Taking On is a new interview show, hosted by Aaron Smargon and Nick Tagher, with writing and research by Andrew Saraf. This week, their first guest, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, shares his views on health care reform and gives a taste of his new memoir, A Heart to Serve.
Listen to the full program here.
Recorded on October 4, 2009
Music on this program: Night Lights (Learning Music), Four Little Blackberries (Thomas Mills), La Boquilla (Bomba Estereo)
In collaboration with the WPRB’s Publicity and Promotions department, News will be presenting an interview today and Sunday with poet and part-time rock star, Paul Muldoon. Muldoon is the Howard G. B. Clark Professor and Chair of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. His collections include New Weather (1973), Meeting the British (1987), Moy Sand and Gravel (2002, garnered a Pulitzer Prize) and, most recently, Horse Latitudes (2006). He is also the Poetry editor of the New Yorker magazine. Though best known for his own poetry, Muldoon writes lyrics and plays guitar in a band called Rackett. Rackett is scheduled to perform Saturday May 2nd at the Performing Arts Center in Princeton New Jersey and at the Bowery Poetry Club on May 16 and June 20. A returning guest on Discourse, Muldoon focuses this time on the connections between his poetry and his music. Tune in today at around 7:30 EST (subject to change) and Sunday, May 3rd at 12:00pm EST. Or just listen here:
Web Extra:
This is Muldoon’s second appearance on Discourse. During his first interview on the show, Muldoon read his poem “Wind and Tree” from New Weather (1973).
Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench
From Discourse, Sunday April 19 at 12:00 pm EST, produced by Nikki Leon.
A conversation with filmmaker Damien Chazelle, whose debut picture, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, is being feaured in the “Discovery” category at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. Guy and Madeline is a musical, a gritty, vérité-style jazz flick, and, at its core, a love story. Catch the world premier at Tribeca this April 23rd, or check out the festival website for following showtimes and tickets.
Photo credit: Cecilio M. Ricardo Jr.
From Discourse, Sunday April 12 at 12:00 pm EST, produced by Sophie Jin.
In this installment, Jin sits down with Jon Greenwald, Vice President of the International Crisis Group, to talk about about the repercussions of the US War on Terror in the Middle East and the role President Barack Obama has played in changing the diplomatic climate of the region.
Part I
Part II
Part III
Web Extra: More on Afghanistan
Photo credit: BotheredByBees
Sunday at 12:00 pm EST, join producer Sophie Jin for an interview with Jon Greenwald, Vice President of the International Crisis Group and former director of the U.S. Department of State Office of Counter-Terrorism. Greenwald discusses the state of American involvement in the Middle East and how the Obama administration is shaping perspectives on America worldwide.
Then, at 12:30 pm EST, Nikki Leon and Alfred Miller take a look at a new technology, called “nanoimprint lithography,” developed by Princeton University scientist Stephen Chou. Nanoimprint lithography allows scientists to build structures on the tiniest scale—including ever-smaller microchips and special molds used in DNA sequencing. Miller speaks with Chou about his discoveries.
If you miss the broadcast or want to hear it a second time, come back here to listen to both episodes.
Image credit: syvwich
From Discourse, Sunday April 5 at 12:30 pm EST, an interview with physicist and author Tony Rothman about his latest book, Sacred Mathematics. Rothman reads from his book and examines how Japanese mathematics flourished, along with other strains of national culture, during Japan’s pre-19th century period of isolation from the west. Produced by Nikki Leon.
Part I
Part II
Part III
Image credit: Ted Percival
From Discourse, Sunday April 5 at 12:00 pm EST, Marriage and the Mormons, part one of the series Marriage, Law, and American Society, produced by Sophie Jin.
In this installment, Jin sits down with Slate contributor and Princeton University Historian Neil J. Young to discuss how Mormon political involvement in passing Proposition 8 is part of a long legacy of Mormon political involvement that includes action in the 1970′s against (and in some cases, for) the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Young also explains how Mormon theology and history set the conditions for this involvement.
Listen here:
Part I
Part II
Part III
Interview Extra (online only): Dissent within the Church of the Latter-Day Saints
By Sebastian Jones
WPRB News
This morning Shirley Tilghman, the President of Princeton University, sent an e-mail to students and staff with an “update on Princeton’s response to the economic downturn”, spelling out some of the losses the university’s endowment has suffered.
