The Bob Edwards Show, February 11-15, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013: Robin Wright is a journalist, foreign policy analyst, and fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center. After a recent trip to the Middle East, she joins Bob to discuss the second anniversary of the so-called Arab Spring, ongoing strife in Syria and Mali, and the tenure of Hillary R. Clinton as Secretary of State. Then, children’s book writer and illustrator Daniel Pinkwater recommends two children’s books about crows, his favorite bird. Pinkwater and Bob discuss Crow Boy by Taro Yashima and As The Crow Files by Shelia Keenan.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013: Bob talks with SiriusXM’s Pete Dominick, who just launched a new morning show. “Stand Up! with Pete Dominick” will air live weekday mornings from 6 to 9 Eastern on Indie, SiriusXM channel 104. Then, today marks the 40th anniversary of the release of POWs from the Hanoi Hilton. Major General John Borling was held captive for six and a half years in Hanoi and like many of his fellow prisoners; it was poetry that saw him through his darkest days. In a new book, Taps on the Walls: Poems from the Hanoi Hilton, Borling shares his story and writes about the poems he mentally composed and kept memorized during his incarceration. Borling and the other POWs used a secret tap code to communicate their poetry to each other through the prisons thick walls.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013: Bob sits down with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Dave Barry to discuss his latest novel Insane City. Then, Martha Redbone joins Bob in the performance studio for a chat about her album of Appalachian folk songs set to the poetry of William Blake titled “The Garden of Love.”
Thursday, February 14, 2013: Writer and firefighter Zac Unger, his wife, and their three children moved to Churchill, Manitoba, “The Polar Bear Capital of the World,” so that Unger could, as he put it, “be a hero of the environmental movement.” He charts his success and failures in his book Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye: A Family Field Trip to the Arctic’s Edge in Search of Adventure, Truth, and Mini-Marshmallows. Then, for over 20 years, illustrator and author Danny Gregory has created one personal illustration a day in addition to his regular work. This habit guided him through the painful and shocking death of his wife Patti, a paraplegic who died in 2010. He compiled his illustrations along with his and Patti’s story in his new book A Kiss Before You Go: A Illustrated Memoir of Love and Loss.
Friday, February 15, 2013: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, joins Bob to discuss the latest political news. Next, No is a feature film about the unlikely but successful effort to oust Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from power in 1988. Gael Garcia Bernal stars as the ingenious advertising executive who shapes the political campaign, providing a lesson in politics that all should know. Bob talks to director Pablo Larrain about the Oscar-nominated film and how it relates to modern day politics. Finally, the latest installment of our ongoing series This I Believe.