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From WGBH in Boston this is the Emily Rooney show. It's Wednesday October 26 2011. I'm Carol Miller in for Emily Rooney. On Today Show the Occupy Wall Street movement has been largely organized around the idea that wealth distribution in the U.S. is unfair. Now a new analysis appears to confirm one of the protesters central complaints that as most Americans struggle the rich are getting much richer. We'll examine income inequality and its effects. Plus it's the great American art form read by millions every day. A new anthology celebrates in the newspaper column. And finally. Composer Michael Gandalf returned to an unlikely source of inspiration for his new work brain waves during the five stages of sleep. Take a look at and listen to the science and sound of sleep. It's all coming up this hour on the Emily Rooney show. But first the news from NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying financial relief may be coming to college students and graduates

struggling to pay back student loans. President Obama is expected to announce plans later this hour in Denver to allow millions of recipients to lower their payments and consolidate. This comes the same day as a new report from the College Board that reveals a more than $600 increase in average in state tuition and fees at four year public colleges this fall. Those student loan is one of the largest sources of household debt second only to the mortgage. The debt burden from the student loans is one of the issues driving Occupy Wall Street protesters which has spread to cities across the nation in recent weeks. This morning in Atlanta about 50 activists were arrested Edgar Trey gates of Georgia Public Broadcasting reports the arrest came after police in riot gear gave demonstrators a final warning to leave at midnight in the shadow of Atlanta's downtown office buildings protesters and Woodruff Park were removed mostly peacefully. Many locked arms and chanted We shall overcome before police led them onto a waiting buses. One of those arrested was a Georgia state senator who said the police presence including on horseback

and motorcycles was overkill. Demonstrators had been camped in the park for about two weeks. City officials estimate the Occupy encampment has cost the city nearly $300000 bond hearings for some of those arrested are being held today in Atlanta court. For NPR News I'm Edgar Trey gets in Atlanta. The manufacturing sector is showing some resilience NPR's John Burnett reports demand for long lasting manufactured products suggests. The economy is getting stronger. Overall the Commerce Department says durable goods orders were down in September but that was largely because of a sharp drop in commercial aircraft orders outside of transportation equipment orders rose by 1.7 percent. Companies bought more heavy machinery computers and other manufactured goods last month. A key measure of business investment plans orders for what are called core capital goods rose 2.4 percent as the biggest increase in six months and economists say it indicates businesses are still spending despite concerns about economic growth. The report suggests economic activity

picked up in the third quarter after weak first half of the year trial Snyder NPR News Washington. U.S. stocks are mixed with investors closely watching for the outcome of today's debt crisis summit in Europe. Earlier today the German parliament threw its support behind a plan to increase the power of the bailout fund. And German Chancellor Angela Merkel had indicated that private investors should take a write down of at least 50 percent on Greece's debt holdings. At last check on Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 53 points or nearly half a percent of the eleven thousand seven hundred sixty. Nasdaq was off about 10 points to two thousand six hundred twenty nine. S&P 500 up two points. This is NPR News. The United Auto Workers Union releases the final tally of its vote on a four year contract with Chrysler today but it appears the UAW is backing the deal. A local union president in Michigan says 70 percent of workers at a plant in Warren

the last factory to vote are in favor of the agreement. Search crews in Turkey are still locating survivors from Sunday's earthquake today. Two teachers and a college student were pulled alive from collapsed buildings in the eastern province of n near the Iranian border. Rescuers are also recovering more bodies so far. The death toll stands at four hundred sixty one. More than 13 hundred people were injured. Three months after British singer Amy Winehouse was found dead in her North London home. Larry Miller reports that Winehouse fans are learning today about the singer's apparent cause of death. Amy Winehouse has blood alcohol content was nearly five times the legal limit when she died the coroner's inquest heard there were three empty vodka bottles found in her bedroom. The court also heard Winehouse was battling her alcohol addiction. Her doctors said she just started drinking again after a period of abstinence. Well the

Winehouse had once been addicted to hard drugs. None was found in their system. The coroner's verdict death by misadventure that Winehouse suffered accidental alcohol poisoning. For NPR News I'm Larry Miller in London Lindsay. Here's the latest from Wall Street Dow Jones Industrial Average now up 60 points at eleven thousand seven hundred sixty six Nasdaq down 9 it's at twenty six thirty. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News. Support for NPR comes from the Overbrook foundation supporting Catalog Choice dot org a nonprofit service that allows customers to decide which catalogs to receive in the mail. It's live and it's local. Coming up next two hours of local talk the Emily Rooney show and the callee Crossley Show. Only on WGBH. Good afternoon you're listening to the Emily Rooney show. I'm Karen Miller in for

Emily Rooney. The Occupy Wall Street movement has been largely organized around the idea that wealth distribution in the U.S. is unfair that the rich are getting richer. And now a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office seems to confirm that sentiment. Over the past 30 years the CBO reports the richest 1 percent have watched their incomes ballooned by two hundred and seventy five percent while the 60 percent of Americans in the middle have seen their incomes go by less than 40 percent. And the bottom fifth of wage earners are making just 18 percent more than they were in 1979. Today we look inside those numbers to get a sense of where they fit historically what politicians will make of them and what happens when discontent bubbles over. Joining us now are Graeme Wilson chair of the political science department at Boston University and author of the forthcoming book The consequences of the global financial crisis. Graham Wilson thanks for being here.

