WGBH Radio; The Emily Rooney Show

From WGBH in Boston this is the Emily Rooney show. It's Wednesday July 20th 2011. And Emily Rooney. On today's show. Myra Kraft the wife of Patriots owner Bob Kraft died this morning after a long battle with cancer. We look at her legacy a plan for peace and her influence on the most successful sports franchise in the country. Pablo Bell joins us. We also talk with former gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker about the dark side of politics and the Democrats chances for unseating. Scott Brown. And have you ever wanted to spend a year just reading great books. Eunice did and wrote her own book about the experience Nina joins us with a close story in the purple share my Year of Magical reading. We will have all of that and more today on the Emily Rooney show. But first. The news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh. Time to start

talking turkey. That from President Obama as he and top congressional leaders try to forge a deficit reducing deal. The White House remains optimistic about a plan from the so-called bipartisan Gang of Six because it calls for both spending cuts and increased tax revenue. The Minnesota government is coming out of its three week slumber after Democratic Governor Mark Dayton signed a two year budget compromise with Republican legislative leaders. This ends the nation's longest State government shutdown in nearly 10 years. Both sides agree to close a 5 billion dollar budget deficit with spending cuts and money tied to future payments on a legal settlement with tobacco companies. An end to the shutdown means more than 20000 state employees will head back to work road projects will restart and licenses will be processed again though the backlog could take weeks to clear. The National Association of Realtors says sales of existing homes in the U.S. dropped last month they were off nearly one percent. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports much of the decline is being attributed to a higher

number of sales being called off. The Realtors Association says 16 percent of its members had a contract fall through last month from only 4 percent in May. Although the reasons for the spike aren't clear it could be because of tight credit and appraisals that came in too low for financing approval. Existing home sales are down nearly 9 percent compared to the same time last year when home buyers were trying to take advantage of an expiring tax credit. The median price for sold homes is up slightly from last year. About a third of the homes sold are foreclosures or short sales. Yuki Noguchi NPR News Washington. American Airlines is ordering hundreds of new planes to replace aging aircraft in its fleet. As NPR's David Schaper tells us the airline is splitting the order between rival aerospace companies Boeing and Airbus. American is buying four hundred sixty new narrow body planes and what the airline says is the largest single order of new planes in aviation history. Two hundred sixty of the new planes will be

Airbus A-320 is a huge order from a U.S. airline for the European company allowing air bus to gain a stronger foothold in the U.S. market. The other 200 planes will come from Boeing but the order requires the Chicago based aerospace giant to equip its bestselling 737 with new engines. American Airlines pitted the two rival airplane makers against one another in what is described as tense haggling. American Airlines President Tom Horton says the deals are extraordinary in terms of pricing and financing. David Schaper NPR News Chicago. Plans are in the works to make the regional carrier American Eagle an independent company. AM Are the parent company of American Airlines didn't say when it expected the change to take effect it also has not ruled out the possibility of a sale. At last check on Wall Street the Dow is down 18 points to twelve thousand five sixty nine. This is NPR. Facing a national banking corruption scandal Afghan President Hamid Karzai reportedly has banned U.S. Treasury officials from his country's central bank according to a report released

today Karzai's decision is cited as one of a number of ways in which his government has not cooperated with global measures to improve Afghanistan's financial sector. This is more bloodshed as reported out of Afghanistan insurgents have killed three policemen and four civilians. And as NPR's Quil Lawrence reports the Taliban claimed their cell phones were hacked in order to send out a false message that their leader Mullah Omar was dead. A text message arrived to various Kabul media outlets this morning announcing the death of the reclusive one eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar who is believed to be hiding in Pakistan. The message came from a cell phone number that has been used by the Taliban's public relations office. A Taliban spokesman told NPR their phones and Web site had been hacked and accused western forces of psychological warfare. Meanwhile a gun battle in the southern city of Kandahar left police and several insurgents dead in the northern province of both. A suicide bomber on a bicycle blew up near a minivan killing and wounding men women and children. Quil Lawrence NPR News Kabul.

The Syrian government is threatening to ban diplomats from leaving Damascus today. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem warned the U.S. and French ambassadors not to travel outside the capital without Syria's permission. The government is angry about the diplomats a recent visit to Hama at a stronghold of anti-government activists and side of some of the bloodiest clashes. President Bashar Assad is still struggling to end an uprising that began four months ago against his government. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from MetLife Foundation committed to promoting healthy families and good nutrition on the web at MetLife dot org. Good afternoon listening to the Emily Rooney show sad news this morning as we learned of the passing of Myra Kraft wife of Patriots owner Bob Kraft in force in his community in her own right. My own craft had been battling cancer for several years and was

making fewer and fewer public appearances while her husband has been a visible part of the NFL lockout negotiations. Myra was once listed as one of the 20 most powerful women in Boston as president of the New England Patriots chartable foundation. She also served on the boards of the American Repertory Theatre the United Way the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston Brandeis University and many other boards. She was sixty eight. I'm joined here in the studio by Bob Kraft and by Charlie Baker who is here to talk about Bob LaBelle sorry excuse me. I wish I was up for our course then I would go time Brady and all that stuff. I'm also joined here by Charlie Baker who is here to talk politics later but it turns out he's also a good friend of one of the Kraft sons Jonathan Kraft and also joining us on the phone is Howard Jacobson who is a WGBH trustee emeritus and Myra crafts CA's and welcome to all of you. Howard starting with you. We all knew Myra was ill but I didn't realize it was it was this serious at

