Tag Archives: Politics and Activism

The Scholars’ Circle & Insighters Radio- Mar. 17th, 2013

The United Nations has concluded its annual conference on the status of women with a focus on ending violence against women at a time when modern slavery has become a more than $35 billion industry that enslaves millions of people, mostly women and girls. The State Department estimated that in 2012, 27 million people were being held as slaves, most as sex slaves, and many held in western nations. Just last week, in fact, a UK commission found more than 1000 cases of enslavement. Most were women and girls forced into sexual exploitation. What are the realities of trafficking and slavery in 2013?We spend the hour exploring the realities of human trafficking, modern day slavery and exploitation.

First Scholars’ Circle: [ dur.  35 mins. ]

  • Kathleen Kim is a Professor of Law at Loyola Law School. She currently co-directs the Anti-Trafficking Litigation Assistance and Support Team. Her many publications include, “The Coercion of Trafficked Workers”,(link to publication ) and “Reconceptualizing Approaches to Human Trafficking: New Directions and Perspectives from the Field(s).”
  • Siddharth Kara is a Fellow with the Carr Center Program on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery. He is the author of, “Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia,” and the award-winning book, “Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery.” Kara currently advises the United Nations, the U.S. Government, and several other governments on antislavery research, policy and law.
  • Gillian Wylie is an Assistant Professor in International Peace Studies at Trinity College Dublin. She is the author of many publications including, “Human Trafficking in Europe: Character, Causes, Consequences,” and “Defining Trafficking/Denying Justice: Forced Labour in Ireland and the Consequences of Trafficking Discourse.”

Finally with Scholars’ : [ dur. 18mins. ]

  • Kathleen Berry, Prof. Emiritus Penn State University –  Authour of  Female Sexual Slavery;
  • Kathryn McKeenan, Prof. of Law, Univ. of Michigan Law School – Author of Sex equality only word.
  • Melissa Farley, Clinical Physcologists with Center for World Indigenous Studies. – Author of Men who buy Sex.

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Insighters Radio- Mar. 10th, 2013

First, we speak with Nancy Gibbs, Time magazine editor and author of “The President’s Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity “, on one of the world’s most exclusive and influential clubs. [ dur. 29 mins. ]

Then, did the sexual counter revolution polarize American politics? We speak with Nancy Cohen visiting scholar at UCLA and author of  “Delirium:How the Sexual Counterrevolution is Polarizing America”. [ dur. 27 mins. ]

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The Scholars’ Circle & Insighters Radio- Mar. 3rd, 2013

First, can new media change power relations? We speak with Rory O’Connor author of, “Friends, Followers and the Future: How Social Media are Changing Politics, Threatening Big Brands, and Killing Traditional Media.” [ dur. 27mins. ]

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle, in the face of looming public health and sustainability, we look at the intersection of science and politics. [dur. 28 min. ]

  • Naomi Oreskes, Prof. History & Science, UC San Diego; Author of  “Merchants of Doubt”.
  • Prof. David Guston, Political Science, Co-director Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, AZ State Univ.  Author of  “Between Politics and Science: Assuring the Integrity and Productivity of Research” .
  • Prof. Mark Brown, Gov’t & Political Science, CSU Sacrament; Author of “Science in Democracy”.

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The Scholars’ Circle & Insighters Radio- Feb. 24th, 2013

First, how did society develop from bands of hunter and gatherers to our current political system? Where did the concepts of accountability come from? And why was a swell of democracy followed by a decline in democratic gain? What is behind political decay? Francis Fukuyama poses these questions in his latest book, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution. [ dur: 28 mins. ]

  • Francis Fukuyama, author, senior fellow at Stanford Univ.;

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle, what are the trends and consequences of increasingly unequal society? We look at inequality, its causes and consequences. [ dur: 27 mins. ]

  • Prof. Lane Kenworthy, Sociology and Political science Univ. of AZ.; Author: Progress for the Poor
  • Prof. Miles Corak,  Prof. of Economics, Univ. of Ottawa, Canada; Author: Generational Income Mobility in North America and Europe
  • Prof. Sylvia Allegretto, Center on Wage & Employment Dynamics, Labor Economist , UC Berkeley. Author : The State of Working America:

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The Scholars’ Circle & Insighters Radio- Feb. 17th, 2013

Begin with, President Obama used the state of the union address to galvanize support for his agenda. How does his state of the union compare to those of his predecessors? [ dur. 12:51 ]

  • Ryan Lee Teten, Professor of Political Science at Univ. of Louisiana.  Author of  – Evolution of Rehtorical Presidency.

Then, for President’s Day, we’ll take a peek inside the strange political marriage of Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon and how their terms shaped US politics and policy. [ dur. 41mins. ]

  • Jeffery Frank, author, journalist;  Author of Ike and Dick of Strange Political Marriage.

Finally, we’ll revisit the 1920 founding of Black History Month and in advance of its 50th anniversary, the pivotal civil rights campaign in Birmingham. [ dur. 18 mins. ]

  • VB Franklin, Distinguished Prof. History at UC Riverside. Author of Education of Black Philidelphia.

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The Scholars’ Circle & Insighters Radio- Feb. 10th, 2013

For this Valentine’s week:

First, we look at the global advances for marriage equality, just in time for the landmark Supreme Court cases. [ dur. 15  mins. ]

  • Jenny Pizer is Senior Counsel and Director of Law and Public Policy at Lambda Legal.

Then, they may have been some of the world’s greatest thinkers but they were also great failures at love.[ dur. 12 mins. ]

  • Andrew Shaffer is the author of, “Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love,” and “Literary Rogues: A Scandalous History of Wayward Authors.”

Finally, on the Scholars’ Circle, what is love? Is it emotional? Biological? Can it be summarized by rational decision? How does it play out in society? [  dur. 28 mins. ]

  • Simon May is a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Kings College, London. His books include, “Love: A History” and “Nietzsche’s Ethics and his War on Morality’.”
  • Bennett W. Helm is a Professor of Philosophy at Franklin & Marshall College. His books include, “Love, Friendship, and the Self: Intimate Identification and the Sociality of Persons,” and “Emotional Reason: Deliberation, Motivation, and the Nature of Value.”
  • Dr. Robert Epstein is Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology. He is currently working on a book called “Making Love: How People Learn To Love, and How You Can Too,” which is based on his research on how love emerges over time in arranged marriages. He is also the author of, “Teen 2.0: Saving Our Children and Families from the Torment of Adolescence,” and “Cognition, Creativity, and Behavior: Selected Essays.”

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The Scholars’ Circle & Insighters Radio- Feb. 3rd, 2013

Can the Lord of the Rings trilogy act as a means to understand complex politics and international relations? Our guest says, indeed, it can. [ dur. 30 mins. ]

  • Patrick James, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California. He is the author of, “The International Relations of Middle-earth: Learning from The Lord of the Rings.”

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle, we look at deception and lying. Some scholars say that deception is ubiquitous and normal in all human interactions, that lying is useful and possibly even biological. Others suggest that there is a cost to lying even for white lies. What is the truth about lying? [ dur. 28 mins. ]

  • Sissela Bok is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, and formerly a Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University. Her many books include the seminal, “Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life,” “Secrets: on the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation,” and “A Strategy for Peace: Human Values and the Threat of War.”
  • David Livingstone Smith is Professor of Philosophy at the University of New England. He is the author of several books including, “Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind,” “Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others,” and “Hidden Conversations: An Introduction to Communicative Psychoanalysis.”
  • Charles V. Ford, M.D., is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, in the School of Medicine at the University of Alabama. His books include “Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!: The Psychology of Deceit.”

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The Scholars’ Circle & Insighters Radio- Jan. 27th, 2013

Much of the mass media has fixated on whether the film Zero Dark Thirty glorified torture. Academy Award-winning director Katherine Bigelow has been forced by critics to explain her use of graphic, detailed torture scenes in her new film, which dramatizes the hunt and assassination of Osama Bin Laden. But while headlines and talk shows focus on Bigelow and her film, less has been said about two new reports detailing extensive torture, or about the realities of torture.

