Yesterday, NPR’s Fresh Air discussed money in politics and how recent changes to campaign finance laws have made it difficult to track money spent on elections and who is spending it.
Here is a description of the podcast from the NPR website:
Campaign finance rules allow some groups to not disclose their donors. The New York Times’ Nick Confessore says there could be “influence peddling … because we can’t see the money changing hands.”
In a recent episode of NPR’s Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviewed Dana Goldstein author of the new book The Teacher Wars, a book which chronicle the American history of teachers, which the subtitle states is America’s Most Embattled Profession. The book discusses how education in America intersects with race and gender as well as the controversial issues in modern education, including the role of standardized testing.
Here is a description an introduction to the interview from the NPR website:
As students return to school, the national dialogue on controversies surrounding teacher tenure, salaries, the core curriculum, testing and teacher competence will get more fervent.
In her new book, The Teacher Wars, Dana Goldstein writes about how teaching became “the most controversial profession in America,” and how teachers have become both “resented and idealized.”
In the New York Times, critic Alexander Nazaryan described the book as “meticulously fair and disarmingly balanced.” Although it’s largely a history, it also draws on Goldstein’s reporting on recent controversies surrounding teaching.
“One of the things I noticed, especially after the recession hit in 2008 and coming into President Obama’s administration, was we were having a big national conversation about inequality,” Goldstein tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “And teaching was something that was discussed again and again as a potential fix — a fix for inequality, something that could help poor children achieve like middle-class children and close these socioeconomic gaps that we’re so concerned about as a nation.”
For the book, Goldstein researched 200 years of teaching in America.
“What surprised me … was that we’ve always had these high expectations,” she says. “This idea that teachers have a role to play in fighting poverty and inequality has been with us since the early 19th century.”
In a recent episode of NPR’s Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviewed Dana Goldstein author of the new book The Teacher Wars, a book which chronicle the American history of teachers, which the subtitle states is America’s Most Embattled Profession. The book discusses how education in America intersects with race and gender as well as the controversial issues in modern education, including the role of standardized testing.
Here is a description an introduction to the interview from the NPR website:
As students return to school, the national dialogue on controversies surrounding teacher tenure, salaries, the core curriculum, testing and teacher competence will get more fervent.
In her new book, The Teacher Wars, Dana Goldstein writes about how teaching became “the most controversial profession in America,” and how teachers have become both “resented and idealized.”
In the New York Times, critic Alexander Nazaryan described the book as “meticulously fair and disarmingly balanced.” Although it’s largely a history, it also draws on Goldstein’s reporting on recent controversies surrounding teaching.
“One of the things I noticed, especially after the recession hit in 2008 and coming into President Obama’s administration, was we were having a big national conversation about inequality,” Goldstein tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “And teaching was something that was discussed again and again as a potential fix — a fix for inequality, something that could help poor children achieve like middle-class children and close these socioeconomic gaps that we’re so concerned about as a nation.”
For the book, Goldstein researched 200 years of teaching in America.
“What surprised me … was that we’ve always had these high expectations,” she says. “This idea that teachers have a role to play in fighting poverty and inequality has been with us since the early 19th century.”
“Wild Justice”: A History of the Death Penalty in America
Last month, NPR’s Fresh Air featured an interview with Evan Mandery, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former capital defense attorney, about his new book–A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America. The interview reflected the book’s title, explaining the strange and fascinating history of the death penalty in the United States. From backroom Supreme Court deals to Mandery’s argument that the death penalty is random and lacks deterrent value, this interview is worth a listen for anyone interested in the death penalty or criminal law.
Here is the introduction to the interview:
In the mid-1970s, Arkansas’ electric chair was being used by the prison barber to cut hair, and the execution chamber in New Hampshire was being used to store vegetables. That’s because in 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court shocked the nation by striking down Georgia’s death penalty law, effectively ending executions in the United States. But the decision provoked a strong backlash among those who favored the death penalty, and within four years the high court reversed course and issued a set of rulings that would permit the resumption of executions.
Evan Mandery, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former capital defense attorney, has written a new account of the tumultuous legal and political battles over the death penalty. Mandery is sympathetic to those who tried to outlaw capital punishment, but his account focuses on attorneys for both sides in the battle, as well as the views and deliberations of the justices who decided the cases. His book is called A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America.
Feel Good Friday: Saul Goodman
Recently, NPR’s Fresh Air interviewed Bob Odenkirk who plays the most popular fictional lawyer currently on television–Saul Goodman of AMC’s Breaking Bad.
Here is a description of the interview:
“When the going gets tough, you don’t want a criminal lawyer — you want a criminal lawyer.”
That’s how meth dealer Jesse Pinkman describes the fast-talking, sleazy Saul Goodman on AMC’s Breaking Bad. Played by Bob Odenkirk, Saul knows how to bend the law, or break it, depending on his clients’ needs. He helped Walter White — a high-school chemistry teacher turned meth cooker — launder money, stay out of prison and get connected with a meth drug lord.
Now, in the final season, even Saul is scared. Walt has plenty of drug money stashed away, but he’s murdered a drug lord. Worse still, a DEA agent (who happens to be Walt’s brother-in-law) may be on to him.
Before Breaking Bad, Odenkirk was best known as the co-founder and co-star, with David Cross, of the HBO sketch-comedy series Mr. Show.
Breaking Bad begins the second half of its final season on Sunday. Odenkirk tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross about Saul’s comb-over, the character’s penchant for long-winded speeches, and his own thoughts on playing the most comedic character in a serious drama.