this that it was that close. Were you aware of that. There HOWARD The key is can you hear me. Yes go ahead. You know he's her big name is high it comes from with her. Grew up in with her and we are first cousins parents cousins of the private people I know that type of. Yeah. Think of when when the craft so high profile but Myra comes from that kind of a tradition. Her parents were one of probably one of the greatest of the tropics families in this part of the world a very few would take still are in couple of days is that her family did not support. Certainly here and with her in Boston in an interview. The most important color you like very special tradition and then acquitted

very well. Yeah it is banned but it is in the way that we have. Apparently they have given away as much as 100 million dollars just in recent years and Myra had once said to Bob Kraft when he was thinking about buying the Patriots in 1904 she was afraid they were going to able to give away money if he was thinking it all into the New England Patriots but he assured her that that was not going to be a problem. And obviously it was not. But you of course have known the craft for years and have had many interactions with my room over the years. I interviewed her right after they bought the stadium and it was I think a hard thing for her to do to be interviewed because Howard said she was very private but once we sat down and started talking about how little she knew about football and how much she knew her husband's passion for this as well this of course she was surrounded by boys. So it was yeah that was their

family. And yeah for I think for a boy and you know it was. I said What do you think about the stick by your husband by the stadium she said. I think it's remarkable because I can do all kinds of things in terms of concerts and using the space for cultural activities so she went down and actually another path and that's who she was and then of course she became the matriarch. Not in a bully sense but in a giving sense of how the roster was going to be completed because there were going to be no prison prospects playing for the quality team that she saw a course. Eventually she gave in to that because you can't play in a National Football League with how to out having a few you know somebody without a thresher double question a boy. But she and I know over the years she became of a real fan an afficionado league. But she she dove into everything that she was

involved with. I really loved her and and she she meant a lot to me. And Charlie you know Jonathan well so yeah I think you've been communicating him with him regularly. Well I know the I know two of the boys Jonathan and Josh Josh actually who's the head of the Boys and Girls Club of Boston is on the Harvard program foundation board. I used to be the CEO at Harvard program and Harvard Pilgrim had a marketing relationship with the Patriots which is how I got to know Jonathan and the simplest thing I can say is for everyone in that family family comes first. I mean it's a very it's a everybody thinks of the Kraft corporation is this big enterprise that's the football team in the stadium and the soccer team and and kraft paper and it is it's a ton of agglomeration big agglomeration of companies in it that these but fundamentally they are totally family and community focused group to begin with. And that shows and you pointed out Emily they've given away over 100 million dollars that is nothing to

say of how much they've actually raised by investing their time their talent their contacts and their relationships into raising money for other organizations as well. Whatever whatever philanthropy the rose foundation for battered women. She was very involved with that. I had the good fortune of seeing a couple of those annual events and those were tough events to do and I was with all the stories that were so stories and I went I think I know why I said I went after one story and told the organizer please lose my number and text year because I can't take it anymore. So it was so sad but there was an interesting story because during the 1996 NFL draft there was a guy named Christian Peter is right there right and you know and she said Wait a second he's got a track record with you know beating up women or is why I'm whatever. And actually I think I think she's she's got all that deal and I right I think she had a big part in his future here. It's not it's

not a future here. But I mean she she she there was a couple other guys can't think of the names who's who had problems with in fact I mean I don't want to name because I'll get it wrong but I mean she had it she sort of had to put that aside at one point because a lot of NFL players have bet track works that way. That's true and it was always it always still resonates that if they hire you know a guy that is shady let's say or has had a record or Randy Moss is the name I was thinking of. Yeah you know you know I think she's kind of. You know acquiesced more to you know the game and what it's all about but you always ask yourself when these guys would come along and they'd sign him well what would you think Meyer would say. That's exactly the standard I do think they also had a locker room where it was pretty hard to continue to be a recalcitrant I mean think about a guy like Corey Dillon everybody said that he would be huge trouble when he showed up in Boston and he was a pretty model citizen most people would say that. Randy Moss by Randy Moss standards was a pretty

model citizen when he was here and the Patriots I mean they've always I'm pretty sure that if you're a member of the New England Patriots you're required to spend a certain amount of your time doing community service participating in events going to charitable events working with kids I mean they take that stuff very seriously. BALLAnd Charlie Baker about the passing this morning of the New England Patriots wife Myra wife of Bob Kraft Myra Kraft at the age of 68 and also joined on the phone by a cousin Howard Jacobson who's also a WGBH trustee emeritus while the service is going to be Friday at 10:00. Howard I can only imagine the who's going to be showing up at that it's going to be quite an event you know anything any of the details of it. No I did not like that waiting. Yeah I don't know too much and. And but you're right I don't know how many we're going to get here. You know I think. I said to Senegal here I thought that if the holder of Fenway Park.

