Midday on WNYC

Scott Raab, Writer at Large for Esquire magazine, talks about the challenge of security at the new World Trade Center and the long process of rebuilding at ground zero. His article “A Target in Perpetuity,”  is in the Sept 2013 issue of Esquire.

Director Lee Daniels and screenwriter Danny Strong discuss their new movie “Lee Daniels’ The Butler.” It tells the story of White House butler Cecil Gaines, who serves during eight presidential administrations between 1957 and 1986, and traced the civil rights movement. The film was inspired by Wil Haygood’s 2008 Washington Post article “A Butler Well Served by This Election” about the real life of former White House butler Eugene Allen. “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” opened nationwide August 17.

Director Destin Cretton and actress Brie Larson talk about the film “Short Term 12.” Larson plays Grace, a 20-something supervisor at a facility for at-risk teenagers, where she forms a connection with a gifted but troubled new girl. “Short Term 12” opens at Landmark Sunshine Cinemas and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center.

Elizabeth Greenspan talks about the tension between commerce and commemoration at the World Trade Center site. Plans to rebuild at the site often have been conflicting, and there have been disagreements over what the site should represent and what it should become. In Battle for Ground Zero: Inside the Political Struggle to Rebuild the World Trade Center, based on years of Greenspan’s reporting on Ground Zero for the Atlantic Monthly and other publications, she details the building of One World Trade Center.

Peter von Ziegesar discusses his homeless and schizophrenic stepbrother, who he came to take care of. The Looking Glass Brother is about growing up among Long Island’s gilded age families and tells the story of how his stepbrother, Little Peter, came into his life.

Our August Book Club selection is Junot Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Oscar is sweet but extremely overweight ghetto nerd from New Jersey who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, above all, finding love. The novel also tells a multi-generational tale of  Dominican immigrants in America. Writing in the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani described it as “Mario Vargas Llosa meets “Star Trek” meets David Foster Wallace meets Kanye West.” Pick it up now and tune in August 16, when Junot Diaz discusses it with Leonard. Do you have questions for the author? Leave a comment anytime!

In the midst of the political turmoil in the Middle East, Christopher Schroeder, a seasoned investor in emerging markets, says that there’s a quieter revolution emerging—one that promises to reinvent it as a center of innovation and progress. He describes the entrepreneurial trends in Dubai, Cairo, Amman, Beirut, Istanbul, and even Damascus, and the major private equity firms, venture capitalists, and tech companies like Google, Intel, Cisco, and Yahoo that are supporting it. He's the author of Startup Rising: The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East.

Director James Cullingham talks about his documentary, “In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey.” Both musician and musicologist, Fahey contributed to our understanding of such music genres as Delta blues, Appalachian bluegrass, New Orleans jazz and even industrial and electronica, influencing everyone from Glenn Jones to Sonic Youth. It's playing at Cinema Village.

There are more ticks in more places than ever before, and over the past two decades tick-borne illness has increased, especially in the northeast. Dr. Thomas Mather, director of the University of Rhode Island’s Center for Vector-Borne Disease and its TickEncounter Resource Center, and Dr. Thomas Daniels, Associate Research Scientist and Co-Director of the Vector Ecology Laboratory at Fordham University’s Louis Calder Center, tell us all about ticks, the blood-sucking arachnids that can spread disease and how to protect against tick bites and prevent tick-borne disease.

Timothy Husband, Curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, talks about the Cloisters, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary. It's the home of the Metropolitan Museum's collection of Medieval art, including the famed Unicorn tapestries, and the building is constructed out of Medieval buildings from France.

Thomas Stackpole, editorial fellow at the Washington, DC, bureau of Mother Jones, talks about the Enbridge pipeline and how it’s gone largely unnoticed and uncovered while the Keystone XL pipeline has gotten all the attention criticism. He's written about it in Mother Jones: "Keystone Light: The Pipeline You've Never Heard of Is Probably Going to Be Built."

There have been nine reported drone strikes reported in Yemen in the past two weeks, and there have been as many as six civilian deaths reported. Cora Currier, ProPublica Reporting Fellow, talks about drone strikes and whether the United States is paying families when drone strikes kill innocent Yemenis. She’s investigated in her article “Does the U.S. Pay Families When Drones Kill Innocent Yemenis?”  

Ten years ago yesterday, a widespread power outage plunged New York City and parts of the northeast and upper Midwest and Canada into darkness that lasted, in many places, two days. Jay Apt, professor and director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center, looks back at what caused the 2003 blackout and what changes have been made to bolster the power grid since then.

As mayors of towns in the Chicago suburbs Karen Darch, mayor of Barrington, IL, and Tom Weisner, mayor of Aurora, IL,  have seen rail freight traffic quadruple due to a rail merger between Canadian National Railway and EJ&E Railway. These trains contain crude oil, and fearing a disaster similar to the tragedy in Lac-Megantic, the mayors have formed a coalition to increase safety regulations on crude oil transport. Mayors Darch and Weisner tell us about their concerns and the regulations they want to put in place. They co-wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

Peter Mattei talks about his novel The Deep Whatsis, which follows a ruthless young Chief Idea Officer at a New York City ad agency who’s a drunk, a pill-popper, and womanizer. Then one day he meets Intern, whose name he can’t remember, who may change his life.