It's a pleasure to be with you. We're also joined by Michael Priore David Skinner a professor of political economy at MIT. Michael PR I think for being here. It's good to be here. So let me turn to you first Graham Wilson and just ask you these numbers that have come out of the Congressional Budget Office are sort of shocking. And I'm wondering where do they put us historically. I would say you'd have to go back to the period before the Great Depression or even the gilded age of the late 19th century to see comparable results. And Michael PR where do you where do you see these numbers fitting historically are they are they aberant are they average. What do you think. You know I think Graham is right. It is you have to go back to in 1920 really to see numbers like this. And in fact. Between the end of the Great Depression and the end of the 1970s it was a pretty equal distribution of income and the gains from growth went evenly spread

over the whole of the income distribution. And what does it say to you that you know in 30 years not a very long time from 1979 to to 2007 that you see the top 1 percent of earners having incomes that grow by 275 percent so they're almost tripling what they make. What does that say to you. Well my reaction is that there are two things going on. First But I think there are a trend towards income inequality that result from things like globalization. I'm from changes in the economy but I think another part of the Congressional Budget Office report highlights the fact that government policy far from constraining this trend has reinforced it. But the public policy that we have adopted in that period of accentuation the trend towards inequality rather than working to counteract it. Michael PR when you look ahead do you see this kind of trend continuing as

as I mean Graeme Wilson suggests that there are that there are both political and economic drivers here that might push this trend forward. Well this is it is these numbers on news. Basically I mean the Congressional Budget Office issued this report. But we've known about essentially these numbers for the last five years and the trends while it was happening beginning in the 1980s were also kind of well well it's well established. So one question is why is it that we're only beginning to be conscious of it that it's that that it's sinking into the public consciousness consciousness now. And while your newspapers I mean why do you have the Congressional Budget Office. There was another piece and in the Times today which reported on a study that was has been around for three years on the top one half of one percent of the income distribution. Why are people just beginning to. To focus on this on this now but the other

problem it seems to me is there was a moment in the beginning of this administration when the government controlled basically the financial sector it essentially controlled the automobile industry. And when it was in a position to push back on on high paid executive compensation and the president failed to do so and in fact he frustrated efforts to do so in Congress. So in a sense this administration which is certainly the most was apparently when it came to office the most liberal administration that we've had in some time even this administration has has in a sense in actually encourage the Khans of trends that we now see in the statistics. GRAHAM Well Michael Reagan it's been really interesting points. I think a lot of things but it's new but the CBO report put

the sort of imprimatur on the figure of but not knowing about these trends of academic studies don't. And there is a terrific book by Paul peson and Jacob. Core when it's going to take over politics in a very readable book your listeners might be interested in. And it documents both these trends and the role of public policy in reinforcing these trends. So Michael is right we've known about this but having the CBO say it is I think somewhat different. I think the other thing that sort of intriguing to me is that in the aftermath of the global financial crisis it was so cute it but the impetus lay with with with the right wing politics things like the Tea Party the rage against the government. And it is only very recently with the Occupy Wall Street or Occupy Boston movement that we've seen what you might have expected from the beginning which is similar anger at the

behavior of the private sector and the trends that have gone on within it. Let me actually at this point play a clip for both of you and what we're going to hear from Herman Cain here recently talking to the Wall Street Journal and the question that's being posed to him is sort of what do you make of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Let's listen to it and then come back and talk about it. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that there are these protests going on down around Wall Street Occupy Wall Street. They spread to some other cities like the country what do you make of that. What do they make of it. What do they want well they say I don't know what they want but I think they think that the banks have given them away. Raw deal over the last few years I don't have facts to back this up. But I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration. Don't blame Wall Street don't blame the big banks. If

you don't have a job and you're not rich blame you also you don't. Michael PR a professor of political economy at MIT. What do you make of what Herman Cain has to say and you know in the light. In light of the fact that Herman Cain is doing tremendously well in the polls right now and for the Republican nomination. Well he's doing very well in an electorate that's already very conservative and that has moved to the right and supported the Tea Party the polls. And actually in today's times at the same edition that had these figures on the income distribution the Congressional Budget Office they have their own polling data which suggests that most Americans are very disturbed by the current trends in the income distribution and by the developments in the economy. I don't know I mean this. It's hard when you have not even a half percent unemployment. To think that beyond employment is the fault of the people who

who are unemployed and don't have don't have jobs and as the statistics suggest basically that not enough jobs for the people who want them. Let me just jump in on that because I think it can't be said too often but the way we collect unemployment statistics from the United States seriously underestimate the problem and it's quite reasonable to suggest using the figures as ways of calculating unemployment that would be more accepted internationally but the true unemployment rate is almost double that 9 percent figure. So I personally find it really hard to believe that all those unemployed people are just lacking in moral fiber. I think that it's also worth going back to the point about the administration and the approaches adopted to the financial sector. And I'd make two points possible or a lot of people in this administration who themselves have had time or there have been a lot

