The Good, The Bad, and the Microeconomic

Filed under: On Air

Speaking of economic indicators...

Source: Jeff Haynes/Getty Images

Listen -- I'm not going to pretend that it's not completely crappy out there. Gas prices, food prices, bank runs -- it feels like the economic Ragnarok. In the interests of soothing some of your anxiety though, we decided to take a moment to put it in perspective. The financial system is wounded -- but it's not broken. We'll get through this, and it's possible we'll end up with a much healthier economy in the long run. In the meantime, what are the economic indicators you should pay attention to as we wait for this slow-drip bad news to stop? Tell us what you're looking at -- and we'll give you a little advice.

-- Barrie Hardymon

Tags: Ecomonic indicators | business | food | gas | housing

Hero(ine) Overdose

Filed under: On Air

Riding into the sunset, perhaps?

Photo By Toby Canham/Getty Images

Yes, I've seen the new Batman movie, and Iron Man, and Superman Returns, and all the Spiderman films. And I'm apparently in good company... These are all movies that made gobs of money at the box office. I'd likely plunk down my $8 for the next in each series, too. But with comic book characters winning the day in movie houses, the New York Times' A.O. Scott raises a disturbing question for any fan of the cape and mask genre:

Any comic book fan knows that a hero at the height of his powers is a few panels removed from mortal danger, and that hubris has a way of summoning new enemies out of the shadows. Are the Caped Crusader and his colleagues basking in an endless summer of triumph, or is the sun already starting to set?

And before you brush it off as some sort of overly intellectual attack on comic book films, consider the evidence... Every comic book movie must follow a simple format (good guy v. bad guy, lots of action, evil never wins), and after many years of churning out movies full of bodysuits and secret identities, Hollywood may simply be running out of creative ways to get into and out of the big showdown with the villain. As comic book movies go, A.O. Scott gives credit to The Dark Knight for stretching farther than any of its kind so far. But he argues this may represent a peak... both in terms of pushing the limits, and in representing the beginning of an inevitable decline.

-- Scott Cameron

Tags: A.O. Scott | Batman | Iron Man | Spiderman | comic book movie

Danke Schoen, Obama

Filed under: On Air

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama spoke at the Victory Column in Berlin's Tiergarten today, to a sea of people numbering in the tens of thousands. The speech was only one part of his itinerary in a week-long tour of Europe and the Middle East. In it, Obama summoned a cross-Atlantic alliance, in which he called on Europeans and Americans, together, to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it." He went on to say, "The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand." Today we'll talk to NPR's Ron Elving, and to the director of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, Constanze Stelzenmuller, about what the speech means, and how Obama's image is shaping up abroad.

If you heard the speech, or have questions about how it was received here or in Europe, leave your comments here.

-- Ashley Grashaw

Tags: Barack Obama | Berlin | Germany | cross-Atlantic alliance | image abroad

An Illiterate Writer...

Filed under: On Air

So mystery writer Howard Engel wakes up after a stroke one day and realizes that he has forgotten how to read. That's what his memoir Man Who Forgot How to Read is all about, well not quite, but you get the idea.
This captured my imagination from the moment I heard the pitch. I think the reason is that I recently heard an episode of WNYC's Radio Lab about a man who woke up one day and had "forgotten" how to walk (I'm sure that I'm butchering the scientific description of the loss of proprioception, but who doesn't?)
Moving on: so my first question was, if you forget how to read, can you still write? And if so what's the difference between reading and writing? When you forget how to read is it that you forget how to string letters together, or is it that you forget what a letter "Q" looks like?
Those are my questions, the first of them anyhow. What are yours?
And as an aside: I know this is a bit of a high-concept show for a Thursday afternoon, but stick with me... These conversations are incredibly compelling. Remember the interview we did about Mike May and his story about going from being blind to having sight Crashing Through. it was amazing!

-- Susannah George

Tags: Howard Engel | The Man Who Forgot How to Read

July 24, 2008

Filed under: Coming Up

For the last few days, Gwen and Sarah have been [patiently] training me to direct the show. Now that they're both on vacation, it's time for this little bird to leave the nest.* (Wish me luck.)

"How Bad Is It Really?" is the tentative title for the first hour. "It," you may have guessed, is the economy. We'll ask Adam Davidson, NPR's international business correspondent, to "take the temperature of the economy today." (Barrie's phrase.) And we'll ask you to tell us what indicators you use to decide whether or not the economy is good or bad.

