Spectrum

By WOUB Public MediaNews

Spectrum episodes

August 03, 2016 Two Experts on Iran Discuss Nuclear Agreement After One Year
Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, founding Director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Dr. Rober S. Litwak, Vice President for Scholars and Director of International Security Studies at the Wilson Center give their assessments of the multi-national nuclear agreement with Iran -- on its one-year anniversary.

The agreement, according to Litwak, is meeting its intended purpose of keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But, the agreement has not addressed the internal human rights violations escalating in Iran. It was not intended to do so, according to Litwak. However, there is general misunderstanding of the general public about the extent and terms of the agreement.

The nuclear accord is a 15 year agreement that was limited to releasing embargoed Iranian funds in exchange for Iran not developing nuclear weapons and appropriate safeguards. The agreement did not address human rights concern.

While the U.S. and other countries are focusing on the limitations on nuclear weaponry, battling factions in Iran keep escalating human rights abuses, according to Esfandiari. She notes many people with dual citizenship are being targeted for detainment and arrests for “causing confusion in the public mind” and “spreading lies”.

Esfandiari, herself, was arrested by Iranian authorities in 2007 and kept in solitary confinement for 105 days.

In Iran, the Revolutionary Guards, who are responsible for most arrests, are not accountable to the President. Instead, they have allegiance to the Supreme Leader. The two factions have opposite purposes. Currently, there is about one execution per day in Iran, according to Esfandiari.

Litwak says America’s relationship with Iran is complex. Despite the human rights violations, the United States is not only trying to limit Iran’s weaponry but also is aligning with the Iranian government to fight ISIS in Iraq.

Litwak formerly served on the National Security Council staff in the first Clinton Administration as Director of Non-proliferation.
36 min
July 27, 2016 Ohio Will Predict Presidential Winner
The winning presidential candidate has won Ohio in 28 of the past 30 elections – stretching back to 1896, according to Kyle Kondik, the author of a new book The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks the President.

Ohio is not only a “swing state” but better than all other states in predicting the final outcome of presidential elections. In short, how Ohio votes overwhelmingly tells you how the nation has voted. Ohio has a better record than any other state, according to Kondik.

His new book, published by the Ohio University Press, examines why Ohio is such a predictor of winning presidential elections. Kondik cites three predominant reasons: 1) Ohio bests any other state in voting for the winner; 2) Ohio’s results most often reflect national voting averages and 3) Ohio has given the decisive electoral votes to winning candidate more than any other state.

For a long time, Ohio has been touted as being a microcosm of America and therefore, seen as the predictor state. Kondik thinks that is still true for 2016 but does note that Ohio has less than the national average of Hispanic and Asian voters. He wonders if that will impact the final vote in this state this year.

Kondik notes that Ohio garners a huge percentage of candidates’ time in the general election. In 2012, he cites that all four presidential and vice-presidential candidates made 250 campaign stops during the election and 70 were in Ohio. Ohio would account for nearly 28 percent of all campaign appearances by candidates.

Finally, Kondik says that being the target of candidates and a bellwether state has produced and economic boom for some local television stations. One station in the Columbus market reportedly received nearly $50 million in political advertising in 2012.

Kondik, an Ohio native and graduate of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, is currently the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political tipsheet produced by the University of Virginia Center for Politics. He is considered a national expert on elections and election analysis.
35 min
July 21, 2016 Confronting Fear, Hate, and Racism in America
A black woman who is a mother of a teenage son, a former prosecutor and a current judge, a Muslim immigrant, and a gay man of Nepalese heritage each have their own daily struggles confronting escalating fear, hate and racism in American.

All three tell their extremely personal stories to Spectrum. All three people have different perspectives but all have similar and sometimes shocking stories of being targeted.

Judge Gayle Williams-Byers of S. Euclid, Ohio speaks from three different perspectives: as a mother, as a former prosecutor (who worked daily with law enforcement) and now as a judge.

She has a 16 year-old son who is just learning to drive. “Judge Gayle” (as she likes to be called) tells how she instructs her son upon going out with his friends to “just come home alive.” She also says that with escalating violence and racism, that Americans are holding a “stick of dynamite in our hands – and it is lit and burning.”

Judge Gayle describes her fears as a mother of a black male teenager and makes some suggestions about how some of today’s racial tensions might be alleviated through less combative forms of policing.

The Muslim immigrant speaks of almost constant harassment and public abuse of his family just because of their identification with the Muslim religion.

After the Orlando mass shootings, he and his family were forced to stay in their home because of fear of some form of public retribution.

