Archived Radio Show

April 24, 2023

Original Radio Show  ID:
WSA230424

Listen to the Show on the Mp3 Player below

Duration 57 minutes

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Featuring

Click the Name to access the Segment below

1. Commentary by Elaine B. Holtz,  Host of Women's Spaces 

2. Ken Norton , Co-Producer, Women's Spaces

3. Maya Khosla, Spokeperson, Sonoma County Climate Activist Network (SoCoCAN!)

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1. Commentary by Elaine B. Holtz:   I am excited about today’s show. Saturday April 22 was Earth Day. In honor of Earth Day, we have a special treat, Ken is a Climate Pioneer and while at San Jose State College he along with other students buried a new 1970 Ford Maverick on the campus' cafeteria building front lawn on Feb. 20, 1970, in San Jose, Calif. The event was part of a week-long Survival Faire at the school, focusing attention on environmental problems. He will be telling us about the event that happened that day. Just think that was 53 years ago, over a half of a century ago. Ken is going to tell us all about that day since he was a participant in the Survival Faire..

Earth Day honors Rachel Carson today, a woman who changed America and influenced the environmental movement with her revolutionary book, Silent Spring.
Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. The book was published on September 27, 1962, documenting the adverse environmental effects caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. The theme for Earth Day 2022 is, “Invest in Our Planet.” Ken and I attended the Earth Day Celebration in Downtown Santa Rosa.

Also joining me on the phone will be, Maya Khosla, a member, and spokesperson for Sonoma County Climate Activist Network (SoCoCAN!). Khosla is a biologist and writer focusing on forest biodiversity and fire-safe practices. She is the winner of the 2023 Fund for Wild Nature’s Grassroots Activist Award and co-winner of the Environmentalist of the Year Award from 2020 Sonoma County Conservation Council (SCCC).

This is the last Monday of the month, and we will be reciting The Women’s Spaces Pledge.

Happy Birthday to my mother-in-law, Mary Norton, who turns 97 today. Happy Birthday Mom, we love you.
Also, Happy Birthday to my beautiful daughter Susan, whose Birthday is Friday, April 28. Two beautiful Tauruses who definitely have influenced my life.

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2.  Our First Presenter Ken Norton, Co-producer of Women's Spaces, shares what motivated him as an engineering student at San Jose State College (SJSC) to participate in the Survival Faire on February 20, 1970, two months before the first national Earth Day. He remembered the eye- and lung-irritating smog of Los Angeles before heading north to study at SJSC. Ken had learned of the dangers of pesticides with Rachel Carson's publication of her book Silent Spring. He knew that protection of the environment was vital to the planet from his studies, the numerous teach-ins on the campus., and in the Engineers for Awareness Club he helped to co-found in the Engineering School of SJSC. The Vietnam War was raging, and many students believed in questioning authority and have a critical mind. No longer did his generation believe that they lived in the greatest country on earth and were willing to protest to move public opinion. Burying a car seemed like an attention-getting act that would express the students' dismay over the gasoline engine-caused air pollution. The students bought shares to purchase a car, at first a Dodge muscle car, but as the Survival Faire date loomed and the funds were lacking, they settled for a less-costly new Ford Maverick. They marched with the car from the dealership, had a pit dug between the Engineering Building and the Administration Building, and plopped the car into the pit, with students cheering, and buried it. It drew the attention of the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, who published reports on the Survival Faire, thus bringing environmental protection to national attention.

San Jose State College students bury a new 1970 Ford Maverick on the campus' cafeteria building front lawn on Feb. 20, 1970, in San Jose, CA. Ken Norton is marked with a circle in the top left of the photo. The event was part of a week-long Survival Faire at the school focusing attention on environmental problems. Photo by Stan Creighton/The Chronicle

About Ken Norton - Ken is the co-producer of Women's Spaces Radio Show. He earned his B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from San Jose State and his M.S. in the same subject at Stanford University. He was a co-founder of Engineers for Awareness at SJSC, a club for engineers to discuss the environment and the war. He assisted Dr. William Hermanns, Professor emeritus of SJSC, with his writings and poetry in English and in German, enabling the publication of two books, The Holocaust -from a Survivor of Verdun (1972 Harper & Row) and Einstein and the Poet - In Search of the Cosmic Man (1983 Branden). Ken was a member of the Board of Directors of the Einstein-Hermanns Foundation which held the World Youth Friendship Parliament in Gotland, Sweden in 1988. He is the Trustee of the William Hermanns Trust. In the 1990s Ken was General Manager of a trading company Stanford Technology Network that pioneered trade with Vietnam as the Trade Embargo was lifted. He served as Treasurer on the Board of Directors of the Association for the Creative Endeavor that produced the Health and Harmony Festival (later Harmony Festival).

