“There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” — Arundhati Roy
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 1/22/2024 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 11/13/2023 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 07/31/2023 - 9:00am to 10:00am
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Social History of Abortion in Portland
During the century that preceded Roe v Wade in 1973, abortion was illegal in Oregon. Even so, women consistently sought and obtained abortions, including from licensed physicians. But whether the practice was officially tolerated or suppressed fluctuated significantly over that period. Patricia Kullberg, in conversation with Norm Diamond, takes a look at the major social, political and economic factors that determined access to a safe abortion during an era when abortion was against the law. What lessons might be learned about the current day assault on reproductive rights? Kullberg is a retired primary care physician and author of the novel, Girl in the River, about the politics of sex and reproduction in Portland during the thirties and forties. For more on this topic see Michael Helquist’s article published in the Oregon Historical Quarterly: "‘Criminal Operations’: The First Fifty Years of Abortion Trials in Portland, Oregon."The Man who Marches to War
Book Mole Patricia Kullberg reviews the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, March, by Geraldine Brooks. In a searing Civil War story of a man of conviction who marches off to war, Brooks explores in horrific and haunting detail the consequences of acting, or failing to act on one’s convictions.Covid, Polio, and Medical Populism
Norm Diamond speaks with Patricia Kullberg about the ambiguous role of so-called medical populism as it has played out during the Covid epidemic and earlier during the mid-twentieth century polio epidemic in this country. Medical populism often rises up out of legitimate grievances, with the potential both to promote rightful challenges to elite medical institutions and to spread clinical disinformation that is harmful to public health. Dr. Kullberg is a retired medical doctor and public health official.
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 3/06/2023 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 1/30/2023 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 09/05/2022 - 9:00am to 10:00am
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Atomic Bamboozle
There’s a new push to bring nuclear energy back to the Pacific Northwest. Is this the solution to the climate crisis we’ve been waiting for? A new documentary by filmmaker Jan Haaken takes a skeptical look at the history of nuclear power and the new small modular nuclear reactors. Patricia Kullberg and Jan Haaken preview the film, "Atomic Bamboozle: The False Promise of a Nuclear Renaissance,” which premiers at Cinema 21, Sunday March 12 at 3 pm, with informational tables at 2:30.Zero Fare
While other cities, like Kansas City and Olympia, have abolished fares on public transport, TriMet is poised to approve a substantial fare hike in the Portland metro area. Patricia Kullberg talks with economist Mary King and OPAL Enviornmental Justice organizer Ellie Gluhosky about the many community benefits of zero-fare policies and how implementing free public transport is surprisingly feasible.Workers for Reproductive Rights
Often missing from the current public debates about assaults on reproductive rights are the workers who put themselves more and more at risk to provide abortion services. Patricia Kullberg speaks with filmmaker and Mole Jan Haaken and reproductive rights activist Sierra Romesburg from Democratic Socialists of America about reproductive justice and Jan’s documentary about abortion providers: Our Bodies, Our Doctors. The film will be shown Saturday, September 10 at the Hollywood Theater as a benefit sponsored by DSA for the Lillith Clinic, the new independent abortion clinic in Portland. A panel discussion will follow with Jan, former Jane (underground abortion provider) Judith Arcana and current abortion provider Dr. Andrea Chiviarini.
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 4/25/2022 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 11/29/2021 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 06/15/2020 - 9:00am to 10:00am
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The People’s CDC
After multiple retractions, garbled messages, bad advice, and politically-driven decisions from the CDC about how to respond to COVID 19, a group of public health professionals are fed up. In a manifesto published in The Guardian April 3, they announced the formation of the People’s CDC, with the promise of a more equitable, layered and evidence-based approach to the pandemic. Patricia Kullberg reads from and comments on their statement, The CDC is beholden to Corporations and Lost Our Trust. You can access their “weather reports,” toolkits and more at their website peoplescdc.org or on twitter: @peoplescdc.Assaults on Reproductive Rights One thing we know about the history of abortion in this country is that whether it is prosecuted or tolerated has less to do with the laws that are on the books and much more to do with prevailing social and political forces. The primary effect of anti-abortion laws is not to keep women from seeking abortions, but rather to make abortion unsafe. A more interesting question is: When, under what conditions, do reproductive rights come under attack? Today Mole Patricia Kullberg speaks with Judith Arcana about what interests are served by the repression of abortion rights. Judith Arcana is a poet, writer, reproductive rights activist and a Jane, a member of Chicago's pre-Roe underground abortion service. Judith is the author of many books, including Hello. This is Jane., a fiction collection that includes stories based on the Chicago underground.
