—it’s good to be back. Because of some traveling, work deadlines, and other scheduling conflicts, I wasn’t able to do any fundraising stints here as I usually do. I regret that—I wish I could have done my part to beef up KPFA’s cash… Read More