November 18, 2007

Broadcast Date: 
Nov 18 2007

Congressional Democrats' dilemma: tax reform versus campaign contributions. Also author Saidiya Hartman's new book on the slave trade, Lose Your Mother, and a look at the work of Jewish woodworkers at the American Folk Art Museum.

Episode segments
  • Congressional Tax Reform Hits A Roadblock
    National Politics, Domestic Policy
    Charlie Cray, policy analyst and director of Tie he Center for Corporate Policy
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    New York Senator Charles Schumer is one of the Senate Democrats trying to  stall efforts to close the tax loophole that allows private equity and hedge fund managers to pay the low capital gains tax rate on the fees they earn from investors .  Charlie Cray helps us understand the realpolitk that makes this apparent no-brainer for Democrats be opposed by Democratic Party fund raisers like Senator Schumer.

  • Lose Your Mother
    Literature
    Saidiya Hartman, author of Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    In Lose Your Mother author Saidiya Hartman explores the history of the Atlantic slave trade along with the complicated relationship of the African-American diapora to Ghana.

  • Guilded Lions and Jewelled Horses
    Visual Art, Exhibits
    Murray Zimiles, guest curator, American Folk Art Museum
    Nan Rubin

    From gilded lions to high-stepping horses, the sacred to the secular, and the Old World to the New, "Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel" traces the journey of Jewish woodcarvers and other artisans from Eastern and Central Europe to America and the unsung role they played in establishing a distinct Jewish culture in communities throughout the United States.