Midday

(This program was originally broadcast on February 16, 2021)

Our topic today is in-laws, and how the relationship between children who are married, and the families of their spouses, are affected and informed by a number of different factors. Parents of the person you hold dear matter while you’re dating, they matter while you’re married, they matter when you have kids yourself, and they matter when those parents are of the age when they need care from you.

A new book looks at those different stages, as well as the effects of age, gender, sexual preference and other factors that influence the nature and success of these relationships.

The book is called In-Law Relationships: Mothers, Daughters, Fathers, and Sons. Tom's guests today are the authors: Dr. Geoffrey Greif, professor; and Dr. Michael Woolley, associate professor, on the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Social Work, part of the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

(Listeners, this program was previously recorded, so we can't take any new comments or questions about your in-law experiences.)

Geoffrey Greif and Michael Woolley join us on Zoom.

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

Democrats in the Maryland legislature are proposing an array of bills that will make voting easier and more accessible. But elsewhere in the country, Republican lawmakers have redoubled efforts to restrict and curtail voting. The Georgia Senate has voted to end no-excuse absentee voting and they are considering a measure that would prohibit passing out water and snacks to people who are waiting in line to vote.

In Iowa, new laws reduce polling place hours and early voting. In Arizona, lawmakers are considering rules to allow throwing out ballots even if they’ve arrived before Election Day.

The Brennan Center for Justice in New York reports that following historically high voter turnout in the November 2020 elections, more than 250 restrictive bills were making their way through 33 statehouses across the country.

The bills will place restrictions on mail in voting and create barriers to casting mail in ballots. They will expand voter roll purges, limit opportunities to register to vote, and implement stricter voter ID requirements.

Earlier this month, the House passed HR 1, called the “For the People Act,” which would create a federal remedy to these efforts to curtail engagement in the democratic process. The bill calls for sweeping reforms in voting rights, redistricting, campaign finance and ethics. Senator Amy Klobachar has announced that the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, which she chairs, will begin hearings soon on a Senate version of HR1, to be called S1.

Republicans oppose the legislation on the grounds that it represents federal overreach in matters that should be left to the states.

Tom’s guest today is Congressman John Sarbanes, a Democrat who represents Maryland’s Third District, including parts of Baltimore, Howard, Montgomery and Anne Arundel counties, as well as a portion of Baltimore City.

Representative Sarbanes was the principal architect of HR1, and he joins us now on the line.

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

Tom's guest today is Alec MacGillis, an award-winning reporter for ProPublica whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker and The Atlantic, among other publications. He has written a book, out today, about Amazon, and about the seismic shifts that it has caused not only in the American economy, but in American culture as well, since Jeff Bezos started his on-line bookstore in the summer of 1994. The book is called Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America.

Bezos will step aside as chief executive this summer, but Amazon’s dominance in the economy will remain unparalleled. It is an enormous marketplace that dwarfs its nearest competitor in on-line retail sales. Its cloud servers hold the data for companies across the globe, including some of Amazon’s fiercest rivals. And the ways it influences the health and well-being of communities large and small, and the ways in which it has changed the very nature of work are myriad.Amazon’s distribution system is massive. It has warehouses within 25 miles of nearly half of the US population, including two in the Baltimore metro area, from which more than 6 billion packages are shipped every year.

In Fulfillment, Alec MacGillis takes us into those warehouses and the lives and communities of the people who work in them. With assiduous reporting and powerful writing, he chronicles the enormous imprint of Amazon, and its far-reaching effect on American society. Alec MacGillis joins us on the line from his home in Baltimore.

_____________________________________________

Alec MacGillis is the featured guest tonight at an event celebrating the launch of Fulfillment: a live, in-person conversation with Baltimore-based writer Laura Wexler, which will take place on the outdoor rear patio of The Ivy Bookshop, located at 5928 Falls Rd., Baltimore 21209. Registration for the free, 7pm event is sold out, but on-site patrons are still welcome at the Bookshop.

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

Midday on Politics continues now as Tom is joined by another experienced and acclaimed journalist, Paul Glastris. He has been the editor-in-chief of the Washington Monthly for 20 years. The Monthly has long been one of the country's most respected political journals. Mr. Glastris also spent 10 years as a correspondent and editor of US News and World Report, and from 1998-2001, he was a special assistant and senior speechwriter in the Clinton Administration, where he wrote more than 200 speeches for President Bill Clinton...

About a year ago, the Monthly published an expose about Maryland Governor Larry Hogan that raised questions about some road, highway and bridge projects that have been undertaken during the Governor’s two terms that are in proximity to real estate projects that the Hogan real estate brokerage firm is involved with.

