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The Two-Way
6:10 am
Wed May 30, 2012

Liberia's Charles Taylor Sentenced To 50 Years For War Crimes

Credit Toussaint Kluiters / AFP/Getty Images
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor during his sentencing today in The Hague.
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Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for war crimes that the presiding judge on an international war crimes court says were of the "utmost gravity in terms of scale and brutality."

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Song Of The Day
6:03 am
Wed May 30, 2012

BADBADNOTGOOD: A Moody Jazz-Hop Think Piece

Credit Courtesy of the artist
BADBADNOTGOOD.
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By Anthony Fantano

A Toronto-based jazz trio whose approach to the genre has angered aficionados and grabbed the attention of young fans, BADBADNOTGOOD carries on jazz's rich tradition of reinvention and provocation. Its two full-length albums cover material that's of interest to your average oddball twentysomething: experimental rock, video-game soundtracks and electronic music, among others.

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Book Reviews
6:03 am
Wed May 30, 2012

Pioneering Feminist Mixes It Up With 'Menage'

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Credit Marion Ettling
Alix Kates Shulman is the author of books including Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen and To Love What Is.
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Originally published on Wed May 30, 2012 7:18 am

Zoltan Barbu is a once-exalted author now exiled in Los Angles. He wears capes, seduces actresses in Jacuzzis and hasn't produced anything in decades. If it sounds cliche, that is the point. In Ménage, her first novel in 25 years, the feminist writer Alix Kates Shulman has given us a modern parable: caricatured characters interacting and standing in for real-world archetypes. Zoltan, predictably enough, is her catalyst.

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Remembrances
4:17 am
Wed May 30, 2012

Self-Taught Folk Music Icon Doc Watson Dies At 89

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Originally published on Wed May 30, 2012 4:06 pm

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

A treasure of American folk music has died. Doc Watson passed away yesterday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina at the age of 89. He was born in Deep Gap, North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains in a three room house that he shared with eight brothers and sisters. During a long and productive career, he revolutionized not just how people play guitar but how people around the world think about mountain music. NPR's Neda Ulaby has this remembrance.

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Race
4:17 am
Wed May 30, 2012

With One Wish, Banishing Memories Of Jim Crow

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Credit Rachel Greiman / Jeremy Bloom's Wish of a Lifetime
Almost 70 years ago, Dorothy Flood was denied access to a train dining car because she was black. Now, after finally dining in a first-class car, she says she'll never ride another train again.
Credit Rachel Greiman / Jeremy Bloom's Wish of a Lifetime
Flood recalls that she and her grandmother used to pack meals in shoe boxes whenever they took the train south.
Credit Courtesy of Dorothy Flood
As a girl, Dorothy Flood would travel from New Jersey to North Carolina with her grandmother every summer. The trips were memorable for the segregation she experienced as soon they crossed the Mason-Dixon Line.
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Originally published on Thu May 31, 2012 6:39 am

As the sun beams down, Dorothy Flood, 75, stands on the steps of the Royal Gorge Route Railroad train, smiling like a 1940s movie star.

"Right there! Then turn around, right there!" photographers call out, jockeying to snap her picture. "Here we go, count of three — one, two and three!"

And with a tip of his cap, a porter offers Flood his hand, and her "Wish Of A Lifetime" begins.

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