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Web-Exclusive!
Paul Twomey, president and CEO of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), spoke with Brian Lehrer at the Aspen Ideas Festival in July, about their recent decision to offer more top-level domain names.

Here’s a visual representation of the responses we got when we asked listeners to provide one word of wisdom to college graduates. Click on the image below to view the larger version of the cloud.

To celebrate National Poetry Month, we asked for poetry submissions from listeners about their favorite Brian Lehrer segments. Each poet was instructed to begin their verse with the words, “I heard.” On Wednesday, we arranged for some of our favorites to be read on-air. Alas, when we called poet Don Deixel, something went awry with the phones and we weren’t able to include his fabulous acrostic sonnet (be sure to read down the first letter of each line).

In true Follow-Up Friday style, we present the sonnet Don originally submitted, followed by the sonnet he composed as he waited by his silent telephone:

I heard David Kenny speak out in pain.

No on should live in fear of forced return

To where a tyrant waits. We need to learn

Each case where such a despot can restrain

Liberty, and use our laws to cleanse the stain.

Last month we read how Pharoah freedom did spurn;

I felt my yearly conscience pangs’ hot burn,

Goading me to fight oppression wheneveer its chain

Enslaves the body or the waterboarded brain.

No one else gives me the news, no on can earn

The respect that I give ‘NYC’. Others churn.

Spin trivia, echo those in power, rant on inane.

In the main, I daily gain knowledge from Brian Lehrer.

Among all the talking heads, there’s no one fairer.

…and the follow up…

I HEARD the phone; alas, it was not you!

From 11:45 I sat, prepared to read, till well past two,

In hopes my moment of eternal fame was nigh,

Waiting, hearing others summoned, but alas, not I.

Eventually, I left my phone-side perch, resigned to

Respect the judgment of those who chose. I knew

Every poem read did not obey the rules, and wondered why

A poem , fine as mine and so sycophantic, wasn’t rated high.

Given that those selected had some skill, it’s true,

Or showed they listened to ‘NYC’, and knew what was new —

Or did they maybe recycle an earlier effort and try

Deceptively, to pass old brass for gold to an unsuspecting eye?

Perhaps I erred in the sucking-up I tried to do –

Oh, had I known that Brian would take off! Had I a clue,

Erasing his name in favor of ones more attention getting:

Those of Kate Hinds or Lisa or Amy Eddings!

Thanks, Don!

On Wednesday we were thrilled to have spoken word artist Roland Legiardi-Laura join us in the studio (hour one, hour two) to help mark National Poetry Month. Each hour, Roland composed and read poems based on the other segments on our show. By popular demand, here are the “riff poems” he read on the air:

Working Definition of Spontaneous Riff Poetry
(sometimes called)
Inter-reactive versification

The inner blast furnace of your Homeric soul
blown open by
the uncontrollable need to bleed what others might read
as you spill your hot brain’s iambic seed
upon the earthen ears of your peers—both near and far,
Over the radio car…

---

Half of what you earn goes to rent

“Its the Failure of Government on All levels”*
The failure of government,
The failure of democracy to be democratic
The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—
How can you enjoy your right to live if you can’t pay to keep the rain out of your shoes?
No roof, no floor, no bathroom door.

Half your income on rent
One third to the taxman
Adds up to 83 percent.

    Presenting: A bardic math equation
    100 minus 83 equal 17
    17% for, food, clothing, health, transportation—

Can’t eat, can’t read, can’t think, can’t do
in a can do country.
This is not a small problem—
This is indentured servitude
This is poverty anti-pulchritude, dude…
This is the wrong conversation:
Make the pain for the poorest just tolerable enough so they wont rebel.
What is this strange odor that I smell?
Forget this well-intentioned government tweak
Break the bill
Grab the eagle by its crushed beak…
Give homes to the poor—
Give them their chance to own a piece of our national dream.
We all suffer from their anguish—
Think of creativity lost, energy wasted to just get by
To simply live in order to one day, die…
A nation needs all of its people—whole and healthy.

