Guest - Gayle Greene - Author of Insomniac
Wednesday 8.20.2008 -10:00-11:00 PM New York Time

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  WORLDSTREAMS GUESTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD SCHEDULE

Gayle Greene
Professor & Author
Host: Said & Dari
Air Date: Wednesday 8.20.08 - 10:00-11:00 PM EST

Gayle Green has published dozens of articles in scholarly journals such as Signs, Contemporary Literature, and Renaissance Drama along with popular venues such as Ms Magazine, The Nation, The Women's Review of Books, and In These Times. She's a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, a professional medical society for researchers and clinicians, and a board member and the patient representative of the American Insomnia Association, an organization within the American Academic of Sleep Medicine.

Gayle's last book, Insomniac is a cri de coeur from a lifetime insomniac that is probably all you ever need to read on the subject of sleeplessness. It is a very well researched, in depth look at the problem and should be required reading for insomnia sufferers, clinicians treating the disorder, and anyone interested in the science of sleep.

Visit Gayle Greene's website: SleepStarved.org

Mike Gravel
Former US Senator, Author, Lecturer
Host: Said & Dari
Air Date:Wednesday 8.27.2008 - 10:00-11:00 PM EST

Mike Gravel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to French Canadian immigrants. He received a B.S. in Economics from Columbia University, New York City, and holds four honorary degrees in law and public affairs.

Mike Gravel served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1963-66, and as Speaker from 1965-66. He then represented Alaska in the U.S. Senate from 1969-81. He served on the Finance, Interior, and Environmental and Public Works committees, chairing the Energy, Water Resources, Buildings and Grounds, and Environmental Pollution subcommittees.

Books authored by Senator Gravel are Jobs and More Jobs, and Citizen Power. He lectures and writes about governance, foreign affairs, economics, Social Security, tax reform, energy, environmental issues and democracy. Recently published books are The Kingmakers, co-written with Professor David Eisenbach, an analysis and polemic on corporate media and how it distorts our political dialogue, including Mike's own campaign, A Political Odyssey, co-written with Joe Lauria, is an examination of Mike's career in politics, his personal life, his fight against the Military-Industrial-Complex and the rise of US imperial power. And also The Voice of A Maverick, a compilation of Mike's speeches and writings from his 2008 presidential campaign.

Visit Mike Gravels website: The National Institue for Democracy

Firoozeh Dumas
Best Selling Author
Host: Said & Dari
Air Date: Wednesday 9.3.08 - 10:00-11:00 PM EST

Firoozeh Dumas was born in Abadan, Iran and moved to Whittier, California at the age of seven. Firoozeh grew up listening to her father, a former Fulbright Scholar, recount the many colorful stories of his life. In 2001, with no prior writing experience, Firoozeh decided to write her stories as a gift for her children. Random House published these stories in 2003. Critics and readers of all ages have loved her stories. Jimmy Carter called Funny in Farsi, “A humorous and introspective chronicle of a life filled with love—of family, country and heritage.”

For the past five years, Firoozeh has traveled the country reminding us that our commonalities far outweigh our differences…and doing so with humor. She has spoken in conferences, schools, universities, churches, Jewish Temples and Islamic centers. Her travels have taken her from the East Coast to the West Coast, from Harvard University to UCLA. Everywhere she has gone, audiences have embraced her message of shared humanity and invited her back for more.

The Persian version of Funny in Farsi is currently one of the bestselling books in Iran. Firoozeh’s second book, Laughing Without an Accent, a series of autobiographical essays, was published by Random House in May 2008.

Visit Firoozeh's website: FiroozehDumas.com

Armen Chakmakian
World Fusion Musician
Host: Said & Dari
Air Date: Wednesday 9.17.08 - 10:00-11:00 PM EST

Armen Chakmakian, a GRAMMY®-nominated keyboardist, orchestrates a musical journey spanning new territory with his intoxicating fusion of world textures and contemporary jazz influences.

A prodigy with a gift for playing by ear, Armen’s musical education was extensive. A native of Glendale, California, he attended Berklee College of Music, UCLA and USC where he studied the “History of Armenian Music”. Also, he studied jazz with John Novello, a world acclaimed music educator, and learned improvisation from keyboardist, Chuck Wild of Missing Persons fame and composer of the Liquid Mind stress-relief music series. Soon he found himself embarking on a successful career in Hollywood performing, composing and arranging for singer/songwriters with former Rick James’ Stone City Band members, Richard and Lorenzo Shaw. Chakmakian went on to form his own jazz-fusion ensemble.

In 1991, the break of a lifetime occurred when Armen joined the GRAMMY® Award-winning band, Shadowfax as the keyboardist. The following year, the album, Esperanto co-written by Chakmakian was nominated for a Grammy as Best New Age Album of 1992. Following Esperanto was Magic Theater, Shadowfax Live, and a 90-minute concert video of the Live album. The next five years were spent co-writing, recording and touring with Shadowfax and were instrumental in shaping Armen’s signature keyboard stylings.

A new era began in 1998 when he founded TruArt Records. Armen’s debut solo album, Ceremonies was released that year to rave reviews and debuted #1 on the New Age/World radio charts (NAV Top 50). Airplay was received on over 600 stations worldwide. Two tracks from Ceremonies were featured on the European compilation CD series, Buddha-Bar I & IV, and have to date sold over 700,000 units.

