SOF Observed

Memories of a New Associate Producer

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0600

Shubha Bala, associate producer As the newest addition to Speaking of Faith, my first task has been...

“My Life, My Death, My Choice”Andy Dayton, associate...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0600

“My Life, My Death, My Choice”
Andy Dayton, associate web producer

In December 2007, British fantasy writer Sir Terry Pratchett publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Primarily known for his best-selling Discworld series of fantasy novels, he has now become a vocal advocate for the right to “early death.”

The video above is from Pratchett’s speech, “Shaking Hands with Death,” for the BBC’s annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture. Early on in the speech — delivered by actor Tony Robinson due to Pratchett’s condition — he tells the story of his father’s death from pancreatic cancer:

“On the day he was diagnosed my father told me, ‘If you ever see me in a hospital bed, full of tubes and pipes and no good to anybody, tell them to switch me off.’ In fact, it took something under a fortnight in the hospice for him to die as a kind of collateral damage in the war between his cancer and the morphine. And in that time he stopped being him and started becoming a corpse, albeit one that moved ever so slightly from time to time.”

In the clip above, Pratchett addresses what he calls “the God argument” and identifies himself as a Humanist who “would rather believe that we were a rising ape, not a falling angel.” He finishes with this thought:

“It’s that much-heralded thing called the quality of life that’s important. How you live your life, what you get out of it, what you put into it, and what you leave behind after it. We should aim for a good and rich life well-lived. And at the end of it, in the comfort of our own home, in the company of those who love us, have a death worth dying for.”

Vodou BrooklynTrent Gilliss, online editor Finding a lead image...

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:51:00 -0600

Vodou Brooklyn
Trent Gilliss, online editor

Finding a lead image to complement our show delving into Haitian Vodou was a moment of diligent serendipity. I struggled to present images that capture the spirit and tone of a tradition — one that has been caricatured in so many ways for such a long time — and still remain surprising, respectful, and true to its practitioners and its rituals.

Stephanie Keith’s photographs deliver and endure because they do just that — respect the tradition. They also take us into a neighborhood (in the United States), into a life that most of us probably would never encounter. We see how a tradition survives, evolves, and flourishes through immigrant life.

And, here was a photographer who was personally invested in her subjects — at least my intuition said so — and not just documenting them. When I contacted Stephanie Keith for permission to use a few photographs, I asked her why she got started on this project — a Vodou priest at a Buddhist peace rally invited her to learn more about his religion at a “party.”

That was enough for me. The result: “Vodou Brooklyn,” a narrated slideshow of her images and story fused with the vibrant, percussive rhythms from Angels in the Mirror: Vodou Music of Haiti.

Several years later, Keith’s words and images endure. And I’m glad to have played a part in spreading her work and sharing a bit of these Haitian-Americans’ lives with those of us who may have been clueless, but remain curious.

A Triumphant Survival

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:00:00 -0600

Kate Moos, managing producer Arresting. From the Mail & Guardian, this difficult...

Les Femmes du Maroc Trent Gilliss, online editor Fresh...

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:17:21 -0600

Les Femmes du Maroc
Trent Gilliss, online editor

Fresh photography. Taking the old, the classic. Reinventing the established. Masters become mentors. Absorbing and recreating. A Western form made modern and reinterpreted for all to imagine. That’s what I absolutely have fallen for in this series of photographs by Lalla Essaydi:

“In photographing women inscribed with henna, I emphasize their decorative role, but subvert the silence of confinement. There is a very different space I inhabit in the West — a space of independence and mobility.”

That henna is composed of Arabic script. Use of calligraphy in this way keeps with traditional inscriptions one might see in the simplest of mosques or in the Alhambra; it also gives deeper meaning to these poses modeled after 19th-century European and American paintings. Even the title of the series, Les Femmes du Maroc, is a play on Delacroix’s Les Femmes d’Algiers.

I’m not versed well enough in art history to immediately understand the many subtexts going on in these photographs. But, I don’t have to; and you don’t have to either to enjoy the magnificence of these women and the tender beauty of those who inhabit the many worlds we all transect in one way or another as creative, working, sentient beings. Essaydi creates a dialogue about ourselves and eventually with the stranger seated at the table next to you:

“In my art, I wish to present myself through multiple lenses — as artist, as Moroccan, as Saudi, as traditionalist, as liberal, as Muslim. I invite viewers to resist stereotypes.”

(image, top: “Moorish Woman” + bottom: “Grand Odalisque” - courtesy of the Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York and Howard Yezerski Gallery, Boston)

[h/t Mona Eltahawy]

SOF Live! Krista in Conversation with Robert Wright February...

