Uproar Over President’s Plan to Address School Children
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President Obama is plan to speak to public school students over the Internet next Tuesday, and that has some on the right accusing him of pushing his political agenda and some conservative parents threatening to take their children out of school. Much of the opposition to the Internet speech has been in Texas. We speak with Todd Gillman, Washington bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News.
‘Our Boys’
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The high school football team in Smith Center, Kansas will put its 67-game winning streak on the line in tonight’s season-opening game. We speak with Joe Drape, sportswriter for the New York Times, who wrote about the team in the new book, “Our Boys: A Perfect Season On The Plains With The Smith Center Redmen.” We also speak to Marshall McCall, who was a senior captain on last year’s team.
Clunkers Head to Junkyards
As another worker, left, uses a torch to remove parts from another clunker, Chip Maggio uses an excavator to crush a Cash For Clunkers car at his Hackensack Auto Wreckers & Repair Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2009, in Hackensack, N.J. (AP)
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Junkyards are the end of the line for the clunker cars that owners turned in under the federal government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program, and some auto recyclers are even hiring workers to help strip the older, fuel-inefficient cars for parts and metal that can be sold for profit. We speak with Al Shaneyfelt of Broken Wheel Auto Parts & Wrecking in Cleveland, Ohio.
The Johns Hopkins Model
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Johns Hopkins CEO Dr. Edward Miller says the Baltimore hospital is able to keep costs down by paying doctors a fixed annual salary, as do most academic hospitals, instead of a per-service fee which is the industry norm. We speak to Dr. Miller, who also says academic hospitals like Hopkins can provide a nationwide model the government would do well to support.
Fan Funding
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Wanna be a rock star? Well, with the music industry in crisis because of digital sharing, signing with a major record label is getting harder and harder to do these days. So, more and more musicians are turning to their fans for financial support to record and distribute their work. And they are courting them in some ingenuous ways. Producer Christopher Blagg looks at the emerging trend of fan-funded music.
- How does the Hector Fund try to help bands make money?
- More on Erin Mckeown’s Internet concerts
- Hear musician Matthew Ebel’s Internet performances, from his basement
Remembering Marie Knight
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We bid farewell to gospel singer Marie Knight, who died of pneumonia this past Sunday at the age of 89.
Music from the show
- Steve Earle, “Transcendental Blues’The Wee Trio, “About a Girl”
- Charles Mingus, “Boogie Stop Shuffle”
- Jimi Hendrix, “Crosstown Traffic”
- Peter Dixon, “Nagog Woods”
- Talking Heads, “This Must Be the Place”
- Rosetta Tharpe, “Didn’t it Rain” performed by Marie Knight
- Rosetta Tharpe, and Marie Knight “Up Above My Head”
- Reverend Gary Davis, “Let Us Get Together”performed by Marie Knight
Robin,
I think that Todd Gillman would have been more accurate if he had used words like “humiliation” and “embarrassment” if he had applied them to Governor Charlie Christ of Florida who has done nothing to repudiate the statement sent out by his guy, Jim Greer, Republican Party Chair in Flori when he called OBAMA a socialist who intended to bombard children with liberal lies and liberal propaganda. I wonder what he thought when George W. Bush spoke to school children about the importance of his policy of “No Child Left Behind.” Come on Robin, be fair!
Posted by Molly Ransbury, on September 4th, 2009 at 12:42 pmThe Hector Fund is an amazing idea. I am glad you are reporting on this. You don’t here these types of stories everywhere. The word needs to get out there! I have seen Jack Brennen multiple times. He is a Boston Jewell.
Posted by Matt McLean, on September 4th, 2009 at 12:53 pmCensoring the president’s speech to our schoolchildren? Americans ought to be ashamed. Did the children have to have permission to see our previous president when he visited their classrooms? I think not.
Posted by Barbara Jernigan, on September 4th, 2009 at 1:11 pmRobin,
Interesting story about the football team. One item you asked about was whether parents supervise the children too closely because the principal calls other schools to vet prom dates. The school where I teach requires any students from other schools to provide a variety of information to prevent problems at the event.
Maybe an interesting question for a future show…
Posted by Kristin, on September 4th, 2009 at 1:41 pmIt was appalling that both you and your guest, Todd Gillman, treated conservative reaction to the President’s Tuesday address to school children as anything other than what it is- insanity.
Posted by Justin, on September 4th, 2009 at 2:36 pmThe hector fund is nothing new, there is an internet company in France allowing fans to invest to fund an artist album. One of my nieces friends raised money that way to record his first album. The website is called my major record company. He was able to raise $100k Euros to finance his first album.
Posted by Philippe, on September 5th, 2009 at 12:05 pmhttp://www.mymajorcompany.com/juliencomblat
[...] Cusak Level”. Listen to Jake dish the in’s and out’s of the Hector Fund on http://www.hereandnow.org. And to get all the info on Hector go to [...]
Posted by Jake Brennan On NPR; New Dear Leader Tracks For Download | Camp Street Studios, on September 9th, 2009 at 5:13 pm