ChatChat - Claudia Cragg

KGNU's Claudia Cragg speaks here with Ai-Jen Poo. She is the activist who, through the , spearheaded New York’s successful Bill of Rights for domestic workers shows how we can better care for our growing elderly population and provide millions of good jobs at the same time

By 2035, 11.5 million Americans will be over the age of 85—more than double today’s 5 million—and living longer than ever before. To enable all of us to age with dignity and security in the face of this coming Age Wave, our society must learn to value the care of our elders. The process of building a culture that supports care is a key component to restoring the American dream, and, as Ai-jen Poo convincingly argues in , will generate millions of new jobs and breathe new life into our national ideals of independence, justice, and dignity.

This groundbreaking new book from the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance offers bold solutions, such as long-term care insurance and cultural change to get all of us to value care, which are already at the heart of a movement transforming what it means to grow old in the United States. At the intersection of our aging population, the fraying safety net, and opportunities for women and immigrants in the workforce, The Age of Dignity maps out an integrated set of solutions to address America’s new demographic and economic realities.

You may well have noticed that there is now a growing chorus of prominent voices in Congress and elsewhere calling for the expansion of the US  system— people who know that Social Security will not “go broke” and that, in truth, it does not add a penny to the national debt.

's Claudia Cragg speaks here with , co-author of . This book not only amplifies these voices but also offers a powerful antidote to the three-decade-long, billionaire-funded campaign to make us believe that this vital institution is destined to collapse. 

Nancy Altman, a lawyer, is the author of The Battle for Social Security and a co-author, with , of this book published by The New Press. Altman and Kingson served as staff advisers to the  and were founding board members of the . They founded .org in 2010 and co-chair the . Altman is the board chair of the  and lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

From the Silent Generation to Baby Boomers, from Generation X to Millennials and Generation Z, everyone in the US, says Altman, has a stake in understanding the real story about Social Security. Critical to addressing the looming retirement crisis that will affect two- thirds of today’s workers, Social Security is a powerful program that can help stop the collapse of the middle class, lessen the pressure squeezing families from all directions, and help end the upward redistribution of wealth that has resulted in perilous levels of inequality.

KGNU's Claudia Cragg speaks here with , writer (, ) and author of ''. In this, McBee attempts to answer what it is to be a man by focusing on two of the men who most impacted his life: one, his otherwise ordinary father who abused him as a child, and the other, a mugger who almost killed him. Standing at the brink of the life-changing decision to transition from female to male, McBee is seeking to understand these examples of flawed manhood and explains how a brush with violence sent him on the quest to untangle a sinister past, and freed him to become the man he was meant to be.

 'Man Alive' engages through an extraordinary personal story to tell a universal one—how we all struggle to create ourselves, and how this struggle often requires risks. Far from a transgender transition tell-all, Man Alive grapples with the larger questions of legacy and forgiveness, love and violence, agency and invisibility.

's Claudia Cragg speaks here with actor about his production 'To Begin the World: The Life of '. This is staged in full 18th-century regalia with Ruskin, as actor director, addressing his way through a broad spectrum of key historical events including the French Revolution. In Ruskin's work, the essence of Paine emerges, peppered with quotes from "" and other immortal writings from this most radical of pre-Revolutionary American colonists. "One must always speak the truth as one sees it, no matter the consequences."

To learn more about Ian Ruskin's IndieGogo efforts to raising funding for a cinematic or TV production of the play, visit

CLICK ON 'iPod' icon above left to listen.

In this interview, journalist Claudia Cragg speaks here with Linda Tirado about her thought-provoking and (to some) controversial Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America. Unlike the sheltered, ivory-tower social scientists who usually write about poverty, Tirado is an actual poor person. Or at least, she was. Last fall she posted a lengthy response to someone in an online forum who asked why poor people make decisions that seem so self-destructive. Her essay went viral and before long the shrewd and politically savvy Tirado had crowdfunded more than $60,000 to write a book. No longer officially poor, Tirado has endured a backlash from those suggesting she’s a fraud — which only proves her point that it’s easier to dismiss poor people than to listen to them.

But in Hand to Mouth, Tirado, married to an Iraq War veteran and the mother of two, forces us to listen.

