Robin Williams Transcript

January 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Announcer: You have been listening to Sound Authors Where Authors Sound Off. If you would like more information about Sound Authors and Dr. Kent’s guests, visit soundauthors.com. Now, back to Dr. Kent and friends.

Dr. Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to Sound Authors. On the last segment of every show, we feature an author of sound, and on this show, I am honored to have Robin and Linda Williams on the show. Not only is their music heavenly, drifting from somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line, somewhere where the world must still be untouched by commercialism.Their music made up the soundtrack to my own childhood among countless others. We tuned in every week to Prairie Home Companion to hear the lonesome Gospel quartet, Robin and Linda Williams singing some song, must be from the angels. Welcome to the show today.

Robin Williams: Good afternoon, how are you? Well, it’s afternoon here, I don’t know where you are. Are you on the east coast or the west coast Dr. Kent?

Dr. Kent: I’m on the east coast; I’m up in New York.

Robin: Yeah OK, good afternoon to you too, well greetings from the Shenandoah Valley, sunny Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

Dr. Kent: Thank you sir, how is the weather down there?

Robin: It’s good, started off raining; now we got the sunshine, so it’s a good day, it’s a good day.

Dr. Kent: So, your music is part country, part folk, where does it come from inside you and your wife?

Robin: Well, it just came from a variety of influences and then through the individual prisms of Robin and Linda Williams, it comes out as an individualistic style. If you listen to our music, you can hear a little bit of bluegrass, you can hear a little bit of old time country music. You can hear a little bit of the country music of the 50s and the 60s. It’s, as I said, an individual sound. That was our goal, when we first started out 30 years ago, to find something that people would hear and know exactly who we are, and I think, on some level, we succeeded there.

Dr. Kent: Absolutely. Did you grow up singing?

Robin: Oh yeah. I grew up… my father was a minister. So, there was a lot of music around all the time, mainly in the church. So, I ended up singing in church choirs, and that’s how I first found my voice. Found the fact that there was music in my soul, it was singing in churches. As it turns out, when I met Linda, we had pretty much the same kind of experience. It was singing in churches, and then that lead to high school glee clubs and then at some point, both of us picked up instruments and then went on our way into finding and making a life in music.

Dr. Kent: Do you still enjoy it? I know, I myself am also a musician, and I still have the real joy of it, but I can imagine if you are on the road all the time, does it get tiresome sometimes?

Robin: Well, sometimes it does get tiresome, but only if you get tired. One of the things we decided long time ago was learn how to do this in the right way, so that when we are out there on the road, we make sure that we don’t get so tired that it becomes a grind. The best day of everyday, Kent, is playing music, and that’s what… if you’re on the road, the best part of the day is when you get up in front of people and are able to bring these audiences the music that you want them to hear, the music from your soul.It’s not tiresome; I don’t get tired of that, we live for that. It’s just part of what we are, and part of what we look forward too. I mean, at this point in time, right now, we are fortunate enough to be able to take some time off, and we are working on new material. We got another record that we are going to record at the end of February, and that’s what we are working on, but the reason we are doing this is, so that we can get up in front of people and sing our songs.

Dr. Kent: Well, the newest album is called ‘Radio Songs,’ and that was all recorded live on Prairie Home Companion?

Robin: Yeah, it was. We have been thinking about this for some time. We have been doing this a long time first of all; we have been doing it for over 30 years. We have been getting a lot of questions every once in a while. People would say, “What kind are you… are you thinking about a retrospective?” It’s something been in the back of our minds, and we just thought, “Well, if we are going to do a retrospective, why not see if we could do a retrospective of our stuff on the Prairie Home Companion, because, that would be… you would have some of the material from our repertoire, but then people would also get to see what it is we do with the Prairie Home Companion, which is serve the show.”We love this material on the radio songs, this stuff that we did just one time, and just because that’s what the radio show and Garrison Keillor needed at that time. That’s one of our roles on Prairie Home Companion.

Dr. Kent: I just saw you sing with your wife in Town hall.

Robin: Oh, really?

Dr. Kent: Yeah, and it was a wonderful show. I had never seen a show live before; it sure is fun to see.

Robin: Yeah, it’s a great show. That must have been right after thanksgiving?

Dr. Kent: It sure was.

Robin: Yeah, well then you got an idea of what we do. We come out and serve the show. That’s part of our role and that’s… What makes the show so exciting for us is that you do stuff that you don’t do ever again. Actually, now that we have this recording out on radio, so we’re going back and putting a lot of some of these materials that we’re singing once, putting it back into our repertoire and that’s been a lot of fun.

Dr. Kent: I bet. So, let’s listen to a little bit of a song I picked out here from the new album “50000 Names”.

