For Helen’s website for her parlor Skullduggery Tatu, here it is.

Helen at Work On Dublin Road

Pawel Piechnik came to Belfast a few years ago to work as an architect, now he’s back in Poland, in Poznan,  and (officially) traded in architecture for comics.  See his work here.

Checkpoint Palestine

Last Thursday, at 5:30 in the afternoon, about 15 people took to the streets of Oakland. Their goal: to make Pittsburghers aware of the regular hassles and dangers that Palestinian people face in their daily lives.

Produced for Rustbelt Radio

Dowd at the Elks Club

Primary election day is fast approaching — on May 19th Pittsburgh will choose between three Democratic candidates for mayor — Luke Ravenstahl, Carmen Robinson, and Patrick Dowd. Braddock is also having a mayor’s race this year, and its current mayor John Fetterman hosted a party a few days ago, to promote his own campaign and lend his support to Patrick Dowd.

Produced for Rustbelt Radio.

Ed Robbins has made several films about the Iraq war — including one from the perspective of American soldiers, and one about Iraqi refugees. He recently visited Pittsburgh to discuss the complications of documenting war.

Produced for Rustbelt Radio.

Abdullah, an Iraqi Refugee

Hannan, an Iraqi Refugee

A Coal-Fired Power Plant

Over 200 Pittsburghers gathered at Phipps Conservatory Sunday March 29^th to discuss the future of climate change action in the region.  The group Citizens for Pennsylvania Future (Penn Future) organized the event – bringing together activists, government workers and scientists together – to talk about recent major developments in energy and the environment.

Pennsylvania’s a coal state – responsible for 1 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – but now the state’s on the precipice of a new era for energy use and production. After decades of talking about climate change and the need for dramatic action, 2009 looks to be a watershed year.

Suddenly there’s lots of money for  solar & wind energy production and for improving the energy efficiency of our buildings and infrastructure.  But the big question remains: will people change their lifestyles in response?

Produced for Rustbelt Radio.

YERT's Mark Dixon

Mark Dixon overhauled his life a few years ago.  He left his job in Silicon Valley, and with two friends — Ben Evans and Julie Evans, spent a year in an SUV hybrid traveling around the US, talking to all kinds of Americans about climate change.

Thus was born YERT – Your Environmental Road Trip.  Mark, Ben and Julie filmed over 500 hours of footage, talking to environmental activists, scientists, and innovators.  They met with a scientist converting annual crops to perennial ones, a 92 year old man who’s been living for six decades in an Idaho cave, and an engineer who wants to convert our highway system into a giant solar energy collection + distribution network.

And the YERT team lived by strict sustainability rules — the three of them together used only one shoebox of waste per month.  It wasn’t easy, with every restaurant presenting a new tableful of challenges.  They survived the voyage, and you can see YERT films here, and read more about the project too. 

Produced for Rustbelt Radio.

Joey's Gardez L'Eau

Pittsburgh’s sewage system is more than 100 years old, and it cannot handle the amount of waste the city generates.  Since the sewage system is combined with the city’s rainwater system, when it rains, the system overflows and raw sewage ends up in the rivers.  Carnegie Mellon art student Joey Hays has been studying the city’s waste problems — and for his Masters thesis this month, he’s built a special toilet– the Gardez L’Eau — that could be a first step towards a better way of dealing with our waste.

Read more at Joey’s site for the Gardez L’Eau, or see it in action at CMU’s Miller Gallery through April 18.

Produced for Rustbelt Radio.

Bussing it in Pittsburgh

If Barack Obama can make discussions of weatherization popular, why not debates about transportation too?  The issue of transit may seem one that only a policy-wonk could love, but Abby Wilson — a native Pittsburgher and a leader of GLUE (the Great Lakes Urban Exchange) — wants to change that.

Within the year, Congress will begin to debate the transportation reauthorization bill, which will shape national transit policy in the coming years.  Abby and GLUE want to see less funding for highways, and more for mass transit, cycle paths, and innovative road policies that will encourage urban development and social justice — as well as saving people money.