Well you know what. Or just let the Will McDonough of the ball when he passed away because he had so many friends and contacts. His funeral was a wake rather was at the Boston Garden. The only one and they you know yes it's true so now maybe they'll have another service then that's a possibility do you think Howard if they do something at the temple on Friday they might have something more than that. They may but I do know they don't want to have it. There were so many personal and private relationship I think it's going to be the logistics are going to be a very difficult thing. But I felt like you know that people are not doing it in the form they doing it because he's touched so many people. With her giving her her quiet giving and it's very special I would tell you that she has I mentioned she grew up in this tradition with a very generous and philanthropic father and mother.

And of course what Bobby discovered accidentally but there is that. If they can prove biblical tradition a cult he could know love which I would. But will it be a book commandment about responsibility to help cure the world and that be that the way she lived. She lived her whole life the kind of love that it is. It's remarkable just remarkable what you know how are we as viewers have this vision of a craft in the owner's box every Sunday and he's got his arm around her they're holding hands. I've been to probably two dozen charitable events when the two of them come in again always holding hands always side by side then they're never separated I mean this is a this is a very sweet and long love story. Now that may be but what the first thing Bob's going to say publicly is that I lost my soul mate and you know it and he did it kind of seems and that was a very deep part of their relationship.

I mean he's young she's she was young so then he's got a you know a long life ahead of him it's incredibly sad. And it's not going to be easy for him. All right Howard thank you so much for joining us appreciate it welcome and thank you for a wrap. God thank you about that stuff. It's going to be tough for all the family. I mean life very well live. I mean one of the things you always hope in situations like that people really took advantage of every day and I don't think anybody would dispute the fact that she did that it's a great point surely Absolutely. I mean that's the gold has this sweet little anecdote. When they were interviewing her years ago about how Bob was coming from a Columbia Harvard football game and was in a downtown deli Ken's deli in Copley Square and he was sitting there he walked in he winked at her he claims she winked back and that he asked some friends to track her down at Brandeis he goes over there and he claims. Bob says

that the first state she proposed to him. I don't know if that's true or not but they've been together ever since. It's you know he played football for Columbia. I don't doubt that he looked like a football player. Yeah he does doesn't it. It does. Yeah he acts like a puppet. I think this guy was owning a team and first of all if you're going to own a team the National Football League is the place to own a team. It's got every advantage for the owners. And he knew that if he was going to own a team anywhere he started they brought the brought Boston lobsters here you know it's a revolution through the revolution he said on Channel 7 right. Forgotten. Yeah but the David and Mubarak. So he he was always looking for some some great investment and if you can combine it in a sporting area as he did with the lobster something the Patriots were the perfect things but he had to get the stadium first before he get the new out to do it he had he had a strategy and he had a lot of suitors to fight off because there are a lot of people

were lining up to try to buy the Patriots but he knew what the what does the New England Patriots Foundation do. Does either of you know the charitable foundation. I know they I know they have a series of events to raise money which every year they that's part of the hitting up everybody you've got relationships with stuff. And and they and they give away a lot of money I know a lot of it goes to youth sports and youth programming I don't know. I don't know what other categories they spend money on but I'm quite sure there are boys and girls clubs and Pop Warner teams and little league baseball programs and dance programs and stuff like that that serve kids all over the place that have benefited from what the foundation's been up to now you've been close with Jonathan and one of the other sons that Danny Kraft I think Danny's in charge of that foundation I think that's exactly right. Yeah Danny's a great kid really great kid and of course Jonathan's going to die when it's all we know that's not actually to the point where we can call people in their 40s kids that

truly you know but Jonathan's going to run the team someday it's going to be his team I think that's fairly obvious. He has so much fun to talk to about football because it's so clear he thinks about it all the time. And. And it's always interesting to talk to somebody about anything who's truly passionate and knowledgeable about it and experience and I wonder in her kind of way if her passing isn't going to jumpstart these talks in a way it just sort of isn't compassionate level I think the. Could you talk about the lockout. Yeah I think it's already been decided and I think maybe if there's any thing that needs to be pushed a little bit this might do it but I think yeah I think it Bob Kraft walked into the room and said this is we get to do this. You know as I have a funeral or go to Friday then that'll that'll get it done if that's where the problem is. My enduring video in my head was after the Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl the Super

Bowl and it was just a glimpse of Jonathan and his father kind of walking arm in arm out of the stadium in kind of misery loves company and Father Son. It was a very touching scene wasn't on video it was one of those things that you see and you just don't forget that was the year that we had won 89 games I mean really it was the way I want to go one game from immortality. You know what I was I was actually at that game and. Walk all the way back to my car which is parked like a hundred miles away from the stadium and realize that I didn't know my kids so I had to turn around and walk back through the Giants fans as they were coming out dressed in my Patriots regalia. It's a miracle I didn't get into a brawl. Bell thanks so much for joining us here. It was going to stick. It's a pleasure to command sorry you had to have it on this occasion but it's great to see both of you. You too Bob.

