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How did your life collide with the headlines in 2007?
Iraq, the subprime crisis, Facebook, immigration, oil prices - 2007 had no shortage of hefty headlines. We'd like to hear about how these and other major news events of the past year affected you. Where did your life collide with the news in 2007?

What's your holiday performance story?
The office talent show, the neighborhood caroling posse, the school pageant ... At holiday time we often sing, dance, and dress as shepherds. Did you bloom in the warmth of your audience's adulation, or freeze up like the snowman you'd rather be building? Did your holiday performance change your life or that of someone close to you?

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Chain of Influence
A few months ago we started thinking about where ideas come from, how they pass from one person to the next, as if inspiration were a baton that is handed from one person to another to another. We were curious if we followed the links, where they would lead.

This is what we did: A while back we asked America's Poet Laureate Ted Kooser to name a person who has influenced him. That led us to his doctor, Bill Lydiatt. Lydiatt said his influence was the writer Peter D. Kramer, author of Listening to Prozac. And now Peter Kramer brings us to the fourth link in our chain, Dr. Robert Coles, a world-renowned writer and child psychiatrist.

Listen IconChain of Influence: Music Prodigy Isaac Akers
We can all touch people's lives in unexpected ways. Host Barbara Bogaev tracks a musical child prodigy's chain of influence back to an imaginative 62-year-old scientist.
Online resources:
» More about fiddler Tania Elizabeth
» More about David Wolfe and raw food
» More about futurist Dr. Patrick Flanagan

Listen IconChain of Influence
In the latest of a series that connects people and their influences, Weekend America host Barbara Bogaev talks to female writers about the people and works that inspired them. The chain begins with Lan Samantha Chang, the new director of the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop. (10/01/2005)
"Chain of Influence" authors at the Public Radio BookSource:
» Lan Samantha Chang
» Eavan Boland
» Mary Gordon
» Grace Paley
» Ynestra King

Listen IconBaruch Hochman
You never know whom you touch in this life. In the latest link of our chain of people who influenced others, Weekend America host Bill Radke talks with literature professor Baruch Hochman. He inspired religion scholar Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg. (06/25/2005)

Listen IconAviva Gotlieb Zornberg
In a recent segment of our series that follows people and their greatest influences, the trail led from an eminent child psychologist to a man who works with a Catholic ministry for the poor. Weekend America host Barbara Bogaev speaks with his influence, author Aviva Gotlieb Zornberg, from her home in Israel. She's a Jewish scholar who specializes in interpreting biblical texts. (05/21/2005)

Listen IconMatt Vogel
In our latest installment of the Chain of Influence series, we asked Harvard Professor Robert Coles who has most influenced his life. He didn't pick a lofty thinker or a favorite politician -- he named one of his former students, Matt Vogel. Vogel has taken a vow of poverty and serves food to the homeless in New York City, and Weekend America visited him on the job. (04/23/2005)
Online resources:
The Catholic Worker Movement
More from the Chain of Influence series

Listen IconChild Psychiatrist Robert Coles
Weekend America is linking Americans through the people who influence them. We started with Poet Laureate Ted Kooser and now we've come to Robert Coles, a world-renowned writer and child psychiatrist. (03/26/2005)

Listen IconAuthor Peter Kramer
Weekend America is linking Americans through the people who influence them. We started with poet Ted Kooser and now we've come to Peter Kramer. He's the author of a book called "Listening to Prozac." (02/19/2005)
Online resources:
Peter Kramer hosts the public radio program The Infinate Mind
Peter Kramer's book, "Listening to Prozac," is available at the Public Radio BookSource

Listen IconDr. Bill Lydiatt
In the first of our Chain of Influence series, Barbara Bogaev talked to Poet Laureate Ted Kooser about a person who influenced his life, Dr. Bill Lydiatt. In this second segment, Barbara talks with Dr. Lydiatt about the people who have made an impression on his life and work. (01/15/2005)
Online resource:
More about Dr. Bill Lydiatt

Listen IconPoet Laureate Ted Kooser
Weekend America has been following a chain of influence. In the first of this series, we talk to Poet Laureate Ted Kooser about the people who have influenced his life. (12/18/2004)
Online resource:
More of Ted Kooser's poetry at PoetryMagazine.com

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As Mentioned on Weekend America
... on our December 15 broadcast:

» Weekend America
iPodEnhanced Podcast:
Skip back and forth through stories, see images on iTunes and on your iPod, all with better sound quality.
» The Huckabee Mystique: See video of Mike Huckabee and Chuck Norris.
» Another Great Moment in Small Talk: Read how Charlie Schroeder became an unpopular "tool" because of Borat.
» Listener Letters: Renewable Christmas Trees: Read listeners' alternate endings to "Puff the Magic Dragon."
» Sign Up for the Weekend America weekly newsletter: Find out what's on the upcoming show, and listen to the most popular previous segments.
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Weekend Weather

From the July 5 broadcast

As Mentioned on Weekend America
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Send Us Your Stories
This week: Have you exper-
ienced any strange seasonal changes: springtime plants sprouting; squirrels sunbathing?
Let us know...
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