Monday April 21, 2008
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Week of April 21, 2008
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In many ways, Washington D.C. is the quintessential international city, home to millions of foreign-born residents and visitors from around the globe. But the cultural and educational benefits of the city's international fabric don't always filter into its public school system. Now local educators are trying to expand social studies curricula. We hear about new efforts to take local classes global, and bring Model United Nations programs to urban schools.
Taishya Adams, Director, Global Classrooms Washington, DC; United Nations Association of the National Capital Area
Jesse Nickelson, Director of Social Studies, District of Columbia Public Schools
Richard Reitano, Professor of Government, Dutchess Community College; Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Vassar College; Coach, joint Vassar-Dutchess student delegation to the National Model United Nations
A DC Court today eliminated a major hurdle for the city's new taxi-meter plan, rejecting a complaint from local cab-drivers. We look at the ruling, and impending end of DC's zone system.
Jessica Golloher, Reporter, WAMU
Peter Nickles, Acting Attorney General, District of Columbia
Jeffrey O'Toole, attorney, O'Toole Rothwell Nassau & Steinbach
All three American presidential candidates have pledged to restore the country's place in world politics. But the age of unipolar American power may have passed. Scholar Parag Khanna says the world is in the midst of a profound shift, with Europe and China flexing their muscles on the global stage. But he says the real power lies among global "swing states"-- smaller powers with oil, cash and other resources. He joins Kojo to discuss his provocative theory of the "Second World".
Parag Khanna, Director, Global Governance Initative in American Strategy Program, New America Foundation; author, "The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order" (Random House)
Aime Cesaire may not be a household name in this country, but he's known in much of the world as one of the men who developed "Negritude," the idea of a common black identity. That concept inspired scores of black intellectuals during the twentieth century. Cesaire himself went on to become a prominent poet and politician in his native Martinique. Join Kojo as we remember Cesaire, who died on Thursday at the age of 94.
Francis Abiola Irele, Visiting Professor of African and African American Studies and of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University
E. Ethelbert Miller, Poet and Director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University,
Elie Smith, Paris-based journalist