Guest Link:

San Jose car burial put ecological era in gear, by Sam Whiting, SF Chronicle, April 20, 2010
https://www.sfgate.com/green/article/San-Jose-car-burial-put-ecological-era-in-gear-3266993.php

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Ken Norton's Scent of Light - a series of 5 minute audio vignettes:  http://kennethenorton.com/SOL.html

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William Hermanns Trust:  www.williamhermanns.com

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3. Our Guest Maya Khosla returns to Women’s Spaces as a spokesperson for the Sonoma County Climate Action Network (SOSOCAN!), which includes over 50 organizations over 200 individuals dedicated to correct and reverse human society induced-climate change. Maya discusses sustainable forest care amidst the decisions to cut down so many old growth trees as a defense against wildfires and feed those trees into Biomass Generators to burn for energy. This is not recycling and does pollute the atmosphere. Even if scrubbers are installed in the smokestacks, Maya asks what will be done to dispose of the scrubbers? She argues that the old growth trees suck up much more carbon from the air than younger trees and the shrub bush in the forest, both of which feed rapid spread of fires. The old growth trees usually survive forest fires, and though their darkened trunks and burnt branches appear to be on dead trees, the next year shows new green branches emerging from the trunks, and seeds that need fires for sprouting new trees are activated to continue life.

About our Guest: Maya Khosla is a biologist and writer focusing on forest biodiversity and fire-safe practices. She is the winner of the 2023 Fund for Wild Nature’s Grassroots Activist Award for 2023 and was co-winner of the Environmentalist of the Year Award from 2020 Sonoma County Conservation Council (SCCC).

Maya served as Sonoma County Poet Laureate (2018-2020), and brought Sonoma’s communities together to heal through gatherings, field walks, and shared writing after the recent wildfires.

Her books include “All the Fires of Wind and Light” (2020 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award; Sixteen Rivers Press), “Keel Bone” (Bear Star Press; Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize), and “Web of Water: Life in Redwood Creek.”

Her writing has been featured in award-winning documentary films including “Village of Dust, City of Water,” about the water crises in rural India.

Guest Link:

Sonoma County Climate Action Network (SOSOCAN!):  www.sonomacountycan.org

Reference Link:

MMaya Khosla was a guest on 12/28/2020, available at this link:

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 Herstory

Our history is our strength. Check out important dates to remember in herstory at the National Women's History Alliance,, where the date descriptions were sourced unless otherwise indicated.

Herstory Events:

April 22 – Earth Day, honor Rachel Carson today, a woman who changed America and greatly influenced the environmental movement with her revolutionary book, Silent Spring. Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. The book was published on September 27, 1962, documenting the adverse environmental effects caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. The theme for Earth Day 2022 is, “Invest in Our Planet.”  Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring

April 28, 1993 – First “Take Our Daughters to Work” Day, sponsored by the Ms. Foundation, in 2003 it became “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work” Day. It occurs on the 4th Thursday in April every year.

Herstory Birthdays:

April 27, 1906 (1993) – Alice Dunnigan, first African-American journalist accredited to cover Congress (1947) and the White House, Supreme Court and State Department, documented Klan actions when no “white” newspaper covered them, first journalist of color to travel with President Truman on his train (1948) but had to pay her own way, appointed to the staff of the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (1961).

April 27, 1927 (2006) – Coretta Scott King, civil rights, human rights, and peace activist.

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Announcements&  

Thursday, April 27, 6:30-8PM, FREE, Racial Justice Allies of Sonoma County, present Dr. Catherine Meeks. Prepare by watching DDr. Meek's talk to NOWSonoma on 3/20/2023 here; Visit the Racial Justice Allies facebook page.
To participate and register, email rarracialjusticeallies@gmail.com  and we will send you a Zoom link before or on April 27th. Dr. Meeks was interviewed on Women's Spaces in February, available at the link --> 

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Monday, May 1, 2023, 11 AM PT # repeats 11 PM PT, features Union Organizers Lisa Maldonaldo and Renee Saucedo.  Radio KBBF 89.1 FM, North SF Bay or live streaming at https://kbbf.org/live

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Monday, May 1, 2023, International Labor Day March and Rally, See poster below. More information at https://www.facebook.com/events/166155705988009/?ref=newsfeed

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Wednesday, May 3, 2023, 11 AM PT, repeat of Monday's show, features Union Organizers Lisa Maldonaldo and Renee Saucedo.  Radio KPCA 103.3 FM, Petaluma, CA. https://petalumacommunityaccess.org/kpca 

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Music Selections

The Opening and Closing Theme song The Woman in Your Life is You is done with permission of the Composer and Singer Alix Dobkin ((August 16, 1940 – May 19, 2021) Alix Dobkin death was just announced - Thank you for all you did for Lesbians to be recognized and Women to be honored. May you rest in peace. See our Interview with Alix Dobkin on 12/1/2014 and our Memorial to Alix Dobkin on 5/24/2021

The Woman in Your Life is You by Alix Dobkin from the album Living with Lavender Jane (2010 Women's Wax Works) - www.alixdobkin.com

What on Earth, sung by Earth Mama from the album Love Large (1996 Rouse House LLC). 

Trees, sung by Patti Page from the 1958 Big Record TV Show (https://youtu.be/1NMt2B9kCWA ).

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Link:  Spinitron.com Playlist for Women's Spaces Show