Talk about the passing this morning of Myra Kraft age 68 the wife of Patriots owner Bob Kraft. Going to take a short break to listen to the Emily Rooney show. Stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you and from the Newport yachting center presenting the Robert Cray band with special guest Shemekia Copeland on Friday July 22nd as part of the Sunset Music Series all summer long. Info at Newport waterfront events dot com and from Orchard cove the independent senior community in Canton 12 miles from Boston is making exciting changes that will inspire residents to engage explore and live a healthier life. Special savings for new depositors at Orchard golf live dot org. The new documentary Project Nim is about the controversial experiment to raise a baby chimp named him as a human baby and teach it sign language on the next FRESH

AIR. We'll hear from James Marsh the film's director Jenny Lee who was 13 when her mother became Nim's surrogate mother. And Bill Ingersoll who befriended Nim when Nim was sent to a primate facility. Joining us this afternoon at two on eighty nine point seven WGBH. Can you put a value on public broadcasting activist Kim Carlson canned I was cited until I was age 11 when I was diagnosed with juvenile glaucoma when I moved to Massachusetts in 1985. I became connected with WGBH who would have thought that making television accessible for people who are blind or visually impaired was something that a major television station would even be interested in doing. See more when you download the free WGBH i-Pad app on iTunes. I'm Kelly Crossley next on the callee Crossley Show. Rhode Island is the latest state to pass voter ID legislation. Will this Rock the Vote or block it. That's today and one on.

Welcome back you're listening to the Emily Rooney show a year ago we were in the thick of one of the most hotly contested gubernatorial races in recent Massachusetts history. But that is history now. Charlie Baker has moved on he's still got a few pointers for anyone considering a run for office. You might want to hear we'll get to that in a minute Charlie Baker still here were just talking about the passing of Myra Kraft wife of Bob Kraft owner of the New England Patriots. You know we were talking right before we started the show today about cancer and of course you've been in the health care field for many many years before you took a run at a gubernatorial written for governor. It's still such an insidious disease. I mean it strikes terror in all of us and I'm not sure what kind of cancer might have had it doesn't really matter that the protocol is the same a lot of it is very Byzantine. Various chemotherapies are often make you sicker than the hard part about your

Secor and yeah the hard part about treating cancer is for the most part it's meant to be really been accurate about it. The treatments for the most part are about poisoning the body and therefore poisoning the cancer. And that's the way that's really the only way we know to kill it or contain it and in most cases and or to remove it literally with surgery and that sort of thing. It's a brutal brutal decades of research and money from foundations and we still can't we can't but we have made progress on a number of areas in the childhood cancer we've made a lot of progress and something to organise Markheim for since we've made progress breast cancer we've made progress but the short answer on this one is early detection is much better than it used to be but the short answer is I mean having listened to a lot of clinicians over the years talk about the mutation of cancer and and the way it develops and it is a it's a very fast moving constantly changing and morphing. The

fact for lack of a better word and and as a result it's really hard to figure out a standard way of thinking about it. You think that all of what we have been able to accomplish like the human genome project you know DNA mapping. If you've got all that. But then also when something comes along like pancreatic cancer or something that is just literally untreatable you want to well if you've got that the smarts to figure out you know a DNA map for our entire being presumably the one who's got that kind of a disorder they can figure out a way. Yeah and I think I guess what I would say Emily is we've made some progress we have a long way to go but. But you think about cancer. I was just talking to some of the folks at the health fair about Alzheimer's disease which is another one that is is just brutal. The person who suffers from it in the families that are involved. And we've made a teeny bit of progress with regard to that one and have miles to go there too. I I think the

big challenge we face is the is the. There are a number of illnesses out there that we really haven't cracked the code on yet and part of the reason we haven't cracked the code is because they were the toughest ones of all the crack and that's going to be I think the main focus of the next 10 years of medical research. But cancer is an insidious illness you used the word earlier and that's exactly right. I mean it's so much more prevalent in some of them awful other horrible diseases like Alice and that kind of thing. Your odds are much better the older you get of getting some form of cancer and of course as you point out all summers as more and more people are living to be older and older almost every scene in the seems to end up with that you know and this is I think good news bad news story. Yeah yeah I mean that that's true. Well anyway so we always love having you on. I was just told you before we started talking today on the radio that the last time you were in Greater Boston just a couple weeks ago I had my highest rating that I had and years it was like Charlie Baker was on people were hanging on your every word.

How do you feel about that. Speechless let's put it that way. I mean you know what to make of that must have been a very slow night on TV. I don't know and I'm sure we're up against the Red Sox. I think you are very reflective you're talking about some of the things you learned on the campaign trail some of the things that you liked about the Cantor campaign trail some of the things you didn't so the dark sides of it. You know you you mentioned that your wife Lauren found some of the dark side of that politics kind of funny. How she's she's got a she's got a good sense of humor for this stuff but if you if you run for statewide office or or some other race that's going to involve a lot of TV advertising you will see a lot of portrayals of your your spouse or your kids and your friends will see a lot of portrayals of you on TV that will leave you shaking your heads and you and I talked about the fact that that all becomes a blur at some point maybe for a lot of the voters but if you're the if you're the one on the receiving end it it's hard not to know I can imagine my wife would watch this stuff and just laugh.

