First Take: Miami Hospitals, No Child Left Behind Overhaul, Groundhog Day

Monday, February 01, 2010 - 11:45 AM

UPDATED: 8:19 PM Alex Goldmark (Night Producer) here working with the evening shift to firm up some last minute bookings for tomorrow's show. 

We've expanded our coverage of Haiti for tomorrow to include a deeper look at the Baptist group from Idaho being accused of child trafficking in Haiti. Today we've learned that several children were not orphans among the group of 33 youngsters they were trying to take into the Dominican Republic. The Haitian Prime Minister also spoke out, and the volume and anger within Haiti is rising about this visceral case. We'll hear from Michele Montas, Haitian Journalist and UN spokesperson and from an Idahoan journalist following that local angle of the story. 

There's some interesting science news out of Michigan. Biologists there have found that there is a huge dearth of research stem cell lines from African-Americans. That means that potential breakthroughs or cures for diseases like Parkinson's might exclude or prove ineffective for a whole swath of the population.

We're also watching the effort in Russia to remake Stalin's image. Who is behind it and is it working? We're going to check in the our partners the BBC in Russia about this. 

And we've got a few stories already looking ahead to the Super Bowl this weekend too. Can't wait. 

UPDATED: 11:55 AM Jim (the web editor) here with an update on our plans for tomorrow.

Anna and her team are putting together the lineup right now and we’re planning to start with a report from Miami on the hospitals there dealing with the influx of evacuees from Haiti. Airlifts from Port-au-Prince resumed this morning after a standoff over who would foot the medical bills. Florida hospitals have already received more than 500 people since the earthquake, but the airlifts ceased for five days when nobody wanted to pay the extra costs.

We’re also planning to look at the Obama administration’s efforts to overhaul No Child Left Behind. For starters, the education bill is set to get a new name, as well as a whole new formula for sending federal money to schools. We’re reaching out to school principals and administrators to find out how it will affect them.

That change comes in the president’s new budget, which he just finished outlining on national television. Obama will speak live to the nation one more time today, but it will be in front of the denizens of YouTube. The president is bypassing the traditional media by answering questions that from the site’s users, and the White House says he’ll answer the ones that get the most votes.

We’ll feature the most popular questions at TheTakeaway.org this afternoon and we’ll ask our own listeners what they’d like to ask the president. We’ve asked the White House to respond tomorrow (check back on the site for an update).

We expect jobs will feature prominently in his YouTube interview, and our conversation about the workplace tomorrow is all about how you can help friends who have lost their jobs. We’ll also ask unemployed people what kind of help they want. If you have thoughts on that question, send it to us now and we’ll read it on the air.

Finally, tomorrow is Groundhog day – a time of year now associated with the 1993 comedy starring Bill Murray as a weather man who lives the same day over and over again. It turns out that religions are using the film as material for their teaching. We’ll ask Danny Rubin, the man who wrote the screenplay and the original story, if he thought his tale would have such an influence.

And if it’s good, we may do the same show all over again on Wednesday.

More in:

Comments [2]

G L Sweetnam from Woodstock, Connecticut

Groundhog Day my favorite film about Heaven and Hell. Heaven and Hell are the same place. They are both in the mind, the way you see the world and what you do about it. Salvation is just seeing with different eyes.

It's like the Sufi story: An evil man is visited by an angel who warns him he faces Hell in the afterlife. "Ok, says the man, but what is Hell like?" The angel takes him to a huge room full of people sitting at tables full of wonderful food, but they are all starving because they have wooden discs fastened around their necks so they can't reach the food to their mouths.
"That's terrifying." says the man, "But what is Heaven like if I change my ways?" The angel takes him to a room that looks just the same: tables full of food, people with discs keeping them from reaching food to their mouths, but they are feeding each other.

Feb. 02 2010 09:19 AM
Vote this comment up Vote this comment down Score: 0/0
Valerie from New York

Hey Takeaway,

this is one of your Wiccan listeners who just listened to the Groundhog's presentation.

Wiccans are witches, but not all witches are Wiccans. Think of it as a denomination of paganism, like protestantism. Many pagans celebrate Imbolc/Groundhog's day. Get it straight!

Thanks for the interesting presentation on that film. I never liked it. Will have to see it again!

Feb. 02 2010 08:03 AM
Vote this comment up Vote this comment down Score: 0/0

Leave a Comment

Register for your own account so you can vote on comments, save your favorites, and more. Learn more.
Please stay on topic, be civil, and be brief.
Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. Names are displayed with all comments. We reserve the right to edit any comments posted on this site. Please read the Comment Guidelines before posting. By leaving a comment, you agree to New York Public Radio's Privacy Policy and Terms Of Use.







URL

If you enter anything in this field your comment will be treated as spam
Location
* Denotes a required field