In the run up to this debate, GLUE is looking to collect people’s stories about transportation in the region.  Around Pittsburgh, Abby sees a major rise in people cycling, walking, and using mass transit — and she reasons that if legislators see this human face of transportation issues, more sustainable + equitable policy can be pushed through.

For more about GLUE, visit their website here, where you can also contact Abby directly.

Today, art with a bite of environmentalism.

Joey Hays

Joey Hays is an artist, an environmentalist, and an expert on all things bathroom. For his show this month at Carnegie Mellon, he’s building a massive compost toilet in the university art gallery. It’s his masters thesis project – tying together Pittsburgh’s massive sewage problem, artistic design, innovations in sustainability, and bathroom humor. Joey talks about the idea for his Gardez-Leau, the research he’s done on toilets, bathroom and sewage, and what he expects the gallery-goers will do.

Bob Bingham teaches art at CMU, and his classes of students work on environmentally-minded projects – including a Green Roof atop the university’s Hamerschlag Hall. Bob’s also worked on the city’s Nine Mile Run Project, in which a slag heap on the outskirts of Pittsburgh was transformed into a residential community, with sustainable living principles at its core. Today he talks about building green roofs, dealing with rejection of his proposals, and starting conversations about new ways of life.

For more on environmental toilets, see the latest from Rose George at the NYTimes.
And for Hamerschlag’s Green Roof, you can see it at CMU’s site.

Obama in Pittsburgh

Dan Gore founded the University of Pittsburgh chapter of Students for Obama two years ago, and spent the time since then running a massive drive to get the university vote out. The response was enormous in Pittsburgh, just as it was nationwide, but now that the campaign has given way to the administration, it’s not clear whether the mass political mobilization can be sustained. Dan reflects on the winding down of the campaign, the start of Obama’s time in Washington, and his own political future.

And if you want to enter the world of political junkie-ism, Dan’s got a few recommendations for online reading.  For a more balanced perspective there’s http://politico.com or http://politicalwire.com.   But if you’re looking for bombast or bias, he has some other picks.  Leftists and liberals, head to http://dailykos.com, or http://mydd.com.  And the Republicans – http://redstate.com.

Pittsburgh

As the Troubles have petered out, Irish-American groups find themselves in a difficult new landscape.  Funds for cross-Atlantic programs have dried up, the Walsh Visa program has reached its end, and the groups have to redefine their missions to match the new political reality of Northern Ireland.

The Ireland Institute of Pittsburgh, with its president Jim Lamb, is taking this transition in stride.  It remains one of the most active Irish-American groups in sponsoring exchange programs, and it’s expanding its focus to include new ventures to promote links between Pittsburgh and Ireland.  The Institute aims to contribute to community developmenton both sides of the sectarian divide, and to export the lessons it has learned to other deeply divided societies.

Produced for The Politics Show

Sam in Belfast

Sam May took an interest in Northern Ireland young.  A history buff in school, he participated in Civil War re-enactments and ended up in the 69th Pennsylvania Infantry, a regiment that had been made up of Irish immigrants.   His fellow re-enacters introduced him to Irish Rebel songs and Republican ideology — but at the same time Sam was conflicted.  He had family links to Ireland — but to Protestant Ireland in the North.   

Out of this confusion, Sam started to read up on Irish history, and it led him to Tony Novosel’s class at Pitt.  But studying the Troubles hasn’t necessarily made it any easier to stake out opinions about what’s best for Northern Ireland.

Produced for The Politics Show

Michael

Michael Mason Saunderson started boxing at 11 with a tube in his stomach, thanks to his cystic fibrosis. He abandoned it around 17, when he was drinking heavily, getting tattoos and eating poorly.  But now, at 21, he’s an amateur boxer in Belfast once again, living cleanly, and foraging careers in television and theater.

