THE BOB EDWARDS SHOW, March 12-16, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012: Barbara Ehrenreich says of Katherine Boo’s new book, “If Bollywood ever decides to do its own version of ‘The Wire’, this would be it.” In Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, Boo chronicles the story of people struggling to live in one of contemporary India’s most notorious slums, nestled in the shadow of the city’s luxury hotels. Katherine Boo has won both the Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur “Genius” Award for long-form reporting on poverty in the United States for the Washington Post and The New Yorker, among other publications.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012: Eyal Press has written for The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The Nation. Drawing on research by sociologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, politician activists and theorists such as Hanna Arendt, Press’s new book explores the question of what compels a person to stage an act of resistance. It’s titled Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times. Then, in Delirium, Nancy Cohen tells the story of a little known shadow movement that has fueled America’s political wars for forty years. She traces our current political crisis back to the rise of a well organized, ideologically driven opposition movement to turn back the sexual revolution, feminism, and gay rights. This sexual counterrevolution, Cohen shows, has played a leading role in shattering both political parties, dividing Americans into irreconcilable warring camps, and polarizing the nation.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012: In a recent New York Times front page article, Binyamin Applebaum profiled Americans who criticize government safety net programs even though they are increasingly dependent on them. These government programs were created to keep Americans out of poverty, but it is no longer the poorest households that are receiving the benefits. Then, David Rothkopf says the rise of private power may be the most important yet the least understood trend of our time. Rothkopf is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of Power, Inc.: The Epic Rivalry Between Big Business and Government—and the Reckoning That Lies Ahead.
Thursday, March 15, 2012: Christopher Bram’s Eminent Outlaws chronicles fifty years of momentous cultural change through the lives and work of the gay writers who’ve lived it. Among others, Bram includes James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and Allen Ginsberg –all notorious literary figures who’ve shaped the history of the American twentieth century. Then, in 1962, musician Paddy Moloney founded a traditional Irish music group called The Chieftains. Now, this Grammy-winning ensemble has produced 40 albums and is responsible for sharing Irish music with the world. Celebrating their 50th anniversary, The Chieftains recently released Voice of Ages, a collaboration with Bon Iver, The Decemberists, the Punch Brothers and many other contemporary musicians.
Friday, March 16, 2012: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times joins Bob to discuss the latest political news. Next, at the turn of the century, American Jews and prohibitionists viewed one another with growing suspicion. Jews believed that all Americans had the right to sell and consume alcohol, while prohibitionists insisted that alcohol commerce and consumption posed a threat to the nation’s morality and security. In Jews and Booze, Marni Davis examines American Jews’ long and complicated relationship to alcohol during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the years of the national prohibition movement’s rise and fall. Then, in this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of Betsy Buchalter Adler. Science tells us that pets are good for our health. Pet owners have lower blood pressure and a lower likelihood of depression. Adler says walking her dog makes her lighten up and pay attention to the unexpected small delights of the world. What her dog notices on their meandering walks, she notices, too. And the more time she spends contemplating those small delights, the less time she spends worrying about the never-ending annoyances of her work life.