At the end of the hour, we'll ask A.O. Scott, chief film critic for The New York Times, about superhero movies. This summer, there are tons of them. And wonders if the sun is starting to set on the genre.

In the second hour, Howard Engel, a well-known mystery novelist, will join us, to talk about his new book, The Man Who Forgot How To Read. His is a remarkable story. In 2001, a stroke rendered Engel unable to read.

And we'll hear a few excerpts from the speech Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is expected to give today, in Berlin. Ron Elving, NPR's senior Washington editor, and Constanze Stelzenmuller, the director of the German Marshall Fund, will give us their thoughts from their respective sides of the Atlantic.

Enjoy!

*Notice how I conservatively wrote, "leave the nest," not "fly."

-- David Gura

Tags: A.O. Scott | Adam Davidson | Barack Obama | Berlin | Howard Engel | movies | superheroes | the economy

Pot vs. Kettle

Filed under: Unintentional Hilarity

Wait... so this was the guy who accused someone else of having a Nazi themed orgy? Awwwwkward.

Source: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Welcome to the second installment in our weekly photo series, Unintentional Hilarity! Today, peruse the photo above, and marvel at its subject. Here's the scoop. Formula One boss Max Mosley sued the British tabloid News of the World for invasion of privacy. He was accused in print of playing "sick Nazi sex games" in an orgy with several women. First of all -- really? Nazi-themed? How do you do that? Second of all, the guy in the photo is the editor of News of the World, and the picture definitely looks as if it's the pot calling the kettle Nazi. That's all I'm sayin'. Meanwhile, the kettle is pretty iffy, too -- Max Mosely is the son of a famous Hitler sympathizer and fascist (Oswald Mosely, if you must know). Anyhoo, Mosely won his suit, and can go back to regular themed orgies whenever he chooses. But watch out for that editor. He looks screwy.

-- Barrie Hardymon

Tags: Max Mosely | Nazi orgies | News of the World

PoJu Smorgasbord

Filed under: On Air

Three things up for your consideration on today's Newseum edition of the Political Junkie (NEPOJU). First, Ken Rudin. Need we say more? Second, Senator Barack Obama's trip has been more than covered (see third topic), and we wondered -- what's it like to go on one of these junkets? Representative Christopher Shays (R-CT) has gone to Iraq 20 TIMES since 2003 -- he's got the lowdown. And then, last but not least -- media coverage of Senators Barack Obama and John McCain has people talking -- critics charge that the coverage of Obama's trip proves that there's a love affair going on. For more commentary, you must check out this hilarious Colbert clip. Enjoy.

-- Barrie Hardymon

Tags: Political junkie

Fugitive No More

Filed under: On Air

Bosnian Serb wartime fugitive Radovan Karadzic was arrested by Serbian forces on Monday after more than a decade on the run. An estimated 100,000 people died in the Bosnian war, and another 1.8 million were driven from their homes. Karadzic has been indicted with charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. His war crimes trial is likely to begin at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague within days.

Karadzic wore thick glasses and grew a bushy white beard to conceal his well-known face, and worked as a doctor of alternative medicine under an alias. His arrest brings Serbia one step closer to admission into the European Union.

In an op-ed for The Washington Post titled "The Face of Evil," Ambassador Richard Holbrooke describes his meeting with Radovan Karadzic during the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords:

I had told each member of our negotiating team to decide for himself or herself whether to shake hands with the mass murderers. I hated these men for what they had done. [...] I did not shake hands, although both Karadzic and Mladic tried to. Some of our team did; others did not.

Holbrooke joins us today to discuss what Karadzic's capture means... for Bosnia, Serbia, and for war crimes tribunals. If you have questions about how the war crimes trial will proceed, or what Karadzic's capture means, leave them here.

-- Ashley Grashaw

Tags: Bonsian war | Radovan Karadzic | Richard Holbrooke | capture | crimes against humanity | fugitive | genocide | war crimes trial

A Thousand Words

Filed under: On Air

Earlier this month, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard released a photograph of a missile launch, which Agence France-Presse distributed to news organizations around the world. It showed four missiles, in the air, shortly after ignition. As it turns out, that picture had been doctored. Another -- almost identical -- photograph, of the same site, showed three airborne missiles.

