Women are prohibited from doing many things in Saudi Arabia, among them driving and being alone with a man they are not related to. How do women there decide what freedoms are worth fighting for? Reem Asaad, a finance lecturer at Dar al-Hikma Women's College in Jeddah joins The Takeaway with the story of an unusual campaign she is leading to defend the right of women to buy their lingerie from other women, because currently only men can sell women's underwear. Ms. Asaad joins us now from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
"This industry is living off the pockets of these women." — Reem Asaad of Dar al-Hikma Women's College on the lingerie industry in Saudi Arabia
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh warned that she'd take tough action against a mutiny by paramilitary border security guards if they did not surrender their weapons immediately. The violence arose from grievances on pay and treatment from army commanders. New York Times reporter Somini Sengupta joins the show to talk about the standoff in Bangladesh.
After eight long months recuperating from reconstructive knee surgery, Tiger Woods returned to the green yesterday. The golf world welcomed him back with open arms as the games started at the Accenture Match Play Championship in Marana, Arizona. For more we turn to Karen Crouse, a sports reporter for the New York Times who is in Arizona to watch Tiger Woods first day back.
Fifty years ago this week, virtuoso jazz pianist Thelonious Monk gave a landmark concert at New York City’s Town Hall. It was a coming-out for an underground jazz scene called bebop. Monk’s 1959 concert marked bebop’s shift from New York’s nightclubs to center stage. We celebrate the anniversary of that concert with WNYC music host, Terrance McKnight.
Terrance will broadcast from New York's Town Hall tonight at 8 PM.
President Obama announced an August 2010 deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq. Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution has written an op-ed piece in today's New York Times saying that "young democracies are fragile entities," and that some think it will take years to pull this off successfully. He joins us now to explain.
Between texting, instant messages, and, LOL!, the web, grammar has been under a steady onslaught in our modern times. This slow erosion of the language is too much for some and a small but active group of language watchers have formed a grammar vigilante squad to right the grammatical wrongs, one punctuation mark at a time. Joining us now is John Richards, founder and chairman of the Apostrophe Protection Society, from the other Boston in Lincolnshire, England.
Do you have a grammatical pet peeve? Tell us in the comments!
"They put it in where they think it might be, leave it out where they think it shouldn't be. And yet the rules are very, very simple." — John Richards, of the Apostrophe Protection Society, on the widespread misuse of apostrophes
Sent in by a helpful listener, here is an episode of Steve's Grammatical Observations:
Today President Obama meets with the 42 black lawmakers who comprise the Congressional Black Caucus. Established 40 years ago, does the Congressional Black Caucus have more legislative muscle now that the nation has its first African-American president? Or has Obama’s presidency rendered the Congressional Black Caucus irrelevant? For a look at what the Caucus’ agenda will be under the Obama administration and for a preview of what’s on the docket for today’s meeting, we are joined by the Caucus’ Chairwoman, Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
We are all learning to make sacrifices for the sake of the environment, but one thing Americans have a hard time cutting corners on is their toilet paper. This national desire to have soft, fluffy, and strong paper is having an environmental impact and millions of trees are harvested every year to create Charmin, Cottonelle, and other premium brands. Leslie Kaufman of the New York Times' environmental desk has an article on the delicate subject in today's paper.
Now that the American Recovery Reinvestment Act has been passed into law, the Department of Education has been given an unprecedented injection of money. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has $100 billion dollars of emergency aid at his disposal, $5 billion of which is going to early childhood education. Is this enough to pave a future for today’s infants and toddlers? This week we’re taking a closer look at how the stimulus will affect education in the U.S. Cornelia Grumman, executive director of The First Five Years Fund, an advocacy group for early education, talks to us about how these funds will be distributed.
The Royal Bank of Scotland has announced the largest annual loss in corporate history in the United Kingdom. The Royal Bank of Scotland said it will insure assets worth 325 billion pounds, or $462 billion, with the British government, who owns two-thirds of the bank. This comes after RBS. nearly collapsed during the credit crisis and needed British taxpayer's money to stay afloat. Andrew Walker, BBC economics correspondent, joins us now to talk about how this compares to the situation banks in the U.S. are facing.
The Takeaway is a national morning news program produced in partnership with The New York Times, the BBC World Service, WNYC, Public Radio International and WGBH Boston. More »
