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A Check On Turkey, A Week After A Failed Coup Rocked The Country | Things have changed dramatically. Sweeping changes will have an impact on the country's relations with the U.S. and E.U. Renee Montagne talks to analyst Omer Taspinar of the National War College. |
Richard Strauss in 3-Quarter Time | Richard Strauss's opera "Der Rosenkavalier" (dair ROH-sen-kah-vah-leer) contains some very infectious waltzes. In 1945, the composer sanctioned a concert suite, assembled from those waltzes plus other great melodies from the opera. We feature a performance of the Suite by the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Schxnwandt, in concert in Copenhagen. (EBU) |
Letters: Pollination, National Guard, Elling | We hear from our listeners about bees and pollination, National Guard soldiers in Iraq, and jazz pianist Kurt Elling. |
Hear A New Song From Phoebe Bridgers, Plus Why She Thinks It's Time To Text Back | Our Daily Breather is a series where we ask writers and artists to recommend one thing that's helping them get through the days of isolation during the coronavirus pandemic. Who: Phoebe Bridgers Where: Los Angeles, Calif. Recommendation: Sending the text or making the call that you've been putting off When I get a phone call, I'm paralyzed by fear. Whether the person calling is someone I talk to every day or someone I haven't spoken to in years, it doesn't matter. I just don't pick up. I don't even know why. Fear of bad news, fear of small talk. I want to know what they're calling about before I commit. My voicemail of course, is always full. It happens every time, but every time it surprises me. I'll get a message from a friend and think, "I'll respond to this when I'm the real me. The person who responds to things." Time passes, and now my response has to include something about not seeing the text, but that won't work because everyone knows I live inside my phone, and the more I think about it the more I'm overwhelmed with dislike for the person I am. A person who cannot send a text message. And as I'm writhing in self-loathing, the text message just sits there, molding. I never thought that would change, but quarantine has changed me. I just cold-called someone in my family I haven't spoken to in years. It was awkward at first, but actually doing it felt way better than the hours of dreading and avoiding it. My therapist says it's easier to talk on the phone right now because there's no real life risk of any follow-up. No obligatory "let's get lunch" at the end of the conversation. We're all protected by enormous moats. So I've found myself sending more emails, calling more friends to check in, and Zooming with my band every once in awhile. Have to say, it's really improved my quality of life. If this applies to you, burn some candles and respond to something you've been avoiding for no reason. I made a playlist of non-distracting instrumental music to help. Good luck. Phoebe Bridgers will release her sophomore record, Punisher, on June 19. Her new song "I See You" is out today. Read more from the Our Daily Breather series. |
Sen. Claire McCaskill On Russian Hack Attempt And Trade | NPR's Scott Simon asks Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., about a Russian attempt to hack her political campaign and about the effects of trade wars on Missouri farmers. |
Major League Soccer Gambles On Star Power Of Aging Foreign Players | "We want Pirlo! We want Pirlo! We want Pirlo!" On Sunday night, this chant thundered through Yankee Stadium, where Major League Soccer's prized acquisition from a top European club, legendary Italian midfielder Andrea Pirlo, was set to make his debut with the New York City FC. The 36-year-old former Juventus star took the field as a sub in the second half, but from the cheers of the more than 30,000 fans, it was as if Babe Ruth had just scored the winning touchdown for the Knicks. Pirlo is part of a growing list of aging foreign stars to sign contracts worth millions with MLS teams: On Monday, 37-year-old Ivorian striker Didier Drogba signed with Montreal Impact. Spanish forward David Villa, 33, and English midfielder Frank Lampard, 37, also have joined NYCFC English midfielder Steven Gerrard, 35, and Irish forward Robbie Keane, 35, play for LA Galaxy Brazilian midfielder Kaká, 33, signed with Orlando City SC. Considering Pirlo's storied resume, it's easy to get excited about the former World Cup champion and it's easy to forget that his best playing days are behind him. Former U.S. Men's National Team player and current ESPN soccer analyst Taylor Twellman, however, hasn't forgotten. "I've been very vocal about this from the beginning. I'm not a huge fan of these signings. I'm much more a fan of ... the young players with a chip on his shoulder still left with something to prove," Twellman says, naming a handful of 20-something stars in the MLS, including Mexican star Giovani Dos Santos. "If you are going to go the European route, Robbie Keane is the absolute perfect example of someone who still has plenty left at the table. I think the jury is out on what Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Andrea Pirlo, Didier Drogba will bring to Major League Soccer," Twellman says. "Effort has never been a concern of mine [...] but Father Time is a different issue." This strategy of luring high profile stars with huge contracts isn't unique to MLS, or even to soccer, but since the league instituted a "designated player" rule in 2007 — allowing teams to sign players who don't count toward the salary cap — it has acquired a certain reputation in some circles. "If you talk to Europeans, they talk about the MLS as a retirement home now. It's not good for the image and that perception will percolate back to the United States, as well," says Stefan Szymanski, who is the author of Soccernomics and Money and Soccer and who recently questioned the viability of MLS as a league. MLS spokesperson Dan Courtemanche is quick to dispel this notion as "incorrect," saying that only a small fraction of MLS players are foreign stars over 30. It started with England's David Beckham, who joined the LA Galaxy in 2007 as the league's first designated player. Beckham's cultural clout, combined with his valuable (if diminished) presence on the soccer field, raised the profile of MLS. "His impact was immense on this league," Washington Post soccer writer Steven Goff says. "People who had never even heard of MLS, because of Beckham, knew MLS, knew the Galaxy, knew Beckham was in town. He sold a lot of tickets and boosted MLS' marketing efforts. ... In terms of him on the field, he was on the back side of his career. Clearly, he wasn't going to do as many special things as he once did, but that wasn't the point. A guy like that — it was about branding and marketing." If Beckham's time with the Galaxy put MLS on the U.S. pro-sports map, the hope now is that the arrival of well-known but aging foreign stars will not only draw more fans to the stadiums, but boost MLS' slowly improving but still dismal TV ratings. "By having world class players, it's going to make it more exciting, so indirectly I think the answer is yes," Courtemanche says about whether older stars will have a positive impact on television ratings. Szymanski, however, has his doubts about how much of a draw these stars will be. He thinks the best way forward for the MLS is to become a development league for European leagues. "A team like NYCFC could be a place where stars were loaned temporarily while they were out of form and they can be then called back to Europe to play when they're needed -- and interestingly, that's sort of exactly what happened with Frank Lampard. He [signed with NYCFC] then went back and played with Manchester City for half a season," Szymanski says. "Because the European clubs might increasingly be interested in owning teams in the MLS, this might be a very successful long-term strategy, he adds. It's not quite major league, but it would enable more European players to get exposure in the United States at a stage in their career where they were still not seen as being in semiretirement." The question of whether aging stars will benefit MLS in the long-term is just one of many facing an organization working to meet its ambitious goal of being one of the best soccer leagues in the world by 2022. "MLS is trying to strike a balance. They're trying to bring in big nam |
Halberstam, Journalism's 'Best and Brightest' | David Halberstam won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for <em>New York Times</em> articles that took an early, critical view of American involvement in Vietnam. He later wrote penetrating works about U.S. institutions, from JFK's White House to the media. |
Harsh Conditions Complicate China Quake Search | Teams searching for survivors of a powerful quake on China's mountainous Tibetan plateau were grappling with altitude sickness and a "logistical nightmare" as they worked to get excavators and supplies into the remote region where at least 617 people have died and thousands are injured. Many survivors of Wednesday's magnitude 6.9 quake spent the night outside in freezing temperatures with their injuries still unattended, witnesses said. Rescuers exhausted from the high winds and thin oxygen levels pulled survivors and bodies from the pulverized remains of Jiegu township, about 20 miles from the epicenter in western Yushu county. Relief operations picked up pace after workers spent most of Wednesday clearing roads and opening the nearby airport. But the region's high altitude and gusty mountain winds hampered rescue crews and even search dogs as they combed for survivors in the area, which is 13,000 feet above sea level. "It's really a logistically nightmare for the Chinese authorities dealing with this earthquake, given [its] … remoteness," NPR China correspondent Louisa Lim reported. Similar to the Sichuan earthquake that struck central China two years ago, many schools reportedly collapsed, killing students inside. Local officials say 11 schools fell during the quake, with one report estimating that 200 students were buried in the wreckage of one school alone. "We're hearing that 15,000 homes have been destroyed [and] 100,000 people have had to be moved -- virtually the entire population of [Yushu] county," Lim said. Supplies of food, water, gas and other necessities were running low, said Pierre Deve, a program director at the Yushu-based community development organization Snowland Service Group. Deve said he waited for hours in a line of some 100 cars at the only open gas station in Jiegu, where most shops remained shut. Local Buddhist monasteries handed out some food, while people scavenged what they could from what was left of their houses. China's state media said hundreds of people had been pulled from the rubble alive. CCTV showed rescuers picking through the crumbled remains at night aided by flashlights fixed to their safety helmets. A group of workers found a girl who had been trapped for more than 12 hours under a heap of debris. President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao pledged that the government would do everything in its power to aid the rescue efforts. Wen toured the quake zone as evening fell. A journalist at the scene said Wen climbed on a pile of rubble to address the crowd, even as relief workers continued to dig for survivors behind him. He was greeted warmly by the mostly Tibetan residents of Yushu county in Qinghai province, according to the report. NPR's Lim said Buddhist monks were also helping clear rubble but that some at least some of the local monasteries were devastated by the quake. China's Tibetan Autonomous Region and parts of Qinghai province were the focus of peaceful anti-government protests by monks in 2008 that later erupted into violence. |
Lebanese Parliament Fails to Elect President | Lebanon's parliament failed Friday to elect a successor to pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud hours before he is set to leave office. Speaker Nabih Berri postponed the session until Nov. 30 after the legislature failed to get the necessary two-thirds quorum to take a vote. Berri said in a statement that the postponement would give factions more time to reach a consensus. The failure to elect a new president could throw the country deeper into political chaos and violence. While both sides said efforts are under way to prevent further deterioration, each camp was waiting Friday for the other to make the first move. Constitutional Provision In the absence of a president, the anti-Syrian government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora would take executive power under the constitution. But the pro-Syrian Lahoud has vowed not to hand his authorities over to Saniora's administration, considering it unconstitutional after all five ministers of the Shiite Muslim community quit a year ago. "Any step taken by Fuad Saniora to take over the presidency's duties ... within hours the opposition will be on the streets to bring him down by force," warned opposition politician Wiam Wahhab on Hezbollah's al-Manar TV late Thursday. The most dangerous scenario is that Lahoud could create an alternative government and transfer his power to it. Saniora's Western-backed government would likely refuse to step aside, leaving Lebanon with two rival governments, much like during the last two years of the 1975-90 civil war. A compromise possibility is that Lahoud will entrust his security powers to the heads of the military, a move that the government would likely not oppose - effectively putting the situation on hold to allow further talks on a candidate. "We are giving wide space to the continuation of dialogue and consultations," said Akram Chehayeb of a hard-line parliament faction backing Saniora. "We want to preserve civil peace." The opposition-aligned Berri postponed the session 30 minutes after the legislature failed to muster the necessary two-thirds quorum to begin voting. It followed talks with leaders of the parliamentary majority. Scheduling another session in a week as talks between the two sides continue could defuse for now any potential street confrontations. Negotiations Continue Lawmakers in the majority, anti-Syrian faction said they would not take any drastic measures such as electing one of their own in a simple majority ignoring the opposition boycott. Walid Jumblatt, a prominent leader in the majority, said afterwards that he continues to hold out for consensus on a candidate, stressing that the priority was to prevent the political tensions from turning into violence. "We will continue to work for consensus and national peace," he told reporters. Ahead of Friday's events, army commander Gen. Michel Suleiman has ordered soldiers "not to be lenient or inactive" in confronting possible troublemakers, calling on his troops to ignore the politics and "listen to the call of duty." The military has been on alert for several days. On Friday morning, hundreds of troops in tanks, armored carriers and jeeps deployed along intersections leading to the Lebanese capital and around the downtown area where the parliament building is located. Lawmakers from the majority arrived at parliament for the 1 p.m. session Friday in bulletproof cars driven from a nearby hotel where dozens have been seeking refugee for weeks, fearing assassination. The majority faction, which holds 68 seats in the 128-member parliament, has been the subject of assassinations over the last two years that many have ascribed to Syrian attempts to whittle down their slim majority in the legislature. Three previous attempts by the parliament to elect a leader since September failed because of the inability to find a candidate acceptable to both sides. Rival Lebanese leaders have been unable to reach agreement on a consensus candidate despite intense mediation efforts by European envoys and the U.N. secretary general. On Thursday night, the foreign ministers of France, Italy and Spain, who together are fielding a majority of the U.N. peacekeepers in the south of the country, held talks with Lebanese leaders, but to no avail. From reports by NPR's Ivan Watson and The Associated Press |
Donald Bogle, 'Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams' | Actress Hattie McDaniel may have won an Oscar as Mammy in <EM>Gone With The Wind,</EM> but in real life, she was a part of a glamorous society of black actors living, working and prospering in Old Hollywood. Entertainment historian Donald Bogle joins NPR's Ed Gordon to discuss his latest book, <EM>Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams,</EM> which chronicles the lives of African American stars before the cameras rolled and once the performers left the studio to go home. |
Remembering Writer Harlan Ellison | The famous, and famously cantankerous, science fiction writer Harlan Ellison has died. Over a 6-decade career, he won multiple awards for his fiction and television writing. |
Philadelphia Musician Delivers Singing Telegrams For Those Sheltering At Home | In Philadelphia, Dot Levine has found a new way to make a living. The musician offers serenades for hire — from a safe distance — for people who are sheltering at home. WHYY’s Peter Crimmins (@PeterCrimmins) reports. NPR is remembering people who have died of coronavirus as they continued to work outside their homes during the pandemic: health care workers; grocery store clerks; city and town services employees; police; domestic workers; mail carriers; caretakers; those who kept serving others as the rest of us have stayed home. We’d like to hear a story from you about your lost loved one or friend. Head to npr.org/frontlineworkers to share a special memory you have of this person — it may appear online or on air. This article was originally published on WBUR.org. |
Doctors Declare Norway's Confessed Killer Sane; Trial To Begin Monday | Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian man who confessed to killing 77 people last July, was not criminally insane when he bombed a government building and gunned unarmed people down at a youth conference, according to two psychiatrists appointed by a court in Norway. The new development comes days before Behring Breivik's trial is set to begin, on April 16. According to The Norway Post: "A press release by the Oslo City Court (Tingretten) on Tuesday states that the two new court-appointed psychiatrists had concluded that Behring Breivik was not psychotic when he bombed Norway's government office building on July 22, followed by the massacre at the Utøya Labour Party youth camp the same day." Breivik's defense attorney, Geir Lippestad, is quoted in The Telegraph as saying, "This will be extremely difficult, an enormous challenge to listen to his explanations.... He will not only defend (his actions) but will also lament, I think, not going further." The psychiatrists' findings issued Tuesday clash with the earlier opinions of two other psychiatrists, who found that Breivik was insane when he undertook his twin attacks. In the end, Norway's City Court will determine whether to declare Breivik insane. He could face Norway's maximum penalty of 21 years in prison, with the possibility of unlimited extensions added later, if he is deemed a threat after serving a prison term. Last week, a psychiatrist who read Breivik's 38-page letter to the media about his actions "likened Breivik's text to the 'ideologocial documents' written by Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s," according to the Oslo Times. |
