Midday

Election Day (Tuesday, November 8) is just 22 days away.

In addition to choosing candidates for statewide offices and Congress, Maryland voters will decide several issues that have been put to referendum.

And Baltimore City voters will also have several ballot questions that pertain exclusively to the city government.

One of those question concerns term limits for city elected officials, another has to do with moving control of the city police department from the state to the city; and another has to do with changing the city charter to allow for a new office that will keep track of paying the city’s bills.

Tom's next guest is Bryan Sears, the government reporter for the Maryland Daily Record.  He’s here to help us make sense of some of the key Ballot Questions that Maryland voters will soon be deciding.

Bryan Sears joins us on Zoom…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's first guest today is New York Times White House correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman.

She began her career in the mid-1990s covering New York politics for the New York Post and the Daily News.  She has known Donald Trump and many of those in his orbit since then, and when Trump was elected U.S. president, her reporting was essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the chaotic tenure of the 45th president. In 2018, that reporting led to a Pulitzer Prize for her and a team of Times colleagues. She and others at the Times were finalists for Pulitzers in 2021 and again this year.

Her new book is a number one best-seller. It’s called Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.  It was released two weeks ago, months, even years after several very thoughtful books about the Trump Presidency, and a bunch of less-than thoughtful books by journalists and family members. Tom believes this one was worth the wait.

Haberman reports that Trump’s political instincts were shaped early in a career in which scandal and acclaim were never distant. Her account is a comprehensive, insightful study of where and how Trump developed his attitude, his world view, and his political tactics.

We're delighted to welcome Maggie Haberman to the show to talk it about it.

She joins us on Zoom from New York…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Midday on Books continues with Tom's next guest, Dan Fesperman.

After a long career as a journalist and foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, he turned his attention to writing award-winning thrillers, often set in the foreign locales he covered for the Sun. 

His latest novel is a terrific page-turner, set in Berlin, Germany, around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 It’s called Winter Work. 

Tom's conversation with Dan Fesperman was recorded last week, so we’re not able to take any calls or online comments today.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It’s Midday on Books.  A little later in the hour, Tom speaks with Dan Fesperman, a former journalist with the Baltimore Sun who for many years has had a successful career as an author of thrillers, and he's written a new one that's terrific.

But we begin with one of the most original and compelling voices on the literary scene today. Mohsin Hamid has written five novels and a collection of essays. Two of his previous novels, Exit West and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, were New York Times best sellers and finalists for the Booker Prize.

His latest book explores the dynamics of race, and the notion of transformation. It is spare and powerful; ingenious, touching, and completely engrossing. It’s called The Last White Man. 

Mohsin Hamid joined us on Zoom from Lahore, Pakistan. His conversation with Tom was recorded last week, so we’re not able to take any calls or on-line comments today.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It's time again for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins Tom each week with her reviews of Maryland's regional stage. Today, she brings us reviews of two notable DC productions.

The first is the revival of esteemed playwright Mary Zimmerman's The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, now on stage at Shakespeare Theatre Company. The highly visual production, directed by the playwright, celebrates the interplay of science, art, and the human spirit as it brings to life the writings of the 15th century Italian artist, engineer and inventor.

The Notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci continues at Shakespeare Theatre Company through October 29.

Judy's second review today spotlights the classic Tony-Award-winning Broadway musical, Guys and Dolls, with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. The popular musical is getting a lavish new production at the Kennedy Center's Broadway Center Stage. It's being directed by Marc Bruni and features an all-star cast, led by Tony Award® winner James Monroe Iglehart as Nathan Detroit, Tony Award® winner Jessie Mueller as Miss Adelaide, Steven Pasquale as Sky Masterson, and Tony Award® nominee and Grammy Award® winner Phillipa Soo as Sarah Brown.

Guys and Dolls continues at The Kennedy Center through October 16.

Follow the links for more information.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today, it’s another installment in our series of Conversations with the Candidates: 2022.

Tom's guest is Heather Mizeur. She is the Democratic candidate for Congress in the First District, which encompasses the Eastern Shore of Maryland, as well as parts of Baltimore, Harford, and Carroll counties. The seat is currently held by Andy Harris, the lone Republican in Maryland's Congressional delegation.

We invited Rep. Harris to join us today and he declined our invitation.

