Daily Archives: October 31, 2002

Grave Matters

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There’s hardly a better place to get in touch with life than in the quiet, stone lined paths of a cemetery. A place where you can observe the arc of life as a measure of time between two dates, where you can visit those who were close to you and are now gone.

Author Mark Taylor says it’s also a chance to touch people we never met in life, writers and thinkers who shaped our worldview. He writes that graveyards are so much more than bone-yards, that they beg for pilgrimage, a chance to get close to Wordsworth and Melville, to contemplate Dickinson, Kierkegaard, Camus, and Thoreau.

This Halloween, we are looking death in its face, and seeing a challenge for modern culture to think about these grave matters.

Guests:

Mark C. Taylor, professor of Humanitites at Williams College, and author of “Grave Matters”

Dietrich Christian Lammerts, former student of Mark Taylor and professional photographer.

Coalition No More

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Things fall apart. After 19 months of an awkward marriage with Likud, Israel’s Labor party walks out. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s financial support for settlements is the official reason for the breakup. But many say this high profile divorce is just political posturing in advance of the upcoming Labor Party election.

Regardless, Sharon, now forsaken by his fellow ex-general, Fuad Ben Eliezer, now needs to decide how to hold onto power, either by reaching out to the right wing, or by holding national elections that could see him losing to Binyamin Netanyahu. Ironically, this latest crisis might breathe new life into the opposition, allowing voices, silenced by 19 months of coalition government, to be heard.

Labor and Likud, why breaking up is hard to do.

Guests:

Ambassador Philip Wilcox, president of the Foundation for Middle East peace in Washington

Cameron Barr, Middle East correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor

Benny Elon, member of the Knesset

Ze’ev Schiff, military analyst for the daily Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz

Tzali Reshef, member of the Knesset. Labour Party.