June Ballot Measure Would Ban All Flavored Tobacco Products In San Francisco | Updated at 6:43 p.m. ET. San Francisco could become the first city in the nation to ban flavored tobacco products from all store shelves. The ban includes everything from candy-flavored e-cigarettes to conventional menthol smokes. City supervisors last year unanimously approved a ban on the products, but the tobacco industry funded a referendum, Proposition E, to put the issue before voters instead. San Francisco residents will decide in the June 5 election whether the ordinance goes into effect. More than $11 million aimed at defeating it The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. is blanketing the city with ads — on the radio, television, online and via direct mail — urging a "no" vote on Proposition E. The latest campaign finance contributions show that the tobacco giant, which produces Newport menthols, the country's best-selling mint-flavored cigarette, has contributed more than $11 million to the "No on E" campaign in San Francisco. On the other side, former New York City mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg has contributed $1.3 million to the campaign for Yes on Proposition E. Some of the anti-E ads feature vintage film clips of people smashing kegs during Prohibition and argue that approach didn't stop the use of alcohol and drugs and won't work for flavored tobacco, either. San Francisco resident Donna Anderson agrees. Though she doesn't smoke herself, she protested on behalf of the No on E campaign during a recent rally near San Francisco's City Hall. "You're just driving sales underground," Anderson says. "It will not stop people from accessing what they want or using what they want." She uses the example of marijuana laws to illustrate how a black market can hurt people of color the most. "Black people, Latino people — people have been locked up, and are still locked up, having to do with little more than an ounce of marijuana," she says. At the Mission Smoke Shop, Sam Azar has plastered the walls of his store with "No-on-E" signs. "It's going to hurt me as a small business here in the city by — like 30 percent or more," Azar predicts. The law would eliminate his profits from sales of flavored pipe tobacco, flavored hookah, infused cigars and the syrupy vape liquids that line numerous racks. There are more than 7,000 sweet and savory e-cigarette flavors on the market — flavors that include Gummi Bear, Unicorn Milk, Red Bull and Nat-Cho Cheese. A gateway to cigarettes? Medical experts worry about the role these flavors and aromas play in enticing young people to try nicotine and get hooked on cigarettes — perhaps outweighing any potential benefit adult smokers might gain from using the products to help them quit smoking. Derek Smith, director of the Tobacco Free Project at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, says flavors and menthol deceptively mask the taste of tobacco and make it easier to inhale nicotine. "Someone who has tried a cigarette for the first time will often turn green and cough," Smith says. "Imagine instead a cereal, milk-flavored inhalation that is considerably less harsh to start with." Nearly all youth in the state start their tobacco habit with a flavored product, Smith says, and that worries doctors who gathered at a recent "Yes-on-E" rally on the steps of City Hall. "The tobacco industry has targeted menthol cigarettes to the black community, to poor people, to mothers," says Dr. Amanda Wright, an internist at the University of California, San Francisco and resident physician. "And if you look at these products," she says, "they literally look like candy — and that is clearly targeting our children." At the rally, Wright stood next to a table laden with row after row of juice boxes and candy wrappers. They looked like sugary snack foods but were actually packages of vaping products. Nicotine and the teenage brain Nicotine is particularly addictive for the teenage brain, according to Dr. Pam Ling, a professor of medicine at UCSF who studies smoking behavior and its effects. "This population is the future of the tobacco industry," says Ling. "The industry recognized decades ago that if they don't get kids to start, [the industry] will die out." According to the California Department of Public Health, the number of kids in California who vape is currently double the number who smoke. But research suggests that a lot of those kids will be smoking cigarettes before long. "Once these kids start with the e-cigarettes, the likelihood that they'll be smoking cigarettes a year or so later is increased by a factor of three or four," says Stanton Glantz, who heads the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at UCSF. Glantz says that in his research, about a third of the kids who start using nicotine via e-cigarettes are not the kind of kids whose race, gender, home life and school performance would make them a high risk to pick up smoking on their own. In other words, vaping is increasing the pool of teen smokers. A 2016 report from the U.S. Surgeon General cited a 900 percen |
Afghan Women Say No To The Dress | It's a story with a happy ending about a demonstration that didn't happen — after activist Afghan women beat back the Ministry of Education decision that schoolgirls must exchange their current already modest uniforms for styles that are more restrictive and concealing. On March 14, the Afghan ministry unveiled the new designs. Schools in the country were closed at the time (the school year in Afghanistan goes from March through January and set to reopen on the 20th or 21st. The ministry said the change would be effective when classes resumed. The change was the result of complaints by schoolgirls about the color of the uniforms, according to Afghan news reports. They were black, which absorbs the heat in the already hot summer months when Afghan schools remain in session. In addition, they said, girls found black a sad, unhappy color. That is why the new uniforms would be blue for primary school girls, grey for middle schoolers and navy blue for high schoolers. As before, the new uniform also required girls to wear a white scarf on their heads. But changing colors was not what upset Bahar Sohaili, 31, a women's rights activist in Kabul. She had gone to school in Afghanistan before the Taliban took over, had herself worn a black uniform back then, and in fact agreed that wearing black makes you hot and shows the dirt in the very dusty environment that is Afghanistan. The problem was that the new uniforms were replacing uniforms that consisted of black dresses that hit just a few inches below the knee and were worn over pants leggings — a design that served the ultra-conservative Afghan society's mandate for modesty and also provided enough flexibility for girls to walk and participate in sports. Not so the new design, which mandated that elementary school girls as young as five would have to wear tunics that would fall several inches below their knees; for girls 12 and up, the tunics had to extend all the way to the floor. And although the head scarves would continue to be required and would still be white, they had to conform to a style that no longer allowed bangs to show but would have to conceal every strand of hair, as is the custom in Iran. "They are telling us the length is to protect Islamic values," said Sohaili. But she believes that the changes were unacceptable for several reasons. First, they are not practical. "Students have to be comfortable, they need to be able to exercise." And in a country where terror attacks are commonplace, girls may need to literally run for their lives without being impeded by lengthy gowns that could make them trip and fall. To protest, she and others began to organize a demonstration for the coming weekend – that would have been March 18th and 19th. Freshta Ibrahimi also opposed the change. She's a graduate of the American University of Afghanistan who lives in Kabul and is now the program coordinator for Ascend, a team of women mountaineers, "We women in Afghanistan never want to go back to [the] Taliban era," when women were forced to wear burkas, she wrote to NPR in an email. "If women accept this uniform for me [that] means that government will also design another [Taliban-like] role for women. Women in Afghanistan want to experience freedom, [and] it will happen if all women stick together." Word of the controversial uniform spread in the community of Afghan women both at home and abroad. Maihan Wali, an activist with the Global Citizen and Global Changemakers organization who is currently a senior at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, voiced her protest on social media, staying up until 4 a.m. when she learned of the protest, on Tuesday, tweeting friends and brainstorming online on how to target the Afghan government to retreat. From London, Afghan writer Zuhra Bahman also began an online petition to oppose the uniform change. "Women need to be able to decide what they can or cannot wear, and that starts when they are in school," Wali said. Her intense drive to get the word out to protest was further driven by the knowledge that families needed to know as soon as possible whether they would be required to buy new clothes for their children for the new school year. "We had to take action as fast as possible" in order to prevent families from "suffering economically by starting to buy these clothes," she said. Not everyone can afford to buy new clothes every year, and it would cost a lot." Then on March 16 the government backtracked, issuing a statement that read: "President Ghani says the new school uniform which was announced by the Ministry of Education is not representative of the culture and tradition of the [Afghan] people ... He has directed the Ministry of Education to work on a new design that is affordable together with a nationally representative group of teachers, parents and students." At that point, Sohaili called off the protest. But she's definitely going to keep an eye on the pending uniform design. Diane Cole writes for many publications, inc |
Worm Resurgence Troubles Apple Farmers | Organic apple farmers keep their fruit free of worms by spraying their trees with a naturally occuring virus. But insects in some orchards in Germany have developed resistance to this biological insecticide and farmers are concerned. |
Daredevil And Credulity | This week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, NPR Monkey See's Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson, and Margaret H. Willison discuss the new Netflix superhero series Daredevil. Then they'll discuss credulity — specifically, how difficult it can be to enjoy a piece of pop culture when you know a lot about its subject. All that, plus What's Making Us Happy this week. |
'Before I Forget' A Poignant Memoir | The first thing you see in Before I Forget, the extraordinary new film by Jacques Nolot, is a perfect black circle on an expanse of white screen that slowly expands until it fills the frame with shadow. A symbol of death? A bodily orifice? A black hole of memory? Pure formalism? A hint of where the movie will end, in the hallway of a sex club in Pigalle? All of the above? It's an oblique way to start a bracingly direct film. With steely nerve and mordant wit, Before I Forget presents an unflinching portrait of a former hustler (Nolot as Pierre) now in middle age, HIV positive, and negotiating the financial and emotional legacies of several generations of gay men. Following his enigmatic curtain raiser, Nolot stares long and hard at ... himself. Waking at 4 a.m., he staggers to the bathroom, vomits, pops a pill, shuffles naked to the kitchen, his wrinkled paunch and shrunken genitals exposed, makes coffee, smokes a cigarette, and sits down to write. Nolot claims the film is highly autobiographical. It is, in any case, highly uninhibited about the blunt facts of life: sex, the body, money, aging. The episodic plot revolves around three themes: Pierre's reluctance to start an anti-retroviral therapy after 24 years with HIV; the recent death of his longtime client, with the attendant legal and psychological matters concerning his estate; and his relationships — explicitly sexual but more invested in affection — with a new generation of handsome young men for hire. On one hand, Before I Forget is classic French arthouse: a keenly observed sociocultural snapshot, rich of character and psychological insight. On the other, it's a dazzling original, breaking new ground in its depiction of gay middle age — a subject all but untouched by the movies outside the homo-minstrelsy of The Birdcage and its ilk. Nolot upends the gay cinema's love affair with the hustler mystique, decimating its clichés by thinking through its practical (as opposed to romantic) mechanisms. But it's the tone of the film that most impresses: dry but not detached, trenchantly funny and brutally frank, heartfelt without a scrap of sentimentality. "Those were the toilets I used to cruise with Roland Barthes," Pierre reminisces over lunch. (Nolot was, in fact, a lover of the famous philosopher.) You'll not soon forget this one. |
TIFF '12: Sex, Kindness, And Polio In 'The Sessions' | [Monkey See will be at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) through the middle of next week. We'll be bringing you our takes on films both large and small, from people both well-known and not.] I'll say this: The Sessions is probably the most lighthearted movie about sex and polio you'll see this year. Based on the true story of writer Mark O'Brien, who lived many years in an iron lung after having polio as a child, The Sessions begins by explaining a life that relies more conspicuously than most on help from others. O'Brien, beautifully played by John Hawkes, relies on a series of assistants for all of his daily needs; as he explains, he's not paralyzed exactly, but he's immobilized by muscles that don't work well and so lives on his back on a gurney. After he writes an article about sex and the disabled (he types with a pencil in his mouth), he realizes that while he's always assumed he would always remain a virgin, that might not be the case. But finding a partner isn't easy, and after seeking advice from his priest and friend (William H. Macy), he finds a sex surrogate — a person who essentially performs a kind of sex therapy that includes the actual having of sex. His surrogate, Cheryl (Helen Hunt), explains that she's very different from a prostitute (a question the priest asked) for a very simple reason: a prostitute wants repeat business, while she will only see him as a client six times. The limitation makes some sense if the intention is to avoid attachments that blur the therapist/client relationship in this obviously fraught setting, but it also adds a poignant sense of limitation to their meetings that mirrors the way he feels about his life in general. Candidly, it might seem sad that a man would find experience with physical intimacy in this way, but in fact, what takes a while to get used to is the film's lightheartedness. The early discussions between Hawkes and Macy are played largely for laughs — Macy can't not get laughs when his big, open face is called upon to respond to something as surprising to a priest as a request for official religious approval to pay someone to have sex with you outside of marriage. There are times when it seems like the attitude toward O'Brien might be a little too glib, the emphasis too much on how funny the idea of a sex surrogate sounds to some of the people with whom he discusses it. The critical turn is the appearance of Hunt's character. Helen Hunt is among the many actors whose Oscar wins — hers was for As Good As It Gets — don't open the door to a world of opportunity the way you might hope. But she's absolutely marvelous in this film, and as Hunt plays her, Cheryl is warm and professional, always a therapist even as she and Mark bond in ways that confound them a little. There are some great moments early in their relationship in which she explains what the ground rules are, and Hunt deserves a lot of credit for making those explanations sound friendly and caring but dead serious and boundary-setting. Once Cheryl appears, the film never again threatens to cross over into finding Mark's sexuality itself funny — the sex is sometimes funny, as sex sometimes is, and the conversation about it is often very funny. But Cheryl's frankness and kindness give a little weight to the story that helps balance the broad comedy of Mark's visits to church to explain how it's going. The performances are uniformly terrific — Hawkes and Hunt are marvelous, Macy is a lot of fun, and there's a great supporting turn from Moon Bloodgood, who plays Mark's assistant, Vera. The Sessions, written and directed by Ben Lewin, is not as surprising as some of the other material playing at the festival when it comes to tone. It's being distributed by Fox Searchlight, and I described it to someone last night as very "Fox Searchlight-y." That only means anything to you if you follow the kinds of smaller box-office, bigger buzz films that win a lot of American awards these days, but all it means is that there's a mix of warmth and humor and sadness that's very crowd-pleasing for a certain kind of crowd. (It won an audience award at Sundance, if that helps explain what I mean.) But that doesn't take anything away from what a fine piece of work it is, or how certain I am that Hawkes, at the very least, will be in the Oscar mix. The Sessions opens in limited release in the United States on October 26. |
Despite Heightened Security, France Struggles To Cope With Terrorism | The vacation city of Nice has hundreds of police surveillance cameras posted across the city. But that didn't stop Thursday's truck attack that killed 84 people and injured more than 200. Security officials in France are struggling to find the right way to counter lone-wolf attacks and make people feel safe. |
A Black Man in a Dress: No Laughing Matter | Throughout the years black comedians have donned a dress to get a laugh. A hulking figure in heels makes for an absurd, and by extension, comical image, but at what cost? |
Fending off Foreclosures with Penny Auctions | During the Great Depression, farmers in the Midwest held "penny auctions" to stave off foreclosures. As the nation faces turmoil in the housing market, Andrea Seabrook talks with Hy Berman, a history professor at the University of Minnesota, about what can be learned from this strategy. ANDREA SEABROOK, host: This past week, President Bush unveiled his plan to deal with the subprime mortgage crisis. And he explained why he supports the government becoming involved in changing contractual agreements between lenders and borrowers. President GEORGE W. BUSH: The rise in foreclosures would have negative consequences for our economy. Lenders and investors would have faced enormous losses. So they have an interest in supporting mortgage counseling and working with homeowners to prevent foreclosure. The government has a role to play as well. SEABROOK: Undertones of Mr. Bush's speech harkened back to one given by a governor of New York - Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, just months before he was elected to the White House. (Soundbite of archived speech) President FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: And it is a sad fact that even though the local lender in many cases does not want to evict the farmer or the homeowner by foreclosure proceedings, he is forced to do that in order to keep his bank or his company solvent. Here, here should be an objective of government itself, to provide at least as much assistance to the little fellow as it is now giving to the large banks and corporations. SEABROOK: Roosevelt spoke as a foreclosure crisis was expanding in the Midwest. But many of these farmers didn't have the patience to wait for government help to keep their farms. They often took matters into their own hands, sometimes using intimidation tactics. Hy Berman taught history at the University of Minnesota. He joins me now to talk about how Americans of a different era solved a mortgage crisis. Welcome. Professor HY BERMAN (History, University of Minnesota): Thank you. SEABROOK: Set the scene for us, if you will, sir. Let's focus on Minnesota. We know about the stock market crash of 1929. But how did the foreclosure crisis make it to the Corn Belts in the Great Depression? Prof. BERMAN: Well, the foreclosure crisis was primarily a rural crisis in that time. And, of course, it had a profound impact on the state - not only its economy but its social structure, its political life and so on. The governor of the state then Floyd B. Olson, a Farmer-Labor governor, issued an executive order stopping all mortgage foreclosures. He declared a moratorium on mortgage foreclosure. Obviously, this led to some strange reactions on the part of the public - some calling him a Bolshevik, but others calling him a great hero. But it was very popular. And the state legislature, when it came into session, was compelled to back the governor by making what he did legal. SEABROOK: It seems like that would not play well in the banking system. Prof. BERMAN: No. Oh, the banking community didn't receive it all. I mean, they are the ones that called him Bolshevik, socialist, radical. But, basically, the mortgage foreclosure moratorium was, in fact, in place for a number of years and did rescue some of the farm communities and some of the farmers themselves. SEABROOK: Professor Berman, I understand there was something called the Farm Holiday Association. What was that? Prof. BERMAN: Well, the Farm Holiday Association were a group of farmers that organized themselves as a militant and activist group. They intended to use the model of the labor movement and have their militant tactics as a means of solving the farm crisis. SEABROOK: Were they farmers? Prof. BERMAN: Yeah. The farmers felt that since workers withheld their labor and was able to strike in order to gain some advantages - although, they weren't gaining too many at that time - they felt that the best way for them to function was to stop the shipment of farmed products to the market. But the major relevance of the Farm Holiday Association to the present crisis has to do with the institution of what they called penny auctions. When farms were foreclosed in those days, they were foreclosed by the bank, and the bank immediately established some kind of auction to sell off the assets. And the Farm Holiday Association organized farmers to come en masse to these auctions and to bid one cent, two cents, three cents, three bids as a legal auction. They took with them various weapons of persuasion - pitchforks, hunting rifles, knives - and were able to compel the success of the penny auction so much so that auctions were often stopped in mid-stream before they could go any further. SEABROOK: How did the Minnesota state officials react to these vigilante auctions? Prof. BERMAN: Most Minnesotans reacted at that time in a very positive way. Remember that the major impact of the Great Depression on the people of Minnesota was, in fact, almost universal. So there was a great deal of sympathy for the fa |
Security Tightens In Baghdad As Deadline Looms | Security tightened in Baghdad on Sunday as the deadline for U.S. combat troops to leave Iraq's cities draws near. This major transition is supposed to happen by Tuesday, but with a series of deadly insurgent attacks around the country, some are wondering if Iraqi forces are up to the challenge. |
China Interference Report | One of China's most prominent scholars shows the many ways China's Communist Party is attempting to influence and infiltrate American government, society, and economy. |
