April 28, 2005
TOPIC: Combating Military Recruitment on Campus
GUESTS: Laura Villages, member of the Progressive Alliance at Santa Monica College
Across the country, a growing student movement on college campuses is challenging the right of military recruiters to enlist students in war fighting. According to unpublicized studies conducted for the Pentagon, two years after the invasion of Iraq, the number of young Americans volunteering to serve in the U.S. military is declining. Young Blacks, and women in particular are “marching away from offers to join the army,” according to an article by Robert Burns of Associated Press, a trend that suggests “the military’s largest service may be entering a prolonged recruiting slump at a time when it is trying to expand its ranks.” Harvard University and Yale Law School have already succeeded in banning military recruiters from their campuses. Some weeks ago we spoke with a student from Santa Monica College here in Southern California, about a campus walk-out in protest of military recruitment.
The protest will meet Thursday April 28th @1pm at the corner of Pico and Stewart in Santa Monica (in front of the 99 Cent Store ) to walk to Donner's office. For more information email antirecruiter@yahoo.com.
TOPIC: Tea: A Play
GUESTS: Velina Hasu Houston, Professor of Theatre, Resident Playwright, and Director of Dramatic Writing at U.S.C.
In 1993, playwright Velina Hasu Houston first published the play Tea about five Japanese so-called war brides who find themselves living in rural Kansas alongside their American GI husbands after World War II. Over 100,000 native Japanese women married American servicemen during the American Occupation of Japan; these families returned to the U.S. between the years of 1946 and 1960. Velina Hasu Houston is herself the daughter of a Japanese war bride and half black/half Blackfoot Indian father. In her play, Tea, like the hot beverage, Tea, Hasu Houston writes from her own personal experience as well as material based on extensive interviews with 50 Japanese women who were international brides. Tea has gone on to become one of the most produced Asian American plays. Writing about her play, Houston says: “the marriages challenged the social systems of both Japan and America because of their interracial-intercultural nature. Such systems required the women to survive the oppression and ridicule to which such marriages are often subjected.” Velina Hasu Houston is the recipient of more than three dozen writing awards. She has been recognized three times by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, twice been selected as a Rockefeller Foundation playwriting fellow, and was a recipient of a Japan Foundation fellowship and a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Foundation grant. She is currently a Professor of Theatre, Resident Playwright, and Director of Dramatic Writing at U.S.C. Tea is opening at the International City Theatre on April 29th.
Tea runs Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 2:00 pm, April 26 through May 22. Tickets are $32.00 and $37.00 on Thursdays, and $37.00 and $42.00 on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, except opening night which is $50.00 and $60.00 and includes a reception with the actors following the performance. Preview performances take place at 8:00 pm on Tuesday, April 26; Wednesday, April 27; and Thursday, April 28. Preview tickets are $29.00.
International City Theatre is located in the Long Beach Performing Arts Center at 300 E. Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach. For reservations and information, call the ICT Box Office at (562) 436-4610.
TOPIC: Fuel Cell Technology: An Alternative Energy Source
GUESTS: Dr. Bruce Logan, Professor of Environmental Engineering at Pennsylvania State University and Director of the Hydrogen Energy Center
Pennsylvania State University environmental engineers and a former Penn State student currently in private industry have discovered an important new process for producing hydrogen. Hydrogen is a clean-burning fuel that many envision as an alternative fuel to replace gasoline in cars. The advancement comes in a type of hydrogen production that uses bacteria to process biological waste. By adding a small electrical current to the process the bacteria are able to transform more of the waste into hydrogen. It also results in cleaner waste water. In fact, this advancement could be used by human waste treatment plants to power themselves and produce a source of clean energy. One of the authors of the study, and inventor of the Microbial Fuel Cell, is Dr. Bruce Logan, Professor of environmental engineering at Pennsyvania State University and director of the hydrogen energy center.
TOPIC: Alternative Development in Orange County
GUESTS: Jack Eidt, Wild Heritage Planners
Rancho Mission Viejo is one of the last remaining wild places along the Southern California coast. There is now a plan to develop the area by building houses and extending a freeway through it. The plan has been approved by the Orange County board of Supervisors. But, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Surfrider, the Sierra Club, and Endangered Habitat's League are suing to have the project stopped. Another organization, called “Wild Heritage Planners”, has put together a compromise plan that would allow limited development in the area but protect the Environment as well. For more information call 951-609-0552 or email jackeidt@yahoo.com.
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