Book TV Schedule: December 8th - 10th

[Viva_La_Revolution]

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C-SPAN2's Book TV: December 8-10
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Insightful author interviews
Saturday 9 PM, Sunday 6 PM and 9 PM ET
In In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia, historian Ronald Spector documents the Allies occupation of the Pacific Theater following the end of World War II. Mr. Spector says that the Japanese surrender on August 14, 1945, did not usher in peace but rather marked the start of several regional battles as formerly occupied countries demanded their independence. Mr. Spector discusses his book with Steven Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program and senior fellow at the New America Foundation.


Weekend Highlights
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Shannon Brownlee, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer
Shannon Brownlee argues that Americans are medically overtreated and suggests that the current course of overtreatment is not only a great waste but responsible for patient deaths. Ms. Brownlee discusses her book at Barnes and Noble in Annapolis, Maryland.
(Sunday 3 PM, Monday 1 AM and 7 AM ET)

Lou Dobbs, Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit
Lou Dobbs contends that the U.S. government has become unresponsive to the populace and more interested in the demands of business than their constituents. Mr. Dobbs discusses his book at the Princeton Club in New York City.
(Sunday 1 AM, 12 PM and 8:15 PM, Monday 2 AM ET)

J. Craig Venter, A Life Decoded: My Genome, My Life
J. Craig Venter talks about his life and how he successfully sequenced the first human genome in 2001. The talk was held at the Free Library of Philadelphia.
(Saturday 8 AM, Sunday 7 PM ET)

The Onion, The Onion Presents Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth
From the 2007 Texas Book Festival, editors of The Onion discuss their latest book.
(Saturday 8 PM, Sunday 12 AM ET)



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Program times are approximate. All times are Eastern Time (ET).

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Saturday, December 8, 2007

8:00 AM 1 hr, 7 min A Life Decoded: My Genome, My Life
Author: J. Craig Venter

9:15 AM 56 min Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound
Authors: Robert Whitcomb; Wendy Williams

10:15 AM 54 min Almost Human: Making Robots Think
Author: Lee Gutkind

11:15 AM 45 min Feasting on the Spoils: The Life and Times of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, History's Most Corrupt Congressman
Author: Seth Hettena

12:00 PM 2 hr, 53 min In Depth: Newt Gingrich

3:00 PM 1 hr, 12 min History
Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East
Author: Juan Cole

4:15 PM 1 hr, 1 min The Slave Ship: A Human History
Author: Marcus Rediker

5:15 PM 49 min Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture
Author: Taylor Clark

7:00 PM 53 min Politics
Senator Sam Ervin, Last of the Founding Fathers
Author: Karl E. Campbell

8:00 PM 44 min 2007 Texas Book Festival: The Onion Presents "Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth"
Author: The Onion

9:00 PM 57 min After Words: Ronald Spector author of "In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia" interviewed by Steven Clemons

10:00 PM 47 min Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War
Author: Ashley Gilbertson

10:45 PM 1 hr, 7 min The Pentagon: A History
Author: Steve Vogel


~~~~~~~~~
Sunday, December 9, 2007

12:00 AM 44 min 2007 Texas Book Festival: The Onion Presents "Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth"
Author: The Onion

1:00 AM 51 min Politics
Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit
Author: Lou Dobbs

2:00 AM 49 min Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture
Author: Taylor Clark

3:00 AM 1 hr, 2 min History
Discovery!: The Search for Arabian Oil
Authors: Tim Barger; Thomas Lippman; Wallace Stegner (deceased)

4:00 AM 1 hr, 7 min The Pentagon: A History
Author: Steve Vogel

5:15 AM 1 hr, 28 min Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and Origins of 9/11
Author: Amy Zegart

7:00 AM 1 hr, 2 min History
Discovery!: The Search for Arabian Oil
Authors: Tim Barger; Thomas Lippman; Wallace Stegner (deceased)

8:00 AM 1 hr, 5 min Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence
Author: Aliza Marcus

9:15 AM 1 hr, 40 min Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism
Author: James Piereson

11:00 AM 58 min Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (Or Almost All) of It Back
Author: Frank Schaeffer

12:00 PM 51 min Politics
Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit
Author: Lou Dobbs

1:00 PM 1 hr, 41 min Stem Cell Century: Law and Policy for a Breakthrough Technology
Author: Russell Korobkin

3:00 PM 51 min Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer
Author: Shannon Brownlee

5:00 PM 1 hr, 5 min Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence
Author: Aliza Marcus

6:00 PM 57 min After Words: Ronald Spector author of "In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia" interviewed by Steven Clemons

7:00 PM 1 hr, 7 min A Life Decoded: My Genome, My Life
Author: J. Craig Venter

8:15 PM 51 min Politics
Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit
Author: Lou Dobbs

9:00 PM 57 min After Words: Ronald Spector author of "In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia" interviewed by Steven Clemons

10:00 PM 1 hr, 4 min History
American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation
Author: Jon Meacham

11:15 PM 45 min Privacy In Peril: How We Are Sacrificing a Fundamental Right in Exchange for Security and Convenience
Author: James B. Rule


