KCRW's Politics of Culture

Jon Kalish, an independent radio producer and freelance newspaper reporter based in New York, first met Breslin when Kalish was a young reporter, and over the years, he's covered Breslin's various headline making exploits. Kalish also learned a thing or two about reporting from Breslin, who taught him the importance of climbing tenement stairs. In this half-hour documentary, producer Jon Kalish talks to Breslin's friends, rides along as Breslin sleeps on the streets with New York's homeless, and talks to the columnist right after Breslin broke the story of the city's Parking Violations Bureau kickback scandal.

When we think about the recession we're going through, the phrases "mortgage crisis," "Wall Street bailout" and "stimulus package" come to mind. But Robert Scheer has an explanatory theory, one with roots in the free-market mantra of the Reagan era and the financial de-regulation that took place during the Clinton years. Matt Miller hosts a conversation with Bob about his new book, The Great American Stick Up.

As we near the ninth anniversary of 9/11, KCRW's Matt Holzman engages in a discussion about the meaning of memorials.

Everything we eat, wear and drive depends in some way on water. But with only one percent of the earth's fresh water available to us, how are we utilizing this finite resource, in the face of drought, climate change, and pollution? Unsustainable practices will make water even scarcer as the population explodes. Sarah Spitz talks about water issues with Susan Leal, co-author of Running Out of Water, and City of Santa Monica Water Resource Specialist Russell Ackerman.

At the end of life, there are still choices to be made, medical issues to address. But what if you haven't shared these concerns with a family member or in writing somewhere? What if you don't know what the dying person wants in terms of quality of life or how long they will live? Sarah Spitz discusses end-of-life hospice care with two experts.

Living donors can donate a portion of their liver, lung or pancreas but the need for kidneys -- more than100,000 people in the US alone are waiting -- is overwhelming. Why must we rely on a donor system? Are there options that could include creating an organ market?

Before The Simpsons became a cultural touchstone, and before Comic-Con became a mecca for movie-makers, LA was a hotbed of comic art creativity. One of its leading lights, Jaime Hernandez, co-creator with his brothers of the strip Love and Rockets, joins comic scholar, Todd Hignite for a conversation with KCRW?s Eric J. Lawrence about the release of their new book, The Art of Jaime Hernandez: Secrets of Life and Death.

In an Internet world that encourages short bursts of words and thoughts, why have Joe Donnelly and Laurie Ochoa decided to create Slake, an LA journal devoted to long-form story telling, including fiction, non fiction, essays, memoirs, plus photography and art in a full-color book format?

The long-awaited album, Dark Night of the Soul by Danger Mouse and the late Mark Linkous, aka Sparklehorse, is released to the public on July 13. KCRW Music Director Jason Bentley joins Danger Mouse and one of the many album collaborators, director David Lynch, on this special edition of the Politics of Culture.

On July 10, at the age of 60, legendary open-water swimmer Diana Nyad, host of KCRW?s The Score, will attempt to complete her first marathon swim in over three decades, a 24-hour open-water swim 50 miles off the Florida coast. Until she began training in secret this year, she hadn?t swum a stroke in 31 years. Matt Holzman speaks with her to find out what?s prompting her to put herself to such a test.

It wouldn?t be an exaggeration to call the late Ernest Fleischmann a titanic figure in the world of classical music. He put Los Angeles on the cultural map in his long reign as head of the LA Philharmonic and revived the Hollywood Bowl as an LA tradition. Guest host Martin Perlich remembers Ernest with music critics, composers and long-time associates.

Can the next great artist really be discovered on a TV reality show? That's the premise of Bravo's Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. A TV analyst, an artist, an art collector and an art critic who's a judge on the show share their views with host Sarah Spitz.

The documentary film Crude, about Amazonian tribes suing Chevron for destroying their environment, has become part of the story it?s covering. Chevron has subpoenaed 600 hours of film outtakes to bolster their claim that the Amazonians are waging a fraudulent case. But filmmaker Joe Berlinger is trying to stop Chevron on First Amendment grounds. Berlinger talks to Matt Holzman on same the day his side of the case is being heard in court.

There's a public health crisis on horizon that threatens to overwhelm California and the US. As baby boomers age, Alzheimer's disease will afflict 1 in 8 Californians, and it's beginning at ever-younger ages. POC producer Sarah Spitz hosts.

Museums have been evolving over the past half century, and they're no longer places that conserve a static vision of what culture is or should be. This week, the world's leading museum directors are attending the 104th annual conference of the American Association of Museums at the LA Convention Center. They?re discussing the issues they?re confronting in an era of increased globalization, digitization and financial recession. POC producer Sarah Spitz speaks with three museum directors about those issues.