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:00:00 -0600

SOF Live! Krista in Conversation with Robert Wright
February 2nd, 2010 ~ 7:00–8:30 pm CST
Cowles Auditorium, University of Minnesota HHH Institute (get directions)
» watch online | » RSVP by emailing hhhevent@gmail.com

We will be live-streaming video of Krista’s interview with New York Times best-selling author, Robert Wright. He’s the author of The Evolution of God, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, The Moral Animal, and Three Scientists and Their Gods. Professor Michael Barnett will moderate the question-and-answer session with our in-house and online audiences. The program will be followed by a reception in the Humphrey Center atrium.

We will start broadcasting video of the event at 6:45 pm CST, 15 minutes before the start of the interview. If you plan to attend in person, please RSVP by sending an email to hhhevent@gmail.com. There’s a hard start time of 7 pm for this event. And, please stop by and say hello!

Starting to pack up for tonight's event. Bob Wright, here we come!

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:27:00 -0600

Watch the live video stream here!

"I tend to think that fictional characters are in some ways more real than biological human beings...."

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:59:35 -0600

“I tend to think that fictional characters are in some ways more real than biological human...

"The problem was not a shortage of sincerity but an excess of zeal in which self-belief overrode..."

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:40:00 -0600

“The problem was not a shortage of sincerity but an excess of zeal in which self-belief...

The “People’s Historian”Andy Dayton, associate...

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:40:00 -0600

The “People’s Historian”
Andy Dayton, associate web producer

Last Wednesday was, of course, President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address. And while coverage of the speech filled up the news cycle, there was another important story not to be forgotten: the passing of Howard Zinn.

Zinn was a renowned historian, activist, and author of A People’s History of the United States, which presented many of the unheard and undocumented stories of U.S. history. Zinn continued to pursue this course throughout the rest of his life, and in a 2008 interview said that he hoped to be remembered for “introducing a different way of thinking about the world.”

Last year a friend invited me to see Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History of the United States — one of a series of performances that brought the stories of A People’s History to life through public readings. Rather than bring a troupe of actors with him, Zinn collected an impressive array of local performers, with a variety of different skill levels and delivery styles. Included in the evening were reenactments of Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?,” Maria Stewart’s “Address Delivered at the African Masonic Hall in Boston” and Martin Luther King’s “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.”

But the part I found most stirring was a breathtaking delivery of Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech, “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro” (you can watch Brian Jones performing the same speech below). On a day that many Americans were celebrating, Douglass delivered a scathing indictment of slavery in America:

“The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”

For me, this memory takes the confluence of Zinn’s passing and Obama’s address from coincidence to something more meaningful. At first, there is an irony in the fact that a man whose life was devoted to telling the stories of the oppressed was, on his death, nearly eclipsed by the first black president of the United States. And, on the eve of Black History Month, Douglass’ words remind us how far we’ve progressed since his time. It also gives a biting reminder of the problems yet to be overcome and the inconsolable history we continue live with as a nation.

(photo: Andy Dayton/Flickr)

Asking Questions about “Patient Capital” and Social...

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 10:14:06 -0600

Asking Questions about “Patient Capital” and Social Entrepreneurship: A Video Interview with Chris Farrell
Trent Gilliss, online editor

Producing programs on the ethics of foreign aid and international development can be challenging and fortifying, particularly our shows on the subject — or my interview with Patrick Bellegarde-Smith about the state of Haiti. Not everything a guest says will ring true to the listener’s ear. It’s in the very nature of individuals like Jacqueline Novogratz and Binyavanga Wainaina to penetrate the bubble of our own preconceived notions, or at least play on that elasticity.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t clarify and ask follow-up questions that might round out, or downright challenge, these ideas. It’s good to listen but also to have a good healthy dose of skepticism and the willingness to check it out.

While producing this week’s program, we did just that. I asked Krista if she would sit down again with Chris Farrell, our chief economics correspondent, whom you probably hear most often on Marketplace and Marketplace Money.

Personally, I wanted to better understand some of the terms that Jacqueline Novogratz was using — sometimes as points of differentiation and, at other times, interchangeably. Terms like “donor” and “investor” or even ideas like “venture capital” and “return on investment.” I also wanted to get a lay of the land, a broader view about what “patient capital” (which, Chris says, applied to dot-com startups like Google at one time) means to the larger financial and investment sectors.

Chris gives a helpful history of the origins of social investing, addresses some of this prevailing skepticism, and tells us that he thinks of markets as “chat rooms” as much as “listening devices.” This interview is well worth your while if you want to better understand social entrepreneurship and how we might help others in need.

Attachment and Destruction Goran Vrcel, guest blogger At the age...

