The Bob Edwards Show, November 28 – December 2, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011: Gerry Hadden was aspiring to become a Buddhist monk when he got an offer to become the NPR correspondent for Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean. In his memoir, Never the Hope Itself: Love and Ghosts in Latin America and Haiti, Hadden takes you through his own ghost-filled life as he reports on a region in turmoil. Hadden is now the Europe correspondent for Public Radio International’s “The World.” Then, the ancient Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is said to be one of the happiest places on earth and one that has been isolated from industrialization until relatively recently. In fact, Bhutan measures its success in Gross National Happiness rather than in GNP. Radio journalist Lisa Napoli moved to Bhutan to help start a radio station, Kuzoo FM. She writes about it all in her book, Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011: Psychologist Daniel Kahneman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on the rational model of judgment and decision making. He has just written Thinking, Fast and Slow and he talks with Bob about the two systems that drive the way we think: the fast, emotional system and the slower, logical system. Then, American conceptual artist Mel Bochner becomes the first living artist to show in the National Gallery of Art’s Tower Gallery with the new show In the Tower: Mel Bochner. One of the last remaining important American conceptualists, Bochner’s work examines the political and social consequences of language.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011: In a new book, House of Cash: The Life, Legacy and Archives of The Man in Black, the only son of Johnny Cash and June Carter tells the family story as only he knows it. John Carter Cash discusses his memoir which also features a large number of unpublished photographs, poetry, sketches, songs from master tapes dating back to the mid-50s and much more.
Thursday, December 1, 2011: Long before pay-per-view, the WWE and Hulk Hogan, the world of professional wrestling was like the Wild West. And Memphis was its Dodge City. A new documentary from director Chad Schaffler tells the story of Memphis wrestling, from the carnival days of Sputnik Monroe, to integration, female wrestlers, and Jerry “The King” Lawler, who famously wrestled Andy Kauffman. The film is titled, Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrasslin’. Then, we’ll visit a professional wrestling school in West Memphis, Arkansas that carries on the tradition of regional training and performances.
Friday, December 2, 2011: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times joins Bob to discuss the latest political news. Next, in February 2008, Steve Kazmierczak opened fire and killed five fellow students before shooting himself at Northern Illinois University. Author David Vann gained access to the police files to profile that killer, as well as describe his own contemplated shooting, in Last Day on Earth: a Portrait of the NIU School Shooter. Then, in this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of John Warley. When Warley’s children were young, his family almost broke apart in divorce. That close call taught him to cherish the too-short time when everyone slept safely under the same roof, before sleepovers, curfews and college cast his kids into the wider world.