In today’s episode, Michael takes on an onslaught of questions.  Does he expect to have a career in boxing?  How is it to be from a Protestant background, fighting in a predominantly Catholic club?  When he walks down the street, does he size up every passing man for whether he can take him?  What’s his personality in the ring?  And, if he’s so intent on never returning to a hospital, why does he fight?

It’s Part 2 of the continuing series on American perspectives on the conflict in Northern Ireland.  This time it’s Kelly Cullen, a senior at Pitt and a marine reservist, who explains why he took such an interest in the Troubles + what he learned from studying it. 

Partly it’s a heritage thing for Kelly, having grown up in an Irish American family.  But his interest in Northern Ireland also grows out of his impending deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, and his creative writing projects. 

Produced for The Politics Show

The Five Uyghur detainees released in 2006 to Albania

The countdown to Bush’s exit is on – and it has special meaning to a group of 17 Uyghur men who have been incarcerated in Guantánamo Bay detention facilities since 2001 –despite having been cleared of enemy combatant status as as early as 2003.  If soon to be-President Obama closes Guantánamo, the Uyghurs will finally be released — but the question then is, where will they go?

The Uyghurs are Turkic Muslims from the far West of China, but the US refuses to return them to China for fear of the abuse and execution they would face there.  China and the Uyghurs are locked in a long-standing low-level conflict, like that of China and the Tibetans. 

But even though it doesn’t want to give China the Uyghur detainees, the Bush administration won’t admit them to the US, and it hasn’t been able to persuade European, Canadian, or Australian governments to resettle them either.  If the Guantánamo system is finally closed in the coming weeks, the question of ‘what next’ for the detainees may prove just as Kafkaesque as their past seven years. 

Produced for RustBelt Radio

USA on NI – Scott Nicolson

Scott, in Avatar Form

University of Pittsburgh offers a class on the politics of Northern Ireland every semester.  Tony Novosel teaches it with the intention that it will be the most challenging – and most involving – class the students will ever take. 

The veterans of the class — like Scott Nicolson, heard here — leave with an intricate understanding of the Troubles, as well as some insight into the unexpected comic book connections + psychological conditions of the province.

produced for The Politics Show

Terri Hooley

Terri Hooley, purveyor of the Good Vibrations record shop in Belfast, and the man who released The Undertones’ “Teenage Kicks” talks about the evolution of the music scene in the city.  Even as his contemporaries abandoned Northern Ireland for less bombs and more culture, Terri stuck to the city.  From Them + Van Morrison playing the Martime Hotel in the 1960s, through the coming of punk with shouts of SS RUC, to the current crop of young Belfast talent, he walks us through his unprofitable, trouble-making, fame-brushing career.

Rick Washington

Rick Washington, a video games designer and teacher at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, explains the psychology of popular video games. He also discusses the growing field of serious video games, the four personality types of gamers, and the morality programmed into the games.

Belfast past midnight

Thriteen years ago, Nervys Young came from a village outside of London to Northern Ireland.  She intended to stay for a three year degree program and has not left since.  Ned talks about how totally naive she was when she first moved here, whether she’s ever considered herself a local, how people react to her accent, and why she hasn’t run for the hills yet.

Kornel in Normandy

This summer Kornel Andrys quit his job as an architect in Belfast and hitchhiked back home to Poland. In today’s episode, he recounts his journey: how he found truck drivers to take him, which countries were best and worst for hitchhiking, how he stayed hygienic, and whether he’d ever trade office work for life on the road.

In the second half of the show, Tom Macic, the owner of The Celtic Cross, in the South Hills of talks about his Irish shop. He sells all kinds of Irish clothing, sweets, music, and miscellany to Pittsburghers and Irish and British expats. Tom explains what sells, what tea makes American tea taste like boiled popsicle sticks, and what the Irish American scene in Pittsburgh looks like.

