This week Backbeat listeners will hear an entertaining assortment from Billie Holiday, The Manhattan Brothers, The Prairie Ramblers, Louis Armstrong and Gene Vincent. There's early, ragtime guitar pickin' from the obscure and talented, Melvin Dupree, smooth sax playing from the turban-wearing Lynn Hope, who took a year off playing to study ancient history and Islam, and new retro-style country from Ontario's Barbara anne.
There are moments in history when a visit meant to project strength ends up revealing something very different. President Trump’s recent trip to China was one of those moments, a visit wrapped in ceremony but hollow in outcome, a visit that left more questions than answers. And when the cameras stopped rolling, when the speeches were over, what lingered was not triumph but frustration. The anger call that followed, sharp and defensive, told its own story. A story of a leader who expected applause and instead walked away with empty hands.
But while the political theater played out overseas, something far more urgent was unfolding closer to home.
The Flotilla activists, civilians and humanitarians carrying nothing but supplies and conviction, were met with force as they approached Gaza. Their treatment at the hands of Israeli authorities, and the rhetoric from figures like Ben Gvir, reminded the world how quickly compassion can be criminalized when power feels threatened. These activists were not armed. They were not soldiers. They were people trying to deliver aid, and they were treated as enemies.
And as we watched that unfold, violence was erupting here in the United States.
In San Diego, a man walked into a mosque and opened fire, killing a worshipper in a place meant to be sacred. Days later, in Lakeville, Minnesota, another attempted attack targeted a Muslim community, an attack that could have taken many more lives if not for quick action and sheer luck. These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a rising tide of hate that is being fed, amplified, and normalized in real time.
And we have to be honest about where some of that fuel is coming from.
Influencers, people with massive platforms and no accountability, can ignite a fire with a single post. A rumor becomes a headline. A lie becomes a rallying cry. A dehumanizing joke becomes permission for violence. Words that should have stayed in the shadows are now broadcast to millions, and the consequences are written in blood.
But here is the truth we cannot afford to forget.
We are not powerless.
We are not spectators.
We are not doomed to watch this spiral continue.
We can choose unity over division.
We can choose vigilance over silence.
We can choose to protect one another across faiths, across backgrounds, across every line that hate tries to draw between us.
Because the only force stronger than hate is a community that refuses to be broken by it.
Today, we stand together not because we are the same, but because we understand that our safety, our dignity, and our humanity are bound together. When one community is targeted, every community is at risk. And when we show up for each other, hate loses its power.
This is the moment to stay awake.
This is the moment to stay united.
This is the moment to refuse the darkness that others are trying to spread.
And this, right here, is where we begin.
If you have thoughts, I want to hear them.
Email me at TWIPpodcasts@gmail.com and tell me how you see it.
This is This Week in Palestine.
I am guest-hosting WRIR's Cause and Effect Show today. It is one of my favorites to host and to listen to. Each week the host selects an artist than digs deep into the bands and artists that influenced the featured performer and in turns the bands and artists they influenced. Stream the show every Saturday from 1 PM to 3 PM @ www.wrir.org.
Israel is escalating relentless bombing massacres against civilians in towns across southern Lebanon. Researcher and journalist Roqayah Chamseddine joins hosts Nora Barrows-Friedman and Ali Abunimah to report on these attacks receiving little international attention. She discusses the humanitarian crisis of the displaced, the internal political situation and why South Lebanon won't bend to Israeli invaders.
The long-standing head of intelligence for the Qassam Brigades is now their new commander. On the Resistance Report, the Electronic Intifada’s Jon Elmer tells us about the Israeli assassination of the Qassam Brigades leader Izz al-Din al-Haddad on May 15th in Gaza City.
The Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah exposes a new supposedly landmark report boosted by mainstream media that rests on familiar debunked witnesses and discredited sources about mass rapes on October 7th, 2023.
Unemployment in Gaza is at more than 80 percent. An article by Ahmad Sbaih explains why graduating from college feels like a burden.