I'm sure I don't know Larry. I was laughing with her a lot of it is so don't be it's so corny and so exaggerated on both sides you know up front. Only going to be in all those Republican Governors Association and all that stuff it's about a blur I couldn't remember what they were but they were stupid. And I do but I but I. The big point of the story and really the most important point I was trying to make is is there are hugely positive opportunities associated with running. I mean you get a slice of life and a look at your state your district your city your town whatever it is you're running for. You would rarely have a glimpse of otherwise because you really do get completely outside your traditional circle of family and friends and colleagues at work and all the rest. You have this little card that says I'm running for office you can talk to anybody about anything and you and if you make the time in the investment you'll get in front of all kinds of people and have a chance to exchange ideas and thoughts with them in the normal course of your everyday life you simply wouldn't have that opportunity to interact with and I love that part I thought it

was great for other people and ideas and stories that kind of stuck with you that you just can shake it out of your head at the end of the day. Well the two I've talked about most I think were the kids in the faculty and the administrators at Brockton High School Brockton the Brockton school system in Brockton High School in particular have done extremely well. And I am Cason academically for the better part of the past five or six years. Wildly outperforming virtually all other urban districts. And I had a chance to talk to a lot of the kids at the end of my tour there and one in particular just said the one thing you should know about this place is it's filled with champions and you read all kinds of bad things in the paper about Brock I mean you see all kinds of bad things on the news but fundamentally Brockton Brockton High School are champions and she said it in a way you know is a little bit of an edge to it and and it was obvious to me that she I'm sure like a lot of kids in Brockton sort of feel like they're on the receiving end of a lot of bad news a lot of the time and here they are

doing great things there and she really wanted me to walk away knowing that they've been successful. And I walked out of that and I turned to Richard to say my running mate was with me that day and I said this is this is why we're doing this. It's stuff it's moments like this that this is all about. And the other one that really just tore at me. I'll never forget it was talking to a fisherman down in New Bedford which is really struggling under what I consider to be some ill advised federal regulations around fishing at this point who you know is a big Redi burly guy's guy who's got very teary eyed when he talked about the fact that he brought his two sons into the business and he wasn't sure they were ever going to be able to make a living or pay their bills. And. And if you pay any attention at all when you're out there campaigning you realize just how how many different ways people make a life and

and some of them are a really tough climb. And we shouldn't forget that. Yeah I was going to say were themes. I mean everybody of course was concerned it still is like that to me everywhere. But yeah I mean and everybody is sort of harping on the jobs jobs jobs thing. But it was something beyond that I mean unemployed people of course are concerned about. Well everybody's concerned about people who don't have jobs but was there something about the economy in particular that struck fear in people. I think. I think the three three big things one would be a lot of the folks I ran into who are out of work. I had been out of work for a while and were working in industries where you could make the argument you know academically that there's just a structural problem. I mean those jobs. It's one thing about working and it is one thing about being a tech professional and losing a job in one company and being able to then convert those skills to a job in another company. There are a lot of people I met who were simply going to have trouble

finding work period because they were in a field or doing something for a living. Just there isn't that much of it left and a lot of those folks went out of their 20s and 30s they were in their 40s and 50s and they've been doing this the fishing people they've been doing it for a long time. And those are incredibly. Painful stories to hear the second thing was how many people I ran into in the construction business who simply hadn't worked in their chosen profession for over a year and were just drive and you know take any job they could find anywhere they could go just to pay the bills and pay the mortgage and keep food on their table. And I think the third one was the the sense of sort of fear that a lot of people had that what they grow up to grow grew up doing believing and knowing was just simply going away. And how are they going to be able to provide I will say

this The other thing that came up pretty clearly was having two people working in a family. I mean we talk a lot about what that means and how it plays out all the rest in a lot of different ways but it was very clear to me that two people work and it was a very important shock absorber for a lot of households that you know if dad wasn't working while Mom was thank God and if and if Mom wasn't working well Dad wasn't thank god and they didn't necessarily work in the same places and spaces and. And that really was part of what was holding it all together for him which is not something I thought about before I started to see it. So I had a one time going to trial candidate Charlie Baker a little bit expectations you were a high profile guy CEO of Harvard Pilgrim. Name recognition well but in every big party people certainly know where your name had been bandied about for years as somebody who would run for governor or something else. They've been hit by hate or something. We see this going on right now with Elizabeth Warren on the Democrats. Sure

she's another one that nobody knows except insiders but you know it's a name that you know there's great expectations is mine absolutely. What was that like. You know having great expectation I remember hearing on Mike Barnicle commentary and Kay Kay saying there was no way you could lose this race. I mean great. Thanks Mike. Proved him wrong on that one I think. Running succeeding in a management role which is sort of what I've done for most of my life professionally anyway and succeeding in a political role is not the same. They're really different and unlike anything Emily you get better at it the longer you do it. And and I think some people take to it naturally. But I think for most people it's a learning experience and was certainly a learning experience for me. I mean my wife and I talk all the time I talk all the time about the fact that if we knew when we got started what we know now. It would be very different and I think the big problem with the really high

expectations if you've never actually been in this soup before is people will feel the people in the know will sort of feel let down. If you don't live up to those and it's always better to be under promising and over delivering than over promising and under live under delivering. And I think the big challenge for anybody who's never done it before is you've got to figure out how to come out of the gate in a way that works for you given your level of experience and for somebody like Elizabeth Warren that's a really high profile race probably one of the most high profile in the country if she were to choose to get into it. And everybody says she's just smart as a weapon I'm sure she'll figure it out but it will be different than anything she's done before. At some point along in the campaign about that now last year things happened so quickly in the course of a day you know the story line can take 20 years I really hope the new news cycle is just you know whatever is big at 7:30 in the morning

