Public Radio Tulsa

Tick Tock: Make The Serve, Pitch, Putt Or Shot

Frank Deford — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:23:00 +0000

In Milwaukee, cartoon characters dressed up like various sausages race at each Brewers' game; in Washington, five of our beloved presidents do their own bratwurst ramble. But the character I want to appear at every baseball game –– and at a couple of other sports, too, is ...

tick-tock,tick-tock

... the crocodile from Peter Pan who swallowed a clock and shadows a terrified Capt. Hook.

Somebody has to scare athletes into playing faster. In baseball, golf and tennis in particular, we are being slowwwwwwly lulled to sleep before every pitch, every shot.

U.S. Automakers Are On A Roll, But Hiring Is Slow And Steady

Sonari Glinton — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:21:00 +0000

There is one basic question that keeps being asked about the U.S. auto industry: Is it on the rebound?

"People ask a lot, is the auto industry back?" says Kristin Dziczek, a director at the Center for Automotive Research. "And it depends on what scale you want to look at."

So if we're looking at scales, let's start with productivity. In this case, how many work hours it takes to build a car. Productivity in U.S. plants is 39 percent higher than it was in 2000.

Fashion's Victims: An Artist's Focus On Garment Workers

Lauren Frayer — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:20:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4aR23-1MPo

How A Merger Could Affect Congress' Favorite Airport

Brian Naylor — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:19:00 +0000

If the US Airways-American Airlines merger announced earlier this year is approved, the combined airline would control two-thirds of the takeoff and landing slots at Reagan National Airport, outside Washington, D.C.

The government could force the airline to give up some of those slots as a condition of the merger. But lawmakers warn that could have consequences for some small- and medium-sized cities. And, not coincidentally, it could affect flight plans for lawmakers themselves.

Reagan National Airport is just a short taxi ride away from Capitol Hill.

Parvum Opus: Followers Flock To Pope's Latin Twitter Feed

Sylvia Poggioli — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:18:00 +0000

Against all Vatican expectations, the pope's Twitter account in Latin has gained more than 100,000 followers in six months and continues to grow.

Followers are not exclusively Roman Catholics or Latin scholars, but represent a wide variety of professions and religions from all over the world. Some go so far as to claim that the language of the ancient Romans is perfectly suited to 21st-century social media.

Pope Benedict XVI launched the first papal Twitter account last December in eight languages, including Arabic.

The Art Of Investing: The Rewards Aren't Always Financial

Uri Berliner — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:17:00 +0000

NPR's Uri Berliner is taking $5,000 of his own savings and putting it to work.

Animal CSI: Inside The Smithsonian's Feather Forensics Lab

Rhitu Chatterjee — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:16:00 +0000
Carla Dove smiles as she tears open a small, flat cardboard box. She is sitting at a lab bench in her office at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
"It's kind of like Christmas for me because I never know what's going to be in the packages," she says.
Inside the box are a bunch of sealed sandwich-size bags. Dove counts the bags.
"Eight samples today," she notes. Each sample consists of grayish pieces of feathers, and sometimes bones, all from inside the stomachs and intestines of Burmese pythons.
Dove is an ornithologist and a forensic expert of sorts.

House Passes Bill That Would Ban Abortions After 20 Weeks

Julie Rovner — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:29:00 +0000
The House has passed one of the most far-reaching abortion bills in decades. But it's unlikely to ever become law.
By a mostly party-line vote Tuesday of 228-196, lawmakers passed the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act," which would ban nearly all abortions starting 20 weeks after fertilization.
"At 20 weeks maybe sooner, the baby feels pain," said physician and Rep. John Fleming, R-La., on the House floor. "And so I would just submit to you today Mr.

How The Civil Rights Movement Was Covered In Birmingham

Audie Cornish — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:04:00 +0000
As the Civil Rights Movement was unfolding across the US in 1963, the entire nation had its eyes on climactic events taking place in Southern cities like Birmingham, Ala., and Jackson, Miss. But there's a stark difference between how the national press covered the events in Birmingham and how Birmingham's papers covered their own city.
As part of NPR's series on that pivotal summer of 1963, Audie Cornish traveled to Birmingham, Ala., to revisit some of the stories that shaped the city and the nation at the time.

Google Files First-Amendment Request With FISA Court

Bill Chappell — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:13:00 +0000
Google has filed a legal motion asserting its "First Amendment right to publish aggregate information about FISA orders," asking the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to remove the gag order that keeps the company from issuing that information. Google and other big U.S.