And just a week before, FOX News aired two manipulated photographs -- of Jacques Steinberg, a reporter for The New York Times, and Steven Reddicliffe, an editor at the newspaper. Their eyes had dark circles around them, their teeth had been yellowed, and their faces had been stretched.

Hany Farid, who teaches computer science at Dartmouth College, studies digital image forensics. His article, "Photo Tampering Throughout History," has dozens of examples of creative -- and dubious -- cropping, dodging, and blurring.

We'll hear from Farid and Vincent Laforet, a commercial and editorial photographer, based in New York. For many years, he was a staff photographer at The New York Times.

Do you care if the photographs you see in your newspapers and magazines, or on the Internet, have been changed? If only slightly? If so, why? And if you have any questions for Farid or Laforet, we'll take those too.

-- David Gura

Tags: Hany Farid | Iran | Vincent Laforet | manipulation | missiles | photo

No Half-Caf No-Foam Venti Cap for You!

Filed under: On Air

Starbucks feels the pinch.

Source: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

It's official: Starbucks is closing 600 stores across the U.S. I find it absolutely fascinating, and lack the historical memory to think of an analogous situation. Simply put, Starbucks is polarizing. I remember when 'Bucks moved into my college town. Athens, GA, when I was there, was a town proud of its local, independent coffee. We had a variety of choices, and I visited each coffehouse depending on my mood. When I wanted to get some fake studying done, I went to the hyper-social Blue Sky, right on College Avenue. I was always sure to run into a few people I knew there, and it was my favorite for a long time. Jittery Joe's had three locations I frequented -- the one by the 40 Watt, where I was likely to run into some cute skaters; the dark, cozy, intellectual one in 5 Points where heavy tapestries soaked up the aroma of coffee so thoroughly that an actual mug of the stuff was just a bonus; and the converted church that contained the roaster for the empire, where I "studied" with friends, our laughter bouncing off the wooden beams high on the ceiling. Have I convinced you, yet, that I love a local coffeehouse? So when Starbucks moved in just a few doors from Blue Sky, I moaned and groaned the the best of 'em. OH, "the man" is coming to kill our indies, blah blah blah. But you know what? I'm not sure that is what killed them. And I've read that in some areas, Starbucks may have fostered a coffee culture that actually supported and encouraged the independent shops. So, sure. Some die-hards will cheer the closing of 600 outposts of the evil empire. But elsewhere, folks are banding together to save their Starbucks. What do you think about Starbucks? Do you have one nearby? Do you go? And if your local is one that's closing, are you upset about it?

-- Sarah Handel

Tags: Save our Starbucks | Starbucks | business | closings | coffee | economy

July 23rd Show

Filed under: Coming Up

TOTN's always a hive of activity on Newseum Wednesdays, and here's what we're buzzing about. In our first hour, as ever, Political Junkie Ken Rudin's got all the best bits of political news for you from the last week, and a doozy of a trivia question. And Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) joins us to talk about trips to Iraq, plus Republican strategist Vin Weber. That's a whole lotta politics, people. We'll follow that with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke -- he's delighted with the capture of Radovan Karadzic, a man he called "One of the worst men in the world, the Osama bin Laden of Europe... A major, major thug has been removed from the public scene."

In our second hour, doctored photographs. After news hit that the photo of the Iran nuclear test that was widely distributed had been altered, we all took a closer look at it. So today, a discussion about the ethics of photojournalism, and how to detect a photo has been manipulated. Finally, Starbucks announced recently that it'll close 600 stores in the U.S. this summer. We want to know how the closures are affecting the communities -- Newark, for example, saw its Starbucks as a sign of its relevance and acceptability, and now some Newarkians (?) are banding together to try to save it.

-- Sarah Handel

12:37 PM ET | 07-23-2008 | permalink | e-mail post

CD Love

Filed under: Deep Thoughts

These aren't my CDs, but they could be. The Beck, anyway.

