Midday

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.

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:

Technology promises to let us do anything from anywhere with anyone. But this digital access to intimacy and companionship has left us lonelier than ever. Our guest Sherry Turkle, professor of the social studies of science at MIT, writes about the new solitude brought on by endless connection in her new book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other.
Original air date: March 29, 2011

Former chief of the FBI’s unit for hostage negotiation, Gary Noesner, talks about the life or death standoffs of his career, including the disastrous 1993 siege in Waco, Texas. Noesner is author of the book Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator
Original air date: October 27, 2010

They come with colorful names like Black Cherry, Yellow Pear, Cherokee Purple, Black Crim, Sweet Tangerine, and Aunt Willie’s German Green. But most of them are red, and Americans eat 88 pounds a year on average, up by 30 percent over the last two decades. You can grow them in a garden, in a trash can, on a window sill, or anywhere with decent sunlight. They’re great fresh, stewed, fried or broiled -- in sauce or salsa. And they’re good for you. We’ll learn some unique ways to prepare and serve them from celebrity chefs Tony Foreman and Cindy Wolf.