Barber Goes Beyond a Shave and a Cut | Customers who first walk into San Francisco's MR. looking for a shave and a haircut may think they've come to the wrong place, at first. Instead of men reclining with towels under their chins, a more likely sight is young female executives sipping wine on leather sofas. Then again, MR. is not your typical barber shop. Female bartenders and hostesses in short black skirts mix among the clientele. The shampoo stations are tucked away in the back, and the barber chairs are up on the balcony. MR. provides high-end grooming services for men with a luxurious touch, such as scalp massages and straight razor shaves. A cut or a shave goes for $65. Men can also choose from three tiers of monthly membership. Proprietors Kumi Walker and Sean Heywood, both graduates of Stanford's business school, want to cultivate a taste for luxurious grooming services among regular guys, much as Starbucks created a taste for pricier espresso drinks among regular coffee drinkers. Walker and Heywood plan to open new MR. locations in cities across the U.S. MADELEINE BRAND, host: This is DAY TO DAY from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand. ALEX COHEN, host: And I'm Alex Cohen. Shave and a haircut - two bits. But how much if you throw in a nice glass of Cabernet? In San Francisco, two savvy Stanford Business School grads have launched a hybrid barbershop/wine bar. It's called MR. Deirdre Kennedy reports. DEIRDRE KENNEDY: Walk through the bright red doors of MR. looking for a shave and a haircut and you might think at first you're in the wrong place. Instead of men reclining with towels under their chins, you're more likely to see young female executives sipping wine on leather sofas. Stephanie Choy is a senior analyst for consumer strategy with Banana Republic. She and her friends say they come to MR. for the ambience and to network. Ms. STEPHANIE CHOY (Senior Analyst for Consumer Strategy, Banana Republic): Not your normal meat market, you know, downtown bar. It's a relaxed, classy environment, and it's got people getting their haircut, which is kind of different. I've actually never been to men's barbershop before. KENNEDY: But then, MR. isn't your typical barbershop. Female bartenders and hostesses in short, black skirts mix among the clientele. The shampoo stations are tucked away in the back and the barber chairs are up on the balcony. Barber Nick Calveny(ph) is trimming a customer upstairs. Nick's left forearm gleams with a fresh tattoo: a pair of crossed scissors and a comb. His client, Michael Waxman(ph) says it's his first time having a haircut in a bar full of women. Mr. MICHAEL WAXMAN: I just felt a little weird, you know, basically walking through a bar wearing a barber's, you know, mop over myself. But I think that at the end of the day, though, it definitely makes it better. KENNEDY: MR. provides high-end grooming services for men with a luxurious touch, like scalp massages and straight-razor shave. A cut or a shave goes for $65. Men can also choose from three tiers of monthly membership that provide additional services and privileges. Proprietors Kumi Walker and Sean Heywood are aiming to cultivate a taste for high-priced haircuts among regular guys, much as Starbucks created a taste for high-priced espresso drinks among regular coffee drinkers. Sean Heywood. Mr. SEAN HEYWOOD (Owner, MR.): Regardless of whether you be Republican or Democrat or independent, or whether you like jazz, hip-hop or R&B, whether you are black, white, Latino or Asian, all men get haircuts. They all love great hospitality and they all love being in nice environments. KENNEDY: Growing up, they were both impressed by the important social role barbershops had. They were places where men exchanged wisdom on everything from politics to women. Walker's own dad was a barber. Mr. KUMI WALKER (Owner, MR.): Historically, barbers were these people who had all the information in the communities. They were the first surgeons in the world. So they have a great history, but what we are really trying to do is redefine what barbering is like today. So we're taking a very important role in the barber and putting it into a very modern context. KENNEDY: MR.'s modern context is made up of Internet portals and a big screen TV playing CNN and ESPN so customers can stay plugged in to the global community while they're at the club. But is a younger generation of men ready to pay for the pampering experience? Professor Priya Raghubir, an expert in consumer psychology at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, thinks so. Professor PRIYA RAGHUBIR (Consumer Psychology, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business): I think it's overdue. I think men are increasingly recognizing that they have similar needs as women do in terms of finding a place to get together with likeminded individuals and get a little pampered at a time while they follow their interests. KENNEDY: Raghubir says it still may be a while for regular guys to catch up with the metrosexual men who are alr |
Supreme Court Justices � They're Just Like Us! | I know I hated picture day at school, but these guys must really loathe it. We understand after this photo was taken, the court issued a five to four ruling that the camera was over there. However, writing in his dissent, Justice Alito said the camera seemed to be slowly sneaking up from the right. |
U.S.-Led Forces Fight Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq | U.S. forces and their allies are now battling armed insurgents in several areas of Iraq. As Marines try to subdue violence in the so-called Sunni triangle, Shiite militia forces, loyal to firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, continue to mount attacks in southern Iraq. Hear NPR's Melissa Block and NPR's Philip Reeves. |
Flu Vaccine Study Prompts Caution In Canada | Canadian provincial authorities are rethinking flu shots because of data that link getting a seasonal flu shot to an increased risk of contracting a mild case of swine flu. Helen Branswell, medical reporter for the <em>Canadian Press</em>, says though not many people have seen the data, the numbers have become a part of the discussion in the public health community. |
After Security Breach, PlayStation Users Can't Connect | For the past week, one of the most popular parts of Sony's PlayStation hasn't been working. Millions of gamers used to playing against each other online have not been able to connect. Sony says that its network has been hacked and personal information — possibly including credit card information — has been compromised. |
What If We Don't Raise The Debt Ceiling? | This week the White House has been lobbying Congress to raise the $14.3 trillion federal debt ceiling. Doing so would give the government the legal authority to borrow billions of dollars to pay its bills. Although refusing to raise the ceiling would be an almost unprecedented move, some conservatives argue it's the only way to get federal spending under control. The Treasury Department says that if the limit isn't raised by Aug. 2, the government will run out of money to operate. No one can say for sure what would happen at that point. Suddenly, the government would have to pick and choose what to pay. For one, it could default by delaying interest payments on money it's borrowed in the past. Bill Gross, managing director of the bond investing firm PIMCO, says "it would be catastrophic." Gross says the federal government's debt plays a central role in world finance and trade, and doing anything to undermine that is unthinkable. "It could have systemic importance, which is the same thing as saying we could have not a repeat but certainly a similar episode to Lehman Brothers in 2008," Gross says. The collapse of the Wall Street giant sent panic throughout the world's financial markets. Default No Longer Unthinkable Like a lot of people, Gross believes the debt ceiling dispute will be resolved and he doesn't think the government would ever let a default happen. But it's no longer as unthinkable as it once was. Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller recently made headlines when he argued that a default might be worth the pain it would cause because it would force the government to tackle its debt problems. Economist James Ramsey of New York University says there's something to that argument. "[As Samuel] Johnson said about hanging, it concentrates the mind wonderfully," Ramsey says. "I would say if we were in a position of not being able to pay our debts in the short term, it would concentrate the politicians' minds dramatically." Ramsey says from the point of view of bond investors, the debt ceiling is pretty much irrelevant anyway. "The real issue is how people refer to our seriousness of purpose in terms of meeting our obligations," he says. "That's the real issue — not whether or not you've raised the debt ceiling." Keep Ceiling, Cut Spending Still, the possibility of a default is a very scary prospect to most people in the markets. Some Republican senators recently argued in a letter to the White House that just talking about a default amounts to scare tactics on the administration's part. If the debt ceiling isn't raised, they say, Washington would have other options — like not paying federal employees. Assistant Treasury Secretary Mary Miller says that would have wide ramifications. "We would have to stop making payments to a number of constituents, obviously, people who work for the government, people in the military, retirees, vendors," she says. Because the government employs so many people, not paying them — even temporarily — would have a huge impact on the economy and might tip the U.S. back into recession, Miller says. And if the stalemate went on long enough, politicians might have to choose between paying Social Security recipients and angering the bond market. No one can be sure which choice they would make. Former Federal Reserve member Alan Blinder says a standoff would take a toll on U.S. credibility in the bond market. He says investors around the world could get the impression that threatening a default is now part of partisan politics in the United States. "That can't be good," Blinder says. "That cannot be good for maintaining our position as the A+, number one debtor in the world, a position we've held for a very, very long time." Like a lot of people, Blinder believes Congress will ultimately resolve the debt-ceiling dispute. The risk is that investors will be left with the nagging suspicion the U.S. government's debt isn't quite as safe as they once believed. And that would have a ripple effect not just in the U.S. economy, but around the world. MICHELE NORRIS, host: This week, the White House has been lobbying Congress to raise the federal debt ceiling. Doing so would give the government the legal authority to borrow more money - hundreds of billions of dollars more - that it needs to pay its bills. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling would be an almost unprecedented move. But some conservatives argue that it's the only way to get federal spending under control. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports. JIM ZARROLI: The Treasury Department says that if the debt ceiling isn't raised by August 2nd, the government will run out of money to operate. No one can say for sure what would happen at that point. Suddenly, the government would have to pick and choose what to pay. For instance, it could delay interest payments on money it's borrowed in the past, a default. Mr. BILL GROSS (Managing Director , PIMCO): I think it would be catastrophic. ZARROLI: Bill Gross, managing director of the bond in |
Justice Department Pledges To Crack Down On Wall Street Fraud | Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates outlined the department's new efforts to hold individuals responsible in corporate fraud cases in a speech at New York University Law School Thursday. |
An Ivy League Education at an Affordable Price | Thanks to Ama for suggesting we take another look at this story: "Please highlight the Stanford, Yale and Harvard tuition story. The word needs to get out that a great education can be had at those institutions without mortgaging your future." Last week, Stanford University announced it would waive tuition for students from families that make less than $100,000 a year. It follows similar announcements from Harvard and Yale. It's not like these wealthy institutions can't afford to be charitable; Harvard, for instance, boasts an endowment of $34.6 billion. For all the talk about the importance diversity, socioeconomic diversity is often overlooked at some of the nation's top-rated colleges and universities. But the now unseen consequences may soon be felt at the nation's historically blacks colleges and universities, as top talent -- who may have considered attending a Howard, Spelman or Morehouse for financial reasons -- instead choose to attend a Dartmouth, Yale, or Harvard. So two questions: what will be the impact of these tuition reductions/waivers, and how can HBCUs remain viable options for the nation's top students? UPDATE (2/26/08): Brown Ends Tuition for Lower-Income |
Legalizing Marijuana: It Changes Policing, But May Leave Racial Disparities | Lake Merritt in Oakland, Calif., is a mecca for joggers and families out with their strollers. Along with the smell of sweat and goose poop, weed is an equally present aroma. Police seemingly take a "light up and let live" attitude here. But Nashanta Williams, who's out walking her dog, says it's not like this in other parts of the city. "I have been pulled over and been told that my car smells like marijuana and put on the sidewalk and had my vehicle searched," Williams says. "And I felt like they were fishing." California is one of five states this year where marijuana legalization is on the ballot. Washington and Colorado paved the way for making recreational pot legal back in 2012. Since then marijuana arrests have plunged in Washington. They've also gone down in Colorado, but not by as much. This raises the question, what is the effect of legalizing marijuana on policing? It was two years ago when Williams got pulled over. She was driving in East Oakland, down High Street (no joke). Williams says in those African-American neighborhoods, people get profiled. "Back then I drove a '94 Buick, so I think the stereotype falls into play: 'old car, smells like weed, what has she got going on?' "she says. Defense Attorney James Clark's office window looks down on the lake. He says this "stop and smell" practice happens across the state. In California, the smell of marijuana gives police probable cause to search someone's entire vehicle. If cops find something bigger - guns, stolen property - Clark says that can turn a traffic stop into a felony. "You can imagine that if you're trying to advance your career by searching cars along the freeway, that this is a tool that would be difficult to resist passing up," Clark says. Both Clark and Nashanta Williams are wondering, if recreational pot gets legalized in California, could that be the end of this "stop and smell" practice? Meanwhile, in Washington state, there have been some changes in policing since the legalization of recreational marijuana. Patrol sergeant Nate Hovinghoff has been with the Washington State Patrol for 11 years and works along the scenic Columbia River Gorge dividing Washington and Oregon, another state that recently legalized pot. "Prior to legalization in Washington state, odor alone was enough to arrest," Hovinghoff says. If Hovinghoff pulled over a vehicle, say, for speeding and smelled marijuana, that gave him license to investigate further. "In my experience as a trooper, probably 90 percent of my felony arrests, they started with the odor of marijuana," he says. But once pot was legalized in Washington state, the rules of engagement changed. "Now when I stop a vehicle and I go up and I smell marijuana, if they're 21 years or over it doesn't mean automatically a crime's occurred," Hovinghoff explains. He says as long as the driver of the car is compliant with the law and not impaired, and that's key, it's basically, "Have a nice day." But folks like Nashanta Williams aren't convinced that it will go down like that in California. The state already has liberal marijuana laws, but Williams doesn't think everyone will get a fair shake if pot is formally legalized. "What do I know will happen is they will use it as an in and probably try to harass whatever person of color is smoking in the park. Because what is legal for one is not necessarily what's legal for all," Williams says. In fact, recent data from police stops in Oakland show that African-Americans are more likely than whites to be searched, handcuffed, and arrested. That question of disparity is very much on the minds of researchers who are tracking the effects of marijuana legalization. Mike Males is with the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. He released a study earlier this year that's been widely cited. It shows that while marijuana arrests dropped dramatically in Washington state, African-Americans are still two times more likely to be arrested for marijuana-related offenses. "So there's still a large racial discrepancy. It doesn't solve that. It does reduce the overall impact of marijuana arrests, but it doesn't change the racial discrepancy as much," Males says. The bottom line, says Males: "If one of the goals is to reduce marijuana-related arrests then legalization appears to accomplish that." But it may not resolve disparities in how the law is enforced or applied. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Marijuana legalization is on the ballot in five states this year, but it's been legal in Washington and Colorado for four years. With voters in other states facing this choice, we wanted to look at how policing is changing in a state that legalized marijuana. Austin Jenkins of the Northwest News Network in Olympia, Wash., and April Dembosky of member station KQED in San Francisco bring us this report. APRIL DEMBOSKY, BYLINE: I'm taking a walk around Lake Merritt in Oakland. Joggers are passing me on the right, and I dodge a couple strollers on the left. Along with the smell of sweat an |
Steve Coleman: 'Harvesting' Funky, Brainy Jazz | As a composer, Steve Coleman has been heavily influenced by James Brown's funk. You wouldn't mistake Coleman's band Five Elements for the J.B.'s, but like the Godfather of Soul, he goes in for fast, jittery beats. On Coleman's new album, Harvesting Semblances and Affinities, Five Elements is powered by a rhythm duo who sync up in a few bands: bassist Thomas Morgan and drum phenom Tyshawn Sorey. Steve Coleman has always connected with singers. Coming up in the 1980s, he worked with the veteran Abbey Lincoln and fellow newcomer Cassandra Wilson. Jen Shyu's role is slippery here. She's not quite out front and not quite fully aligned with the sextet's three horns. Her main feature is the one non-original tune, Coleman's setting of a choral work by Danish composer Per Nørgård. He's an influence on Coleman's own arcane ways of developing material -- like dipping into the so-called undertone series, which is basically the natural overtone series turned upside down. Don't ask me to explain it, but you can find out more about the undertone series here and how Coleman uses it here. If Steve Coleman's music sounds a little chilly sometimes, it's because he's more interested in compositional logics than setting a mood. That's okay; there's room for all kinds of approaches. That adapted choral music prompts us to see Coleman as a composer of modern art songs. His pieces often revolve around looping phrases or recurring patterns that overlap or seep into each other. It's the West African drum-choir principle: Wheels within wheels can keep rolling indefinitely. Because Steve Coleman generates his own musical rules, he's had to school musicians in his organizing principles, and his band includes younger players open and smart enough to keep up with the concepts. His new album was actually recorded in 2006, and the musicians involved have already gone on to apply his lessons elsewhere. Drummer Tyshawn Sorey, trombonist Tim Albright and the fine trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson all play in Steve Lehman's octet, with its own complex procedures. Coleman has also influenced a host of younger saxophone players. He doesn't just make music that's brainy and funky; he also helps shape players who develop things still further on their own. That's really giving something back to the music. (Soundbite of music) TERRY GROSS, host: Saxophonist and composer Steve Coleman has been a major force in jazz since the 1980s. A nurturer of young musicians and a composer whose diverse influences include serial procedures derived from modern European composers and the counterpunch rhythms of boxer Floyd Joy Mayweather, Jr. Coleman's first album in several years with his band Five Elements has been released. Jazz critic, Kevin Whitehead like it. (Soundbite of song, "Attila 04 (Closing Ritual)") KEVIN WHITEHEAD: As a composer, Steve Coleman has been heavily influenced by James Brown's funk. You wouldn't mistake Coleman's band Five Elements for the J.B.'s, but like the Godfather of Soul, he goes in for fast, jittery beats. On Coleman's new album, "Harvesting Semblances and Affinities," Five Elements is powered by a rhythm duo who sync up in a few bands: bassist Thomas Morgan and drum phenom Tyshawn Sorey. (Soundbite of song, "Beba") Ms. JEN SHYU (Vocalist): (Scatting) WHITEHEAD: Jen Shyu on vocals. Steve Coleman has always connected with singers. Coming up in the 1980s, he worked with the veteran Abbey Lincoln and fellow newcomer Cassandra Wilson. Shyu's role is slippery here. She's not quite out front and not quite fully aligned with the sextet's three horns. Her main feature is the one non-original tune, Coleman's setting of a choral work by Danish composer Per Norgard. He's an influence on Coleman's own arcane ways of developing material like dipping into the so-called undertone series, which is basically the natural overtone series turned upside down. Don't ask me to explain it. (Soundbite of music) Ms. SHYU: (Singing) (Foreign language spoken) WHITEHEAD: If Steve Coleman's music sounds a little chilly sometimes, it's because he's more interested in compositional logics than setting a mood. That's okay, there's room for all kinds of approaches. That adapted choral music prompts us to see Coleman as a composer of contemporary art songs. His pieces often revolve around looping phrases or recurring patterns that overlap or seep into each other. It's the West African drum-choir principle - wheels within wheels can keep rolling indefinitely. (Soundbite of music) WHITEHEAD: Because Steve Coleman generates his own musical rules, he's had to school musicians in his organizing principles, and his band includes younger players open and smart enough to keep up with the concepts. His new album was actually recorded in 2006, and the musicians involved have already gone on to apply his lessons elsewhere. Drummer Tyshawn Sorey, trombonist Tim Albright and the fine trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson all play in Steve Lehman's octet, with its own complex p |
