
From FDR to Barack Obama, James Morone’s revelatory history of presidents and healthcare policy lays out some basic rules — the conditions, in short, that Lyndon Johnson met to pass Medicare in 1965, but that asked too much of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton in the losing campaigns of 1977 and 1994 for universal insurance. [...]
Audio|Mon, 28 Sep 2009
|social securityfound at25:24, 0:25
“…in. 35 when Russell was wondering should I put this in the Social Security package along with everything else that went in in 193435. -- some very influential physicians. Doctor named -- very powerful -- happened to be the father. Of a beautiful beautiful woman who married Roosevelt's son. At the marriage didn't last but cushions influence date. He -- to support you can't do this you can put Franklin. You can't put that health care in with Social Security it's too complicated to leave it to the doctors and at Franklin listen postal listened. So the -- got this incredible. A reputation of being a giant killer. And they would -- great opponents of medical care because they were afraid they would lose control of their practice. If government got into the business. And lo and behold they …”
“…without a victory yet. For the general idea of universal or national health insurance against James Maroney is the political sense chairman -- Brown. The co author of an amazing study economists say it makes health …”
In anticipation of the 2009 Massachusetts Poetry Festival, where does poetry come from these days? And where is it going? Franz Wright grew up as an estranged son of a famous American poet. At 18, he’d read everything, found an addictive pleasure writing poetry (”like a first shot of heroin”), and learned “there was [...]
Audio|Fri, 25 Sep 2009
|new bookfound at0:46, 4:17
“…grew at a bookshop in Harvard Square. That's right reads from his new book -- motel. And he recounts how he has learned to mind that torments and religious consolation of his daily struggle of material. …”
“…I love this new book. . Really Monaco and so many things in it but give us your selections and oh big view press my favorites. I like …”
In anticipation of the 2009 Massachusetts Poetry Festival, where does poetry come from these days? And where is it going? Chicagoan poet Regie Gibson places himself “somewhere between page and stage,” writing and speaking about life, art and philosophy. He won the 1998 National Slam Competition and founded the Church of The Funky [...]
Audio|Thu, 24 Sep 2009
|the scorpionfound at6:10, 19:05
“…floppy existential sky blue -- When we meet at the museum of modern art. . We're all we hold each other with the since with the tenderness that would trickle -- fruit. You know and he speaks about blunt talking and slowed and slowed dragging to music and then he goes to this whole thing about there's no reason why the scorpion has to be. You know our our our teacher or something along those lines but he mix a song he mixes mythology …”
“…but if I learned from them what I've learned from every other high school student that I worked with. …”
In anticipation of the 2009 Massachusetts Poetry Festival, where does poetry come from these days? And where is it going? Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with Jill McDonough. (26 minutes, 12 mb mp3) Jill McDonough is reverent about traditional form, raucously funny and often dark about much else. Her first book, Habeas Corpus, gives [...]
Audio|Mon, 21 Sep 2009
|open sourcefound at0:01, 0:59
“…I'm Christopher -- this is open source from the Watson institute at brown university. In conversation series with poets whose words these are. In the run up to the Massachusetts poetry festival in October 2009. The question came at this point to come from these days and where's it going. Jill McDonough of …”
“…09 -- McDonough talked with us and -- for us. Grow your poetry bookshop it's where. John McDonough start at the beginning you're beginning the must've been a Paul -- put that. Called out to …”
Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with Rory Stewart. (17 minutes, 8 mb mp3) Rory Stewart in professorial mode The Kipling-esque adventurer and writer Rory Stewart – the man who walked alone across Afghanistan and made a best-seller of The Places In Between — was quoted by Nicholas Kristoff in the Times the other day dismissing [...]
Audio|Wed, 16 Sep 2009
|american troopsfound at5:46, 6:49
“…year ago before they Obama inauguration. Rory Stewart -- warning that. More American troops in Afghanistan more money for that matter for precisely the wrong way to go. …”
“…happened since the Obama inauguration especially in the relationship as President Karzai. Joe Biden Joe went over there and discovered to his -- that there was corruption. Under our own nose. There was a moment when …”
Alexander Pope’s couplet about Isaac Newton gives me goosebumps: Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night; God said: Let Newton be! and all was light. Epitaph… Intended for Sir Isaac Newton, in Westminster Abbey Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with Tom Levenson. (29 minutes, 14 mb mp3) Sir Isaac: an “angel of the Lord” for science If the [...]
