Human and Material Detritus at Mumbai's Deonar Waste Mountains
Release Date: 09/30/2021
Asylum, Umberto Nicola Nicoletti on
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Asylum: Author Umberto Nicola Nicoletti, Introduction by Filippo Grandi Claudia Cragg speaks here with author, Umberto Nicola Nicoletti, about his fine-art book Asylum. We discusses the phenomenon of LGBTIQ+ refugees, asylum seekers, and those subject to discrimination in their home countries based on their gender or sexual orientation. More the 40 percent of the countries in the world today still impose prison sentences or the death penalty just for being LGBTIQ+. Asylum is an international project that arose from a collaboration between five associations around the world and...
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The End Of Truss, The End of The GOP? The End of 'Trickle Down'.
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'Trickle Down' does NOT work. For KGNU 'It's The Economy' host, Claudia Cragg spoke with SteadyState.org's Rob Dietz. He brings a fresh perspective to the discussion of economics and environmental sustainability with a diverse background in economics, environmental science and engineering, and conservation biology (plus his work in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors). His expertise has given him an unusual ability to connect the dots when it comes to the topic of sustainability. Rob is the author, with Dan O’Neill, of . Rob has tried, he says, to align his personal life...
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The Museum, Repositories of Controversy and The Stuff of Life
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@claudiacragg (DM Twitter) speaks here with Samuel J Redman @samueljredman about his new book, A Short History of Crisis and Resilience. The work, Professor Redman says, celebrates as he sees it the resilience of American - and it must be said many worldwide - cultural institutions in the face of nationl crises and challenges. On one afternoon in January 1865, a roaring fire swept through the Smithsonian Institution. Dazed soldiers and worried citizens could only watch as the flames engulfed the museum’s castle. Rare objects and valuable paintings were destroyed. The flames at the...
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Sarah Kendzior "Hyperbole" "Too Hot To Broadcast" in May 2020?
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NB THE OPINIONS IN THIS BROADCAST ARE ENTIRELY THE OPINIONS AND ALLEGATIONS OF INTERVIEWEE SARAH KENDZIOR AND DO NOT REFLECT THOSE OF THE INTERVIEWER HERSELF. THIS INTERVIEW HAS NOT BEEN BROADCAST TILL NOW. In May 2020, @claudiacragg spoke for @KGNU to @sarahkendzior about her book On she said the former president was installed to weaken America’s international posture for the benefit of and . Then ? But it was NOT In May 2020, Claudia Cragg spoke with Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior about her book ''. She was previously the author of '' Her opinions were at the...
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The Prescience of Former CIA Spymaster Jack Devine on Russia and Putin
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Claudia Cragg spoke at length just last May with , @JackDevine_TAG, author of Spymaster’s Prism. In this book, Devine the legendary former CIA spymaster details the unending struggle with Russia and its intelligence agencies as it works against our national security. (.) Devine tells this story through the unique perspective of a seasoned CIA professional who served more than three decades, some at the highest levels of the agency. He uses his gimlet-eyed view to walk us through the fascinating spy cases and covert action activities of Russia, not only through the Cold War...
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The Drumbeat of War: No Real Attention To Devastating Consequences
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In this repost of a previous interview, Professor Antony Beevor speaks here with Claudia Cragg about his book ''. It is, horribly, more relevant today than it should be. Why do 'those in power' constantly push for war, and what about the aftermath, the 'cleanup' with the so-called 'Win'. History ALWAYS repeats itself. The Normandy Landings that took place on D-Day involved by far the largest invasion fleet ever known. The scale of the undertaking was simply awesome. What followed them was some of the most cunning and ferocious fighting of the war, at times as...
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Peter Hessler, the former longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker,
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In view of the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics (officially the XXIV Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Beijing 2022) this interview is a repost. In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China. Hessler writes movingly of the average people—farmers, migrant workers, entrepreneurs—who have reshaped the nation during one of the most critical periods in its modern history....