'Grand Bargain' Will Help Save Detroit — And Its Art | A federal judge in Detroit ruled favorably on the city's "grand bargain" on Friday, approving the city's exit from Bankruptcy. We look at the role foundations played in bringing it about and the Foundation for Detroit's Future, which will be set up in the wake of the verdict. |
Hitch A Ride! We've Got Road Trip Reads For Every Passenger | Who needs destinations? This summer, we're focusing on the journey. All these books — some old, some new — will transport you: by train, plane, car, bike, boat, foot, city transit, horse, balloon, rocket ship, time machine and even the odd giant peach. Bon voyage! (Taxes and fees not included). |
Expanding The Guestworker Program | NPR's Peter Kenyon reports on the debate in Congress regarding Mexican farmworkers who help harvest U.S. crops. Some lawmakers want the guestworker program expanded...others say the system exploits the immigrants. |
Dear Class Of 2012: Some Of Your Worst Days Lie Ahead | Planet Money pal Charlie Wheelan has a nice piece in the WSJ under the headline "10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won't Tell You." Here's one that rings true: Some of your worst days lie ahead. Graduation is a happy day. But my job is to tell you that if you are going to do anything worthwhile, you will face periods of grinding self-doubt and failure. Be prepared to work through them. I'll spare you my personal details, other than to say that one year after college graduation I had no job, less than $500 in assets, and I was living with an elderly retired couple. The only difference between when I graduated and today is that now no one can afford to retire. Other pearls include "Your parents don't want what's best for you," and "Don't try to be great." Read the whole thing here. |
Is A Bailout Coming For Strained State Economies? | The pandemic has ravaged state and city budgets across the country, and revenues are sharply down at a time when public services are needed more than ever. Should the federal government help shore up state budgets? Guests Kimberly Atkins, WBUR senior news correspondent. (@KimberlyEAtkins) Michael Leachman, senior director of state fiscal research at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. (@leachma2) From The Reading List Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “States Need Significantly More Fiscal Relief to Slow the Emerging Deep Recession” by Michael Leachman, Elizabeth McNichol and Joshuah Marshall “States Need Significantly More Fiscal Relief to Slow the Emerging Deep Recession,” by Michael Leachman, Elizabeth McNichol and Joshuah Marshall. © 2020 Politico: “McConnell pushes ‘bankruptcy route’ as local governments struggle” — “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday insisted that flailing state and local governments should be able to ‘use the bankruptcy route’ rather than receive aid from the federal government — signaling renewed opposition to a top Democratic demand for the next coronavirus relief package.” The Hill: “Hogan pans McConnell support for states to declare bankruptcy: ‘I think he will regret it’” — “Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday for suggesting that states can declare bankruptcy amid the coronavirus pandemic as governors push for federal funding for state and local governments.” Financial Times: “Coronavirus threatens $500bn hole in US state budgets” — “The economic impact of shutting down local economies threatens to blow a $500bn hole in state tax revenues and force savage cuts to spending on education and other public services unless the federal government steps in with bailout funds.” Vox: “The case for a massive federal aid package for states and cities” — “The most immediate economic cost of the the coronavirus pandemic is obvious: At least 22 million Americans are newly unemployed, putting them and the people in their households at financial risk. But the downturn is having a secondary effect that could make the recession even worse. It’s forcing states and local governments to cut spending and raise taxes just at the moment when that would do the most damage.” ABC News: “Wash. governor calls Mitch McConnell’s suggestion states file for bankruptcy ‘nuts’” — “Washington Gov. Jay Inslee hopes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will retract a statement in which he said that states should consider filing for bankruptcy rather than asking the federal government for fiscal relief.” This article was originally published on WBUR.org. |
Thousands of Filipinos Desperate to Leave Lebanon | About 230 Filipino nationals have returned to their native country from Lebanon, with more returnees expected soon. Father Agustin Advincula talks with Noah Adams about the more than 30,000 Filipinos in Lebanon still waiting for evacuation. |
Time Warner's Dick Parsons Announces Departure | We've been following the impact of Fortune 500 black CEOs stepping down from their posts, pegged to the ouster of Merrill Lynch chief Stan O'Neal and rumors about Time Warner's Dick Parsons. Well, the speculation about Parsons' departure has been confirmed. According to financial news network CNBC, Parsons is stepping down as CEO of Time Warner but will stay on as chairman of the board -- though it's not clear for how long. These shake-ups aren't relegated to just black execs (Related: Citigroup CEO Quits), but what is the larger impact -- if any -- about O'Neal and Parsons' departure? More: Black Exec Roll Call |
Former Philadelphia 76ers' forward "Dr | 2: Former Philadelphia 76ers' forward "Dr. J" -- JULIUS ERVING. When he retired in 1987, ERVING was one of the highest scorers in professional basketball. He was elected to the Basketball Hall of FAme in 1993. ERVING wrote the foreword to "The Official NBA Basketball Encyclopedia, Second Edition" (Villard Books). (REBROADCAST from 11 |
The Challenge Facing L.A.'s Public-School Chief | Retired Admiral David Brewer takes the reins of the massive Los Angeles public schools. Brewer says he's ready to build skyscrapers on the foundation left by his predecessor. But Brewer faces some unique challenges as he tries to fix what's wrong -- and strengthen what's right -- with a troubled school district of more than 700,000 students. In a ceremony welcoming the new superintendent, Brewer, who has no formal education experience, gave thanks for his predecesor's six years of service. During that time, elementary test scores rose and the district built more than 60 new schools. But before the meeting was finished, Brewer got a taste of some of the district's more intractable problems: A busload of the city's teachers pulled up in front of district headquarters and dropped off a stack of complaints about overcrowded classrooms. ROBERT SIEGEL, host: In Los Angeles, retired Admiral David Brewer has taken the reins of that city's massive public school system. He says he's ready to build on what's right with the schools, but Brewer faces some unique challenges as he also tries to fix what's wrong in a troubled school district that's trying to educate more than 700,000 students. NPR's Carrie Kahn reports. (Soundbite of marching band) CARRIE KAHN: An elementary school's fife and drum corps marched into the L.A. Unified School Board auditorium the day retired Admiral David Brewer became superintendent. (Soundbite of applause) It was a familiar beat for an old military man, who told the audience that for more than three decades he'd sworn to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Admiral DAVID BREWER (Superintendent, L.A. Unified School System): I spent 36 years fighting that foreign enemy. I'm now here to fight that domestic enemy, that's crime, ignorance and poverty, and that's what I'm here for. KAHN: Brewer, who has no formal education experience, gave thanks for his predecessor's six years of service. During that time, elementary test scores rose, and the district built more than 60 new schools. Admiral BREWER: You have left me a great foundation. It is now my job to build skyscrapers on top of your foundation. KAHN: But the meeting hadn't even finished before Brewer was given a taste of some of the district's more intractable problems. A busload of L.A. teachers pulled up in front of district headquarters and dropped off a stack of complaints about overcrowded classrooms, and teacher's union president A.J. Duffing had a warning for Brewer. Mr. A.J. DUFFING (Teacher's Union): This is just the beginning of our mobilization to get a decent and fair contract and to get lower class sizes and to give teachers a meaningful share of decision making. This is just the beginning. KAHN: L.A. Unified's nearly 40,000 teachers have been working without a contract since July and say they'll strike if they don't get substantial pay increases. On top of all that, there's an ongoing court battle over Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plan to take control of the district's most troubled schools. A hearing in the case is set for next month. Outgoing superintendent Roy Romer says he never supported the mayor's takeover bid and isn't going to miss the fight. Mr. ROY ROMER (Former Superintendent, Los Angeles Unified Public Schools): It's all right. Somebody has to do it, but the admiral will do well. KAHN: Romer says the fact that Brewer is an outsider shouldn't be a problem. Before taking over as superintendent, Romer was the governor of Colorado and head of the Democratic Party. He looks back on his on the job training as a humbling experience. Mr. ROMER: And I mean that sincerely. This job is so important and it is so big and it is so difficult, you don't get proud. You get humbled. You say you know, it's really interesting how you've got to make this work. KAHN: Brewer says he'll make it work by focusing on L.A. schools' huge drop out problem and by helping the district's 35,000 students who are either homeless or in foster care. And he made a very public promise after visiting a South Central L.A. grade school. Admiral BREWER: I met, in 96 Elementary School, a future mayor of Los Angeles. KAHN: She's a fifth-grader named Diana Morales, and Brewer says he'll track her progress as long as he's superintendent. Admiral BREWER: Because I want to make sure that this system, this system, is going to maximize the potential of children like Diana, okay? That's my job. Unidentified Man: Breakfast area, let's hurry up. The bell's about to ring. Breakfast area. KAHN: Ninety-Sixth Street Elementary in Watts, where Diana goes to school, is one of L.A. Unified's bright spots. Test scores here have nearly doubled in the past five years. Diana impressed Brewer with a speech she memorized about how to be a better reader. She says she plans to study hard and go to college. Ms. DIANA MORALES: I want to study forensic scientists to be - to help, like, crime and stuff like that. KAHN: |
Edwards Bloggers Draw Unwanted Readers | Two bloggers working for former Sen. John Edwards' campaign resigned last week, after Christian political activists accused the duo of making anti-Catholic remarks in their personal blogs. One of those bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, speaks with Madeleine Brand. ALEX CHADWICK, host: And one way the Web has changed campaigning: The rise of bloggers. Just about every candidate has embraced this notion. Some staffs are even hiring professional bloggers. MADELEINE BRAND, host: John Edwards did, and he got into a bit of trouble. Last week two of Edwards' campaign bloggers resigned after comments they made on their personal blogs were criticized as anti-Catholic. I spoke with one of those bloggers, Amanda Marcotte. She says she was surprised that her personal blog got noticed at all. Ms. AMANDA MARCOTTE (former Edwards' campaign blogger): It just never even occurred to me that my profile could possibly be high enough to garner attention. BRAND: Well the campaign asked you not to post incendiary comments on your Web site. Then after John Edwards asked you not to write anything controversial you wrote about the movie "Children of Men" - you wrote that the Christian version of the virgin birth is generally interpreted as super patriarchal where God is viewed as so powerful he can impregnate without befouling himself by touching a woman. Ms. MARCOTTE: Yeah, and then the next part I talked about how I appreciated that the movie updated the myth and pointed out that it doesn't necessarily have to have a misogynist spin as it often traditionally has. I didn't think that was particularly controversial but my naiveté was forgetting that they are willing to take things completely out of context. BRAND: I wonder if it's just being on the other end of, I guess, the blogging lense if you will. Because I know a lot of people feel scorched by bloggers. So I wonder if you just experiencing something that maybe you or other bloggers inflict on a daily basis to other people. And it just didn't feel so great. Ms. MARCOTTE: Honestly, if I hadn't been on a campaign when all of the - this hate and abuse and insults started being flung at me I probably would have loved it. I — you know it was just that I didn't want to attract negativity towards my employer. BRAND: What do you learn from this? Maybe is it possible for these two worlds to mix or do they have to be kept separate? Ms. MARCOTTE: Well at the present time I think that there's certainly going to be growing pains and I think that you know the openness that the blogosphere, the personal political blogging community, has could be a very good influence on politics. I, I think that from here on out candidates are going to be very scared to hire bloggers that they think have anything about them personally that might seem like lightning rods. There's going to be a real problem going forward - if bloggers want to be hired by campaigns, they're going to have to either delete their blogs, or clean up their act, or ape the sort of language and manners of the D.C. media. The one thing about that - I don't think there's going to be too many that ever think that they will work for campaigns, so I don't think that's probably going to change the blogosphere in any significant way. BRAND: Well what do the campaigns lose and what do the voters lose? Ms. MARCOTTE: Campaigns lose an ability to reach out to that audience, for sure. And people who read political blogs are plugged in - there is no doubt. They're the kind of people that vote in primaries, they're the kind of people that knock on doors, they're the kind of people that give money. So you want that audience. BRAND: And now that you're back to running your personal Web log, Pandagon, are you going to write in support of the John Edwards campaign? Ms. MARCOTTE: I would never work for a candidate that wouldn't be the candidate that I'd vote for. You know he certainly still has my support. BRAND: Amanda Marcotte former blogger for the John Edwards campaign and now with Pandagon.net. Thanks for joining us. Ms. MARCOTTE: Thank you. (Soundbite of music) BRAND: Stay with us on DAY TO DAY from NPR News. |
FEMA's Expanded Responsibilities Questioned | The Federal Emergency Management Agency's focus was expanded after Sept. 11 to encompass terrorist attacks, along with its traditional field of natural disaster relief. Analysts discuss whether the change undermined FEMA's ability to respond to Hurricane Katrina. |
Christmas Puzzlement | I won't attempt to explore what Garrison Keillor's perplexing essay about Christmas is really saying -- suffice it to say that it caused an uproar on the web, and a small one at our meeting this morning. I don't know if Keillor actually dislikes "all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year," but either I don't agree with the sentiment or don't get the joke. I'm curious what others think, but if you're not interested in decoding it, try this gem -- a capsule biography of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas." What had inspired Berlin? As a Jewish youth in Brooklyn, he experienced Christmas as an outsider, at neighbors' homes. Some biographers suggest that the death of his infant son, Irving Jr., from a heart ailment on Christmas Eve 1928 sharpened his sad holiday associations. But Berlin loved Christmastime, hating only how his film work often made for holidays away from his family back East. In 1937 a movie-industry friend surprised him with a short film designed to cheer him. Shot in advance, it pictured Berlin's family waving to him from a wintry home, as snow fell outside. Mr. Furia suspects that Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" also might have influenced him, since the poem and song both use "the simplest of rhymes and barest of imagery to evoke a beautiful but melancholy scene." Jody Rosen writes that Berlin owes a debt to the poignant American "Home Songs" of Stephen Foster. Like Berlin, I too am a Jew that loves Christmastime -- Christian imagery 'n' all -- and though I am not "in the club" as he puts it, I will happily echo at least one of Keillor's wishes. Merry Christmas, my dears. |
Glucosamine, Chondroitin Don't Work For Arthritis | If you're looking for a hearty endorsement of chondroitin and glucosamine to relieve arthritis pain, you won't find it in clinical tests done so far. Some European researchers combed 58 different scientific papers to find the 10 strongest studies, then sliced and diced them to figure out whether the popular supplements work. The bottom line: No, but the supplements (or preparations, as these scientists like to call them) probably won't hurt you, either. So the researchers conclude, "we see no harm in having patients continue these preparations as long as they perceive a benefit and cover the costs of treatment themselves." Read More But the researchers also say people shouldn't start taking these supplements to treat arthritis, nor should insurers or governments pay for them. The results appear in the last issue of BMJ, the British Medical Journal. The work was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. If you are holding out hope the problem is that the studies done so far just haven't been good enough to detect a real, positive effect, this team has more cold water for you. "We believe it is unlikely that future trials will show a clinically relevant benefit of any of the evaluated preparations," they write. If there is one study to watch, the researchers say, it's LEGS, the Long-term Evaluation of Glucosamine Sulphate Study, being conducted by the University of Sydney. About 600 patients with knee pain are taking chondroitin, glucosamine, a combination or placebos. Results from the study, which doesn't have industry funding, should be out late next year. |
Web Extra: <em>More</em> On Zimbabwe's Crises | We want to bring you some more issues we tackled this week that we bumped in the wake of the news about Illinois pay-to-play scandal. Tell Me More has been following Zimbabwe's unfolding political and humanitarian crisis throughout the past year (including this interview with Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer). The latest of Zimbabwe's afflictions is a cholera epidemic -- an epidemic that President Robert Mugabe says is now contained. Many advocacy groups think otherwise and fear the outbreak will claim many more than the 800 lives already lost. Here's an interview with Frank Donoghue, the CEO of Physicians for Human Rights, who explains what cholera is and discusses the extent of the epidemic: We're working on following up on this story next week. We are also working on more coverage of these tough economic times. To be honest with you, we had actually already planned to cover the issue of churches and other religious institutions having to lay people off because of tough economic times even before we got our own bad news. We were weighing it against a story about the split in the Anglican Church, and another story about the ongoing issue of how churches view same-sex marriage and civil unions, and what the Scriptural instructions are. We were weighing availability of guests and all that, and that's how it came out. And, yes we are planning some holiday cheer- we need some! We'll come up with some. And we still need your suggestions about parenting books that made a difference to you. We want to talk more about books next week in our moms segment. We're also trying to sort ourselves for inauguration coverage. The logistics are no joke. We have to figure out how to get any guests we may want to invite into our studios or offsite locations on a day when millions of extra folks, I mean, uh, welcome guests, are expected to be in town. Have a good weekend. We're going to nurse our bruised psyches. |
