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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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Broadcast Information for June 19, 2004
Music Bridge: Start From Scratch
Artist: Galactic
CD: Crazyhorse Mongoose (Capricorn)
Extreme Sports
Bill talks with journalist David Browne. Brown was covering the music industry when extreme sports first got his attention. He noticed bands were touring along with these new extreme sports athletes to the X-Games and other venues. His new book is called Amped: How Big Air, Big Dollars, and a New Generation Took Sports to the Extreme.

Suggested reading:
"Bone Games: Extreme Sports, Shamanism, Zen, and the Search for Transcendence"
"Over the Edge: A Regular Guy's Odyssey in Extreme Sports"
"To the Extreme: Alternative Sports, Inside and Out"
"Women Who Risk: Profiles of Women in Extreme Sports"
(All titles are available at the Public Radio BookSource. Your purchase helps support Weekend America.)


Cup Stacker
Nathan Kepple
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Cup Stacking
Harry Smith, adapted phys -ed teacher for the Lafayette Elementary School in San Diego tells Bill about "cup stacking". Smith has been teaching handicapped children for 17 years, and started getting his kids involved in this odd sport 13 years ago. Then, Bill gets a cup stacking demonstration from Nathan Kepple, 5th grader at the Lafayette Elementary School.

Online resources:
World Cupstacking Association
Speed Stacks Co.

Music Bridge: Broken Bones
Artist: Sons and Daughters
CD: Love The Cup (Domino)
Mars Zealots in Hanksville, Utah
The Mars mystique is so strong some people can't wait for NASA to reorganize and farm out manned missions to private contractors as a presidential report advised this week. They want to get the Mars vibe now... Or as close to it as you can come here on earth... That was journalist Steve Featherstone's goal when he set out on a two week mission with the Mars Society.

And how do others envision life on Mars. We find out from people in New York, Boulder and Seattle.

Online resource:
"The Mars Society Web site"

Music Bed under Mars vox: Time Axis
Artist: Trapist
CD: Ballroom (Thrill Jockey)

Music Bridge: The Robots
Artist: Kraftwerk
CD: Mix (Elektra / Asylum)

Skerker the Soothsayer of Weekend Weather...
Ben Skerker's unusual survey of events, celebrations, unplanned gatherings and -- of course -- his prognostications on weekend weather.

Listening Post: The National Hip Hop Political Convention
The Republican and Democratic National Conventions are more than a month away but people between 18 and 35 are gathering for the final day at the National Hip Hop Political Convention that began Wednesday in Newark New Jersey. The idea is to get the people attending, many of them African-American, more involved in the political process. Barbara talks with reporter Jenna Flannigan with W-G-B-O in Newark about what the dialogue was like.

Online resource:
National Hip-Hop Political Convention

Music Bridge: 1/2 Way There
Artist: Seth P Brundel
CD: Devils Pawn
Top-Level Communication Breakdown
This week, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks issued a disturbing report: U.S. authorities were not just fighting terrorists on that day. They were battling their own communication failures. Barbara talks with Dr. Ian Mitroff, a crisis management expert with the University of Southern California to help us understand how communication breaks down when we need it most.

Online resource:
"Ian Mitroff bio at USC.edu"
"Comprehensive Crisis Management"

Music Bridge: Il Fait Nuit Noire À Berlin
Artist: Sylvain Chauveau
CD: Un Autre Décembre (Fat Cat)

Kitty Shenay Enlarge
The Hospice Experiment
If there are still taboo subjects, dying probably tops the list. Besides pain management, talking about death with the dying is what hospice workers do for a living. American Radio Works journalist John Biewen captured this in his new radio program: The Hospice Experiment. It airs this week on public radio stations, and we asked John to give us a preview. The show follows the last few months of of 78 year-old Kitty Shenay's life. Kitty had pancreatic cancer and was in hospice care until she died in March of 2004.

Online resources:
"The Hospice Experiment"

Music Bridge: Innocent Eye, Crystal See
Artist: Eyvind Kang
CD: Virginal Co Ordinates (Ipecac)

Ray Charles
1930 - 2004
Gallery
Ray Charles Memorial
Ray Charles was eulogized by music royalty yesterday in a rousing celebration of his life and music. We present selected moments from the memorial service, which was attended by about 1,500 people at First AME Church in Los Angeles, including Willie Nelson, B.B. King, Stevie Wonder and other friends of "Brother Ray".

