August 2007

-Jessica

-Jessica

-Jessica

-Jessica

P.S. Extra points if you can determine exactly where the debate got a little dirty!

Poll: Who would you like to see be Baltimore City Council President?

Poll: If you had the power to, would YOU remove the Male/Female statue outside of Penn Station?

• Congressman Elijah Cummings joins us to discuss the Iraq War and more.
• We talk to Principal Susan Burgess and teacher Tracy Larkins from George Washington Elementary, a Baltimore City school that is having great results on standardized testing.  What are they doing right?
• Our old friend Richard Vatz, Professor at Towson and Associate Psycology Editor of USA Today Magazine, stops by to discuss his recent editorial about Republicans and 2008 politics.
• And finally, we talk to Rabbi Arik Ascherman and his wife Rabbi Einat Ramon (the first Israeli-born female Rabbi) about the human rights work they do in Israel and Palestine.

-Jessica

I'll be honest.  Sometimes, the phone calls from A. Robert Kaufman are not always the most welcome.  You know he is going to twist your ear about not having a certain viewpoint (read:his) on the show, and will give you a slightly long winded explanation of how he feels and the data to back his opinions up and why this is important and so on and so on.  We're often pressed for time in this job, so sometimes this is not always the most welcome phone call.

But the thing about Bob is, this is really a person who pretty much gives everything he has to the things he believes in.  He's spent his life speaking out for the kind of people that most consider the dregs of society-the poor, the addicted, the prostitutes, the mentally ill.  He imagines a society where someone who needs help gets it.  That's really very radical and it's not often that someone espouses these beliefs and then puts their money where their mouth is like he does.  We live in a Christian nation but this perennial candidate and atheist is one of the few people I know that really embraces and lives some of the social teachings of Jesus about poverty and loving and taking care of those in need, our modern day lepers.

So I have a lot of respect for Mr. Kaufman-and will always take his phone calls.  He's on our show today because he is running for Mayor of Baltimore, and I know he has a lot to say about how we can make this a better city.  I hope you'll join us.

 -Jessica

-Jessica

• Wednesday at Noon-Though it is known as the Summer of Love, 40 years ago the summer of 1967 was a summer of increasing urban unrest.  Newark and Detroit both suffered serious riots that claimed the lives of almost 70 people. Maryland saw it's share of violence that summer as well.  In the usually quiet hamlet of Cambridge, on the Eastern Shore, 20 buildings were burned to the ground as the result of racial tensions.  Baltimore's Summer of 1967 was by no means peaceful.  So three cities, each shaped by their history of racial tensions and violence--all three cities who are struggling with rising crime in their cities today.  What can we learn? We'll talk to Antero Pietella from the Baltimore Examiner, Stephen Henderson from the Detroit Free Press,and Jonathan Schuppe from the Newark Star Ledger to discuss issues of crime and violence in cities. 

• Wednesday at One-In another vein entirely...we discuss nonviolence.  Mark Kurlansky was our guest earlier this year to discuss his fascinating book Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea.  We'll talk about Gandhi and Martin Luther King, of course, and how they used nonviolence-but this isn't just a history lesson.  We'll talk about the future of nonviolence, and how this radical notion could work in places like Palestine or Iraq. 

• Thursday at Noon-As a writing for Rolling Stone, The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, Car and Driver,and more, P.J. O'Rourke's political writings have reached a more diverse audience than possibly anyone else.  He joined Marc to discuss his latest work, On the Wealth of Nations.  That's right-it's a book about a book. Don't hurt yourself now!

• Thursday at One-Carl Hiaasen has been delighting readers of his novels and his Miami Herald column for years with his witty, dry humor famous for skewering corrupt officials. He became a journalist's hero last year when he stood up to a compromised publisher at his paper last year-and won.  He'll talk about that and also his latest novel Nature Girl, a novel populated with the colorful and larger-than-life characters Hiaasen is famous for.  And-hometown connection alert-his brother is our city's very own Baltimore Sun reporter Rob Hiaasen!

-Jessica