Capturing Life in Bronze

Guest: Hans-Jorg Neumann, German Consul General in Los Angeles  State elections in Europe’s largest economy over the weekend dealt a serious blow to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democrat party. It’s her open-door policy toward refugees that helped deliver historic gains to an upstart anti-immigrant party. The elections show just how seriously the migration crisis is affecting politics in Germany and could hasten the end of Chancellor Merkel’s tenure.

Guest: Rod Gustafson, Film Reviewer at ParentPreviews.com  We discuss the films “10 Cloverfield Lane” and “The Young Messiah.”

Guest: Nicole LaVoie, Doctoral Student at the University of Illinois  Remember how several years ago the Food and Drug Administration decided to start requiring graphic images on cigarette packages to up-the-ante on the warning label? One of the approved images was a mouth riddled with cancer missing teeth and part of the lip. Another showed a man smoking through a hole in his trachea with the words, “Warning: Cigarettes are addictive.”  Well, tobacco companies sued and a court ruled the graphic warnings violated the company’s constitution right to free speech. That case is still tied up in appeals.  But in the meantime, a University of Illinois study found the more intense warnings may not do much to deter smoking.

Guest: Jean Kilbourne, Filmmaker, Media Critic, and Public Speaker  There’s a magazine ad from 1970 for a weight-loss treatment that shows woman’s before and after photos and the copy reads: “I’d probably never be married now if I hadn’t lost 49 pounds.” An ad company could never get away with that today; not in this post-feminist movement era with women leading Fortune 500 companies and running for president.  But media critic and filmmaker Jean Kilbourne says the “image of women in advertising today is worse than ever,” and she’s been tracking it for 40 years.

Guest: Kelley King, PhD, Professor of Education at the University of North Texas  Late last year, Congress finally tossed aside the much-hated federal education law known as No Child Left Behind and replaced it with something called Every Student Succeeds. Getting to that point was a battle, but that was really only the half of it. In Congressional hearings and workshops organized by the US Department of Education, teachers, administrators and advocates are clashing on how to interpret and implement the new law.

Guests: Kelly Marcum, Director of the Engineering Capstone Program; Spencer Rogers, of BYU’s Tech Transfer Office  We discuss BYU engineering students’ final project with the director of the engineering capstone program.