Catie Talarski
Here’s to hoping that everyone’s power will be back on by Monday. Be sure to continue to listen to WNPR, Where We Live and the Colin McEnroe Show for continued coverage of the aftermath of the storm. And let us know how things are faring in your corner of the state. Here’s what’s coming up:
MONDAY: The Remaking of West Hartford Center
Donald Poland’s research focuses on the remaking of urban spaces, and he’s using West Hartford Center as a case study. He argues that this type of space is not conceptualized or explained by current urban theory. Today we’ll explore this and other similar town centers across the country, which he describes as both resilient and mundane. We’ll also have an update on power outages around the state.
TUESDAY: Robert Gates
Robert Gates was defense Secretary for two Presidents – overseeing two wars. But on the way out of that job, he’s been sharply critical of the types of wars that were left to him, and has called for cuts to “excessive” military spending. Gates is in Connecticut to give the The Robert C. Vance Distinguished Lecture at Central Connecticut State University. He’ll come to our studio to talk to us, and to you, about America’s future military.
WEDNESDAY: Deadlines
Today CL&P faces another deadline to have your lights back on. It’s also the deadline for the NBA players to accept a deal from the league. There’s that deadline on the national debt ceiling (as if it really matters)… and the President has set a deadline for troop withdrawal from Iraq: December 31st. Did you get your emissions checked? Write that term paper? File your taxes? Coming up we’ll talk about the power of the deadline. How effective are they – in business, in politics, in your life?
THURSDAY: Scientific Literacy in the 21st Century (rebroadcast)
In a world where everything we do seems tied to science and technology, a quote like this is pretty scary: Leon Botstein, the president of leading liberal arts college Bard, told the New York Times: “The most terrifying problem in American university education is the profound lack of scientific literacy for the people we give diplomas to who are not scientists or engineers. The hidden Achilles’ heel is that while we’ve found ways to educate scientists in the humanities, the reverse has never really happened. Everybody knows this, but nobody wants to do anything about it.” Well, there are some people who want to do something about it…people like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of theHayden Planetarium in New York. What’s a benefit of scientific literacy to him? It “inoculates you against charlatanism.” There’s a big benefit – the more you understand, the less chance you’ll have the wool pulled over your eyes by people like slick-talking politicians. But here’s the funny thing…you want to arm yourself against scientific doublespeak from the political class? New Jersey Representative Rush Holt – himself a Princeton physicist – says of his colleagues: “There are 435 people in the House and 420 don’t know much about science and choose not to.” So today, a conversation about scientific literacy – with some of the leading thinkers in the field. We’ll talk about getting students more interested in the sciences – about how to talk with science “disbelievers” and how science impacts politics.
FRIDAY: Veterans Day
President Obama announced the end of the Iraq War last month. The war will officially end on December 31 and many troops will come home. On this Veterans Day, we’ll have a discussion about the transition for these soldiers from military to civilian life. WNPR’s Lucy Nalpathanchil has been covering military and veterans issues and she’ll join us to discuss her reporting from around the country.
