June 28 - July 2 Programs

Jean’s Pick of the Week: I was sick as a dog on Monday, but I still feel privileged to have had the opportunity to talk with Bobby McFerrin. As I mentioned on the show, his rendition of Psalm 23 with a feminist/mother motif from his album Medicine Man was a life-changer for me. I never imagined I would actually be able to tell him that on the radio. But, come to think of it, isn’t that what live radio is all about?

Monday: Deep Blue Home: The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has redirected our attention to the tremendous fragility and richness of oceanic life. As dependent on oil as we might be, we are even more dependent on healthy oceans. We’ll explore our intimate ties to the ocean and discover working solutions to preventing oil spills and other human caused environmental disasters with Julia Whitty, filmmaker, journalist and author of Deep Blue Home, and Rick Steiner, formerly Marine Conservation Professor at the University of Alaska.

Tuesday: Pearls on the Ocean Floor: There’s more to Iran than uranium. In his first documentary, The Rising Tide, Mexican-American filmmaker Robert Adanto looked at young Chinese artists using video to capture the tumultuous changes sweeping through China. In his new film, he features some of the most influential Iranian women artists working in and outside of Iran.

Wednesday: To Kill a Mockingbird: Anticipating the Fourth of July next Sunday, We are working on a program based on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. Why has this novel, which is so firmly rooted in the American South, become so popular the world over? And what makes it particularly relevant to Europe right now?

Thursday: Iraq: What Now? June 30th marks the one-year anniversary of American troops pulling out of Iraqi cities, and the legacy of the war there can already be seen. We’ll talk with journalist Anthony Shadid about his Pulitzer-prize winning coverage of the pull out and the year since as Iraqis have gone about the messy business of shaping their nation’s future.

Friday: The Best Steak in the World: Slate Magazine’s columnist Mark Schatzker was serious when he said he would find the best steak in the world. On the way to a unifying theory of steak, Schatzker traveled to Texas, Scotland, Japan, and even raised his own cows for slaughter. That’s dedication!

My husband and I spent a glorious couple of days in Door County last weekend. We even got as far as Rock Island, which is much more developed than the way I remembered it when I first visited the island back in the eighties with Ron Mason, the archeologist who, together with his wife Carol, discovered a major prehistoric site there. Just off the path to the pristine white sand beach where La Salle first landed the ill-fated Griffin, you can still see part of the palisade which once protected the site for no less than three separate tribes – the Potawatami, the Wyandot, and the Ontario. We watched two families of wild swans sail into sight. And the wild roses still smell sweet.

We live in a beautiful state.

Jean