The Governor, who remains hugely popular and is accustomed to positive press coverage, dismissed the Washington Monthly as a “blog,” and contended that any potential conflicts of interest had been fully vetted by the State Ethics board. The article was by Eric Cortellessa.

We'll talk about that, and get an assessment of President Biden's first 50 days in the White House, with Washington Monthly Editor in Chief Paul Glastris, who joins us now on Zoom. Listeners are welcome to join us as well.

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

It’s Midday on Politics. We begin today with Dr. Mileah Kromer, associate professor of political science and director of the Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center at Goucher College, who gives us a look behind the findings of the Center's latest Goucher Poll. What do Marylanders think about the state’s vaccine distribution efforts, and what marks do they give Governor Larry Hogan and President Joe Biden for their handling of the pandemic?

Dr. Kromer unpacks the Goucher Poll results, which were released last week in two parts...You can read the Goucher Poll PDFs at the links below:

March 2021 Part 1 (PDF): Maryland residents were polled about their views on the COVID-19 pandemic, including Gov. Larry Hogan’s handling of the coronavirus, and on the pace of reopening, its financial impact, and whether individual actions can help stop the spread of the virus. Residents were also asked about the emotional impact of the pandemic.

March 2021 Part 2 (PDF): Maryland residents were asked their views on various statewide issues, including the direction of and most important issue facing the state, satisfaction with American democracy, and their opinions of Gov. Larry Hogan, the Maryland General Assembly, and President Joe Biden. Residents were also asked their views toward the legalization of recreational marijuana.

Mileah Kromer joins Tom on Zoom.

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

It’s time now for another edition of Smart Nutrition. We're joined by our good friend, Monica Reinagel. She’s a licensed nutritionist, and the host of the popular Nutrition Diva podcast. She also co-hosts Change Academy, a podcast about creating life-enhancing behavior changes.

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of a global COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered a national lockdown here in the US and in countries across the planet. In the 12 months since, our lives have been turned upside down. One of the disruptions the pandemic has wrought has been in how we eat, how we cook, even how we shop for food. Our daily meal routines, our snacking, and our nutritional well-being have all been affected.

Has the pandemic changed your diet and meal routines? Are there such things as COVID cravings? Let us know!

Monica Reinagel joins us on Zoom…

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

President Joe Biden addressed the nation Thursday night in his first effort to explain and build support for the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion-dollar legislation that he signed yesterday.

We turn now to Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland's Democratic junior senator, for his reactions to the President’s speech, and his perspectives on how this new funding will affect Marylanders and Maryland businesses.

Sen. Van Hollen joins us on Zoom.

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

Today on Midday on Ethics: as supplies of COVID-19 vaccines are ramped up and the pace of vaccinations in Maryland and across the country accelerates, a conversation about vaccination ethics. How are how public health and government officials making the difficult decisions about who gets vaccinated, and when?

One year ago today, the World Health Organization classified the Coronavirus as a global pandemic.

Since then, as COVID-19 ravaged the United States and countries around the world, public officials have used language that is sometimes vague and unclear to explain their decisions, and we are left to use that language to make up our minds about what we need to do to keep ourselves and our families safe.

Tom's guest today is Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, the director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of BioEthics. He'll take a look at some of the language we’ve employed around the COVID 19, and in particular, as it regards distribution of vaccines against the virus.

Dr. Jeffrey Kahn joins us today on the line from Palm Desert, California.

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

Today on Midday: are anti-Asian hate crimes increasing? Viral videos of what appear to be random attacks on elderly Asian men in the San Francisco area have sparked outrage and led to renewed concern about tension between some Asian and Black communities.

Tom's guest today is a developmental psychologist who studies immigrant families and their experience of discrimination and identity. Dr. Charissa Cheah is a professor of psychology and an affiliate faculty member in the Asian Studies Department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

In November of last year, Dr. Cheah and several colleagues published an article in the Journal of Pediatrics about anti-Chinese racism experienced by Chinese American families since the advent of the Coronavirus.

Dr. Cheah was our guest on Midday last summer to discuss the first part of that study. We’ve invited her back to get us up to date on that research.

Dr. Cheah also discusses concerns about the impact of a year-long absence from classrooms on children's psychological and social development.

Charissa Cheah joins us on Zoom…

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

Tom's guest now is the best-selling novelist and essayist, Anne Lamott. She is the author of 19 books, the latest of which is replete with all the hallmarks that have made her such a popular writer for so long. It is funny and compassionate and personal and insightful and loving.

In the tradition of some of her other best-sellers, like Traveling Mercies or Help, Thanks Wow, her latest collection of essays explores pain and recovery, faith and fortitude, hope and resilience. It’s called Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage (Riverhead Books)

Anne Lamott joins us on Zoom from Fairfax, in northern California.

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