is ancient history by 7:30 at night. Right. Touch a little bit about the role of handlers and I've said this to you before I said and Greater Boston a few weeks ago a lot of people after somebody loses a campaign they say ah well they ran a terrible race. They didn't say that about you. They didn't say that about your staff. But what about the role of handlers and and advisers and now you need to do this and you know you should have done that. I mean no it's not I mean I never said that. Oh yeah. But I saved all those e-mails. I think the I guess it's a couple things One is that there are a couple of rules here that people said to me they said don't run your campaign. Right they said be the candidate. You know people who try to run the campaign and be the candidate in the end you can't do both. So you really need to just be the candidate. So I worked very hard to sort of put my management his things and to just try to be the candidate and. And in that environment you therefore need to rely on your handlers to help you frame what you're going to do and

what you're going to say and where you're going to be and all the rest and I think the big thing that I took away from it that was odd was how important it is that you say the same thing the same way about the same issues going again because you know when you talk to 10 or 12 different people if you say it 10 or 12 different ways it comes across 10 or 12 different ways and you could literally be and I saw this play out a couple times when I'd watch the news at night and I'd see the news at 6:00 in the news at 11 or 10. And in the same press conference I would have talked about a particular issue five or six different ways. And because I talked about a five or six different ways it showed up in five or six different ways with five or six different angles and five six different perspectives that night on the news and that meant that the message whatever it was got completely lost. It's interesting because for people who follow very closely like many others it becomes you feel like you're part of it is this into an automaton.

All over and over and I want to you know it's one yourself but a part of that is the more material you put out there the more different directions that story can go in. And so yeah people do end up sounding kind of programmed. But I think part of that is just because over use a phrase that I used a lot at the end of the day you want to have show up on the news on each channel and in the newspaper the following morning and on the blogs and whatever else needs to be kind of the same. What about the media. Well I'm not a I'm not a whiner. I think I do think that one of the things that happens if you're a first time candidate and people have high expectations for you is you're going to get poked. And that's fine. I mean people should get poked. If you're running for public office a big one you should expect the media is going to going to project a bit and try and figure out what makes you tick and what gets your goat. And that's just part of the game and I don't see that as

I see it as a challenge for a first time candidate. But I don't see it as something other than what you should expect. You're you're engaged in a public campaign you're engaged in a public debate you should expect that you're going to get worked over a little bit. So I loved one of your pieces of advice is common with magazine thanking donuts. I love Dunkin Donuts. Probably went to 300 during the campaign. Not Starbucks Dunkin Donuts. Yeah the real people got it one can do us no I think it's more the. Well I'd say a couple things One is I think there are more Dunkin Donuts I'm not sure about that I think there are more. The second is just a ton of traffic through there. I mean people come in they buy them out of me and they go. And so you can if they want to have a conversation with you they can if they have some issue they want to talk to you about or they can simply shake your hand say hello and move on. They get to self-select with regard to how much impact they really want to have

there. And and and I like Dunkin Donuts coffee better than Starbucks My wife likes Starbucks. The weekends are always interesting around our house but. But I think coffee shops diners places like that where people can either choose to talk to you or not. In a very informal setting it's just a great way to get a chance to hear what's going on out there. What are you doing now and any chance you will run again for some. I'm working for General Catalyst which is 10 minutes away from here in Cambridge it's a venture capital firm I'm helping them expand their practice in healthcare services. There's a lot of really interesting small companies out there doing all kinds of interesting things and I love that about the campaign and getting to meet all these people who ran all these little businesses. I did talk to them about what their plans and aspirations were. And in that respect I I really liked that part. And I'm looking forward to being able to help some of these companies grow and expand and create jobs and succeed. And I I'm not a plotter and a planner so my future will end

up being whatever it ends up being but I'm not one of these people who says you know in five years I want to be here or there or whatever you know which has been pretty obvious based on the way I ran. I'll take that as you're not ruling anything out. I really thought it was Charlie Baker pleasure to see you. All right if you joined us late I want to hear what you missed today or you want to be sure to catch every episode of the I'm going to show you can subscribe to our daily podcast it's available for free on the iTunes store or on line WGBH dot org slash. Emily Rooney we're going to take a short break when we continue here of magical reading. Mina thank you bitch. Read a book a day for one full year. She joins us to listen to the Emily Rooney show. Stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you. And from Elsa Dorfman. Cambridge portrait photographer. Still clicking with the jumble format Polaroid 20 by 24 analog camera and original Polaroid film online and also Dorfman dot com

and from circus Marcus the youth circus coming to Waltham July 28 through 30 first end of Sandwich August 1st through 3rd teen star on high wire trap peas and more information at 877 smirk ascends Marcus dot org. Green activists campaign for decades to shut down Germany's nuclear power plants after the Fukushima reactor tragedy in Japan. Their message has been heard now. See it's become a political agenda or political play as it is a victory. Germany accelerates plans to abandon nuclear power next time on the ball. Coming up at 3 o'clock here at eighty nine point seven WGBH. Welcome to WGBH dot org and you can enter to win a family retreat to the beautiful star island retreat center. The island you can visit without a passport. Your trip includes a three night stay and meals for four round trip ferry transportation from Portsmouth.

