August 14, 2011

Broadcast Date: 
Aug 14 2011

Is natural gas a clean energy solution or an environmental threat? New Yorkers take on fracking; plus, we discuss two new books, Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Gniza and The Hour of Sunlight: One Palestinian's Journey From Prisoner to Peacemaker.

Episode segments
  • New Yorkers Fight to Keep Out Hydraulic Fracking
    New York Politics, National Politics, Domestic Policy
    Ramsay Adams is the founder and Executive Director of Catskill Mountainkeeper.
    Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Natural gas is hailed by many as the clean energy hope of the future. And the drilling and extraction process promises to create tens of thousands of jobs along with hefty financial returns to investors and landowners and in property taxes for local communities. (A recent story in the Forward reports that some Jewish summer camps in New York and Pennsylvania have leased their lands for drilling by oil and gas companies in excahng for hundreds of thousands of dollars up front and the promise of hefty future royalties.) 

    The companies plan to drill for natural gas from a deep layer of rock called the Marcellus Shale, which lies under much of southern New York State and Pennsylvania.But the process of extracting natural gas from these shale deposits, commonly known as fracking, is one that environmentalists warn can--and indeed already has in many states--poisoned underground aquifers, wells and rivers, polluted the air, and created industrialized wastelands out of once pristine rural settings. (See this investigative series from The New York Times.)

    Activists have been organizing for some time against the powerful natural gas industry's plans drill in New York State and they succeeded in getting the state to declare a moratorium pending the release of a Department of Environmental Conservation study.  We talk with Ramsay Adams about the latest on the fracking front.

    To listen to The Fracking Song and view the video, click here.

  • Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Gniza
    Arts & Culture, Literature

    Peter Cole and Adina Hoffman are the co-authors of  Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza and are the publishers and editors of Ibis Editions, a small press and non-profit organization that brings the often overlooked works of medieval Spain and the modern Middle East to English-speaking audiences. 

    Peter Cole is a translator and poet and a 2007 MacArthur Fellow.  We last talked with him on Beyond the Pale about The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492.

     
    We last talked with Adina Hoffman on Beyond the Pale about My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet's Life in the Palestinian Century (Yale University Press). She is also the author of House of Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighborhood (Steerforth Press and Broadway Books). 
    Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza, tells the story of the recovery from a Cairo Gniza (a Gniza is a repository for worn-out texts) of a treasure house of Jewish religion, literature and every day life that was forgotten for centuries until it was rediscovered and reconstructed over a period of decades that begain in the late 19th century.

  • The Hour of Sunlight
    Israel/Palestine, Arts & Culture, Occupation, Literature
    Jen Marlow is a Seattle-based author/documentary filmmaker/playwright and human rights advocate.  In addition to The Hour of Sunlight, Jen is the author of Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival. Her most recent film is vimeo.com/18384109and she is currently working on a film about One Family in GazaTroy Davis, a prisoner on Georgia's death row awaiting an execution date despite a compelling case of innocence.
    Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    The Hour of Sunlight, co-written by Sami Al Jundi and Jen Marlowe is the memoirt of a remarkable man--Sami Al Jundi--and his transformation from militant activist to an advocate of non-violence and peaceful reconciliation.  It's also a vivid portrayal of the excitement and the disappointments of more than three decades of Palestinian life and resistance under occupation.