Robin: Good, good, good.[music]

Dr. Kent: Can you give me a little bit of back story on the song? It’s a beautiful one.

Robin: It’s a Memorial Day show, and Linda and I were familiar with that song, we knew the song having listened to the CD of the author of the song, Jamie O’Hara, and we knew the song. So, in our effort to have something for the Memorial Day show, we worked that song up and we went and sang it on the show. That’s a good example of what I’m talking about in terms of serving the show, and also a good example of having done that song one time. We did that song one time on the show and then moved on with our lives.Then, as we were listening, trying to put things back together for this CD, we found that song again and we are glad we did. We put the song on the CD and almost immediately after having had the CD released, people started coming to the shows and asking to hear that song. Actually, that song gives a good idea of what Robin and Linda Williams are about. We’ve learned a lot of lessons from the country music of the past that we do have one step in modern times and we use what we’ve learned from the past to be up-to-date.

Dr. Kent: I got a little quick little question here for you, we’re running out of time. But, that song about all the names on the wall, your music touches all kinds of people out there - liberals to conservatives, north to south. Had you ever get in to politics?

Robin: Well, not really, not too much. We certainly have our feelings. I think, we’re more on the Democratic side than the Republican side, but I think, people can find our politics in our music, and that’s the way we live our lives, yes. We have our feelings, but we don’t bring it to the stage too often.

Dr. Kent: Well, that said, I’d love to close out the show with one of my favorites “Shotgun Shells on a Christmas Tree,” and this is from a great album called “The First Christmas Gift.” Actually, my good friend, Nick Reeb, from college of King Wilkie, plays on a couple of tracks on that album.

Robin: Wow! Is that right?

Dr. Kent: Yes.

Robin: You went to college with Nick Reeb?

Dr. Kent: I did indeed.

Robin: Oh, golly great! Oh, boy, that’s [indecipherable].

Dr. Kent: Yes, right, well, what can I say. Let’s listen to a little bit of “Shotgun Shells” here.

Robin: Good talking to you.

Dr. Kent: Yes.[music]

Dr. Kent: Thank you to my guests today especially Robin and Linda Williams. Thanks for being on the show, Robin.

Robin: You got it.

Dr. Kent: Thank you to my guests, Eliza Stillwater and William Federer, to engineer Anthony Farabee, host guru Sonia Darte, Executive Producer Charlavan Hart, and Sound Engineer Ruben Columbe.Be safe, and see you next week. Find out more at SoundAuthors.com.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Gospel, Bluegrass, TRANSCRIPTS, Folk, MUSICIAN INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Eliza Steelwater Transcript (1)

January 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Narrator: You’ve been listening to Sound Authors where authors sound off. If you’d like more information about Sound Authors and Dr. Kent’s guests visit soundauthors.com. Now back to Dr. Kent and friends.

Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. Today is the five-year anniversary of Governor Ryan of Illinois commutation of 167 sentences to death. Tell me a little bit about–my guest joining me is Eliza Stillwater, author of The Hangman’s Knot and the upcoming book The Murder Industry. Tell me a little bit about what the candidates might think about the death penalty. I’m putting you on the spot here.

Eliza: As far as I know–I just saw something on the Internet–every single one of them claims to support it except maybe Dennis Kuchenich(?).

Kent: Except Kuchenich. Isn’t that interesting?

Eliza: Kuchenich. Thank you. Of course he’s pretty unelectable it would seem because he’s quite far to the left. But both Obama and Clinton are apparently on the record as supporting the death penalty. It would not be a good idea if they were elected to a post. I think they just don’t want to make it an issue.

Kent: They don’t want to bring it out.

Eliza: Right. The whole campaign could start getting twisted around that and we have other important issues like health care and Iraq that have to be dealt with.

Kent: Do you think the American people are coming around with this New Jersey declaration and with Illinois? Do you think the American people are changing their minds about the death penalty?

Eliza: Well maybe very slowly but as a matter of fact New Jersey citizens were polled and were solidly in favor of the death penalty when it was abolished. And as far as I know, every single state that has abolished the death penalty has done so while there was a majority of support. But what’s happened is just that legislatures are–they’re concerned about what kind of political trouble they can get into if they execute an innocent person now that we have good ways of finding out such as DNA. They don’t really want to have to tweak their budgets around so we spend all our money on capital trials. And I think it’s what it’s always been. There’s going to be a gap between public support and what legislators and governors do and in my mind, that’s appropriate because they’re the people that think about it harder. Most people you know if someone calls them on the phone ‘are you in favor of the death penalty?’ ‘Oh, yeah.’ It was–I think it was in New Jersey it was 62 percent for but when they were asked about if life without parole were available, support for the death penalty dropped to only 52 percent.

