DAN RODRICKS

John Fritze, reporting from Washington for The Baltimore Sun: "The House of Representatives approved a bipartisan deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling Monday in a vote that splintered the Democratic and Republican members of Maryland's congressional delegation and pushed the months-long battle toward a climax in the Senate on Tuesday."

Who would have thought that Joe Ehrmann (co-founder, Coach for America), the bruising defensive tackle who once played for the Baltimore Colts, would decades later offer a heartfelt template for coaches to be more compassionate leaders? After all, it was the author, an admitted drug abuser while he played, who once said he wanted to knock Jets quarterback Joe Namath's head clear off his shoulder pads. "I...was not trying to be entertaining. I meant it. I thought that way and I played that way," he writes.

Michael Greenberger, University of Maryland law professor and former director of the Division of Trading and Markets at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Paul Bolding, longtime correspondent for Reuters, join us this hour to help us assess the global impact of last week’s Wall Street selloff and Standard and Poor’s downgrading of the U.S. international credit rating.

First, we meet Tim Meeks, the Baltimore County native who designed the harpejji (pronounced "har-PEH-jee"), a cross between an electric guitar and a piano that has been used by, among others, Coldplay, A.R. Rahman with Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine.

Then, it's uke time, with the Thunder Hill Jug Band/Thrift Shop Tuxedo Orchestra, featuring Jared Denhard, Ed Goldstein and Richard McCready.

Our topics:

    Debt ceiling resolution and Maryland federal job picture
    FAA resolution
    Wall Street and the latest jobs report
    Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute report on raising taxes
    DREAM Act lawsuit
    The Baltimore Grand Prix and downtown trees

Our guests:

    Andy Green, opinion editor, The Baltimore Sun

The tea party is the most animated political force in America right now, a relatively small group of anti-government extremists who dominated the negotiations over raising the national debt ceiling and forced Republican leaders to push for trillions of dollars in spending cuts. Tea party organizations guarantee that the 112th Congress will be dominated by continuous fighting over spending priorities and regulation through the 2012 election and beyond.

Our guest is Paula Carmody, as Maryland's People's Counsel she is the advocate for state consumers in matters involving regulated utilities. Recently, Ms. Carmody objected to Exelon Corp.'s proposed buyout of Constellation Energy Group, telling federal regulators that a combined company would have too much control over electricity prices on the grid that serves the Mid-Atlantic. We'll also speak to Ms.

In The Wild Life of Our Bodies, biologist Robert Dunn shows the influence of wild species (be they tapeworms or tigers) on our well-being and world, and how nature still clings to us – and always will. We evolved in a wilderness of parasites, pathogens and natural "partnerships," Dunn says. But we no longer see ourselves as being part of nature and the broader community of life.

We look at the rancorous debate and final deal on the national debt approved by Congress and signed by President Obama from three angles with three guests: