Nov 16 2008

Broadcast Date: 
Nov 16 2008

We talk with Maria Muentes, founder of Families for Freedom, and Mikey Weinstein, an activist against Christian proselytizing in the U.S. military, both recipients of Marshall T. Meyer Risk-Taker Awards; plus the New York Festival of Song.

Episode segments
  • Families for Freedom
    National Politics, Domestic Policy, Civil Rights
    Maria Muentes is the founder of Families for Freedom, a grassroots organization by and for immigrants facing and fighting deportation; FFF is one of the recipients of the 2008 Marshall T. Meyer Risk-Taker Award.
    Alisa Solomon and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Maria Muentes talks with us about immigration's low profile during the recent elections and about Families For Freedom's latest projects: pressing for passage of the Child Citizen Protection Act, to protect U.S.citizen children whose parents are facing deportation; and efforts to encourage foreign consulates to engage more vigorously and positively when their citizens are detained and/or placed in deportation proceedings. 

  • Religious Freedom in the Military
    National Politics, Christian Right
    Mikey Weinstein, is the leader of the national movement to restore the separation of church and state in the U.S. military and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and one of the recipients of the 2008 Marshall T. Meyer Risk-Taker Award.  He is the author of With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Neimark

     Mikey Weinstein doesn't expect the evangelical Christian bias of the military to disappear in an Obama administration and talks with us about some of the latest examples of harrassment of non-Christian service members.

  • Fugitives: a tribute to the embattled composers and lyricists of Hitler's Germany
    Holocaust, Music, Arts & Culture, Anti-Semitism
    Steven Blier is a pianist, composer, leading vocal couch and co-founder and artistic director the the New York Festival of Song, now in its 20th year. 
    Alisa Solomon and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    We talk with Steven Blier, artistic director of the New York Festival of Song about their upcoming concert, Fugitives, celebrating the lives and works of some of the  composers and lyricists who fled Hitler's rise to power, and play some selections.  Performances take place at 8pm on Tuesday November 18 and Thursday November 20 at Merkin Concert Hall.