Visit Armen Chakmakian's website: Armen.tv

Eliyahu Sills
World Fusion Musician
Host: Said & Dari
Air Date: To be announced.

Eliyahu Sills has been studying and performing music for over 20 years. In the early 1990s, he studied the upright bass in at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City.

In the years that followed, Eliyahu fell in love with the flute and applied the musical theory that he learned through his jazz studies to teach himself this most ancient of instruments. After falling under the spell of the Sufi music of Turkey, he became a devoted student of both the nay, the reed flute of the Middle East, and the bansuri, the bamboo flute of India.

Eliyahu's mastery of musical styles spans the globe. He has performed and recorded vibrant sacred music of the Middle East with Za'atar, West African folk music with the Palm Wine Boys, soul roots reggae with the Original Intentions, Latin-tinged jazz with Sparlha Swa, bluegrass-inspired beats with Ilene Adar, and revolutionary Hip-hop with Rebels Advocate.

Visit Eliyahu's website: EliyahuMusic.com

Magda Watts
World Famous Israeli Dollmaker
Host: Said & Dari
Air Date: To be announced.

Magda Watts was deported from Hungary to Auschwitz at the age of 15, where she survived for seven months. She escaped Auschwitz through a selection by people from the Siemens Company who came to choose girls for slave labor in Nurenberg. Lonely and depressed, she turned to making dolls from scraps of rags. Very quickly her talents were noticed and she soon traded dolls for food for herself and her sisters. And today her magnificent dolls are in museums, galleries and private collections all over the world.

A wonderful film was made by Jennifer Resnick about Magda's life that is featured on PBS (Public Broadcasting) in USA, called the Liberation of the Spirit: The Journey of Magda Watts tracing her life back to the Nazi death camps in Poland where she was imprisoned during World War II.

If you search for Magda Watts on Google, you will find hundreds of links to her name and work. Visit the Dolls of Magda Watts website!

Richard Dawkins
Ethologist, Evolutionary Biologist & Science Writer
Host: Said & Dari
Air Date: To be announced.

Richard Dawkins, FRS is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science writer. He holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Dawkins moved to England with his parents at the age of eight, and completed his education at the University of Oxford. He first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme, playing a significant role in the foundation of memetics as a scientific field of study. In 1982, he made a widely cited contribution to evolutionary biology with the theory, presented in his book The Extended Phenotype, that phenotypic effects are not limited to an organism's body but can stretch far into the environment, which includes the bodies of other organisms. He has since written several best-selling popular books, and made regular appearances on television and radio programmes discussing evolution, creationism, intelligent design, and religion.

In addition to his biological work, Dawkins is well-known for his views on religion. He is an outspoken antitheist and atheist; a secular humanist, sceptic, scientific rationalist, and a supporter of the Brights movement. He is a prominent critic of creationism and intelligent design. In his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. As of November 2007, the English version had sold more than 1.5 million copies and had been translated into 31 languages, making it his most popular book to date.

Visit Richard Dawkins' website: RichardDawkins.net

Daniel Dennett
University Professor & Author
Host: Said & Dari
Air Date: To be announced.

Daniel C. Dennett, the author of Breaking the Spell (Viking, 2006), Freedom Evolves (Viking Penguin, 2003) and Darwin's Dangerous Idea (Simon & Schuster, 1995), is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He was born in Boston in 1942, the son of a historian by the same name, and received his B.A. in philosophy from Harvard in 1963. He then went to Oxford to work with Gilbert Ryle, under whose supervision he completed the D.Phil. in philosophy in 1965. He taught at U.C. Irvine from 1965 to 1971, when he moved to Tufts, where he has taught ever since, aside from periods visiting at Harvard, Pittsburgh, Oxford, and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

His first book, Content and Consciousness, appeared in 1969, followed by Brainstorms (1978), Elbow Room (1984), The Intentional Stance (1987), Consciousness Explained (1991), Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995), Kinds of Minds (1996), and Brainchildren: A Collection of Essays 1984-1996 (MIT Press and Penguin, 1998). Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness, was published in 2005 by MIT Press. He co-edited The Mind's I with Douglas Hofstadter in 1981. He is the author of over three hundred scholarly articles on various aspects on the mind, published in journals ranging from Artificial Intelligence and Behavioral and Brain Sciences to Poetics Today and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.

He lives with his wife in North Andover, Massachusetts, and has a daughter, a son, and a grandson. And he spends most of his summers on his farm in Maine, where he harvests blueberries, hay and timber, and makes Normandy cider wine, when he is not sailing. He is also a sculptor.

Gretchen Wilsenach
South African Writer & World Traveler
Host: Said & Dari
Air Date: To be announced.

Gretchen Wilsenach was born in South Africa. She attended art college for a stint and then later obtained a Diplôme de Langue in French. Gretchen now owns a small luxury B&B in Johanesburg, South Africa, called Auberge Maroc.

Her career spans multiple domains. Gretchen managed an animation studio for a while, as well as spending 20 years years in advertising as a television and radio producer. She was director/shareholder of a leading advertising agency and also wrote copy and scripts. She traveled the world extensively through the years 1972–2007 and is currently organizing exclusive tours to Morocco. She has written numerous travel articles in local travel magazines, as well as ELLE. She is also involved with sosmorocco.org, a nonprofit organization to help make a difference for the children of Morocco.

Her recently published first novel, The Midnight Room is a mysterious and exotic romance novel. She is currently working on two more novels. Visit The Midnight Room website.