of people in this administration with ties to Wall Street. It's true Larry some of it was true from Emanuel. Bill Daley the White House chief of staff is somebody with strong links to the financial sector in the south and I think secondly you have what you might call the structural problem of structural power of the financial sector. The administration rightly terrified of things getting even worse was very loath to do anything that upsets the banks so the banks having caused the problem in many respects were then able to say if you don't treat us right things will get even worse and this would create something of a dilemma for the administration. Graeme Wilson chair of the political science department at Boston University. Let me come back to you on this. If you had then had the president's ear and you were trying to figure out some sort of a policy solution for this. Well what would it be. Well I think one of the questions that was never really pursued was but a focus for financial

institutions were too big to fail were they simply too big and should we have considered a more radical restructuring of the financial sector. I think the second thing is that with that with bailout money I think it would have been entirely the gist of it say OK we are rescuing you. Society is investing in your survival. And what specific commitments are you going to make back to society if you like in the sort of the social contract about what you will do feel locality feel safety for your region in terms of providing opportunity training etc. and I also think you know that the case for changing the tax system is very strong. Mike Michael purely so far are our discussion is sort of been premised on the idea that income inequality is bad. And you know Herman Cain certainly has rolled out this 999 plan which would cut taxes tremendously particularly for the wealthy. Tell me why. If if it is bad income inequality is bad or maybe it's

not something we should be worrying about. Well I think it has its effects. I mean one has to to kind of the facts one is that it's a question of values do you want to society in which you have this enormous inequality. But the second question is can the society really function either economically or politically when you have an equality of inequality of this magnitude and I think I mean if you look at it just. Decade of compensation in the major companies these figures are so striking that any time I use them I have to go back to the Internet to make sure that they have to act. But the compensation of CEOs rose from 27 times the average pay in 1973 to be hundred times the average pay in 2000 and and and

won and I mean the growth in top compensation just is really hard to understand in any given the fact that in a pure earlier post-war period when you had a much lower ratios the economy performed at least as well as its performed in the in the last 30 years. And so there's really no evidence that these with this radical redistribution of income essentially has affected the capacity of the economy to function and function well after jumping in on. Making a couple of points about the political climate. Of course Americans have never been a people who have insisted on equality. But I think there are two things that have changed I think in the minds of many people. The link between deserving to be rich and being rich has been broken. Yes there are people like Steve Jobs who have become

who became fabulously rich. But on the other hand people fall and so right they really accomplished something. But people constantly read and not just in the financial sector to fail and then walk away with the with what most people as the fortune the famous example of the CEO of Hewlett-Packard who lasted about 11 months seemed to perform very badly and walked away with 13 million dollars. Small potatoes on Wall Street. But to the average of about 13 million dollars is a fortune. And then the second reason why Americans tended to accept any unequal outcome was because they believe that was equality of opportunity and something we've not really talked about today so far is that there is strong evidence that equality of opportunity has climbed. But you know what that you'll face in life is much more closely linked in this country to what your parents income and education is than in the recent past. And so the link between being rich and if you like deserving to be rich has been broken in the sense that

anybody can make it in the United States is I think also being broke. Are countries like Sweden other countries in Scandinavia and in Western Europe where there is no less of an income gap. Are they places in your opinion where you know you can accomplish things no matter what station you're born into versus countries in Africa or in South America where that gap is much much wider. Well I think you have you can't really talk about just Europe as a whole I mean many of the trends that we've talked about in the United States would be true of Great Britain for example. Certainly the social mobility figures suggest. But you know I'm more likely to see social mobility in Denmark than you are in the United States. And so I think all the countries have experienced this trend of inequality that trend as opposed to public policy post-attack. The government benefits have less of an impact on the income distribution than

in the United States. It would be much more like the United States. Michael PR you know might you know go ahead go ahead. One thing that's been in play here in the last in the period. I mean this is a trend we've seen going on for 30 years. OK. And I think one of the things that has kind of alleviated social impact of the trend is that while the overall social mobility and the distribution of income by by income class has become increasingly unequal if you look at it by social groups if you look at the position of women relative to their mothers the position of the aged in American society relative to their grandparents the position of gays and lesbians the position of. Immigrants who compare themselves to the places they came came from the position I mean the handicapped the whole society has been be designed in in it to accommodate the physically

handicapped and all those dimensions there's been an enormous sense of progress in American society for those groups relative to the earlier or earlier periods. And so that's kind of mask to some extent the social impact of the changing income distribution but that kind of progress is just is just not possible to repeat again in the future. Women couldn't possibly make the same kind of gains that they made in the last 30 years in fact in the last 10 years the kind of gains have come. Have stabilized and if you look at each of these groups systematically they're not those kinds of redistribution of kind of social capital as well as income. They they just we just can't repeat them. So we're now facing the inequality of income on a kind of social class or