One of his children was chased by other children at school as they screamed “Isis” at the young child.

However, even with all of this, he and his family love America and they are hopeful that the situation for Muslims in the United States will improve.

Finally, a gay man of color, Atish Baidya, talks about what it is like constantly to feel “different.” He describes how increasingly as a society we treat certain people and minority groups as “less than human.”

In many of his comments, he sounds pessimistic whether racial tensions and class divides will get much better in America.
1 hr 13 min
July 20, 2016 Ira Flatow, Host of NPR's "Science Friday"
On this episode of "Spectrum", Tom Hodson talks with Ira Flatow, the host and executive editor of Science Friday on NPR.

Flatow’s career dates back to 1969 and he has spent over four decades as an award winning television and radio host of science oriented programming. He also is an author of several books.

Recently, he talked with us about science and making it understandable to the average citizen. He said that people love science but concepts need to be made real for people to integrate them in their daily lives.

In addition to “Science Friday,” Flatow heads a non-profit organization called Science Friday Initiative that provides numerous educational materials to help people understand difficult scientific concepts. Much of the information is digital and Flatow says they have even developed a phone app to add to the myriad of other learning opportunities.
17 min
July 15, 2016 Wesley Lowery, Journalist for the Washington Post
Wesley Lowery covers Black Lives Matter, law enforcement and justice for the Washington Post. He has become a national expert on police shootings.

The Washington Post, for the first time in history, is keeping statistics on police shootings in the U.S. As of today, 522 citizens have been shot and killed by police in 2016. Of that group, 128 people were blacks, according to Lowery.

That is about one shooting death per day of a black person by police, Lowery says.

“Blacks make up between 12 and 13 percent of the population yet they account for nearly 25 percent of the deaths by police shootings,” Lowery says.

“American citizens are killed by police about three times a week,” Lowery notes. In 2015, the Washington Post found 990 police shootings resulting in deaths. This year, reporters expect over 1,000 deaths, according to Lowery. By comparison, police are killed by gunshots at a rate of about one per week.

Mental illness and traffic stops are two common threads to the shootings of blacks by police. About 1 in 4 people killed by police have some form of mental illness and are not hospitalized. This means that often police officers are forced to become “social workers with guns,” Lowery says. Also, repeated traffic stops often have created situations that have triggered shootings.

Lowery was part of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize team at the Washington Post for “Breaking News.” He was also given the 2014 “Emerging Journalist of the Year” award by the National Association of Black Journalists. In 2015, he was given the “Best Journalist” Shorty Award for his use of social media.

He has written reports for the Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Columbus Dispatch. His political analysis has been published in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe and several online publications.

This November, his new book, They Can’t Kill Us All: The Story of #blacklivesmatter, is expected to be published by Little, Brown and Company.

Lowery is spending this week covering “outside” demonstrations at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

Lowery is an alumnus of the Scripps College of Communication and the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.
37 min
July 13, 2016 #007 Sean Peoples, Documentary Filmmaker
Sean Peoples is an award-winning international film producer who documents strong and compelling personal stories and weaves them with major global issues and policy questions. It is a unique form of storytelling.
Until recently, Peoples was a multimedia producer/program associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars where he spent 9.5 years. He is now a producer at Think Out Loud Productions.
Peoples has been heralded by The New York Times as one of a “new generation of visual communicators who are breaking down conventional definitions of media.”
People’s latest film, Broken Landscape: Confronting India’s Water-Energy Choke Point, premiered at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in 2015. Since then, it has been selected for a number of film festivals including the Athens International Film + Video Festival.
The film focuses on the battle between coal mining and water quality in a remote area of India. It features the human stories behind a battle between clean and safe resources and jobs and economic survival.
It has won numerous awards including a Silver Telly Award where it was selected for recognition from over 12,000 entries.
Recently it was shown on CNN India to over 54 million viewers.
30 min
July 06, 2016 #006 Gwen Ifill of PBS NewsHour
On this episode of Spectrum, we’re talking with Gwen Ifill, Moderator and Managing Editor of Washington Week on PBS and co-anchor and co-managing editor for PBS NewsHour. She also is an author. She talks about her career, race and politics.
Before coming to PBS, Ifill worked at a number of stellar news outlets, including the Boston Herald American, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and NBC News.
Ifill also became a best-selling author in 2009 with the publication of her book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.
“A journalist’s role, a true journalist – not just someone who’s there to stir the pot – is to try to find out more, to have people walk away thinking ‘I didn’t know that, I know more now’. And everybody doesn’t rise to that level”, says Ifill.
30 min
July 01, 2016 Martin Walker, ex-Guardian Journalist talks "Brexit"
Martin Walker, a noted journalist and author, says that nothing is going to move quickly in the United Kingdom after the recent Brexit vote to leave the European Union. He does not think that any official action will take place until at least September when a new Prime Minister is sworn into office.

