Archive for June, 2005

Legislative Update/Centauri Dreams

Thursday, June 30th, 2005

Legislative Update: Host Melinda Penkava talks with Laura Leslie, North Carolina Public Radio — WUNC’s capitol reporter, about the North Carolina General Assembly’s struggle to finalize a state budget. (12:00)

Centauri Dreams: Host Melinda Penkava speaks with Paul Glister, technology and space writer for the Raleigh News and Observer, about his book “Centauri Dreams” (Springer Science and Business/2004). The Raleigh writer discusses the future possibilites of interstellar space travel, including travel to Alpha Centauri using solar sails, antimatter, and spacecrafts that think for themselves. (35:00)

Legislative Update
Centauri Dreams

OLF/Minority Contracts

Wednesday, June 29th, 2005

OLF: The Navy has announced that additional studies are now underway for alternative sites for a proposed Outlying Landing Field in eastern North Carolina. Host Melinda Penkava talks with Dan Cecchini, Environmental Impact Statement Project Manager for the Navy’s Atlantic facilities. (6:00) (JG)

Minority Contracts: A coalition of construction trade organizations that advocate for increased diversity on public construction projects plans to ask Washington to suspend federal money to the North Carolina Department of Transportation because, it says, the NC DOT is not complying with the federal Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program. Host Melinda Penakava talks with Charlotte Robinson, the coalition’s attorney; Todd Young, legal policy director for the Southerneastern Legal Foundation; and C.C. Lamberth, contractor and chairman of Southeastern Economic Development. Listener Call-In. (36:00) (JG)

OLF
Minority Contracts

Supreme Court/Changing Minds

Tuesday, June 28th, 2005

Supreme Court: Host Melinda Penkava speaks with Erwin Chemerinsky, a law professor at Duke University. Chemerinsky argued the case against the Ten Commandments being displayed in a Texas courthouse in front of the Supreme Court. That court decided on Monday to allow the monument, but disallowed a different display in Kentucky. (12:00)

Changing Minds: North Carolina Congressman Walter Jones coined the phrase “freedom fries” at the start of the Iraq War. Now, he’s asking for a timetable for withdrawal. New polls show some Americans have been through a similar change of heart; according to Gallup, nearly six in ten Americans now oppose the war, a sharp increase from the last poll taken in March. As President Bush arrives in North Carolina to deliver a speech at Fort Bragg, host Melinda Penkava leads a discussion about what shapes opinions about the war. Guests include: Chris Gelpi, professor of political science at Duke University; Medea Benjamin, founder of the antiwar group Code Pink; and Joe McLaughlin, county commissioner for Onslow County. Listener Call-in. (47:00)

Supreme Court
Changing Minds

Mozart In The Jungle/WPAQ

Monday, June 27th, 2005

Mozart in the Jungle: Blair Tindall was born and raised in Chapel Hill and graduated from The North Carolina School for the Arts in Winston-Salem. She went on to attend the Manhattan School of Music and to play the oboe with the New York Philharmonic and for several award-winning Broadway musicals and the New York City Ballet. She also found her music education limited (and limiting) and went back to college for basic math and other skills in her 30’s before graduating from Stanford with a master’s degree in journalism. Host Melinda Penkava talks to Blair Tindall about her new memoir, “Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs and Classical Music,” her views on music education and public funding for the arts in America and being a sought after oboeist in New York City in the 1980s — a decade famous for its hedonism. (40:00) Listener Call-in.

WPAQ: Host Melinda Penkava speaks with Ralph Epperson, founder of WPAQ radio, 740 AM; and Steve Weiss, the head of the Southern Folklife Collection, about the station’s history and legacy.

Justin Catanoso: Regular State of Things commentator Justin Catanoso on the growing business of biotech in the Triad.

Mozart In The Jungle
WPAQ
Catanoso

Angry Black White Boy/Crowe

Friday, June 24th, 2005

Angry Black White Boy: As a young boy in the 1980s, Macon Detornay becomes fascinated by hip-hop music. And although he is a white boy from the suburbs of Boston, he comes of age immersed in and politicized by hip-hop culture. By the time he’s a taxicab driver in New York City, Macon is enraged by white privilege, and he turns that rage against his white passengers. Host Melinda Penkava talks with hip-hop emcee, poet, and author Adam Mansbach about his newest novel, “Angry Black White Boy” (Three Rivers Press/2005). (25:00)

Thomas Rain Crowe: Twenty-five years ago, writer Thomas Rain Crowe returned home to the mountains of western North Carolina. He lived on land borrowed from a friend and survived for four years on only what he could grow and barter. Host Melinda Penkava talks with Thomas Rain Crowe about his experiences with solitude and survival. His book is called “Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods” (University of Georgia Press/2005). (22:00)

Macon
Crowe