HOUR ONE
Some worry the US Supreme Court has shifted too far to the right and see the recent nomination of Elena Kagan as perpetuating that trend. Bob hosts a roundtable discussion to talk about how the Roberts court is shaping up ideologically. Our guests are Dahlia Lithwick, a contributing editor at Newsweek and senior editor at Slate where she covers the Supreme Court; Georgetown University Law Center professor Randy Barnett, author of Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty; and Geoffrey Stone, professor at the University of Chicago Law School and author of Top Secret: When Our Government Keeps Us in the Dark.
In this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, Bob talks with curator Dan Gediman about the essay of Oscar Hammerstein II. He wrote the book and lyrics for many operettas and musical comedies. He also wrote Show Boat with composer Jerome Kern. Later, with composer Richard Rodgers, Hammerstein wrote some of his greatest musicals, includingOklahoma!, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music.
HOUR TWO
On April 20th, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing eleven workers and threatening wildlife throughout the Gulf of Mexico. Richard Charter is a Senior Policy Advisor for the Marine Programs at Defenders of Wildlife and he has more than 25 years of experience working on offshore drilling issues and oil spill crises. Jacqueline Savitz is a Senior Marine Scientist for Oceana where she focuses on toxicology. They’ll discuss the rules and regulations for maintaining an offshore oil rig, the ongoing recovery effort, and the impact of the leak on the environment.
Last month, Bob went to New Orleans for the first weekend of the city’s annual Jazz and Heritage Festival. Today, we offer a sampling of the 12 interviews which range from up and coming locals like Stanton Moore and Trombone Shorty to established New Orleans royalty like Allen Toussaint and Irma Thomas to foreign musicians who came to visit and never left like Jon Cleary, Anders Osborne and Theresa Andersson. We’ll bring you those interviews from now until the end of July – starting with Bob’s conversation with New Orleans native Dr. John – backstage at the Jazz Fest’s Blues Tent.