Tomorrow: Wangari Maathai at The Cooper Union

Not a photo event but an inspirational woman.


from © The Cooper Union:

The Challenge for Africa: A Conversation with Wangari Maathai
Discussion
Thursday, April 9, 6:30pm
The Great Hall
7 East 7th Street at Third Avenue
Free and open to the general public

Author, activist and Nobel Prize laureate Wangari Maathai discusses the challenge for Africa with Leonard Lopate, WNYC's acclaimed radio host. Maathai offers a compelling look at the problems facing Africa and the promises of the future. She stresses the need for Africans to become self-sufficient, rather than relying foreign benefactors, and to pursue an identity rooted in their own ideals and solutions, instead of Western visions.

Maathai is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, which, through networks of rural women, has planted over 30 million trees across Kenya for more than 30 years. In 2002, she was elected to Kenya's Parliament in the first free elections in a generation. In 2003, she was appointed Assistant Minister for Environment, Natural Resources, and Wildlife. She is the author of Unbowed: A Memoir, The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and The Experience and The Challenge for Africa.

You can also hear Maathai on WNYC with Lopate in 2006.

Annie Leibovitz Wanting to Play Tennis

On my way to work this morning I heard Renee Montagne's interview with Annie Leibovitz on WNYC's morning edition. She discusses some images and the stories behind the the photos from her book, Annie Leibovitz at Work. My favorite story is how she brought a tennis racket along with her when she went on tour with The Rolling Stones in 1975. She thought she would have time to get some tennis instruction in at the hotels. Instead she would spend her nights up working with the band. It's a short piece and worth hearing the personal stories, so have a listen right here.