July 2001

Dr. Tippy -- Storyteller Kevin Kling remembers a visit to the hospital when he was young and his attempted escape. (4:15)

Kafka -- Commentator Doug Rushkoff offers this true story, a nightmare experienced by many trying to navigate the maze of bureaucracy if you need to get a charge removed from a credit bill. Rushkoff signed up for DSL, then was told his home was ineligible for the high-speed Internet service. But the monthly charge for the service kept appearing on his credit card statement. He worked for weeks trying to find a human being to help him...and even after loosing his phone service for several hours while the error was corrected, he found he was back to ground zero the next month. (3:00)

Porch Steps Baseball -- Commentator Ed Cullen remembers days when a whole sporting event could be created with a tennis ball and a porch stairway. (3:00)

Texas - Deviant Sex Law -- Commentator Lis Wiehl says in Texas, it is criminal for two consenting adults of the same sex to engage in what an appeals court calls "sexually deviant" acts, but it is okay for two consenting adults of the opposite sex to engage in the same behavior. Wiehl wants this decision appealed. (2:00)

Can't Stop the Net -- Commentator Preston Gralla is an executive editor for C-NET. He says he has hard evidence that the music industry will never be able to stop the trading of music online. (3:00)

Sharing -- Commentator and anthropologist Meredith Small explores the issue of "who owns what." (3:00)

Potter's Field -- This summer, two New York City detectives arranged for the body of a World War II veteran to be moved from the city's Potter's Field to a veterans cemetery. Commentator Stacy Horn knows the move was well-intentioned, but she wants to defend the honor of Potter's Field. (2:30)

Isolation -- NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr says that the Bush administration has walked away from a number of international accords, but that such trends toward "splendid isolation" eventually end. (3:00)

Newspapers and Poetry -- Commentator and poet Andrei Codrescu laments the lack of poetry in today's newspapers. (3:45)

Party Talk -- A misheard conversation during a party once left commentator Elissa Ely in an awkward position, as she explains. (3:00)

Dinner's On You -- Commentator David Hill rues the drug companies' largesse of lunches, dinners, baseball sky boxes, and trinkets with the company logo are all aimed at getting doctors like him to prescribe pricey drugs over less expensive alternatives. (2:30)

Katharine Graham Remembered -- NPR Senior News Analyst remembers Katharine Graham, publisher of The Washington Post. (3:00)

Rhubarb -- Commentator Bill Harley shared his dad's hatred of rhubarb growing up, and it took him years to overcome. He ponders how early society came to discover that rhubarb is OK, as long as you add lots of sugar, strawberries and bake it. (2:30)

Trans-Pac San Fran -- Andrew Lam describes the trans-Pacific sensibility of San Francisco. Asian is far from exotic in this city which embraces its multicultural identity. (3:15)

School Architecture -- Seventeen-year-old Alia Stavrand Woolf recently experienced a case of mistaken identity; she thought that a jail was a public high school. She says school architecture reflects poorly on our society's priorities. (3:30)

Virtual Conferencing -- Commentator Andrei Codrescu expounds on the woes of an age where fewer people do things face-to-face because technology permits other kinds of interaction. (3:30)

Faith-Based Initiative -- The House of Representatives is taking up President Bush's plan to expand federal funding of faith-based charitable organizations today. Commentator Joe Loconte says the debate alone has focused new attention on the important work that's done by faith-based groups. (3:30)

What's Next? -- The dot-com bust left many Web writers and producers without a job. Since Heather Havrilesky was laid-off she's been getting "The Question" from many of her friends. "The Question," she's realized, causes her more trauma than she'd like to experience. (3:30)

Stem Cell Research -- NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr says that embryonic stem cell research is changing the ground rules for debate on abortion and life. (3:00)

The Media, Condit and Levy -- Commentator Katie Davis lives near the condominium of Rep. Gary Condit (D-CA). Seeing news crews staking out the building makes Katie think about the other stories the camera crews might pay attention to. (3:45)

Questions -- NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr asks questions of the most intriguing sort -- those for which he doesn't have any answers. (2:30)

Give Us Your Refund -- Commentator Steven Waldman says that President Bush should urge Americans to give away some of their coming tax refunds. He says that it would make up for cutting out his program to allow people who don't itemize to write off their charitable deductions. (3:30)

Crawford, Texas -- Commentator Marshall Wittman says he understands why President Bush seems to prefer the plains of Texas to the Maine coast for vacation. (3:30)

Never Say Never -- Commentator Katie Davis was once a word processor Luddite. Years back she even submitted an essay on the superiority of manual typewriting, which we aired. Now she's changed her tune and she's not ashamed to admit she's at sea without her computer to write on. (3:30)

Evolutionary Swimming -- Commentator Leslie Brunetta has an epiphany about evolution while watching her daughter try to learn to swim. Apes, she realizes, don't swim because they possess enough reason to know they could drown. But humans have enough imagination to overcome that reasonable fear. (3:45)

Kansas City -- Commentator Andrei Codrescu discovers the Bohemian aspects of Kansas City, a place he never thought much about before. He's told to keep the charms of the place a secret. (3:30)

India - Gays -- Commentator Martha Ann Overland writes that discussing sex in India is taboo, and issues of sexual orientation are so forbidden they "don't exist." (4:00)

Scaled Down Web -- Commentator Douglas Rushkoff says for the moment, WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) Web sites designed for devices like cell phones provide a refreshing return to the early days of Internet surfing. Link heard in the story: www.mymobilestuff.com. (3:30)

Settlements Comment #2 -- Yaron Ezrahi says the persistent proliferation and expansion of settlements has eroded Palestinian confidence in the peace process and Arafat's leadership. He says Israeli settlements are a form of colonialism, aimed at benefiting the occupiers at the expense of others. Just as the Jews and others rose up against this form of colonialization, Ezrahi says, the Palestinian right of resistance is no less valid. (3:30)

Settlements Comment #1 -- Today we hear two perspectives on the issue of Jewish settlements from two Israelis. Yossi Klein Halevy says settlements are not the obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Settlements occupy a tiny fraction of the territories he says they are just an excuse Palestinians and others use to avoid real peace. (3:30)

Barcelona, Dancing and Nationalism -- Commentator Bill Harley took a trip to Spain and encountered the Sardana, the dance of Catalan. (2:30)

Baseball & Family -- Commentator Jack Petrash has been thinking of baseball and family. He grew up with the game and grew close to his dad because of it. Now he is doing the same with his own family. (3:45)

Demolition Derby -- Storyteller Kevin Kling took his mom to the Fourth of July Demolition Derby. (4:45)

Patient's Niece -- The family of a patient was not prepared to listen to advice from psychiatrist and commentator Elissa Ely. But Ely found she had an unwitting ally. (3:00)

Veggies -- Commentator Andrei Codrescu ponders the pleasures of eating vegetables with strange names followed by a steam bath with friends. (3:00)



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