~~~~~~~~~
Monday, December 10, 2007

12:00 AM 57 min After Words: Ronald Spector author of "In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia" interviewed by Steven Clemons

1:00 AM 51 min Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer
Author: Shannon Brownlee

2:00 AM 51 min Politics
Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit
Author: Lou Dobbs

7:00 AM 51 min Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer
Author: Shannon Brownlee

http://www.booktv.org/schedule.aspx

[Bozita]

1. Thanks, Viva.

Missed you last week. Hoping all is well.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. I missed Thanksgiving week...

was just workin' too much, and the Holiday thingy. All is ok. :hi:

:hug:

[EFerrari]

3. Thank you, Vivala!

:loveya:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. You're welcome.

:)

It's been rough on the Chavez threads lately, you hangin' in there?

:hug:

[EFerrari]

6. The Magistrate said once that no one ever changed anyone's mind

on a discussion board. I keep forgetting those wise words. lol

[Kurovski]

27. The Magistrate once said I have no mind to speak of at all.

Well, not really, I just made it up.

But I bet he's thinking it right about now. :-) I love The Mage.

[Kurovski]

5. K&R!

Thank you, Vivala! :hug:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

11. Hi Hon!

Staying out of trouble?

:hug:

[Kurovski]

12. Never!

And I never shall!

:hug:

[upi402]

7. kick

Ms. Cho should be interesting!

Dec. 7 brings a 'Japan surrenders' book.

Lou Dobbs, I'll try to check in and see... ya never know what he'll pop off about. I like it. Anti-corporatist Republican, a very rare item!

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. up late kick!

[flashl]

9. Kick

[Viva_La_Revolution]

10. On now... Feasting on the Spoils: The Life and Times of Randy "Duke" Cunningham

11:15am Feasting on the Spoils: The Life and Times of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, History's Most Corrupt Congressman

[AlphaCentauri]

13. good n/t

[ThomWV]

14. I'm looking forward to the book by the staff of "The Onion" this evening.

[Kurovski]

15. *************Two more RECOMMENDATIONS are needed.****************

Please--someone--my OCD is getting to me!

Thank you for your "clickety-clicks". :-)

[SalmonChantedEvening]

16. K&R for Viva and the joy of reading :)

:kick: :hi: :loveya: :yourock:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

20. Why, thank you sir!

[Joanne98]

17. This is the third week in a row that they've had Newt on!

[Kurovski]

18. He's so handsome and charming, how can they resist?

He's a GREAT husband. Three times!

[KoKo]

19. Dammit...I missed Juan Cole at 3:00 p.m. today...and he's not repeated....

Well...I always have "The Onion."

Thanks Viva! :toast:

[Kurovski]

21. Kick. (nt)

[Judi Lynn]

22. Thanks for this important assistance! Some not-to-be-missed programs. Rec.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[EFerrari]

23. The Onion panel starting now.

:kick:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

24. beat me to it.

:)

[EFerrari]

25. "Vermont -- clean air, filthy people!"

:rofl:

[Hidden Stillness]

26. "Sen. Sam Ervin, Last of the Founding Fathers," by Karl Campbell

This program was a wonderful surprise! I had never heard of this book before, and turned on the program only to check if this was going to be another one of these current-era corporate Republican media "re-education camp" lies, that "Watergate was not really so bad," "Sen. Ervin was not really a hero," etc. To my surprise, this seems to be a great, and wonderfully told, book.

There was a lot of research here, and all of the eras of Ervin's life, from a childhood to World War I, to the Senate during the 1950s, to Watergate, are told here, with a lot of detail, wisdom, and fast-paced, humorous storytelling. If you remember what a huge, National craze Watergate and the downfall of Nixon (and Agnew, Haldeman, Ehrlichmann, John Mitchell, G. Gordon Liddy, Patrick Buchanan, etc.) was, and how the Senate Hearings grew until they were a tidal wave of force, then you remember Sen. Sam Ervin, ("I'm just a country lawyer," who graduated from Harvard Law School with honors), hugely impressive with witty barbs and angry questioning and attacks, on the Nixon Administration lying crooks. The author described Ervin's famous mannerisms, the eyebrows, etc., and historical significance, how Ervin was so sharp, so clear on the intent and meaning of the law and the Constitution, that no one got away with anything under the Watergate Committee's jurisdiction--God, how we need that now!

