This Weekend’s Show

Bob Edwards Weekend Highlights – March 26-27, 2011

HOUR ONE:

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish watched three of his daughters die, killed recklessly by Israeli tank shells. After his family’s unbelievable tragedy, Dr. Abuelaish broadcast a message live on Israeli television: he spoke emotionally about what such a loss meant but then he asked not for revenge but for reconciliation. I Shall Not Hate is a recounting of Abuelaish’s life, starting with his childhood in the refugee camps of Gaza. He says he hopes to honor the memory of his three daughters with something more productive than violence and destruction.

In this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of Marian Wilson Kimber.  She is a musicologist who teaches at the University of Iowa. Kimber moved there from Mississippi, where her daily visits to a coffee shop kept her connected to a community of people who were very different from her. Kimber says we as a society need places that allow people with different backgrounds and political ideas to mix and share respectful conversations.

HOUR TWO:

In 2005, astronomer Mike Brown outraged school children and arm-chair star gazers alike by demoting Pluto from a real planet to a newly categorized “dwarf” planet.  He explains why in his book How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It ComingTime magazine named Brown one of the 100 People Who Shape Our World. 

The hundredth anniversary of Gustav Holst’s The Planets is coming up and the band One Ring Zero revisits the solar system with an album celebrating all things celestial; even Pluto is included. Front man Michael Hearst talks with Bob about the CD called Planets.

Bob Edwards Weekend is heard on XM 133 & Sirius 196 on Saturdays from 7-9 AM EST.

Visit Bob Edwards Weekend on PRI’s website to find local stations that air the program.

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