FRESH AIR
Josh Rushing was a Marine Corps media liaison at Central Command, or Centcom, in the early days of the Iraq war. His job was to represent the Marines to the worldwide media covering the war in Iraq, including the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera, and he was featured in the documentary Control Room. After retiring from the
Marines he took a job as a correspondent with Al-Jazeera, reporting from Washington D.C. His new memoir is Mission Al Jazeera: Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World.
RADIO TIMES
Hour 1
Three former peace negotiators lay out a plan for a final settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians. This proposal titled, “Ten Commandments for Mideast Peace,” is published in this month’s American Prospect magazine. DANIEL LEVY, senior fellow at the New America Foundation and senior fellow at the Century Foundation. He served as an advisor in the Israel prime minister’s office and an Israeli negotiator at the Oslo B and Taba negotiations. GHAITH AL-OMARI, Senior research fellow at the New America Foundation. He was an advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and a Palestinian negotiator from the late 1990s until last year. ROBERT MALLEY, Middle East Program Director at the International Crisis Group.
Hour 2
Is it time to lower the legal drinking age? JOHN McCARDELL, former president of Middlebury College, says the 21 year old legal drinking age has forced teenage alcohol underground where it can’t be monitored by adults and has limited the opportunity for young people to learn how to drink responsibly.
THE WORLD CAFE
Blending Beatles-style pop with hooky guitar-rock and a great ear for melody, the Nova Scotia band Sloan has spent 15 years at or near the forefront of an ongoing power-pop revival. A quirky blend of Sonic Youth-esque guitar noise and classic pop, Sloan’s 1993 debut (Smeared) was a hit in Canada, paving the way for the pure pop of the following year’s Twice Removed. But while the group was a huge success at home, its sound didn’t mesh with the grittier, noisier rock of its peers in the U.S. After splitting from its label, Sloan settled into a familiar pattern of releasing albums to major success in Canada, but only cult attention below the border. The recent Never Hear the End of It, Sloan’s first album since 2003’s Action Pact, represents a major leap forward for the band: Composed of 30 tracks, the disc follows a winding road that brings to mind everything from Abbey Road to Todd Rundgren to The Velvet Underground. Both accessible and inherently ambitious, it finds Sloan continuing to evolve well into its second decade.
SLOAN: The Good In Everyone (some Easy Rider homage implied)