Kent: And speaking about the death penalty I can understand that people favor it in some ways but I do know that a lot of these methods are not humane and I know you think about that as well. Can you tell me a little about the humanity of some of these punishments?

Eliza: Well I don’t think execution and humane belong in the same sentence but we’ve been looking for an acceptable method of execution since at least the 1890s and in my view it’s actually an attempt to keep the death penalty going. We have to satisfy supporters of the death penalty with an execution but we can’t make them feel like they’re blood thirsty barbarians. Actually the most humane method of execution is probably a gunshot to the back of the head at point blank range as the Chinese do but as you can imagine that’s pretty messy. As far as the lethal cocktail, so called, we can’t know if it’s humane because the person is paralyzed before death. In fact that chemical is forbidden for animal execution who are killed with a simple overdose of a barbiturate. But it’s all about not feeling bad about ourselves and not having something messy happen. Sometimes in legal hangings the drop was miscalculated and the person was decapitated and blood got all over the witnesses. Well you know that didn’t go down well.

Kent: Isn’t that similar to what happened to Saddam Hussein?

Eliza: Is that right? Was he decapitated?

Kent: I’m not sure but I know that it was a very inhumane and poorly done execution and there was footage on uTube or whatever and I found it appalling that that kind of thing could end up on uTube.

Eliza: Well you know there are those among death penalty proponents that say we should televise all executions.

Kent: Ugh.

Eliza: I have mixed feelings about that. I mean would everyone go ‘yeah, way to go!’ or would be people be horrified? I’m not sure.

Kent: Yeah, that’s true. If we televised what we’re actually doing wouldn’t that put it right into the public eye? Well let’s talk a little bit about your book and where we can find it and all of that. The Hangman’s Knot has been available for a little while.

Eliza: Yes, It’s on amazon.com and other online booksellers. You can also get it from the publisher. It’s now under the aegis of Perseus Books. P-E-R-S-E-U-S. I suspect it’s cheaper from amazon.com. I did want to say one more thing about my upcoming book The Murder Industry if that fits with you. . . .

Kent: Wonderful.

Eliza: I’m afraid my summary wasn’t too succinct. What I’ve been investigating and what I’ll talk about in the book is the ways that the media and the justice system exploit victims and also paint a false picture of crime in the United States. The families that I’m working with mainly as informants who lost their parents to murder. Their case has to compete for public attention with about half a million televised instances of murder that an average 16-year-old has seen in his lifetime. TV simulates reality. They use techniques like crime scene details and documentary style camera work to convince watchers they’re receiving real information. But in fact studies have shown that media crime depiction included-let’s see I have the figures here–47.9 percent murders whereas the real rate of murder among all crimes is one percent. Also the media show crimes that are solved. 61.5 percent of the crimes that are discussed on the media were solved. In real life it’s 18 percent that even get arrested.

Kent: My goodness.

Eliza: So you know–violent crime is big business for both media and politicians and that’s why the book is called The Murder Industry.

Kent: And what are your hopes for the future? Do you see a change?

Eliza: Yes, I do see a gradual change. There’s sort of two scenarios that seem possible to me. One is that we do in fact drop the death penalty nationwide and work out some sort of way of keeping people incarcerated for life or long enough to satisfy public expectations. Another scenario which I hope will not happen is that certain–because the states have quite a lot of autonomy on this question, another possibility is that certain states, notably Texas, will go on indefinitely holding executions while the whole rest of the country is moving on.

Kent: Right. Well thank you so much for being on the show. It’s been a pleasure speaking about this very serious subject. Eliza Stillwater is the author of The Hangman’s Knot and we’ll look for that next book, The Murder Industry, soon. Thanks for being on the show.

Eliza: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you.

Kent: My next guest is going to be William Fedderer, author of What Every American Needs to Know About the Quron. Come on back.

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, TRANSCRIPTS, Politics, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

William Federer Transcript

January 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Announcer: You’ve been listening to “Sound Authors”, where authors sound off! If you’d like more information about “Sound Authors” and “Doctor Kent’s Guests” visit soundauthors.com!Now, back to “Doctor Kent and Friends”.

Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to Sound Authors Radio, my next guest is author William Federer. His newest book is called: “What Every American Needs to Know about the Qu’ran”. Welcome to the show.

William Federer: Great to be with you.

Kent: Give me a little sound clip first about what this book talks about.

William: Well it gives a 1400-year history of Islamic expansion, and it’s a fascinating overview. People don’t really realize that situations that are being talked about in the news today have roots that go way, way back. Everything from Christopher Columbus, to coffee, to Santa Claus, to the Marine anthem are all tied together with it, and the book takes you step by step, year by year, battle by battle.

