Midday on WNYC show

Midday on WNYC

Summary: WNYC hosts the conversation New Yorkers turn to each afternoon for insight into contemporary art, theater and literature, plus expert tips about the ever-important lunchtime topic: food. WNYC Studios is a listener-supported producer of other leading podcasts including Radiolab, Death, Sex & Money, Snap Judgment, Here’s the Thing with Alec Baldwin and many others. © WNYC Studios

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Podcasts:

 Matt Taibbi on the Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Rolling Stone Contributing Editor Matt Taibbi discusses what new documents reveal about the role that the rating agencies played in the 2008 financial meltdown. His latest article is "The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis."

 The New Abnormal in the Movie Business | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Veteran Hollywood producer Lynda Obst talks about how Hollywood has drastically transformed in the past decade. In Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Business, she explains what has stalled the moviemaking machine, how studios dependency on foreign markets impacts the kind of movies that get made.

 The World Through Arab Eyes | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Political scientist Shibley Telhami analyzes the driving forces and emotions of the Arab uprisings and looks ahead to the next phase of Arab politics.  In The World Through Arab Eyes, Telhami gives an account of Arab identity, revealing how Arabs’ present-day priorities and grievances have been gestating for decades. Many Arabs may have a wounded sense of national pride, but they also have a desire for political systems with elements of Western democracies. 

 “Shakespeare: The King’s Man” | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

James Shapiro talks about his documentary “Shakespeare: The King’s Man,” and reveals little known details about Shakespeare’s life and work.

 Savion Glover's "Stepz" | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Savion Glover talks about his dance company, the legacy of tap dancing, and about “Stepz,” his new show at The Joyce Theater through July 6.

 Today's Landmark Gay Rights Ruling | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Lanae Erickson Hatalsky, director of social policy and politics at Third Way, discusses today's Supreme Court ruling in the Proposition 8 case and its decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act.

 Ryan Lizza on Pulling Together the Immigration Bill | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

New Yorker staff writer Ryan Lizza gives a behind-the-scenes look at what it took to get the current immigration bill onto the Senate floor. In his article “Getting to Maybe,” in the June 24 issue of The New Yorker, he interviews members of the Gang of Eight, the bipartisan group of senators who crafted the bill and championed it.

 A Wall Street Trader’s Tale of Excess | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Former Galleon Group trader Turney Duff, describes getting caught up in an after-hours Wall Street culture where drugs and sex are rampant and billions in trading commissions flow to those who dangle the most enticements. His memoir The Buy Side: A Wall Street Trader’s Tale of Spectacular Excess shows the rewards and temptations of making a living as a trader.

 Bringing the Enlightenment to America | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Jonathan Lyons describes how Benjamin Franklin and his contemporaries brought the Enlightenment to America, and how that intellectual revolution laid the foundation for the political one that followed. In The Society for Useful Knowledge, Lyons tells the story of America's coming-of-age through practical invention, applied science, and self-reliance and how that still influences American society and culture today.  

 Ari Berman on the Supreme Court's Voting Rights Ruling | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Ari Berman, a contributing writer for The Nation magazine and an Investigative Journalism Fellow at The Nation Institute, discusses the Supreme Court's ruling on the Voting Rights Act.

 The Golden Age of Hijacking | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Brendan I. Koerner describes how in 1968 airplane hijackings had become routine, and that over a five-year period the desperate and disillusioned would seize commercial jets nearly once a week, using guns, bombs, and jars of acid. Some hijackers wanted to escape to another country, others aimed to swap hostages for cash. In The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking Koerner writes about cast of characters ranging from exiled Black Panthers to African despots to French movie stars, and paints a psychological portrait of America at a turbulent time.

 Lowell Bergman Investigates Rape in the Fields | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Frontline correspondent Lowell Bergman uncovers the hidden price that many migrant women working in America's fields and packing plants, especially those who are undocumented, are paying to keep their jobs and provide for their families. The documentary “Rape in the Fields” is about how female farm workers fall prey to their field bosses and co-workers—and dare not speak up against their attackers for fear that they’ll lose their jobs or be deported. It's is a collaboration between Frontline, Univision News, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley. "Rape in the Fields" airs  June 25, at 10 p.m. on PBS.

 Qais Akbar Omar on Growing Up in Kabul | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Qais Akbar Omar talks about growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan, in his memoir A Fort of Nine Towers , which reveals the richness and suffering of life in that country. When he was a child, Kabul was a city of gardens where he flew kites while his family drank tea, it was a time of telling stories, reciting poetry, selling carpets. Then civil war exploded, and his family fled, taking shelter in an old fort. As the Mujahedin war devolved into Taliban rule, Omar learned about quiet resistance, and opened a secret carpet factory to provide work for neighborhood girls.  

 What We're Reading Now: Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Hilary Mantel joins us for the next Leonard Lopate Show Book Club to talk about Bring Up the Bodies, which won the 2012 Man Booker Prize. It’s the second book in her series following Thomas Cromwell, set Henry VIII’s England. It picks up where Wolf Hall left off, and it traces the downfall of King Henry’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, who failed to give him a son. Start with Wolf Hall (winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize), which tells the story of Henry VIII’s split from the Catholic Church and his split from his first wife to marry Anne Boleyn. The books have been called “stunning,” “dazzling,” and “the finest works of historical fiction in contemporary literature.” Pick them up now and immerse yourself in the politics and palace intrigue of Tudor England! Leave your comments and questions now to get the conversations going!

 Inside One of America's Failing Schools | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Journalist Ron Berler discusses spending a year at Brookside Elementary in Norwalk, Connecticut, sitting in on classes, strategy sessions, and even faculty meetings as teachers look for the chance to improve the school’s failing scores on the annual statewide standardized test known as the CMT. In Raising the Curve: A Year Inside one of America’s 45,000 Failing Schools, he looks at why the school is classified as failing—like so many others across the country—and how the faculty is working to turn the school around.

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