Secret Gitmo Panels

This Morning Edition report (11/21/2006 - 8:56) presents audio recordings of the secret world of military tribunals at the U.S. prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The recordings were made by the U.S. military in the fall of 2004 in order to review the "enemy combatant" status of six detainees (all Algerians) who were arrested in Bosnia in late 2001, and later acquitted, for a suspected bombing plot. At that point, they were then taken into U.S. custody and sent to Guantanamo Bay. You can read the declassified documents here.
Musings

• Again we are faced with the question of who should have basic legal rights (to have a lawyer, to confront accusers, to see charges, and so forth) when confronting the power of a state to imprison people for life. And here there seems to be three possible answers: only Americans citizens, only American citizens who are free of any suspicions, or anyone and everyone.
  
  
• There is something especially ordinary, bureaucratic, mundane about the interactions on the tapes themselves. The U.S. officials seem earnest, sincere--people trying to do their duty--ye the whole thing also has an air of the absurd.
  

Dorothea Lange and Internment Camps

From Talk of the Nation (11/21/2006 - 13:15) comes this discussion of a new book on photographs that Dorothea Lange took of Japanese-Americans internment camps. More than 100,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese heritage were forcibly moved, under orders by President Franklin Roosevelt, in response to widespread fears following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Musings

• The first caller in the segment raises the connection between the WWII interment camps and our treatment of enemy combatants, including U.S. citizens, following 9/11. One point might be that we lack such compelling images that we have here. What are some of the other differences and similarities?
  
  
• Dorothea Lange is one of America's great photographers. Although we do not learn a lot about her from this segment, there is more at Wikipedia, including a copy of her most famous photo, Migrant Mother.
  

Fight of the Century: Louis vs. Schmeling

Here is another classic, historical recording from the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress, featuring what many continue to see as the greatest boxing match, and possibly the single greatest sports event, of all time: the heavyweight championship fight (11/25/2006 - 8:46) between "the Brown Bomber" Joe Louis and the German, Max Schmeling, on June 22, 1938.

Musings

• Listen to the report and list some of the many reasons this fight continues to resonate throughout history. For more on the fight, see Wikipedia.
  
  
• The fight was probably the single biggest radio event of all time. Discuss the role of radio is shrinking the world, and how that role is the same or differs from that of television today.
  
  
• The aftermath of Louis and Shmeling also makes a great story--both how Louis was treated by his country and how the "bad German" lived his life. Listen to Frank Deford's commentary on Schmeling (2/9/2005).
  

Baking Memories

I believe that as long as I keep baking, my grandmother hasn't really gone. I believe baking is the best way for me to express love for my people in the present and honor the people of my past, all in one batch.

So ends Emily Smith's loving "This I Believe" essay, from Morning Edition: Baking by Senses and Memories (11/20/2006- 4:18). And what better way to get ready for the comfortable indulgence of Thanksgiving.

Musings

• While baking is a universal in human culture, it is also, at least as a family endeavor, perhaps no longer a common element in our lives. What can we learn about ourselves by changes in the pattern of baking in our lives?
  
  
• Emily Smith focuses on pecan pie. What baked item would you focus on in your essay?
  

WWI Veterans

The eleventh day of the eleventh month, now celebrated as Veterans Days, was originally known as Armistice Day and marked the end of what was known as the Great War, 88 years ago this week.

More than 4 million Americans served in the war; only fourteen were alive when Will Everett traveled across the country to interview these men and tell their stories. In this piece from All Things Considered (11/10/2006 - 8:18), we hear about and from these last veterans of the war meant to end all wars.

Musings

• The trench warfare of the time is consider red some of the most horrific conditions ever faced by soldiers. You can read a brief overview at Wikipedia.
  
  
• The web site for the WWI Living History Project has the full story of these men. One wonders just how much or how little has changed for U.S. soldiers in the near-century between WWI and the current war in Iraq.
  

Barack Obama

Sen. Barack Obama is the junior senator from Illinois, but has already achieved the stature of a possible U.S. Presidential candidate for 2008. In this interview with Michele Norris, from All Things Considered (10/19/2006 - 8:02), we get a glimpse of the person and hence what makes him such an important national figure.

Musings

• Abe Lincoln started from almost nowhere (a backwoods cabin); Bill Clinton from almost nowhere (Hope, Arkansas), while two other Presidents were the sons of Presidents. All this raises the question of what makes one a serious presidential candidate?
  
  
• The President is our only nationwide office, so it may not be that surprising that we have never had a woman or an African-American President. Read more on Obama at Wikipedia and consider the many obstacles he would have to overcome to be elected.
  

Elvis at 21

"The nation was waking up from the doldrums of the post-war Eisenhower era, ready for something new."

Photo-Op is a regular feature of Alex Chadwick's Day to Day, and this show, Elvis at 21, (11/10/2006 - 8:56) features an exhibit of some of the 3,000 photos that Al Wertheimer took for RCA in 1956 when Elvis Presley was transformed from an unknown young singer to the most famous entertainer in the world.