income class basis directly with none of these other kinds of indicators or sense factors that give a sense of progress and a sense of the realisation of the American dream. The kind of took. Pressure. Off the changes in time distribution in earlier and in earlier decades. Well I think I think. The trends that Michael's talked about are great and obviously to be welcomed but the fact that we have all African-American and hold prominent positions doesn't mean that the majority of African-Americans have necessarily seen the situation transformed. And of course you know that was what the big group that we've not mentioned. And that list of people who have seen progress is basically the if you like the white working class basically the white working class male and they have seen a set of catastrophic fall in their average

earnings. Graeme Wilson and Michael Pierre I want to ask you real quickly we don't have a lot of time. Where do you see this going forward now. These numbers stopped in 2007 so you know one question is is income inequality going to continue to grow what do you what do you see in terms of the trend lines here Graham Wilson let me throw it to you first. Hi. I don't have a strong sense of of the trend will continue. I think there may have been some interruption because some of the very top were linked to the apparent success of the financial sector. I think that in political terms everything is up for grabs. We've got rage against governments which are reflected in a poll in The New York Times today. We've got a growing discontent with the private sector and I think one of the interesting question will be which of those rages is going to have more impact on our politics and we certainly do have it on both ends. Michael PR where do you see this kind of income inequality going forward like I said these statistics stopped four years ago and these have been a crucial four years.

Where do you see this happening. Well I think we have to see the latest figures. I guess I I tend to think that concentration of gains at the very top has continued in a way that's kind of surprising given the overall trends in the in the economy. But if that if if the trends really do continue we'll be entering a period is that we've never experienced it with the income equality. Inequality is increasing even beyond that which we saw in the in the 20s or in the 18 1890s. So I think. I guess I think given historical experience it would be very surprising if the economy went on generating this as we continue to generate this kind of inequality without some kind of political reaction.

Michael thank you so much for joining us. Well thank you. Michael purees professor of political Khana me at MIT. And Graham Wilson thank you for joining us. It was my pleasure. Graham Wilson is the chair of the political science department at Boston University and author of the forthcoming book The consequences of the global financial crisis. We're going to take a short break and when we return. It's the great American art form read by millions every day. A new anthology celebrates the newspaper column and the masters of the craft. I'm Karen Miller and you're listening to the Emily Rooney show. Stay with us. This program is on WGBH thanks to you and Boston Private Bank and Trust Company committed to helping successful individuals and businesses accumulate preserve and grow their wealth. You can learn more at Boston

private bank dot com. And new Repertory Theatre presenting collected stories from Pulitzer Prize playwright Donald Margulies directed by Bridget Kathleen O'Leary featuring Liz Hayes and Bobby Steinbach through October 30th online at new rep dot org. And Herb Chambers BMW in Boston and Sudbury presenting the all new six series. You can learn more at Herb Chambers BMW dot com financing available through BMW financial services. Since 2006. Forty thousand people have been murdered in Mexico as drug cartels battle each other and the Mexican military on the next FRESH AIR we hear from journalist Ioan Grillo. He spent 10 years covering the conflict speaking with government officials American agents drug traffickers and victims of the violence. Joining us. This afternoon a two on eighty nine point seven The new TV age. This Saturday WGBH welcomes a truly unique ensemble of world renowned

artists to Boston Symphony Hall. It's the 13th Annual classical cartoon festival October 29 starting at 10:00 a.m.. You and your family will enjoy music from some of New England's best musicians and will have the chance to see some of the best Warner Brothers cartoons on the big screen. Tickets are available at the door or online of WGBH dot org slash cartoon fest insights ideas and opinions about issues rooted here in Boston. Our students rank first in the nation with student achievement. I think third in the world now in science and math. Local issues will talk. Boston Public Radio. Welcome back you're listening to the Emily Rooney show. I'm Karen Miller in for Emily Rooney America's story has always been told best by its newspapers from the local and mundane crime blotters and Sunday sermons to the Federalist Papers and Watergate. The press has played an outsized role in our

nation's culture and history and newspaper columns are definitely one of America's great art forms at a time of huge transition in the newspaper media. My next guest book celebrates the relevance of newspaper column writing through the simple power of excellent prose. Deadline Artists America's Greatest Newspaper Columns brings together columns from all over America throughout our nation's history. Contributors include and this is just a small sampling. Jimmy Breslin Ernie Pyle Peggy Noonan David Brooks Mitch Album Ernest Hemingway. And Franklin and Dave Barry if that's enough of a variety for you. John Avlon is a senior columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast as well as a CNN contributor and He co-edited the book with Jesse Angelo and Errol Louis. And he joins me now. Welcome John Avlon. It's good to be with you. So first tell me and I have to say I have a special affinity for Con writers because that's the first thing I did in the media. And I love doing it. So tell me how you got started thinking about

