THE BOB EDWARDS SHOW HIGHLIGHTS – October 25-29, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
John Adams worked for the U.S. Attorney’s office when he and fellow lawyers teamed up to form a grassroots environmental group, which began with a layer of soot on a windowsill in New York City. The Natural Resources Defense Council now has more than 1.2 million members and 350 attorneys with a mission to protect the earth. John and his wife Patricia Adams discuss their new book, A Force for Nature: The Story of NRDC and the Fight to Save Our Planet.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
We finish off our series “Shhhh… Libraries at Work!” by exploring the library’s role in society. Why does the library hold a special place in our hearts? Who should determine what books are on— and off—the library shelves? And what happens when the “public” library becomes “private?” The trend to privatize public libraries is growing but when it happens, communities often fight back. We’ll talk to Stephen Klein and Jackie Griffin, two librarians who are fighting to keep their counties from outsourcing their public libraries. Then, we talk with Barbara Jones, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. The OIF tracks formal requests to remove a book from a library or classroom because of an objection to the book’s content.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Bob talks with Robin Nagle, who has one of the more interesting jobs out there. She’s the anthropologist-in-residence at New York City’s Department of Sanitation, a position she’s held since 2006. When she’s not studying the city’s trash, Nagle directs the John W. Draper Interdisciplinary Master’s Program in Humanities and Social Thought at NYU.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Michele Norris, co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered, initially planned to write a book about “postracial” America after President Barack Obama’s election in 2008. As Norris began to research America’s racial past, she was surprised to discover that her real story was much closer to home. Her book is titled The Grace of Silence. Then, Salon.com book critic Laura Miller dishes on fall books and what titles are worth your time as the days grow shorter.
Friday, October 29, 2010
David Broder of The Washington Post joins Bob to talk politics. Next, Bob talks with David Kindred, author of Morning Miracle. The book is an insider’s account of the workings of the Washington Post. Then, in this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the contemporary essay of Robin Mize. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist who works with individuals, couples and groups. She writes about learning to respect differences in political opinions, saying she is uncomfortable with the mob mentality of marches and protests.
Carol Besse's "I Believe (in revolution" essay was astounding…she and later Bob both wondering why people haven't taken to the streets in large numbers, why there is no revolution…HELLO…the revolution is happening NOW, originating with small groups of outraged, concerned average citizens across the nation, in back yards, living rooms, neighborhood parks, then later at town hall meetings where the outrage at politician's non-responsiveness and blatant misinformation…that then burgeoned into the only true grass roots revolution we've seen in half a century–individuals paying their own way to attend demonstrations; showing up with homemade, not mass produced, signs; representing the real "workers", all ages from teens to octogenarians: it's called the Tea Party Movement, and it is a revolution in response to the misguided, wasteful and duplicitous policies of the Obama regime. Besse says she believes in books because only an educated public will not be taken by smooth talking hucksters, well, guess what, Carol, that's exactly what you worked so hard to elect–an inexperienced, inept, ivory towerist, whose greatest talent is his ability to look good while reading a teleprompter and ginning up the quixotic base, an elitist spend thrift whose abysmal policies have exacerbated an already critical situation, tripling the debt and threating to bankrupt the nation.
Yes, Carol, I also marched in the protests of the 60's, in crowds of people chanting "Free Eldridge Cleaver"–the confessed rapist who in his book (you carry it?) Soul On Ice, made a case for the social justice of black men raping white women, or they'd chant "Free Huey Newton"–the cop killer, who was years later, as a matter of real social justice, gunned down by a former Panther member during a drug deal. Yea, I remember the riots, the demonstrations, the bleary eyed college radicals, the SDSers, there on their daddy's money or corporate scholarships, pumping fists, chanting 'down with the establishment pigs', "Up against the wall motherf%$#r", while glorifying their new found icons like Mao, Fidel, Che, Uncle Joe, Ho Chi Min–all oppressive pigs who brutalized, imprisoned, and murdered their citizens en mass in the name of social justice and the "Revolution"–party elitist oligarchs who lived relatively lavish life styles while the proletariat suffered and did without, short sighted ideologues who sent the brightest and best to reeducation camps or gulags, never to return. Yea Carol, you believe in revolution…well, we all want to change the world…,and I believe it's astounding that you and Bob were totally clueless of the irony of your final remarks: the revolution IS happening, just not the one you'd call for.