Don’t forget to come by the Studio at Billings Forge on Thursday 8/30 for the newest edition of my Radio Adventure Theater! (More details on the Facebooks…) There will be boardroom antics, the Boston Typewriter Orchestra (!), an unruly powerpoint presentation, improv, great radio, a crash course on the history of typewriter manufacturing in Hartford, and MORE.
Should be a lot of fun, hope to see you there!
Here’s what’s on the air next week:
MONDAY: On Board with High Speed Rail
Last week we tackled the busway, today it’s all about rail. Amtrak’s proposal will built high speed rail along the Northeast corridor, from DC to Boston, by 2030. Though the fastest trains wouldn’t make any stops in Connecticut. Coming up, we’ll take a look at the history of rail in the state – and see what these proposals mean for our region and for the existing Metro North line.
TUESDAY: What is the “Middle Class?”
This election season, we’ve heard plenty of candidates talk about how they want to help the middle class. So who are they talking about? Coming up, we’ll talk with Yale’s Jacob Hacker and sociologist Dennis Gilbert about what politicians mean when they say “middle class.” Gilbert says candidates’ use of this term is “dishonest.” A new Pew study says “the middle class has shrunk in size and fallen backward in wealth.” We’ll look at the wide, varying and sometimes manipulative definition of the middle class.
WEDNESDAY: Suburbs 4.0 (Rebroadcast)
Our federally-funded highway system has been called the greatest public subsidy to private real estate in history. Where’s that real estate? The suburbs. You might think of cities as places for tall buildings, busy sidewalks, buses and trains, and coffee shops. Suburbs, on the other hand, are places for single-family homes, green lawns, and no sidewalks at all. But over the years that is changing – as more people move to suburbs, and they age, they’ve taken on some the characteristics of cities – but often lacking a transit connection. Today, where we live, as we continue our city series, we talk with author and Montreal resident Taras Grescoe about what he calls Suburbs 4.0 – the current iteration of North American sprawl. Grescoe’s latest book, Straphanger, details his trips to over a dozen cities around the world examining public transit systems. Grescoe has never owned a car. We hear also from Lyle Wray, head of the Capital Region Council of Governments, as well as Dr. Markus Moos, the author of the Atlas of Suburbanisms, about how urban and suburban patterns are blending.
THURSDAY: Connecticut’s Space Case
From the very beginning, Connecticut companies have played a significant role in the manufacturing of parts for the U.S. space program. Today, twenty-seven companies across the state are partnered with NASA’s SBIR/STTR Program to help advance the administration’s technological research and development. Yardney Technical Products, Inc., a Connecticut-based SBIR/STTR company, recently took the spotlight for its production of the battery currently powering NASA’s Mars rover, Curiosity. Today, we’ll delve deeper into the history of Connecticut’s involvement with the space program, see how NASA’s SBIR/STTR Program has encouraged small businesses across the state and find out where all of this is headed in the future.
FRIDAY: Magazine: New Book on Pete Seeger “In His Own Words,” The Connecticut Senate Horse Race, Middletown Gets Remixed
Three segments of audio goodness.
