Erik Weihenmayer will tell you that conditions on the world’s tallest mountain do not meet the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Weihenmayer has a flair for understatement. Picture yourself walking across an aluminum ladder suspended over a crevasse so deep it could swallow you whole, like a coin in a parking meter. Now picture yourself doing that in freezing temperatures, under constant threat of avalanche, and with your eyes closed. That might give you some idea of what Erik Weihenmayer did in 2001, when he became the first blind man to scale Mt. Everest’s 29,035 feet.

Some said he couldn’t do it, and shouldn’t even try. They said, “If you can’t see the mountain, why climb it?” Erik Weihenmayer has an answer.

Guests:

Erik Weihenmayer, mountaineer

While it’s the Greeks who lay claim to the invention of democracy, it was the people here who actually gave them the tools. The concept of private property, the notion of a constitutional assembly and the idea that men and their rulers were equal before their gods came first in this land between two rivers.

Perhaps the most pervasive aspect of Saddam Hussein’s legacy is that he was able to throttle all such notions out of the minds of his people. But since his departure, Iraqis and foreigners have been at work trying to reseed those ideas. But whose democracy will it be?

At this point it’s back to basics, how to run a meeting, how to decide who gets to make decisions. Of the people, by the people, for the people, but with the people.

Guests:

Amal Rassam, former Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York, currently a contractor with RTI International

Emad Saleh, member of the District Council of Al-Mansour.

Mutual funds were supposed to be a safe and easy way to make money. At least that’s what 95 million Americans thought when they put $7 trillion of their hard earned money into them. Safer than stocks, more profitable than bonds, mutual funds offered a way for ordinary investors to benefit from the expertise and experience of fund managers who were supposed to have their interests at heart.

But now the managers of some of the country’s biggest mutual funds are being charged with trading in ways that enriched the few at the expense of the many. From Putnam Investments last week, to Prudential Securities yesterday, to Alliance Capital this morning, top executives are losing their jobs and investors are wondering if they will lose more money.

Guests:

Paul Roye, Director, Division of Investment Management , U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

Gary Gensler, former Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, U.S. Treasury

Ian McDonald, financial reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Something of a homecoming for us this morning; a return to the school of music and ballet where six months ago we walked with the teachers through the vandalized and looted ruins of their school. At that time the playground was a mess of abandoned trenches and the uniforms of Iraqi soldiers were still strewn across the grounds. The musical instruments which hadn’t been stolen were lying smashed on the floor.

But the school is open again. The students are back in their classrooms. This hour, we take a look over their shoulders at what their learning. At this very moment the books are being replaced, but the memories of the past 35 years can’t be changed so quickly. It’s not just a matter of removing the face of Saddam Hussein, it’s figuring out what to put in its place.

Guests:

Fuad Hussein, advisor to the Ministry of Education in Iraq

Hashem Mohammed, teacher at the Baghdad School of Music and Ballet

Mary Gray, Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the American University.

Senator Bob Graham will tell you politics is all about tough decisions, and yesterday was no exception. Less than a month after dropping out of the presidential race, the Florida democrat decided to opt out of politics altogether– announcing he won’t run for a fourth term. The move is a blow to both Democrats who were hoping to gain control of the Senate next year, and to Florida voters with whom he is extremely popular.

Senator Graham made waves in Washington by voting against the war, and insisting the Administration is failing in its fight against terrorism. But such tough talk failed to stir voters on the campaign trail. So, with one year before the presidential election, Senator Graham talks about why he ran, why he quit, and what the Democrats need to do in 2004.

Guests:

Senator Bob Graham, Democrat from Florida

The country of Iraq has been transformed in many ways; Saddam Hussein has gone, coalition soldiers and American advisors control much of what happens here, but Iraq has also been transformed into one enormous duty free zone.

Televisions that cost $600 a year ago now sell for less than half that…the latest computer chips and digital cameras are packed into the windows of Baghdad shops. There is no tax. There are no restrictions on what comes in. Most of the shiny new Mercedes on the street have the shipping stickers still in the window and no license plates. They’re not required.

It is a fascinating moment to take the temperature of private enterprise in this country, not just from the perspective of the fabled Iraqi traders, but in their search for investors and international partners. Speculating in Iraq and on Iraq

Guests:

Dennis Sokol, chairman and former CEO of the American hospital group

Dr. Salah Al-Hadithi and Raaid al-Hammami, Iraqi businesmen.

Talk about keeping up a game face. After 16 Americans were killed and twenty one injured this weekend in the single largest attack on U.S. troops in Iraq since combat operations ceased, Donald Rumsfeld was on Meet the Press saying that the American people are ready for whatever comes next there. “They know that what’s taking place is tragic” he said, “but they also know it’s necessary.”

Despite the Defense Secretary’s “cowboy up” rhetoric, critics are saying that it didn’t have to be this way, and that much of the chaos and killing could have been avoided if the Pentagon hadn’t disregarded the advice of State Department experts who spent months laying the groundwork for a democratic transition in Iraq.

Guests:

David Rieff, NYTimes writer

David Phillips, former advisor to State Department’s Future of Iraq Project

Feisal Istrabadi, former member of Future of Iraq Project and senior fellow, DePaul University School of Law and TBA.

Across this city today people here are talking about the news of the American soldiers killed in the attack on the helicopter, and their reactions are as mixed and conflicted as their own lives. At any time or place they find themselves facing tangles or razor wires sandbags and for3eign soldiers. The clatter of those American helicopters is a near constant reminder that what they do and where they go is decided only by those foreign soldiers and the Iraqis who work with them.

For many here the deaths of the young Americans are no cause for celebration; too many Iraqi families have seen their own sons killed. And in this mess there are now dozens of newspapers and Iraqi journalists trying to tell the stories of their city, their country, reporting on the conflict and the conflicted, next on the connection.

Guests:

Hassan Fattah, Editor of Iraq Today, an English-language weekly newspaper based in Baghdad

Sarmad Ali, reporter for Iraq Today.