Ginny

As we begin the countdown to Lamb’s last book notes (see last week’s post) on C-SPAN 1. This Sunday’s Booknotes is an interview with Dorie McCullough Lawson, Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to their Children The daughter of historian David McCullough, Lawson edits

letters that span more than three centuries of American history, Posterity is a fascinating glimpse into the thoughts, wisdom, and family lives of those whose public accomplishments have touched us all.

The interview will be 8:00 p.m. and again at 11:00 p.m. on Sunday.
Check the Book-TV schedule for its 24-hour weekend book discussions; these also link to more detailed descriptions.

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Ted Kooser was named Poet Laureate this week. His quiet poems and observations of Nebraska capture both mood and tempo of small town & farming plains life. A retired vice president of Lincoln Benefit Life, he has, rather quietly, built a body of work. This year he published Delights and Shadows. Ed Ochester, editor of the Pitt Poetry Series, which published his first collection, Sure Signs, in 1980 and three more collections of his poetry, says:

“His work ultimately deals with the everyday stress we encounter all around,” he said. “His works have a way of bringing a new understanding to ordinary life and, really, that’s what poetry is supposed to do.”

His fine creative non-fiction includes Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps.

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Brian Lamb’s retirement: he has decided to retire his “Booknotes” on December 5 (his 800th show). Thanks to Mr. Barnard for the link and I suspect many of us will agree with his description of this as “bad news.” Mourning the passing of this lovely end to the weekend,

Lamb’s idiosyncratic interview techniques were eulogized. “Lamb’s show is the most strait-laced stream-of-consciousness bit of showbiz on a rigidly anti-showbiz outlet in the history of entertainment,” said one author who did not wish to be identified because he had been a guest on the show.

But, then, I suspect we can also sympathize with Lamb; he has earned both writers’ and viewers’ respect because of his careful reading. He notes with pride he has never missed a show in all those years. Still “It’s been great, but I also think it seemed, in many ways, like I was always studying for a semester exam every week. Even kids in school get the summers off.”
Saturday: Further on Lamb in Fund’s column.

This Sunday, however, he remains the host for Booknotes (8:00 p.m. and again 11:00) on C-SPAN 1. This week’s interview is with Dennis Hastert, whose book, Speaker: Lessons from 40 Years in Coaching and Politics is “a true Mr. Smith Goes to Washington story, full of lived-in wisdom, funny anecdotes, and straight talk about what goes on in the “smoke-filled” rooms of congressional power.”

The featured program from last week is replayed, a panel discussion of life at the fed, with Laurence Meyer’s A Term at the Fed, on at 4:30 Sunday morning. And a popular blogger, Virginia Postrel, is the subject of the “Encore Booknotes” with her The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress which airs at 7:00 Saturday evening and again 11:00 Sunday morning.

CSPAN2’s Book TV offers seven new programs this weekend. The “Featured Program” is Tommy Franks’ discussion of his American Soldier. This will be Sunday at 2:00 and 10:00 p.m. and Monday at 7:00 a.m.

Gen. Tommy Franks (Ret.) writes about his life growing up in Oklahoma and Texas and his later life as a career military man seeing combat in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and most recently Iraq as Commander in Chief of United States Central Command. General Franks retired in August of 2003 after more than 35 years in the Army. During a talk at the National Press Club, the author spoke about leading the process leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom and answered questions from members of the audience.

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As I’ve followed the blogosphere on the Swift Boat Veterans , I realized what I feel isn’t important. But the Iraqis are expecting us to cover their backs. Will Kerry?

Iraqis can take comfort in changes. As other posts & commentators have noted, the death toll is down. And the future in that particular area seems to be looking up. Sure, Iran stirs the pot with Sadr. Still, an Iraqi knows that Iran’s other flank is covered not by an Afghanistan of the Taliban and Al-Quaeda training camps, but one whose real problems (poppy fields, tribal loyalties) are countered by a greater transparency, an opening economy, elections. That Iraqi realizes the freedoms he now knows to choose among newspapers, to gather with his friends gives hope to the dissidents in Iran. Encouraged, they have little desire to change his country but rather their own. Therefore, his future looks brighter. And an Iraqi might suppose Americans would stay from self interest – a world safer for Iraqis is safer for Americans.

And so, surely, America will offer the support Iraq still needs. Surely America will continue to build roads and wells and power lines; surely America will fund schools. Surely, America wants this country to stand sturdy and free. Surely, that is true no matter who is president. And surely, a man who dived in to save a fellow sailor will dive in to the hard work ahead. Nor could such a man sell out Iraq to the UN of “oil for food” and the France of Elf oil contracts. I suspect, however, that Iraqi might feel some hesitation as Kerry describes America’s need to “reach out” to the “international community.”

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This Sunday Booknotes (8:00 p.m. and again 11:00) on C-SPAN 1 features Maureen Dowd, columnist for the New York Times, discussing her book, Bushworld: Enter at Your own Risk. The Booknotes site notes that the controversial columnist, has, for thirty years, “written about Washington-and America-in a voice that is acerbic, passionate, outraged, and incisive. But nothing has engaged her as powerfully as the extraordinary agendas, absurdities, and obsessions of George the Younger.”

Friday evening on CSPAN 1, Rumsfeld: Response to Terrorism “recaps global war.” Taped before the Council on Foreign Relations and the Commercial Club of Chicago, he “gives an address, updating his audience on the military’s role in the war against global terrorism. The speech lasts about 40 minutes, with 20 minutes of Q&A.” It will begin at 8 p.m.

CSPAN2’s Book TV features Laurence Meyer’s A Term at the Fed: An Insider’s View on Saturday, August 7 at 9:00 pm and Sunday, August 8 at 12:00 pm. “Through accounts of the governors’ daily actions it shows how the members of the board create monetary policy. The author is joined by former Federal Reserve Board Governors Alan Blinder, Edward Kelley, and Susan Phillips who discuss the author’s book as it compares to their time at the Fed.”

A grouping follows, though for a complete schedule follow the links above.

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