THE BOB EDWARDS SHOW HIGHLIGHTS – June 27 – July 1, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011: Beginning in 1999, Jeanne Woodford became the Warden of San Quentin State Prison in California where she oversaw four executions. In 2004, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed her to be the Director of the California Department of Corrections. And this year, Woodford was named the new executive director of Death Penalty Focus, one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the nation dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment. Woodford discusses this new position and her commitment to public safety. Then, Bob goes inside the world of ESPN with co-author James Miller. He’s written a history and a behind-the-scenes look at everyone’s favorite cable sports network called Those Guys Have All the Fun. The ESPN story is told through interviews with more than 500 people, including founders, current and former anchors, athletes and fans.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011: My Perestroika is a film that provides a rare account of the collapse of the Soviet Union as experienced by five people who lived it. The documentary, woven from home movies and Soviet propaganda films from the era, has its national broadcast premier on Tuesday, June 28th on the PBS program POV. Robin Hessman is the director, producer and cinematographer. Then, Bob talks with satirist and parodist Weird Al Yankovic about his new album Alpocalypse (that’s not a typo) and his career poking fun at music’s biggest stars and their hits.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011: Over 100 years after his death, Frederick Law Olmsted is still America’s most famous and influential landscape architect. The designer of Central Park, the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, and many other notable projects, Olmsted was also a conservationist, fighting to preserve Niagara Falls and Yosemite for future generations. Biographer Justin Martin details his life in Genius of Place: the Life of Frederick Law Olmsted: Abolitionist, Conservationist, and Designer of Central Park.
Thursday, June 30, 2011: Each year about one million people renounce the birth of their country and swear allegiance to the United States of America. A few years ago, one of those new American citizens was filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi’s Dutch-born husband, Michiel Vos. “I can’t be a foreigner in my own family,” Pelosi recalls her husband saying. His story inspired Pelosi to travel the country attending naturalization ceremonies and hearing the stories of brand-new Americans. Her film, Citizen USA: A 50 State Road Trip premiers July 4th on HBO. Then, Jeffrey Deaver is the author of twenty-eight novels but his next is a first. No James Bond book has ever been written by an American, until now. Deaver discusses Carte Blanche: A James Bond Novel, its villains, women, and British humor about Yankees.
Friday, July 1, 2011: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times joins Bob to talk about politics and other news. Next, scientists at the FDA estimate that the painkiller Vioxx directly led to the deaths of 40,000 people over the five years that the drug was on the market. Former NPR reporter Snigdha Prakash covered the story while it was unfolding and now she has written a book about the trials that eventually led the drug company Merck to reach a multi-billion dollar settlement. In All The Justice Money Can Buy, Prakash describes the legal maneuverings and scientific manipulation that make it very difficult to hold powerful corporations accountable. Then, in this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of Joan Skiba. She grew up in a military family, and Skiba was a perfect patriot. As a young woman in the 1960s, she served as a nurse in Vietnam, treating wounded soldiers. That experience taught her about the dangers of patriotism. Skiba says that a true patriot should celebrate her country, but question the decisions of her government.