July 28 - Aug 1 Programs

Dear Friends,

We’re closing in on the last week in July – alas! The older we get, the faster summer flies by. But what better time to bring you a program about HOW TO COOK AT THE SOUTH POLE? (don’t miss this week’s Food Friday)

Also, if you happened to miss today’s program on The Natural Step: The Science of Sustainability, you’ll want to check it out. One of the best holistic systems approaches to sustainability I’ve come across. David Cook, the Chief Exec of TNS International, helped me understand how all our problems, from gas prices to lay-offs, are interconnected, and how initiatives as diverse as composting and rain gardens all contribute to the solution. We touched on so many things – from politics to business to government, weaving it all together.

Here’s the line-up for the coming week:

Monday: Barack Obama’s International Tour: Some are hailing it a global victory lap; others say it was a big mistake. John Nichols weighs in and we may have a journalist from Deutsche Welle joining us as well.

Tuesday: When Elizabeth Pisani is asked what she does for a living, she replies, “sex and drugs”. As an epidemiologist who has studied AIDS for the past fourteen years, she knows her stuff. Elizabeth Pisani joins us to talk about international AIDS prevention and her new book, The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS.

Wednesday: Books That Open the World: We had so much fun talking about great summer reads for kids, we thought why not do the same thing for grown-ups? So we invited NPR’s Alan Cheuse to join us with his list of new favorites.

Thursday: If you take a look at the U.S.’s first Olympics in St. Louis in 1904, you’ll find a lot of the same rhetoric being used in Beijing today. According to Susan Brownell, who has lifelong experience in Chinese sports as an athlete and anthropologist, the Chinese government is using the Olympics as a model to build a fair and powerful nation. Will the Olympics change China?

Friday: Cooking in the Coldest Place on Earth: Forget the cookbooks and the recipes, you have to be really creative to cook at the South Pole where ingredients take at least a week to thaw and foods like pasta turn to instant mush.

Good stuff, huh?

We’ve added a new occasional Thursday feature, by the way: The Here on Earth Mailbag, with content provided exclusively by you. Didn’t get a chance to be on the air? Send your comments to hereonearth@wpr.org or call 1-608-890-0269, and you get a second chance.

Jean