The State of Things

Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill fall all over themselves to get into Marianne Gingher's stylistics class. Gingher, the Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature, teaches her language class just once a year. It culminates in the annual performance of Gram-O-Rama, a collection of student-produced skits and songs spun out of grammar assignments.

In the pilot episode of the radio drama, “Jade City Pharaoh,” superhero Herald MF Jones’ snack break gets interrupted by the villainous antics of his archnemsis, The Beef Cooka.

On Monday, the North Carolina General Assembly sent a repeal of the Racial Justice Act to Gov. Bev Perdue for her signature. The law, which legislators passed in 2009, gave the state's death row inmates a means to challenge their sentences using statistical evidence. The law has been at the center of controversy since its beginnings. Advocates claimed it would help right racial imbalance in the justice system, while opponents said the law would give convicted murderers access to parole. 

Contemporary composer Paul Swartzel certainly draws from the masters of classical music for inspiration. But in addition to Beethoven and Haydn, Swartzel studies commercially successful songs from the 1980s for lessons on how to write great music - and how to descriptively write about music for non-musicians. Host Frank Stasio talks with Swartzel, a graduate student in the Department of Music at Duke University, about how Milli Vanilli and Public Enemy can influence today’s classical composers and the course he teaches at Duke called “I Love the 80s.”

Watching "A Christmas Carol" is an annual holiday ritual for millions of people around the world. The story of the mean old Ebenezer Scrooge and his conversion from sinner to savior has been shown in a variety of versions on the big screen, the television and on the stage. But for those fans wondering what happened after Scrooge's change of heart, there is only one show to watch: the musical production of “Tim and Scrooge: A Carol for a Later Christmas.” It's a play written by Nick Meglin with music by Neil Berg and the narrative picks up with a now not-so-tiny Tim 12 years after the events of the original story. Host Frank Stasio talks to Meglin about his sequel to "A Christmas Carol," which makes it local premiere at Greensboro’s Open Space Café Theatre on December 8th.

North Carolina is poised for another radical overhaul of its mental health system. This time the changes have to do with the way state mental health agencies pay for patient care. A new law passed by the state General Assembly last spring requires agencies to become more like HMOs. Instead of billing Medicaid for individual services, agencies will get a lump sum up front, which they will then use to pay patient costs. Opponents of the legislation fear this change will lead to poor care for the state's mentally ill.

For writer Hillary Jordan, the lessons of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic, “The Scarlet Letter,” are relevant today. In her new book, “When She Woke” (Algonquin/2011), Jordan imagines that the skin tone of convicted criminals can be genetically altered to fit their misdeeds. Petty crimes are punished with yellow pigmentation, sex crimes with blue and criminals convicted of murder – like the book’s protagonist Hannah Payne – are turned bright red. Hannah, a devoutly religious young woman, is being punished for killing her unborn child. Her incarceration is also broadcast on reality TV.

Next May, North Carolina voters are scheduled to go to the polls to vote on a proposed amendment to the North Carolina state constitution that will ban same-sex marriage. Yet, according to recent polls, support for same-sex unions is on the rise. Nearly 53% of Americans favor the right to marry for everyone. That’s up from 42% five years ago.

Some fans know her as Gallagher Gray or Chaz McGhee, but those who grew up with mystery writer Katy Munger in Raleigh knew her as one of six children in a large, eccentric family that lived in Cameron Park. Her father was the longtime books editor at The News & Observer, her mother was a political activist who took her children with her to protests and marches. Munger's lively childhood has helped shaped the characters she creates in three sets of mystery series, The Hubbert and Lil books, the Casey Jones series and her latest, the Dead Detective series. Host Frank Stasio talks with Katy Munger, who now lives in Durham, about her life, her work and how her characters interact with the justice system.  This program originally aired on August 22, 2011.  For a link to the audio, click here.

An estimated 16,000 kids dropped out of school in North Carolina last year. That’s a slight improvement from the year before, but it’s clear that much more needs to be done to make school a welcoming and academically challenging place for many of the state’s students. Join host Frank Stasio and UNC-TV’s Heather Burgiss for a special conversation about how to keep kids in the classroom.