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WMRA Full Schedule WEMC Full Schedule Virginia Insight Civic Soapbox Classical Music Acoustic Café Blues Valley Dick's Friday Classics Bob's Record Shelf Mostly Mennonite, Mostly Acapella AM Daybreak with Alexis Morehouse Mel Lee's Songbag Jan's Jamboree Wavelength with Ted Grimsrud Jim Bishop's Friday Night Jukebox Centerpiece with Harvey Yoder |
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You have probably already heard what the official observers -- reporters and analysts -- have to say. Now, how about the participants? On this edition we talk with members of the General Assembly, Republican and Democrat, Senators and Delegates, to get their take on the workings of state government. We will also focus on the contentious issue lawmakers now face in an expected Special Session of the General Assembly: dealing with Guests: Delegate Ben Cline Republican representing the 24th House of Delegates District, which includes: Amherst County (part); Augusta County (part); Rockbridge County (All); and the Cities of Buena Vista and Lexington. Delegate David Toscano Ph.D., J.D. Democrat representing the 57th House of Delegates District, which includes Charlottesville and portions of Albemarle County. Senator R. Creigh Deeds Democrat representing the 25th State Senate District, which includes Albemarle County (Part); Alleghany County (All); Bath County (All); Buckingham County (Part); Buena Vista City (All); Charlottesville City (All); Covington City (All); Nelson County (All); and Rockbridge County (Part). Senator Emmett Hanger, Jr. Republican representing the 24th State Senate District, which includes Albemarle County (Part); Augusta County (All); Greene County (All); Highland County (All); Rockbridge County (Part); Rockingham County (Part); and the Cities of Staunton, Waynesboro and Lexington. At the time of this broadcast, Senator Creigh Deeds was scheduled to be traveling rural areas of
Monday March 24, 2008 Virginia Politics Update Dealing with abusive driver fees... coping with a $2 billion deficit... repairing a broken mental health system. There was much work facing state lawmakers in recent weeks. Now that their General Assembly session has ended, how well did they do? We invite two journalists, a political scientist, and our listeners to address that question on this edition of Virginia Insight. Guests: Loretta Boniti - State Capitol Bureau Chief for NBC 29, WVIR-TV Bob Gibson - Columnist and political reporter for The Charlottesville Daily Progress. Bob Roberts, PhD - Professor of Political Science and Public Administration, James Madison University.
Monday, March 17, 2008 Going Broke “Where did all that money go?” It’s a question millions of Americans ask themselves whenever they take a moment to think about their own personal finances. On this edition, we talk with a finance specialist and a psychologist about societal changes and technological innovations that may explain why so many people are deeply in debt. Guests: Pamela Peterson Drake, PhD, CFA - The J. Gray Ferguson Professor of Finance and Chair of the Department of Finance and Business Law, James Madison University. Stuart Vyse, PhD - Professor of Psychology, Connecticut College. Author of Going Broke, Why Americans Can’t Hold On to Their Money.
Monday, March 10, 2008 Are You What You Read? Does reading fiction change your view of the world? Can it make you care more, or understand better, the people around you? A researcher from our region has come up with answers to those questions that might surprise you. All fiction lovers are invited to share their thoughts, as we question Washington and Lee University’s Suzanne Keen about the findings in her new book, Empathy and the Novel. Guest: Suzanne Keen, Ph.D. - Thomas H. Broadus Professor of English, Washington and Lee University. Author of Empathy and the Novel.
Monday, March 3, 2008 Mental Health in the Commonwealth Long before tragedy struck last spring at Virginia Tech, people were struggling behind the scenes to make radical changes in the Commonwealth’s mental health system. Among them were a law professor, a psychologist, a health care administrator and a mental health patient turned advocate. All four are guests on this edition of Virginia Insight as we consider what improvements are most needed, and what improvements are most likely to be made, in Virginia’s mental health services. Guest: Richard Bonnie, LL.B. - Chair, Virginia Commission on Mental Health Law Reform. Harrison Foundation Professor of Medicine and Law and Professor of Psychiatric Medicine at the University of Virginia. as well as Director of UVa’s Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy. Charlotte McNulty - Executive Director, Harrisonburg-Rockingham Community Service Board John Ostentak - founder of the Harrisonburg based mental health advocacy group REACH (“Recovery Education and Creative Health”). Peter Sheras, PhD - Clinical psychologist. Professor, University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education and Associate Director of UVa’s Youth Violence Project.
