Irish-American festivals are as American as apple pie, but most people would blanch at the thought of a White-American heritage festival. Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts (who's black) and University of Nevada sociology professor Matt Wray (who's white) ask what it means to be "white" in America. Also: the debate over Iraq may swing the upcoming election and one journalist says it's not accidental. By directing attention away from traditional Democratic issues like social security and Medicare, one Republican Svengali stands accused of "wagging the dog". Also: how to teach independent thinking in our test-obsessed school system.
Red And Green And Read All Over
Ulrike Winkelmann, chief correspondent for domestic politics for the Tageszeitung of Berlin http://www.taz.de, and Steven Erlanger, Berlin Bureau Chief for the New York Times, on German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's re-election
Fetch, Rover!
Matt Miller, nationally syndicated columnist and host of Left, Right & Center on KCRW-FM in Los Angeles, on using the debate about Iraq as an election strategy
A) Educational Panacea B) Assessment Tool or C) Complete Waste of Time
Deborah Meier, author of In Schools We Trust (Beacon Press, 2002) and founder of the Central Park Elementary School, on how standardized tests hinder productive learning environments.
Paler Shade of White
Columnist Leonard Pitts for the Miami Herald and Matt Wray, assistant professor of Sociology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and Co-editor of The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness (Duke University, 2001), on the meaning of whiteness.
Open phones
Listeners' calls on Iraq: yes, no or ambivalent?