In the Loop

There’s no denying the 2016 presidential race is interesting, but it’s also historic. This is the first time a woman will be on the ballot for a major party. Rebecca Sive has spent her career as a political strategist trying to get women not only on the ballot, but into office. She lays out guidelines in her book Every Day is Election Day: A Woman’s Guide to Winning Any Office, from the PTA to the White House. Morning Shift talks to Sive about women in politics and more.

In the latest installment in our Working Shift series, we talk with the sustainability manager of Chicago’s Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Kristen Pratt, about the work she does both inside the museum and in Chicago neighborhoods to promote the principles of sustainability.

Starting in November, the ballpark the Chicago White Sox call home will be called Guaranteed Rate Field, a name, it turns out, that was guaranteed to upset Sox fans and casual onlookers alike. Even though the stadium has officially been U.S. Cellular Field for years, for many South Siders, it will always be Comiskey. Morning Shift talks to historian and Sox expert Richard Lindberg about the history of the ballparks that the White Sox have called home and the violent reaction many have had to the new name.

Elena Delle Donne won 3 state titles, a WNBA MVP award, and now, she can add a Olympic gold medal to her trophy cabinet. With 10 games to go in the regular season, Delle Donne is trying to lead the Sky to the playoffs, and ultimately, a championship. Elena talks about her experience in Rio in an exclusive interview WBEZ sports contributor Cheryl Raye Stout. 

You may know the names Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins; all giants of the jazz world. But you may not know the name Rudy Van Gelder. He didn’t play the music -- he recorded it, from a small studio built in his parent’s living room in Hackensack, New Jersey. It wasn’t until 1959, when Van Gelder had already engineered some of the greatest records in jazz history, that he was able to make it a full time gig and purchase his own home a few miles away in Englewood Cliffs. An interviewer in 2012 asked him to describe his style. He said, “To get electronics to accurately capture the human spirit.” Van Gelder's goal was to make the records he engineered sound “as warm and as realistic as possible.” The thousands of records he engineered have had a huge cultural impact. If you look on the back of a jazz album from the 50’s or 60’s, chances are good you’ll see the name Rudy Van Gelder.  Mr. Van Gelder died in his home/studio yesterday at the age of 91.

The remake of the classic Ben Hur isn’t seeing a good return on investment. The remake of Ghostbusters was met with tepid response. But not all new versions of movies are a waste of time at the theater. Some actually give the original a nice update. NPR’s Monkey See blog host Linda Holmes joins us to share some of her favorite and least favorite remakes.  We take your calls about best and worst at 312-923-9239.

The National Education Association recommends no more than 10 minutes of homework per grade level.  Often though, teachers fly in the face of the research by assigning much heavier loads, especially for middle and high school students. Morning Shift talks to homework expert Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, about the best practices when it comes to length and type of homework. We also open the phones for questions and personal stories from listeners.

Over 2 million people around the nation experience homelessness annually. While most major cities have preventive centers that offer temporary financial assistance to eligible families and individuals, the lack of state funding has jeopardized the future of these programs. Now, a new study published in the Journal of Science proves that Chicago homeless prevention programs worked by decreasing the likelihood of families entering shelters by 76 percent when funding was available for them.  Morning Shift talks with the co-author the study, James Sullivan, about his findings. Plus, Noreen Russo, the Director of Catholic Charities’ Homeless Prevention Call Center, joins us to discuss the ground-level effects of decreased state funding.

Guitarist Jeff Parker can be heard on dozens and dozens of albums. But he doesn’t often record under his own name.  Parker’s been called a “musician’s musician”, and he easily straddles the worlds of jazz, rock, improvisation and more, refusing to be labeled or put into a box.  The long-time Chicagoan moved to L.A. in 2014, and while unpacking at his new home, rediscovered some beats and ideas he’d set aside years before. Those fragments became the basis for his latest release New Breed.  Jeff Parker joins us to talk about the work, and his new life on the west coast.

The Chicago Board of Education meets Wednesday, and as is often the case they’ll be met by protesters out front. Teachers are going into a second school year without a new contract and have already voted to authorize a strike should it come to that. But the Board is expected to vote on a budget with 700 fewer teachers and $31 million more in undetermined labor savings. WBEZ education reporter Becky Vevea previews the big issues on the table.