WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
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1976, the Bicentennial year of The United States of America. What else?
Apple Computer Company is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak; NASA Unviels first space shuttle, the Enterprise; It’s reported that CFCs, or Chlorofluorocarbons, used in aerosol cans damage the ozone layer; The Olympics, broadcast from Montreal, Canada, draw an estimated one billion viewers worldwide. Nadia Comaneci, a 14 year-old Romanian, is awarded the first ever “perfect 10” on a gymnastics routine (and 6 more in the same games); Landing vehicles from the US spacecraft Viking I and Viking II set down safely on Mars.
The top movies probably tell us a little more than we want to know about the soul of the nation:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
All the President’s Men
The Omen
Taxi Driver
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Rocky
Peter Frampton is unleashed on the public never to relinquish his place in radio rotation. And Jackie and Jack fall in love in the midst of labor and civil rights activism in Andy Piascik’s new book, In Motion.
Paul Buhle writes of the novel,
Piascik…has a fine eye for the detail and ear for the dialogue between the lovers and also various family members. The talk around the sex action, in particular, seems to hit the right notes (and places), both realistic and sensitive. The two are definitely more mature or worldly than my peers (just a generation older) at their age, and I first imagined them readily overcoming their fears and the personal complications—but of course they do not. There are no easy resolutions here, but the figures are drawn to the life, the story well told.
GUEST
Andy Piascik is a radical activist and author who’s written for many publications including Jacobin, Counterpunch, and ZMagazine. He is the author of Gridiron Gauntlet: the Story of the Men Who Integrated Pro-Football, in Their Own Words, and a novel titled In Motion (2016, Sunshine Publishing, 298 pages).
RELATED
Bureaucracy and Solidarity: An Interview with Staughton Lynd by Andy Piascik
Long Distance Running, An Interview With Peace Activist Doug Allen by Andy Piascik
Good Summer Reading on the Left by Paul Buhle
AUDIO CLIPS
Queen Elizabeth II Arrives at the White House – July 7, 1976 (AP Archives on YouTube)
Mashed audio from YouTube of Nadia Comaneci’s uneven bars routine at the ’76 Olympics and an interview for OWN‘s (Oprah Winfrey Network) “Where Are They Now.”
MUSIC
“Baby I Love Your Way” by Peter Frampton
“Love Hangover” by Diana Ross
“I Want You” by Marvin Gaye
“Afro-Blue” by John Coltrane
CREDITS
Producer & Host: Doug Storm
Assistant Producer: Rob Schoon
Board Engineer: Jennifer Brooks
Executive Producer: Joe Crawford
