Health Insurers Say Reform Will Cost More

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One day before a long-awaited Senate committee vote on health care reform, the health insurance industry is out with a report that says in 2019 family premiums could be $4,000 higher and individual premiums could be $1,500 higher than now. We speak with Gail Chaddock, Congressional Correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor.

What does Starbucks Say about America?

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At one point Starbucks was opening a store every four hours. Over the last year, it’s been closing them. Our guest, Temple University professor Bryant Simon, sees in that history something more than economics, he sees a parable about us. Starbucks, he says, was really in the business of selling community, the kind you got in a town square or the old fashioned coffee house, and what we and the company have learned is that community cannot be bought and sold. Bryant Simon’s new book is “Everything But The Coffee: Learning About America From Starbucks.”

• Learn about Bryant Simon’s book signing in Philadelphia tonight

Five Farms Preview

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Eddie Wise, who raises hogs on 106 acres near Whitakers, in east-central North Carolina. (Tom Rankin, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University)

This week on Here and Now we’re featuring a series called Five Farms. We profile five diverse American farm families and their prospects for the future as they struggle to keep their operations viable and pass their land and livelihoods on to their children. Series producer, John Biewen, gives us a preview of the farmers we’ll meet and the challenges they face.

Five Farms, Part One

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Craig and Lavon Griffieon, are a couple who grow corn, soybeans and livestock on 1,100 acres near Ankeny, Iowa. The Griffienon’s have four children. Most want to stay in farming, but do it differently than how their father now tends the land. Producers John Biewen and Rob Dillard document how the Griffienon’s farm may change in the next generation.

• See photos of the Griffieon’s Farm

Jack Kerouac’s ‘Big Sur’

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Jack Kerouac’s 1957 novel, “On The Road” made him a literary rock star, but the fame led to his unraveling. So three years later he headed to a friend’s cabin in California to battle his demons and his alcoholism. The result was a second novel, “Big Sur.” The real life events behind the book are documented in a new film and CD, both called “One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur.” Jay Farrar, leader of the band Son Volt, puts the words from the novel to music on the CD and joins us from St. Louis to talk about it.

• Read Lyrics from ‘One Fast Move or I’m Gone’ CD

Music from the Show

• Calexico, “Crumble”
• Ahmad Jamal, “Patterns”
• Freddie Hubbard, “Little Sunflower”
• Sonny Rollins, “Get Happy”
• Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard, “California Zephyr”
• Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard, “These Roads Don’t Move”
• Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard, “All In One”
• Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard, “Willamine”
• Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard, “Final Horrors”
• Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard, “San Francisco”
• Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard, “Big Sur”