Monday, February 25, 2008 Unfinished Business When it comes to equality, Michael Klarman wants to challenge some of your most cherished notions. The Virginia Law Professor is the man behind award winning research on the history of efforts to end racism. A history that he says is full of fits and starts. Progress toward equality, Klarman finds, has traveled in anything but a straight line.
Michael Klarman’s newest book, Unfinished Business, traces the roots of racism from the period before America’s Revolutionary War up through today. That book and his newest findings will be our focus on this edition of Virginia Insight. Guest: Michael J. Klarman, JD - The James Monroe Professor of Law as well as a Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Author of Unfinished Business: Racial Equality in American History. A former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Professor Klarman’s previous book, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality, won the 2005 Bancroft Prize in American History.
Monday, February 18, 2008 Race and Health Does the color of your skin affect the quality of your health care? Most people would say, “it should have no effect at all.” But according to the latest research, a significant racial disparity does exist when it comes to who gets what kind of medicine. Join the conversation as we speak with a Charlottesville physician who’s working to change that. Guest: M. Norman Oliver, M.D. - Associate Professor of Family Medicine, Associate Professor of Anthropology, and Director of the Center on Health Disparities at the University of Virginia.
Monday, February 11, 2008 A Virginia Politics Update
You have probably been hearing plenty about national issues... but what about statewide issues? Should there be a law against doing your makeup while you drive? Should someone be allowed to charge you 900 percent interest on a loan? We take on the big and not so big political issues in the Commonwealth.
Guests:
Anita Kumar, Political Reporter for The Washington Post.
Bob Roberts Ph.D., Professor of Political Science at James Madison University and author of From Watergate to Whitewater: The Public Integrity War.
Jeff Schapiro, Political Reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
You’ve probably heard the saying "you are what you eat."
Now scientist Steve Macko can prove it.
His research has been used to determine the diet of the three thousand year old Iceman discovered in the Austrian Alps, the cultural practices of an eight thousand year old tribe in Chile, and the economic changes that are rippling through the food chain in modern America.
He does it by studying strands of human hair.
Guest:
Stephen Macko, Ph.D. - Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia and author of the textbook Organic Geochemistry: Principles and Applications. Dr. Macko is also a featured scientist in the new movie King Corn.
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Monday, January 28, 2008 The Ultimate Failure?
Bankruptcy is a word that (if we're honest) strikes fear in most of us. And for those who have to deal with bankruptcy, shame and other unpleasant emotions often well up. We talk with a woman who started in social work, became an attorney, and now as a college professor, can help us deal with those emotions... since she specializes in bankruptcy.
Guests:
Margaret Howard - Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University. Author
of Bankruptcy Overview: Issues, Law and Policy, co-author Cases and
Materials on Bankruptcy.
Jay Speer - Executive Director of the Virginia Poverty Law Center.
So you’d like to make the world a better place... but can getting hold of a hammer and some nails really make all that much difference?
We talk with members of the local group that has taken volunteers first to Haiti, then to Guatemala, and now to locations in the U.S.
They have been teaching those volunteers how to construct new hope through what the group calls "Building Goodness".
Guests:
Jack Higgins - Program Coordinator for the Charlottesville based nonprofit Building Goodness.
Howard Pape - President of Central Virginia Waterproofing. Vice President and co-founder of the Charlottesville based nonprofit Building Goodness.
Jack Stoner - Vice President of the construction company Alexander Nicholson, Inc. President and co-founder of the Charlottesville based nonprofit Building Goodness.
Mental Health Reform... Expanding pre-school for four year olds... Highway gridlock... budget deficits... and those dreaded abusive driver fees.
These issues and more are on the agenda now that the General Assembly is in session.
And let's not forget that a presidential primary is coming to Virginia in just a few weeks.
We take a look at the state of politics in the Old Dominion.
Guests:
Bob Gibson, Columnist and political reporter for The Charlottesville Daily Progress.