Christmas is a time of seasonal cheer, family get-togethers, holiday parties, and-gift giving. Lots and lots--and lots--of gift giving. And says Joel Waldvogel, in this interview, it's hard to imagine any Christmas without this time-honored custom. But let's stop to consider the gifts we receive--the rooster sweater from Grandma or the singing fish from Uncle Mike. How many of us get gifts we like? How many of us give gifts not knowing what recipients want? Did your cousin really look excited about that jumping alarm clock? Lively and informed, Scroogenomics illustrates how our consumer spending generates vast amounts of economic waste--to the shocking tune of eighty-five billion dollars each winter. Economist Joel Waldfogel provides solid explanations to show us why it's time to stop the madness and think twice before buying gifts for the holidays.

 When we buy for ourselves, every dollar we spend produces at least a dollar in satisfaction, because we shop carefully and purchase items that are worth more than they cost. Gift giving is different. We make less-informed choices, max out on credit to buy gifts worth less than the money spent, and leave recipients less than satisfied, creating what Waldfogel calls "deadweight loss." Waldfogel indicates that this waste isn't confined to Americans--most major economies share in this orgy of wealth destruction. While recognizing the difficulties of altering current trends, Waldfogel offers viable gift-giving alternatives.

 Waldvogel argues here, in an interview with Claudia Cragg for KGNU Denver/Boulder's 'It's The Economy', that by reprioritizing our gift-giving habits, Scroogenomics proves that we can still maintain the economy without gouging our wallets, and reclaim the true spirit of the holiday season.

KGNU's Claudia Cragg speaks here with historian, about his work '', the first one-volume biography to take advantage of the recent publication of , which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation. At last, says Roberts, we see him as he was: protean multitasker, decisive, surprisingly willing to forgive his enemies and . Like , he understood the strategic importance of telling his own story, and dictated from exile on became the single bestselling book of the nineteenth century.

, , : his battles are among the greatest in history, but e was far more than and astute leader of men. Like n and his own hero , Roberts argues that Napoleon was one of the greatest soldier-statesmen of all times.

An award-winning historian, Roberts traveled to fifty-three of Napoleon’s sixty , discovered crucial in archives, and even made the long trip by . He is as acute in his understanding of politics as he is of military history. Many believe this to be a biography worthy of its subject: magisterial, insightful, beautifully written, by a foremost historian.

(To listen to the interview, CLICK 'ipod' icon above left)

’s first book, , set the tone for his journalistic career. Published in 1987, it chronicled the assassination of a Denver Jewish talk show host, g, by a group of neo-Nazis known as The Order. The book was nominated for a national award — the Edgar for true crime — and became the basis for the 1989 Oliver Stone film, . Talked to Death explored the timeless American themes of racism, class, violence, and religious intolerance, and the critics had been alerted to a new author and an important subject.

Here 's Claudia Cragg speaks with Singular together with his wife, Joyce Jacques Singular, an author in her own right as well as a co-author with her husband for many projects. 

The Singulars are in the midst of writing a book about , who carried out the largest mass shooting in American history in July 2012 at the Aurora movie theater. This will examine the larger social issues involving gun control, mental health, video games, neuroscience, the death penalty, doctor/patient confidentiality, and will offer a variety of perspectives from the Twenty-Something generation that’s driven much of this violence.

Since 1991, Joyce Jacques Singular, has worked closely with her husband on many of the true crime books. They both have an intense interest in the psychological aspects of murder and have unconventional views of spirituality.  Over time, this combination filtered into their work together. They've been intrigued with the place where darkness meets the light — and with looking at certain crimes not just from a legal, forensic or sociological point of view but from a spiritual angle as well. This is especially true when killers have committed acts of violence in the name of religion.

Since 1987, Singular has published 19 more non-fiction books that reflect a wide range of interest and diversity of styles. Twice a New York Times best selling author, he’s written three books about sports, including collaborations with NBA legend and controversial NFL superstar , and biographies of Hollywood power players and . True crime remained the focal point of his work, but he’d begun writing less about individual crimes and more about social crimes. His 1995 study of the O.J. Simpson case, , went beneath the media hysteria surrounding these murders and connected the violent bigotry of The Order with the racist corruption inside the Los Angeles Police Department. Singular’s 1999 book, : An Investigation into the , the Media, and the Culture of Pornography, performed a similar role for the infamous child killing in Boulder, Colorado. 