Congressman Anthony Weiner
Things are getting leaner and leaner
We need complete transformation
Not a shiny new vacuum cleaner…

*Quote from Congressman Anthony Weiner

---

Kelly’s Heroes

Tell me about my heroes—sweet Kelly,
master of the bereft.

On Long Island, fertile gift of an ancient
Melting-grinding mother glacier…
Left to its red children
Force-Borrowed by pale invaders
Held in trust
Til the oceans rust…

…Tell me how the real heroes suffer
in silence—
These are not my Baseball heroes, or my football heroes
Or the war-wounded shipped home in pieces…

These are the secret heroes.
The working class heroes who came
to feel the surf wash the mud from their souls.
Broken by that ancient grinding glacier of foreclosure.

That should be enough to qualify for
A hero’s medal but not for my heroes…

The heroes of Shirley—they fight against the creeping mystery death—the death of a thousand rads—dripped into water, leached into soil, wafted into breath–cooked into every Sunday family home grown duckling lunch…hugged and held and shared with every kiss, every dusty tear.

How do these heroes fight the battle for us?
Not by dying a victim’s death.
But by living on the battlefield of ‘truth against power’

Tell me Kelly how can we master the heroic burden of
dark knowledge? How can we win against this
ancient grinding glacier of willful secrets?

I want new heroes in my life…I want Kelly’s heroes.

Paul Steely White

Originally uploaded by wnyc

Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, rode his bike to the WNYC studios to talk about the city’s Department of Transportation’s Sustainable Streets plan on The Brian Lehrer Show, 4/29/2008.

John Soloman, emergency preparedness expert, joins Brian to take listener questions in his last of four visits on 4/24/08.

Donna Foote joins Brian on 4/24/08 to talk about her new book, Relentless Pursuit, in which she spends a year with three Teach For America teachers.

Amanda Taylor, “Conscientious Objector” columnist for the L Magazine, appeared in studio on Earth Day to offer her list of other cities’ environmentally friendly programs that she’d like to see implemented in New York.

John Dean, White House legal counsel to President Nixon, and Barry Goldwater, Jr., co-authors of Pure Goldwater, joined Brian in the studio to talk about the conservative tradition.

Here’s what John Corbisiero, Commanding Officer of the 90th precinct wrote to us in response to our request for more info on the perceived increase in police presence in the Williamsburg area:

There has been an increase in officers assigned to patrol the Southside of the precinct because of a slight up turn of crime within the area, we did have a local robbery pattern of knife point robber m/h who committed about 4-5 robberies , but the 90 pct detective squad has made the apprehension.

One of the biggest problems we face in the area is a delay in reporting when something happens, this causes the department to lose precious time in responding and apprehending the person, so please ask your listeners to call 911 when they feel there is someone in the area who may look suspicious or when they are a victim of a crime so we can respond quickly and attempt to apprehend nd identify the perpetrator whom commited the crime. I hope this was helpful and feel free to contact dcpi with any further inquiries.

Aaron Woolf

Originally uploaded by wnyc

Aaron Woolf, co-producer and director of King Corn, talked about his new documentary on the Brian Lehrer Show on 4/15/2008. He and co-producer, Curt Ellis, left behind their urban lives to move to Iowa, grow corn, and follow their product from seed to harvest to marketplace. King Corn airs on PBS tonight.

Lee Siegel

Originally uploaded by wnyc

Lee Siegel, author of Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob debates over the phone with Nicholson Baker, author of Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, on the Brian Lehrer Show, 4/9/2008.

Crochet Coral Reef

Originally uploaded by wnyc

Australian science writer Margaret Wertheim (center) began to crochet a coral reef to draw attention to the endangered Great Barrier Reef. She’s joined on The Brian Lehrer Show on 4/8/2008 by local participants Barbara Van Elsen (right), founder of the NYC Crochet Guild, and Njoya Angrum (left), founder of the Harlem Knitting Circle, to talk about their work, showing in New York this month.