Bob Roberts Ph.D., Professor of Political Science at James Madison University and author of From Watergate to Whitewater: The Public Integrity War.
Chelyen Davis, Richmond based political reporter for The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star.
He felt like he had a gift for working with young children, and pursued a teaching career.
But when they told him touching or hugging a young child to comfort them was against the rules, he realized this was not the profession for him.
Hear about Bob Clickner's journey from educator to alternative healer, and find out why he is now doing some of both.
This program was originally broadcast on October 17, 2007.
Guest:
Bob Clickner - Charlottesville based acupuncturist with offices opening soon in Harrisonburg. Blueridge Oriental
On this documentary from America Abroad, we explore the tumultuous relationship between the US and the UN and examine instances of cooperation and conflict.
We travel to Sudan to better understand how and why America is working with the UN to support a peacekeeping force in the war-torn region of Darfur; and to Geneva, to examine the first year of the UN's Human Rights Council and find out why the US decided not to seek a Council seat.
We also look back at the highs and lows of America's 62-year history with the UN, and hear from top American policymakers about the importance of the United Nations’ authorization resolution authorizing of the Gulf War.
19 years ago, doctors said David Martin would never walk again... he proved them wrong.
Now Martin has taken on a new impossible challenge... changing America’s approach to world trade.
We ask this specialist in intellectual property rights to explain his view that changes in patent and copyright law hold the key to saving the U.S. economy.
This program was originally broadcast on September 28, 2007.
Guest:
David Martin, Ph.D. - CEO and founder of M-CAM, Inc., an international intellectual property rights firm based in Charlottesville.
Is Aid to Africa doing more harm than good?
A panel of experts tackle this issue in an Oxford-style debate, as part of the Intelligence Squared U.S. series, produced by NPR.
The panelists arguing for the motion are prominent Ghanaian economist George Ayittey, New York University Professor of Economics William Easterly, and writer and policy analyst David Rieff.
Arguing against the motion are writer, speaker and activist C. Payne Lucas, UN Millennium Project Deputy Director John McArthur, and Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Gayle Smith.
The moderator for the debate is Brian Lehrer.
What will be the big news in the year ahead?
We put that question to four newspaper editors from across our region... and your predictions are welcome too!
Guests:
Bobby Ford - Managing Editor of the Winchester based daily The Winchester Star.
Hawes Spencer - Editor and Publisher of the Charlottesville based weekly The Hook.
Lee Wolverton - Managing Editor of the Waynesboro based daily The News-Virginian.
Rob Longley - City Editor of the Harrisonburg based daily Daily News-Record.
Someday in the future the weather is going to get really, really cold. But one thing you can count on, the chill you feel will never be as cold as the things in Cass Sackett's lab.
We talk with the Virginia scientist who cools atoms to almost absolute zero, so he can then push them around in the most interesting ways.
This program was originally broadcast on September 19, 2007.
Guest:
Charles "Cass" Sackett, Ph.D. - Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Virginia.
Can we change the future... or is time a fixed stream with pre-determined actions?
On this edition of Radio Lab, meet an entire cast of characters who are all waging a theoretical battle against time.
You'll go to a particle accelerator where scientists recreate the moment just after the beginning of time; meet a Dublin artist whose life is a 19 century time-experiment; and visit the Mojave desert, where geologic time flows like a frozen hourglass.
Do you cringe when someone starts quoting Hamlet?
We talk with a Valley man who says it's not uncommon to fear Shakespeare.
And Ralph Cohen believes that you don't have to keep on fearing the Bard, because he knows how to cure it.
This program was originally broadcast on September 21, 2007.
Guest:
Ralph Alan Cohen - Founding Executive Director of the Staunton, Virginia based American Shakespeare Center and Blackfriars Playhouse. Cohen is also the Gonder Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at Mary Baldwin College, and author of ShakesFear and How to Cure It: A Handbook for Teaching Shakespeare.
Jorge Luis Borges wrote, "Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire," and it’s as close a definition as we have.
But maybe if we slow time down enough, or speed it up enough, we can unlock its secrets.
On this edition of Radio Lab, we’re using an hour to try and do just that.
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