Philippines, Adult Music Education, Evolving Ourselves

Guest: Prashanth Parameswaran, Associate Editor at The Diplomat, PhD candidate the Fletcher School, Tufts University President Rodrigo Duterte has just marked six months at the helm of the Philippines, which has long been an important ally of the US in Southeast Asia. But that friendship has been strained by Duterte’s angry rhetoric and threats to sever ties with America. It has also been strained by Duterte’s “war on drugs” in which more than 6,000 people have been killed in the last six months. Human rights advocates and the Obama administration have condemned the campaign, but President-elect Trump’s Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson, in his nomination hearing, refused to denounce Duterte as a human rights violator.

Guest: Steve Gullans, PhD, Managing Director at Excel Venture Management Last year, the first baby genetically related to three parents was born. American doctors did the controversial procedure in Mexico, because it’s not yet legal in the US. They first took the mother’s egg and cut out the genes for a devastating disease, then replaced them with healthy genes from another woman before fertilizing the egg with the father’s sperm and implanting it in the mother. So the baby – born healthy in April– has DNA from two women and one man. And the baby then passes down this altered DNA to its children. It’s a striking example of humans taking the reins of evolution from Mother Nature.

Guest: Gary Jacobson, PhD, Professor of Political Science, UC San Diego Republicans and Democrats are more deeply divided than they’ve been in decades and the polarization did, in fact, get worse during Obama’s eight years in office. But there may be a silver lining.

Guest: Rod Gustafson, ParentPreviews.com  Before there were computers to do the complicated calculations necessary to get American satellites and space craft into space, there were women armed with pencils and paper who did the computing. They were called “computers,” and the black women who were among them are the focus of a new film called “Hidden Figures,” which is based on real-life events.

Guest: Jed Gottlieb, writer  It’s pretty rare to find a newspaper anywhere in the country with a full-time writer dedicated solely to covering theater, music or books. These are tough times for print journalism and it seems arts critics are among the first to go in layoffs and buyouts. Or, they get other duties and breaking news assignments added to their job so they spend less time writing about arts. And so what? Do newspapers really need someone dedicated full time to arts when the internet is teeming with movie and music reviews?

Guest: Sam Tsugawa, PhD, Professor of Music Education, Director of the New Horizons Orchestra, BYU Think of the people you know who play a musical instrument? Chances are, most – if not all – of them started learning it when they were in grade school. In American culture there’s a window of opportunity to learn a music instrument that seems to close at around junior high. It doesn’t have to close, of course. A program called New Horizons Music just marked 25 years of helping adults – particularly senior citizens – pick up a musical instrument. There are now New Horizons Bands and Orchestras all across the country that welcome people of all musical skill levels – even complete beginners.