Happy Memorial Day. An American success story, Wes Moore learns of another young man with the same name, and a drastically different life. Historian Nathaniel Philbrick goes in depth on Custer's Last Stand and the Battle of Little Bighorn. Then, Chinese women in the old West. Later, longtime KPCC friend Bob O'Rourke gets the word out about pulmonary fibrosis.
The Other Wes Moore
An all-American success story, Wes Moore is a Rhodes Scholar, honored college football player, decorated combat veteran, former White House Fellow and investment banker. But was his success due to chance or choice? That question haunted Moore when he heard about his doppelganger, a young man with the same name now serving life in prison for killing a cop. Fascinated by their similar backgrounds, Moore contacted the other Wes Moore in an effort to find answers to his own life questions. How did two similar boys from the inner city grow up to have such different lives? What can be done to create brighter futures for disadvantaged youth?
Guest:
Wes Moore, author of The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates (Spiegel & Grau). Rhodes Scholar, investment banker and former aide to Condoleezza Rice.
Custer’s Last Stand
You’ve heard the tale of Sitting Bull’s pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn, but best-selling author and National Book Award-winner Nathaniel Philbrick brings a different perspective to the story. His account of General Custer’s defeat on the battlefield in 1876 is supplemented by biographical sketches of Custer and of Sitting Bull. Custer may not have been the strong-willed, passionate, and charismatic leader of our history books. What really happened on that fatal day in American military history? Philbrick makes the case for how Battle of Little Bighorn should really be remembered.
Guest:
Nathaniel Philbrick, author of The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of Little Big Horn (Viking).
Poker Bride: Chinese in the West
The Poker Bride is a different kind of Wild West story. From the gold rush in Northern California to a mining town in the highlands of Idaho, it follows the remarkable Polly Bennis. Smuggled from China as concubine, she was later traded in a poker game—and, in an unusual move, married her, becoming the stuff of Idaho Lore. Journalist Christopher Corbett explores the role Chinese immigrants, particularly women, played in shaping the West. How did they maintain their dignity despite being traded as sex slaves? Were they really any different than ordinary pioneer wives? What lasting imprint did Chinese sojourners leave on the Western psyche?
Guest:
Christopher Corbett, author of The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the West (Atlantic Monthly Press). Professor of journalism at University of Maryland—Baltimore County.
How can we better diagnose and treat pulmonary fibrosis?
Pulmonary fibrosis is a mysterious and debilitating disease that causes scar tissue to replace healthy lung tissue. Unable to breathe properly, sufferers are deprived of oxygen and die within three to five years of diagnosis. More than 40,000 people succumb to the disease each year, yet there is no FDA-approved treatment or cure. Longtime KPCC friend and prominent Pasadena resident Bob ORourke is determined to change that. Recently diagnosed, the former Cal Tech public relations executive shares his personal struggle with pulmonary fibrosis in an effort to bring awarness to a disease that takes as many lives in the U.S. each year as breast cancer. What are the seemingly innocuous symptoms? Who should get checked out? Will the drug pirfenidone, approved for treatment in Japan, be fast-tracked by the FDA?
Guest:
Bob O’Rourke, Senior Advisor to the President for External Affairs
California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Interim CEO of Kidspace Children’s Museum in Pasadena.