One example given, of Ervin exploding at Ehrlichmann, was so stunning, that I wrote it down: After Ehrlichmann tried arrogantly to justify the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, after Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times showing Nixon's war crimes by invading unrelated countries next to Viet Nam, and Ehrlichmann claimed "executive privilege," and that the President has the right to do anything, that nothing is against the law, if the President believes the National security is at stake--which the author pointedly kept referring to our present-day situation--Ervin had enough, and shot back, first quoting the Bible, then a quote from William Pitt the Elder (as opposed to William Pitt of DU), before the Revolutionary War here:

"The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake, and the wind may blow through it, the storm may enter, but the King of England cannot enter. All his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement"--and then Ervin continued to Ehrlichmann, "And yet, we are told here today, and yesterday, that what the King of England cannot do, the President of the United States can do?" The whole audience applauded. There were many such exchanges from the courageous and ethical Ervin, who became renowned for an amazing memory along with all else.

Sam Ervin was born in a small town in North Carolina, 1896, before even electricity there, and spent a happy, safe chilhood playing baseball, hide-and-go-seek, running, swimming, and doing a lot of reading. It turns out the origin of Ervin's great store of Bible and literary quotes, and great memory, was probably that the school's punishment for kids getting into trouble was to stay after school and memorize quotes from the Bible and great works of literature. It ended up being a great teacher all by itself. Erving's life went from the era of the horse-and-buggy on dirt roads, to the V-8 engine on paved highways, to telephones, radio, TV, and the early days of the threat of computer spying, which Ervin fought against right from the earliest signs of the use of surveillance. Ervin was a mix of many attitudes--some brilliant, moral and brave, others reactionary and of the Old South. Not only a segregationist, Ervin was actually against Medicare, Medicaid, consumer protections, the minimum wage, the ERA and women's rights, and civil rights laws. Ervin was one of these people who defended the Constitution from a conservative attitude, so that they are actually for the civil liberties protections of the Constitution, and for restraining Government as a potential threat, but not exactly for the rights of citizens, where Government is an active force for moral good. They protect the Constitution and the law, not the equal rights of people, and do not think of it as going together.

Ervin's life is told, very well and with a wonderful humor by the author Karl Campbell, as it goes from school, to serving as a hero during World War I, (incidents described), to going to Law School, opening up a law practice, being a judge, running for the Senate in North Carolina, to some fabulous early stories about fighting against Sen. Joseph McCarthy and also being on the Rackets Committee with the Kennedys, and becoming friends with them. Then, some fights with an increasingly arrogant, secretive and criminal Nixon Administration, and the Watergate Committee. The author ties it up with same comparisons with our own, shockingly similar era and President (and Vice-President), saying that "today's debates and Watergate are the same story, just Part Two."

The treatment of everything seems to be very wise, deep, and with much humor. Ervin's segregationist attitudes and rejection of much of the changes of the then-present, for a largely idealized past, and refuge in the abstractions of law and Constitutional study as a built-up structure of thought that sometimes rationalized contradictory attitudes, rather than faced them, is treated with intelligence and a real attempt to explain and understand, and not just dismissed with "racist," etc., when much of it was not, but was a totally different approach to the Constitution, dislike of the passage of time and changing world, etc. Still, Ervin sometimes surprised people with brave and reasoned responses to events as they unfolded, even where there might never have been any such opinion shown before. Ervin turned against a proposal by Edward Everett Dirksen to put prayer back in the schools, and voted against it, on the basis that it violated the separation of church and State. Ervin clashed with the Nixon Admin. many times even before Watergate, on their "law and order proposals," such as warrantless surveillance, no-knock searches, "pre-emptive" arrests, etc., and constant claims of "executive privilege" as violating the separation of powers.

Ervin came back from World War I very nervous, anxious, smoked for the first time, and with many nervous tics, etc., and so a sense of real sympathetic experience sometimes showed itself. When Ervin inherited the Civil Rights Commission during the '60s, many feared a total erosion of progress from then on, but Ervin actually extended protections to the mentally ill, to Native Americans living on reservations, to veterans, and others. Ervin was alarmed at the kinds of intrusive questionnaires that applicants for Government jobs had to start filling out, with offensive and intrusive questions, (and similar to the kinds of questions resurrected by the current Republicans, since the 1980s to today), and fought against it. During the Watergate hearings, there was a real Sam Ervin craze, with young people who were searching for heroes, wearing Ervin T-shirts and asking for autographs, etc. They might not have known a lot of the things told here, might have been disappointed by much of it, but it is a true portrait of a complicated individual human being, understood with a more mature acceptance, and appreciation of the truly great parts--the wisdom, bravery, and moral integrity. This seems to be a great book.

[EFerrari]

28. I've watched the "Crazy for God" segment twice now.

I really like this man and that's scary. :scared:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

29. Kick for Stem Cell Research!

[Kurovski]

30. Kickaroni.