Monday, May 2, 2011: Diana Henriques has written the definitive book on Bernie Madoff, based on unprecedented access and interviews with more than one hundred people at all levels of the crime. The Wizard of Lives: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust is out this week. Then, May 1st is a little-known federal holiday, Loyalty Day. Made official in 1958, the original purpose was for Americans to reaffirm their loyalty to the United States. But loyalty oaths have a problematic history in this country, starting with the Revolutionary War. George Washington was for them, so was Joe McCarthy who believed you were not patriotic enough unless you took one. Loyalty is a tricky virtue, the foundation for love and family, but also the cause of much misery and betrayal, especially when loyalties collide. Wall Street Journal columnist Eric Felten offers mediation on the subject in his new book, Loyalty: The Vexing Virtue.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011: Few sculptors can claim the renown and success that Richard Serra has achieved in his forty year career. But a new show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City titled Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective focuses on Serra’s skills on paper, a segment of his work often overlooked by the public. This is the first retrospective of Serra’s drawings and shows the varied abilities of this visionary artist. Then, our resident folklorists Steve Winick and Nancy Groce share songs and stories all about water.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011: Jessica Goodell was one of two women in the Marine Corps’ first official Mortuary Affairs unit in Iraq. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was mentioned at the end of her two-week training in 2004, but she and members of that unit suffered multiple mental and physical breakdowns after they tried to repress their experiences. Goodell describes it all in Shade It Black: Death and After in Iraq.
Thursday, May 5, 2011: Rachel Lloyd became a prostitute when she was just thirteen-years old. Her single mom was an alcoholic and with no adult paying attention, Lloyd was an easy target for a pimp who brought her into “the life.” Several years later, Lloyd got out, earned her GED, then bachelors and masters degrees, and is now the head of GEMS, an organization she formed in 1998 to help girls like her. Lloyd has written a new book, Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale, an Activist Finds Her Calling and Heals Herself.
Friday, May 6, 2011: Doyle McManus, Washington Bureau Chief for the Los Angeles Times joins Bob to talk about politics and other news. Next, Caroline Kennedy is best-known as the only daughter of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, but she is also a well respected author and book editor. In a new poetry collection titled She Walks in Beauty, Kennedy focused on poems that celebrate and honor womanhood. Then, in this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of Suzanne Biemiller. These days, we have lots of ways to keep in touch with loved ones far away. Most of them involve quick notes and status updates. Biemiller says there’s no substitute for the sound of a familiar voice over the telephone. She began calling her mother regularly when she went away to college, and they still talk on the phone all the time, even though they now live in the same city.