Author Archives: forthrightradio

Roxanna Asgarian WE WERE ONCE A FAMILY: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America

You may recall the horrifying news that hit the airwaves on March 26, 2018 about a van that had driven off the 100 foot cliff on HWY 1 just south of Juan Creek between Rockport and Westport on the north coast of Mendocino County, CA. Bad as the initial reports were, as more was learned about what had actually happened and what led up to it, the horror only grew.

Texas based journalist, Roxanna Asgarian, began investigating the tragedy within a day. Her investigations since have resulted in her book, WE WERE ONCE A FAMILY: A STORY OF LOVE, DEATH, AND CHILD REMOVAL IN AMERICA, published in March, 2023 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

It won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction for books published in 2023.

She writes it as the true crime story that it certainly is, but her primary goal was to uncover the untold stories of the birth families of the six Black children taken from their families, who did NOT want to give them up, and who were making efforts to keep them, when the deeply flawed child welfare system thrust them first into the foster care system, and then fast tracked them into out of state adoptions.

Roxanna Asgarian reports about courts and the law for the Texas Tribune. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Magazine and Texas Monthly, as well as other publications. She received the 2022 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for WE WERE ONCE A FAMILY: A STORY OF LOVE, DEATH, AND CHILD REMOVAL IN AMERICA. It goes well beyond the earlier, sensationalist reportage by the mainstream press and delves into the systems and history that allowed this murder/suicide to happen. We spoke with her via Skype on April 10, 2023.

Devonte Hart, seen in 2014 hugging a police officer at a Black Lives Matter protest. (Johnny Huu Nguyen/AP)

Tragic as this story of innocent children taken from their birth families by a Child Protection Service system which purports to protect children, it is but one aspect of our society that does NOT protect innocent children.

Once again, another mass shooting at a school ended in the murder and traumatizing of children, this one at the Covenant School in Nashville, TN, which led to protests at the State Legislature, the expulsion of two young black representatives, their unanimous reinstatement to represent their districts, and more diverse voices calling out the politicians only too happy to maintain the status quo.

One mourns the loss of the Hart children, particularly Devonte Hart, whose famous “hug heard around the world” – showing Devonte’s tear streaked face at the age of 14 hugging a white police officer during a tense demonstration protesting the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. He, with his “Free Hugs” sign, would have been 20 years old now. What might he have become, had his life not been cut short, his body never found?

The broadcast ended with Cheryl Wheeler’s song, “If It Were Up to Me,” which you can hear using this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op7agdIFOGY. It is sadly even more relevant than when she first recorded it in 1997.

Articles, videos, etc. pertinent to this episode:

Texas removed six Black children from their homes. Their adoptive parents drove them off a cliff. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/14/texas-child-welfare-removal-hart-family-deaths/

Hart family inquest finds parents intentionally killed their 6 children on Mendocino Coast https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/04/06/hart-family-inquest-finds-parents-intentionally-killed-their-children/

We Were Once a Family’ explores flaws in foster, adoption systems and 6 children’s resulting deaths https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/04/11/we-were-once-family-book-adoption

Friends, neighbors paint uneven picture of the Harts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS6eGzCC4bk

Mountain Shadow Association https://www.mountainshadowassociation.org/

The Doyle Family: Native American Children’s Toy Company & The Family Healing Center https://forthright.media/2019/12/28/the-doyle-family-native-american-childrens-toy-company-the-family-healing-center/

“Aren’t You Guys Tired of Covering This?”: Mom Interrupts Fox News Segment on Nashville School Shooting https://newrepublic.com/post/171414/mom-interrupts-fox-news-segment-nashville-school-shooting

Gregg Popovich Slams GOP With Intense Pregame Speech On Gun Violence https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gregg-popovich-tennessee-house-expelling-democrats_n_643398dae4b0b51a6ce1aa20

Child Gun Deaths Rose 50 Percent in Just 2 Years, Research Finds https://truthout.org/articles/child-gun-deaths-rose-50-percent-in-just-2-years-research-finds/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=d5a023de39-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_3_20_2023_13_41_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-d5a023de39-651106009&mc_cid=d5a023de39&mc_eid=f9703b4752