Liam Watson

Two Belfast stand-up comedians on today’s episode.  First, Liam Watson, who started performing earlier this year and now is organizing and compering a fortnightly gig at the Pavilion. Liam talks about when he learned he was funny, what finally pushed him into taking the stage, and what he envisions for the future of Belfast comedy.

Then Paddy McGaughey sizes up how tortured his soul is, why he’s invented a girlfriend, whether he can perform with a stomachful of beer, and why stand up comedy is the best career ever. Plus!: his newest joke, written fresh that day.

The comedy night Liam organizes is every other Monday night at the Middle Bar at the Pavilion on the Ormeau Road.

Chess in Bar Sub

It’s all about chess on episode 36, with interviews with three members of the QUB Chess Club, Chris Millar, Steve Scannell and Ciara Pugh. Since the club was brought back to life in 2005, its players have found great success, winning the title of Irish University Champions last year and Ulster Club Champions this year. This month, several of the Queen’s players head to Greece for a Europe-wide tournament. In today’s episode, Chris, Steve and Ciara talk about their entry into the world of chess, their stress levels, their game faces, their addictions, and their strategies for victory.

Ahmed Seyar Zia

Ahmad Seyar Zia is, as he has proclaimed himself to be, the King of Love.  He is a young Afghan man, studying abroad in India now.  Born in Kabul, raised in different places around Afghanistan and Pakistan, he has developed his own life philosophies that, he finds, hold him apart from most other young people around him.  

 In today’s interview, Ahmad talks about growing up in the tumultuous past decades of Aghanistan, of the religious and philosophical system he’s developed, of taking up Tae Kwan Do after his brother lost his leg in a mine explosion, and why he’s intent on returning to his country. 

Ian Knox is one of Northern Ireland’s premier political cartoonists.  After studying for a career in architecture, he made his way into the world of cartooning and now contributes to a whole array of outlets – including The Irish News, Hearts & Minds, Sky News, and The Guardian.  He talks about why he likes to annoy people, how he knows if his cartoons succeed in their attempts to shove his opinions down the audience’s throats, which politicians he most likes to draw, and how he survives his daily threat of a heart attack.

Ronan Breathnach-Cashell

Common Grounds

Today we begin with coffee and end up with teeth.  First a Common Grounds barista-slash-waiter tells about his work in the cafe.   Tucked away in the Holylands, the cafe is only a few years old, attached to City Church, and run with the help of volunteers and profits going to charities. 

Then, up to the Lisburn Road to hear from Adam Jaffa of Gentle Dental Care, all about the dental practice — especially the increasingly popular cosmetic procedures it offers.  Dentistry can be fun, he claims, and he explains how the practice ended up going beyond teeth, to move into the world of art (especially local work) and charity activities in Africa.

A Hairpiece at Shauna's Shop

We go to Chameleon Hair Extensions in Smithfield Market to hear from shop owner Shauna Mullan all about hair.  She’s been dong hair extensions and weaves since she was a young teenager and business has blossomed for her in the past decade, as more women in Belfast want hair extensions and many have bad experiences with home jobs or inexperienced stylists, resulting in bald spots, lumpy hair, matted clumps and other disasters.

Shauna discusses how she got into the hair extension business, where the hair comes from, what the concerns and preferences of the customers are, and why hair is so important.

Michael MacBroom

It’s all about local independent filmmaking this week, with conversations with two young filmmakers, Michael MacBroom & Stuart Sloan.  Michael wrote and directed a feature film, finished earlier this year, called I Wanted To Talk To You Last Night, and is now working on a second feature to begin shortly. 

Stuart Sloan

Stuart worked on the feature too, and has completed his own film recently, a short documentary on cranes and redevelopment in the city.

You can see Stuart’s crane film, Counterweight, at his YouTube site, http://www.youtube.com/ user/sloanowski, and there you can also find a short documentary with Michael MacBroom about the making of his first feature.