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 09:11:00 -0600

Attachment and Destruction
Goran Vrcel, guest blogger

At the age of ten, I stood at the edge of the hill, gazing into the distant flames that waved above the forested mountains. At that moment I knew that kids my age had lost their homes, their innocence, their land. I quickly learned what nationalism, pride, and hate meant in a falling nation of Yugoslavia.

Being Serbian, I never learned to hate the Croats, as many did. I rather felt sympathy as a Croatian town waved goodbye to us in flames. In 1995, Croatia successfully executed their plans. Ethnic cleansing. We left our homeland, my heaven on earth.

But the war taught me that no violence is solved through violence itself. The violent tactics varied, but the pain remained the same for both sides. The war between Serbs and the Croats has greatly altered my views on attachment to ideas, beliefs, and social standards. How can a loving father nurture his kids, and then be sent out to kill others? How can a child, forced to become aware of this by simple observations or intuition, accept his or her father in the aftermath?

A child remembers well, but at the same time, one can unconsciously forgive, become persuaded by the dominance of another, or one can easily conceal those lingering memories buried deep within for prolonged periods of time.

But the real question is: how is it that some people are capable of such destruction, yet, at the same time, they are competent of expressing love and compassion towards their family members and or society?

I listened to a group of soldiers recapturing the memories of their “victorious” battle. One described the time when he forced an elderly woman to lift her skirt up so that he could shoot her, another pulled the dentures out of a dead peasant’s mouth, and another told a story of a man beheading a villager with a chainsaw. All of these men returned home to their loving families.

Not long after the flames had descended into the ashes, my 93 year-old great-grandmother said to us, “You children do not know that you are alive.” This was the beginning of my awakening, even though, at the time, I had no knowledge of what awakening meant. But some sort of insight penetrated through to the core of my being.

Years later, I started to believe that attachment to people, ideas, beliefs, and the ways of our society is what eventually might alienate us from others, and construct a possible pathway to ignorance. These solders were not attached to the opposing society, therefore, it became easy for them to terminate the other side in the most atrocious way possible. When a sense of self is defined through pride and superiority, then it becomes work of an ego, which can lead to delusion and possible destruction.

Since we live in a more diverse world, we must learn the meaning of the word “us” as opposed to us or them, or me and him/her. It is crucial that we become aware not only of our differences, but of our similarities as human beings. Awareness and action is the key. So how do I forgive? Through educating others by bringing awareness and observing their progress.

Mr. Vrcel currently works as a photographer and designer living in Schererville, Indiana. All photos in this essay by Goran Vrcel and used with his permission.

He submitted this essay through our First Person Outreach page. Submit yours too.

"Salvation somehow seemed closer — yet we also knew that we could be killed at any moment. The goal..."

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 04:36:00 -0600

“Salvation somehow seemed closer — yet we also knew that we could be killed at any moment. The...

Dog Ogling and Ursine Den Cam: Internet as Animal Habitat Kate...

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 07:06:00 -0600

Dog Ogling and Ursine Den Cam: Internet as Animal Habitat
Kate Moos, managing producer

It’s been a great couple of weeks for critters on the Internet. I’m an animal lover, a declaration I offer with neither pride nor embarrassment. Pictures of kittens make me smile. (Yes, you CAN HAS cheezburger!) Puppies elicit oohs of delight. I can’t help it. But although I’m not covert about it, I have my limits. I don’t send chain emails with pictures of a faun being nuzzled by a Golden Retriever, just for example. And the video that crossed my screen yesterday, of an orangutan playing with a black lab — well, never mind. You’re going to have to find that one on your own.

All of that said, I couldn’t help but notice that in the last several days, in the wake of the rebroadcast of our program with Katy Payne about elephants and whales, my casual online browsing has turned up some exceptional opportunities to ogle or listen to, or learn about, animals. First, there was the reappearance of Shiba Inu puppy cam (also above). Those of you who remember the first puppycam know that watching these puppies nurse, nest, and stumble about their pen is an occupation that — if unchecked — can take up hours of one’s life.

On the wilder side of things, Lilly the Black Bear achieved the animal kingdom’s equivalent of Lady Gaga’s meteoric rise to fame by giving birth to her cub with thousands of people watching. And to offer a trifecta of pleasures, I also listened to an amazing story of human interaction with a whale on Radiolab this week. They take up a question SOF is very interested in pursuing in our own way: what is the meaning of the human-animal bond?

In all of these cases, from the most domestic to the most wild, it’s still not clear what mammalian response, possibly encoded in my DNA , makes the encounter so deeply affecting. Nor will I likely ever fully understand why being greeted by my dog Ruby offers such consistent, daily joy.

We’ve asked this question before, but we’re still curious: who would you most like to talk to about the human-animal bond? What do you think is happening when we love animals? Just another form of human dominance at the top of the food chain? Or something more?

Salinger Dies Kate Moos, managing producer Much will be said and...