putting this book together. You know this book started from a simple proposition when Errol Louis and I were working at the New York Sun together as young journalists just kind of starting out. And it's the rule I generally believe should be apply whatever you're thinking about writing a book or editing an anthology. You should you should write the book you want to read. And Errol and I both wanted a book like this to exist and we were stunned to find out it didn't. We started talking to some of our more senior colleagues at the paper but a killer Jack Newfield who is a classic New York newspaper columnist who passed away a few years ago but we start peppering him with questions about you know what his favorite callers were who who he thought were the best masters of the craft and he ended up directing this to a column after a conversation with his friend Jimmy Breslin. Called the death of Frankie Jerome by Westbrook Pegler which they both remembered as being one of the best they'd ever read and it took us months to find it and it had been anthologized since 1924. When you read it you realize it's literary journalism. These are these are short stories these are

works of art and. And so we determined that the book like this really needed to exist. Yeah you know it is it's bringing something to life for an audience that might not otherwise see that sort of slice of reality maybe in a city they live in but in a part of that city they perhaps haven't ever been to. Exactly exactly and you realize that the great calmness of the past I mean there's so much to learn from them as craftsman but these folks are writing reported columns. You know they they didn't you know just simply type out opinions on a computer behind their desk they got out in their communities and if they were writing especially before television they they held a responsibility to to use vivid descriptive writing to make scenes come alive in the mind's eye. And they were great storytellers so they presented great characters and they used humor and it's just a it's a great American tradition. We want to keep alive. I'm interested in what you think the evolution of calmness has been. Certainly people talk about the the importance of people like HL Mencken and Walter Winchell and how they could

really change reality with their columns are certainly really get politicians to listen to them. Tell me a little bit about how you see that having changed or whether it's changed. Sure. I mean you know the American newspaper called didn't emerge fully formed as we understand it the day it evolved over time with the earliest column in our book is an excerpt from Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac where he established a character and put forward these sort of way to wealth aphorisms that really became the bedrock of American folk wisdom that we recognize today things like early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise. That began it and with Benjamin Franklin writing his poor Richard over time it evolved as well we have. Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce there was a fantastic figure named Fanny Fern who was one of the first regularly very well compensated for a time newspaper called us in the country in 1850s 60s and 70s writing for The New York Ledger. That was her pen name and she had to put on her gravestone when she

died and wrote There's an amazing column that she writes in a book a book called The history of our late war where she talks about the human dimensions the war not the history of the war because it is in the. Back to generals but that of soldiers who got used as cannon fodder too often. It's relevant today. And then by the late 19th century earlier in the early 20th century it starts to develop a form we recognize humor columns were very popular early forms of the newspaper columns they were almost ubiquitous you had people like Richard Harding Davis who really set an example that people like Mark Twain and every other Ernest Hemingway and others would later follow he was writing about in the book about the German invasion of Brussels. But he was this sort of heroic figure in his own right who became a real national hero. And then of course the great big city columnist you mention people like HL Mencken later Jimmy Breslin Murray Kempton figures like Ernie Pyle who redefined the role of the G.I. journalist and then in the column as we understand it really came into being.

What do you think of the role of op ed columnists now you know we're entering a time and we frankly been in it for a while where newspapers are laying people off they're cutting back their you know at least I mean there are some exceptions but most newspapers are considerably thinner than they were were before which means obviously fewer people contributing so what is the role of the columnist today. Well that's really one of the interesting challenges. I mean take a step back. We did this book at a time when I guess you know as you just said people are writing obituaries for newspapers every day and yet opinion writing is political online like never before. And I think that columnists still are what they have historically been which is they're the soul of the newspaper. They're what gives this paper a sense of character. Very often people will buy a paper because of the columnists inside each city has their version of the iconic columnist at different times roles that Mike Royko played Chicago Breslin in New York Mike Barnicle in Boston in the 80s and 90s in the globe and others. But so it begins it's an

important part of the civic conversation you get to know these people as vivid personalities and you trust them as truth tellers and you look forward to their take on things so they have the freedom not to simply type up their opinion but with a reported column to move the story forward to zig when others act sort of be the literary private eyes working for the public good. And people have a very close personal relationship with these columnists in their own lives over time and they help to define their city and their space. So I think that rules more important ever before the lesson that we can take as young journalists and my colleagues and I who wrote this book is that you know that tradition of the reported column it's not simply sufficient I think to simply sit behind your typewriter and type up opinion. I think it's important to tell a story to get out there and to interview people on the streets and not to simply follow the news cycle of the day but to try to bring a new dimension to the debate. That's that's a challenge but it becomes when you read these classic columnists and most of their work isn't available online you realize how high the bar

is. And in the way that you know young jazz musicians always listen to the greats you know young columnists and opinion writers should also be reading the greats It just hadn't been available until now most of these columns are not available online. And when you read them you realize just what an American art form this is and the potentials of literary journalism. Let me question you though on the idea of the reporting column. I mean I think that the people now who have become sort of columnists celebrities let's say like Tom Friedman or David Brooks people who are frequently on TV you know not just in newspapers but but are known to other audiences although they do sometimes go out and report their columns. I think that. They come at it with and you can tell me with maybe a different position than other than other commas before them where you know Tom Freeman is sort of just a well travelled person and very often right from that perspective from the from a sort of global perspective but he's not necessarily in any given week