Black Panthers and Public Health
As part of their ongoing discussing about public health, Jan Haaken and Patricia Kullberg take up the Black Panther’s vision and practice of community-based health care, which the Panthers formulated in the wake of the urban uprisings of the mid-1960’s. By organizing in African American communities to challenge dominant ideas about Black bodies and the historic exclusion of African-Americans from access to mainstream medicine, they developed a radical public health practice that offers lessons for activists today. The history of the Black Panther health program and its successes have been largely repressed in favor of the more provocative image of Black Panthers as armed militants against the white power structure. For a summary of the health care activism of the Black Panthers and further references see: "No Justice, No Health: the Black Panther Party’s Fight for Health in Boston and Beyond," by Mary Bassett, MD, MPH.
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 1/27/20 - 9:00am to 10:00am
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Abortion Access/Reproductive Health and Justice
This will be the last episode of Poetry and Everything for a while (or forever – we’ll see what happens). The series – which opened in July of 2016, just a little while before this current phase of our national horrorshow began – will have run for 37 months by the end of January, 2020. It will close with a reading of poetry and prose that’re focused on the struggle for abortion access and reproductive justice, as well as health – emotional, intellectual, physical, spiritual, political – health.Tonight’s guest is Patricia Kullberg (MD, MPH), who worked for two decades in a clinic of last resort in downtown Portland. Her books include the memoir, On the Ragged Edge of Medicine: Doctoring Among the Dispossessed (OSU Press, 2017) …. and a novel, Girl in the River (Bygone Era Books, 2015), which explores the mid-twentieth century politics of sex and abortion in Portland. Kullberg volunteers as a radio engineer for KBOO and a climate activist with Physicians for Social Responsibility. She is a native Portlander and lives here in the city with her husband, labor educator Norm Diamond.
As you see, this show will first air on January 27th – five days after the anniversary of the US Supreme Court’s ill-fated Roe v. Wade decision in January of 1973, now long-eviscerated, perhaps soon to be overturned. Together, alternating between the prose she’s selected and the poetry I’ve selected, Dr. Kullberg and I will be reading some work by other writers, and some work of our own; we’ll talk about the writing, and about the urgent topics and themes the writers have chosen.
Health and Clean Energy
Dr. Patricia Kullberg on the Portland Clean Energy Initiative (26-201)Bill Resnick speaks with Patricia Kullberg MD MPH about how premature disease, disability and death affects people of color, low income and immigrant communities in Portland, how the health gap between those who live in privilege and those who don’t is driven by social conditions; why these same communities will suffer the most from the ill effects of climate change; and how the Portland Clean Energy Initiative could mitigate some of those effects and help build healthier neighborhoods.
Here is her paper on Health Equity and the Portland Clean Energy Initiative in collaboration with Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 10/15/18 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 8/9/21 - 9:00am to 10:00am
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Thirty Years in the Streets of Portland
If you’ve been to a protest during the past three decades, you’ve probably seen her, the short, slight woman behind the camera, always in the thick of things, documenting the resistance that Portland is famous for. From the 1990 march to condemn the murder of Mulugeta Seraw by neo-Nazi skinheads to OccupyPDX in 2011; from the 1991 protests against the first Gulf War to sHell No! the successful blockade in 2015 of Shell Oil’s icebreaker bound for the drilling fields in the Arctic; from the 2000 May Day police riot against peaceful demonstrators to 100 Days of BLM protests in 2020, Bette Lee has been there to create images from an activist point of view.
Today Patricia Kullberg interviews Bette Lee about her decades of photographic work and its significance for Portland's activist community. The Old Mole is pleased to present a retrospective of Bette’s work. Every week we’ll post a new photo documenting Portland’s protest history and linking past actions with ongoing organizing and resistance. View her work at KBOO/BetteLee.
Clean Energy Fund
Patricia Kullberg speaks with Portland Clean Energy Fund activists Anissa Pemberton and Adriana Voss-Andreae about how the PCEF organizing effort has positioned the climate justice community to more successfully challenge the structural elements of our political economy that cause and maintain environmental injustice and have brought us to the brink of climate chaos. Anissa Pemberton is the Portland Clean Energy Fund Coalition Coordinator at the Coalition of Communities of Color. They began working with the Portland Clean Energy Fund as a field organizer in 2018. Adriana Voss-Andreae was the co-founder of 350PDX and a chief petitioner for the Portland Clean Energy Fund ballot initiative. She continues to be active in both local and statewide climate justice initiatives.
