Thinking Aloud

Today's show is based on the new book "The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History.” Few approaches to history do as much justice as primary sources, bringing us the actual words, voices, and perspectives of the principle players of a story. And perhaps by reason of this documentary approach, this new book is being hailed as the most important work of Mormon Women’s History in a quarter century. Today on Thinking Aloud, we visit with two of the editors behind this publication.

Amy Herman is a lawyer and art historian who teaches people how to see better by studying the work of some of history’s greatest “see-ers” --those would be artists. You can learn how to use your eyes better than you currently do and for doctors, detectives, police officers, and others, getting all they can and need to from visual information is absolutely crucial.  She’ll teach us all a bit more about how to use our own amazing eyes on today’s Thinking Aloud.

  Today’s guest on Thinking Aloud is Forrest S. Cuch.  In his 13 years as Utah’s State Director of Indian Affairs and subsequent tenure as the Chief Executive Officer of the Ute Indian Tribe, Cuch has also been deeply involved in different kinds of healing and reconciliation: between the Ute tribe and the state of Utah,between the Utes’ traditional ways of life and their modern ways of economic survival, and even among individual Utes themselves as they travel the difficult path of living as a post-conquest Native Americans. Cuch himself had his own difficult emotional recovery to undertake as he recovered from the death of his son in 1997.  His wife then gave him sage advice for healing: “You need to hug the horse”—that is, get back to the homelands and activities that gave your people their original sense of identity. He has tried to stay close to his Native American roots ever since.  

Hunting with dogs has been an important part of human culture ever since the first wolf and tribesman team up resulted in more meat for the both of them. This inter-species relationship has survived millennia in almost every culture where humans and dogs coexist. 

One of these hunting dog sub-cultures is the greyhound-like breed of “Coyote dog.” Bred in the great plains and used to hunt their namesake, “Coyote dogs” have been around since almost the beginning of America. Their sport has continued to evolve their owners, community and even their prairie environment to produce more ecologically in-tune ranchers and farmers, a smarter and stronger coyote population, and a rich American sub-culture. Tonight on Thinking Aloud author Eric Eliason and Photographer Scott Squire are here today to introduce us to this little-known community still un-spoiled by suburbia.

Physician-assisted suicide is in the news of late as dozens of state legislatures consider whether or not to legalize it for their citizens.  Dr. Sam Brown is a critical care physician who cares for hospital patients as they die on an almost daily basis.  Today, he shares his reasoned opposition to physician-assisted suicide based on his research and his experiences as a bedside physician.

Jon Forsyth began his career as a Wharton-educated business consultant and somehow via serendipity and creativity ended up making music videos.  He is now a professor of music video production at Boston's acclaimed Berklee School of Music. Tonight, he discusses the current state of this always-changing art form.    

Whether we like it or not, despite its negative reputation, nuclear power is here to stay. Richard Rhodes is an American journalist, historian, and author of both fiction and non-fiction works, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986), Arsenals of Folly (about the Nuclear Arms Race, 2007), and The Twilight of the Bombs (2010). He's here to explain the process of adopting a new power source and why nuclear energy is beating out its competitors.

Robert George is an intellectual committed to a central idea of university life: that we give voice to all sides of an issue. Anything less than a full and complete hearing of ideas--especially those we disagree with--hurts the idea of the university and the reason on which it is based.  

Today on Thinking Aloud, the distinguished Belgian Ambassador to the United States is here to share his vision of Belgium’s character and influence.  At time when Europe is as challenged as it has ever been, his country continues to play a central role in what Europe is and will become.