Touching Down For Midterms: 1 Week Away, Here Are Races To Watch | With Meghna Chakrabarti We’re closing in on the midterms. We’ll touch down for a look at key matchups, and what’s driving voters to the polls. Guests Janet Hook, national political reporter for the Wall Street Journal. (@hookjan) Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections, which provides nonpartisan campaign analysis. Political analyst for CNN and RollCall. (@nathanlgonzales) Stephen Fowler, political reporter for Georgia Public Broadcasting. (@stphnfwlr) Megan Messerly, political reporter for the Nevada Independent. (@meganmesserly) From The Reading List Inside Elections: “Republican Migraines and the Midterm Elections” — “Weather metaphors are often used (and overused) in election analysis, but there’s a better way to describe the Republicans’ challenge in 2018. The GOP is dealing with many headaches as it tries to preserve the Republican congressional majorities. “From tension to cluster to migraine, they can vary in frequency and severity. And Republicans’ ability to alleviate them will determine control of the House and Senate in the 116th Congress. “Whether it’s a presidential pain in the neck, the large number of open seats, stellar Democratic fundraising, unprepared incumbents or turnout, the pressures are numerous. “That’s in addition to lingering misery from the unexpectedly competitive special elections and the weight of poor historical midterm results for the president’s party.” Georgia Public Broadcasting: “Few Surprises In First Televised Georgia Governor Debate” — “A fire alarm going off a few minutes into the live debate for Georgia’s governor was probably the most unpredictable part of the night. It’s the first time the three candidates shared the stage ahead of the Nov. 6 election, and the candidates largely stuck to campaign talking points. “Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp reminded viewers about his plan to stop street gangs, Democrat Stacey Abrams continued her push for Medicaid expansion, and both major candidates sparred over voting rights in the election.” The Nevada Independent: “Sanders urges Nevada progressives to support Rosen to end ‘one-party rule’ in Washington, D.C.” — “U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had a message for Nevada progressives facing a midterm election with a relatively moderate slate of Democratic candidates: Your beliefs don’t mean anything unless you vote. “At two rallies on Thursday in Reno and Las Vegas, Sanders urged young people, who he referred to as the ‘most progressive generation in the history of America,’ and other acolytes to get involved politically in a year that Democrats are fighting for every vote in an attempt to wrest control of a U.S. Senate seat and the Governor’s Mansion from Republicans. Sanders’ message at both rallies — which touched on frequent themes from his 2016 presidential campaign including a single-payer health-care system, free college tuition and a $15 minimum wage — was a departure from the relatively moderate message Democrats in the state have been preaching on the trail.” |
Foreign Policy: Remembering Irving Kristol | I just saw the sad news that Irving Kristol passed away Friday afternoon at the age of 89. I had the pleasure of working at the two magazines that Irving was best known for — first at The National Interest and then very briefly at The Public Interest. By the time I showed up, Irving had long since ended his day-to-day involvement in both (he was never as much involved in the NI as he was in the PI), but I did have a chance to meet him on a few occasions when he came into the office for lunch with the staff. My memory, to my everlasting shame, is mostly that of a dumb young kid running his yap, overeager to engage with and impress the founder of the place, and him smiling and listening politely, arguing with me and asking me questions, but never doing what he should have done, which was told me to go sit quietly in the corner and color. Others will have far better, and more personal, recollections of Irving Kristol. I knew him mainly through his writings and my brief time working in the institutions he built. For a young person fresh out of college, there was nothing quite like coming to work at the "Kristol palace," as the editors used to call both magazines. It was a four-day work week with lunches on the house — from which came the joke, pretty antiquated by the time I got there, that we were dedicated to fighting socialism in the world while practicing it in the office. A professor of mine even tells the story of a student of his looking for a job that he sent to see Irving, who promptly met with him and talked with him for awhile, liked him, but didn't have anything to offer him. So he told the kid to put down on his resume that he'd worked for Irving for six months, and if anyone brought it up, he would happily serve as a reference. As someone who actually got to work at Irving's magazines, I'd say it was about as close to a "workers' paradise" as we're ever likely to get. As a 22-year-old assistant editor, I was expected to handle magazine business from Monday to Thursday (which mainly consisted of reading and talking with my colleagues about policy, history, philosophy, culture, and everything in between), but I was then expected to use those remaining three days to do my own work, write my own articles, publish under my own name, and however the magazine could help me do that, it would. That had been Irving's policy for decades, and it remained as much a mission of each magazine as what was published quarterly in its pages. The roster of significant (and diverse) thinkers who got their start because of Irving's investment in his young staff — from Bob Kagan, to Michael Lind, to Mark Lilla, to many others — is as worthy a legacy as what he achieved through the countless articles he wrote himself and published from others. And that achievement was nothing less than the revitalization, indeed the redefinition, of conservative thinking in America. It would be a poor tribute indeed for me to prattle on about Irving's work and that of his magazines. Far better for the interested reader to start with this selection of Irving's pieces that the Weekly Standard has posted, and then dig into the archives of The Public Interest (newly online thanks to the outstanding work of National Affairs, the new magazine that will carry the PI's torch for a new era). Read through all of that, while trying to keep up with the deluge of tributes and reminiscences that will pour forth in the coming days from people who truly knew him the best, and you'll begin to have a sense of how much Irving Kristol meant to so many people — and how sorely he'll be missed. |
Obama Walks Fine Line On Race And Policing | President Obama is challenging Americans to have an honest and open-hearted conversation about race and law enforcement. But even as he sits down at the White House with police and civil rights activists, Obama is mindful of the limits of that approach. "I've seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change," the president said Tuesday at a memorial service for five law officers killed last week in Dallas. "I've seen how inadequate my own words have been." The president has spoken often about the tensions between police and minority communities — not just in the last week but also after the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray. What's striking is just how consistent Obama's message has been. In each instance, he acknowledges the difficult and dangerous work that police do. He calls attention to systemic racial disparities in law enforcement and the resulting distrust in some communities. And he offers context, arguing that policing issues are a symptom of broader social challenges that tend to get less attention. These are words from a policymaker who has thought long and hard about these issues, at least since his days as a state Senator in Illinois, where Obama championed a law to document racial profiling. They're also words from a man who could say, as Dallas Police Chief David Brown did this week, "I've been black a long time." Recognizing Police "Our police officers put their lives on the line for us every single day," Obama said in the fall of 2014, after a grand jury declined to return a criminal indictment in the Ferguson, Mo. death of Michael Brown. "They've got a tough job to do to maintain public safety and hold accountable those who break the law." Less than two weeks later, a grand jury in New York declined to bring charges against police in the death of Eric Garner. "Law enforcement has an incredibly difficult job," Obama said at the time. "Every man or women in uniform are putting their lives at risk to protect us." And when violence erupted in Baltimore in the spring of 2015, following the death of Freddie Gray, who died after suffering a spine injury while in police custody, Obama paused to acknowledge the police officers who were injured in the rioting. "It underscores that that's a tough job and we have to keep that in mind," the president said. Calling Out Racial Disparities In Law Enforcement Even as he praises the vast majority of police as hard-working and well-meaning, Obama has drawn attention to racial inequities that contribute to friction with minority communities. "The law too often feels as if it is being applied in discriminatory fashion," the president said after Ferguson. "These are real issues and we have to lift them up and not deny them or try to tamp them down." He repeated that message when the grand jury in New York issued its Garner decision in December of 2014. "We are seeing too many instances where people just do not have confidence that folks are being treated fairly," Obama said. "In some cases, those may be misperceptions. But in some cases, that's a reality." Obama detailed that reality last week, citing research that found African Americans are more likely to be stopped, searched, and shot by police than whites are. "These are facts," Obama said. "And when incidents like this occur, there's a big chunk of our fellow citizenry that feels as if because of the color of their skin, they are not being treated the same. And it hurts. And that should trouble all of us." It's Not Just About Police While violence involving police often makes the headlines, Obama argues that's merely the flash point of larger, long-simmering problems. "Too often we're asking police to man the barricades in communities that have been forgotten by all of us for way too long," the president said last week, citing inadequate schools and a lack of economic opportunity. That point was echoed by Dallas Police Chief David Brown, who complained law officers are expected to keep a lid on every social problem from mental illness to stray dogs. "We're asking cops to do too much in this country," Brown said. "Policing was never meant to solve all those problems." Obama made the same case more than a year ago, when asked about the protests that greeted Freddie Gray's death in Baltimore. "We can't just leave this to the police," Obama said. "In communities where there are no fathers who can provide guidance to young men; communities where there's no investment and manufacturing has been stripped away; and drugs have flooded the community and the drug industry ends up being the primary employer for a whole lot of folks — in those environments, if we think we're just going to send the police to do the dirty work of containing the problems that arise there without as a nation and as a society saying what can we do to change those communities, to help lift up those communities and give those kids opportunity, then we're not going to solve this problem," he said. "And we |
Milosevic Extradition | Host Bob Edwards talks with NPR's Guy Raz about the trouble Yugoslavia's parliament is having with a bill to allow the extradition of former president Slobodan Milosevic. Key parties are blocking the bill, saying it violates the country's constitution. |
Climate Change Concerns Prompt Americans To Consider Relocating | As climate impacts worsen, some people are moving to other parts of the country that they hope won't suffer as much. Town planners in New Hampshire are already preparing for a possible influx. |
The Forces Driving Middle-Aged White People's 'Deaths Of Despair' | In 2015, when researchers Anne Case and Angus Deaton discovered that death rates had been rising dramatically since 1999 among middle-aged white Americans, they weren't sure why people were dying younger, reversing decades of longer life expectancy. Now the husband-and-wife economists say they have a better understanding of what's causing these "deaths of despair" by suicide, drugs and alcohol. In a follow-up to their groundbreaking 2015 work, they say that a lack of steady, well-paying jobs for whites without college degrees has caused pain, distress and social dysfunction to build up over time. The mortality rate for that group, ages 45 to 54, increased by a half percent each year from 1999 to 2013. But whites with college degrees haven't suffered the same lack of economic opportunity and haven't seen the same loss of life expectancy. The study was published Thursday in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. Case and Deaton, who are both at Princeton University, spoke with NPR's David Greene about what's driving these trends. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Interview Highlights On the original discovery of rising mortality rates for middle-aged whites Angus Deaton: Mortality rates have been going down forever. There's been a huge increase in life expectancy and reduction in mortality over 100 years or more, and then for all of this to suddenly go into reverse [for whites ages 45 to 54], we thought it must be wrong. We spent weeks checking out numbers because we just couldn't believe that this could have happened, or that if it had, someone else must have already noticed. It seems like we were right and that no one else had picked it up. We knew the proximate causes — we know what they were dying from. We knew suicides were going up rapidly, and that overdoses mostly from prescription drugs were going up, and that alcoholic liver disease was going up. The deeper questions were why those were happening — there's obviously some underlying malaise, reasons for which we [didn't] know. On what's driving these early deaths Anne Case: These deaths of despair have been accompanied by reduced labor force participation, reduced marriage rates, increases in reports of poor health and poor mental health. So we are beginning to thread a story in that it's possible that [the trend is] consistent with the labor market collapsing for people with less than a college degree. In turn, those people are being less able to form stable marriages, and in turn that has effects on the kind of economic and social supports that people need in order to thrive. In general, the longer you're in the labor force, the more you earn — in part because you understand your job better and you're more efficient at your job, you've had on-the-job training, you belong to a union, and so your wages go up with age. That's happened less and less the later and later you've been born and the later you enter this labor market. Deaton: We're thinking of this in terms of something that's been going on for a long time, something that's emerged as the iceberg has risen out of the water. We think of this as part of the decline of the white working class. If you go back to the early '70s when you had the so-called blue-collar aristocrats, those jobs have slowly crumbled away and many more men are finding themselves in a much more hostile labor market with lower wages, lower quality and less permanent jobs. That's made it harder for them to get married. They don't get to know their own kids. There's a lot of social dysfunction building up over time. There's a sense that these people have lost this sense of status and belonging. And these are classic preconditions for suicide. Case: The rates of suicide are much higher among men [than women]. And drug overdoses and alcohol-related liver death are higher among men, too. But the [mortality] trends are identical for men and women with a high school degree or less. So we think of this as people, either quickly with a gun or slowly with drugs and alcohol, are killing themselves. Under that body count there's a lot of social dysfunction that we think ultimately we may be able to pin to poor job prospects over the life course. On how mortality rates differ among races Deaton: Hispanics [have always had lower mortality rates] than whites. It's a bit of a puzzle that's not fully resolved, to put it mildly. It's always been true that mortality rates have been higher and life expectancy shorter for African-Americans than for whites. What is happening now is that gap is closing and, for some groups, it's actually crossed. What we see in the new work is if you compare whites with a high school degree or less, at least their mortality rates are now higher than mortality rates for African-Americans as a whole. If you compare whites with a high school degree or less with blacks with a high school degree or less, their mortality rates have converged. It's as if poorly educated whites have now taken over |
'Fresh Air' Favorites: Carrie Fisher | This week, we're listening back to some favorite<em> Fresh Air</em> interviews from the past decade. Terry Gross spoke to the <em>Star Wars </em>star in November 2016, just a month before Fisher's death. |
Politics In The News: Sanctuary Cities | David Greene talks to Jonah Goldberg, senior editor at <em>National Review</em>, about the president doubling down on his comment that he has the legal right to send undocumented migrants to sanctuary cities. |
Why The Stock Market Soared In 2017 | Stock prices boomed this year all over the world, including the United States. It was the best year for the market since 2013. But many market-watchers say prices have probably topped off for a while. |
Natural Gas Export Plan Unites Oregon Landowners Against It | A radical shift in the world energy picture is raising environmental concerns in the United States. Until recently, the U.S. had been expected to import more natural gas. But now, because of controversial technologies like "fracking," drillers are producing a lot more domestic natural gas; so much that prices are down, along with industry profits. And drillers are looking overseas for new customers. Whether the United States should export some of its newly abundant supplies of natural gas is a controversial issue before the Department of Energy. About two-dozen applications have been submitted to the agency for exports to countries that don't have free-trade agreements with the U.S. Environmentalists are concerned that exporting gas will lead to more drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." Some chemical companies have argued against approving all of the export proposals; they want plenty of cheap natural gas here in the U.S. to fuel manufacturing. And, individually, some of the export proposals have proven controversial in the communities where companies want to build them. One such plan, the Jordan Cove Energy Project, would sit on the North Spit of lower Coos Bay in Oregon. About 2 miles from the Pacific Ocean, the proposed site isn't much more than sand, tall grass and shrubs now. But if all goes according to plan, there will be two huge storage tanks next to a 45-foot-deep berth for ships. Nearby, a new power plant would run the refrigeration necessary to turn natural gas into the much-easier-to-transport liquefied natural gas (LNG). The plant would process about 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas every day. That's enough to meet the daily needs of nearly 4 million American homes. But the gas wouldn't stay in the U.S. "Our principal [markets] are the Asian countries — India, Japan, South Korea — that are strongly interested in securing LNG from the United States," says project manager Bob Braddock. If the $6 billion project is built, several thousand construction workers would be brought in and housed. After construction, the company says, there will be about 150 new jobs with wages averaging $75,000 a year. That would be a boost to a region hit hard by the decline of the timber industry. "We need more than just retired people here. We need some young people to stay in the area," says North Bend resident Angeline Pennington. She supports the project and believes it will help the local economy and young families. But others worry that more industry will affect recreation. "I like to use the bay a lot — crabbing, clamming," says Jeff Allen of Coos Bay. "Now you can go out there and do whatever you want. When they have more industry out there, you're going to have ships coming up the bay." The controversy extends beyond this coastal town. The project requires a 230-mile-long pipeline to transport gas from Malin, Ore., to the coast. The Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline would cross public and private land. The potential environmental impact of the project has some landowners worried. The Oregon Women's Land Trust owns 147 wooded acres about 100 miles away in Douglas County. The group's mission statement says it "is committed to ecologically sound preservation of land, and provides access to land and land wisdom for women." Board member Francis Eatherington says a clear-cut pipeline route through the property would make it difficult to fulfill that mission. And board Secretary Kaseja Wilder says if the pipeline is built, "there will be women who will come out here and they'll chain themselves to things and they'll lie down in front of machinery." Opposition to the pipeline has created some unusual alliances. Rancher Bill Gow says on most other issues, he'd be on the opposite side of the Oregon Women's Land Trust. But he is also opposed to this project. "They're going to put a big scar right through the middle of my ranch," Gow says. "It bothers the hell out of me, and I don't want it there." But Gow may not have a choice. Eminent domain likely will come into play, and a court could force reluctant landowners to allow the pipeline across their property, though that's not the company's preferred option. "We'd much rather come to an equitable agreement with the landowners," says Michael Hinrichs, director of public affairs for the Jordan Cove Energy Project and the Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline. He says 35 percent of the approximately 300 landowners affected have agreed to let the pipeline cross their property. He says 15 percent have refused. "We like when landowners engage us, because then they can negotiate and we better understand not only their land but what they feel their land is worth," Hinrichs says. Still, Gow says he will continue to oppose the pipeline and the projects. "This is to export this gas to another country," he says. "We're taking a resource that is valuable to our economy — we could create jobs in this country with — and we're shipping it overseas." The Department of Energy consi |