Kent: How do Americans need to know about the Qu’ran? It is very unknown to us. Why is it important?

William: Well, past performance is the best indicator of future behavior. Mohammed died in 632 A.D., and within a hundred years of his death, his followers conquered all of Arabia and then all of North Africa. People forget there used to be 250 Catholic dioceses along North Africa in the 7th century, and they were all subdued. And then the Muslims conquered all of Persia; they conquered all of the Holy Land. People forget the Holy Land used to be Byzantine Christian and Jewish, it was the Byzantine Empire.638 A.D. is when Caliph Omar came in and surrounded Jerusalem, and the Byzantine bishops surrendered the city after a two-month bloody siege. Then the Muslim army began to attack Constantinople. Constantinople was where Europe and Asia met on the Mediterranean by the Black Sea. This is where Constantine, the Roman Emperor, had moved the capital of the Roman Empire, and it was where all trade went through to get from Europe over to India and China.Five different times, the Muslims tried attacking, but the Greeks in Constantinople had a military advantage called “Greek fire”, where they mixed oil and sawdust in brass containers, and then would pump it up under pressure and spray it like napalm on the Muslim ships. They had no defense for this, and so they turned back and then they came around the other side of Africa. And in the year 711 — that’s an easy date to remember — 80, 000 Umayyad Muslims crossed into Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar.They had the stirrup before the Europeans did. If you’ve ever ridden a horse and put your feet in those things called stirrups, that stirrup was originally invented by the Mongolian nomads over by China. The nomads had short horses and they would tie a rope around the horse and leave two loops hanging for their big toes, because they would ride barefoot and it would help them keep balance.By the 5th Century A.D. that invention made its way to China and they made the loops big enough for your whole foot. Then that invention made its way to Persia by the 6th Century, and the Persians put a wooden block on one side to help you mount the horse. And then they put wooden blocks on both sides, so now you can actually stand in the saddle and put the full power of a galloping horse behind your sword.So the Muslims developed these curved swords called scimitars, you’ve seen pictures of them. And they were razor sharp and thin, and they could literally slice somebody in half while riding at a full gallop. And so when the Umayyad Muslims crossed into Spain, the Spaniard’s style of warfare was standing in a field with little, short swords waiting for the enemy to come and the enemy came in this galloping cavalry — 80,000 of them galloping — and they sliced them to ribbons.In 10 years, the Muslims conquered all of Spain, they crossed the Pyrenees Mountains and they were within 170 miles of Paris. The Pope puts out a call that anybody that could fight should join Charles Martel, he was a grandfather of Charlemagne, the French king. Martel got 30,000 volunteers, that was the largest army in Europe. There was no army that size, you could go all the way to Poland. So in other words, if the Islamic invasion was not checked there, they clearly would have conquered all of Europe and we’d be speaking Arabic right now.Anyway, Martel’s unique battle was the Battle of Tours and he had his men sneak up the back trails up the hills from the Muslim camp and he put them in a complete square. The next morning, the Muslim commander, Abdul Raman, looks up the hill, sees them up there and orders to charge. So as the cavalry is charging, they can’t get at a full gallop because of the trees. Then when they finally break through the lines, it’s not a line, it’s a square and these guys get stuck. Meanwhile, Martel had prearranged for some of his men to sneak into the Muslim camp and free the captives.They fought for religion and for plunder. They got to keep the plunder and, of course, the Sultan got a fifth of the plunder and most Sultans had many wives, some had a thousand, one reportedly had 12,000 wives. But as the warrior saw their booty being let go, they left the battlefield to protect their stuff and their commander, Abdul Raman, sees his men leaving the battle and tries to rally them back. He gets distracted and killed, and then the Muslims could not decide who their next commander was going to be.They didn’t want to fight and leave their stuff to be stolen while they’re fighting, so they left. They picked up, went back over the Pyrenees Mountains and that was the year 732 A.D., just 100 years after the death of Mohammad. So they conquered the whole huge area in just 100 years. But it’s interesting once the Europeans were introduced to this new style of warfare of fighting on horseback with stirrups and armor and so forth, they developed all the knights of chivalry. You’ve seen the pictures of the European knights in their castles riding on horseback. Well, where did they learned how fight on horseback? They learned it from the invading Muslims.So once the Europeans came up to military par — you know, equivalence — the Muslims’ invading army lost its advantage and so they stopped their invasion. The Europeans began the “reconquista”, the re-conquest and it began to drive the Muslims out of Portugal, out of Spain. They finally finished the re-conquest in the year 1492 and that’s when Ferdinand and Isabella drove the last Muslims out of Spain. But the story goes on, it’s a fascinating story. Do you want me to keep going, or do you want me…?