We are joined by filmmaker Murad Aldin Amayreh discussing his most recent documentary, “The Tortured: Stories of Survival.” And, Hector Aristizabal, one of the interviewees in the film who was tortured in Colombia. Also joining the conversation: Pamela Merchant is Executive Director of the Center for Justice and Accountability. Gerald Gray is a social worker and psychotherapist who works with torture victims and who has initiated numerous institutes to assist them (including the Center for Justice and Accountability). Pamela Merchant is Executive Director of the Center for Justice and Accountability. Stephen Rohde is a constitutional lawyer, founder and Chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, Chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and a Vice President of Death Penalty Focus, and author of AMERICAN WORDS OF FREEDOM, and FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY. [ dur. 29 mins. ]

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle, President Obama has announced that a decade of war is now ending, our panel argues that warring is a relatively new phenomenon in human societies and that human beings are not warlike by nature. [ dur. 27 mins. ]

Douglas P. Fry, Dir of Peace, Mediation & Conflict Research at Abo Akademi Univ. Finland.  Author of Beyond War : The Human Potential for Peace.

Darcia Narvaez, Prof. of Phycology, Univ. of Minnesota. Co-author of Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development: From Research to Practice and Policy.

Brian Ferguson, Prof. of  Anthropology , Rutgers Univ. .  Co-author of  War in the Tribal Zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare.

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The Scholars’ circle & Insighters Radio- Jan. 20th, 2013

In this hour, can a breakthrough in DNA snipping lead to curing AIDS and other diseases?

  • Jennifer A. Doudna is Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at UC, Berkeley. She is the author of numerous publications including, “RNA-programmed genome editing in human cells”, “A Programmable Dual-RNA-Guided DNA Endonuclease in Adaptive Bacterial Immunity” and “RNA-Guided Human Genome Engineering via Cas9.”

Then, the Postal Service is in dire straits. What is the future of US mail?

  • A. Lee Fritschler is a Professor in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University. He is the co-author of numerous publications and books including, “Closed Minds? Politics and Ideology in American Universities” ,  and “Smoking and Politics: Bureaucracy Centered Policy Making, Sixth edition”.

Finally, on the Scholars’ Circle, how will the Obama Administrations proposals to address gun violence fare with the congress and the supreme court?

  • David S. Law is Professor of Law and Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis, and currently Visiting Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He is author of numerous publications and co-author with Mila Versteeg of, “The Declining Influence of the US Constitution” and “The Evolution and Ideology of Global Constitutionalism”.
  • Sanford Levinson holds the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law and is Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of numerous publications and books including, “Wrestling With Diversity” and most recently, “Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It)”.
  • Erwin Chemerinsky is the founding dean and distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science. He is the author numerous books most  recently, “The Conservative Assault on the Constitution”, “Enhancing Government: Federalism for the 21st Century” and “Interpreting the Constitution”.

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The Scholars’ circle & Insighters Radio- Jan. 13th, 2013

First, we look at post-earthquake reconstruction, disaster relief and the role of NGO’s in Haiti. We also take a deeper look at the critical role of the Haitian Diaspora.

  • Jonathan Katz, Journalist and author of The Big Truck That Went By;
  • Manolia Charlotin, executive editor of The Haitian Times;

Then, on the Scholars Circle, we examine the politics of the US Constitution, its effect on political institutions and the political process, and ask whether it should be revised or amended. Also, includes comparative analysis with other constitutions.

  • David S. Law, Prof. Law and Political Science, Washington Univ. in St. Louis;
  • Sanford Levinson, Prof. of Law, Univ. of Texas School of Law; Author: Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance
  • Louis Michael Seidman, Prof. Constitutional Law, Georgetown University; Author: On Constitutional Disobedience ( in alienable Rights )

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