Just 2 Days After Shooting, Republicans Vote to Loosen Gun Law in North Carolina https://truthout.org/articles/just-2-days-after-shooting-republicans-vote-to-loosen-gun-law-in-north-carolina/

South Dakota Governor Says Her Two Year Old Grandchild Already Has Several Guns https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/15/south-dakota-governor-kristi-noem-grandchild-guns-nra

We’re misunderstanding how child abuse happens — and that has deadly consequences for kids https://www.salon.com/2023/04/09/how-child-abuse-happens/

The Supreme Court will decide the future of the Indian Child Welfare Act https://www.npr.org/2022/11/08/1135190325/the-supreme-court-will-decide-the-future-of-the-indian-child-welfare-act

Supreme Court Held oral Argument on Case Challenging the Indian Child Welfare Act https://ncuih.org/2023/01/31/supreme-court-held-oral-argument-on-case-challenging-the-indian-child-welfare-act/

Montana ICWA bill heads to Senate floor amid controversyMontana ICWA bill heads to Senate floor amid controversy https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/mtleg/montana-icwa-bill-heads-to-senate-floor-amid-controversy/article_ae2099f9-8811-572c-aac7-d033669f82ec.html

Mona Chalabi’s datablog: Iraq war leukemia rates worse than after Hiroshima bombing https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2023/apr/02/iraq-war-hiroshima-bombing-leukemia-rates

The GOP Embraces the Kyle Rittenhouse Approach to Kindergarten https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/03/nashville-shooting-desantis-gop-book-bans.html

Eric Bendick PATH OF THE PANTHER

In this edition of Radio Goes to the Movies, we inquire about a new documentary from Bozeman based Grizzly Creek Films with director, Eric Bendick, PATH OF THE PANTHER.

Drawn in by the haunting specter of the Florida panther, it follows a wildlife photographer, veterinarians, ranchers, conservationists, and Indigenous people, who find themselves on the front lines of an accelerating battle between the forces of renewal and the forces of destruction that have pushed the Everglades to the brink of ecological collapse.

Once ubiquitous in North and South America, but now perched on the edge of extinction, this perilously small, sole remaining population of the panther east of the Mississippi is an emblem of our once connected world. A vision of what could be again.

We spoke with the Emmy Award winning director of Path of the Panther, Eric Bendick, about his work and this powerful new film via Skype on April 5, 2023.

It will be premiering on the National Geographic/Disney+ channel on April 28, 2023.

Source: FloridaWildlifeCorridor.org; Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.

You can view Eric’s films, CHASING GHOSTS, https://dceff.org/film/chasing-ghosts/

and THE WILD DIVIDE https://dceff.org/film/wild-divide/

US Court Strikes Down Florida’s ‘End Run Around the Endangered Species Act’ https://www.commondreams.org/news/florida-epa-wetlands?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=a55804572f-Top+News%3A+Fri.+2%2F15%2F24+w%2F+fundraiser&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-cee94099a4-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

LTE: FWP proposals would put mountain lions in peril https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/opinions/letters_to_editor/letter-to-the-editor-fwp-proposals-would-put-mountain-lions-in-peril/article_505ce7d4-ee7c-11ed-8bdd-73f1fbc85aab.html

Philip Bump THE AFTERMATH: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America

Philip Bump is a national columnist for The Washington Post. Prior to that, he led politics coverage for The Atlantic Wire. He focuses on the data behind polls and political rhetoric, as well as writing a weekly newsletter, “How To Read This Chart.”

His first book, THE AFTERMATH: THE LAST DAYS OF THE BABY BOOM AND THE FUTURE OF POWER IN AMERICA, looks at the overlap of the end of the baby boom and the upheaval in American politics and the U.S. economy.

After our interview with Philip Bump, we share excerpts from a conversation with former Congresswoman, Pat Schroeder, from 2014 at the Library of Congress.

At the age of 31 and the mother of two young children, she defeated an incumbent Republican congressman in 1972, and then was re-elected 11 more times before leaving Congress in 1997, disgusted with the obstructionist shenanigans of Newt Gingrich. In 1988 she ran for president of the United States.

