The Bob Edwards Show, June 17-21, 2013
Monday, June 17, 2013: After a lone eagle was shot on a firing range in Afghanistan, former Army Ranger Scott Hickman and Navy SEAL Greg Wright rescued him and gave him a name: Eagle Mitch. They cared for him for months, but after it was clear he’d never fly again, the two worked to find a safer place than the war zone they were in. Barbara Chepaitis was instrumental in coordinating the bird’s rescue and she recounts the story in her book Saving Eagle Mitch. Then, imagine yourself floating along a slowly moving, comfortably heated river. Now imagine that you’ve got a term paper due at the end of the week — because you’re not on vacation or at a water park, you’re at the University of Missouri’s student recreation center. The center, which has been named by Sports Illustrated as the best in the country, also features a 35-foot climbing wall, more than 100 cardio machines, and dozens of flat-screen televisions. And Missouri isn’t alone. As Jeffrey Selingo reports in his recent book, College (Un)Bound, these student “perks” are part of the complicated landscape of contemporary higher education, where costs are rising, changes are coming, and outcomes are increasingly questioned.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013: As an ex-felon, writer Jack Gantos might have seemed like an odd choice to win last year’s Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children’s literature. But Gantos has been writing acclaimed books for young people for years, including his popular Joey Pigza series. He talks with Bob about his novel Dead End in Norvelt. It’s now out in paperback. Then, if you listened to music in the 1960s and 70s then you heard the Wrecking Crew, the uncredited studio musicians who performed on one hit record after another, for everyone from the Beach Boys to the Byrds to Simon & Garfunkel to the Mamas & the Papas. Kent Hartman tells the story of these largely unnamed session musicians in his book The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll’s Best-Kept Secret, which is now available in paperback.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013: The federal government has unprecedented access to our personal lives through phone records and internet activity. We know this thanks to a 29-year-old intelligence contractor who’s blown the whistle on the National Security Agency and his employer Booz Allen Hamilton. But independent journalist Tim Shorrock has been investigating this exact story since 2007 when he revealed that 70% of our intelligence work is outsourced to private companies. He’ll discuss who’s monitoring our lives and why we should care. Then, Walter Cronkite IV, grandson of the late CBS newsman, and historian Maurice Isserman have written a new book. It’s a collection of letters that Cronkite sent his wife Betsy during their three year separation while he worked abroad as a reporter during World War II. The book is titled Cronkite’s War: His World War II Letters Home.
Thursday, June 20, 2013: While myriad products on grocery store shelves lend an impression of diversity, the vast majority of food in the United States is produced by a small group of corporations like Cargill, Tyson, Kraft and ConAgra. In the book, Foodopoly, Wenonah Hauter writes: “The food system is in a crisis because of the way that food is produced and the consolidation and organization of the industry itself.” Hauter comes to this issue honestly; she grew up on a small farm that her husband operates today as a CSA (community supported agriculture) program. Wenonah Hauter is executive director of Food & Water Watch, an independent public interest organization in Washington DC.
Friday, June 21, 2013: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, joins Bob to discuss the latest political news. Next, Bob talks with Charlie Schroeder, who spent two years reenacting his way through 2,000 years of Western civilization. He wrote a book about the experience called Man of War and it’s now available in paperback. Finally, the latest installment of our ongoing series This I Believe.