Tweets and pols; Gay dads; German generosity; Speer's daughter; Women should stop saying "sorry"
Should fledgling politicians be cut down by social media? - Michael's essay: (00:00:35)
Michael says we are turning into a nation of "hall monitors", jumping on every thoughtless remark ever made by a would-be politician.
Gay dads make legal history and create an extraordinary family - an Alisa Siegel documentary: (00:05:38) David McKinstry was desperate to be a dad, but as a gay man in the 1980's, his options were few. After a struggle lasting more than twenty years, a match was finally made with an orphan in India. Suddenly, a second child appeared, when a desperately ill mother approached David with a proposition. David and his partner went on to make history as the first gay couple in Canada to legally co-adopt children. Alisa's moving documentary is called, "All The Way Home".
Mail on poetry and politics: (00:39:52) Listeners on last week's discussion about the dearth of inspirational language in the election campaign.
Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome! - Germany's warm embrace of Syrian refugees: (00:45:06) Chancellor Angela Merkel has pledged to take in at least 800,000 new refugees by the end of this year. There has been much discussion by German politicians about the country's moral imperative resulting from the Holocaust. But there are other, more practical reasons for Germany's open-door policy. Michael talks to Josef Joffe, publisher-editor of Die Zeit, a weekly German newspaper.
Speer's daughter and the Syrian refugees: Hilde Schramm's father, Albert Speer, was Hitler's architect. That's something Hilde has struggled with all her life. She was a driving force in the German peace movement, and has also been very involved in efforts to combat racism. Now, in the wake of the conflict in Syria, Hilde Schramm has opened her home to refugees. We have a documentary report from Berlin. (*Our thanks to the BBC World Service program Outlook, for allowing us to broadcast this documentary. Unfortunately, we do not have the rights to post it online or to podcast it. A link to the documentary can be found on the webpage we've created for this segment.)
Mail on Michael's essay "Let Them In", and on the poem "Home": (01:01:01) We hear from listeners who both agree and disagree with Michael's essay, and from others who were moved by Somali-British poet Warsan Shire's poem "Home".
Why women apologize so much and should stop: (01:08:47) The dictionary definition for "sorry" refers to feelings of regret, compunction, sympathy, grief or sadness. But it's often used in situations where none of the above is at play. . .and usually by women. Author and columnist Sloane Crosley identified this both as a personal flaw and as a trend; she talks to Michael.