Born in 1940, she would be designated as being in The Silent Generation, but she was anything but silent. It was she, who designated Ronald Reagan as the “Teflon President.” She served on the House Armed Services Committee, and you may be surprised by what she has to say about NATO. The final excerpt is from the end of an hour long conversation, responding to a question from the audience asking if she were president, what five things would she do immediately.

She died on March 13, 2023 at the age of 82.

Women’s History Month: Former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, Presidential Candidate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MI_bpROH9c

Climate change is the legacy of people over the age of 60. That’s why we must protest https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/27/older-people-climate-protest-banks-ipcc

‘We have money and power’: older Americans to blockade banks in climate protest https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/19/climate-crisis-protest-environment-third-act-bill-mckibben

Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/28/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers-as-americas-largest-generation/

In Montana, It’s Youth vs. the State in a Landmark Climate Case https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/climate/montana-youth-climate-lawsuit.html

Patricia Schroeder, Feminist Force in Congress, Dies at 82 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/14/obituaries/pat-schroeder-dead.html

Gordon E. Moore, Intel Co-Founder Behind Moore’s Law, Dies at 94 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/technology/gordon-moore-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

The Global Transformation of Christianity Is Here https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/opinion/christianity-global-demographics.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Guest%20Essays

Leigh Goodmark IMPERFECT VICTIMS: Criminalization and the Promise of Abolition Feminism

Leigh Goodmark is the Marjorie Cook Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Frances King Carey School of Law, where she co-directs the Clinical Law Program, teaches Family Law, Gender and the Law, and Gender Violence and the Law. She also directs the Gender Violence Clinic, which provides direct representation in matters involving intimate partner abuse, sexual assault, trafficking, and other forms of gender violence.

Her earlier books include A Troubled Marriage: Domestic Violence and the Legal System, and Decriminalizing Domestic Violence: A Balanced Policy Approach to Intimate Partner Violence.

Her most recent book is IMPERFECT VICTIMS: CRIMINALIZED SURVIVORS AND THE PROMISE OF ABOLITION FEMINISM, published by the University of California Press. It’s the latest in their Gender and Justice Series.

Since the 1970s, anti-violence advocates have worked to make the legal system more responsive to gender-based violence. However, greater state intervention in cases of intimate partner violence, rape, sexual assault, and trafficking has actually led to the arrest, prosecution, conviction, and incarceration of victims, particularly women of color and trans and gender-nonconforming people. In Imperfect Victims, Professor Goodmark argues that only dismantling the system will bring that unjust punishment to an end.

We spoke with her via Skype on March 7, 2023.

Articles referenced or pertinent to this interview:

They Killed Their Abusers. Should They Spend Their Lives in Prison? https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/22/magazine/oklahoma-domestic-violence-survivors-act.html

Oklahoma law to allow resentencing for incarcerated domestic violence survivors https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/17/oklahoma-survivors-act-domestic-violence

Holly Maguigan, Who Fought for the Rights of Battered Women, Dies at 78 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/us/holly-maguigan-dead.html

‘What Success Looks Like:’ Advocates Celebrate the Relaunch of a Parole Assistance Program https://www.marylandmatters.org/2021/06/29/advocates-celebrate-the-relaunch-of-a-parole-and-reentry-assistance-program/

‘I got a brain injury and a life sentence’: the hidden legacy of male violence against women https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/02/i-got-a-brain-injury-and-a-life-sentence-the-hidden-legacy-of-male-violence-against-women

Community-Based Response to Intimate Partner Violence During COVID-19 Pandemic https://leighgoodmark.com/blog

Victim or villain: how guilty are the female accomplices of predatory men? https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/04/women-men-gender-violence

Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice https://www.kalw.org/show/your-call/2023-05-25/truth-and-repair-how-trauma-survivors-envision-justice

The trauma detective who combs through killers’ pasts to help them find mercy https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/02/death-penalty-mitigation-specialist-sara-baldwin

O.J. SImpson Trial Served as a Landmark Moment for Domestic Violence Awareness https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/13/us/oj-simpson-domestic-violence.html