Heather Mizeur came to statewide attention in 2014 when she made a strong showing in the Democratic primary for Governor. After a career as a staffer in the House and Senate on Capitol Hill, Mizeur was elected to the Takoma Park City Council in 2003. She represented District 20 in Maryland's House of Delegates from 2007-2015.

Heather Mizeur is 49 years old. She and her wife live on their organic farm just outside of Chestertown.

Heather Mizeur joins us on Zoom…

The deadline to register to vote in Maryland is next Tuesday. Mail-in voting has begun. The deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot is Nov. 1st, if you apply by mail; Nov. 4th, if you do it online. Early voting starts Oct. 27 and Election Day is November 8th.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Paul Simon wrote Old Friends — the song that opens Midday today — when he was 26 years old and singing with his young friend, Art Garfunkel. Tomorrow, Simon celebrates his 81st birthday.Old friends are treasures. They ground us, they sustain us, they’re always there when we need them. There’s nothing quite like an old friend. But what does it take to make new friends? As we get older, does it get harder to make new connections that flourish into friendships?

We are fed a steady diet of stories and songs that celebrate the joys of romantic love. But what about platonic love? What about those friendships that don’t involve romance? Do we know as much about navigating the vagaries of those important relationships?

In her recent book, Dr. Marisa G. Franco, a psychologist on the faculty of the University of Maryland's Honors Program, argues that the answer to that question is “no.” “Platonic love,” she writes, “lies at the lowest rung of the hierarchy our culture places on love.” And she has some suggestions for making and keeping new platonic friendships, which she undergirds with fascinating data.

Dr. Franco writes, for example, that “Out of 106 factors that influence depression, having a confidante is the most powerful. Loneliness is more fatal than a poor diet or lack of exercise; as corrosive as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Friendship literally saves our lives.”

Her book is called Platonic:  How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make – and Keep - Friends. 

Dr. Marisa G. Franco joins us on Zoom from Washington, DC.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Nearly 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States. More than twice that many are in the parole and probation system. Women make up 10% of those who are incarcerated, but they are the fastest growing population in prisons. And the racial disparities in the system are acute. One third of all Black American men will spend some time in jail or in prison.

Today on Midday, a conversation with Bill Keller, a former managing editor and columnist for the NY Times, and the founding editor-in-chief and board member of The Marshall Project, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that reports on the American criminal justice system.

Keller’s new book explores the US system of incarceration, how it compares to other countries, what it costs, and what could be done to improve it. And its title asks a basic and important question: What’s Prison For? Punishment and Rehabilitation in the Age of Mass Incarceration.

Because of COVID precautions, Bill Keller joins us in WYPR's Studio B, while Tom is in the adjacent Studio A.

Bill Keller will be speaking about his book tonight (Tuesday, October 11) at 6pm at the Ivy Bookshop's Back Patio. The Ivy Bookshop is located in North Baltimore at 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD 21209. Follow the link to register for the free event, to purchase the book and for more event details.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's next guest is Nancy Luse. She’s an Assistant Editor for Frederick Magazine and a former reporter for the Frederick News-Post.

She is the co-curator of an exhibition of classic black-and-white news photographs shot during the 1970s to 90s by photojournalists at the News-Post, where Nancy worked "back in the day" as a features editor.

The exhibition is called Unshuttered: Celebrating Frederick News-Post Photojournalism, and it's at the Gaslight Gallery in Frederick until October 30th.

Nancy Luse joins us on Zoom to tell us more about the exhibition and its remarkable photographs.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

On this Indigenous People’s Day holiday, it’s another installment in our series of Conversations with the Candidates: 2022.

Today, Tom's guest is Del. Neil Parrott. He is a Republican candidate for the 6th US congressional district, which includes Frederick, Hagerstown, Cumberland and the area stretching to the western border of the state. He is running against incumbent Congressman David Trone, a Democrat.

This election is a rematch of the 6th district contest in 2020, when Congressman Trone beat Del. Parrott by 20 points. But the boundaries of the district were changed this year after Republicans challenged a map designed by Democrats in the Maryland General Assembly.

The 6th had previously included parts of heavily Democratic Montgomery County, but that’s no longer the case, and the race between Del. Parrott, a Republican, and Representative Trone, a Democrat, is considered the tightest Congressional race in Maryland.We invited Rep. Trone to join us, but his campaign did not respond to our invitation.

Neil Parrott was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 2011. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, College Park and an MBA from Mount St. Mary’s University. He is 52 years old. He lives in Hagerstown with his wife and three children.

Neil Parrott joins us on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.