Monday, June 8, 2009: In the tradition of the 1973 classic book The Boys on the Bus, journalist Eric Boehlert offers Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press. Boehlert uses the 2008 presidential race to show how bloggers influenced voters, the candidates and their campaigns.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009: Paul Petersen was a child actor—-kicked out of the original Mouseketeers for “conduct unbecoming a mouse.” He was later the young heartthrob on The Donna Reed Show and was one the reasons that millions of teenage girls never missed an episode. Today Peterson is an advocate for the physical, mental and financial well-being of performing minors.Then, the theory of evolution was introduced 150 years ago by Charles Darwin. Yet, still most medical schools do not teach how the human body and mind evolved from the Stone Age. Dr. William Meller has spent the bulk of his career studying evolutionary medicine and traveling to countries like Bhutan, Myanmar, and Peru to study ancient methods of healing. Meller discusses evolutionary medicine and how scientists can better learn through the study of anthropology.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009:At the Summit of the Americas in April, Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, pressed a book into President Obama’s hands: Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. The book was published in 1971 by one of Latin America’s most distinguished authors. Eduardo Galeano, who is Uruguayan, has criticized his own work for reducing “history to just one dimension,” and in recent years he’s turned to fiction and what he describes as “fictive” histories. Galeano talks with Bob about his latest book to be translated into English. Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone comes out this month.
Thursday, June 11, 2009: After he left the White House, Harry Truman drove his car from Independence, Missouri to New York City and back again, stopping at motels and diners just like any other tourists. Matthew Algeo retraces the excursion in Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip.
Friday, June 12, 2009: David Broder of The Washington Post joins Bob to talk politics. Next, the new film Food, Inc. presents an enlightening and sometimes disturbing view of the American food system. Director Robert Kenner and food activist Michael Pollan join Bob to talk about their new film and to discuss some of the problems and solutions for modern food. Then, in this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, Bob talks with executive director Dan Gediman about the essay from Walter White. He was executive secretary of the NAACP from 1931 to 1955. As a writer and activist, White lobbied for federal anti-lynching laws and the desegregation of the United States armed forces. Although fair-skinned with blond hair and blue eyes, White considered himself an African-American.