Iraq

The worst violence in months erupted in Iraq today when three female suicide bombers blew themselves up during a Shiite pilgrimage to a holy site near Baghdad. There was also another suicide attack at a Kurdish protest rally in Northern Iraq. We check in with Ned Parker of the Los Angeles Times.

Social Scientists in War Zones

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How well is the US military’s plan going to embed anthropologists with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? Two social scientists have lost their lives since the first “Human Terrain Teams” were sent out last year. We speak with Tom Garcia, a former member of the Air Force who’s training teams at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. He was good friends with Michael Bhatia, an anthropologist who was killed in May in Afghanistan. We also speak with a critic of the program, Roberto Gonzalez, Associate Professor of Anthropology at San Jose State University in California.

Medicare and Doctors’ Incomes

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A new study by doctors at Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts looks at the incomes of some medical specialists. They found that a substantial amount of their income comes from government insurers like Medicare and Medicaid. Yet their incomes vary more than three-fold. The study says that government policy favors specialists over primary care doctors and that a change in policy would encourage more medical students to go into primary care if they receive better reimbursement for their work. We speak to Dr. Karen Lasser, who with Drs. Steffi Woolhandler and David Himmelstein, wrote the study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Younger Kids’ Summer Reads

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We find out some good summer books for elementary school children with Sherry Eskin, Children’s Librarian at the Honan-Allston branch of the Boston Public Library.

Kids’ Summer Reads – for the young (and older)

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We find out some good summer books for elementary school children with Sherry Eskin, Children’s Librarian at the Honan-Allston branch of the Boston Public Library. Our conversation about summer reading and children then continues as Eskin gives us suggestions for middle-school and high school readers. We also talk about the trend towards more serious topics in books for adolescents.