The Forgotten History of the World’s First Trans Clinic https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-history-of-the-worlds-first-trans-clinic/

What Will Happen To Everyone Who is Not White, Straight, & Male If We Don’t Speak Out? https://hartmannreport.com/p/what-will-happen-to-everyone-who

Rikers Is Already Awful, and It’s Worse if You’re Trans https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/rikers-island-transgender.html

The judge called Kenne McFadden a ‘nuisance’ — and let the man accused of killing her walk free https://www.insider.com/killings-of-transgender-people-transphobia-in-the-criminal-justice-system-2022-12

Anatomy of Doubt This American Life Feb. 2016 (2016 Peabody Award Winner) https://www.thisamericanlife.org/581/anatomy-of-doubt

Judy Heumann, Who Led the Fight for Disability Rights, Dies at 75 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/05/obituaries/judy-heumann-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

We’re 20 Percent of America, and We’re Still Invisible https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/opinion/Americans-with-disabilities-act.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

Dennis Baron YOU CAN’T ALWAYS SAY WHAT YOU WANT: The Paradox of Free Speech

Dennis Baron is Professor Emeritus of English and Linguistics at The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on the technologies of communication; language legislation and linguistic rights; language reform; gender issues in language and more.

Among his earlier books are Grammar and Gender; A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers and the Digital Revolution; and What’s Your Pronoun: Beyond He and She.

His latest book, YOU CAN’T AWAYS SAY WHAT YOU WANT: THE PARADOX OF FREE SPEECH, is published by Cambridge University Press. We spoke with him via Skype on February 21, 2023.

Thanks to Roy Zimmerman for permission to share his music.

“The Sing-Along Second Amendment” by Roy Zimmerman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuNEq7gHqF8

In the Gun Law Fights of 2023, a Need for Experts on the Weapons of 1791 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/14/us/gun-law-1791-supreme-court.html

Two Different Versions of ‘Cancel Culture’ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/opinion/lab-leak-dilbert-cancel-culture.html

This Supreme Court Case Could Decide The Future Of The Internet As We Know It https://www.huffpost.com/entry/section-230-supreme-court_n_63e3ba9ce4b0c8e3fc88d2dd

4 reasons Big Tech is worried about the Supreme Court this week https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/20/big-tech-supreme-court-00083543

It’s Time to Tear Up Big Tech’s Get-Out-of-Free Card https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/20/opinion/facebook-section-230-supreme-court.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Guest%20Essays

The Supreme Court’s Big Internet Cases Are Scrambling The Partisan Divide https://www.huffpost.com/entry/section-230-supreme-court-gonzalez-google-partisan-amicus-brief_n_63efbd79e4b022eb3e368382

When Do Creepy Facebook Messages Cross a Constitutional Line? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/20/us/politics/supreme-court-facebook-stalking-colorado.html

Who’s Afraid of Black History? Henry Louis Gates, Jr. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/opinion/desantis-florida-african-american-studies-black-history.html

Republicans take aim at risque jokes and romance novels with anti-sex bills https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/17/republican-anti-sex-legislation-state-level

Oregon overturns ‘second amendment sanctuary’ law in blow to gun movement https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/16/oregon-second-amendment-sanctuary-decision

American English Needs Immigrants https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/opinion/english-immigrants-language.html

In Wisconsin’s supreme court race, a super-rich beer family calls the shots https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/21/wisconsin-supreme-court-primary-election-uihlein-family-campaign-finance

US supreme court lets Arkansas law penalising Israel boycotts stand https://www.theguardian.com/law/2023/feb/21/us-supreme-court-arkansas-anti-boycott-israel-law

Top state officials push to make spread of US election misinformation illegal https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/23/us-spreading-election-misinformation-illegal

Henry Giroux INSURRECTIONS: Education in an Age of Counter-Revolutionary Politics

Henry Giroux, author, journalist and public intellectual, is the internationally acclaimed Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy and Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest at McMaster University.