Jared Longlands (for more: smartturkey@hotmail.com)

Julia Atkinson

Paddy McKeown  (for more: http://www.myspace.com/patrickmckeown)

Michael MacBroom

Caroline's Crystals

Caroline Dunne talks from her home in North Belfast about the practice of Reiki.  She has been practicing it for many years, having been trained in the US and then moved to Belfast to live & work here for the past 6 and a half years.  Caroline had been a hair stylist before, but then switched into holistic therapies, with reiki being one of her favorite to practice.  Reiki is unlike a traditional body massage — with less touching, more silence, and a focus on chakras and crystals.  In today’s episode, she explains what reiki is exactly & who is attracted to it.  Caroline also discusses what the reaction has been in North Belfast and the city at large to reiki, as well as what it can offer to people (including skeptics of it), and why she enjoys it so much.

a film by Michael Leonard

Sinead Breathnach-Cashell … (for more: http://www.myspace.com/draw_in)

Neil Brogan … (for more: http://caff-flick.com)

Margaret Hagan … (for more: http://penelopebox.etsy.com)

David Timlin … (for more: http://www.creativematch.co.uk/portfolio/david_timlin/ or d_timlin@mac.com)

Stuart Sloan … (for more: http://www.youtube.com/user/sloanowski)

a film by Sam Ruscica

Conor in the River

Freshwater pearl mussels may be the most boring things some have ever seen — as Bill Oddie alleged — but they are the stuff of Conor Wilson’s study + life.  In Northern Ireland freshwater pearl mussels are under threat, from agricultural run-off, overfishing and pearl hunters.  The mussels are big and boring, with gills, a stomach, and a foot, but no brain or personality.  No matter their dullness, they matter a great deal to river life.

Conor explains his work with mussels — which he does for Quercus at Queen’s University Belfast.  He’ll be spending a good time alone in the rivers of Northern Ireland, tracking down mussels, reintroducing new mussels into the environment, zapping fish, and avoiding the temptation to search for a fortune in pearls.

Mussels...!

A Caff-Flick Release from Neil

Neil Brogan tells of his professional hobby, running the small record label Caff/Flick out of Belfast.  The label (http://caff-flick.com/) is a niche one, releasing vinyl 12″ and 7” records & picture discs of bands from all over Europe + North America, including Mount Eerie, The High Places, No Kids, and Champagne Diamond/The Brilliant Light (from whom some songs feature on this episode).

Neil tells of how he got into the niche in London and expanded it from Belfast – constructing a snowballing virtual world of music, art & business – run via multiple online personas he’s cultivated.  He also comments on the lifestyle that comes with running a small label: whether Belfast is (or could be) a decent place for his ambitions, bank account, and sensibilities; if he’ll ever cash himself in for a suit and an office job; and how hipsters can induce sensations of inadequacy and nausea.

Neil also performs (in a weird, self-effacing way, as he puts it).  This Sunday the 17th he helps put on ‘Up The Buff’ at the Royal Antedeluvian Order of the Buffaloes club, in the Cathedral Quarter, on Writer’s Square, at. It is free in + goes from 7pm.

Above, a High Places Picture Disc in Action, courtesy of David Horvitz

for more from Sam: http://anotherworldradio.com/2008/08/01/ep-25-bicycle-belfast/

for more from Jared: http://anotherworldradio.com/2007/12/04/episode-4/

and to see some of Jared’s writings, drawings, comics, and other creations, contact him via email, at smartturkey@hotmail.com.

The Chair

A young Belfast woman talks frankly about life with ME (or chronic fatigue syndrome) in the first half of the show.  She discusses how the illness arrived, how it induced swearing and rattiness from her, and what the trade-offs have been.  Also: whether she wants people to push her in the wheelchair, her plans for family or nunhood, and how she’s found men look at women in a chair.