Walker also reminded Americans that the British popular vote is “not necessarily binding.” Parliament will actually have to vote to withdraw from the EU following the referendum. He says many are hoping that “cooler heads will prevail” and that Parliament will not take action to leave.

He also noted that, to date, 4 million signatures have been submitted to Parliament asking for a new referendum on the issue. Parliament is required to debate the issue of a second vote.

Walker says he agrees with President Barack Obama’s recent comments that we should just hit the “pause key” on the current hysteria surrounding the withdrawal vote.

Walker is a veteran journalist who spent some 28 years with The GUARDIAN, a British newspaper, in various reporting and editing capacities – including being US Bureau Chief.

He also appeared for many years on the Diane Rehm weekly News Round-Up on NPR.

In addition, Walker authors murder mystery novels set in his current home region of France.

While on a book tour of the United States, Martin talked with WOUB’s Tom Hodson about Brexit and its domestic and global ramifications.
30 min
June 29, 2016 #005 Nehemia Gordon
A Jewish Bible scholar and an African American pastor joined in an intellectual and spiritual journey of faith and scholarly inquiry. The result is they say they uncovered the truth about one of the most coveted prayers in the Christian world – the “Lord’s Prayer” and its Hebrew origins.
On this episode of Spectrum, Tom Hodson talks with world renowned Jewish scholar, Nehemiah Gordon, about his discovery of a Hebrew version of the Lord's Prayer.
On a journey to Israel in 2002, Methodist Pastor Keith Johnson, of the Park Avenue Church in Minneapolis, met with world renowned scholar Nehemia Gordon. This started a long-term relationship and research partnership that resulted in a book A Prayer To Our Father: Hebrew Origins of the Lord’s Prayer.

They discovered a Hebrew version of the Lord's Prayer, preserved by Jewish rabbis for over a thousand years, according to Gordon. Working from the original languages of early texts, the two men translated the texts and found much commonality in most of the traditional forms of the prayer.

In its early forms, the prayer could have been as easily used in the Jewish faith as in the Christian faith, according to Gordon. They found that the prayer has a universal adherence to tenets in both faiths.

On this episode of Spectrum, Gordon describes the partnership with Johnson, their work together, and the outcomes of their research.

Gordon holds a master’s degree in Biblical Studies and a bachelor’s degree in Archaeology from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has worked as a translator on the Dead Sea Scrolls and as a researcher of ancient Hebrew manuscripts.
Gordon's website, NehemiasWall.com, is dedicated to uncovering ancient Hebrew sources of faith and is full of informative videos, podcasts and blog posts.
Johnson, besides being an elder, also served as chaplain to the Minnesota Vikings and has ministered to top athletes in the NFL and NBA.
26 min
June 22, 2016 #004 Paula Poundstone
Comic Paula Poundstone, a regular panelist on NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” spent 30 minutes with Tom Hodson stating her opinions on multiple topics from computers, to writing, to her style of comedy, to unusual dog breeds.
Besides being a Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me regular, Poundstone had a role in last year’s Pixar movie “Inside Out.” She also is currently writing her second book to be published by Algonquin next January.

While doing all that, she still travels the country doing her unique form of stand-up. She said in every show about one-third of it is improvised with interactions between her and her audience.

“I never do the same show twice,” Poundstone said. “Every performance is different and unique. It is very interactive.”

Poundstone joked that she has the worst record on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me quizzes because her competitors “cheat” and are on “steroids.” She says her preparation for the show is in direct relationship to the upheavals at her home in a given week. If things are in turmoil then she doesn’t prepare as much as when things are going smoothly, she added.

On a serious note, she decries the use of computers in elementary schools and says that we have become “addicted” to electronics. She says that this reliance has a negative impact on children and their brains.
Poundstone also described her writing technique and how writing a book is different and much more difficult than writing comedy routines.

Poundstone has had an illustrious career. She was the first woman to win the cable ACE Award for Best Stand-up back in 1992 and in 1993, she was the first woman to perform standup at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

She has been recognized as one of Comedy Central’s 100 greatest stand-ups of all time and in 2010, she was selected for the Comedy Hall of Fame.
36 min

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Spectrum features conversations with an eclectic group of fascinating people, some are famous and some are not, but they all have captivating stories.