Grey hair and Crow’s feet. If that’s what you see peering out from the mirror every morning, what you’re looking at are not just signs of maturity but one of this country’s most important economic indicators. The aging of the America, the retirement of the boomers and the related crisis in social security are soon to become the nation’s worst economic problems; but they remain the most ignored. That, according to Barry Anderson, and he should know.

Anderson is a Washington budget expert who for three decades has advised presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush Senior, Clinton and George W., on America’s biggest money issues, and he’s so fed up with Washington’s refusal to focus on this looming economic iceburg, that he’s up and quit.

Guests:

Barry Anderson, Deputy Director, Congressional Budget Office

Gail Russell Chaddock, Congressional Reporter, Christian Science Monitor

Courage can be an act of great physical bravery, but it can also be something as simple as speaking up, saying something at a time when it would be easier to let an injustice pass.

Sometimes the greatest act of courage is looking in the mirror and acknowledging what you see. That is what a man named Dan Ponder did. He stood in front of the Georgia Legislature, a white Republican representing a conservative rural district. He spoke, not as some of his own colleagues did, repeating the political lines of the past, but he spoke about the pervasive nature of hatred and racism. It was a speech that changed the tone of one political debate, but it also changed the course of Dan Ponder’s life.

Guests:

Dan Ponder Jr., former Georgia State Representative, 2003 recipient of the John F. Kennedy Library’s “Profile in Courage” Award

U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia), 2001 recipient of the “Profile in Courage for Lifetime Achievement” Award.

Colin Powell’s tour of the Middle East was supposed to be a post-Iraq diplomatic victory lap, designed to show the U.S. commitment to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and promote democracy in the region. But Powell hit roadblocks every step of the way.

The new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has agreed to new road map in principle, but faces the difficult task of preventing suicide attacks. Meanwhile, Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon is refusing to freeze all settlement activity and demanding new concessions from the Palestinians. And while diplomacy falters in Tel Aviv and Gaza, bombs ripped through Saudi Arabia claiming lives and renewing fears of widespread terrorism.

Why bringing peace to the Middle East may need more than a map.

Guests:

Rami Khouri, Executive Editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut Lebanon, and an internationally syndicated columnist

Sulaiman Al-Kahtani, commentator for Al-Riyadh newspaper

Chemi Shalev
political commentator for Ma’ariv newspaper – based in Tel
Aviv.

Long before the blue glow flickered for the first time in American living rooms, the FCC’s protection of public airwaves anticipated television’s popular and profit-making appeal. Ownership caps and restrictions on TV and print outlets aimed to ensure diversity, competition, and local programming.

Then came the ’90s, and with them a mass consolidation of mass communications. And in a few markets where a single owner already controlled both print and TV outlets, a media experiment was born. It’s called convergence, and in markets where it’s working, “collaborative” news coverage where print reporters do double duty for TV, is replacing competition. As the FCC prepares for a landmark vote on June 2, convergence could become practice.

Guests:

Marvin Kalb, senior fellow, Shorenstein Center for the Press, Politics and Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard

Forrest Carr, news director, WFLA-TV, Tampa, Florida

As the U.S. opened a can of regime change on Saddam Hussein, another ruthless ruler was flexing his murderous muscle in Africa. Robert Mugabe, launched a campaign of terror against Zimbabwe’s opposition party for organizing a national strike. That news registered hardly a blip on the American media radar screen, but it would have been front-page material for Geoffrey Nyarota, founder of Zimbabwe’s only independent daily News paper.

Nyarota, despite death threats, bombings and frequent arrests, continually exposed the corrupt policies of his country’s ruling Zanu PF party. Now in exile in the U.S., the award-winning journalist is advocating for, and anxious to return to, a Mugabe-free Zimbabwe.

Guests:

Geoffrey Nyarota, Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, award-winning journalist, and founding editor of “The Daily News,” Zimbabwe’s first independent newspaper

Vartan Gregorian thinks big. Always has. His new autobiography traces his roots all the way to the Garden of Eden, which he says might have been near Tabriz, the city in northern Iran where he was born 69 years ago. He thought big as an impoverished 15 year old, when he decided to become a “person of learning and consequence”, which he did, with help from admirers and his own fierce determination.

He certainly thought big in the 1980s when he was hired to bring the New York Public Library back from the brink of bankruptcy. And he did, again with charm and determination and a conviction that libraries hold the DNA of our civilization. Thinking big with Vartan Gregorian.

Vartan Gregorian will speak at the Boston University School of Management this afternoon, see link below for details.

Guests:

Vartan Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation of New York, author, “The Road to Home: My Life and Times.”

It would be an understatement to say there are some unanswered questions lingering around the war in Iraq. For example: where are those weapons of mass destruction? Where is Saddam Hussein? But perhaps the biggest uncertainty lies with the issue of oil.

During the pre-war, protest days, “No Blood for Oil” was the mantra of many. But now that the war is essentially over, the question of what will become of Iraq’s black gold is more appropriate. There’s no doubt that oil is central to Iraq’s economic future and political stability. But it’s also vitally important to the global economy.

Meanwhile, the United Nations continues to debate what countries will control Iraqi oil revenues, and for how long. Looking at the future of oil in Iraq with energy expert Daniel Yergin.

Guests:

Daniel Yergin, renowned economist, energy expert, and Chairman of the Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Mr. Yergin also received the Pultizer Prize for General Nonfiction for his work, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power. His most recent book is The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy

Greg Barrow, the BBC’s UN correspondent.

It’s tough to stay in power in Israel. Ask any of the former Prime Ministers. It’s even harder in the fickle world of the arts. That’s one reason why the resilience and the appeal of a particular Israeli musical group stands out from all the others.

The name of the band is Habrera Hativit. When they started playing together 26 years ago, their music was seen as the music of the enemy. That was because Habrera Hativit refused to imitate Western pop, but instead played a fusion of Eastern music; sephardic sounds from Morocco, and from North Africa. While once their music was shunned, now it is celebrated. It is the music of the land, the music of the people.

Habrera Hativeet & Shlomo Bar will play Saturday, May 10, at 9 P.M. at the Somerville Theater in Davis Square.

Guests:

Habrera Hativeet

It is the world’s most carefully monitored scavenger hunt, and so far the Bush Administration’s basket is empty. After months of impassioned speeches to the UN and the rest of the world, citing intelligence reports on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. has yet to produce the proof.

The administration has just announced it is sending another 2000 people to Iraq to join in a search that has so far turned up only barrels of rocket fuel, suspicious trailers and pesticides. Critics of the war say the lack of evidence shows that the administration lied and the war was a fraud. But supporters argue that the weapons will be found in time, but even if they aren’t, who cares? Saddam is gone, Iraq has been liberated, and the world is a safer place.

Guests:

David Albright, President of the Institute for Science and International Security, and former nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq

David Kay, senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and former Chief UN nuclear weapons Inspector.

Guests:

Habrera Hativeet