traveling You mean you just writing about the Obama administration the decisions they're making or the Occupy Wall Street protests or whatever. Well Friedman actually does do a lot of traveling and that's rooted in his experience of being a foreign correspondent his first book From Beirut to Jerusalem to Dad he still is able to travel a lot. Nicholas Kristoff is a columnist who's able to travel a lot and does that at the point of pride really put himself on the front lines. David Brooks on the other hand like you described as someone who does do more sort of a fascinating nonobvious column writing on a wide variety of subjects but largely from Washington. There are different styles and people need to find their own rhythm that's part of the beauty of a column The only rule is be yourself. You read the great ones whose voices endure like Molly Ivens and her voice and doors because she's resolutely herself whether she's writing about Texas or otherwise. And you know you know I pulled two excerpts from the book which I can read one Molly Ivens writing about her Lubbock Texas and the other a great Boston called Peter Gammons writing about

the great called the disco run in 1975. Yeah. Let's let's start with the Molly Ivens column and this is from 1987 and she was I mean of course a great character for those who don't know her. I saw her up in Boston not long before she died. And this this column is called Lubbock. Her teeth are stained but her heart is pure. So take it away read a little bit of it for us. OK. In my semi official capacity as a person supposedly capable of explaining Texas to normal people this theater asked me to explain to Sam to San Franciscans why so many great musicians come from Lubbock Texas. Well how fortunate that I know because there is nothing else to do in Lubbock except for perhaps when they wanted a fellowship night. This is not a cheap shot of love but this is fact. Another reason there is so much music in Lubbock is because people there know what sin is. Lubbock is a godly place so it follows as night the day that there should be a lot of country music and down home rock with the consequent probably inevitable accompaniment of drinking and dancing and other enjoyable forms of sin.

The sheer beauty of having something as clear cut as Lubbock to rebel against is almost enough to make me move there. What is a teenager in San Francisco going to rebel against for peace pity sake. Their parents are so all busy trying to be non-judgmental. It's no wonder they take to dying their hair green. But Lubbock will by God let you know what sin is so you can go out and do it and enjoy it. Yeah classic great Molly Ivens piece great thing about Ivan's by the way is that arrange all the great ones had amazing range the other Ivan's approach and the columns of the book. One is where she's on the campaign trail with Bill Clinton it's a great sense of the enthusiasm American politics and the others a heartbreaking column called a short story about the Vietnam Memorial wall that reads like a Raymond Carver short story that will make you cry. And let me have you just read the first few sentences of that Peter Gammons piece and while you're turning to it. Set it up. It was in the Boston Globe in 1975. He's talking about the Red Sox as we as we always are.

And it's called Fisk's homerun in the 12th beats Reds. So if you want to read a little bit out for us and all of a sudden the ball was there like the Mystic River Bridge suspended out the black of morning when it finally crashed off the mesh attached to left field power foul pole one step after another. The reaction unfurled from Carlton Fisk's convulsive leap to John Kylie's booming of the hollow chorus to the wearing off of numbness to the outcry that echoed across the cold New England morning at 12:30 4:00 a.m. in the 12th inning Fisk's histrionic home run brought a 7 6 end to a game that will be the pride of historians in the year 2025. A game won and lost but seemed like a dozen times in a game that brings back summer time one more day for the seventh game of the World Series. John Avlon is there. Calmness that you would point to as your favorite. You know I think when you read Jimmy Breslin at his height in the 60s and 70s you realize that there's a guy who could hit any pitch. He wrote like Mike Royko in

Chicago he wrote for tabloids. But his range was unbelievable. After John F. Kennedy was assassinated other people were just covering the horror. Jimmy Breslin when interviewed JFK his grave digger at Arlington interviewed the attending room physician at the emergency room in Dallas. He zig when other people zag and his range is just extraordinary and he's still with us. So it's an example of that these greats are still alive now still some of them. And we should honor them and appreciate them for I believe what the artist they are. The book is Deadline Artists America's greatest newspaper columns and we've been talking to Editor John Avlon. John thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. And we're going to take a short break. When we continue the science and sound of sleep I'm Karen Miller. And you're listening to the Emily Rooney show. Stay with us. In the.

Raw this program is made possible thanks to you and UMass Memorial Medical Center and their Euro gynecology team specializing in surgical and nonsurgical solutions for urinary incontinence and other pelvic floor disorders. White papers online at UMass Memorial dot org slash for women. And celebrity series of Boston presenting superstar pianist long long in recital performing works of Bach Schubert and Chopin Sunday October 30th 3pm at Symphony Hall. For tickets you can visit Celebrity Series dot org. And know the famous mummified corpse pulled from an Alpine glacier holds many secrets a new autopsy reveals details about his life and death. Watch. Iceman murder mystery on Nova tonight at 9:00 on WGBH to. Kiss. Today on the world a reporter for PBS Frontline travels undercover through Syria along a network of safe houses and secret hospitals where dissidents recover from wounds and evade capture by government forces. The secret hospitals of Damascus are interview in partnership with PBS Frontline. Coming up on the world.

