Midday

What does America owe those who are descended from enslaved people? Who would qualify, and what form might reparations take? Who would decide? Can America atone for the sin of slavery?Last June, we talked about it in front of an audience at the Lewis Museum with Director Jackie Copeland, Professor Ray Winbush, columnist ER Shipp and Attorney Adjoa A. Aiyetoro.What does America owe those who are descended from enslaved people? Who would qualify, and what form might reparations take? Who would decide? Can America atone for the sin of slavery?

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(This program originally aired June 20, 2019) You know the voice of Tom's guest today from his superb reporting for NPR from Great Britain. Before his assignment in London, Frank Langfitt was NPR’s China correspondent for five years. In the late 90s and early aughts, Frank also covered China for the Baltimore Sun. If you listened to Frank’s dispatches from China from 2011-2016, you may recall his occasional series called Streets of Shanghai, in which he introduced us to some of the people he met. The way he devised to meet them is ingenious.In exchange for conversations with everyday Chinese folks, Frank offered them free cab rides, and he has compiled some of the results of these wide-ranging and revelatory conversations in a new book. It’s called The Shanghai Free Taxi: Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China.We livestreamed this conversation on WYPR's Facebook page. Click here to watch.

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Dr. Khalilah Harris served as deputy director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans in the Obama Administration; and co-authored an op-ed on behalf of African Americans who worked for President Obama - decrying Donald Trump’s racism.

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(This program originally aired on June 12, 2019) Tom's guest today is Adam Gopnik, who has been a staff writer for the New Yorker Magazine for the past 33 years.His new book is called A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism. It is an homage to liberalism, in which he explores its roots in Montaigne and the Enlightenment, and traces its history through the present day.Gopnik observes that liberalism was preceded by humanism and an affection for, and elevation of, a sense of community forged around shared choices. He calls it a fact-first philosophy with a feelings-first history.While most people associate liberalism with a left-leaning world view, to Gopnik’s eye, it ends in the center, although it is not to be confused with centrism, and he distinguishes it not just from a conservative orientation on the right, but also from the more radical left. Liberalism favors reform over revolution. And it is premised in love and empathy. He writes that liberalism is “a belief that the sympathy that binds human society together can disconnect us from our clannish and suspicious past.”Adam Gopnik joined us from NPR's New York bureau.

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(This program was originally broadcast on January 29, 2019)Today, a conversation about one of the most fascinating figures, not only in baseball history, but in American history. George Herman ----Babe---- Ruth, Jr. was born and raised in Baltimore, graduated from the school of hard knocks, and evolved into the most famous man in America, whose every swing of the bat seemed to be a matter of national interest, and whose every exploit off the field was a source of endless fascination for Depression-era fans. His influence and importance to the game is unquestioned, and because the timing of his rise to prominence coincided with an expansion of media from print to broadcast, his influence in the public sphere, well outside the diamond, was unprecedented. In her fascinating and granular look at the life of Babe Ruth, Jane Leavy -- the best-selling author of The Last Boy and Sandy Koufax -- observes, “At some point in the trajectory of fame, real life becomes apocryphal. Home runs travel in perpetuity, drafting on perpetually willing suspension of disbelief. The temporal facts of biography no longer matter because everyone knows a person who can hit 60 home runs will live forever.” Babe Ruth did hit 60 home runs in the 1927 season, and we’ve been talking about him ever since. Jane Leavy asserts that our current notion of what it means to be a celebrity, what it means to be famous, were inexorably shaped by the life and media circus that was ----the Great Bambino.---- Her book is called The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created.Jane Leavy joins Tom today in Studio A.Their conversation was live-streamed on WYPR's Facebook page, and you can watch the video here.

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It's Thursday, and Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom in the studio for another of her weekly reviews of the Maryland stage. Today, her spotlight is on Baltimore Shakespeare Factory's new production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, the Bard's circa 1602 comedic romp about smart women, hapless men and communal joy.Reputedly a play that Queen Elizabeth I ordered William Shakespeare to write so she could see her favorite dramatic character, Sir John Falstaff, fall in love, The Merry Wives of Windsor has Falstaff (played for the BSF by David Forrer) arriving in Windsor flat broke and plotting to woo two wealthy married women, Mistress Alice Ford (Emily Classen) and Mistress Margaret Page (Bethany Mayo). The two wives learn of Falstaff's devious plans and scheme, hilariously, to thwart them.The Merry Wives of Windsor, directed by BSF founder Tom Delise, continues through Sunday, August 18 at Baltimore Shakespeare Factory's Great Hall Theater in St. Mary's Community Center, at 3900 Roland Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21211, with an additional performance outdoors at Boordy Vineyards on August 23. Tickets and info at BaltimoreShakespeareFactory.org.

