12:00 PM Pacific Time: Mondays - Wednesdays
Acclaimed program of ideas, in-depth analysis, and commentary on a variety of matters—political, economic, social, and cultural—important to progressive and radical thinking and activism. Against the Grain is co-produced and co-hosted by Sasha Lilley and C. S. Soong.
Ian Patterson’s new book "Guernica and Total War" examines the destruction of the ancient Basque town, the cultural works (including Picasso’s famous painting) influenced by that event, and the horrific innovation of obliterating civilian populations via aerial bombing.
New Orleans’s public education system was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. It was then attacked, according to Leigh Dingerson, by a conservative, privatization-minded wing of the national charter school movement. Also, union leader Brenda Mitchell discusses the struggles of teachers post-Katrina.
Michaele Ferguson and Karen Zivi discuss their contributions to the new anthology "W Stands for Women: How the George W. Bush Presidency Shaped a New Politics of Gender." Ferguson examines the feminist-sounding national security rhetoric of the Bush administration since 9/11; Zivi questions Bush’s emphasis on compassion when addressing the AIDS crisis among women.
Are the feds trying to fast-track the death penalty? And what’s being done to minimize wrongful convictions? The ACLU’s Natasha Minsker and Robin Maher of the American Bar Association discuss recent developments in California and nationally.
Does contemporary western art critique the excesses of our hypercommercialized world of capitalism – or celebrate it with a wink and a nudge? Radical art critic Julian Stallabrass talks with host Sasha Lilley about the commodification of art.