Audio|Mon, 14 Sep 2009
|newtonfound at6:33, 0:19
“…confront. Counterfeiting as a threat to the security and and just economic health and well being of the nation. And in particular he comes up against a notorious counterfeiters the man who was the other focus in my book William -- Who says that he knows better than Newton how properly to make points -- it from parliament. I think it's a reasonable inference to say that Newton was. Offended by its claim on levels more than that just that the cop and criminal I think this strike deep at …”
“…walk around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With the late great Isaac Newton. . -- the seventeenth century English. And physics genius -- in the mirror -- years of his early twenty's. You know almost everything you and I know about planet and movement. -- in motion. And gravity and calculus. MIT of course being a -- Sort of extension of Newton's imagination. More neutrality and you could argue that he would. So who would do not find them like -- these days to …”
In Patrick Keefe’s saga of The Snakehead, it’s the migrants and refugees scoffing at our immigration rules, and breaking them at risk of their lives, who pose the moral challenge to those of us who got here the easy way – that is, were born here. How many of us would take the route [...]
Audio|Wed, 9 Sep 2009
|south americafound at23:55, 0:25
“…is. He. Had a plane ticket that brought him to to senator South America yet of these are gonna South America but there was a layover at Los Angeles international airport. And -- was fourteen he didn't have a -- and much of …”
“…story from China to New York's Chinatown stopping in East Africa. And Latin America. . A single saga over brokerage and human life that encompasses the murder money every kind of corruption emotional sacrifice and suffering for …”
Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with Jackson Lears (49 minutes, 23 mb mp3) Jackson Lears‘ cultural history, Rebirth of a Nation, from the Civil War to World War One, is the flip side of Louis Menand’s dazzling take on the same period, The Metaphysical Club (2001). Jackson Lears: “our historian of yearning” Menand wrote about [...]
Audio|Fri, 28 Aug 2009
|william jamesfound at19:02, 1:07
“…The Philippine war which inspired William James to re exactly the opposite we have to -- we are priced products a barbarian -- and where do we have to curb the results before we. If we destroy ourselves. When did you start hearing echoes of all of this argument. In in the Bush Administration in the Iraq War context. …”
“…contrary. Teddy Roosevelt was the embodiment of that urged the century ago George W. . Bush with his lineal descendant Jackson Liz says. That is just the start of many links between then. And now. …”
Check my ears here: I hear a turning toward humanity among the rising star composers at the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood this week. Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with composers Augusta Read Thomas, Aaron Travers, Cynthia Lee Wong and Jacob Bancks at Tanglewood (31 minutes, 14 mb mp3) Augusta Read Thomas Michael [...]
Audio|Fri, 14 Aug 2009
|john lennonfound at14:29, 15:23
“…all know. In -- he told me that he had gone to high school in Jackson Mississippi. With -- Eudora Welty. The great American writer stories especially but novels. And -- blew my mind that they too could intersected in one place and come from one moment in this continent not a history. Years later John Williams -- Star Wars jaws ET and all that told me he had done the high school is Susan's contact. And again it I thought wow that dilution to should be. And pass through the same Latin class. I ask isn't -- figures later if you remember John -- in high school. . She said who's John Lennon's. . But. I sort of wonder who you went to high school but more deeply sort of who is voicing your experience your history. In another medium. …”
“…There well. This is as someone violent high school -- this is somebody that I known. I'm lucky enough to live in Chicago. So there there's a photographer. Her name is …”
Click to listen to Chris’ conversation with Jeff Klein (50 minutes, 25 mb mp3) Jeff Klein’s excellent adventure this summer was a mission to Gaza, the Palestinian beachhead between Egypt and Israel, to witness resilience, as he says, amidst horrific destruction. From Jones Hill in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Jeff Klein is a retired machinist and union [...]
Audio|Wed, 5 Aug 2009
|iraq warfound at8:29, 3:31
“…this. This effort was organized. Principally by member of parliament British member parliament George Galloway. . Who tell your listeners may know about he says he's an amazing character in all kinds of ways see he's. He was expelled from the British Labour Party because he was very vocal opposition Iraq war in critical of Tony player. And he started his own party called the respect party and he's the only member parliament -- …”
“…in the bombs in the missiles and helicopters. Were made in the United States and and effectively given that the Israelis Biden we give them weapons. Including a large shipment of specialized bunker busting bombs that …”