Tips For Talking To Children About The Election | With many Americans focused on the election, NPR's Life Kit team offers tips to parents and caregivers on how to talk about the election — and civics more broadly — with children. |
WTO Says U.S. Can Hit EU With $7.5 Billion In Tariffs Over Airbus Subsidies | Updated at 3:22 p.m. ET The World Trade Organization says the U.S. can move forward with plans to impose some $7.5 billion in tariffs on EU goods annually, to counteract years of European loans and illegal subsidies to Airbus. The decision comes after a years-long dispute over European Union countries' roles in building Airbus into a global player — and a fierce competitor to U.S. aerospace giant Boeing. But the clash is far from over: The WTO will likely rule in the coming months on the EU's own request to levy tariffs on the U.S. over its aid to Boeing. For a sign of how deep this clash runs, consider that in the WTO's 156-page decision against Airbus and the EU, Boeing is mentioned nearly 850 times. In its ruling, the WTO says the U.S. can retaliate by suspending tariff concessions and other elements of trade agreements with Europe. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has already drawn up a list of European tariff targets, from hams, cheeses and olives to Irish and Scotch whiskies. The European subsidies relate to "the entire family of Airbus products (A300 through the A380)," the WTO says. The U.S. has long accused the EU of aiding Airbus in a variety of ways, from giving out sweetheart loans and forgiving debts to providing grants for infrastructure. In response to the ruling, a Boeing spokesperson sent a statement to NPR saying that the European Union and Airbus still have time to avoid the tariffs. The spokesperson said that European businesses unrelated to the airline industry, adding, "Yet even today, Airbus could still completely avoid these tariffs by coming into full compliance with its obligations. We hope it will finally do that." Airbus issued a statement of its own, saying it's renewing a call for talks over the dispute — and like Boeing, Airbus said the tariffs are still avoidable. Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said his company is "hopeful that the U.S. and the EU will agree to find a negotiated solution before creating serious damage to the aviation industry as well as to trade relations and the global economy." And in a nod to the pending WTO decision on Boeing, the Airbus statement adds,"The WTO has already found that the U.S. failed to address illegal subsidies causing harm to Airbus. This will provide the EU with grounds to claim countermeasures on U.S. products at a level that could exceed U.S. sanctions." The French Foreign Ministry warns that escalating trade tensions between the U.S. and the EU "is not advisable and will have significant impacts on both of our economies, international trade, and the aviation industry." The ministry says the EU "would prefer an amicable settlement" that includes new rules about government support. The WTO ruling could clear the way for another round in President Trump's use of tariffs against U.S. trading partners. The Trump administration has recently signaled that it sees negotiation as the only way to resolve the matter — but it did not give a timeline for any potential talks. When the U.S. announced its potential tariff list back in April, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer stated, "Our ultimate goal is to reach an agreement with the EU to end all WTO-inconsistent subsidies to large civil aircraft." He added, "When the EU ends these harmful subsidies, the additional U.S. duties imposed in response can be lifted." The U.S. first registered its Airbus dispute in October 2004. That's when it asked the governments of Germany, France, the U.K. and Spain, along with the European Commission, to meet and discuss U.S. complaints about government loans to Airbus — particularly whether those loans and other help amounted to illegal export subsidies. The U.S. also wanted to discuss the damage those practices might inflict on Boeing, Airbus' chief U.S. competitor, for building large commercial aircraft. But those U.S.-European talks failed, and in 2005, the WTO began probing how governments have supported both Airbus and Boeing. Under the Obama administration, the U.S. requested authorization in 2011 to "take countermeasures" to undo the adverse effects of the EU subsidies. At the time, the U.S. estimated the damage from lost sales and other disruptions as being worth between $7 billion and $10 billion yearly. In 2018, the U.S. revised that figure to $11.2 billion — but the WTO arbitrators opted for the smaller figure in approving the sanctions Wednesday. |
Gold Mining Company Inks Deal To Save The Sage Grouse | In Nevada, federal wildlife officials have brokered a landmark conservation deal with a gold mining company that the government says could help protect thousands of acres of critical habitat for the greater sage grouse. Under the agreement announced Thursday, the company Barrick Gold Corp., the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy and the Bureau of Land Management are setting up a "conservation bank." It will essentially work like this: each time the company improves sage grouse habitat on its private ranch lands, it gets a credit in that bank. It can then trade that out for expanding gold mining on federal lands in the state, subject to federal approval. You can think of the deal as similar to how private companies sell and trade carbon credits when it comes to curbing greenhouse gas pollution. Except that in Nevada, we're talking about a multinational gold mining company — Barrick North America — and of course, the sage grouse - a small sage-brush dwelling bird that's a current "candidate" species for the Endangered Species List. This agreement, which was first proposed by the company, comes at an important moment in the West. Many landowners in eleven western states are anxious over the Department of Interior's possible listing of the sage grouse. The move could come as early as this Spring. Under the Endangered Species Act, once the bird is put on the endangered list, it will limit mining operations on western range lands. Some counties in states like Oregon have already started adopting contingency-like conservation plans, especially after the government moved to list the greater sage grouse's cousin –- the Gunnison Sage Grouse late last year. It looks as if the Department of Interior hopes today's announcement –- and agreements like it — can be mimicked in other states where development is encroaching on important sage brush lands and prairies where the sage grouse once thrived. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has maintained that its primary goal is to keep the bird off the list. "This is the kind of creative, voluntary partnership that we need to help conserve the greater sage-grouse while sustaining important economic activities on western range lands," Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said, in a statement. |
Oakland, The New San Francisco | Jesse Loesberg says that the artists and writers who built San Francisco's reputation as a haven for creativity are finding what they need elsewhere now — in Oakland. |
Indonesia Expels American Anti-Terror Expert | Indonesia orders the expulsion of Sidney Jones, a prominent American terrorism expert. Jones is the Jakarta director of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, and an authority on radical Islamic groups in the region. Critics say the move is reminiscent of the Suharto dictatorship that ended six years ago. NPR's Michael Sullivan reports. |
Ground Is Broken for King Memorial in Capital | On the National Mall in Washington, D.C., thousands attend the groundbreaking for the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial. President Bush, Maya Angelou, and Oprah Winfrey were among those speaking at the ceremony. The memorial is scheduled to open in 2008. The tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. will be on the northeast edge of the Tidal Basin, on a four-acre site not far from the Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963. "The King Memorial will span a piece of ground between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials," President Bush said, "and by its presence in this place, it will unite the men who declared the promise and defended the promise of America, with the man who redeemed the promise of America." The memorial park will feature an imposing boulder, designed to evoke the "mountain of despair" King spoke of in his historic speech delivered on the Mall. And cut from that boulder will be a "stone of hope," sculpted with King's image. The display will also includes waterfalls that flow in a syncopated rhythm, intended to call to mind King's style of speaking. It will be the first memorial on the National Mall to honor an African-American civilian. Construction on the $100-million memorial will begin once fundraising is complete. To date, some $65 million in donations have come in. The memorial is expected to open in 2008. MICHELE NORRIS, host: On the National Mall in Washington, D.C. this morning, a moment long awaited. Dr. MAYA ANGELOU (Poet): Look where we've all come from, moving out of darkness. Moving toward the light. MELISSA BLOCK, host: That's the poet Maya Angelou. She, Jessie Jackson and President Bush were among thousands who attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial. President GEORGE W. BUSH: The King Memorial will stand on a piece of ground between the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials. And by its presence in this place, it will unite the men who declared the promise of America and defended the promise of America with the man who redeemed the promise of America. NORRIS: The four acre site along the tidal basin sits a half mile away from the Lincoln Memorial where Dr. King delivered his I Have a Dream speech in 1963. The memorial park will feature an imposing boulder, designed to evoke the mountain of despair King spoke of in that speech. And cut from that boulder will be a stone of hope sculpted with King's image. BLOCK: Also in the works, waterfalls flowing in syncopated rhythm intended to call to mind King's style of speaking. It will be the first memorial on the National Mall to honor an African American civilian. And for many, today was the day to remember Martin Luther King, Jr., and what he stood for. Dr. YOLANDA DENISE KING: Our father was a king. Not the kind who wore a crown, but one who crowned a movement. A movement illuminated by a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its freedom. President BILL CLINTON: I suspect if he were here speaking at his own dedication, Dr. King would remind us that the best way to honor him is to pursue his dream and embrace his means. To combat terror and create a world with more partners and fewer terrorists. Ms. OPRAH WINFREY: I live in a state of reverence for where I've come from and for the price that was paid for me to be here. Because he was the seed of the free, Dr. King, I get to be the blossom. BLOCK: That's Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton and Yolanda Denise King, daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking today at the ground breaking ceremony for the King National Memorial in Washington, D.C. Construction on the $100 million dollar memorial will begin once fundraising is complete. To date, some $65 million dollars in donations have come in. The memorial is expected to open in 2008. |
After Promoting Birther Movement, Trump Admits Obama Was Born In U.S. | After years of promoting conspiracies that President Obama was not born in the U.S., GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday conceded that the president was born in this country. |
Episode 2: Near Victories | Shankar Vedantam explores "almosts" and "not quites" on this episode of the Hidden Brain podcast, with the help of Monica Wadhwa, Dan Pink, and country music singer Kacey Musgraves. |
Can A Computer Grade Essays As Well As A Human? Maybe Even Better, Study Says | Computers have been grading multiple-choice tests in schools for years. To the relief of English teachers everywhere, essays have been tougher to gauge. But look out, teachers: A new study finds that software designed to automatically read and grade essays can do as good a job as humans — maybe even better. The study, conducted at the University of Akron, ran more than 16,000 essays from both middle school and high school tests through automated systems developed by nine companies. The essays, from six different states, had originally been graded by humans. In a piece in The New York Times, education columnist Michael Winerip described the outcome: Computer scoring produced "virtually identical levels of accuracy, with the software in some cases proving to be more reliable," according to a University of Akron news release. "In terms of consistency, the automated readers might have done a little better even," Winerip tells All Things Considered host Melissa Block. Read More The automated systems look for a number of things in order to grade, or rate, an essay, Winerip says. Among them are sentence structure, syntax, word usage and subject-verb agreements. "[It's] a lot of the same things a human editor or reader would look for," he says. What the automated readers aren't good at, he says, is comprehension and whether a sentence is factually true or not. They also have a hard time with other forms of writing, like poetry. One example is the software e-rater, by Educational Testing Service. Les Perelman, a director of writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was allowed to test e-rater. He told Winerip that the system has biases that can be easily gamed. E-Rater prefers long essays. A 716-word essay [Perelman] wrote that was padded with more than a dozen nonsensical sentences received a top score of 6; a well-argued, well-written essay of 567 words was scored a 5. "You could say the War of 1812 started in 1925," Winerip says. "There are all kinds of things you could say that have little or nothing to do in reality that could receive a high score." Efficiency is where the automated readers excel, Winerip says. The e-rater engine can grade 16,000 essays in about 20 seconds, according to ETS. An average teacher might spend an entire weekend grading 150 essays, he says, and that efficiency is what drives more education companies to create automated systems. "Virtually every education company has a model, and there's lots of money to be made on this stuff," he says. A greater focus on standardized testing and homogenized education only serves to increase the development of automated readers to keep up with demand, Winerip says. Winerip says that what worries him is that if automated readers become the standard way of grading essays, then teachers will begin teaching to them, removing a lot of the "juice" of the English language. "If you're not allowed to use a sentence fragment ... [or] a short paragraph ... then you're going to get a very homogenized form of writing," he says. "The joy of writing is surprise." |
In Quest To Fell Rhodes Statue, Students Aim To Make Oxford Confront History | In front of one of the colleges at Oxford University, a statue of Cecil Rhodes stands overlooking the campus. Rhodes, a South African businessman, started the De Beers diamond company and went on to become the namesake of the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. He was also a colonialist who believed in the superiority of Anglo-Saxons, and he enforced a policy of racial segregation in South Africa. Now, because of that history, a growing number of students at Oxford say it's time to take down the statue of Rhodes. "We understood that he came and plundered the land, as many colonizers did, and that a lot of people died from what he did. And there's a lot of structural injustice that resulted from the acts that Rhodes committed," says Tadiwa Madenga, a student at Oxford and an organizer with the Rhodes Must Fall campaign. She tells NPR's Rachel Martin that the campaign is working to make the school confront a history it might not otherwise. "When I look at the statue, I know of that legacy, but I also see the way Oxford wants to imagine itself today," Madenga says. "It is only now that we have made them engage with this history, that they have decided that perhaps they don't condone his actions." Interview Highlights On the defense of the statue voiced by Oxford Chancellor Chris Patten: "People have to face up to facts in history which they don't like and talk about them and debate them" We think that debating means really seriously engaging with issues of colonial legacies and taking action to make sure that the university is not institutionally racist, as opposed to just discussing over tea what our opinions are. And so [the chancellor's] comments, to me, just show this entitlement that certain people in administration have, where if you disagree with them specifically, they feel like you should leave. On creating debate First, I want to say that, once again, the university was not confronting this history prior to the movement. We want to say, "What is a public space, and what are statues for?" Statues are there to commemorate and to honor particular people. We do not put up statues of people we demonize for the sake of thinking of history or just debating. And so we are saying that you can remove the statue, you can put it in a museum where you can continue to discuss and debate. But where it is, at the entrance of Oriel College, at the very highest position above kings and provosts, is just ridiculous. It is not appropriate. On her experience as a student of color I think that it's been shocking in terms of how much people in England really truly believe that colonization was a good thing. ... I think part of the problem in England is that a lot of people, maybe, who haven't traveled outside of England have not seen the consequences and the legacies of colonialism. So, for some of us students who come from southern Africa, who still know about the racial inequality from particular economic structures, find this shocking when we come to England and people are not aware of the other side of colonization. On why the movement is happening now All movements started with different types of protests happening. So, you had the Black Lives Matter movement coming up, you had the Rhodes Must Fall movement in South Africa. And we see these connections, and we say this is also connected to how people look at history. So, the fact that the university cares more about Rhodes being a benefactor as opposed to the lives that were lost because of his actions, shows the way that people don't care about black lives. And I think globally there has been a movement to kind of reveal this uncritical way of looking at history and the way that this uncritical reflection of history has led to some of the situations we have now, where black people are still dying over institutional oppression. RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: There's a statue that stands in front of one of the colleges at Oxford University. It's of Cecil Rhodes, the namesake of the prestigious Rhodes scholarship. The successful South African businessman started the De Beers diamond company. He was also a colonialist who believed in the superiority of Anglo-Saxons, and he enforced a policy of racial segregation in South Africa. Now, a growing number of students on campus at Oxford say it's time to take down the Rhodes statue. Our next guest is a student at Oxford and an organizer with the Rhodes Must Fall campaign. Her name is Tadiwa Madenga. Thanks so much for being with us. TADIWA MADENGA: Thank you for having me. MARTIN: When you see this statue, what does it represent to you? MADENGA: To me, it represents two things. First, as a Zimbabwean person, I've known about Rhodes's legacy and there's never been this oh, he was a wonderful, successful businessman. We understood that he came and plundered the land as many colonizers did, and that a lot of people died from what he did. And there's a lot of structural injustice that resulted from the acts that Rhodes committed. And so when |