And the chance to leave the world behind without leaving New England. Come for a day spent a week. Remember for a lifetime. Register online or. I'm Kalee Crossley next on the calendar. Rhode Island is the latest state to pass voter ID legislation. Well this Rock the Vote or block it. That's today at 1:00. Welcome back you're listening to the Emily Rooney show while everybody deals with the lost of a loved one differently. For some they channel their grief into work. Others maybe exercise or travel. My next guest Nina sank of it lost her sister to cancer in 2008 and began a project on her sister's memory as well as cope with her own sense of loss. Every day for one year Nina read an entire book. She flew through Toni Morrison in the Hawthorne Edith Wharton and of course told the story of projects you counts in her new novel and her new book is it's not a novel Tolstoy in the purple

chair my Year of Magical reading in the sink of it joins me. Welcome. Oh thank you. And he just unfortunately and sadly have been talking about cancer. Yes. This morning with the passing of. Myra Kraft and your sister there was only 46. She had cancer bile duct cancer which I don't think I've even heard of. Right now it's an invidious cancer insidious invidious. She was diagnosed in January and died in May so it's very fast moving. You know my initial reaction after the sorrow was that I was going to live the double life one for her one for me I was going to do a million things. And then I realized that I was miserable doing a million things that I needed to to slow down and focus and really rediscover how to live in this universe where my sister no longer was something we had she loved both was reading and books and so it was natural for me to turn to books. And when I told my family I'm going to read a book a day for a year.

You know they thought OK well that's something she would do. She would read if I had said I'm going to train for the Iron Man their jaws would have dropped but it made sense to them and they supported me and so I began my reading. And it was a wonderful year really was a magical year for me. You talk about how it got started you were reading Dracula you're on vacation with your husband you're going to be celebrating his birthday I believe and you started reading this book and he was wind surfing and you've missed your dinner reservation but you finished the book right. Direct You know once I finish Dracula in one day I knew I could pretty much yeah. Lanny thanks. I am a fast reader but I didn't deliberately read any book quickly. What I did is I made the time for me to read a book every day in my own normal pace. So I pushed aside a lot of the kind of volunteer commitments that I'd made in the previous years. I told my kids look this year I'm going to need help around the house and you know first we had no official plan after a couple weeks it became clear we

needed an official plan we had a schedule for who would clean up when who would vacuum who would do the laundry. And we still have that schedule in place today because it was good it was good for the kids and certainly good for me. And they were our dinner table conversations every night were about the book that I was reading. And you know that was magical to have a conversation with four boys at a dinner table about books. It was wonderful. And and I began having conversations with everybody around me I thought it would be a solitary year of reading. But it was a year of sharing books with so many people not only people in my neighborhood but through my website read all day I had people writing in and also saying I turned to books for comfort. And you know saying that they'd had my experience and were learning from my experience as well. Now your your your website your blog became very very popular hit all day you were first you were kind of intimidated thinking who's going to care what I think about this book but now it's become hugely popular. Right.

It has and I think it's because my reviews are not traditional reviews they're really my personal visceral reaction to a book what I preach got out of the book who I saw in the book as a both a new person and what I saw of myself in the books I was reading. So the very personal review was a real sharing of what's important and you know what you finding in books of all different sorts. It's really do you find guidance on how to live and what's important in life. And you also see illustrated how one person's life has meaning through the impact they have on other people's life so you were talking about Myra Kraft and what great impact she had on so many people's lives. And my sister's impact on my life I will always have that so she'll always be with me. President of its whose new book is Tolstoy in the purple chair my Year of Magical reading she read a book every day for a year that's 365 books they're all listed in her book. We actually did a book show here on the Emily Rooney show just a few weeks ago and this was one of the books that was recommended I got to tell you I was pleased to see that you were coming through town. All right so how did you choose which books it seems to me that there's some books that would have to

you have to limit yourself like the Brothers Karamazov I read that in a day. No and I certainly didn't read War and Peace and I read a different Tolstoy novel. Well I knew that I could read it 200 to 300 page book comfortably in a day. So at the beginning what I did is I went to the library and I picked one inch books and I just stacked you know but stacked so my arms came home and would start reading and I had rules for myself which is that I couldn't read any book I had read before and I couldn't read any author twice. Now that hurt because once you find an author you like you want to read everything that they've written. But I couldn't do that that year. The result of that was that I discovered stacks in my library I'd never been. I started reading collections of essays and short stories biographies and memoirs histories and I had been someone who stuck to novels and mysteries and I really expanded what John was I read and it was wonderful. And I've stuck with that now that my years over I'm still exploring lots of different

genres. Of course I got lots of recommendations from people from friends and from people wrote to my website to follow up on those recommendations. If I didn't like a book in the first 10 or 20 pages Yeah I usually put it down I wasn't going to spend my day struggling through something it was supposed to be my year of discovery but also your really a pleasure for me and I had such a stack waiting that I could put a book down that I didn't like and take up another book which is what I did. There were a few books I didn't like because they started out great and then I was committed and I had to go through and even when they turned not so great those reviews were probably my only nasty review. I'm curious as somebody who reads a lot of books for this program the Emily Rooney show in Greater Boston. I have gotten very good at will I read quickly now also. But I like to take little notes. I hate people who write in books by the way. And then that's a no no for me. I don't like underlining or not that's what's so. But I would take little notes on blue cards and things that I I want to remember about the book. Did you do that. I did.