In 2001, Singular brought out  The Rise of Hate, Violence, and Terrorism in America documenting the increasing dangers of the nation’s deepening cultural war. The book was published well before terrorism struck the United States on September 11, 2001, and the country had plunged into a bitterly divisive conflict in Iraq. The same themes the author had first uncovered in Talked to Death – Fundamentalist religion and intolerance, racism and violence – were re-examined in this book, but now the stakes were much higher and the stage was global. Singular was probing not just the violence itself, but its underlying emotional and spiritual causes. His 2006 book,: The Life & Crimes of the BTK Serial Killer, goes even deeper into the convergence of distorted religious beliefs and bloodshed.

In her work on the books, Joyce has attended legal proceedings, visited inmates in prison, interviewed witnesses, studied forensic data, and been involved in developing ideas for stories, photo selection, editing, creative suggestions, and re-writing. The use of both a male and female perspective has added a unique dimension to the true crimes books, three of which have been about women who committed murders. These include  which was an NBC-TV mini-series entitled Love, Lies, and Murder; Sweet Evil, about a young Colorado Springs wife and mother who killed another woman; and  which became a FOX-TV movie titled “Legacy of Sin.” , the story of the Internet’s first known serial killer, Joyce was especially insightful in chronicling women who were drawn into online romances that ended with their deaths.

(KGNU Denver/Boulder )

(To listen to interview, CLICK on 'pod' icon next to title) KGNU's Claudia Cragg speaks here with Karen Masterson on her fascinating historical exposé, The Malaria Project. The is the story of America's secret mission to combat malaria during World War II—a campaign modeled after a German project which tested experimental drugs on men gone mad from syphilis. Karen M. Masterson, a journalist turned malaria researcher, uncovers the complete story behind this dark tale of science, medicine and war. Illuminating, riveting and surprising, The Malaria Project captures the ethical perils of seeking treatments for disease while ignoring the human condition. American war planners, foreseeing the tactical need for a malaria drug, recreated the German model, then grew it tenfold. Quickly becoming the biggest and most important medical initiative of the war, the project tasked dozens of the country’s top research scientists and university labs to find a treatment to remedy half a million U.S. troops incapacitated by malaria. Spearheading the new U.S. effort was Dr. Lowell T. Coggeshall, the son of a poor Indiana farmer whose persistent drive and curiosity led him to become one of the most innovative thinkers in solving the malaria problem. He recruited private corporations, such as today's Squibb and Eli Lilly, and the nation’s best chemists out of Harvard and Johns Hopkins to make novel compounds that skilled technicians tested on birds. Giants in the field of clinical research, including the future NIH director James Shannon, then tested the drugs on mental health patients and convicted criminals—including infamous murderer Nathan Leopold. By 1943, a dozen strains of malaria brought home in the veins of sick soldiers were injected into these human guinea pigs for drug studies. After hundreds of trials and many deaths, they found their “magic bullet,” but not in a U.S. laboratory. America 's best weapon against malaria, still used today, was captured in battle from the Nazis. Called chloroquine, it went on to save more lives than any other drug in history.

KGNU's Claudia Cragg speaks here with Naomi Klein who argues that climate change isn’t just another issue to be neatly filed between taxes and health care. As she points out in her latest book. 'This Changes Everything', it is as she sees it alarm that calls us to fix an economic system that is already failing us in many ways. Klein meticulously builds the case for how massively reducing our greenhouse emissions is our best chance to simultaneously reduce gaping inequalities, re-imagine our broken democracies, and rebuild our gutted local economies. She exposes the ideological desperation of the climate-change deniers, the messianic delusions of the would-be geoengineers, and the tragic defeatism of too many mainstream green initiatives. And she demonstrates precisely why the market has not—and cannot—fix the climate crisis but will instead make things worse, with ever more extreme and ecologically damaging extraction methods, accompanied by rampant disaster capitalism.

Klein argues that the changes to our relationship with nature and one another that are required to respond to the climate crisis humanely should not be viewed as grim penance, but rather as a kind of gift—a catalyst to transform broken economic and cultural priorities and to heal long-festering historical wounds. And she documents the inspiring movements that have already begun this process: communities that are not just refusing to be sites of further fossil fuel extraction but are building the next, regeneration-based economies right now.

Can we pull off these changes in time? Nothing is certain. Nothing except that climate change changes everything. And for a very brief time, the nature of that change is still up to us.