Source: frumbert

I'm having the hardest time breaking up with my CD collection. Every time I move, packing up the CDs in perfect stacks so that when I unload them they stay in order is one of my major tasks, and the unload's even trickier -- do I remember my master plan, and pull the discs out correctly? The placement of the towered shelving is always one of my first decisions, and I'm not even some crazy audiophile with thousands of albums. As everyone switched to MP3s, though, I found myself clinging to the artifact. And as much as CD sleeves pale next to gatefold LP covers, they still mean something to me. I know exactly the texture of the paper used for Perfect From Now On. I know how some sleeves -- Whip-Smart comes to mind -- smell waxy. And I feel acutely disappointed every time I open a CD that has a simple page, printed only on one side, inserted in the cover. Even though I have to constantly cull my collection to make room for new music (for whatever reason, I refuse to buy more shelving), I keep buying the actual hard copies of albums. I'm trying to get on-board with downloading music, though. It's less expensive, more environmentally sound, and less space-consuming, true. I had a long conversation Friday with one of NPR's music geniuses, and after our conversation about music I just had to hear, I told him, "I'll download the Bon Iver in the morning, I promise, but I also know I'll forget every other record we've talked about so you'll have to remind me." It was my way of forcing myself into pressing "Buy" instead of standing in line at Best Buy. Sure enough, I did it. But I don't feel good about it. I don't feel like I really own the music, even though it's sitting on my iPod, and I can even see the cover art. Plus, I have an old-school fear of my computer freaking out and losing all my music -- what then? Have you switched to buying MP3s instead of 7-inches and CDs? Have you struggled with it? If so, what convinced you to do it?

-- Sarah Handel

Tags: CDs | MP3 | collecting | music

Prisoner Swap

Filed under: On Air

I was talking to my father the other night, and, as usual, he asked me which segments I'm working on here at Talk of the Nation. I told him that I'm putting together a show on prisoner swaps; and, after I gave him the rundown on the different guests I was considering, he told me that Mohammed Abu Nasser, the man who kidnapped him back in 1989, had been released in a prisoner swap prior to the kidnapping. (Btw my father is fine. He was held for less than two days, and he was treated well. He says that he was served some amazing traditional Palestinian food during that time.) My family doesn't talk about the kidnapping very much, but I bring it up because it is a perfect example of why people oppose prisoner swaps. Not only does it mean that governments have to negotiate with entities they deem terrorists (Israel and Hezbollah), but often there was a reason those people were in prison in the first place. Yet, countries still do it. Why?

Today we are talking to Haaretz Defense Correspondent Amos Harel; author, former Israeli politician, and one-time "swapee" Natan Shransky; and Civil War historian Jeffry Wert about the logic behind prisoner swaps.

What do you think? If you were taken prisoner during a war or conflict, would you want your government to swap you?

-- Susannah George

Tags: Israel and Hezbollah | prisoner swaps

"There's Something Funny Going On At the Bank, George..."

Filed under: On Air

Above, you will find the cultural touchstone that we all imagine when we think of the term "bank run." George Bailey, handing out his honeymoon stash, as the town of Bedford Falls converges on the Building and Loan.

Below, you will see a much less charming version -- as customers raid the collapsing IndyMac bank.

Turns out, the history of bank runs is uniquely American -- and more interesting than you'd think. Jane Kamensky fills us in on the bank panics in between these two. Any questions? Post 'em here, or rent It's A Wonderful Life.

-- Barrie Hardymon

Tags: Bank Run | George Bailey | IndyMac

Saving Old Yeller

Filed under: On Air

I ask you, what wouldn't you do for this little snugglebunny?

Source: The Barrie Hardymon Audrey Archives

I'm happily engaged to a Kansan -- he grew up on a real, live farm, with pigs, cows, sheep, and a whole herd of barn cats. He seems to love my little fuzzbucket, Audrey (see above! SEE!), with all the enthusiasm a big strong bald man can muster for a super furry Persian spoiled brat...er... cat. Imagine my horror, then, to find out that in his youth, his family had to dispose (YES, DISPOSE) of some of the aforementioned cats. This, to a young woman raised in the relatively disconnected suburban universe, was cause for a tear or two, and some soul searching. We've worked it out since then, don't fear. But I'll tell you, living with a man who lived on a farm puts my deep, obsessive, probably unhealthy love of my kitty in perspective. A raft of articles appeared last weekend about how far we will, and do, go for our pets -- suffice it to say, after a staggering vet bill and some dog psychotherapy, Old Yeller probably would have made it. What's wrong with us? Are we crazy, disconnected, lonely? Have we gone too far in our pet-people relationships?

-- Barrie Hardymon

Tags: Audrey | pampering | pets | snuggling