U.S. Imposes Sanctions On Venezuelan State Oil Monopoly | The U.S. is imposing sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil company in an attempt to dislodge President Nicolás Maduro in favor of his rival, Juan Guaidó. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Security Adviser John Bolton announced Monday that all property of the PDVSA subject to U.S. jurisdiction will be blocked, and all U.S. citizens are prohibited from trading with them. That includes the Houston-based Citgo subsidiary of PDVSA. Mnuchin said the revenues earned by Venezuelan companies will be held in escrow until Guaidó has been granted control of the government or new elections are held in Venezuela. "These are valuable assets that we are protecting for the benefit of the Venezuelan people," Mnuchin told reporters Monday. National Security Adviser John Bolton said the moves were aimed at supporting "the legitimate government" of Guaidó and called on the military of Venezuela to support a "peaceful, democratic and constitutional transfer of power." The sanctions are the latest U.S. move to back Guaidó nearly a week after he declared himself interim president as protesters flooded cities across Venezuela. Guaidó, the 35-year-old recently elected to head the National Assembly, says his power comes from the Venezuelan constitution because Maduro won his second term by fraud. The U.S. and many Latin American countries recognized Guaidó at once, but Maduro has not agreed to step down. That leaves Guaidó the task of chipping away support in the military and judiciary, which have remained loyal to Maduro despite the foreign pressure. Over the weekend Venezuela's defense attache in the U.S., Col. José Luis Silva, switched sides to Guaidó, NPR has reported. In response, Maduro rallied troops at a base near Caracas, according to NPR's Philip Reeves. "Do you support a coup?" Maduro asked them. "No, President!" they answered in unity. Guaidó's supporters have handed troops copies of a law that grants amnesty to members of the armed forces who abandon Maduro, but several of them have burned the leaflets instead, Reeves reports. Guaidó has declared more marches will be held on Wednesday. He called for support from Venezuelans who have suffered as Maduro presided over a precipitous crash of the economy. Inflation has skyrocketed, and people struggle to afford the most basic foods and medicines. A Venezuelan journalist who asked not to be identified explained to NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro that the crisis has mobilized even Maduro's former supporters in one blighted neighborhood: "But right now the things with Maduro have gotten really, really bad. People have no enough food, water, electricity. The minimum wage is worth nothing, so they're getting paid $6 a month. So it's really difficult for them to eat. And people start demonstrate spontaneously on the slum, which is something that we have never seen before in at least 15 years." Maduro still has support from Russia, China, Turkey, Iran and others. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took up the cause of Venezuela's opposition Saturday at the U.N. Security Council, and he challenged what he called Maduro's mafia, NPR's Michele Kelemen reports. "China and Russia are propping up a failed regime in the hopes of recovering billions of dollars in ill-considered investments and assistance made over the years," Pompeo said. Guaidó has picked off limited support among the higher ranks of Maduro's government. Scarlet Salazar, one of Venezuela's consuls in Miami, recognized Guaidó as president in a video posted by journalist Carla Angola Monday. She pledged to continue giving consular services. "We exhort the other members of our diplomatic group and functionary Venezuelan consulates outside the country, to stick to the Constitution and the law of amnesty provided by the National Assembly," Salazar said. "We support our fellow countrymen at this time." Salazar is one of four staff in the Venezuelan Consulate in Miami, according to its website. Ivan Briscoe, program director for Latin America at the International Crisis Group, said Maduro may be trying to wait out Guaidó's challenge. "He could decided to wait this out, get some supplies from Russia and China as well as military support," Briscoe told NPR. "But there is a risk that with the added effects on the Venezuelan economy of all these recent measures that the situation becomes so deplorable that more will decide to emigrate, more will decide to protest, and some will decide it can't get worse, so we have to do whatever it takes." Talks between the U.S. and Venezuela continue despite the public faceoff, The Associated Press reports. After Washington recognized Guaidó as Venezuela's interim president, Maduro initially gave U.S. diplomats 72 hours to leave the country. Later he relented and gave them 30 days. He has framed Guaidó's challenge as an imperialist push by foreign powers. He wrote on Monday that Venezuelans elected him president with more than 67 percent of the votes, "well above what was achieve |
N. Korea's Neighbors React to Nuke Crisis | Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Japan to shore up support for U.N. sanctions against North Korea. Don Oberdorfer, chair of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, talks with Madeleine Brand about how Asian nations are reacting to the North Korea nuclear crisis. |
March Madness Gets Under Way Without A Clear Favorite | Mike Pesca talks to Robert Siegel about the first round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. |
U.S. Hits China With Another Round Of Tariffs Worth $200 Billion | The U.S. announced another round of tariffs today on Chinese goods worth $200 billion. The Chinese government responded immediately with $60 billion in tariffs on American goods, and issued a white paper accusing the Trump administration of “trade bullyism.” Here & Now‘s Jeremy Hobson speaks with Derek Thompson (@DKThomp), senior editor at The Atlantic and host of the podcast “Crazy/Genius.” |
Radio Replay: Loving the Lie | In this week's Radio Replay, we bring you stories of fakes, phonies, and con men — and the people who fall for the false worlds they create. First, the tale of a middle-aged man who impersonates a series of women and gets thousands of men to fall in love with his creations. Then, we'll hear about a painter who tricks the world's greatest art experts into believing they're looking at masterpieces. |
Episode 384: The Little Lie That Rocked The Banks | There's a certain amount of trust underpinning the financial markets. But recent news out of the United Kingdom has shaken the world's faith in a key element of the system. That element is the number banks use to determine how much to charge their customers — think of it as the measuring stick that determines nearly every other other interest rate around: mortgages, credit cards, corporate loans, complex derivatives transactions. It's called LIBOR, or the London Interbank Offered Rate, and it pretty much underpins everything. For years, Thomson Reuters has calculated the rate on behalf of the British Bankers Association by asking big banks what they are paying to borrow from other banks. The answers were largely taken on faith. Now it turns out that at least one big bank — Barclays — was skewing the numbers, during the financial crisis and before. Emails cited in a regulatory complaint against the bank show the casual way the efforts were discussed. Other banks are under investigation as well. The result: Criminal and parliamentary inquiries on two continents, lawsuits, and a lot of mistrust and uncertainty about interest rates across the financial markets. On today's show, we look at how Barclays bankers sought to manipulate Libor, and why the repercussions will be felt throughout the global financial system for years to come. Music: OK Go's "White Knuckles" and Ivan & Alyosha's "Beautiful Lie." Find us:Twitter/Facebook/ Spotify/ Tumblr. DAVID KESTENBAUM, HOST: Hi, Mom. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Hello. KESTENBAUM: Do you have your iPhone there? UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yes, of course. KESTENBAUM: Do you see where it says App Store? UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: App Store, yeah - hold on a minute. Let me find it. Here, it's App Store. KESTENBAUM: Now go to search. Type in PLANET MONEY. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Oh, yeah, I have that. KESTENBAUM: What do you mean you have that? UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I already have got the app. KESTENBAUM: You already downloaded the app? UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yeah, I did. I've got it right here - little green guy. I've already done it, yeah. (SOUNDBITE OF OK GO SONG, "WHITE KNUCKLES") KESTENBAUM: The PLANET MONEY app - so easy to use, your mom's already got it. You can download it from the App Store. (SOUNDBITE OF OK GO SONG, "WHITE KNUCKLES") KESTENBAUM: In France, inside of a vault inside a triple bell jar, sits a metal cylinder. It weighs about a kilogram. Actually, it weighs exactly a kilogram because this is the kilogram. ROBERT SMITH, HOST: It's made of platinum and iridium. And every kilogram in the world is based on this cylinder. The kilogram is well-guarded. Opening the vault requires three keys. And there's a reason why there's all the security. If you mess with this kilogram, you are messing with the entire world. KESTENBAUM: Because imagine that somehow someone got into the vault and for years has been shaving a little bit off of the kilogram or maybe adding a little bit. Everything could be slightly off. That kilogram of coffee I just bought, maybe I was getting shortchanged. SMITH: Yeah, and all those people in all those Weight Watchers groups who thought they were losing weight - still fat. If the kilogram's wrong, you have no idea what's real anymore. KESTENBAUM: Something very much like this is happening in the financial world. The benchmark number that's supposed to be trustworthy, that's referenced in trillions of dollars of loans and mortgages and financial instruments - that number, it's been manipulated. SMITH: At least one bank has admitted that they were trying to make money by shaving little bits off of this number or adding little bits to it. And now everyone is asking what is real. Hello and welcome to PLANET MONEY. I'm Robert Smith. KESTENBAUM: And I'm David Kestenbaum. It's Tuesday, July 3. Today on the show, a banking conspiracy, secret emails, faith in the financial system thrown into question - all over the most boring sounding thing you can imagine - the London Interbank Offered Rate. SMITH: Also known as LIBOR. Barclays, one of the biggest banks in the world, has been trying to manipulate this rate. The bank is paying a $453 million fine. You may have heard about it last week. Their two top executives have resigned this week. And this is just the beginning. Other top banks are being investigated. There are hearings in the British Parliament. This is going to be big. And today, we'll tell you why. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHITE KNUCKLES") OK GO: (Singing) So come and let it all out. Let it bleed. Did you get what you want? Did you get what you need? SMITH: David, when I moved to New York, I could barely afford my apartment. And so the mortgage I got was an adjustable rate mortgage, right? Everyone was getting these back in the day. And at some point right before I signed the documents, I went, well, wait a minute. When my rate adjusts, how do I know how much I'll be paying? KESTENBAUM: What's the interest rate, yeah. SMITH: And I searched through these - that big document th |
Johnson & Johnson To Pay $2.2 Billion Settlement | Johnson & Johnson will pay $2.2 billion to settle civil and criminal investigations related to mis-marketing of prescription drugs Risperdal, Invega and Natrecor. |
It'll Take More Than A Tornado And A Pandemic To Stop The Music Of Nashville | The pandemic has hit the whole world hard, but the people of Nashville, Tenn., were still reeling from a devastating tornado when stay-at-home orders were issued. But the music hasn't stopped. Recently, World Cafe's Nashville correspondent, Ann Powers of NPR Music, joined me via video chat to talk about how her hometown is doing with everything that's happened. She also shares five new Nashville releases that she's excited about, which have been added to the top of our World Cafe Nashville playlist below. |
Obama Pledges To Help 'Heal' Laos, Decades After U.S. Bombings | Laos has a grim claim to fame, as the most heavily bombed country in history, per capita. And today, more than four decades after the U.S. dropped those armaments, millions of unexploded bombs remain. President Obama on Tuesday became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the small, communist Southeast Asian country and promised to double U.S. funding to help educate residents about the dangers and clear the bombs that remain in the ground. "Given our history here, I believe the United States has a moral obligation to help Laos heal," Obama said in announcing a $90 million U.S. commitment over three years. In an exhibit in downtown Vientiane, dozens and dozens of round "bombies" — as the Laotians call them — each the size of a tennis ball, hang from the ceiling like necklaces. Bombies are submunitions; they eject from larger cluster bombs used in airstrikes. They are vestiges of the Vietnam War, which spread to Laos and still plagues the country to this day. "Until now still, [Laotians] are being injured by the bombs," says Baosavanh Vetsaboun, a staffer at the nonprofit COPE, which puts on this exhibit and assists those who lose limbs to unexploded ordnance, or UXO. The other side of this hall displays a mountain of makeshift prosthetic legs, some of them clearly just rudimentary pieces of sanded wood, that bombing survivors donated after use. It's part of a costly and deadly legacy of America's "secret war" in Laos. The somewhat secret campaign of bombing raids between 1964 and 1973 made Laos the most heavily bombed country on earth. The U.S. directed much of its firepower at the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which North Vietnamese fighters used to infiltrate the South, by way of Laos and Cambodia. American warplanes dropped an average of one bomb-load every eight minutes, 24 hours a day. They killed more than a quarter million Lao. But an estimated 30 percent of the U.S. bombs failed to explode. So now, some 40 years later — the leftover bombs still lead to about 40 casualties a year. "All it takes is heat, shock and friction for something to be volatile and go boom," says Emma Atkinson, who works on U.S. State Department programs and funding to clear unexploded bombs in Laos. "So when you think about the fact these things were dropped from the air, they've experienced all those things, not to mention the fact they've been sitting in the ground 40 years, deteriorating, which makes them even more volatile," she adds. The U.S. assistance will go to groups like Mines Advisory Group, or MAG international, a nonprofit dedicated to educating people about the bombs and helping them safely destroy the weapons. "Every day our teams are out conducting clearance," says Simon Rhea, the country director. In fields across Xieng Khouang province, MAG technicians root out the bombs and carry out controlled detonations to "destroy the bombies, to make these areas farmable and safe again," says Rhea. "If you speak to any parents there, they would say their biggest fear is about their children being involved in accidents." At the country's National Cultural Hall over the weekend, young Lao trickled in to pick up free tickets to see Obama, who spoke to more than a thousand Laotians here. One of them was Maiyer Thao, age 15. I asked her about the difficult history between the U.S. and Laos. "I don't know about other people, but I think the past is the past," she said. Xaisongkham Induangchanthy contributed to this story. |
Week In Politics: U.S. Talks With North Korea And Trump's FBI Narrative | NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with Kimberly Atkins of the <em>Boston Herald</em> and Reihan Salam of the <em>National Review</em> to discuss the stalled talks between the U.S. and North Korea, President Trump's insistence that there was a spy on his campaign, and whether his attacks on the FBI are similar to his attacks on the press. |
For Writer, 'The Hard Way' Meant Choosing To Stay In Akron, Ohio | When it comes to his hometown of Akron, Ohio, writer and journalist David Giffels says, "I have spent my whole life watching people leave." Once known as the rubber capital of the world, Akron was a hub of tire manufacturing giants. Goodyear, Firestone and Goodrich provided thousands of high-paying jobs until the 1970s, when those jobs began migrating to places with cheaper labor. In the years since, Giffels has been thinking and writing about the effects of that loss, first as a reporter at the local newspaper and now with a new book of essays called The Hard Way on Purpose: Essays and Dispatches from the Rust Belt. Giffels tells NPR's David Greene about Akron's identity and what he and LeBron James have in common. Interview Highlights On Lee Friedlander, a photographer commissioned by local businesses to record the region's decay in the late '70s and early '80s He spent a year or so shooting photos, across the region, of industry, and really what he was photographing was the end of industry, the beginning of architectural decay and of people starting to be sort of beaten down by the decline. And really what he was probably doing was kind of holding up a mirror to something we hadn't really seen about ourselves. And to me that, at least in some ways, represents the beginning of what's been I think a regional identity crisis for my entire adult life. On why he wrote the book I wouldn't say that it was so much an overt message with a purpose, as it was just kind of like, organically: This is what I've come to understand, having spent my whole life here. And one of the things I've come to understand is that the rest of the country doesn't pay that much attention to the post-industrial Midwest. And when it does, you know, we sort of bristle, because when you have been trying to redefine your identity and then, in Ohio every four years, here come the parachutes with everybody [saying], "Ohio's going to pick the next president." ... So a big instinct of this book is that bristling of pride and of wanting to tell our own story. On LeBron James' decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat LeBron James and I are, I think, the only two people in the entire world who went straight from St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio, to the Cleveland Cavaliers. ... He was the first pick in the draft lottery, and I was an entry-level ball boy. ... I think there's a lot of understanding nationally about how he left in that really, sort of devastating and disappointing kind of way. But I think only here can we really understand what he represented. ... First of all, he was born in 1984. The term "Rust Belt" was invented in 1982, so he almost completely parallels this difficult journey. He really self identifies with being from Akron, and he's got the local area code tattooed down his forearm, and he still makes his home here. So he likes being one of us. And so to know that he left when he had the choice to stay is — man, how many people did I grow up with, professional people, who left when they had the choice to stay? And do I resent them or do I understand what they did and just decide I tried to do it a different way? On whether he ever considered leaving Akron Yeah, actually, there was a specific moment. I had a job offer in New York that I gave a lot of thought to, and talked to my wife a lot about it. And it was, you know: Do we leave and go where it's going to be a more obvious sense of opportunity, or do we stay and commit to a place that kind of needs us more? And it kind of came down to: We belong here. And we belong here in a way that we're starting to kind of be proud of. On whether Akron has succeeded in finding a new identity I think we have ... and that identity is reinvention. The University of Akron recently launched the first baccalaureate degree basically in the engineering of rust. And instead of calling it something scientific and modern-sounding, it's taken on this colloquial name: The Rust Institute. And it's drawn millions of dollars in grant money, and it's drawing students who are coming to Akron to study this rust prevention technology. But to call it The Rust Institute is to not say, "We're ashamed of this past that was partly, you know, defined by decay," but "We embrace it. It's something that's integrated with our future." |
Pigeons Fly In Fear As Rufus The Hawk Guards Wimbledon's Grass | At Wimbledon, maintaining the iconic grass courts is as important as the tennis matches themselves. Every day during the Championships, Centre Court is cut to a precise measurement of 10 millimeters and the white chalk lines are re-drawn. Groundskeepers use perennial ryegrass, which is perfect for a tennis match. It's also a delicacy for Wimbledon's unwanted guests: pigeons. "This grass seed is the most delicious food for them, and they think it's just been put out as a picnic for them," says 27-year-old falconer Imogen Davis. She knows all about Wimbledon's pigeons. For years, they've been interrupting matches and causing havoc, and it's her job to keep them off the court. Her secret weapon soars above Wimbledon's Centre Court. He's a 1-pound, 6-ounce hawk named Rufus. "Rufus is a 6-year-old male Harris hawk and he has the most beautiful chestnut- and tan-colored feathers," Davis says. Just the sight of his 40-inch wingspan is enough to keep pigeons out of the stadium's rafters. "The way we work with Rufus is that he sees us as part of his family and part of his group," Davis says. "He flies around and shoos any pigeons away and returns to us for his reward, which is usually chicken or quail. He has quite refined taste." He's also become quite the celebrity: Rufus is the star in a new ad for the beer Stella Artois. "I can't stop watching it," Davis says. "I'm completely blown away by it. And we're so lucky because we're a really small family business and it's all lead to Rufus and us having worldwide exposure. I can't believe it." But two years ago, Rufus' career almost came to an end when he was kidnapped. "He'd been out having his bath in the garden, and then we put him away, and [at] about 11:00 at night, Rufus was stolen," Davis says. Word spread that Wimbledon's hawk had disappeared. "The press attention went a little bit crazy," she says. "We were doing interview after interview after interview. It was unbelievable the amount of attention it received." So much attention, Davis says, it probably spooked the thieves. Four days later, a call was made from a payphone to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The voice said a bird was left at Wimbledon Common. "Luckily, we were reunited," Davis says. Rufus was found unharmed inside his traveling box. Wimbledon wraps up Sunday, but for Rufus and Imogen Davis, work for next season has just begun. They'll be back at Wimbledon every week of the year, in rain and snow, patrolling for pigeons. KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: And now to that other major tournament that's going on right now - Wimbledon - where maintaining the iconic grass courts is as important as the tennis itself. Every day, center court is cut to a precise measurement of 10 millimeters and the white chalk lines are redrawn. Groundskeepers use Perennial ryegrass, which of course is perfect for a tennis match. It's also a delicacy for Wimbledon's unwanted guests - pigeons. IMOGEN DAVIS: This grass seed is the most delicious food for them, and they think it's just been put out as a picnic for them. MCEVERS: Imogen Davis knows all about Wimbledon's pigeons, who for years have been interrupting matches and causing havoc. It's her job to keep them off the court. Her secret weapon - a one-pound, six-ounce hawk named Rufus, soaring above Wimbledon's center court. DAVIS: Rufus is a six-year-old male Harris Hawk. And he has the most beautiful chestnut and tan colored feathers. MCEVERS: Apparently just the sight of Rufus' 40-inch wingspan is enough to keep pigeons out of the stadium's rafters. DAVIS: He flies around and shoos any pigeons away and returns to us for his reward, which is usually chicken or quail. He has quite refined taste. MCEVERS: And he's kind of a celebrity. He's the star in this ad for the beer Stella Artois. (SOUNDBITE OF STELLA ARTOIS COMMERCIAL) UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hello pigeons, my name is Rufus. I'm not like you. I'm a bird of prey. DAVIS: I can't stop watching it. It's all lead to kind of Rufus and us having worldwide exposure. I can't believe it. MCEVERS: But then, two years ago, something happened. Rufus was bird napped. DAVIS: He'd been out having his bath in the garden. And then we put him away. And it was about 11 o'clock at night - Rufus was stolen. MCEVERS: Word got out that Rufus was gone. DAVIS: We were doing interview after interview, after interview. And it was unbelievable the amount of attention it received. MCEVERS: So much attention, Davis says, it probably spooked the bird-nappers. Four days later, a call was made to an animal shelter from a pay phone. The voice said a bird had been left, not far from Wimbledon Stadium. DAVIS: Luckily, we were reunited. MCEVERS: Rufus was found inside his traveling box, unharmed. Wimbledon wraps up tomorrow, but for Rufus and his handler, Imogen Davis, work for next season has just begun. They'll be back at Wimbledon every week of the year in rain and snow, patrolling for pigeons. |