So scared of being raided by the US. Coming up at three o'clock here at eighty nine point seven WGBH right. I'm Brian O'Donovan inviting you to join the WGBH helped. Not only when we see discounts and invitations to concerts and events all over. Right now we say thanks with a pair of tickets to a Christmas Catholic social coming this December to a concert hall near you. Membership starts at a hundred fifty dollars a year visit WGBH dot org slash. Innovation. It has a huge impact on business and life here in the hub. I'm Carol Miller join me each week. For Innovation have. The big ideas happening in Boston. Saturday mornings at 7:00 and Sunday night at. 10:00 here on eighty nine point seven. Welcome back you're listening to the Emily Rooney show. I'm Karen Miller in

for Emily Rooney. Stop me if you've heard this one. A pulmonary specialist with some interesting ideas about brain waves walks into a symphony hall to enjoy an orchestra piece inspired by physics and cosmology. Actually this was the first in a series of events that led composer Michael Gandalf to create angels and neurons an orchestral work based largely on brain waves during the five stages of sleep. We were struck by this seemingly unusual concept for a piece of music and wanted to learn more about it. So with us here today to talk about the science and the sound of sleep ahead of this Saturday's Boston premiere presented by the New England Philharmonic are Michael Gandalf the composer at the New Inn conservatory of music department chair and composition faculty member at Tanglewood Music Center. Michael Duffy thanks for being here. It's my pleasure. Dr. Charles Seidler chief of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Brigham and Women's and director of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Thanks to you for being here. Thank you.

And Richard Pitman New England Philharmonic music director. Thanks for coming in. My pleasure Kyra. So Richard let me start with you and ask how did you think in the first place of bringing this innovative music piece to the New England Philharmonic. Well the New England fuller moniker has as its sort of subtitle innovation and tradition in concert and Michael Gandolfi is one of our former composer in residence and a composer with whom I've been associated primarily through my Boston has given other orchestras for a number of years. So he told me about this piece and we wanted to do it. And so. It was really the starting point for this particular program. So Michael again I'll feel let me go over to you and ask you how did this piece get started. And tell me about this connection with science that sort of came your way. Well as you mentioned in the introduction I was approached by Dr. Bert Les Nick in

Atlanta subsequent to a performance of mine of the piece called The Garden of cosmic speculation which deals with cosmology and physics and he has for years apparently had this notion that his data might be made useful and turned into a musical composition. So he wrote a gorgeous email to me actually just to his use of prose was it turns out he in addition to being a medical doctor he has a he writes on the side he's a novelist. And he has a quite a concert goer so he just thought there was some musical musicality in the data. And I asked him to send it. He did have to admit when I looked at it as I was saying earlier it looked like seismographic charts. I found it difficult to get started. I agreed to do it and the piece was commissioned by the University of North Carolina and in the premiere it was conducted by Toronto Columbus faculty there and he agreed to this concept as well when I presented it to him. I found it fascinating you know that I could make a piece based on this.

But a third component is a crucial one was Jalen Hobson retired Harvard Medical Doctor and research researcher who is a leader in the field. And he also was interested and serialism that a connect the connection between art and sleep and and so on so and he sent a few of his books to me and that's really what that was really the catalyst to getting the piece going was what manipulation if you will working with this notion of the dream state and surrealism which is always going to an interest of mine anyway and then combining it with these what I call them you know kind of like seismographic charts the brain wave pattern charts that do have rhythms and shapes and things that are that can suggest something musical. Dr. Charles Czeisler from Brigham and Women's. Let me ask you to bring us through the stages of sleep and maybe as you do it you can describe sort of stage one for us. And then if we can get Michael to say OK what did we what did he do

musically with that particular stage and I think we've actually got clips of all the different pieces of this of these stages of sleep. So tell us a little bit about the beginning of sleep. Well the beginning of sleep when we make the transition from wakefulness to sleep. Many people don't realize that it happens gradually so not all the brain falls asleep at once. And so that part of the brain that's right behind our forehead begins to fall asleep that's that's the area associated with judgment and we go into this transitional state between wakefulness and sleep this kind of netherworld as the sleep slowly washes over the brain. And during that transition we begin to have slow rolling eye movements where where people are sort of beginning to lose consciousness and their eyes begin to roll around in their sockets and then they slowly drift off into the first stages of

sleep. OK OK so let's let's hear a little bit of that first part and then Michael came down we can talk about. The book. Michael do you know if he will continue to listen to us but tell us what you did here with the stage one as you just heard there is this sense of slow rolling action which is going in this very slow bass activity there's an overall feeling of three which musically speaking has a sort of a circular quality now it just gets interrupted. We haven't talked about this yet. The doctor will do so in a moment that this this represents what are called sleep spindles these sudden interjections and maybe you could speak to that. Yes so then as we were as we were making this transition we begin to have these bursts of neuronal activity which are called sleep spindles and they last about a half a second or so. And it's 12 to 14 cycles per second of brain wave activity. And then so there are these sleep spindles