In the second half, foster mother Susan Hagan talks about all the babies that have come in and out of her home.  She, along with her husband and family, has been fostering newborns for the past seven years through a Pittsburgh agency.  The babies stay for a weeks or months, and Susan describes what life with them (and without them) is like — including the health concerns, naming choices, attachment issues, and relationships with birth and adoptive parents.

A Foster Baby

for more from Gary, on Parkour: http://anotherworldradio.com/2008/07/24/ep-23-parkour-belfast/

More from Tony: http://anotherworldradio.com/2007/11/20/episode-1-tony-novosel-miroslav-budinski/

Graeme's Chosen Image of Happiness: Picasso's Joie de Vivre

Episode 27 has Graeme Watson talking about the philosophy of happiness and the politics of well-being.  He’s finishing his PhD in political theory at Queen’s, examining different approaches to achieving happiness and how politicians (especially those in the UK) have brought the notion from twee to power.

Graeme discusses the ascendancy of the notion ‘Well-Being’ into a watchword of Tony Blair’s New Labor and David Cameron’s New Tories, as well as predictions that it will be one of the ‘Big Ideas of the 21st Century’.  He explains how the personal is being made political and how the consumer industry of happiness is feeding into a new kind of politics — attracting Middle Class Lefty Guardian Readers, among others.

Plus, Graeme offers some visions of our coming post-human future, his low-grade hedonism, some secrets to happiness, and his planned cult.

Owen with his hives

Owen Wilson keeps tens of thousands of bees in his backyard in Donaghadee.  He began beekeeping as a teenager but stopped in the 1960s when he had to kill all his bees, after they’d been infected with American Foulbrood disease.    

In this episode, Owen and his wife Ann outline the rules of bee society, including the death battles between virgin queens, the cluster ball-suffocation of strangers, the post-mating massacre of male drones, and bees who march to their death for the sake of the hive.  He also tells of a man who could keep queen bees in his mouth; the health benefits of bee venom, pollen & honey; and why he always makes sures his trousers are tucked into his socks when he works with his bees.

Sam, at I Fix Bikes

This week, bicycling in Belfast.

Sam Ruscica, the ‘Mother Teresa of Broken Bikes’ in Belfast, talks about his shop “I Fix Bikes” in the Smithfield Market, as well as his plans for the future.  He’d like to move from rescuing all the abandoned and abused bikes in town to managing a community bike shop, teaching people how to build and fix bikes for themselves.  Sam also talks about Bike Pirates of Toronto, the abuse and flying objects he encounters while riding through the city, and the DIY Wednesdays he hosts at his shop.

Austin, at Belfast Bicycle Workshop

Then Austin Brown of Belfast Bicycle Workshop talks about his work repairing and selling bicycles, as well as leading bike tours of the city.  He is located in ‘The Workshops’ on Lawrence Street in the Holylands, after having run Lifecycles down in the Smithfield Markets for many years.  Austin explains why there’s not a critical mass in Belfast & how he’s trying to generate a bike culture here.  He can be reached at 028 9043 9959, or at info@lifecycles.co.uk.

 The ‘Bicycle Repair Man’ skit from Monty Python, from which Sam derives his job title.

Homestead Mills

George DeBolt takes us through the life and decline of Homestead, a town in the Mon Valley area of Pittsburgh, via his own life story. He recounts getting conscientious objector status in front of a conservative draft board, living in a prominent Protestant family in a working class Catholic neighborhood, and how he discovered his grandfather’s secret labor history. George also details Homestead’s radical labor activism as its steel mills closed in the 1980s, with protests involving hundreds of dollars in pennies, dead fish, skunk oil, safe deposit boxes, and Sunday school invasions.

As industry in the Mon Valley collapsed, its leaders did little to keep the neighborhood alive, instead relying on pie-in-the-sky schemes, involving Steven Spielberg, Buick World, Disney theme parks, Saudi sheikhs, and the state lottery. George describes all the schemes, along with his own attempts to improve the area, as well as invoking the wisdom of Liza Minnelli.