Online resources:
"The Hospice Experiment"
"Tribute of Ray Charles" aired June 12, 2004 on Weekend America

Music Bridge: Plastic Energy Man
Artist: Papa M
CD: Live From a Shark Cage (Drag City)

The Section Quartet
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The Section Quartet
You could say that the band The Section is a cover band, or you could call them a string quartet that rocks. Barbara sat in on the Section's first run through of a song they were covering, "Maps" by New York rock band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Online resources:
Listen to their rendition of Led Zeppelin's Dazed and Confused
Listen to their rendition of Cream's Sunshine of Your Love
The Section Quartet Web site

Music Bridge: Maps
Artist: Yeah Yeah Yeahs
CD: Fever to Tell (Interscope)

Cheryl Hatch
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War Photographer Cheryl Hatch
In honor of Father's Day, we have a story about fathers and daughters and the legacy of war. The Newport Visual Arts Center on the Oregon coast is currently showing a selection of black-and-white photos of soldiers, refugees, and battlefields. The photographer is 45-year-old Cheryl Hatch, who grew up on military bases. Her father, a career Army officer, fought in Vietnam.

Online resource:
Cheryl Hatch's homepage
Newport Visual Arts Center, which will host "War Is..." this June

Music Bridge: Hemisphere
Artist: Ulan Bator
CD: Ego (Young God)
Interview with Journalist James Sterngold
This week, Congress has been busy with one of its most important annual exercises, doling out billions of dollars for programs over the next fiscal year. Jim Sterngold, correspondent with the San Francisco Chronicle talks about how the debate over nuclear weapons has been reduced to bickering over a line item.

Articles by James Sterngold:
"A new era of nuclear weapons"
"Senate backs off on small nuclear warheads Bill is amended to permit only research, design "

Music Bridge: Squirms
Artist: Kid Spatula
CD: Meast (Planet Mu)
Remembering Fathers on Father's Day
Producer Jake Warga has a different kind of problem with this holiday. He knows first-hand that for most of us, Father's Day will eventually become a reminder of who's missing.

Online resources:
Rotten Tomatoes reviews of "The Stepford Wives"

Music Bridge: For My Father
Artist: Angels of Light
CD: New Mother (Young God)
Seventh Annual Self-Transcendence 3,100 Mile Race
Reporter Ian Chillag follows a marathon in Queens, New York, where the start and the finish are separated by 3100 miles. That's 3100.

Online resource:
"Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team"

Music Bridge: Pra-Digitaler Volksstuhlhanger
Artist: Schlammpeitziger
CD: Everything Without All Inclusive (Sonig)
Extreme Clicking
Barbara and Bill plunge into the world of extreme sports websites with MPR New Media Manager Rich Dean.

Online resources:
ESPN's X-Games
Best Wipeouts of the X-Games
The Extreme Sports Channel - Homegrown videos
Red Bull Streets, Luging in San Francisco
World Dodgeball Association
The National Amateur Dodgeball Association
Dodgeball: The Movie
'Training' video from Dodgeball: The Movie

Music Bridge: Decora
Artist: Spoon
CD: Old Enough 2 Know Better (Merge)

Extreme Unicycling
Gallery
Off Road on One Wheel
We travel out to mountain trails near Santa Barbara, California, to follow a group of bikers who are really pushing the limits. They are so extreme that they have decided to only use one wheel!

www.sbuni.org

Music Bridge: Go On
Artist: The Elected
CD: Me First (Sub Pop)

Kickball in action
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Adults Rediscover Kickball
Many of us played this game in grade school. Now adults are getting in on the action in cities like Baltimore, Brooklyn, and Seattle where reporter John Moe dropped in on a game.

Online resource:
Adult Kickball Leagues


Toaster Auction
 Live Event: Laurelhurst Garage Sale
We'll visit the 19th annual Laurelhurst Neighborhood Association garage sale. Laurelhurst is a neighborhood on the east side of the Willamette River in Portland, OR, an old neighborhood, filled with turn of the century houses and tree-lined streets.

Online resources:
Ebay auction!

Music Bridge: Mishaps Happening
Artist: Quantic
CD: Mishaps Happening (Atralwerks)
Betto's World
Our World Music expert Betto Arcos helps Barbara add a few recordings to her thin collection.

Songs Heard:
Listen to "Namoni Pasi Mingi"
Listen to "'S Wonderful"
Listen to "Yemma"
Online resources:
Wendo Kolosoy: Marie Louise, produced by Indigo
Souad Massi: Deb, produced by Wrasse Records
Joao Gilberto: Amoroso/Brazil, produced by Warner
Wendo Kolosoy biography
Souad Massi's official site
Joao Gilberto fan site

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As Mentioned on Weekend America
For the June 19, 2004 broadcast:

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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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