The Middle East and Obama
President-elect Obama holds a news conference to speak about the economy and the crisis in the Middle East. What can a president-elect do as tensions between Israel and Hamas escalate? We speak with Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal.
A Journal for Jordan
Sergeant Charles Monroe King wrote a journal for his infant son, just in case he didn’t make it home from Iraq. He didn’t, and now Charles’ fiancee Dana Canedy is sharing that journal with the world. The journal mixes stories of battle with a father’s advice to a son on how to behave on a date. Dana Canedy’s new book is, “A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor,” and she joins us to talk about it.
Dana Canedy Responds to Reader Questions in The New York Times.
Faculty Hiring
The recession is forcing many colleges to cut back and even freeze hiring, but a small liberal arts college in Illinois is going in the other direction. Augustana College is actually hiring more faculty. We speak with Augustana College Dean Jeff Abernathy, who says his faculty is his college’s greatest asset.
Dean Abernathy’s essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Tiny Channel Island Fights Modernization
The tiny English Channel island of Sark has no paved roads, no cars, no traffic lights and one jail cell. Its residents — about 800 — get around by bike or horse cart. But two billionaire brothers who’ve bought up hotels and restaurants on Sark want to pave the roads and build a helicopter landing pad. We speak with longtime Sark resident Jennifer Cochrane, who also writes for a local newspaper there, about the two competing visions of the island’s future.
Bipolar Disorder
We revisit a conversation we had with Marya Hornbacher. Hornbacher first won acclaim for her book “Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia” which chronicled her struggles with eating disorders. In her latest book “Madness: A Bipolar Life” Hornbacher talks about her bipolar disorder, the mental illness which preceded her eating problems, and which she still struggles with today.
