Monthly Archives: November 2004

Debating for the Future

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Tommie Lindsey believes in the power of words to do just about anything. And he should know. Lindsay is a debate coach at high school outside San Jose, CA where kids are labeled at risk and few go on to college. But by teaching his students to use language, drama and emotion, Lindsay has helped many overcome broken homes and move on to the Ivy League. Lindsey believes that mastering the art of a persuasive argument is any student’s ticket to the future. Teaching his students discipline, manners and the turn of a good phrase, he’s instilling self-respect and self-esteem, and giving hope to students who have little to begin with.

Guests:

Tommie Lindsey, Debate coach at James Logan High School in Union City, CA and winner of a MacArthur Genius Award.

Future of the FDA

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The Food and Drug Administration is under investigation by Congress for the way it handled the painkiller Vioxx. The agency is being challenged for approving drugs without adequate testing, and it’s being questioned about its follow-up — monitoring drugs once they are on the market. Critics say the FDA regulators need more distance from the drug companies. But those who speak for the drug makers continue to warn that excessive oversight slows the process of getting new drugs to needy patients.

Guests:

Sam Kazman, Chief Counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC

Marcia Angell, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine

Marc Kaufman, Washington Post reporter

Who Owns Words?

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The highly regarded British play “Frozen,” comes very much from an article written seven years ago by Malcolm Gladwell, staff writer for The New Yorker. His piece was about a New York psychiatrist who studies serial killers, and the playwright borrows entire sentences from the magazine, in her play about a New York psychiatrist who studies serial killers.

Gladwell’s first thought was that it was a straightforward case of plagiarism but the more he thought about it, the more he started questioning the whole idea of artistic ownership. Who, after all, owns words? He joins us to talk about the difference between ideas and expression, thievery and flattery.

Guests:

Malcolm Gladwell, Staff Writer for The New Yorker

Justin Hughes, Professor of Intellectual Property at Cardozo Law School in New York City

Rethinking U.S.-Arab Relations.

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There’s not a lot that’s certain about the future of the Middle East right now. In Iraq, much of Fallujah lies in rubble, while violence is now spreading to other cities. In the occupied territories, one of Arafat’s successors is attacked by militants, raising the specter of a violent power struggle among Palestinians. And in Iran, the government is promising it will abandon its nuclear programs if the U.N. drops the idea of sanctions. While experts spin out best and worst case scenarios for all these situations, the one uncontested fact is that for the next four years, the Bush Administration will be throwing its diplomatic and military might around in all these areas.

Guests:

Rami Khouri, Executive Editor of The Daily Star in Beirut, Lebanon

Ray Takeyh, Senior Fellow of Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations

Alissa Rubin, reporter for the LA Times based in Baghdad

Arctic Meltdown

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A new study says that temperatures at the top of the world are rising fast, and warn that if current trends continue, the days of polar bears, and low lying coastal areas could be numbered. They point to the rise in greenhouse gases as the culprit.

But while the world moves to cut carbon emissions with the Kyoto Treaty, the US remains defiantly on the sidelines — questioning the economics and effectiveness of the global pact. The Bush administration says the treaty would cost billions of dollars, millions of jobs and barely slow the rising mercury. European leaders admit Kyoto is a small step, but an absolutely vital one — with or without the U.S.

Guests:

Dr. Kilparti Ramakrishna, Woods Hole Research Center

Dr. Lonnie Thompson, Glaciologist at Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar Research Center

Former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation

Roger A. Sedjo, Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future

Jos Delbeke, Director General for Environment at the European Commission

The Transatlantic Alliance

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Prime Minister Tony Blair is the first world leader to meet the newly re-elected President Bush today in Washington. Blair walks a fine line. The British public’s opposition to the war in Iraq has him fighting for his political life at home. Blair is expected to press for a greater concentration on Middle East peace in part to persuade political opponents at home and critics in Europe that the U.S. alliance is worth defending.

It’s all part of an ongoing crisis of Western identity, according to historian Timothy Garton Ash. In his new book “Free World,” he describes Britain as the Western country that is most painfully torn between Europe and America. Hear a conversation with Garton Ash about Europe’s strategic options for dealing with a second Bush administration.

Guests:

Timothy Garton Ash, contemporary historian, author, director of the European Studies Centre and Gerd Bucerius Senior Research Fellow in Contemporary History of St. Antony’s College, Oxford University

Roddy Doyle

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The hard and scrappy Dublin neighborhoods of the writer Roddy Doyle have won him acclaim around the world. But now, Doyle has set his sights on America.

His new book, “Oh Play That Thing”, tells the story of Irish mobster Henry Smart who leaves the slums and hit man’s life in Ireland to reinvent himself in a new world.

Doyle follows Henry through the speakeasies and bustling streets of New York in the 20s to the music clubs of Chicago — where he discovers jazz and Satchmo himself, Louis Armstrong. Doyle’s prose is still full of his signature grit and sex, where sweat and blood color all his characters. This is a story of becoming an American and living in an age of invention, racism, and loss.

Guests:

Roddy Doyle, author of “Oh, Play That Thing.”

Life for the Wounded

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President John F. Kennedy once said: “A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces, but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.” For 86 years, Americans have taken this day, Veterans Day, to remember its soldiers. From the World Wars in Europe, to Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, and now Afghanistan and Iraq, American soldiers have served their country. And while they are celebrated for this sacrifice in ceremony, many have a harder time finding the care and help they need rebuilding lives in America. Whether the wounds are physical or psychological, the endless piles of paper and hospitalizations, and rehabilitation, and benefits requests are all a part of the struggle to try to get back to normal. Asking what it means to “Support the Troops” on and off the battlefield.

Guests:

Wayne Smith, Board Member of the Directors of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, based in Washington DC, and former Vietnam combat-medic

John Fernandez and David Walls, Iraq war veterans

Ashcroft's Legal Legacy

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The attorney general became known for his bare knuckle tactics in locking up foreigners and suspected terrorists, and he became a political lightening rod for his tactics in the war on terror.

But while he earned the ire of civil libertarians and librarians alike for his support of the Patriot Act, others celebrated the nation’s top lawmaker for his defense of conservative causes — including going after the medical records of abortion providers, easing up gun laws and advocating for a more aggressive use of the death penalty.

Guests:

David Cole, Georgetown University Law School professor, legal affairs correspondent for The Nation, and a columnist for Legal Times. He is also the author of “No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System.” ;
Shannen Coffin, former deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department Civil Division under John Aschroft. He is now a partner at the law firm of Steptoe
and Johnson and writes for the National Review Online. ;

Harvey Silverglate, counsel to the Boston law firm of Good and Cormier. He is also, among other things, a writer for the Boston Phoenix.

Textbook Battles

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The Texas Board of Education recently ruled that health books will present abstinence as the only form of birth control, and will define marriage as the union between a man and a woman. Since Texas has the second largest schoolbook printing industry in America, students in many other states will be learning those same lessons. Other fights in Georgia over whether evolution should only be presented as a theory are raising questions over whether local communities should be the ones to decide what goes inside their school textbooks — or whether national standards are needed.

Guests:

Charles Haynes, Senior scholar, First Amendment Center in Washington, DC

Dan Quinn, Communications Director for the Texas Freedom Network

Cathie Adams, President, Texas Eagle Forum