HOUR ONE
- Writer Thomas Cahill first met Dominique Green in December 2003 at the request of a local judge. Green had spent twelve years on death row for a murder he says he didn’t commit. Cahill pleaded for Green’s life, even recruiting Archbishop Desmond Tutu to help, saying Green had “a level of goodness, peace, and enlightenment that few human beings ever attain.” That fight ended on October 26, 2004 in Huntsville, Texas when the 30-year-old inmate was executed by lethal injection. But Thomas Cahill continues to tell Green’s story in his new book titled A Saint on Death Row.
- Sirius XM classical music host Martin Goldsmith explains some of George Frideric Handel’s musical trickery in his masterpiece “The Messiah.”
HOUR TWO
- Newsweek columnist Ellis Cose’s new public radio series, Against the Odds, focuses on stories of individuals who, despite enduring terrible events, have made positive contributions to the world. One of the hour-long programs is titled Hope on a Pile of Bones, and examines how the small country of Rwanda is pulling itself back together after the 1994 genocide. It all started 15 years ago this month, and before the killing stopped in July, nearly a million Rwandans were dead.
- Corneille is a young R&B artist who was born in Germany, raised in Rwanda, now holds Canadian citizenship, and sings in English and French. His sound has been compared to Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Sam Cooke. And although he has sold millions of records in both France and Canada, Corneille is relatively unknown in the US. Motown Records plans to change that with the release of his latest CD titled The Birth of Cornelius. And if the music doesn’t move people, the back-story will: Corneille’s parents and many members of his extended family were killed in the Rwandan genocide.