and then there are k complexes which are bursts of synchronous activity. Where where the neurons together are firing create so many of them fire at once that they create a measurable change in voltage at the scalp. And so that's that's one of the things that heralds the transition to stage two sleep which is now you're fully asleep and very likely to be very unlikely to be aware of your surroundings as you might be in stage one sleep. Tell us a little bit about that. Well you know it's actually this I've skipped state two I don't excerpt at from my past but if we can fast forward to stage three Yeah let's do it. So then then those then that synchronous activity becomes more and more deeper and deeper and you begin to have waves of activity that are three to four cycles per second that are continuing through through the brain wave recordings. And so now you have very very rhythmic sleep and deep stage three and

then deep slow wave sleep. OK. Let's listen to that. Good. I just want to remind our listeners that we're speaking with Michael Gandalf the composer of this music that you're hearing from the New England Conservatory of Music. Dr. Charles sizer chief of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Brigham and Women's and Richard Pittman New England Philharmonic music director and Michael Duffy tell us a little bit about this. Yes as the doctor explained and you're here now this is the string. Primarily the strings are being used and it's a very rich. It is rhythmic Oh but of a kind of a slower rhythmical pattern and it's was reminiscent of the charts I was looking at. I mean I was you know gleaning from the shapes in the charts that this is the kind of music that I felt was suitable for the representation of non-REM deep sleep stage three.

And Richard Pitman tell me a little bit about how the members of the orchestra respond when they are presented with this piece and they know obviously the meaning that it has what was their reaction. Great enthusiasm. Really. And they've we've done Michael's music before other pieces and they're particularly fond of this piece. So we're having a good time it's not always easy to play. So we're working hard on it but it doesn't maul them to sleep. It does love it. And we had too much to do. And and. My reaction to that is that by although I'm aware of from my own sleep experience there's an awful lot of activity going on when we're lying in bed or in the brain really really asleep is an active process in the brain as it's carrying out many different tasks including the consolidation of memory and repair and maintenance of the neurons in the brain. And really some associate

of thinking particularly during the next stage of sleep which is yet tell us about stay for a while as so deep a stage for sleep is when we tend to consolidate declarative memories. Dr. Stickgold has done beautiful experiments showing the importance of deep slow wave sleep and stage four sleep in the consolidation of these of these memories that the experiences that we've had during the daytime. There we go stage four high amplitude Delta activity. The. So there's a real range as the as the Philharmonic plays that show between the sore parts and the more intense part there isn't what I would draw the listener's attention to us. We're going to hear it. Well. This is a fugal passage that's going on now. We're going to hear a clip following this. Which has a big. Old tune. Which will get transformed as the piece

progresses and we'll hear a little bit of that transformation. In fact we should go to a clip for 4B now and. This is the climax of the piece which is. Still in stage four. High amplitude Delta activity this is. As the doctor suggested is a lot of. Action going on. Is it an accumulation of a lot of ideas in the piece that are now coming to fruition. That maybe this big brass tune that you just heard. Is an important one and as we move to stage 5 REM sleep this will come back to that theme. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about Stage Five and what we'll do is since you are a little short on time we will go out on on stage 5 that will be our sort of ending theme here so Charles isor tell us a little bit about Stage Five. Well Stage Five a rapid eye movement sleep is a completely dramatically different stage of sleep in which the brain waves look like you're awake but the body is paralyzed and you're vividly dreaming.

So Richard Pitman tell us a little bit about the Philharmonic's debut of this piece when it's going to be. It's this Saturday evening at 8:00 p.m. at that star performance of a Boston University on Commonwealth Avenue. And in addition to Michael Gandolfi he's First Boston performance of angels the neurons were doing a call for scores winner young composer. The light bringer. Michael Thomas from about Lucifer. And Lucifer's fall from heaven. So on the next did it's OK back to bed and then to mid. Twentieth century classic bar talks Third Symphony and free movement composer Michael Gandalf Dr. Charles Seidler and New England Philharmonic music director Richard Pittman thanks to all of you so much for joining us. Thanks for having us. And you can hear the New England Philharmonic Boston from your of of angels and neurons which you are hearing right now this Saturday night at Boston University you can get more information on the concert

on our website WGBH dot org slash Emily Rooney. That's going to do it for us this afternoon. We will be back tomorrow at noon. Stay with us now for the Kelly Crossley Show coming up next the Emily Rooney show is a production of WGBH radio on the web at WGBH dot org. Boston Public Radio I'm Karen Miller. Have a great afternoon. This program is on WGBH thanks to you. And New England Toyota celebrating Toyota's new family of technologically advanced nature inspired Prius models. You can learn more about the Prius hybrid family at their official Web site by a Toyota dot com. And the Museum of Science where you can experience the new exhibit a day in Pompei open now the Museum of Science is proud to support the Nova

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