Rail Safety in America, Europe's Bad Jobs Are Better, York Christmas Whistle

Guest: Richard Beall, Railroad Operations and Safety Consultant The Amtrak derailment near Olympia, Washington on Monday killed three passengers and injured dozens of others. The train jumped the tracks when it hit a curve going 80 miles per hour where the speed limit was 30 mph. Investigators are still trying to find out why.  And there’s the larger question of why do these kinds of accidents continue to happen? A similar derailment in Philadelphia in 2015 killed eight passengers and hospitalized 185 more. A handful of other collisions and derailments around the country have caused injury and death.

Guest: Chris Tilly, PhD, Professor, Urban Planning, UCLA As you do your last minute holiday shopping, spare a smile for that worker behind the counter. Retail is tough way to make a living in America. The pay is low, benefits are rare and hours erratic.  In a lot of other countries, working retail is a better gig. UCLA urban planning professor Chris Tilly has a book about this called “Where Bad Jobs Are Better: Retail Jobs Across Countries and Companies.”

Guest: Don Ryan, Factory Whistle Master While putting together a special show we aired last Friday about interesting community traditions, we stumbled on one that really tickled us and we wanted to spend a little more time with it. Listen to Don Ryan’s Christmas Whistle Concert in York, PA at 12:15 a.m. ET on Dec. 25 live on Facebook here.

Guest: Alex Kronemer, Co-founder, Unity Productions Foundation The images of Islam in the press are so often connected with terrorism and violence. That perception is very much on the mind of the creators of a new film called “The Sultan and the Saint” that will be airing on PBS on December 26. It is about an encounter between Saint Francis of Assisi and the Sultan of Egypt during the Crusades, when the Christian army was intent on destroying non-Christians. Their story is a lesson for us today. Learn more about the film here.

Guest: Linda Spilker, PhD, Cassini Project Scientist, Jet Propulsion Lab, NASA After 20 years of watching its every move, Linda Spilker looked on as the project that lasted half her career carried out a carefully-orchestrated suicide mission. Linda Spilker is the head scientist on the Cassini project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Cassini is the probe that sent back astounding pictures of Saturn and its moons until it completed its mission in spectacular fashion this last September.

Guest: Brandon Bishop, Social Studies Teacher, Blue Valley Southwest High School, Overland Park, Kansas A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away summer school was a terrible punishment for kids. But then, Mr. B. taught a class on the history and importance of Star Wars and summer school history was made. Young boys and girls dressed like Jedi and wielded light sabers. Mr. B – known in civilian life as Brandon Bishop – wasn’t yet born when the original Star Wars film came out 40 years ago. The younglings in his summer school class wouldn’t arrive on the planet for many decades. In this day of advanced movie making and special effects, why do films that debuted in the 1970s still excite young fans?