<B>David Starobin's 'Newdance' </B> | Music critic Tom Manoff reviews a new cd by guitarist David Starobin. It's a collection of 18 short works composed by friends of the artist, and all for acoustic classical guitar. (Note: the cd is called "Newdance, 18 Works for Guitar by David Starobin" on Bridge Records. To contact Bridge Records, the number is 800 321 4066.) <EM>This item is unavailable due to Internet rights issues.</EM> |
Immigration Debate To Drag Into Next Presidential Election | It's more than likely that overhauling immigration will not happen this year. Congress has only nine working days left in 2013. And it appears, the issue will not be resolved next year either. |
Mitch Daniels: Avoid 'Fiscal Niagara' On Social Security | Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels urges a new approach for Social Security in his new book, Keeping the Republic. In the book, Daniels writes that Carlo Ponzi — the con man whose name became synonymous with a swindling scheme — would have been "an ideal Social Security commissioner." GOP presidential candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry caused a stir recently by making a similar statement. But Daniels says neither he nor Perry is the first to see elements of a Ponzi scheme in the U.S. Social Security system. "That comparison's been used for decades," Daniels tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. "Paul Samuelson, the liberal Democratic economist, was using it in the late '60s." But the comparison is still a valid one, the governor says. "I do think it's important in pointing out that Social Security is, and always was, a pay-as-you-go system," he says. "It never was, as many Americans were led to believe, an arrangement in which you invested in your own retirement. The money was always going right out the door to the retirees of the day." Daniels, whose book portrays America — and President Obama — in deep trouble, says that he largely agrees with columnist Charles Krauthammer, who says the Social Security system needs to be adjusted, not abolished, and that the changes can come over time. Changing the system, Daniels says, "would send a clear and positive message that we do not intend to go over a fiscal Niagara." "The wisest course would be to say to today's retirees, nothing changes for you, but also to ask them to join in seeing that younger generations who are paying for their retirement today have some protection, too." |
A Crusade for Mexico's Mentally Ill | Her sister's hospitalization for depression sent Virginia Gonzales Torres on a mission to reform her country's mental health system. Some 25 years later, she's founded a series of group homes and set the standard for how developing countries can treat the mentally ill. NPR's Joanne Silberner reports. |
Sen. Manchin Says Background Checks Bill Will Pass Next Time | Sen. Joe Manchin says he's going to reintroduce his bill that expands background checks for gun purchases to sales made at gun shows and online, and he predicts that the second time around, it will get enough votes to move out of the Senate. On Fox News Sunday, the West Virginia Democrat said he thinks there was "some confusion" about the bill when it came up for a vote in the Senate on April 17. That day, a 54-46 tally in favor was six votes shy of the number needed to move the measure forward. The bill's supporters accused the National Rifle Association and others of spreading rumors that the legislation was the first step toward a national registry of gun owners. On Fox, Manchin said he's convinced that if senators read the bill closely they'll conclude it does no such thing — and that it not only "protects your Second Amendment rights, it expands your Second Amendment rights." "The only thing that we've asked for is that people would just read the bill," Manchin added. "It's a criminal and mental background check strictly at gun shows and online sales. ... I've said this, if you're a law-abiding gun owner, you'll love this bill. If you're a criminal, if you've been mentally adjudicated through a court, you probably won't like it." Manchin also said that his Republican co-sponsor, Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, "is totally committed" to the legislation. |
Poet Simin Behbahani: Neda Is 'Voice Of The People Of Iran' | Simin Behbahani, a poet known as the lioness of Iran and for championing women's rights, has a message for the men and women of her nation: "Don't give up the fight for freedom." And, as she told Weekend Edition supervising senior producer Davar Iran Ardalan today, she has written two poems about the turmoil in Iran the past two weeks -- one of them for Neda, the young woman mourned around the world because her death during last Saturday's protests was viewed by millions on the Web and TV. Speaking by phone from Tehran, Behbahani talked about what's been happening in Iran and recited her poems: Update at 5:10 p.m. ET. Here's another way to get the story. Thomas Pierce of the Weekend Edition team has produced a video about Davar's conversation with Behbahani: Want to read and perhaps print out the poems? English versions follow: Read More >> Stop Throwing My Country To The Wind If the flames of anger rise any higher in this landYour name on your tombstone will be covered with dirt. You have become a babbling loudmouth.Your insolent ranting, something to joke about. The lies you have found, you have woven together.The rope you have crafted, you will find around your neck. Pride has swollen your head, your faith has grown blind.The elephant that falls will not rise. Stop this extravagance, this reckless throwing of my country to the wind.The grim-faced rising cloud, will grovel at the swamp's feet. Stop this screaming, mayhem, and blood shed.Stop doing what makes God's creatures mourn with tears. My curses will not be upon you, as in their fulfillment.My enemies' afflictions also cause me pain. You may wish to have me burned , or decide to stone me.But in your hand match or stone will lose their power to harm me. Simin Behbahani June 2009 Translated by Kaveh Safa and Farzaneh Milani For Neda Agha-Soltan You are neither dead, nor will you die. You will always remain alive. You have an eternal existence. You are the voice of the people of Iran. Simin Behbahani June 2009 You can also hear Behbahani on Weekend Edition Saturday, which will be following the latest news from Iran as well. Click here to find an NPR station near you. For much more about the situation in Iran, click here for NPR.org's complete coverage. |
Some Immigrants Relieved After Deportation Changes | Communities across the country reacted differently to President Obama's new immigration order. |
Congress Debates Iraq, Bush Readies for EU Trip | Juan Williams discusses issues the Senate is expected to discuss this week. And President Bush prepares to meet with European Union officials in Vienna. NPR's Don Gonyea previews the president's trip. |
Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band: Tiny Desk Concert | There's a point when a jam is just a jam, and when a jam becomes a journey... man. Ever since Chris Forsyth started The Solar Motel Band to fill out his long-form rock compositions, the Philly guitarist has proven his versatility not only as an instrumentalist, but also as a storyteller. Onstage, The Solar Motel Band opts for maximum-volume, high-energy rock 'n' roll — even low-key numbers are massive in their movement. In the NPR Music offices, where amp stacks could rattle books off the shelves, Forsyth culls a set from The Rarity Of Experience that plays to the room and speaks to the malleability of his work. The sparkling "Harmonious Dance" meditates on a gently unfolding melody shared between Forsyth and guitarist Nick Millevoi. Due to touring conflicts, The Solar Motel Band's rhythm section is different here than on record, but bassist Matt Stein provides a grounding force, as drummer Ryan Jewell — a heavy in the Columbus, Ohio, avant-jazz/improv scene for the past decade and change — loosens the very ground beneath it all. It's a dynamic that works to the band's advantage, helping to churn and turn these songs into new forms, like shifting plates beneath the Earth that disrupt and correct themselves. The Solar Motel Band closes this set with a twofer. First, there's the dubby and rumbling "The First Ten Minutes Of C********* Blues" (a nod to the unreleased Rolling Stones documentary directed by Robert Frank), where Millevoi bends and whammies the strings of his Fender into the dirt. But just as we crawl out from the grime, a buzzing drone segues into "Boston Street Lullaby," an understated and quiet tune with disquieting moments — a disarming journey worth taking. The Rarity Of Experience is available now (iTunes) (Amazon). Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band goes on tour with Super Furry Animals starting July 21. Set List "Harmonious Dance" "The First Ten Minutes Of C********* Blues" "Boston Street Lullaby" Credits Producers: Lars Gotrich, Niki Walker; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Videographers: Niki Walker, Morgan McCloy, CJ Riculan; Photo: Claire Harbage/NPR. For more Tiny Desk concerts, subscribe to our podcast. |
Jon Peede, Trump's Nominee To Lead NEH, Makes His Case On Why Agency Should Exist | NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Jon Peede, President Trump's nominee for the National Endowment for the Humanities — an agency he tried to cut from the most recent budget. |
In 1898, Satisfying A National Appetite For War | Before writing his new book, The War Lovers, Evan Thomas, the assistant managing editor of Newsweek magazine, spent three years researching an event a century removed from his day job: the 1898 Spanish-American War. But he did so, he says, because of similarities he perceived between the way America entered that conflict and the way it approached the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Thomas says part of what drove him to consider America's war with Spain was his own feeling that "it was a good idea to invade Iraq." Later, second-guessing that conviction, he looked to history for parallels. "Spain owned Cuba at the time, and the Cubans had been off-and-on rebelling for years, and we just finally decided to help them out," Thomas tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. "So there was a legitimate reason for going to war. We did liberate Cuba. But I don't think that was the main reason for doing it." In The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst and the Rush to Empire, 1898, Thomas explores the reasons that drove a few influential Americans to zealously support the cause of war. There was a desperate appetite for war among some Americans in the 1890s, Thomas says. Among them, the three men mentioned in his subtitle: newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, who stood to benefit from increased sales for papers that shouted war headlines; Massachusetts politician Henry Cabot Lodge, a leading imperialist who, Thomas writes, was greatly influenced as a child by the heroes of the Civil War; and future President Theodore Roosevelt, whose attraction to war was both political and deeply personal. Thomas says Roosevelt wasn't particular about who the opponent was. He even wrote letters advocating for war with Germany, or with England, for the purposes of liberating Canada. "He was ready, really, for any war, because he felt that Americans were growing soft," Thomas says. " 'Overcivilized' was the word that he used. And he felt that we needed to recapture what he called 'the wolf rising in the heart,' a kind of animal spirit that all great nations have." Roosevelt had personal motivation, as well. "He had this constant need, all through his life, to prove himself physically," Thomas says. "He was a weakly, sick kid with asthma, and he hiked, and then he became a great hunter. And he would rate animals based on how dangerous they were. And of course the most dangerous game is man, and he wanted to fight in a war to test his courage by hunting men." Not everyone was so enthusiastic. President William McKinley wanted to avoid war. He'd fought in the Civil War and had "seen the dead stacked up at Antietam," Thomas says. But the efforts of men like Hearst, Lodge and Roosevelt helped to whip up popular fervor. "At Congress, they were basically having pep rallies," Thomas says. "The country just wanted a war." For Roosevelt, the war was an astonishing success. He quit his desk job as assistant secretary of the Navy, enlisted in the cavalry and went to Cuba, where he led the Rough Riders in the Battle of San Juan Hill. When he returned, he was elected governor of New York. Two years later, he was elected vice president. When McKinley was assassinated in 1901, he became the youngest president ever. But not all the actors on this stage were as well-remembered. As Thomas puts it, Thomas Brackett Reed is a "pretty obscure figure" today. But at the time, he was one of the most powerful and outspoken opponents of the war. The Maine congressman and speaker of the House managed, for a time, to keep the House from voting on the war, but in the end, he couldn't hold out. "It broke his heart. At the end, he didn't even show up to vote," Thomas says. Reed's career fell as quickly as Roosevelt's rose: "He couldn't understand what this war fever was about. I think he had common sense. But he was the loser. As society got swept up, he was the guy who lost out." After America went to war, Reed resigned from Congress. He died in 1902. Thomas says the United States' "imperialist urge" waned after the Spanish-American war. He acknowledges that as he did research, he learned lessons about America's current wars that he "should have known from the beginning." "We talked about weapons of mass destruction and so forth, but I think that the main reason the Bush administration went to war in Iraq was because we wanted to teach the world a lesson after 9/11," Thomas says. "We wanted to -- to put it crudely -- to kick some ass." "We got sucked into something that actually has turned out OK. We did achieve some war aims, but we did it at great cost, and clearly we didn't know what we were getting into." LANGUAGE ADVISORY: This excerpt contains language that some readers may find offensive. Chapter 1: Dreaming of Father "Are me a soldier laddie too?" Near the top of Beacon Hill in Boston -- John Winthrop's shining "city on a hill" -- down the block from Charles Bulfinch's gold-domed statehouse, is 31 Beacon Street, the house where Henry Cabot Lodge grew up. "The sunny street |
Global Financial Markets Rally on Rate Cut | Asian and European stocks soar in response to the Federal Reserve's larger-than-expected rate cut. The Dow Jones Industrial average surged 335 points, its biggest one-day jump in nearly five years. |
SuperPACs Spend Big In Philadelphia's Mayoral Race | SuperPACs aren't just for presidential and congressional candidates anymore. In cities across the country, the unlimited donation political committees are stepping into local politics. |
Sierra Leone Election | In the West African nation of Sierra Leone today, voters turned out in large numbers to vote in elections they hope will give their tiny country a new start after a decade of war. Host Robert Siegel talks with reporter Ofeibea Quist-Arcton of the internet news agency <a href="http://www.allafrica.com" target="_blank"><EM>allAfrica-dot-com</EM></a>. She is stationed in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown. |
Spanish Construction Worker Wins Madrid's First-Ever Siesta Competition | I just yawned with envy. On a gray, rainy, soporific afternoon in Washington, this article caught my eye: "Ready, Set, Snore! Spain Holds Siesta Contest." "Some clutched pillows or stuffed animals, others fought back giggles as they sought to take a siesta in public -- all in the name of plugging a quintessential Spanish custom endangered by the demands of modern life," it begins. Amid the bustle of a shopping mall, with babies wailing and pop music piped in overhead, clutches of people tried to snooze Thursday in what was billed as Spain's first siesta competition. This is something I'd have a shot at winning, I think. At least today. The goal -- to promote Spain's cherished post-luncheon nap -- is no joke, although the costumes of some who participated may be. Read More Contestants had 20 minutes to nap. A doctor measured their heart rate. According to The Associated Press, "they could win extra points for snoring, adopting goofy sleep positions or wearing outlandish night wear in plain view of gawking shoppers." The winner: Fermin Lominchar, "who raised his arms in triumph as he mounted the podium." He was timed as having slept 18 minutes, much of it with his generous gut sticking out from an untucked plaid shirt. Sweet victory, with style. |
From That New Recording, | From that new recording, the Emerson String Quartet performs the finale from the String Quartet No. 7 in F, Op. 59, No. 1. 8:10 (DG 447 |
Making Middle East Peace | Hopes of meaningful negotiations in the Middle East seem so distant, yet just three and a half years ago Israel and the PLO were on the brink of a landmark agreement. Former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross joins NPR's Neal Conan to talk about a history of lost opportunities in the region. Guest: Dennis Ross, author of The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace. Former Middle East negotiator from 1988-2001. |
On HBO's 'Barry,' Bill Hader Asks, 'Can You Change Your Nature?' | Hader is up for Emmy Awards for acting in and writing the dark comedy series, <em>Barry</em>, in which he plays a hitman who enrolls in acting classes. <em>Originally broadcast June 20, 2019. </em> |
Is It Possible To Bridge The Gap Between Rich and Poor? | Part 2 of the TED Radio Hour episode Reconciliation About J.D. Vance's TED Talk J.D. Vance is a self-proclaimed member of the elite, but he grew up poor in the American Rust Belt. He details what the loss of the American Dream feels like. About J.D. Vance J.D. Vance grew up in the Rust Belt city of Middletown, Ohio, and the Appalachian town of Jackson, Kentucky. He enlisted in the Marine Corps after high school and served in Iraq. A graduate of the Ohio State University and Yale Law School, and is a principal at a leading Silicon Valley investment firm. He is the author of Hillbilly Elegy. |
Let's Rush To Judgment: The First Full Trailer For 'The Hunger Games' | Well, here it is. A full-length trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of Suzanne Collins' marvelous book The Hunger Games. They definitely seem to have captured both the weirdly luscious outdoors in which the Games take place and the industrial, bombed-out dystopia that is District 12. I like the crowd watching on the big screen, I like Elizabeth Banks as Effie, and of course, I love the intensity of Jennifer Lawrence in anything. But I continue to believe that Lawrence's age — she neither is a teenager nor looks like one — makes this a different story; a story about young adults rather than young teenagers, which I think lessens the brutality of a story that is meant to be brutal. She's a marvelous actress, but she doesn't look 16 to me in the slightest, and she certainly doesn't look like someone who could plausibly battle to the death against 12-year-olds. What's interesting is that Josh Hutcherson, who's playing Peeta, has exactly the quality of seeming far too young for battle that I don't see in Lawrence, not because she's not a spectacular actress, but because I just watched her play an adult in the indie romance Like Crazy. However! Despite those misgivings, I'm excited by the trailer and jazzed about seeing the movie, set for release in March of next year. |
Subsets and Splits