Welcome to Tuesday, Day 71 of the BP disaster in the Gulf. As if that’s not enough, there’s lots of other news to talk about today.
It’s also Day 2 of the Elena Kagan Supreme Court confirmation hearings. And General Petraeus was at his own hearing, getting confirmed by the Senate Armed Service Committee as the next commander of U.S. and foreign forces in Afghanistan.
We played a bit of “Dueling Hearings” on tonight’s show in between interviews.
It was an interesting collection of guests tonight.
Billy Hayes, the guy on whose story the 1978 film “Midnight Express” was based joined me for a fascinating interview. He’s featured in the National Geographic Channel’s “Locked Up Abroad” series premiere tomorrow night.
I was thrilled to speak with singer/songwriter Steve Forbert tonight. While looking for music to use in my Hands Across the Sand video, I remembered Steve’s “The Oil Song.” When I went to download it, I noticed a new version, “The Oil Song 2010” was available. I listened to it, and realized that Steve had added yet another verse about our latest oil disaster. Not only was the song perfect for my purposes, but I asked Steve to join me on the show tonight too.
And we ended the show with Bill McKibben, environmentalist/activist/author (his latest book is Eaarth) /co-founder of 350.org who explained that, within the last six weeks, seven nations have experienced record temperatures. The folks at 350.org Pakistan reported the mercury hitting 127 degrees. We need to take action.