Bob Edwards Weekend
on NCPR

Bob Edwards Weekend, February 18-19, 2012 

HOUR ONE:

Los Angeles Times columnist Doyle McManus joins Bob to discuss the latest political news.

Ken Ballen is a former federal prosecutor and congressional investigator who spent five years as a researcher interviewing more than a hundred Islamic radicals. He was tasked with learning more about their lives, faith and motivations. Terrorists in Love tells the stories of six of the men - from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia – and gets past the clichés about terrorism to reveal the surprising hearts and minds of some Jihadists. 

In this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of Emily Walshe.  Most of us are so busy, we wish for more hours in the day. Between work and family obligations — and time spent driving between the two — there’s very little time left for repose. This time of year puts Walshe in mind of hibernation. She says time for rest should be a part of everyone’s life, and looks to the rhythm of nature for inspiration.

HOUR TWO:

Actor Max Von Sydow has portrayed priests, doctors, popes, cardinals, dads, a James Bond villain, Jesus Christ, the devil, an assassin, grandfathers, a soccer loving Nazi and Ming the Merciless in a Flash Gordon remake, to name just a few of his many roles. Bob talks with the Swedish-born actor about his long career and about his latest role. Von Sydow received his second Oscar nomination for his part as “the renter” in the new film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

As a banjoist for The Punch Brothers, Noam Pikelny has helped expand the sound of bluegrass.  He earned the first annual Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass Music, and now has released his second solo album, Beat The Devil and Carry A Rail.  Pikelny joins Bob in the Sirius XM Performance Studio to discuss his work and play a few tunes.

Bob Edwards Weekend is heard on Sirius XM Public Radio (XM 121, Sirius 205) on Saturdays from 8-10 AM EST.

Visit Bob Edwards Weekend on PRI’s website to find local stations that air the program.

essayist Emily WalsheEach week, we’ll hear a new This I Believe essay - this time from Emily Walshe. She’s a librarian and professor at Long Island University in New York, where she specializes in social informatics and digital literacy. She has written opinion pieces for The Christian Science Monitor, New York Newsday, and American Libraries magazine about literacy, reading and Internet privacy issues. Walshe believes that the cold, dark months of winter bring out the need for quiet time, but work and family obligations often keep her too busy to slow down. She says we need a period of rest and reflection to help us be more productive the rest of the year.

Click here to read a transcript and to listen to her essay.

Click here for guidelines to submit your own statement of beliefs.

by Chad Campbell, senior producer

Max von Sydow as “The Renter”Actor Max von Sydow first came to my attention as the arch villain Ming the Merciless in the 1980 Flash Gordon remake. I was an impressionable nine year old then. A year later, von Sydow was a soccer loving, “nice” Nazi officer in Victory. Next I saw him as Brewmeister Smith in Strange Brew. I probably didn’t know what range was back then, but Max von Sydow has demonstrated that he has it - though he complains that he’s been typecast during his six decade career on stage and screen. He has portrayed priests, doctors, popes, cardinals, dads, grandfathers, a James Bond villain, Jesus Christ and the devil to name just a few more of his many roles. His latest earned von Sydow an Oscar nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category. In Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, he plays “The Renter” and his character does not speak a word in the film, having taken a vow of silence decades earlier. Before all of those movie and TV roles, von Sydow worked on the Swedish stage performing an untold number of plays with the acclaimed director Ingmar Bergman. He still reveres his mentor and credits Bergman for making him better. The pair went on to produce 11 films together, including The Seventh Seal, where von Sydow is a knight who challenges Death to a game of chess.

And just for fun, here’s a delightful stop-action re-imagining of that scene called The Seventh Skol.