“Best Of:” Swine Flu in History, Iraqi Author Ali Allawi, and “The Producers” Goes to Germany

Swine Flu Preparations

For this week’s “best of, but not-quite-best-of” podcast, Alex Gallafent and Clark Boyd bring you a selection of what they think were some of the most scintillating stories from the past week’s radio programs. You can listen to the entire podcast right here. The global outbreak of swine flu has taken up a lot of air time on the program over the past week or so. In fact, it’s hard to choose just one segment from the show to highlight. Still, let’s try. We begin with an interview that The World’s anchor, Lisa Mullins, did with Richard Wenzel. Wenzel is an epidemiologist and Chairman of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Internal Medicine. He also diagnosed some of the earliest cases during the last swine flu outbreak back in 1976. It’s great to give this recent crisis some much-needed historical context.

Alex chooses an interview that Lisa Mullins did this week with Iraqi author Ali Allawi. Allawi served as both Defense Minister and Trade and Finance Minister at various points during the last six years. Allawi’s new book is called The Crisis of Islamic Civilization. We also shot a short video from our interview with Allawi.

And we end on a lighter note. You probably have heard of comedian Mel Brooks’ smash Broadway musical The Producers. If so, you might remember that the plot revolves around a get-rich-quick scheme that involves staging, at great cost to good taste, a musical called “Springtime for Hitler.” Well now, the musical is making its way to a stage in Berlin…a stage that happens to be in a theater where Hitler used to make appearances once in a while. Lisa Mullins speaks with Lone Bech, a spokeswoman for the theater.

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• Lessons from 1976 flu “debacle” (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
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