Our show today will again focus on Texas! We still have many questions, ranging from what appears to many of us as a radical right State Board of Education to their petition to the White House for secession. They are against critical thinking and evolution and not surprisingly rank in the bottom 10 in Education. So we ask the question: is Texas leading national trends or running away from the rest of us. In other words, what the hell is going on in Texas?!

Our featured guest is Barry Vacker. Barry teaches media and cultural studies at Temple University in Philadelphia. Born in Austin and raised in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Barry earned his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 1995. Barry has authored numerous articles and books about art, media, technology, and culture. In 2008, he authored the text for the art-photography book, Signs, a collection of photos taken in Texas in 2005-2006 by German photographer Peter Granser. The book was published by Hatje Cantz and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Photography and featured in numerous exhibits around the world.

Barry is also the Founder of the non-profit think tank, the Center for Media and Destiny. http://www.mediaanddestiny.org

And … a second guest, Stony Brook University’s very own Jim O’Connor. Jim is Director of Sustainability & Transportation Operations at SBU. He came to Stony Brook in 2006 and has held a variety of management positions in facilities and operations for over 14 years. He and I will discuss environmental issues that large universities face and their plans for sustainability.

For our music … lets listen to a Texan that is near and dear to us all – Willie Nelson! we will do a few cuts from his VERY early days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Nelson
http://www.willienelson.com