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A Boost From The Late Great Maya Angelou
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What better way to jump into 2022 than with a boost from a rebroadcast of our Maya Angelou interview? This month the US Mint will start shipping quarters featuring Angelou, the first black woman to ever grace the coin. The program was conceived in 2017 and was officially signed into law in 2020. Potential honorees were nominated by the public last year. A fitting tribute to a remarkable person and a remarkable talent. In May of 2013, the then News Director, Joel Edelstein, generously invited colleague Claudia Cragg Twitter: @claudiacragg to speak by phone with Dr. Maya Angelou for a one...
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Hey, Joe Manchin Grinch! How's your Christmas going..... (Well, you're not Broke In America.)
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(That Senator may have made damn sure they'll be NO Child Tax Credits for you coming up, Kiddos!) The authors, Joanne Samuel Goldblum, (@jgoldblum), founder of the National Diaper Bank Network, and journalist Colleen Shaddox argue that the systems that should protect our citizens are broken and that poverty results from flawed policies—compounded by racism, sexism, and other ills—rather than people’s “bad choices.” Federal programs for the poor often fall far short of their aims: The U.S. has only 36 affordable housing units available for every 100 extremely low-income families;...
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For The Holidays, Become a 'Wallet Activist' with Tanja Hester
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, @TanjaHester is the author of (November 2021). Clear-eyed and practical, #WalletActivism helps angry, overwhelmed, and disillusioned consumers cut through the marketing lies of companies that have rebranded their problematic practices as “green,” “woke,” and “ethical” to learn how to use their financial power to fight back. Hester doesn’t offer easy solutions or simple answers. Instead, she helps readers (1) understand the complex, nuanced impact their financial decisions have on both people and the planet, (2) define their own personal financial values, and (3) begin...
info_outline"'I came to see the mountains as an outpouring of our modern lives,' Roy writes, 'of the endless chase for our desires to fill us.' Readers of Behind the Beautiful Forevers will be drawn to this harrowing portrait." — Publishers Weekly
Claudia Cragg (@claudiacragg) speaks here with journalist Saumya Roy about her new non-fiction work, Castaway Mountain.
All of Mumbai’s possessions and memories come to die at the Deonar garbage mountains. Towering at the outskirts of the city, the mountains are covered in a faint smog from trash fires. Over time, as wealth brought Bollywood knock offs, fast food and plastics to Mumbaikars, a small, forgotten community of migrants and rag-pickers came to live at the mountains’ edge, making a living by re-using, recycling and re-selling.
Among them is Farzana Ali Shaikh, a tall, adventurous girl who soon becomes one of the best pickers in her community. Over time, her family starts to fret about Farzana’s obsessive relationship to the garbage. Like so many in her community, Farzana, made increasingly sick by the trash mountains, is caught up in the thrill of discovery—because among the broken glass, crushed cans, or even the occasional dead baby, there’s a lingering chance that she will find a treasure to lift her family’s fortunes.
As Farzana enters adulthood, her way of life becomes more precarious. Mumbai is pitched as a modern city, emblematic of the future of India, forcing officials to reckon with closing the dumping grounds, which would leave the waste pickers more vulnerable than ever.
In a narrative instilled with superstition and magical realism, Saumya Roy crafts a modern parable exploring the consequences of urban overconsumption. A moving testament to the impact of fickle desires, Castaway Mountain reveals that when you own nothing, you know where true value lies: in family, community and love.
Saumya Roy is a journalist and activist based in Mumbai. She has written for Forbes India magazine, Mint newspaper, Outlook magazine, wsj.com, thewire.in and Bloomberg News among others. In 2010 she co- founded Vandana Foundation to support the livelihoods of Mumbai’s poorest micro entrepreneurs by giving small, low interest loans.
She has received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, Blue Mountain Center, Carey Institute for Global Good and Sangam House to write this book. She attended a conference on environmental humanities at KTH, Stockholm in 2017 to share her research, and contributed a chapter to Dharavi: The Cities Within/ (HarperCollins, 2013), an anthology of essays on Asia’s largest slum.
Roy was a fellow of the National Foundation of India in 2012, and has Masters Degrees in journalism from Northwestern University and Mumbai’s Sophia College, where she teaches magazine writing.