Sonic Café, kicking things off with Freedom Junction from 2025—music to drive the Dream Machine by. Hey there, I’m Scott Clark, and this is episode 484.
This time, the Sonic Café explores life’s little absurdities, from the outrageous cost of printer ink, to the down-and-dirty roots of Seasick Steve. We’ve stitched together a music mix spanning 57 years, including Blind Melon, Primal Scream, Janelle Monáe, and a groovy 2018 remix of the Beatles’ Glass Onion, originally dropped in ’68, and as always, many more.
Comedian Don McMillan jumps in with a hilarious breakdown of why printer ink is somehow more valuable than liquid gold. Later, at the bottom of the hour, get ready for a time-warped Sonic Café twin spin—The Banana Splits’ 1968 garage nugget I’m Gonna Find A Cave, followed by 45 Spiders’ 2018 take on the same tune.
Oh—and a big Sonic Café welcome to our newest sponsor: Cerebellex, the smart pill for stupid people. Cerebellex—because thinking is hard.
So let’s get rolling. From 1974, here’s Paul McCartney and Wings—this is Helen Wheels. And as always, we’re the Sonic Café.
The puckishly whimsical life and times of poet and film maker James Broughton is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious in a visit with Stephen Silha, the producer and director of “Big Joy,” a biographical film of the life and times of James Broughton.
Broughton believed that in order to live an authentic life we each should follow our own weird. He says:
“I don’t know what the left is doing said the right hand,
But it looks fascinating.”
And:
“I may be infecting the whole body
said the Head
but they’ll never amputate me.”
Stephen Silha and I visited by phone from his home near Seattle, Washington on Mother’s Day, 2014. He began our conversation by telling us what drew him to make a film about his friend James Broughton.
The book Stephen Silha recommends is “The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon,” by Tom Spanbauer.
The music in this weeks edition of Radio Curious is “Twril” by Norman Arnold, from the movie, “Big Joy.”
A weekly 30 minute review of international news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio and the internet. With tiA weekly 30 minute review of international news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio and the internet. With times, frequencies, and websites for listening at home. 3 files- Highest quality broadcast, regular broadcast, and slow-modem streaming. France 24, NHK Japan, Germany,France and Cuba. With times, frequencies, and websites for listening at home. 3 files- Highest quality broadcast, regular broadcast, and slow-modem streaming. France 24, NHK Japan, Germany, and Cuba.
Small pipes, Border pipes, Uilleann pipes, Northumbrian, Galician and of course, Highland pipes. Smoke 'em if you got 'em! This hour has plenty o' pipes and fiddles, banjos and some spicy zydeco accordion. Homegrown Celtic too from Haggis X-1, The Mahones and The McDades.Come get your weekly hit of Celtivity with Celt In A Twist!
Headphones or buds, if you're feeding your ears, give 'em something sweet. This hour is full of ear candy from Souad Massi, Karsh Kale, Baiuca, Eccodek, the Afro Celt Sound System and gobs of global in between! Get our weekly Album Covers and monthly charts with a free subscription to worldbeatinternational.com, from World Beat Canada Radio!
In the first half of the episode, we discuss 5 tactics MAGA uses to avoid healthy discourse in conversations and ways you can identify and steer the conversation in a healthier direction.
In the second half of the episode, we discuss an essay by Stacy Muhammad entitled ‘The Politics of Consequence’ and connect Hollywood’s influence on culture to the division we are seeing in American life today.
It's another letter focused show, this time for the letter G....with all kinds of cliche filled cheezy statements from our hosts and smelly songs of the refuse kind among others.
From the Vault. An interview with Ursula K. Le Guin on her book “Voices,” which speaks to the importance of critical thinking and the dangers of a society that loses that. Plus Bob Avakian, the leader of the revolution, and the author of the New Communism: The Terror of Deportations " Millions of Families Split Apart, from BA Speaks: REVOLUTION, Nothing Less! Plus, immigrants fighting against everything that is going against them. How can we protect those who need to be in the streets?