Dr. Kent: This all ties back to the beginning of Islam, was really about the history of these people, following Mohammad’s teachings. So what did that has to do to the Qu’ran itself?

William: Well, it’s interesting. Mohammad divided the world into two houses: the House of Islam and the House of War. So the whole non-Muslim world is called the House of War, it is in transition to become the House of Islam. The word “Islam” means submission, submission to the will of Allah and a Muslim is somebody who has submitted. A faithful Muslim thinks there will be world peace when the whole world has submitted to the will of Allah or become Muslim.Now a moderate Muslim thinks the world will submit to Allah in the distant future. Since it’s so far in the distant future just go ahead and get along with everybody now. The violent Muslim thinks the world will submit to Allah now and they want to help make it happen. Mohammad fought in 26 battles and in 86 raids. He used the catapult when he would attack cities and when he was told that women and children were in those cities, his response was, “They are among them”. So in other words, they get the same punishments. So since the catapult kills indiscriminately, the suicide bombers today use that as a justification to kill innocent people, because Mohammad did.Anyway, a lot of times people benefit from the comparison. Jesus never killed anybody, Mohammad killed lots of people. He cut off the heads of 700 Jews in Medina. Jesus never led armies, Mohammad not only was a religious leader, he was a military leader. Jesus never owned slaves, Mohammad owned lots of slaves including African slaves because he was Arab. Jesus never married, Mohammad had anywhere from 11 to 22 wives. Again, he got a fifth of the women taken in battle and some were concubines and some he didn’t actually go through ceremonies with so it’s hard to actually get the number pinned down.Now, when you point this out to a faithful Muslim they won’t deny it, they’ll just say, “King David was a prophet and he led armies, killed people, had lots of wives, and had slaves.” Of course my response is that Jesus still didn’t and, of course, David just wanted that little area of Israel’s geography, there’s no command for the Jews to subdue the world.Anyway, Jesus never forced anybody to believe in Him. There was one place where He said something and His apostle said, “This is a difficult thing, who can bear it?” and it said many disciples walked with Him no more. Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Are you going to go?” and Peter said, “Lord, where else can we go? You’re the only one with the words of eternal life” But Jesus was willing to let them go.Mohammad said in the hadith, “Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him.” None of the apostles led armies and everyone of the caliphs led armies. The caliph is the supreme military and religious leader after Mohammad. So there was Abu Bakr, there was Caliph Omar, Caliph Osman. For the first 300 years of Christianity, there were 10 major persecutions and Christians were thrown to the lions. They never once led an armed resistance. The first 300 years of Islam, they conquered Arabia, North Africa, the Holy Land, the Byzantine areas, they conquered Spain, southern France. So it’s definitely an interesting comparison.

Dr. Kent: I’ve one question for you. I know one story from my time in the Middle East that they always talk about: there’s the one good conqueror — I can’t remember his name — outside of Jerusalem and he called for everyone in Jerusalem to lay down their arms, and then he entered the city.

William: Right, there was Caliph Umar or Omar and that was the year 638 A.D. and he agreed not to kill them all. Now, in many of the other areas where they would come up to a city and they said you’d got the choice of submit — because the way Islam is made is submission — submit and become a Muslim or you just let the sword decide. Well, Caliph Umar said, “You can submit and still retain your faith as a Jew or a Christian but you have to be a second class citizen called the dhimmi.”So the dhimmi could not pray out loud, they could not ring church bells, they could not name their children Muslim names, they could not pray in public, they could not bring their dead by a Muslim cemetery. If a Muslim came into their house, they had to put him up for three days. If the Muslims destroyed their church, they could not rebuild it.So that was the dhimmi status and it’s still in effect today in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. If you are a Christian or a Jew, you are a second class citizen. It’s sort of like the Jim Crow Laws that were passed in the deep South after the civil war.

Dr. Kent: I’ve one more question for you, we’re running out of time. Do you think there can be peace in the Middle East?William : Well, one of the difficulties is in Islam they teach that the war between the Jews and the Muslims will go on until the Day of Judgment. So where the West says, “Well, let’s hurry up and get a treaty”, as soon as a treaty is made the fundamental Muslim says, “Well, we’ve just offended Allah by making a treaty with the infidels.” They’ll not only want to kill the infidels, they’ll want to kill the Muslims that have backslidden to make the treaty.

Dr. Kent: So the extremists are the ones that sour it for everybody.

