Stock Market Highs — Plus: Angelina Jolie’s Cancer Decision (Tom Ashbrook, On Point)

Interview:
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/05/14/stock-market-highs

Last week, the Dow hit numbers we’ve never seen before.  15,000-plus.  The S&P at all-time high stock market numbers, too.
So, what’s going on?  Recovery?  Bubble?  Something else?  Is it all about the Fed?  Millions of Americans have nothing to do with the stock market these days.  But millions do need to save, build a nest egg. So what’s going on on Wall Street?

This hour, On Point:  dissecting the big run-up in stocks, and what it means.

Plus: we will look at superstar actress Angelina Jolie’s decision to have a double mastectomy at 37 to reduce her risk of breast cancer.

- Tom Ashbrook

A New Way To Care For Patients With Dementia (Tom Ashbrook, On Point)

Interview:
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/05/15/dementia

The big facts on dementia and Alzheimer’s are scary.  Five million Americans with Alzheimer’s already, and the big Baby Boom generation just moving into the Alzheimer’s years.

But the little facts are imposing too.  How hard it can be to care, day in and day out, for a loved one or a patient with Alzheimer’s.  And how tough it can be on the aging, struggling victim of dementia.

There’s a push on for a better way.  Less restraint.  Fewer drugs.  More respect.  And maybe more joy, even in the difficulty.
This hour, On Point:  a new, more graceful grappling with Alzheimer’s.

- Tom Ashbrook

Rich Lowry On The Republican Party And Abraham Lincoln (Tom Ashbrook, On Point)

Interview:
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/06/12/lowry-republican-party


Rich Lowry is a big, smart conservative thinker and editor at The National Review with a long view and long list of worries about his country and his party, the Republican Party.

He’s gone back to the ur-Republican, Abraham Lincoln, to refresh some compass settings, to think about equity and opportunity and effort, about rich and poor and “the race of life,” about Tea Party and Ted Cruz and modern conservative values.
He wants to make the GOP the “aspirational” party again.

Up next On Point: National Review editor Rich Lowry on the GOP and Honest Abe.

– Tom Ashbrook

Billy Crystal On Making Memories And Memoirs (Tom Ashbrook, On Point)

Interview:
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/09/13/billy-crystal-on-making-memories-and-memoirs

Comedian Billy Crystal is 65 now, and can’t believe it.  The indignities.  The unfamiliar face in the mirror.  The sleepless nights that make every night like Yom Kippur, he says.  Long hours of regret and atonement.  Of course, being Billy Crystal, he makes it all very, very funny.  True, and even hard.  But always somehow sweet.  Sweetly, gut-turningly funny.  He was there in “When Harry Met Sally” and “City Slickers” and “Analyze This” and all those Oscar nights.  And now with us, looking back. Up next On Point:  Billy Crystal remembers.

- Tom Ashbrook

Can Processed Food Be Healthy? (Tom Ashbrook, On Point)

Interview:
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/09/26/processed-food

We all know the mantra of healthy eating these days.  Lots of vegetables and fruit on the plate.  Not much meat.  Organic if you can.  And local is lovely.  We like to picture that armful of dinner ingredients fresh from the farmers market.

But what about all the people who don’t get close to that.  And maybe can’t afford it.  There’s a new buzz around processed food that’s being made and pitched as healthy.  Burger King’s low-cal fries.  Fake meat.  Seaweed chips.  Factory-engineered health goop.
This hour, On Point:  could processed food be re-engineered to save our health?  Or is that dreaming?

- Tom Ashbrook

Thomas Friedman And American Democracy At Risk (Tom Ashbrook, On Point)

Interview:
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/10/03/american-democracy-friedman

In the midst of a federal shutdown that now looks as if it could go on for weeks, House Speaker John Boehner came out of the White House last night saying just talk to us, Mr. President.  Just negotiate.  So far, President Obama is saying no – not under these circumstances.  Not as a hostage.  New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman is saying hang tough, Mr. President – our democracy itself is at stake.  Big money politics, partisan media and ideologically-rigid redistricting, he says, are threatening to blow up majority rule. Up next On Point:  Tom Friedman, shutdown, and American democracy.

– Tom Ashbrook

President Obama explains the shutdown

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Wednesday, October 9, 2013

President Obama Explains the Shutdown Yesterday, eight days into the Republican government shutdown, President Obama spoke from the White House about the need for Republicans in Congress to stop threatening another recession just to sabotage Obamacare, stop demanding ransom just for doing their jobs, and just vote to reopen the government. He talked about the toll this shutdown is already taking on our country and the economy, and warned against the dire consequences of a default if Congress doesn't act to prevent an economic shutdown.

Keeping the government running and paying the nation's bills aren't bargaining chips or a matter of negotiation – they're a fundamental part of Congress's job. Here's how the President put it yesterday: "If you're in negotiations around buying somebody's house, you don't get to say, 'Well, let's talk about the price I'm going to pay, and if you don't give the price then I'm going to burn down your house.' That's not how negotiations work.... In the same way, members of Congress -- and the House Republicans in particular -- don't get to demand ransom in exchange for doing their jobs. And two of their very basic jobs are passing a budget and making sure that America is paying its bills."

Watch the President's statement here, and then pass it on to your friends:

As the President has made clear -- and the press has reported -- the government could be reopened, today, with the votes of reasonable Republicans and Democrats if Tea Party Republicans would allow a simple yes-or-no vote on a Senate-passed compromise bill to fund the United States government. It's time for Congress to just vote and end this government shutdown now. Stay Connected     Facebook Twitter YouTube Flickr Google+ Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111

Do Obamacare's covered contraceptives cause abortion?

On 9/26/2013, U.S. Bishops asked Congress to support their opposition to the contraceptive coverage in Obamacare, even to the point of keeping the government shut down and letting the U.S. default on its debt because, they say, the covered contraceptives cause abortion. Are they right? See or listen to the investigative report from NPR.

Obama and the Default Pirates

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Republican Doubles Down On Obama-Hitler Comparison

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The Surreal Logic Of The Debt Ceiling Deniers Explored

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GOP Has Forgotten The Poor, Again

WASHINGTON –- Remember that time Republicans cared about poverty? Nearly a year ago, the wounds of the 2012 election were still ... Read more

GOP Rejects Own Plan to Keep Government Open

Republicans continue to falsely claim that President Obama and Democrats won't negotiate over the budget. That's just not ... Read more

Capt. John Boehner Meets Moby Dick

Glenn Beck Mocks Hillary Clinton

Larry Pratt: 'Everybody Understands Ted Cruz Runs the United States House'

I Believe In The Devil - Supreme Court Justice Scalia

Conservative Plot To Defund Obamacare Exposed

Community Building :: Greg Epstein

Greg Epstein serves as the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University, and is author of the New York Times Bestselling book, Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe. He sits on the executive committee of the 36-member corps Harvard Chaplains. In 2005 Greg received ordination as a Humanist Rabbi from the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, where he studied in Jerusalem and Michigan for five years. He holds a BA (Religion and Chinese) and an MA (Judaic Studies) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a Masters of Theological Studies from the Harvard Divinity School.

Five Important Takeaways From A New National Study On U.S. Teens And Sexual Violence

One in ten teens say they've committed sexual violence. Most of them don't take any responsibility for it, and half say it was ... Read more