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Archive for October 3 - 7, 2005
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Monday, Oct. 3, 2005
Hour 1 (11 a.m.)
Audio Bush names a confidante to the High Court
On the the first day of the first Supreme Court term under the gavel of Chief Justice John Roberts, President Bush named his second nominee to the High Court. Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers to replace outgoing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. What mark will Bush leave on the court?

Guests:
David Stras, a law professor at the University of Minnesota. (photo: Getty Images/Pool)

Related Links:
Document Web Resource: A new nominee and a potential case
Document Share your views in the News Forum.
Hour 2 (12 p.m.)
Audio The plays and politics of August Wilson
One of the great voices of American theater has fallen silent. August Wilson, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and one-time St. Paulite, died of liver cancer Sunday in Seattle. He was 60 years old.

Guests:
Dominic Papatola, a theater critic for the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Related Links:
Document Web Resource: An African-American history lesson from August Wilson
Document Share your views in the News Forum.
Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2005
Hour 1 (11 a.m.)
Audio Helping a station hit by the hurricane
Not long after Hurricane Katrina hit, public radio stations in the Gulf Coast put put out the call for help. Some had temporarily lost power, others were flooded and put off the air altogether. Mississippi Public Broadcasting mostly needed more reporters on deck, and "Future Tense" Host Jon Gordon answered the call.

Guests:
Jon Gordon, host of the American Public Media program "Future Tense," got back from two weeks in Mississippi on Sept. 30. Gordon's sister also lives in Mississippi. All that is left of her house is a concrete slab (pictured above.)

Related Links:
Document Web Resource: American RadioWorks' Stephen Smith went to Mississippi to work on a new documentary.
Document Web Resource: Future Tense
Document Share your views in the News Forum.
Hour 2 (12 p.m.)
Audio "A militant kind of piety"
Best-selling religion writer Karen Armstrong says that the rise of modernity and the rise of religious fundamentalism are linked. In a speech Saturday at St. Mark's Cathedral in Minneapolis, the former nun said that fundamentalist religious movements were both enabled by modernity and arose as a backlash against modernity.

Related Links:
Document Web Resource: Rabbi Harold Kushner on the unexpected rise of the religious right
Document Share your views in the News Forum.
Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2005
Hour 1 (11 a.m.)
Audio Will Iraq's constitution unite the country, or divide it?
Responding to intense criticism from the United Nations and a furious Sunni minority Wednesday, the Shiite-led Iraqi parliament made it once again possible for Sunni-dominated provinces to scuttle the country's constitution in an Oct. 15 referendum.

Guests:
J. Brian Atwood, dean of the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, headed up the U.S. Agency for International Development for 6 years. (photo: Getty Images/Wathiq Khuzaie)

Related Links:
Document Web Resource: Carleton College's Roy Grow on Iraqi stability
Document Share your views in the News Forum.
Hour 2 (12 p.m.)
Audio Wild weather for October
It was another dark and stormy night in the Twin Cities Tuesday, breaking records for rainfall and dewpoints. The thunderstorms also knocked out electricity and flooded streets, with weather spotters in Isanti County measuring as much as nine inches of rain.

Guests:
Rich Naistat, science and operations officer in the Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service.

Related Links:
Document Heavy rains flood streets, knock out power
Document Share your views in the News Forum.
Thursday, Oct. 6, 2005
Hour 1 (11 a.m.)
Audio "...and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
Rep. Jim Oberstar says that next time the government has to help Americans to flee a natural disaster, it should make sure there's room for pets. Oberstar, D-Minn., is co-sponsoring a bill that would force state and local governments to make evacuation plans for domesticated animals. What is it that makes people so reluctant to leave their pets behind?

Guests:
Dr. Kate An Hunter, owner of the Carver Lake Veterinary Center, is the president-elect of the Minnesota Veterinary Medical Association. Hunter is accompanied as always by her faithful companion, Ansel, a whippet-American stafford terrier. (photo of Ansel courtesy of Crystal Image Photography)

Related Links:
Document Web Resource: MPR's Jon Gordon recently visited an animal shelter in Hattiesburg, Miss.
Document Web Resource: Animal Legal Defense Fund
Document Share your views in the News Forum.
Hour 2 (12 p.m.)
Audio The dangerous art of Edward Albee
Playwright Edward Albee, best known for writing "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," says art should be dangerous. Albee speaks live from the Westminster Town Hall Forum in downtown Minneapolis.

Related Links:
Document The Westminster Town Hall Forum
Document Web Resource: Remembering playwright August Wilson
Document Share your views in the News Forum.
Friday, Oct. 7, 2005
Hour 1 (11 a.m.)
Audio If there's another session, it may just be for the Gophers
Gov. Pawlenty and top lawmakers emerged from a meeting Thursday with a single item of consensus -- they'd like to help the University of Minnesota Gophers football team build a new stadium. The leaders will see if their caucuses support a second special session to deal with the issue, and the governor will rule by the middle of next week on whether to call the Legislature back to St. Paul.

Guests:
Legislative leaders House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, and Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar.

Related Links:
Document Momentum for Gophers stadium picks up
Document Leaders not too thrilled about special session invitation
Document Wilf begins stadium lobbying push as lawmakers consider referendum question
Document Another special session for stadium issue?
Document Session 2005
Document Web Resource: Legislators react to the governor's special session menu
Document Share your views in the News Forum.
Hour 2 (12 p.m.)
Audio Getting government geared up for disasters
Nationally recognized congressional expert Norman Ornstein analyzes the federal preparations for and response to Hurricane Katrina in a speech Friday morning at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Related Links:
Document Web Resource: The Humphrey Institute
Document Web Resource: The American Enterprise Institute
Document Share your views in the News Forum.
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