According to Tilghman, by late October, “the University’s endowment had declined by 11%, based upon our standard reporting protocols, using information that is the best available as of the reporting date.”
She added that this figure likely “understates the actual economic loss”:
And, of course, financial markets have continued to decline since then. Although we cannot know what the next six months will bring, we believe it is prudent for the University to plan for the possibility that its endowment will have declined by 25% at the end of the fiscal year.
Full e-mail below… Continue reading
Two short items from a Friday meeting with Andrew Golden, president of Princeton University Investment Co. (PRINCO), and Cass Cliatt, Princeton’s spokeswoman, about University investments in Zimbabwe and British arms supplier BAE Systems revealed by WPRB last week.
The broad takeaway: while Princeton claims it no longer owns BAE bonds and that it has two cents worth of an 18-year-old holding in Zimbabwe, nothing prevents the University from making future investments in either. Further, Princeton can only offer speculation to account for the listing of Zimbabwe on a federally-filed, public tax form that requires disclosure of investments of $10,000 or greater in foreign countries. What has changed, however, is that investment records are no longer made public due to concerns over “economic cost”. The precise economic cost of having made investments public before 2002, when the current non-disclosure policy was implemented, remains unclear.
BAE Systems
While the money manager responsible for the acquisition of BAE bonds is no longer affiliated with Princeton, “the fact these changes occurred had nothing to do with BAE,” Golden told WPRB.
“There is nothing that prevents us from investing in defense contractors,” Golden said, adding that the manager who acquired the BAE bonds “thought it was a good economic investment.”
While PRINCO is charged with overseeing Princeton’s multi-billion dollar endowment and managing funds of several organizations associated with the University, including WPRB, individual investment decisions are made by external money managers. Any non-economic factor applied to investment decisions– what Golden termed a “social overlay”– must be imposed by the Trustees of Princeton University and not by PRINCO or individual money managers.
Zimbabwe
After a lengthy search, PRINCO could only locate a single, 18-year-old bond valued at around $.02, Golden told WPRB, adding he was “99 percent sure” it was the only investment.
Should PRINCO’s review prove accurate, why Zimbabwe was listed last year among countries where the University has investments in excess of $10,000 remains a mystery. During the Friday interview with WPRB, Golden suggested it was an “out and out mistake” while Cliatt speculated that Zimbabwe might have been listed because in situations where “there’s any confusion” the University adopts a “conservative approach” to its filings.
I’m currently traveling, but I’ll be posting a short story very soon based on WPRB‘s meeting last Friday with Andrew Golden, president of Princeton University Investment Co. (PRINCO), and Cass Cliatt, Princeton’s spokeswoman.
In the meantime, I wanted to point readers to an article that ran last Friday in Princeton’s campus newspaper, The Daily Princetonian, that provides a great deal of context on the comparative policies for ethical review of investments at Princeton, Harvard and Yale– something that becomes more interesting in light of our Friday interview with Golden, who told WPRB he felt Princeton’s system is “more democratic”.
From the Princetonian:
At Yale, an eight-person Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR) meets regularly to discuss ethical investment policies for the school’s endowment, said ACIR chair Jonathan Macey, a law professor and deputy dean of Yale Law School. The committee, composed of two students, alumni, faculty and staff members, makes recommendations to the Yale Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility relating to matters ranging from “company investment in South Africa, to defense contracting, political lobbying and environmental safety,” according to the ACIR website.
Though some of the committee’s meetings are open to the Yale community and the ACIR values outside input, Yale evaluates the ethics of its holdings regardless of community interest, Macey said.
“It’s none of my business what goes on at Princeton, but either an investment policy is ethical or it isn’t,” Macey said. “The idea that it’s only a problem if it upsets a lot of people seems odd to me.”
“It doesn’t seem plausible,” he added. “It sounds like it’s a practical concern at Princeton, not an ethical one.”
Harvard, like Yale, has an Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility composed of faculty, students and alumni that recommends ethical investing policies to the Harvard Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility.
Princeton does not currently have a body specifically devoted to reviewing the ethics of its investment practices.