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(This program was originally broadcast on January 2, 2019)Today, on this archive edition of Midday, Tom's guest is journalist and attorney Steven Brill. He’s the founder of Court TV and American Lawyer magazine, and he teaches journalism at Yale University, where he founded the Yale Journalism Initiative.His latest book is a stunning and disconcerting compendium of some of the central problems facing America: the financialization of what had been a manufacturing based economy; rampant obsession with short term profits in American business, crippling political polarity, and marginalization of the middle class. He offers a trenchant analysis of why these problems exist, and he shines a light on those people and organizations who are working to address these difficult challenges. The book is the New York Times best-seller, “Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America’s Fifty Year Fall -- and those Fighting to Reverse It.”

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Today, on this archive edition of Midday: Two days after the April 2015 uprising following the funeral of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox played at Camden Yards in the only Major League Baseball game ever played without fans. Kevin Cowherd’s latest book tells the story of that historic day. It’s called ----When the Crowd Didn’t Roar: How Baseball's Strangest Game Ever Gave a Broken City Hope.----

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In the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980’s, a diagnosis of HIV was a death sentence. Now, infection with the human immunodeficiency virus is a chronic, treatable condition. Even more promising, medicines have been developed which curb the acquisition of HIV entirely.Today on Midday, a conversation about the feasibility of ridding the world of AIDS in the next decade. What strategies and treatments are working, and what still needs to be accomplished? Earlier this summer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report titled “Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America.” The plan focuses on a four pronged approach to ending the epidemic. Diagnose, Treat, Prevent and Respond. Will it work?Tom talks with a panel of local physicians and advocates involved in Baltimore's HIV prevention and treatment efforts...Dr. Sebastian Ruhs is the Director of the Infectious Diseases Center of Excellence at Chase Brexton Health Care.Dr. Errol Fields is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He holds a joint appointment in the Bloomberg School of Public Health.Dr. Kathleen Page is an Associate Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Co-Director of Centro Sol.Mimi Demissew is the Executive Director at the Pride Center of Maryland.And, Dr. Adena Greenbaum is the Assitant Commissioner of the Bureau of Clinical Services for the Baltimore City Health DepartmentFor more information on the programs discussed on today's show visit:www.solovive.orgwww.uequalsumaryland.orgwww.prepmaryland.orgwww.baltimoreinconversation.comThis conversation was live-streamed on WYPR's Facebook page. You can watch the video here.

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From the attack 10 days ago by a gunman who targeted Hispanics at an El Paso Walmart, to migrant family separations and detentions at U.S. Customs and Border Patrol facilities, to the arrest of nearly 700 undocumented factory workers in a raid in Mississippi last week, and a policy announced just yesterday by the Trump Administration that will make getting a green card even harder for low-income, legal immigrants, it’s been a time of extraordinary turmoil in the immigrant community throughout the United States. Today on Midday, a conversation about the continuing crisis at the U.S. southern border and the human impact of increasingly restrictive US policies toward migrants. Tom is joined in the studio by three guests with unique perspectives on immigration...Krish O’Mara Vignarajah is the president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which provides support services to international refugees. Ms. Vignarajah, whose family fled civil war in Sri Lanka for the United States when she was just nine months old, served as policy director for Michelle Obama and previously, as an advisor at the State Department. She also ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor of Maryland….Carolyn Barker-Villena is a development specialist who’s spent the past decade with Lutheran World Relief, a global relief agency. Ms. Barker-Villena serves as the Senior Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean... And joining us as well is David Cronin. He’s a government affairs specialist at Catholic Relief Services, based in Washington, D.C. He lobbies Congress and the administration on development efforts for Latin America ---- the Caribbean; and international refugee issues.This conversation was live-streamed on WYPR's Facebook page. You can view the video here.

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