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The Leonard Lopate Show
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The High Price of Cheap Goods
Today we'll investigate why retail discounting comes at a high cost. And historian and biographer Caroline Moorehead on the combined diaries of Marie Antoinette and Madame de la Tour du Pin. Then, the head writer for the The Onion’s entertainment section on his new book The Big Rewind, about how pop culture saved his life. Also, our latest Backstory segment looks at the early political career of State Senator Pedro Espada. Plus, Underreported gives an overview of the world's worst failed states.
Cheap
Ellen Ruppel Shell traces our national obsession with the bargain from the Industrial Revolution to the modern assembly line, and from chain stores to big-box retailers who value convenience and low-prices over quality. In her book Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, she examines our desire for cheap goods and how it has spurred globalization, outsourcing, planned obsolescence, and economic instability, all of which have had tremendous impact on the global economy.
Dancing to the Precipice
Historian and biographer Caroline Moorehead looks at Madam de la Tour du Pin, who was groomed as a lady in waiting to Marie Antoinette and who kept a vivid account of the tumultuous collapse of the French Old Regime in her diaries. Dancing to the Precipice: The Life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin combines these diaries with the first full-length biography of her.
The Big Rewind
Nathan Rabin, head writer for A.V. Club, The Onion’s entertainment section, explains how pop culture offered an escape from his troubled childhood and adolescence in his memoir, The Big Rewind.
Event: Nathan Rabin will be reading and signing books
Thursday, July 23, at 7:00 pm
Borders
10 Columbus Circle
Backstory: Senator Pedro Espada's Early Political Career
Before he was one of the most powerful people in the New York State Senate, Pedro Espada started his political career with a fringe political group called the New Alliance Party. The NAP has long since disbanded but many of its members are now part of the active New York Independence Party. On today’s Backstory we’ll talk to City Hall reporter Sal Gentile about Senator Espada's early days campaigning in the Bronx.
Hear last week's Underreported segment on the New York Independence Party here.
Read Sal Gentile's article on Senator Espada here.
Underreported: Failed States Index
Many nations that were already on the brink in good times are sliding closer and closer to becoming failed states as the global economic slump continues. Foreign Policy magazine, in conjunction with The Fund for Peace, has compiled a list of the world’s top failed states using 12 indicators ranging from "external intervention" to "uneven development." We’ll speak with Elizabeth Dickinson, Assistant Editor at Foreign Policy Magazine who helped compile the report.
You can read the Failed States 2008 Index here.
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National Book Award Winners
The Leonard Lopate Show
A number of this year’s National Book Award winners have appeared on The Leonard Lopate Show. Click here to see the list!
Tributes: Jeanne-Claude
The Leonard Lopate Show
Jeanne-Claude created environmental works of art with her husband and fellow-conspirator/collaborator Christo. Together, they wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin, the Pont-Neuf in Paris, and created The Gates, with billowy orange drapes, in Central Park. Jeanne-Claude just died at the age of 74. You can hear Leonard Lopate’s last interview with them both, from July 19, 1999.
Video Pick: David Chang on Momofuku
The Leonard Lopate Show
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- Comments [1]
Please Explain: Eco-Labels
The Leonard Lopate Show
Your broccoli, shampoo, and air conditioner might bear labels declaring them to be organic, cruelty-free, or energy efficient, but what do those labels mean and are they true? Dr. Urvashi Rangan, Project Director for Consumer Reports' GreenerChoices.org and Consumers Union’s Senior Scientist for Policy Initiatives, and Dara O'Rourke, founder and CEO of GoodGuide.com, took a look at what eco-labels indicate, how standards are set, and what they mean for consumers and manufacturers around the world.
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Our 3-ingredient Challenge wins a James Beard Award
The Leonard Lopate Show
On May 3, the Lopate Show won its third James Beard Award for our 3-ingredient challenge. In August, we asked our listeners to call in and name 3 ingredients and then challenged New York chef and 3-ingredient expert Rozanne Gold to whip up a recipe! You can listen to the 3-ingredient challenge and get some inspiration for simple, delicious, and unexpected dishes.