William: Yeah and one interesting thing is in 1100s is when the Muslims invaded into the areas of Mongolia and ran into the Mongols. The Mongols, at the time, had the largest contiguous land empire in world history: the Mongolian empire went from Korea to Hungary. When the Mongols heard about this new religion that they realized they could continue to conquer only now do it with the blessing of Allah.So one of the Mongolian tribes called the Turkish Mongols converted en masse and became Muslims. Then the Turkish Muslims now conquered the Arab Muslims and then the Turkish Muslims began to invade into Asia Minor and turned it into Turkey. When they did, the Byzantine Empire cried out to the West for help and the West sent help and it was called the Crusades. As long as the Crusades went on, for about two centuries, the fighting stayed in the Middle East. But once the Crusades stopped is when the Turkish Muslims invaded into Europe.Murat I was the sultan in 1365 and he would take the boys from the Christian cities that he conquered and forced them to become Muslims. He put them into the Muslim Army and put them on the frontlines when they would attack the next Christian or Jewish city. They were called Janissaries or new soldiers. There’s a verse in the hadith that says, “Leave no high grave standing nor a work of art without obliterating it.” So as they would come into these Byzantine churches, they would take the graves of the saints — the Byzantine had the graves of the saints real ornate — and they would give the bones to the dogs.Well, the people in Myra took the bones of the most famous Byzantine saint, St. Nicholas, and they shipped his bones over to Italy in the 1200s and so that’s what introduced Western Europe to the Byzantine St. Nicholas and they had gift-giving on the anniversary of his death. But it became popular in Europe and eventually the Dutch brought it to America and the Dutch pronounced St. Nicholas, Sant Niklaus.But in the year 1453 is when the Turkish Muslims conquered Constantinople. By this time, Constantinople was the biggest city in Europe. It was the richest city, again, where Europe and Asia met and all trade went through Constantinople across the Byzantine Empire over to India and China. So once Constantinople fell to Sultan Mahomet II in the year 1453, the Western Europeans were trying to find another route to trade with India and China. In 1492, a guy named Columbus said, “I know a shortcut to India and China, sail west.”

Dr. Kent: And the rest is history.

William: Columbus thought the islands he discovered were around India so he named the inhabitants the “Indians”. So that’s how it’s affected Columbus, he would have never even set sailed had there not been a Jihad in 1453 and the Muslim Ottoman Turks conquered this thousand year old Byzantine Christian city of Constantinople.

Dr. Kent: William Federer has been our guest and his book “What Every American Needs to Know About the Qu’ran” is as bursting with fun facts and knowledge as he has been on the show. It’s a unique view of Islam, and I appreciate you being on the show.

William: Thanks, and my website’s AmericanMinute.com if anybody wants to order the book or Amazon.com has it, too.

Dr. Kent: Fantastic, thank you so much, and we’ll check it out.

William: Thanks.

Dr. Kent: My next guest is Robin Williams of the unmatched country cathedral tones of the duet Robin and Linda Williams. You don’t want to miss that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under TRANSCRIPTS, History, Religion, Politics, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Eliza Steelwater Transcript