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 4/19/21 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 5/17/21 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 2/22/21 - 9:00am to 10:00am
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Coronavirus Crisis in India
Patricia Kullberg speaks with Dr. Swati Birla about how Primer Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling BJT party set the stage for the coronavirus catastrophe currently unfolding in India and how radical right-wing and anti-Muslim forces in India are attempting to take advantage of the crisis to consolidate their political stranglehold on the country. Dr. Birla is a physician and feminist activist engaged in anti-caste and anti-racist work with the collective Sanhati and the Global Prison Abolitionist Collective. She is currently completing a doctorate degree in sociology at University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
WEB DuBois and Scientific Racism
Scientific racism is the long-established practice of marshalling pseudo-scientific evidence to prove the biological inferiority of African-Americans and other people of color. Patricia Kullberg reads from and comments on two works by scholars of race and science, with an emphasis on how our values shape science. Jordan Besek, Assistant Professor of Sociology at University at Buffalo, writes about DuBois and science in his article: “W.E.B. Du Bois embraced science to fight racism as editor of NAACP’s magazine The Crisis,” published December 14, 2020 in the online journal, The Conversation. Dorothy Rogers, Professor of Law and Sociology at University of Pennsylvania, examines the contemporary re-emergence of race-based science and how it serves capitalist interests in her 2011 book: Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century. For more on science and social justice see: Citizen Scientists, Race-based Medicine, Methanol Refineries, Citizen Scientists, and Doughnuts, and A Medical Sea-Change.
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 11/30/2020 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 12/07/2020 - 9:00am to 10:00am
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Citizen Scientists
Norm Diamond and Patricia Kullberg discuss the role of ordinary citizens in mounting successful challenges to the junk science deployed by fossil fuel corporations to promote their climate-killing mega-projects in the Pacific Northwest. Patricia Kullberg is an activist and science writer with Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Doctors Unionize
Patricia Kullberg speaks with Dr. Anushka Shenoy, a physician-in-training in psychiatry at Oregon Health Sciences University and a leader of the newly established OHSU House Officers Union. They discuss the punishing working conditions of physicians-in-training (also known as house officers, interns and residents), how increased privatization and profit-making in the health care industry have made the medical encounter worse for both doctors and patients, and the ways that unions might help reverse some of those trends. For more see the website: House Officers Union.
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 9/28/2020 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 9/7/2020 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 08/10/2020 - 9:00am to 10:00am
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Breaking Down
Patricia Kullberg speaks with Dr. Jan Haaken about her new book, Psychiatry, Politics and PTSD: Breaking Down. The book could be called a biography of a diagnosis, namely post-traumatice stress disorder. But it is also a profound meditation on human suffering and the way it is managed in the context of late capitalist societies.
A Public Health Crisis
Patricia Kullberg speaks with Leslie Gregory, a local health practitioner and activist who is at the forefront of the campaign to get racism declared a public health crisis. Gregory is the founder and director of the local non-profit Right to Health, whose vision is to create a national network of healthcare providers, scientists, and community leaders who are committed to dismantling the effects of racism across all ethnic groups, and particularly Black Americans. Patricia and Leslie speak about her vision and how she was inspired by the health care programs of the Black Panthers.
Race-based Medicine
Patricia Kullberg speaks with University of Washington medical student Naomi Nkinsi about how racist ideas about African-American bodies are embedded in medical science and how students, doctors and scholars are challenging so-called “race-based medicine” which was supposed to improve care for African-Americans.
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 07/13/2020 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Program: Old Mole Variety Hour
Air date: Mon, 05/18/2020 - 9:00am to 10:00am
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Racism in Health Care
While the coronavirus pandemic has made more urgent the need for universal access to quality health care, Patricia Kullberg and Jan Haaken take up the problem of racist ideas and practices within the health care setting. They look at myths about the bodies of Black people that persist in medicine, how those are often related to the unconscious biases of health care providers and the adverse impacts on the treatment of African American patients.
What is Public Health?
Jan Haaken and Patricia Kullberg follow the race for a coronavirus vaccine and some of the misleading claims circulating in the media, and they discuss ways of looking at infectious diseases from public health versus medical model perspectives.