Musings

• The interview focuses on one special photo, The Kiss. Anyone can play photo critic on this one. Take a look and see what you think before listening to Al Wertheimer's explanation.
  
  
• Explain the special fascination with these photos generally, or, conversely, the appeal of the young Elvis. Perhaps today it is hard to understand the blandness that pervaded American culture of the 1950's prior to Elvis's ascent to stardom, although it might help to note that one of the major pre-Elvis stars was Pat Boone.
  

Vietnam War Diary

Here is a really special piece by Michael Sullivan, A Wartime Diary Touches Vietnamese, All Things Considered (10/11/2006- 10:11), on a recently discovered diary of the Vietnam War, kept by young doctor Dang Thuy Tram, who served with the North Vietnam fighters, that is, with our enemy at the time, although the same side that now runs Vietnam and hence the same government that hosted President Bush this past weekend.

Musings

• There are two touching stories here--that of the American veteran Frederick Whitehurst, who saved the diary, and that of the short, poetic life of Dang Thuy Tram herself, and possibly a third story as well, the reunion of Dang Thuy Tram's mother with her daughter's words, and the fact that her daughter's diary contained an honesty that she had never shared with her family. Perhaps there is even a fourth story here, as Whitehurst struggles with his own easy acceptance of war as the proper solution to political disagreements.
  
  
• While is Vietnam last week, President Bush said that the lesson of the Vietnam War for Iraq today is, “We’ll succeed unless we quit.” Yet one thing that seems never to have sunk into the American consciousness is that we did quit in Vietnam, basically walked away (or, perhaps more accurately, "cut and ran"), after years of struggle and after some 57,000 American military fatalities (and over a million Vietnamese). SO what is the lesson of Vietnam for today?
  

Gone to the Dogs

"Anyone who hates children and dogs can't be all bad"--so says the famous comedian W.W. Fields. This Morning Edition piece features librarian Nancy Pearl discussing her favorite dog books (11/6/2006 - 7:18). This is an easy piece for me to select as a pup-sitting Mickey, a dead-ringer for Mr. Bones, the dog on the cover of Paul Auster's novel Timbuktu. Among the other books Pearl discusses are John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, Carol Anshaw's Lucky in the Corner, and Clifford Simac's City.

Musings

• Can you find any common themes in the handful of books that Pearl discusses, that is, in addition to the dogs?
  
  
• No surprise that this NPR feature quickly made it to the top of the most-emailed list, although it may be a little harder to explain the appeal of canines. Here is a link to a brief piece on the current best-seller mentioned at the start of the NPR piece, Marley and Me.
  

Carl Sandburg

In this piece from Morning Edition (10/26/2006 - 7:18), NPR's Susan Stamberg discusses the poetry of Carl Sandburg with the editor of a slim new volume of his poems, Paul Berman. This new collection focuses on Sandburg's early works, from what Berman calls his "great period": "Mostly what I trimmed away was poems he wrote in his later years," Berman says. "I think [for] Sandburg, as with a lot of poets, his greatest years were early on. There was a moment there, ten years or so, beginning around 1914, when he was hot. He had the vision, he was going. He had one fine inspiration after another. That was his great period."

Musings

• Sandburg eventually became something of a venerated national institution in his later years, as seen by his appearance on the cover of Time magazine, a place usually reserved for world leaders. Berman suggests an inherent tension between being a young, creative artist and a distinguished figurehead. Can you see such tension at work among artists today?
  
  
• Sandburg is forever connected with Chicago, not just the city, but as Berman suggests, the attitude towards language that city represents. Can you see that attitude in Sandburg's poem, "Chicago"?
  

Barber's "Adagio for Strings"

Here's a real change of pace, from All Things Considered (11-4-06 - 8:59) and the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress, a piece on Arturo Toscanini's first performance of the what has become perhaps the most popular piece of classical music written in the 2oth century, Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings." The NPR piece focuses almost exclusively on the performer, in this case the great conductor Toscanini, rather than the composer.

Musings

• Try listening to the 7-minute piece (a link is on the same page) before listening to the discussion, and see how your response differs from that of the experts at NPR, or the more formal analysis at Wikipedia. The Wikipedia entry also notes the numerous times the Barber piece has been used in films and pop culture.
  
• Adagios are basically slow, somber pieces of instrumental music. What is the appeal of such music, or of somber art generally.
  

The Addams Family

Lurch, Morticia, Gomez . . . just a few of our favorite characters from the Addams family, the creation of cartoonist Charles Addams, and later a TV series that ran for two years in the mid-1960's. To celebrate Halloween, Morning Edition ran this piece on the cartoonist, Father of the Addams Family (10/31 - 7:19).

Addams, who died in 1988, is the subject of a new biography by Linda Davis, who is interviewed in this segment.

Musings

• At the NPR site you can view a slide show of 8 Addams cartoons, with biographer Davis offering a detailed annotations for each. Here we can see the contrast between the economy, even perfection of a cartoon versus that of the explanation.
  
  
• You read about the Addams Family TV series at Wikipedia. How would you describe the difference and similarity between the original cartoons and the popular TV series.