Second Amendment As NPR put it in a recent article, the Second
Amendment is "short on words but long on dispute." How
can something apparently so simple--a 27-word sentence--be so
confusing? What is so hard to understand about "A well
regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed"? With the multiple tragic shootings in Colorado,
Oregon, and Connecticut, and other places getting so much
attention, proponents and opponents of guns are pushing and shoving
each other with the Second Amendment caught in the thick of
it. To reign back the current arguments for a moment and shed
some much-needed light on the actual history of the Second
Amendment is legal historian and UC Davis law professor Carlton
Larson.
The Fear Project Nothing holds us back more
than fear--it often dominates our lives, paralyzing us into
complacency and stopping us far short of our goals and ambitions.
In his newest book, The Fear Project: What Our Most Primal Emotion
Taught Me About Survival, Success, Surfing...and Love, award-winning
journalist and surfer Jaimal Yogis sets out to better
understand fear. In the porcess, he plunges his readers
into great white shark-infested waters and brings them along to
surf deadly 40+ foot waves in the dead of winter. He also
takes his readers to some of the leading neuroscience labs and
gives them access to conversations with some of the world's best
extreme athletes and psychologists. Jamail is holding a book signing at Time Test
Books in Sacramento on Wednesday, January 16 and he's doing it
in true fear-facing fashion: by swimming 10 miles of the Sacramento
River in the dark with world famous ultra runner Jamie Patrick, and
then climbing out for the book signing.
William Ishmael What inspires artist William Ishmael? "The effects of
time and weather--the stained and varnished rocks of the Grand
Canyon, corroded metal, weathered and peeling paint, eroded
hillsides, desert streambeds, 2000 year old Roman walls..."
This abstract aesthetic of natural layers and unlayers has served
Ishmael well, as he has been named "Artist of the Year" in 2012 by the Sacramento
Arts and Business Council. He joins us today to talk to
us about his unique painting style, an approach called "wabi-sabi"
by the Japanese, which centers around the acceptence of transience
and imperfection.
Jennifer O'Connor and Chris Brokaw Singer/songwriter Jennifer O'Connor takes "the raw power of rock and merges it with the
plaintive honesty of folk to make honest, unpretentious, affecting
music." Coming of age during the late '80s and early '90s,
Jennifer attracts frequent comparisons to Liz Phair and other
artists of that era. Her journey has been a long and weaving one,
including stints as a bartender on Broadway, freelance writing,
eBay selling, and playing music with the likes of Cat Power, The
Mountain Goats, Feist, Nada Surf, and Yo La Tengo. She's
currently collaborating with Chris Brokaw, a major player in the American indie
rock scene of the 1990s and who has often been cited for
helping kick-start Liz Phair's career. Both Jennifer and
Chris join us for a talk before their show at Naked Coffee in
Sacramento.
