Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

Thaddeus Logan is a former Baltimore City policeman and vice detective turned cab driver. Logan writes about his fares and the city he serves with great insight and sensitivity, and he has a particular affection for his regular customers, the perennial underclass. His vignettes show the city, warts and all, and its people, regardless of neighborhood, income or prejudices. Hey Cabbie II is a sequel to Logan's popular 1984 book.

Recorded On: Sunday, January 27, 2013

George Leary was a youth counselor, surrounded by kids all day, and yet he failed to see that his own child was using and abusing drugs. After facing his denial, fear and grief, he made it his purpose in life to work with addicts and educate parents on how to help their kids. In his book, he answers important questions such as: "what are the warning signs of alcohol or drug addiction?" and "how can a parent intervene and find treatment for the child and family?"

George E. Leary, Jr. provides mental health services to addicts and those living with HIV/AIDS. He established and operated two recovery houses in Baltimore and served for nine years on a mobile crisis intervention team.

Recorded On: Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Everyone is guilty of playing the blame game. It's satisfying and easy to do. If we despise our work, we can blame our manager or even our short-sighted organization for its inability to recognize our genius. If our personal lives are a disaster, we can blame our spouses, partners, and the economy.

Jim Smith's No Excuse Guide to Success shows you how to stop this destructive pattern of making excuses and blaming others.

Jim Smith, Jr., president and CEO of JIMPACT Enterprises, is a sought after personal-power speaker and trainer. He spent 16 years working in corporate and consulting leadership positions for a wide variety of industries. He currently serves as an adjunct faculty member for the Rutgers University MBA and Executive MBA programs. His book, No Excuse Guide to Success, has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award.

Recorded On: Tuesday, January 22, 2013

In Finnish mythology, Vellamo is the goddess of the sea. Based in Vaasa, on the western coast of Finland, the folk duo Vellamo crosses the sea to entertain American audiences. Vocalist Pia Leinonen and guitarist Joni Tiala combine the rich tradition of Finnish folksong with a "retro" sensibility, creating a magical acoustic experience.

Recorded On: Tuesday, January 15, 2013

In Twilight of the Elites, Chris Hayes outlines the effects, and then the cause, of America's crisis of authority, and calls for a sweeping overhaul of the social order. Over the last decade, America has had to adjust to economic and political dysfunction and the near-total failure of each pillar institution of our society. Hayes offers an original theory about how we came to this pass and concludes that the meritocratic system upon which we depend to select the country's best and brightest is fatally flawed, creating a ruling elite that is no longer functional.

Chris Hayes is editor-at-large of The Nation and host of "Up With Chris Hayes" on MSNBC. He has been a fellow at Harvard University's Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics and at the New America Foundation. Since 2003 he's written about political culture and political economy for numerous publications including the New York Times Magazine, Time, The New Republic, and The Guardian. Hayes is a graduate of Brown University.

Recorded On: Wednesday, January 16, 2013

The primary purpose of the Constitution is to limit Congress. There is no separation of church and state. The Second Amendment allows citizens to make threats against the government. These are a few of the myths about our Constitution put forth by a well-organized, well-funded right wing in an effort to cripple the right of We the People to govern ourselves. Garrett Epps provides the tools citizens need to fight back against the flood of constitutional nonsense. In terms every citizen can understand, he tackles ten of the most prevalent myths, providing a clear grasp of the Constitution and the government it established.

Garrett Epps teaches constitutional law at the University of Baltimore Law School; he is a regular contributor on legal issues to Atlantic.com and The American Prospect.

Recorded On: Thursday, January 10, 2013

Craig Symonds, professor emeritus of history at the U.S. Naval Academy, presents a masterful history of the Civil War navies, both Union and Confederate, and places them within the broader context of the emerging industrial age. He begins with an account of the dramatic pre-war revolution in naval technology which was epitomized in the famous "Battle of the Ironclads." He offers an overview of Lincoln's blockade of the South, discusses the naval war for control of the rivers in the West, and looks at the important siege of Charleston which lasted three years. Symonds concludes with three key episodes from the end of the war: the Battle of Mobile Bay, the Battle of Wilmington, and the round-the-world voyage of the CSS Shenandoah.

Symonds is the author of the Lincoln Prize-winning book, Lincoln and His Admirals.

Recorded On: Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Thurgood Marshall was the most important American lawyer of the 20th century: he transformed the nation's legal landscape by challenging racial segregation; he won 29 of 33 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court; he was a federal appeals court judge, served as the U.S. solicitor general, and for 24 years sat on the Supreme Court.

Marshall is best known for achievements after he relocated to New York in 1936 to work for the NAACP. But Marshall's personality, attitudes, priorities, and work habits had crystallized during earlier years in Maryland. Young Thurgood is the first close examination of the formative period in Marshall's life. It reveals how Marshall's distinctive traits were molded by events, people, and circumstances early in his life.

Larry Gibson presents fresh information about Marshall's family, youth, and education. He describes Marshall's key mentors. the special impact of his high-school and college competitive debating, his struggles to establish a law practice during the Great Depression, and his first civil rights cases. Gibson sheds new light on the NAACP and its first lawsuits in the campaign that led to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education school-desegregation decision. He also corrects some of the often-repeated stories about Marshall that are inaccurate.

Larry S. Gibson is a professor of law at the University of Maryland School of Law where he has been on the faculty for 39 years. He is also a practicing lawyer with the firm of Shapiro, Sher, Guinot, and Sandler.

Recorded On: Thursday, December 13, 2012

Antero Pietila's landmark book, Not In My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City(2010), tells the story of how discrimination molded housing patterns in the Baltimore area, from Baltimore's 1910 residential segregation ordinance -- later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court -- to redlining and racial covenants and real estate practices that were lawful until passage of the federal Fair Housing Act in 1968. Given the impact of historic housing discrimination, the Fair Housing Act requires local and state governments that receive federal housing funds to affirmatively further the law's goals.

Antero Pietila, local housing officials, and advocates discuss the roots of residential segregation in the Baltimore metropolitan area and efforts to overcome present-day barriers to fair housing choice. Carol Payne, director of the Baltimore field office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, moderates the discussion.

Presented in partnership with the Baltimore Regional Fair Housing Group, Baltimore Metropolitan Council, Baltimore Sustainable Communities Initiative, ABCD Network, Baltimore Neighborhoods, inc., and Citizens Planning and Housing Association (CPHA).

Recorded On: Wednesday, December 12, 2012

This annual Cave Canem poetry reading at the Pratt features Kwame Dawes and Cave Canem fellows Mahogany L. Brown, Raina Fields, Niki Herd, Brandon D. Johnson, Bettina Judd, and Kateema Lee. Hosted by Reginald Harris of Poets House in New York.

Born in Ghana in 1962, Kwame Dawes spent most of his childhood in Jamaica. He is a writer of poetry, fiction, nonfiction and plays. Of his 16 collections of poetry, the most recent include Wheels (2011); Back of Mount Peace (2009); and Hope's Hospice (2009). He won a Pushcart Prize in 2001 for his long poem "Inheritance." Dawes is currently the Glenna Luschel Editor of Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska, where he is a Chancellor's Professor of English, a faculty member of Cave Canem, and a teacher in the Pacific MFA program in Oregon.

Recorded On: Sunday, December 2, 2012