Bob Edwards Show, January 23-27, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012: Bob speaks with Thomas Frank, author of the bestseller What’s the Matter with Kansas? and now, Pity the Billionaire. The book chronicles the story of how the American Right has been reinvigorated by the recession. Then, Gar Alperovitz, professor of political economy at the University of Maryland, and the author of America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy. He joins Bob to discuss how workers can reestablish their rights.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012: This month marks the first anniversary of the tragedy in Tucson, Arizona that left six people dead and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords severely injured. Tom Zoellner, a fifth generation Arizonian, has written a cultural and historical analysis of the terrible events that unfolded on the morning of January 8th, 2011 called A Safeway in Arizona: What the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Tells Us About the Grand Canyon State and Life in America. In the book, Zoellner examines many of the underlying problems he sees in his home state including hysteria over issues of race, immigration and guns. Then, Pulitzer prize-winning editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes and cartoon historian Warren Bernard remember illustrator Ronald Searle, creator of St. Trinian and many other beloved books, who recently passed away at the age of 91.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012: As fuel costs eat into household budgets, a national obesity epidemic continues. All the while, a simple but profound solution to both these problems rolls by us every day. James Rubin is co-author of The Urban Cyclist’s Survival Guide, a primer for cyclists of all levels who wish to trade traffic and road rage for constant motion and easy exercise. Then, Steven Pinker discusses his new book, The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined.
Thursday, January 26, 2012: National Geographic explorer-in-residence Wade Davis takes readers along George Malloy’s ill-fated and harrowing attempt to climb Mt. Everest in his book Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest.
Friday, January 27, 2012: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times joins Bob to discuss the latest political news. Next, Ken Ballan is a former federal prosecutor and congressional investigator who spent five years as a researcher interviewing more than a hundred Islamic radicals. He was tasked with finding out more about their lives, faith and motivations. Terrorists in Love tells the stories of six of the men – from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia – and gets past the clichés about terrorism to reveal the surprising hearts and minds of some Jihadists. Then, in this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of Cande Iveson. With the approaching presidential election, political news is heating up. Iveson will not be choosing sides, though. In politics, as in religion and just about every other issue with extreme and opposing viewpoints, Iveson finds herself squarely in the middle. She says being in the middle is not just a non-position, but has its own, legitimate, truth.