Guest host Robert Wolf of American Mosaic shares the poetry, prose, and voices of the homeless people he's worked with over the years. The voices are gritty and real, providing an honest glimpse of life most of us never see. In 1989 Robert started his writing workshops with the homeless of Nashville, and he's gone on to gather writings from all over the country, creating an American Mosaic, both book and radio program, part of Free River Press.

Music Featured:
Homeless in New York - Gwynne Winsberg
Everybody's Lover - Gwynne Winsberg
Nobody Knows a Mucker Like Me - Chuck Suchy
Homeless Brother - Don McLean

Lon Milo DuQuette is a stunning combination of sweet music, profundity, hilarity, and love. With a career as a folk/rock musician from the precocious age of 14, through many employment variants including his 15 books and position as US Deputy Grand Master of Ordo Templi Orientis, Lon has word and song riches to pour out.

All the songs in this program are written & performed by Lon Milo DuQuette:
Love's Song
I Wish I Were Krishna
I'm Baba Lon
Sweet Babalon

More of Lon's songs in the full-length interview:
Guardian Angel In Disguise
Last Night I Dreamed of Dead People
Shem
I Never Got Over You

Minnesotans United for All Families is trying something new in their struggle for marriage equality - listening & telling personal stories - and it's working like nothing before has ever worked. Liz Oppenheimer & Jeanne Burns share their experience with "conversations" and Grant Stevensen, director of the Faith Dept. of Minnesotans United for All Families talks about the united effort of many walks of faith in opposing the proposed marriage amendment to the MN constitution

Additional resources: VoteKnowMN.org, Outfront Minnesota, and Freedom To Marry.

Vonn New creates innovative music, modeling deep listening in the process. Using things like flutes, percussion, found sounds and field recordings, Vonn creates sonic playgrounds over which she improvises. She also notes that "My intention as an artist is to promote peace-building and non-violence by modeling the power of listening, and the expression of defiant joy", crucial tools and gifts sorely lacking in our culture.

Tracy Grammer is, via her website, a poetry-loving, type A ex-head cheerleader, graphic designer, classically trained violinist and karaoke queen with Florida roots and California cool. And for a handful of years she was in a folk duo with the incredible Dave Carter, which makes this a story for the ages. One of their songs, Gentle Arms of Eden, was rated 75 in the top 100 folk songs of all times, so you know this is great folk music!

Mel White is an eloquent, incisive, and compassionate voice exposing the lies of the Christian Right. This is something he knows from the inside, having ghost-written "autobiographies" for Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and others, before he accepted his homosexualtity as a gift from God, rather than a sin to be obliterated. In Holy Terror: Lies the Christian Right Tells Us to Deny Gay Equality, Mel examines the history, tactics, and goals of the religious right, exposing the ways in which homosexuality is used as a political tool and wedge issue. Mel is a co-founder of Soulforce, an organization committed to freedom for LGBTQ people from religious and political oppression through relentless nonviolent resistance.

Half-hour version produced for Pacifica's SPROUTS program. The topic is the Transition Town movement and the experience of Steve Chase, Director of Advocacy for Social Justice and Sustainability at Antioch University New England and involved with the Keene, NH, transition, and Ruah Swennerfelt, former long-time long-time General Secretary of Quaker Earthcare Witness and is currently involved with the Transition Town implementation in Charlotte, VT. Both are active with Quakers in Transition.

The topic is the Transition Town movement and the experience of Steve Chase, Director of Advocacy for Social Justice and Sustainability at Antioch University New England and involved with the Keene, NH, transition, and Ruah Swennerfelt, former long-time long-time General Secretary of Quaker Earthcare Witness and is currently involved with the Transition Town implementation in Charlotte, VT.

Both are active with Quakers in Transition.

This is a half-hour version produced for Pacifica's SPROUTS program.

Pat Lamanna is part of the People's Music Network for Songs of Freedom & Struggle, has performed for 15 years as part of the folk trio, The Raggedy Crew, and run a coffee house music venue starting in the 1970's. Find Pat on Facebook, get her music at CDBaby, or visit her very occasional blog.

Dan Dieterich is a founding member of ICE - Interfaith Community for the Earth, an organization formed to fight global warming and promote ecological well-beling. ICE is a member of Wisconsin Interfaith Power & Light. Working at the local level, ICE is a good example of how a small group of folks can harness their energy, in community, to bring about the big changes our world needs.