He has written more than 56 books since his first book, Ideology, Culture and the Process of Schooling was published in 1981. He has been generous with us over the years with his time, insights and analysis, as he published books such as Zombie Politics in the Age of Casino Capitalism; Disposable Youth: Racialized Memories, and the Culture of Cruelty; The Violence of Organized Forgetting: Thinking Beyond America’s Disimagination Machine; Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle; America at War with Itself; American Nightmare: The Challenge of US Authoritarianism; and The Terror of the Unforeseen.

His latest book is INSURRECTIONS: EDUCATION IN AN AGE OF COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS, just published by Bloomsbury Press. We spoke with him via Skype on February 8, 2023 about the multiple crises with which we are faced.

Articles pertinent to this interview:

Historical amnesia in the age of capitalist apocalypse – and how to overcome it https://www.salon.com/2023/03/05/historical-amnesia-in-the-age-of-capitalist-apocalypse–and-how-to-overcome-it/?link_id=8&can_id=26389c9ba4e6ef1db60b08fdce8085f1&source=email-timid-media-and-gop-figures-are-again-dangerously-normalizing-trump&email_referrer=email_1838115&email_subject=does-american-fascism-exist

DeSantis’s Educational Policies Come Right Out of Fascist Playbook https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/03/275733/

Insurrections (Introduction to the book) https://www.laprogressive.com/progressive-issues/insurrections

What is behind Ron DeSantis’s Stop-Woke Act? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/06/what-is-behind-ron-desantis-stop-woke-act

Ron DeSantis’ academic restrictions show he hopes to change history by censoring it https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/09/ron-desantis-florida-education-censorship

Koch brothers’ advocacy group courts far-right Republicans it vowed to thwart https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/11/koch-brothers-afp-action-advocacy-far-right-republicans

Bad Faith Liberalism and the Politics of False Equivalency. https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/01/27/bad-faith-liberalism-and-the-politics-of-false-equivalency/

Fascist politics, the return of antisemitism and the “disconnected present” https://www.salon.com/2022/12/18/fascist-politics-the-return-of-antisemitism-and-the-disconnected-present/

Neoliberal Fascism, Violence, and the Politics of Disposability https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/16/neoliberal-fascism-cruel-violence-and-the-politics-of-disposability/

Ron DeSantis Is a Case Study in the Threat of Fascism in the US https://truthout.org/articles/ron-desantis-is-a-case-study-in-the-threat-of-fascism-in-the-us/

The 2022 Midterms Are a Referendum on the Future of Democracy in the US https://truthout.org/articles/the-2022-midterms-are-a-referendum-on-the-future-of-democracy-in-the-us/

Educators and Critical Pedagogy: an Antidote to Authoritarianism https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/educators-and-critical-pedagogy-an-antidote-to-authoritarianism

The Nazification of American Society and the Scourge of Violence https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/14/the-nazification-of-american-society-and-the-scourge-of-violence/

We Need a New Language of Resistance Amid Far Right’s Calls for Civil War https://truthout.org/articles/we-need-a-new-language-of-resistance-amid-far-rights-calls-for-civil-war/

The Scourge of Fascist Politics and the Rise of White Nationalism from Orbán to DeSantis https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/26/the-scourge-of-fascist-politics-and-the-rise-of-white-nationalism-from-orban-to-desantis/

The Nazification of American Education https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/07/22/the-nazification-of-american-education/

Targeting the Children: Killing Field in the Age of Mass Shootings https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/31/targeting-children-killing-fields-in-the-age-of-mass-shootings/

In an Age of Fascist Counterrevolution, Our Biggest Problem May Be the Death of Ethics ttps://www.salon.com/2022/02/13/in-an-age-of-fascist-counterrevolution-our-biggest-problem-may-be-the-of-ethics/

Teach US students about Holocaust, experts say, amid rise in antisemitism https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/08/us-education-holocaust-antisemitism

Oklahoma teacher is still fighting book bans, now from Brooklyn https://pen.org/oklahoma-teacher-summer-boismier/

Conservatives angry about school ‘indoctrination’ are telling on themselves https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/04/conservatives-ron-desantis-florida-education

The Chief Justice of the U.S. Wasn’t Always Like John Roberts https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/02/chief-justice-abe-fortas-story-ethics.html

Let’s talk about science in Montana https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSpH2N7VGws

Outrageous’: Florida teacher rips DeSantis’ censorship, criminal threats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLw85X919hw

George Monbiot REGENESIS: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet

George Monbiot’s latest book is Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet, published by Penguin Books.

