Access Utah

“I’m a person who listens for a living. I listen for wisdom, and beauty, and for voices not shouting to be heard. This book chronicles some of what I’ve learned in what has become a conversation across time and generations, across disciplines and denominations.” That’s Krista Tippett, host of “On Being” (heard on UPR Sunday evenings at 5:00) talking about her new book “Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living” Tippett has interviewed many of the most profound voices examining the great questions of meaning for our time.

Today we're previewing an upcoming concert, War and the Human Heart: Songs of Battle, Loss, and Love commemorating the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day and honoring veterans. We'll speak with Jeffrey Gettleman, an attorney in the Chicago area, who is the artistic director and producer of the concert. Our other guest is Craig Jessop, Music Director of the American Festival Chorus & Orchestra.

Record numbers of women are running for office and engaged in the political process this year. We’ll ask why? And is this temporary or a lasting trend? What will all this mean this year and going forward? As a part of the UPR Original Series, Utah Women 20/20, we’ll discuss these issues on Wednesday’s Access Utah. Our guests will include Patricia Jones, former state senator and current CEO of the Women’s Leadership Institute; Erin Jemison, Director of Public Policy at YWCA Utah; and Debbie Walsh, Director of the Center for American Women in Politics.

"What a novel my life has been!" Napoleon once said of himself. Born into a poor family, the callow young man was, by twenty-six, an army general. Seduced by an older woman, his marriage transformed him into a galvanizing military commander. The Pope crowned him as Emperor of the French when he was only thirty-five. Within a few years, he became the effective master of Europe, his power unparalleled in modern history. His downfall was no less dramatic.The story of Napoleon has been written many times. In some versions, he is a military genius, in others a war-obsessed tyrant. Here, historian Adam Zamoyski cuts through the mythology and explains Napoleon against the background of the European Enlightenment, and what he was himself seeking to achieve. This most famous of men is also the most hidden of men, and Zamoyski dives deeper than any previous biographer to find him. Beautifully written, Napoleon: A Life brilliantly sets the man in his European context.

Julia Gossard, assistant professor of history at Utah State University, says that since thousands of witch trials took place across Europe and North America, one stereotypical image of an early modern woman is that of a witch. Gossard teaches a class called “Witches, Workers, & Wives,” which examines attitudes, ideas, and stereotypes about gender, sexuality, and power - including how the witch became a quintessential early modern trope. Julia Gossard is giving a presentation on Halloween for the USU Center for Women and Gender. Her presentation is titled “Witchy Women: The Long History of Witchcraft in Western Civilization.” It will be held in the USU Merrill-Cazier Library Room 101 at noon on October 31st.

War is not an abstraction. And the wounds of war don’t stop at the warrior. They reverberate through families and communities. The salient question remains “When does war end?” For veterans and their families and loved ones the answer is complex. “Between War & Here” is a new collaboration between journalists and musicians, exploring honor, courage, loss, and hope, with music, poetry, and memoir.

In his new book “Back Cast: Fly Fishing and Other Such Matters” Jeff Metcalf writes: “These waters have been my home, and I fish them more than most. In truth, they have saved my life on more than a few occasions. I seek refuge in the quiet solitude of rivers, and in dark hours of my life—including this particular year—I need desperately to be fly-fishing." Metcalf’s play “A Slight Discomfort,” is a humorous take on his battle with prostate cancer. And a previous award-winning collection of essays, “Requiem for the Living,” resulted from a challenge Metcalf gave himself when presented with a dire prognosis with his cancer: writing one essay each week for a year. Metcalf volunteers with Reel Recovery, an organization that conducts retreats for men living with cancer. He says that it’s important for men to learn to talk about their cancers and their lives.

From Anne Lamott, the New York Times-bestselling author of Help, Thanks, Wow, comes the book we need from her now: How to bring hope back into our lives.

James A. McLaughlin grew up in rural Virginia and lives in the Wasatch Range east of Salt Lake City. His debut novel “Bearskin” is getting rave reviews. He joins us for the hour next time on Access Utah.

Rep. Mia Love says the Federal Election Commission has cleared her of illegal fundraising and that her challenger, Ben McAdams, is unethical and should withdraw from the race. Also, four women ask the Utah Supreme Court to assign a special prosecutor to sexual assault cases that the Salt Lake County District Attorney's office declined to pursue. And the story of an unsolved murder from 1978 shows how evidence is maintained--and how cold cases are investigated today.

Today on Access Utah, as a part of “Our Favorite Books” series, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of Willa Cather’s “My Antonia.” Tom Williams’ guests include Cather scholars and USU professors Evelyn Funda and Steve Shively. Funda says that “My Antonia” is fresh and contemporary and raises issues about immigration, assimilation, class and female power that resonate today. We also talk about Funda’s mother, also named Antonia, who escaped her native Czechoslovakia in 1955 as the Communist Iron Curtain closed in.

Scott Howell and Thomas Wright, co-chairs of the Utah Debate Commission will join me to talk about the debates, which are airing on Utah Public Radio, and the political climate in Utah and the nation as we head into the midterm elections, now less than three weeks away. Scott Howell is a former state senator and senate minority leader, and candidate for the U.S. Senate. Howell is CEO Howell Consulting Group and a retired IBM Executive. Thomas Wright is former chairman of the Utah Republican Party and current President & Principal Broker, Summit Sotheby’s International Realty. Wright is one of eight chairpeople of the Republican National Committee.

Religious courts in the Middle East had historically banned women from adjudicating domestic and family matters - in both the Shari'a courts of Islam and the Rabbinic courts of Judaism -until Kholoud Al-Faqih, dares to challenge that history. With the support of a progressive Sheik, Kholoud becomes the first woman judge with her appointment to a Palestinian Shari'a court in the West Bank, bringing a subtle new perspective garnered from her early professional life working with battered women as an attorney in both the criminal and Shari'a courts.

On Monday's Access Utah, Jim DeFelice joins us to talk about his new book “West Like Lightning: The Brief Legendary Ride of the Pony Express."

For generations, the Wrights of southern Utah have raised cattle and world-champion saddle-bronc riders ― some call them the most successful rodeo family in history.

Today we're speaking with Margaret Barker, Dr. David Haberman, and Anuttama Dasa, panelists at the conference God & Smog: The Challenge of Preserving Our Planet. The conference is taking place today in the USU John M. Huntsman School of Business Perry Pavilion until 5 p.m.

A coalition of faculty and students at USU have come together to organize a day-long discussion of sexual violence, in order to understand the issues that informed the Kavanaugh hearings and investigation. This teach-in will happen on Tuesday, October 9 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the USU Anthropology Museum (Old Main 252) on the USU campus.

“Bridge of Clay” is the new sweeping family saga from Markus Zusak, author of the international bestseller “The Book Thief,” which swept the world and was made into a movie.

In a remote corner of Oregon, James Pogue found himself at the heart of a rebellion. Granted unmatched access by Ammon Bundy to the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Pogue met ranchers and militiamen ready to die fighting the federal government.

In the age of the Nano-second, folklore studies claim a perspective on the critical importance of the short-lived, as observed in numerous traditional forms such as memorial altars, henna-painted Yemen brides, and evaporative moments, such as the traces left by marginalized queer encounters or the reformulation in art of Mormon legend by local Provo artist Bryan Hutchison.