Eric's posterous

Facebook and Money in Presidential Politics

(download)

I hosted 'Letters and Politics" on April 22, 2011 - which was the day President Obama concluded three days of fund raising in the San Francisco Bay Area, which he kicked off with a "Facebook Town Hall." As I was producing coverage of the president's trip, I was surprised to learn about Facebook's growing political foot print. We spoke with Dave Levinthal, editor with OpenSecrets.org at the Center for Responsive Politics; as well as Carla Maranuci, the political writer with the San Francisco Chronicle.

Maranucci was reporting from Obama's fund raising breakfast in San Francisco when a group of ticket holding donors stood up and sang the president a song against his will: "...we payed our dues, where's our change?"

Finally, I spoke with Heidi Shierholz, an Economist with the Economic Policy Institute about the dismal state of employment for young people during this Great Recession. America's Lost Decade?

Vermont's Legal Struggle with the Owners of it's Nuclear Power Plant

(download)

I hosted and produced "Letters and Politics" on April 20, 2011. The first part of the show covered the State of Vermont's ongoing legal battle with the Corporation that owns the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.

Guests were:
 
Professor Richard Stewart, Director, Center for Environmental and Land Use Law at NYU
James Moore, Clean Energy Program Director and Co-Director VPIRG Energy

British Petroleum in California

Even before BP was at the center of the country's worst environmental disaster, hemoraging crude oil into the gulf – the global energy giant was investing hundreds of millions of dollars in alternative energy projects “beyond petroleum.”

At least two of those major investments were planned for the state of California – and the increased scrutiny on BP post-gulf-gusher is shedding new light on these plans.

One is the controversial multi-million dollar deal between BP and the University of California at Berkeley to develop new sources of energy – and the other – is a clean coal power plant planned for 2012 outside of Bakersfield California.

 

(download)

(download)

California Watch: BP collecting millions in government stimulus funds for California power plant

Sad News for Political Cartoons in the iPad Age

(download)

Daryl Cagle draws political cartoons for a living, and he also runs a
distribution syndicate. He wanted to push some cartoons to the cutting
edge hand held devices of our time and he hoped to make a buck for
cartooning while he was at it (since the print business model is in
total free fall). But Cagle quickly discovered that Apple was going to
impose some unexpected limits on his ambitions.

Also lending his voice to this piece of radio is Lloyd Dangle of Troubletown. Dangle's
professional cartooning work is mostly featured in the Alternative
Weekly press, which has also seen budgets shrink dramatically for drawn opinions and entertainment.

This 10 minute radio feature aired on Pacifica Radio's Letters to
Washington on May 6, 2010

Want to make movies better? Give screenwriters more power.

(download)

David Kipen's "The Shreiber Theory, a radical rewrite of film
history" argues that screenwriters deserve a lot more respect for
their work, and film lovers and scholars have a lot to learn by paying
careful attention to writers and their craft. I interviewed him live
on KPFA on Friday, April 16, 2010 for the show "Open Book."

The Future of Reading: Privacy Watchdogs and Their Fears for Google Books

(download)

Google Book Search is really neat, and it could be the future of
reading. It also can be very creepy to imagine Google reading over
your shoulder, and passing it's notes to the government without
judicial oversight.

This mini radio doc (or long news-ish feature) aired on the KPFA
Morning Show on Feb 8th 2010. It was funded by spot.us. Brian
Edwards-Tiekert is the host of the show, he's the first voice you
hear, he was also the "peer review editor" for the piece.

Moe's Books turns 50

(download)

Last summer I sat in as host/producer of KPFA's "Living Room," an hour
long news and public affairs show.

For the second half of the show I covered Moe's, Berkeley's biggest
used book store on historic Tellegraph Ave. Moe's daughter Dorris
gave me a tour of the store and introduced me to some of the book
people who have worked there for decades. Book stores are going out of business at an alarming rate, and this piece seeks to answer what will be lost if they all go down.

I presented the audio in one and two minute clips while I live hosted.
Then I opened the phone for listener call ins. I am especially proud
of this format of radio and I hope I can do it again soon.

One highlight was the call from my friend who may very well be the only person under 40 trying to make a go at selling used books in a brick and mortar shop. Back when Moes Books was young, in the 1960s there were pleanty of his kind in the Bay Area, now he stands alone and what he has to say about his situation is real interesting.

Blending the Absurd with the Desperate and the Cryptic: Jesse Krakow's "Oceans in the Sun"

(download)

Back in 2004 I caught up with my old friend from high school, Jesse Krakow. He had just released this incredibly strange and lovely album "Oceans in the Sun" made up of over 30 songs he recorded alone in his New York apartment, many of them less than 100 seconds long, a lot of them about his cat.

I produced this 11 minute podcast like thing (not safe for radio) as one of my first attempts at cutting up an interview and adding music. I think it still holds up pretty well despite the fact I didn't know what I was doing.

Jesse was working in advertising at the time he made this music and it wasn't a good fit in my opinion. He was lonely. The songs are incredibly silly and fun, but they are also dark and weird.

From the interview:

"I became re-acquainted with somebody through Friendster and we got pretty close. We started writing regular emails to each other and having phone conversations. It was really amazing.
You know it's really romantic when you can grow close to somebody through their words, and see how they formulate a sentence. I don't mean to be completely clinical but grammar and seeing somebody's approach to it it's very telling. It's very intimate. I remember hearing that Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed bonded over punctuation at one party. They just sat in the corner and talked about punctuation. Now they live together and they are very happy.
I was really into that idea with this girl. Unfortunately she came to New York and we had a horrible time. Nothing became of it. Now she's dating some other dude and I'm still in love with my cat.”

Enjoy.