July 24, 2008 - Joel Achenbach, author of "The Grand Idea: George Washington's Potomac and the Race to the West," talked about George Washington and his vision for America at this summer's Aspen Ideas Festival.
July 30, 2008 - Political ambition and class identity drive the plot of a new novel by Ethan Canin. The Iowa Writer's Workshop instructor takes his inspiration from the Kennedy family, in particular Ted Kennedy.
July 31, 2008 - It's not every day that civic planners ask a shaman to chase away lingering spirits from a redevelopment parcel, but that was the scene in St. Paul's Frogtown neighborhood. The city of St. Paul purchased the site of the old Hmong Funeral Home. Before they call in the bulldozers, they allowed a traditional Hmong healer to give it one final blessing.
August 8, 2008 - MPR’s Chris Roberts presents Making the Scene: An Oral History of Twin Cities Rock, a report tracing the evolution of the local music scene from the mid-1960s through the '90s…and through the eyes and ears of key figures from each decade.
August 11, 2008 - Former St. Paul Mayor George Latimer remembering Don Boxmeyer. Boxmeyer, who wrote for the St. Paul Pioneer Press for over 35 years, died ysterday at the age of 67.
August 12, 2008 - As the media, politicans, protesters, and police all prepare for the upcoming Republican National Convention, in one man's mind it's already happened. And it's been chaotic. It's a pretty good bet that Bart Schneider has written the first book ever set during this year's RNC in Minnesota. His private eye protagonist Augie Boyer is right in the middle of it. Augie's adventures take him in and out of dozens of recognizable Twin Cities locations as he uncovers a murderous plot even as an absurd demonstration is being planned on the state Capitol grounds. I asked Bart Schneider about his book -- The Man in the Blizzard -- and it's crime noir hero.
August 14, 2008 - MPR’s Tom Scheck reports on Obama campaign focus on senior citizen votes. Report includes comments from Walter Mondale, former U.S. vice president; Josie Johnson, local civil rights leader; and Tom Steward, spokesperson for presidential candidate John McCain.
August 15, 2008 - MPR’s Euan Kerr reports on a musical of “Little House on the Prairie” premiering in Minneapolis. Kerr talks with creative team member of show and others in the theatre scene about musical’s potential success.
August 18, 2008 - New York Times reporter David Carr thought his life might make a good book. So he wrote about the time of his life that was filled with drug use, parenting mishaps and close encounters with oblivion. It's a junkie memoir, but one that Carr says was reported, not invented.
August 19, 2008 - Minnesota native L. Bruce Laingen was charge d'affaires of the American Embassy in Iran when radicals took over the building and held 52 Americans hostage from November 1979 to January 1981. Laingen is back in Minnesota to donate artifacts from that experience to the Minnesota Historical Society, and he joins Midday to talk about his experience during the hostage crisis.