January 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Announcer: Welcome, and thanks for tuning in to Sound Authors, with host, Dr. Kent. Get set for candid conversations about everything, from cuisine to culture, and from nature to nurture. Now, here’s your host, Dr. Kent.Kent Gustavson: Welcome to Sound Authors Radio. It’s January 11th, and today’s the fifth anniversary of a day few folks remember, but a day important in history nonetheless.Governor George Ryan of Illinois, calling the death penalty “arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral, ” commuted the sentences of 167 condemned inmates on January 11th, 2003, five years ago, clearing out death row in his state before leaving office, now, this last year, on December 13th, New Jersey lawmakers were the first to abolish the death penalty in their state since the Supreme Court brought it back in 1976.Whether or not that stands is to be seen, but this is a hot issue in the year 2008.My guests on the show today are Eliza Steelwater, a writer, poet, and death penalty expert; William Federer, with his book, “What Every American Needs to Know about the Qur’an”; and the breathtaking vocal duet of Robin and Linda Williams at the end of the show. So, welcome to my first guest, Eliza Steelwater.Eliza Steelwater: Hi. How’s it going?Kent: Very good. And your latest book is called “The Hangman’s Knot.” And her upcoming book is called “The Murder Industry.” Give me a little bit about what are the goals of these books, and give me a little bit about you.Eliza: Well, I’ve been researching the death penalty and lynching, especially from a historical background, for about 25 years now, as a doctoral student, a professor, and now a full-time writer.My colleague, Dr. Elizabeth Hines, and I have originated something called Project HAL, or Historical American Lynching, which is a database of historical lynching in the US that’s used and contributed to by scholars and students.As far as my two books, it’s been a real journey for me to write them. And I’ll take them in turn, as far as saying what my objectives are.As I began to research capital punishment and its history, the first thing that jumped out at me were some people were executed and others were not, for equally heinous crimes.You have the example of mob enforcer “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, who’s known to have killed 19 people, and will never do a day in prison for any of them. Whereas individuals who commit one murder, which arguably may not even have been premeditated, are executed.So then the question becomes: what’s really going on? And as I looked back through American history–and let me underline that I’m talking about the US death penalty, because there are other histories in other countries–my book, “The Hangman’s Knot,” brings out that, historically, execution was a political matter.Out of office political cliques in localities would seize or use the power to execute in order to intimidate their rivals and the voters who supported those rivals.A really great example is the San Francisco lynching spree of the 1850s. The lawful government was simply taken away by a vigilante force that was paramilitary in nature.And they claimed that murderers were not being executed. However, in fact, there were as many legal executions in the county during those years as there were vigilantes lynching.And one can go on with these examples through a number of political moments in our history, be it slavery, terrorism after the Civil War by the Ku Klux Klan, industry persecuting organized labor, and Southern whites maintaining dominance by lynching.Again, in the case of Southern lynching, the execution rates were very high at the same time the lynching rates were very high. So, what all this reflects is a way of using the penalty of death, be it legal or illegal, as an intimidation tactic.Now, interestingly, I don’t believe that’s any longer true, because the number of executions now is so low as to be tokenism. And I don’t think it threatens anybody.It’s just become, so to speak, a political cash cow. People who haven’t thought about it favor the death penalty, and a few who even have thought about it. And it has been a knee-jerk reaction that you get elected, as a prosecutor, let’s say, or a legislator, if you support the death penalty.But one-third of one percent of all people who have actually been convicted and sentenced get the death penalty as a sentence.Kent: What started your interest in this, at the beginning?Eliza: Well, it was somewhat of an accident. I was at a graduate seminar, and our teacher, an anthropologist, said he wanted us to investigate a place that he thought was most significant to human life.And I thought about the place of executions. Maybe, perhaps, [laughs] I’m of a morbid turn. I don’t know. Or perhaps, because I’m a Southerner, I’ve seen a lot of injustice.And as I looked into it, it turned out that the place of execution is really unimportant. There’s all these background dynamics that determine executions. Only a small portion of everyone is even eligible to be executed–mainly people who are poor, because they can’t get a good lawyer.And once I found this, as an idealistic student, I was hooked on it. And I’m now an idealistic writer, 20-something years later.Kent: And your book, “The Hangman’s Knot.” You’ve been teaching for a long time. Why did you decide to become an author? Why did you decide to finally push these books out?Eliza: Well, it came to be more important to me than anything else. I thought that I had information that others did not, and I couldn’t really get that out and pursue an academic career at the same time.Kent: Right. Well, I’m fascinated, as I said in our little intro, that right now, in history, we seem to be starting, as a country, to really think about some of these issues.And in New Jersey, in my political opinion, it’s a great turnaround for people that the death penalty was commuted. Can you give me a little information about that?Eliza: Yes. It should be noted that the governor who supported abolition, like other governors who have supported moratoriums or abolition historically, is an outgoing governor. So his political career is not on the line. But significantly, the New Jersey state legislature’s vote in favor of abolition was a very solid majority.Not to be cynical, but I think an important consideration that people are finally becoming aware of is the dollar cost of trying a capital case and keeping a prisoner on death row, where the security costs twice what it does for a normal incarceration.Kent: Right. What are your personal opinions about the death penalty? It often gets tied up in religion. Are you a religious person? What are your personal feelings about it?Eliza: Why I think people support it, you mean?Kent: No…Eliza: Myself, why I take the position I do?Kent: Yeah. Both, yeah.Eliza: Well, personally, I don’t think that the state has the authority to take its own citizens’ life. And that argument also was made historically. That was the argument that was successful in Michigan’s abolition of the death penalty in, I think it was 1849. That’s probably the strongest argument.It’s personally repugnant to me, as an individual, but that’s just an individual matter. It’s not even a religious question for me. It’s just a question of being a decent human being.Kent: Right. A lot of critics would say these heinous criminals, some of them, that might have raped someone or killed multiple people, is it revenge to say, “We would like to end those people’s lives, as a state”?Eliza: Yes. And I think vengeance–or as they like to call it, retribution–is the current model of the so-called justice system. We don’t any longer think of reforming criminals or heading off criminal careers by taking care of our young people.Kent: Give me a little bit of a nutshell about your next, upcoming project, called “The Murder Industry.” And then we’ll come back after a little break.Eliza: All right. Governor Ryan said–and his action really was the watershed for several reasons. He said something interesting in his speech, that we could use our legal and social resources to really do something for the people whose loved ones were murdered.”Right now, the only people who offer them anything,” and I’m quoting, “certainly, dignity, redemption, and closure, are prosecutors. We shouldn’t be too surprised if what they come up with is the death sentence to ‘make people feel better.’”So that was my starting point. What is done for bereaved people? And Governor Ryan is right, as far as I can tell. The first thing I was told when I met family members who had had a murder victim is, “Don’t talk to me about closure.”My new book focuses on a family that’s waited 12 years to see the convicted killer executed. So far, his death sentence has been overturned twice, and the case could go on for another 10 years.Their pain is unimaginable, frankly, to me. But I don’t like to see that pain has been worsened as it has, and that emotional damage has been done, as well as some family dissension caused, as they go back to court time and time again, for hearings, postponements, and having the prosecutor’s case repeated with all the horrific death scene photos and so on.Kent: And I imagine that anger builds up also.Eliza: Yes, very much so.Kent: Well, we’re going to take a break really quick. We’ll come right back with you.Eliza: All right. Sure.Kent: Come on back.Eliza: Okie-dokie.