Since the 1980s, he has traveled the world doing on-the-ground investigations of how global dominant systems destroy crucial wildlife habitats and displace peoples from their ancestral homelands, while contributing to catastrophic climate change. This has led to his being made persona non grata in seven countries, sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in Indonesia, shot at, beaten up by military police, shipwrecked, stung into a coma by hornets, and pronounced clinically dead in Lodwar General Hospital in North-western Kenya from cerebral malaria.

From the first of his 13 books published in 1989, POISONED ARROWS: An Investigative Journey Through the Forbidden Lands of West Papua; to Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding; to his radio programs, and long standing weekly columns in The Guardian, he has informed us in delightful prose through the powerful lens of his political philosophy for social and ecological justice and sanity.

We spoke with him via Skype on January 24, 2023.

Articles pertinent to this interview:

In a world built by plutocrats, the powerful are protected while vengeful laws silence their critics https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/02/plutocrats-powerful-laws-uk-rich-corporations

Meatball from Long Extinct Mammoth Created by Food Firm https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/28/meatball-mammoth-created-cultivated-meat-firm

Brown gold: the great American manure rush begins https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/02/manure-renewable-natural-gas-california

‘Let them eat lentils’ won’t save us from animal farming – we must embrace meat substitutes https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/01/environmentalists-animal-free-meat-livestock-farming

Embrace what may be the most important green technology ever. It could save us all https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/24/green-technology-precision-fermentation-farming

Do we really care more about Van Gogh’s sunflowers than real ones? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/19/van-gogh-sunflowers-just-stop-oil-tactics

It’s democracy v plutocracy – this is the endgame for our planet https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/06/power-wealthy-earth-politics-democracy-plutocracy

The most damaging farm products? Organic, pasture-fed beef and lamb https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/16/most-damaging-farm-products-organic-pasture-fed-beef-lamb

From the Amazon to Australia, why is your money funding Earth’s destruction? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/30/amazon-public-money-earth-destruction-fossil-fuels-subsidies

How a violent land seizure story led to my ‘death’ in Brazil https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/31/land-seizure-death-brazil-george-monbiot

My burning shame: I fitted my house with three wood-burning stoves https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/27/wood-burning-stove-environment-home-toxins

The US is a rogue state leading the world towards ecological collapse https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/09/us-world-climate-collapse-nations

To change our future, we should change how we teach history to children https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/18/change-future-teach-history-children

Nate Gowdy INSURRECTION

Seattle photographer, Nate Gowdy, has documented over 340 political events and protests across 25 states. He flew from GA to Washington, D.C. the night before January 6, 2021 to cover the much publicized so-called “Stop the Steal” Rally on the Ellipse.

He was about a mile away and heading to that rally along the national mall, when a couple of hundred Proud Boys marched toward him and the US Capitol from the Rally at 10:45am – hours before Trump was scheduled to speak. Having photographed many political events and demonstrations, he recognized some of them, and made the decision to turn and follow them, soon becoming swept along the growing flood of extremists to the very steps of the Capitol.

“10:43:47 am I recognize Ethan Nordean, a notorious Proud Boys brawler from the Seattle area known as ‘Rufio Panman,’ holding a bullhorn. To his left are Zach Rehl of Philadelphia and Joe Biggs of Florida. The three Proud boys lieutenants, each of whom is later charged with seditious conspiracy, lead chants of ‘Fuck Antifa!’ as they trek across the otherwise sparsely populated National Mall.”

His photographic compilation, Insurrection, not only documents the events of that day when our democracy hung by the thinnest of blue lines, but contributes to the art form of war photography in the highest traditions of Robert Capa, Margaret Bourke-White and Matthew Brady. We spoke with him via Skype on January 11, 2023.