While I am someone who writes in books you know I don't write in library books ever but that's OK. I and I love going to used book sales picking up old books and seeing what other people have underlined to me. That's almost like a letter they've sent me one of the books that I read during my year. It's a collection of short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne twice told tales. This book that I had was actually published in 1890 and the little inset said you know like someone's name and then you know one thousand you know two or something and he had underlined things and to think that someone from a hundred years ago was communicating to me the lines that he felt were important. It was it was a wonderful her added dimension to my reading so I do write in my book so well that they have that not. Yeah I get it you know. Thank you. Bitch. Author of Tolstoy in the purple chair in my Year of Magical reading. She read 365 books one a day in memory of her sister who died at the age of 46 of cancer in 2008. So first of all the title Tolstoy in the purple chair. Explain that.

Well Tolstoy I did read a book by Tolstoy not War and Peace but I did read his last novel and I did most of it good. Oh it's great. It was so good and so. Which one was doing. It's called the Last the fourth scoop on the forged coupon not many people have read it which is interesting because it has many of his themes which are exactly an important lesson that I learned which was the impact that one life has on another. And for me it really brought together a lot of the themes that he had been in many of the books I'd been reading at the purple chair part of the title is because I did most of my reading certainly during the winter in an old purple chair that we own that looks nothing like the beautiful hair on the cover but it's in fact a stinky old purple chair but it's so comfortable. I would just sit there you know a cat or two on my lap and I would read just for you know hours at a time. And if the really wonderful purple chair on the cover. Yeah well those are my real books on the cover and that is my real book said to take a photograph in the middle of winter. Laying down in the snow so I could get the natural light of the of

the books that I have a photo credit. So I'm very happy about that. So you were overwhelmed underwhelmed especially in terms of the classics things that you were you know expectations Miller. I had never read the Bridge of San Luis Rey before. Had never read that. I could not believe how great that was. That is Thorton wild. And I loved it. Blown away by how good that that book was and I would say it is about bridge collapses in South America and five people die and they're not related to each other and old priest who lives in the town tries to find out what could be why these five people had to die. So that really resonated with me because when someone you love dies you wonder why did they have to die. And some guilt comes into it to why them why not me. So if that aspect resonated and then the lesson that he learned is

that what the connection that matters and that will survive the death of these people is the love that they had with other people and it sounds you know almost Pollyanna ish but it's true it's the love and kindness that we show in our life that really lasts and survives death. So it was it was a beautiful book and the way he rendered you know that this old ASP You know it's all this fear of South America is fascinating. What about anything that was underwhelming. However remember the underwhelming ones as the great ones will I mean everyone always wants to know what was your favorite book. Tell you at the end of my year I had about 90 favorites out of 365. I love the first one I read which was the elegance of the hedgehog. I loved little that was Mariel Barberry friend you remember all the names of the authors the ones I love yeah. And the Merle Barberry was actually a translation and I read many translations during my year because my my local library buys from small presses and buys a lot of

translations. And that was really interesting to me to discover our authors from around the world. There's one from Portugal Jose Eduardo agoa Lucetta. And I would never have found him if I discard into my local Barnes and Noble but because I was in my library looking for something new I did find him and he was wonderful. And there's a Spanish writer on with Dana Solana. Again she I never would have discovered her but she was this in a small stack in my library I picked up I read her and it was wonderful. Now there were there any particular genres that you. Well you know I did tour. I had never read science fiction before and I discovered science fiction which I like to do like there are slow going and then there's a woman Octavia Butler who wrote a fascinating book called kindred about a black woman from the 70s who is transported back in time to the antebellum south and have to survive there as a black woman and it was so fascinating so interesting. And then I read a lot more essays I had read

isolated essay snow in the New Yorker or read an essay but I read collections of s essays that David Foster Wallace Collection and Charles Lamb you know from from you know turn a century and it was it was a way of. I had never read this report and now I'm still continuing to read essays and of course I still love novels and mysteries those are you know ones that I always will return to but I have changed also in that I will now read one or two books at a time instead of one book at a time like I'm reading The Rise and Fall of ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson which is a thick and wonderful history of ancient Egypt. But it's like a textbook. It's a thick book. So I compliment that with reading mysteries set in ancient Egypt so I have some light reading and some heavy reading and it's been great. All right Nina Tolstoy in the purple chair my Year of Magical reading in Abia picks up this book. It's also going to be treated to your entire list of titles so they can check it out. Themselves and read some of those. A lot of them I have said never heard of but

the book is great thank you so much for THANK YOU THANK YOU. All right and then is going to do it for us this afternoon we'll be back tomorrow at noon. And stay with us now for the Kellie Crossley Show and tune in to Greater Boston tonight at 7:00. Some are shocked some healthful Jeff's White is here with some summer recipe ideas. The Emily Renee show is a production of eighty nine point seven WGBH Boston NPR station for news and culture on the web at WGBH dot org slash Emily Rooney. I'm Emily Rooney. Have a great. Support for WGBH comes from you and from a performing arts center

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