Bk960225
TO THE BEST OF OUR KNOWLEDGE
from Wisconsin Public Radio
February 25, 1996 Programs
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1100 - 1159 Hour #1 China & Taiwan
1200 - 1259 Hour #2 Eco-Design
1300 - 1359 Hour #3 Family Function
PROGRAM RUNDOWN Hour 1:China and Taiwan
SEGMENT 1:
China expert Ed Friedman, who teaches political science at the
University of Wisconsin, tells Judith Strasser that the threat
of military action against Taiwan by mainland China is real and
frightening. And there is little the outside world can do: the
conflict really has to do with the succession struggle in China
and China's status as the last of the Communist dinosaurs.
SEGMENT 2:
Robert Thurman tells Steve Paulson the strange story of the
young boy chosen by the Dalai Lama to replace a high-ranking
Chinese Buddhist monk. The Chinese jailed the boy and picked
their own future lama. Thurman is himself a Buddhist monk,
chairman of Columbia University's religion department, and the
author of "Essential Tibetan Buddhism." Also, novelist Amy Tan
("The Joy Luck Club" and now, "The Hundred Secret Senses")
talks with Jim Fleming about yin eyes, literal ghost writers,
the meaning of kinship and becoming an American, with a little
help from Popeye the Sailor Man.
SEGMENT 3:
Yale historian Jonathan Spence, author of "God's Chinese Son,"
tells Steve Paulson about the Taiping Rebellion. Inspired by
an apocalyptic dream, a teacher named Hong Xiuquam (hoong shee-
oo chwan) founded a religion influenced by Western Christianity
which became a political movement that threatened the Quing
(ching) dynasty. The resulting civil war killed twenty million
people and inspired the Communists nearly a century later.
For cassette copies of this hour, call 1-800-747-7444, and ask for program number
02-25-A.
PROGRAM RUNDOWN Hour 2:Eco-Design
SEGMENT 1:
David Wann talks with Judith Strasser about "deep design" -- a
holistic design philosophy that uses the natural world as a
model for environmentally friendly building and technology.
Wann is a policy analyst for the Environmental Protection
Agency and the author of "Deep Design." Also, Sim van der Ryn
and Stewart Cowan tell Jim Fleming about "ecological design," a
collaborative process involving experts from many fields, which
has sustainability as its primary goal. Sim Van der Ryn is
founder and chief designer of the Ecological Design Institute
in Sausalito, CA; Stewart Cowan is a freelance ecological
designer and writer. Their book is "Ecological Design."
SEGMENT 2:
Don Schueler is the author of "A Handmade Wilderness: How an
Unlikely Pair Saved the Least Worst Land." In the book, and in
this conversation with Jim Fleming, Schueler tells how he and a
friend turned eighty acres of ravaged, clear-cut backwoods into
a successful wildlife reserve.
SEGMENT 3:
Ecologist David Abram tells Steve Paulson that those who live
in cultures with written language ought to become more
sensitive to other ways of communicating. Abram is an
ecologist and the author of "The Spell of the Sensuous:
Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World."
For cassette copies of this hour, call 1-800-747-7444, and ask for program number
02-25-B.
PROGRAM RUNDOWN: HOUR 3: Family Function
SEGMENT 1
Social historian Barbara Dafoe Whitehead tells Steve Paulson
why she'd like to see a reconsideration of "no-fault" divorce:
children are being hurt by their parents' divorces, especially
when the divorce is capriciously instigated by one partner or
the becomes highly adversarial.
SEGMENT 2:
Journalist Maggie Scarf has been a fellow at Harvard, Stanford
and Yale and is the author of three books on family dynamics.
The new one is called "Intimate Worlds: Life Inside the
Family." Scarf outlines her five level model of family
functioning fo Judith Strasser and says that most of us fall
somewhere in the middle. Also, A. Manette Ansay reads from,
and talks with Jim Fleming about, her debut novel, "Vinegar
Hill." The novel is a portrait of a rigid, unhappy family
haunted by its past.
SEGMENT 3:
Ian Frazier, NPR commentator and author of "Dating Your Mom,"
"Great Plains," and "Family," tells Jim Fleming why decided to
write his family's history and what he learned from the
experience. He also reads a passage from "Family."
For cassette copies of this hour, call 1-800-747-7444, and ask for program number
02-25-C.
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Last modified: Wednesday February 28, 1996