“3:35:18PM – ‘Cowboys for Trump’ founder, Couy Griffin, incites the mob in insurrection. In September 2022, a New Mexico state judge rules that, under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, the Otero County Commissioner is disqualified from public office. The decision is the first of its kind since 1869, and the first time that any court rules the events of January 6th, 2021, an insurrection. In August 2022, I travel to Santa Fe to serve as the plaintiffs’ eyewitness in the landmark two-day trial.”

You can find out more about his work here: http://www.nategowdy.com

Rob Grabow THE YEAR OF THE DOG

The Bozeman Film Society begins their 2023 season of bringing outstanding films to Bozeman with the locally produced film, THE YEAR OF THE DOG, screening at the Ellen Theatre on Jan. 4th. We spoke with Rob Grabow, who wrote, produced, co-directed, co-edited, and starred in, this film.

A portion of the proceed benefits the Heart of the Valley Animal Shelter.

As it says on the film’s website, https://www.theyearofthedogmovie.com/

Rob landed his first movie role at 15 in the Oscar-nominated film starring Ethan Hawke, Snow Falling on Cedars. He’s been hooked since then. More recently, he has had speaking roles in the Syfy series Z Nation and the critically acclaimed film Mickey and the Bear, which premiered at Cannes and SXSW film festivals.

He wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the multi-award-winning short film Method, which premiered at the Chelsea Film Festival, where Academy Award-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby) awarded Rob the Best Original Screenplay award. Rob was also nominated for Best Actor and Best Director at the Beaufort International Film Festival. He is an alum of the MFA Acting program at the Actor’s Studio Drama School in New York.

Some of Rob’s more esoteric life highlights include backpacking into Egypt two weeks before the war in Iraq, consulting Bhutan on its public advertising policy, and traveling to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake to write an article for Rolling Stone magazine.

Also featured is Michael Spears, the famous Lakota actor who has lived in Bozeman for 17+ years. Michael Spears’s role as Otter in Dances with Wolves (1990) catapulted him into film, music, and public speaking. Some of Spears’s career highlights since Dances with Wolves include his role as Dog Star in Spielberg’s 2005 miniseries Into the West and his role as Tenkill in Angels in Stardust (2014), for which he received critical acclaim in The New York Times. In 2014 and 2015, Spears played Savanukah in Colonial Williamsburg’s open-air stage production of The Beloved Women of Chota, the first Indigenous-centric production of its kind for Colonial Williamsburg. Spears also works in the film industry as a technical adviser for Native American cultures, soundtrack recording artist, and voiceover actor. When not filming, he travels as a keynote speaker on topics such as indigenous health and wellness, mental health, and Lakota spirituality.

Of course, one of Rob’s co-stars is Caleb, a rescue dog who had bounced between foster homes for years because he was reportedly “too much dog”—is there such a thing? He eventually landed in the loving care of Cathy and Gregg Pittman of the Performing Animal Troupe. His crucial performance as Yup’ik, in The Year of the Dog marks Caleb’s feature-film debut. Rumors of Brando reincarnated floated around set.

Jon Proudstar is a veteran actor of forty-two productions. He is currently a reoccurring character on FX/Disney’s Reservation Dogs. Jon had six big releases in 2021, which include Reservation Dogs, The Heart Stays, Wastelander, Deep Woods, and Mammoth. A product of the Sundance Institute’s 1997 Native American Writers Lab, Proudstar was chosen for the 2005 Directors Lab, where he worked alongside Ed Harris, Stanley Tucci, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Robert Redford. Some of Proudstar’s more notable films are Bodies, Rest & Motion (1993 Cannes Film Festival), Skinwalkers, Barking Water, and Four Sheets to the Wind. Jon trained at Los Angeles Theatre and with legendary acting coach Joan Darling.

Darwin Lumbattis is a Butte-based Army Veteran who served 16 years including active-duty combat in Iraq from 1990-1992 before retiring as a Calvary Scout. He is an avid dog-safety advocate and founder of the Rocky Mountain Working Dogs. Darwin served as a key advisor on all matters concerning weight pulling — he also proved his acting chops during an audition and landed a key speaking role in the film.