Stories with The Apple Seed

Guest: Tommy Binion, Director of Congressional and Executive Branch Relations, The Heritage Foundation As a candidate, Donald Trump didn’t cut a particularly conservative figure, but the Heritage Foundation – a leading conservative think tank - says Trump’s first year in office was more conservative than the first year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency – and Reagan is the conservative gold standard.

Guest: Paul Westover, PhD, Associate Professor of English, Brigham Young University It’s time now for our regular trip over to the Special Collections at BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library for the segment we call “From the Vaults.” The collection includes some rare editions of poetry collections by British Romantic poet William Wordsworth.  “I wandered lonely as a cloud/ that floats o’er high on vales and hills.” That’s one of his famous lines – and an example of the vivid visual quality of Wordsworth’s poems. Those wispy cirrus clouds floating across the sky do seem awfully lonely, don’t they?

Guest: Curtis Patterson, Owner, Patterson Engineering Another government shutdown looms this week as Democrats and Republicans squabble over immigration. Democrats want a long-term solution for the recipients of DACA – the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that will expire in a month. President Trump says any funding for DACA has to come with funding for a wall on the US border with Mexico.  So let’s consider that wall. If the money is ever allocated to build it, we’re starting to get a sense of what it might look like. Eight prototypes have been erected in San Diego and Curtis Patterson, owner of Patterson Engineering, got a look at them.

Guest: Ngozi Anyanwu, Playwright, “The Homecoming Queen” Popular culture can have a big influence on the way we see ourselves – our race, our religion, our body type or hair color or community of origin. So what do you do if you feel like a part of your identity is being misrepresented in American culture?  Ngozi Anyanwu started writing plays. She’s part of what the New York Times has identified as a growing trend:  American playwrights who are the daughters of immigrants from Africa getting their work staged at prestigious theaters in New York. Anyanwu is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. Her play, “The Homecoming Queen” opened two weeks ago at the Atlantic Theater off-Broadway.

Guest: Tennery Taylor, Producer, Top of Mind The Sundance Film Festival wrapped up last week and Tennery Taylor had the chance to catch a couple of films. One is the beautifully animated "White Fang," a re-telling of Jack London's classic tale.

Guest: Derek Doneen, Director, “Kailash,” Winner of the Sundance 2018 Grand Jury Prize for US Documentary Film In his directorial debut, Derek Doneen presents the story of Kailash Satyarthi, who won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for his work to free children from slavery and forced labor. Over 150 million children in the world are forced into labor. Kailash wants to see them all freed "in his lifetime."