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:40:00 -0600

Salinger Dies
Kate Moos, managing producer

Much will be said and written. But for now, all I can think about is Franny and Zooey, the long theological passage in which ~~Franny~~ Zooey tells his sister she doesn’t have to recite the Jesus prayer to experience God. Janet Malcolm’s 2001 piece in The New York Review of Books says much about Salinger, Franny and Zooey, and its reception by critics who once doted on him.

(photo: “zooey.” by Victoria/Flickr)

Taking the Pulse of Caprica Colleen Scheck, senior producer Are...

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0600

Taking the Pulse of Caprica
Colleen Scheck, senior producer

Are you watching Caprica? We’ve heard from many of you who were Battlestar Galactica (BSG) fans — including our host — so I’m guessing some of you are tuning in to this prequel series. If so, you may be interested in the comments of Diane Winston, who was part of our program “TV and Parables of Our Time.” Along with three other religion and culture observers, Winston is contributing to a new weekly feature devoted to delving into “deep exegesis” of Caprica:

“We loved BSG because in the post-9/11 moment, it captured our consternation and confusion. Why do they hate us? Can we justify torture? What makes us human? When can we stop fighting? Moreover, it lodged these questions in the space between human passion and species survival, mediating the religious quest for meaning with the political will to win.

Caprica, going back to how this came to be, meets us in the present. This is what we face, too: religious extremism, economic inequality, anti-immigrant fervor, a military increasingly dependent upon drones, the lure of the virtual worlds, and the comfort of slick surfaces. Like BSG, Caprica asks, “What makes us human?” But this time, the answers seem a lot closer to home.”

Someone in Eight Million Nancy Rosenbaum, associate producer The...

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:07:00 -0600

Someone in Eight Million
Nancy Rosenbaum, associate producer

The New York Times recently concluded its “One in Eight Million” series. It’s a lyrical compendium of 54 audio-visual stories that shine a light on ordinary (and not so ordinary) New Yorkers — from an urban taxidermist to a “Type-A” teenager. These sound-rich features are all told in the first person and provide a window into the intimacies of people’s lived experiences across the five boroughs of New York City’s eight-million-thick metropolis.

The series’ concluding segment featuring a 57-year-old grandfather of four named Joseph Cotton took my breath away. He cares for his “grandbabies” with such love, attention, devotion, and patience in a way that’s tender but not possessive. He knows the time will come when he’ll need to let them go. He says:

“Eventually I’m gonna lose them. Eventually they’re going to get to be 15, 16 years old. They’re going to be: ‘I ain’t hanging with pop-pop. Because they’re going to have other interests, they’re going to be doing other things. I’m looking for greatness from them. So they can’t hang around me and find greatness.”

I recently attended an improv workshop with a professional actor who commented that he’s known artists who are masterful at their craft but aren’t so masterful at being loving partners or caregivers. People who love well don’t necessarily get noticed or celebrated for their particular artistry; I immediately thought of Mr. Cotton when I heard this. I’m grateful to the series for noticing him.

(photos: Todd Heisler/The New York Times)

Thank You, Eleanor Roosevelt Trent Gilliss, online editor A...

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 05:53:00 -0600

Thank You, Eleanor Roosevelt
Trent Gilliss, online editor

A sleepless night wandering about the Web delivered this 1949 photo of Eleanor Roosevelt holding a poster of the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which she considered her greatest legacy:

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”

After the act was passed on December 10, 1948, the UN General Assembly urged all nations “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions.”

I don’t recall a poster of the Declaration ever hanging in one of my classrooms. Ashamed to admit it, I know I’ve never even read the full text of this historic document — even though I’ve watched these videos from Andy’s 60th anniversary post. So I did, and it took me less than five minutes. Five minutes! And I’m 40 years old.

I’m struck by the richness of its language — “human family,” “universal respect,” “spirit of brotherhood,” “security of person” — as I read the news about Haiti and its people, the tumultuous debate about the rights and privileges extended to homosexual couples, or the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here are a few articles that especially resonated with me:

Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 15. Everyone has the right to a nationality.

Article 16. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. … The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 24. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 26. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Article 29. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

Eleanor Roosevelt, chairman of the UN Human Rights Commission, visits with Nasrollah Entezam, president of the fifth session of the General Assembly and Marian Anderson, American contralto, on Human Rights Day in 1950. (United Nations)

"…unfortunately, society does not generally invest enough in innovation—especially in areas..."

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:40:43 -0600

“…unfortunately, society does not generally invest enough in innovation—especially in...

"Nou Met Led Me Nou La!" (We May Be Ugly, But We Are Here!)

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 08:15:00 -0600

Trent Gilliss, online editor Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, whom we first interviewed for our program...