FRESH AIR
Brent Jeffs [NOT PICTURED] grew up in the inner circles of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; his grandfather was a prophet of the FLDS, which teaches that polygamy is a religious practice that guarantees salvation. Jeffs’ uncle Warren Jeffs became president of the sect in 2002. FLDS followers believe that they are the only true practitioners of the Mormon faith, which officially abandoned polygamy in 1890. Although Brent Jeffs’ lineage gives him what he says FLDS followers think of as “royal blood,” he was eventually expelled from the FLDS church during a series of excommunications of dozens of men and boys. In 2004, he filed a civil suit alleging that his uncle had sexually abused him. Warren Jeffs was later convicted of being an accessory to rape in a separate criminal case, and is now serving a prison sentence; he awaits trial on similar charges in two other states. Brent Jeffs joins Fresh Air host Terry Gross to talk about life in and after the FDLS, where he says girls are cherished for their value as future plural wives — and boys are seen as expendable, and sometimes as a liability. Jeffs lost one brother to suicide, another to an overdose, but his book argues that the FLDS’s “lost boys” needn’t lose their way once they’ve parted ways with their church.
RADIO TIMES
Hour One
We look at the latest in research and treatment as well as the psycho-social issues related to Alzheimer’s Disease. Our guests are JOHN TROJANOWSKI, Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Center of the University of Pennsylvania, STEVEN ARNOLD, Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology and leader of the Clinical Core at the Alzheimer’s Disease Center and MELISSA LIVNEY, psychotherapist at the Alzheimer’s Disease Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Listen to the mp3
Hour Two
Driven by a simple question — why my foot hurts when I run? Writer CHRIS McDOUGAL began researching the world’s greatest long-distance runners. He discovered the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico and through them found the answer to his own running problem. He joins us to talk about his new book Born to Run. Listen to the mp3
THE WORLD CAFE
Not quite abandoning the mystical quality of her Mercury Prize-winning debut, Natasha Khan’s Bat for Lashes astounds with the lush, beat-heavy Two Suns. On the album, the British songstress explores an alter ego named Pearl, a blonde femme-fatale who acts as Khan’s yin to her desert-born yang. In a session with host David Dye, Khan says she has a “visual” approach to songwriting. “Whenever I’m writing music it’s a very visual place in my mind,” said Khan. “It has a location full of characters and colours and landscapes, so those two things really complement each other, and they help the other one to blossom and support the other. They are like brother and sister.” You can hear Bat for Lashes perform “Daniel” — Khan’s tribute to Ralph Macchio’s character in The Karate Kid — and more by clicking the audio link above.