HOUR ONE
- The $160 million in bonuses paid to AIG employees from the federal bailout money angered politicians in Washington and citizens across the country. But the $3.6 billion in bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch workers oddly has not – nor has the $210 million paid to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac employees. Washington Post reporter Amit Paley discusses who’s getting what of the bailout funds – and why some lawmakers are perplexed by the complicated rules related to executive compensation during this financial crisis.
- Jesse Winchester went to Canada in 1967 to avoid being drafted during the Vietnam War. While in Montreal, he wrote songs that were covered by various artists, but Winchester’s career as a performer suffered because he couldn’t tour in the United States. Only after1977, when President Carter granted amnesty to draft dodgers could Winchester return to the U.S. to perform for his American fans. He tells Bob that his move to Canada was only one of many unwise career moves.
- Bob talks with music reviewer Anthony DeCurtis about Love Filling Station, the new CD from Jesse Winchester.
HOUR TWO (Tom Frail was a late addition to the lineup).
- As the Discovery channel’s hit show Mythbusters starts its seventh season, hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage talk with Bob about the hard but entertaining work of using science to confirm or expose popular myths.
- Evan Wright was embedded with the Marines for the first forty days of the Iraq War and those reports for Rolling Stone were made into a dramatic HBO miniseries called Generation Kill. Wright’s knack for documenting human nature and power struggles didn’t start there. He’s written for Hustler and Vanity Fair and his latest book, Hella Nation, draws on detailed observations of the time he’s spent interviewing members of the underbelly of American culture.
- Writer Eudora Welty is best known as a chronicler of the American south, especially for her Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Optimist’s Daughter. What many people don’t know is that during the Great Depression, Welty was equally adept at noticing and recording those everyday details in photographs. Bob talks with journalist Tom Frail about his article “The Writer’s Eye” which appears in the April issue of Smithsonian Magazine.