Stimulus, What Stimulus?

While President Obama attends the G8 meeting in Italy, Vice President Joe Biden travels to Ohio to make a pitch for the administration’s economic stimulus package, which is facing growing criticism. At the same time there are those, including Warren Buffet, who say a second stimulus package might be needed. Rick Klein, senior political reporter for ABC News, tells us what it all means.

Big Pill Bill Not Easy to Swallow

Drugmaker Genzyme convinced the Costa Rican government to pay $350,000 dollars a year indefinitely for the drug Cerezyme, to treat two people afflicted with rare Gaucher disease. The company has also had success getting governments in Brazil, Kuwait and Bulgaria to pay for expensive biotech drugs for a handful of patients. We speak with Boston Globe reporter Stephen Heuser, who traveled to Costa Rica for the story.

Black Box Hopes Fade

Tomorrow search teams will give up their effort to locate the audio pings from Air France Flight 447′s black boxes. Signals began to fade last week, and with them, the hope of finding out exactly what caused the Airbus A-330 to crash off the coast of Brazil during a thunderstorm on May 31, killing all 228 people on board. We talk with Dan Michaels, who’s been covering the story for the Wall Street Journal.

Fighting D.O.M.A.

Massachusetts, the first state to legalize same sex marriage, has become the first state to sue the federal government over the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman. The Massachusetts Attorney General claims the law forces the state to discriminate against same sex couples, by denying them federal benefits. We speak with plaintiff Nancy Gill, and Gary Busek, legal director for the group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders.

The Hurt Locker

Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Elliott of Lowell, Ind., left and Sgt. Matt Chapman of Annapolis, Md. listen to another member of their explosive ordinance disposal team as they unearth a missile Friday, May 9, 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq. The team from the 18th Ordinance Company based at Fort Bragg, N.C., have been working almost constanly trying the remove munitions from Iraq's capital. (AP Photo/Chris Tomlinson)

Members of an explosive ordinance disposal team unearth a missile on May 9, 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq. (AP)

The Iraq war brought front and center the work of E.O.D., or Explosive Ordinance Disposal Squads, the soldiers who defuse the bombs left by insurgents. In the new film “The Hurt Locker“, director Kathryn Bigelow tells the story of one fictional E.O.D. squad. Producer Emiko Tamagawa speaks to Katherine Bigelow about the movie, and about the difficult and often deadly challenges these soldiers face.

Music from the Show

Air, “Mike Mills”
Paul Simon, “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”
The Wee Trio, “Flint”
Radiohead, “In Limbo”
Sonny Rollins, “Get Happy”
Evan Ziporyn, “War Chant,” performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project

George Sachs

I have enjoyed your show for the last couple of years, but I have to let you know that I (and my family) won’t be listening to it, or any other NPR programs, any more because of the extraordinary behavior of NPR’s Ombudsman recently with regards to the “torture” debate and another matter I had asked her to investigate. Prior to the “torture scandal” I was still in a big dispute with NPR, its lawyers, and Ms. Shepard, regarding the uncorrected and bogus 2004 ‘faux’ GyroGen-story that was featured on NPR. NPR’s & Alicia’s continued refusal to let me explain my side of this story and to let me inform the public of the truth behind this, so called, prize winning “new invention”, betrays a serious credibility problem there. It seems that NPR has simply lost its journalistic way and all sense of integrity and ethics. They appear to becoming, more and more, just corporate and special-interest shills!

While Alicia says that NPR – at all times – needs to give voice to all sides of an issue, when it comes to a matter of historical and scientific FACT, there is only the side that NPR & its, coincidentally, NEW sponsor and ‘bff’, Siemens, wants the public to believe. So much for fair and balanced reporting on NPR! Might as well just sell out to FOX entirely! By the way, has Siemens signed on to your ‘Here and Now’ program yet? If not, you might want to hit them up for some ‘payola’ now, since the timing couldn’t be better, now that I have threatened NPR’s attorneys with a lawsuit over their cover-up and collusion with Siemens. By having Siemens as a sponsor, NPR can’t talk about the 2004 Scandal. This should be a veritable gold mine for NPR, since Siemens has billions available to help keep people quiet and they have lots of experience in getting what they want at any cost.