The Bob Edwards Show, April 2-6, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012: Approval ratings for Congress are at record lows. Voters look at their Senators and Representatives and see wealthy adults who squabble like children over partisan issues without seeming to get much work done. It wasn’t always this way. Not so long ago, the Senate was full of dedicated, hard-working people who put service to the nation ahead of loyalty to party bosses and campaign contributors. Ira Shapiro writes about the end of that era in the new book, The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012: Trains played a crucial role in moving 19th Century America, but with the rise of roads, some rail lines fell fallow with disuse. Kelly Pack serves as Manager of Trail Development for the ‘Rails to Trails Conservancy,’ a group transforming former rail lines into thriving bicycle and walking paths. Next, a story about the resurrection of Bethlehem Pennsylvania. Once a powerhouse of American Industry, Pennsylvania’s Lehigh valley was laid low by the decline and eventual bankruptcy of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. With an eye to new development, the state legalized casino gambling, and in 2009, the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem opened its doors, breathing new life into the former site of Bethlehem Steel’s main plant.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012: Bob talks with religion scholar Elaine Pagels about her new book, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelation. Then, writers Silas House & Neela Vaswani wrote letters back and forth for a year: House from his native Kentucky and Vaswani from her home in New York City. Their correspondence became the epistolary young adult novel Same Sun Here, a story about two school children who become unlikely friends through a pen pal program.
Thursday, April 5, 2012: German musician Max Raabe is described as having “the looks of Fred Astaire and the deadpan humor of Christopher Walken” The leader of the Palast Orchestra, Raabe and his sound are an off-beat but charismatic combination of the Roaring ‘20s and futuristic pop. His most recent album is One Cannot Kiss Alone. Then, in 1995, celebrated violinist Erica Morini passed away quietly, never knowing that her beloved Stradivarius was mysteriously stolen from her New York City apartment just before she died. Morini’s relationship with her violin and the man she hired to restore it is dramatized in The Morini Strad, a new play by Peabody-winning playwright Willy Holtzman. Bob talks with Holtzman and Brian Skarstad, the real-life violin restorer who worked with Morini. The Morini Strad is at New York City’s Primary Stages through April 28th.
Friday, April 6, 2012: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times joins Bob to discuss the latest political news. Next, after a 14 year absence, director Whit Stillman returns to filmmaking with his fourth film, Damsels in Distress. Stillman garnered a cult following for his comedies of manners Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994), and The Last Days of Disco (1998). Damsels in Distress stars actress Greta Gerwig as Violet, a college student determined to help her fellow students in her own particular way. Then, in this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of Candance Gordon. Parenthood is a high-stakes game these days. Some parents organize craft parties, sew their children’s clothes, and create cute cookies for the school bake sale. And then there’s the majority of us, like Candance Gordon. She’s not much good at crafts, and cookie cutouts turn into blobs in her oven. But she never misses a school event, and she always brings the juice boxes. Gordon says she used to feel inadequate, but now she accepts her abilities without longing for maternal perfection.