Wgtd's The Morning Show With Greg Berg

From 2008 comes this conversation with Ann Vileisis, author of "Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get it Back."  

In honor of National Wildlife Week.  Part One: David Mizejewski, a naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation.  Part Two:  Nan Calvert, from Root Pike WIN, and Rick Fare, an avid birdwatcher who is active with the local chapter of the Hoy Audubon Nature Club. 

Four instructors at Gateway Technical College talk about what it is like to teach online during the COVID-19 crisis .... in programs ranging from Nursing to Welding.  

We reached out to four members of the clergy in southeastern Wisconsin to find out how their respective congregations or parishes are functioning during COVID-19:  Father Ricardo Martin, Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Racine ....  Rev. Bradley Brown, North Cape Lutheran Church in Raymond ..... Rev. Susan Patterson-Sumwalt, First United Methodist Church in Kenosha .... and Rev. Levi Ketelson, pastor of the Burlington campus of Journey Church.  

From 2010 comes this  conversation with Bruce Feiler, author of the best-selling book "The Council of Dads:  My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me,"  which NBC has adapted into a new drama series airing Tuesday evenings.  When Feiler was diagnosed with life-threatening cancer,  he approached several of his closest friends and asked if they would be willing to step in as surrogate fathers for his daughters.  His beautiful book chronicles what is was like for him to assemble this 'council of dads.'   

Part One-  Dr. Ed Kawakami, chair of the Academic Senate at Carthage College, talks about how the faculty wrestled with the question of what to do about grading during the COVID-19 Crisis.  Should letter grades still be given?  Should the school switch to pass/fail?  Should a mix of options be offered?    Part Two-  Jolene Hart, author of "Ignite Your Light,"  offers some suggestions on how people can remain happy and mentally healthy during the COVID-19 Crisis.  

From 2006--  Franz Wisner, author of "Honeymoon with my Brother: a Memoir."  When Wisner's fiancee breaks off their engagement,  Franz decides to go on his scheduled honeymoon anyway ... but with his brother.  

From 2008- Michael Joseph Gross talks about his book "Starstruck:  When a Fan gets Close to Fame."  Please note that the book was published and the interview conducted a year before singer Michael Jackson's unexpected death at the age of 50.  

From 2017 comes this conversation with Meta Wagner, author of "What's Your Creative Type: Harnessing the Power of Your Artistic Personality."  

From the archives comes this 2009 conversation with Dr. Mardy Grothe, author of "I Never Metaphor I Didn't Like: a Comprehensive Compilation of History's Greatest Analogies, Metaphors and Similes."  

From the archives comes this 2005 conversation with Dan Koeppel, author of "To See Every Bird on Earth: a Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession."  This book examines birdwatching at its most elite level, when people will travel the globe in order to see literally thousands of different species of birds in the wild.  

We spend most of the program looking back at the terrifying Polio Epidemic of the late 1940s and early 1950s.  We begin by previewing the American Experience documentary "The Polio Crusade," which is being rebroadcast Tuesday night on PBS.   After that, you'll hear an interview with David Oshinsky, author of "Polio: An American Story,"  which served as valuable source material for the film.  The hour finishes out with a brief 2003 interview with former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, talking about her memoir "Madame Secretary." 

We begin with a newly-recorded interview with Dr. Beth Rush, a neuropsychologist with the Mayo Clinic, who offers some advice to people on how to maintain their mental and emotional health during the COVID-19 crisis.   After that is a 2008 interview with food writer Frederick Kaufman, author of "A Short History of the American Stomach."  

From the archives comes this 2008 interview with Beth Lisick, who takes an amusing look at the self-help movement in her book "Helping Me Help Myself:  One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone."  

From the archives comes this 2008 interview with Mark Kreidler, author of "6 Good Innings: How one small town became a Little League Giant."  Kreidler explored a spectacular Little League program in a small community in New Jersey in order to determine what was behind their exceptional success. 

This interview was recorded one week ago with Hope Jahren, a writer and teacher who is one of the most compelling voices on the topic of Climate Change.  Her new book is "The Story of More:  How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here."  The book spells out the most significant ways in which our planet has changed drastically over the last 50 years- and how those changes are inter-related.  We open the interview by talking briefly about what life is like in Norway (where Jahren lives) during this COVID-19 Crisis.  

I hope you will derive some listening pleasure and diversion from this conversation with Bob Hurst, one of the editors of a new edition of "The Autobiography of Mark Twain."  

Even in the midst of this COVID-19 Crisis, we still can seek Happiness.   Ginny Sassaman has studied and written about happiness for many years.  Her latest book is titled "Preaching Happiness:  Creating a Just and Joyful World."  

As we hunker down during this COVID-19 Crisis, many of us are turning more and more to books.  From 2010 comes this interview with Sean Manning, editor of a marvelous book titled "Bound to Last: 30 Writers on Their Most Cherished Book."  In this fascinating and moving volume, 30 different writers each talk about the book that means the most to them.   It is one of my all-time favorite interviews about books themselves and their place in our lives.  

Amy Shira Teitel, who has written extensively on topics related to space and space travel, discusses her new book "Fighting for Space: Two Pilots and their Historic Battle for Female Spaceflight."    The book chronicles the careers of two extraordinary female pilots,  Jackie Cochran (1906-1980) and Jerrie Cobb (1931-2019) and, in particular, how they became adversaries when it came to the fight in the early 1960's to persuade NASA to include women in its astronaut program.