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51% Show #1276

Out.of.Focus

This week we're taking a look over our shoulder... Human potential, the future of news and wild horses. Plus we'll revisit some of the interviews that we liked best from the past year.

It's the last show of 2013 – and each year I like to take a look back and revisit some of the interviews that stayed with me – ones that maybe offered a new take on an old issue, or made us aware of something new, or offered solutions.

First, let's revisit author and philosopherJean Houston.  She's a founder of the Human Potential Movement and her work with UNICEF, as advisor to presidents and first ladies, and with the United Nations Development Program, has taken her around the globe, working to empower people and train future leaders.

Her book, The Wizard of Us – Transformation Lessons from Oz, uses the time-honored practice of teaching through myth, using the film version of the classic story about Dorothy's journey to find her way back to Kansas as a metaphor for our own search for meaning.

Jean Houston is a philosopher and researcher, and the author of The Wizard of Us – Transformation Lessons From Oz.

Coming up, a newspaper baptized by wind and water.

Community newspapers have taken a beating in the last ten to fifteen years, and ownership of many papers has now fallen into the hands of a few large conglomerates.  But the Internet has created a new news source – and few of them have become the go-to source of community news as suddenly as the Watershed Post in New York's Catskill Region.  The Watershed Post was just a year and a half old when Hurricane Irene blasted through the area... and while most news organizations were cut off, the Watershed Post showed what an Internet newspaper could do. Editor Lissa Harris is one of the founders.

  Next, a young girl who is setting an example for the world.  Hakima is a 13-year old Ugandan girl and a volunteer of the child rights organization Plan International. She is leading child rights initiatives in her school and her community. Hakima attended this year's session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women where she was interviewed by UN Radio.

Hakima, a 13 year old child rights advocate was interviewed by UN Radio.

Finally, let's talk about one of the last symbols of America's open range... the wild horse.

Right now, more than 37 thousand wild horses and burros live on federal rangeland in ten western states. That’s more than ten thousand more than the Federal Bureau of Land Management says it can handle.

  Holding pens are at or near capacity and the cost of caring for the captive horses is skyrocketing as thousands were rounded up to make way for cattle. Meanwhile, hundreds of wild horses on Navajo land in America's southwest were rounded up and sold for meat – something the tribe's leaders have now come out against.

Suzanne Roy is director of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign. They advocate better management and, when necessary, contraception, but criticize the rounding up and removal of the herds.

That’s our show for this week.  Thanks to Katie Britton for production assistance.  Our theme  music is by Kevin Bartlett. This show is a national production of Northeast Public Radio.  Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock.

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