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Robin & Linda Williams | Dulcet Duet

January 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Interview with Robin Williams [11:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It was our great honor to have Robin Williams, of the incredible vocal duet Robin and Linda Williams, on the show today. He spoke to us about their new record “Radio Songs” which was recorded on the show they often frequent, Prairie Home Companion, over the last decade. He spoke to us from his home in Virginia.
Following is the biography of Robin and Linda Williams from their website www.robinandlinda.com:

“Individually their voices can melt cheese,and in duet they can do all-purpose welding.”__ Garrison Keillor, host of A Prairie Home Companion

Robin and Linda Williams are like your next-door neighbors - assuming your neighbors are the salt-of-the-earth and top-flight performers to boot. One minute you picture borrowing a cup of sugar from these two; the next, you’re completely stunned by their jaw-dropping talent. Bottom line: You feel right at home at a Robin and Linda concert, and their music stays with you like an old friend.Favorites of fans and promoters alike, they have crisscrossed the continent (and beyond) for more than three decades, performing the tunes they love & a hearty blend of bluegrass, folk, old-time and acoustic country. From The Grand Ole Opry to Austin City Limits, Music City Tonight to Mountain Stage, clubs, festivals and countless other venues, Robin and Linda never cease to wow audiences wherever they go.Their chops don’t stop at singing. They are first-class instrumentalists and superb songwriters, able to, as The Washington Post put it, “sum up a life in a few details with moving completeness.” It’s why their compositions have been recorded by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Tom T. Hall, Kathy Mattea, Tim and Mollie O’Brien, George Hamilton IV and The Seldom Scene. Irish singer Mary Black included their haunting “Don’t Let Me Come Home a Stranger” on her CD Full Tide.
“Vocally and instrumentally, the Williamses combine impeccable musical discipline with a bare simplicity and an utter lack of pretension.”__ Stephen Holden, The New York TimesThe couple met in 1971. Linda - originally from Alabama - was teaching school in South Carolina. Robin, who grew up in North Carolina, had been making the rounds on the national coffeehouse circuit. It wasn’t long before they hit it off romantically. And the uncanny blend of their voices was icing on the cake. These days, they make their home in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.Their first album came out on a small Minnesota-based record label in 1975, the same year they debuted on A Prairie Home Companion. Their association with the popular public radio program has landed them on major stages from Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl. As half of The Hopeful Gospel Quartet, they have collaborated on several CDs with the show’s host, Garrison Keillor, and were prominently featured in the 2006 film “A Prairie Home Companion,” directed by master filmmaker Robert Altman.Of the many recordings Robin and Linda have offered up over the years, you’d be hard pressed to settle on a favorite. Whether their early productions like Shenandoah Moon andDixie Highway Sign or later albums such as Sugar for Sugar and Devil of a Dream or the more recent Deeper Waters, The First Christmas Gift and Radio Songs (on Red House Records) each is a worthy addition to any music lover’s collection.

“Among contemporary country performers,Robin and Linda Williams shine like a diamond amid rhinestones.Their sound is so sincere as to give the listener chills.”__ David W. Johnson, The Boston GlobeR&L (as their pals are apt to call them) are in constant demand, along with Their Fine Group, which formed after they teamed up with former Red Clay Rambler Jim Watson(bass, vocals and mandolin). The fourth chair of the Fine Group is a rotating chair filled byJimmy Gaudreau (veteran of The Country Gentlemen, J. D. Crowe, The Tony Rice Unit, Chesapeake and Aldridge, and Bennett & Gaudreau) on mandolin and mandola,Tony Williamson (mandolin), Chris Brashear (fiddle), and Tom Corbett (mandolin). Whatever the configuration, the band keeps the joint jumpin’. Robin and Linda Williams: dynamic, hilarious and better than ever.