Cracow City Restaurant

This week: food in Belfast.
First, to the city’s first Polish restaurant, Cracow City, located on the Cregagh Road in East Belfast. Its owner tells of why he opened Cracow City, how he’s adapted Polish home-cooking to the Irish palate, and upcoming events at the restaurant. He also treats us to a Polish sing-along, with some of Cracow City’s customers providing him back-up vocals.
Then, to St. George’s Market to hear from Brian Wallace, who runs an independent organic farm with his family near Coleraine. They sell fruits, vegetables and meat at the market every Saturday. He explains why they decided to start their own farm, what the advantages and drawbacks of going organic are, and how local farmers cope with the business practices of supermarket giants like Tesco.

Kristof, Cracow City's owner

Rodney Moore

Episode 21 goes to Ballymena, to Rodney Moore’s gym.  He works as a bouncer along with the other guys at his gym, and they also train for Ultimate Fighting Championship.  Rodney explains what it means to be a bouncer, how they can spot trouble, and what they’ve done to clean up Ballymena night life.  Also on topic: the growing scene of UFC and mixed martial arts in Ballymena and beyond.

In the Gym

Derry Mural

The second half of the show returns to Belfast to talk with Robert Herdman at the Belfast Hypnosis Centre.  He’s the main hypnotist at the centre, where he uses a technique of Five Path Hypnosis, which he’s brought from California to Northern Ireland.  He recommends hypnosis as a means to lose weight, stop smoking, and overcome other fears.  In the interview, he explains how hypnosis works, what he does during a session, and how people in Northern Ireland react to it.

Arpilleras on Display

Quilts meet politics as Roberta Bacic takes on us a tour of Chilean wall hangings made during women under the Pinochet dictatorship. The quilts are not typical ones – they show village life in all its complications, including the violence, activism, and family life during the 1970s and 80s. The arpilleras have travelled around the world, having been sold and exported in order to raise money for women in Chilean villages and also to tell their stories to the outside world.

See more of the quilts here: http://www.derrycity.gov.uk/museums/quilt.asp

Video of a presentation from Roberta at INCORE on the Magee Campus of University of Ulster is here: http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/Seminars/CAIN_13-03-08-RB_ref.html

Roberta with an arpillera

And more quilt exhibtions can be seen here:

http://museum.msu.edu/Exhibitions/Current/quilts_and_human_rights.html

An Airport Arpillera

Dan Parish

Dan Parish grew up in New England and was set on a successful path, but by the end of his 20s he had dropped out of his PhD program and found his way to Mexico City playing flamenco guitar. In this week’s episode, he tells of burning out and growing facial hair in the 1960s, of the attractions and dangers of flamenco life, and of figuring out how to be happy writing music and living the New Hampshire life as — he puts it — a ‘worker in the arms of nature rather than a struggler in the flow of man’s idea of work’.

Some Flamenco Tracks from Dan:

Dan Parish – Flamenco Track 1

Dan Parish – Flamenco Track 2

Dan Parish – Flamenco Track 3

Ross Hamilton Cleary, the son of The Singing Priest of Ireland, Father Michael Cleary, speaks alongside filmmaker Alison Millar about the new documentary ‘At Home With the Clearys’. Ross and Alison discuss the scandal that arose when Fr Cleary’s secret relationships were revealed, what life has been like for the family since, and how the film has been received in Ireland.

In the second half of the show, the Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Dr Monica McWilliams, talks about the upcoming Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland — how the process has developed, why it is necessary, and what the future holds for it.

Michael Mahadeo

Michael Mahadeo has lived in Northern Ireland since the mid 1980s, when he moved here from British Guyana. He speaks about growing up in Guyana during its decolonization, and about the most notorious part of the country’s recent history — the Jonestown massacre, in which hundreds of American citizens killed themselves on a compound in rural Guyana. Michael also discusses being an ethnic minority in Northern Ireland, adjusting to the Troubles, and whether it’s ever possible to become a local here.