Fact v. Fiction in Healthcare, Part 2

Healthcare reform has made a lot of people nervous. Earlier this week we spoke with Noam Levey of the Los Angeles Times about some of the more controversial parts of it — would abortions be covered? How would end-of-life care be addressed? We’ve invited him back to get into more of the nitty gritty — about pre-exisiting conditions, portability, single payers options, and others issues.

LA Times: Where Does Healthcare Legislation Stand?
Read House and Senate Proposals

Tomato Blight

(Flickr/ellievahoutte)

Late blight has struck many tomato growers this summer. The fungal disease usually hits late in the growing season, but this year’s unusually cool and wet spring and summer has it sweeping through gardens and farmlands through the Northeast and decimating crops.

We talk with Amy Hepworth who runs Hepworth Farms in Milton, New York. Tomatoes are her speciality and she’s been spending a good deal of time and money fighting off the disease.

Letters

We hear from listeners.

The Basij Militia in Iran

One of the groups that is helping President Ahmadinejad hold onto power in Iran is the Basij militia. They are ordinary Iranians who can appear out of nowhere in the middle of a protest; they can be wearing a uniform or regular street clothing. And they can arrest people. But will they stay behind Ahmadinejad? John Leyne of the BBC reports on this voluntary militia.

And Now This Commercial Interruption

Parents looking for the best new stroller or BPA-safe bottle often turn to “mommy bloggers” for advice. But it turns out many of those bloggers are actually getting paid to review products by the companies that make them. Now the FTC is considering new rules that would force bloggers and traditional media to disclose what’s a paid ad and what’s not. Here & Now media analyst and Boston University communication professor, John Carroll, tells us what the government is doing to promote truth in advertising.

CORRECTION: We incorrectly identified Heather Armstrong’s blog, it is dooce.com.

Remembering A Rock Radio Legend

After a 40- year run, Boston’s iconic rock station, WBCN signed off the air for the last time this week, after CBS radio decided to replace it with an all sports station. We speak with Charles Laquidara, who hosted “The Big Mattress” on WBCN from 1969-1996, we also hear from Danny Schechter, who was known as “the news dissector” on WBCN.

Learn about journalist Bill Lichtenstein’s WBCN documentary, “The American Revolution.”

Carol

This year, we planted some heirloom tomato seeds along with some volunteers. The volunteers have the blight. So far, there is no blight on the heirloom tomatoes.
David Rozenson

Thanks for your segment on WBCN. Alas, another one bites the dust. . . . My first experience with FM rock was in 1966, listening to WOR-FM in New York. Their innovative programming director was, of all people, Murray the K. He played whatever he wanted, including a lot of Dylan album tracks. He also played controversial songs (like Janis Ian’s “Society’s Child”) and weird songs (like Donovan’s “Epsitle to Dippy”) well before other stations were ready to play them. He lasted two years before the format was changed to the usual playlists.

At least we have college radio now to fill the void.
Karen

Dooze.com? I’m surprised that someone who came on the show as an expert on the subject doesn’t even know the accurate name of this site, which is perhaps one of the best-known blogs out there (“mommy blog” or otherwise). It’s Dooce.com.
Jill Ryan

Dear Karen,

Thanks for noticing our error, our apologies.

Jill Ryan, Here & Now
Alle

How great to hear Charles and Danny once again (and they’re still arguing). BCN was everything they talked about and much more. Whenever I was near a radio, it was on BCN. I was lucky enough to listen during the Golden Years when we were “all together here on the Big Mattress.”
As unlikely as it may seem, freeform was already in place in Nampa, Idaho, in 1968 on (AM!) KFXD on Sunday nights. I think the DJ’s name was Don Campbell and I’d bet he’s still there.
Peter Ellowitz

I understand from my relatives in Marlboro NY, the next town south of Milton, that Hepworth Farms is organic, run exclusively by women, and is in the process of digging out an enormous underground warehouse to save on refrigeration costs which they will recover with dirt and continue to grow crops. Also interesting in that area is “Hudson Valley Fresh” a co-op of local single family dairy farmers who have refused to give in to the (sub)urban sprawl and produce superior dairy products in the Dutchess county area. They are based in, of all places, Poughkeepsie NY and are directed by a retired orthopedic physician on a mission to preserve the local dairy farm.