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The Brian Lehrer Show / May 22, 2007

The Brian Lehrer Show

Tuesday, May 22, 2007
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  • A man holds a sign saying "We are America" at a rally for immigration reform in Lower Manhattan on April 10, 2006
    A man holds a sign saying "We are America" at a rally for immigration reform in Lower Manhattan on April 10, 2006 (WNYC/Bill Swersey)

    What's So Bad About Amnesty?

    Part of the debate about immigration in the Senate right now is whether it offers amnesty to people currently here illegally. But would amnesty for simply coming here to work be a bad thing? We'll take your calls and comments on the question. Plus, Betty Rollin on the psychology of looking on the bright side, Cullen Murphy on the comparison between the United States and the Roman Empire, and listeners call in about merit-based immigration.

    Watch Brian's Online Video Picks

    Sign up for our immigration event, "Feet in Two Worlds" event

Immigration: Workers and Business

Ana Avendaño, program director for AFL-CIO's Immigrant Worker, then Hector Figueroa, secretary/treasurer for Local 32BJ SEIU, then Steve Malanga, contributing editor at the City Journal and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, all discuss the immigration bill.

Open Phones: What's so bad about amnesty?

Debate is raging about whether the Word "amnesty" applies to the new immigration bill, but that assumes amnesty is a dirty word. Listeners call in to comment on the question "what's so bad about amnesty?"

Silver Linings

Betty Rollin, TV journalist and the author of the books First, You Cry, Last Wish, and her newest, Here's the Bright Side: Of Failure, Fear, Cancer, Divorce, and Other Bum Raps (Random House, 2007), discusses the upsides that can sometimes accompany adversity.

Here's the Bright Side is available for purchase at Amazon.com

Betty Rollin's website

Empire: The U.S. vs. Ancient Rome

Cullen Murphy, editor at large at Vanity Fair, former managing editor of the Atlantic Monthly, and author of Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America (Houghton Mifflin, 2007), compares the Roman empire to the United States.

Are We Rome? is available for purchase at Amazon.com

Open Phones: Are We Harvard?

Should the United States have merit based immigration? Listeners call in and tell us what they think.

A person dressed as a bear to represent a bear market performs outside the New York Stock Exchange on October 6, 200 in New York. Wall Street tumbled after the opening bell as fallout from the credit crisis triggered concerns about the economy and the Dow fell below 10,000 for the first time in four years.

Uncommon Indicators

The Brian Lehrer Show

The Brian Lehrer Show wants to hear how the economy is affecting the little things in your daily life. Share your stories and photos of the downturn.

Cast your vote for our video contest semi-finalists.

Ray Young, General Motors Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

The Rocky Road Ahead

The Brian Lehrer Show

Ray Young, the chief financial officer of General Motors, talks about GM’s bankruptcy.

Then, Damon Lester, president of the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers, and Greg Williams, former owner of the recently closed Huntington Chevrolet in Huntington Station, NY., discusses the effect GM’s bankruptcy has had on dealerships and their employees.

paper trail small

Tweet If You Use Twitter

The Brian Lehrer Show

Farhad Manjoo, Slate's technology columnist and the author of True Enough: Learning To Live in a Post-Fact Society talks about what Twitter means and how different groups use it.

What's your take on Twitter? How do you use it? Comment below!

(<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexerde/80417539/">alexerde</a>/flickr)

Don't Say That, Literally

The Brian Lehrer Show

John Flansburgh of the band They Might Be Giants discusses the running list the band keeps of "things we can no longer say." (a few examples: "my bad" "don't go there" "one hundred and ten percent" and "voted off the island")

What would be on your list of banned words or phrases? Comment below!

happiness

From Denmark with Love

The Brian Lehrer Show

Jesper Grunwald, senior managing editor with the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, talks about the Danish economy, biking to work, and why the Danes are allegedly the happiest people in the world.

Judge Sotomayor

Squatting, Then and Now

The Brian Lehrer Show

As former squats in the East Village make the transition to coops, making homes from abandoned housing is again an issue. Andrew Reicher executive director of Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, Frank Morales an Episcopal priest involved in East Village/Lower East Side squatting and homelessness activism since the late '70s, and Rob Robinson, a leader of the Housing Campaign of Picture the Homeless, discuss the return of squatting.

Video Picks

The Brian Lehrer Show

Check out some recent video clips of interviews with guests and Brian Lehrer's weekly Web video picks.