St. Louis on the Air

In 2009, Susannah Cahalan, a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, was a healthy 24-year old journalist at the New York Post.

One day that year, she found herself alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to speak.

Cahalan had no memory, at the time, of her month long hospital stay, hallucinations and violent actions.

“(The doctors) became convinced I had bi-polar disorder,” she told host Don Marsh.

As a world-renowned jazz trumpeter, composer and band leader, Terence Blanchard has received five Grammy Awards and has written jazz pieces for small ensembles, symphonic settings, film and stage. But when he was contacted by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis Artistic Director James Robinson about writing an opera, his first question was “are you sure you have the right guy?”  Robinson knew exactly what he was doing.

Presidents’ Day honors the men who have lead the United States, though it’s clear not as much is known about the women who served with them.

The first of a thirty-five part, two-season C-SPAN series, “First Ladies: Influence and Image,” premieres tonight.  The goal, according to Executive Producer Mark Farkas, is to “reveal their personal challenges, accomplishments, and failures…and to provide a window into our nation’s history and the trajectory of women in our society.”

Former Vice-President Al Gore appeared at the St. Louis County Library on Saturday, February 9 to open the Buzz Westfall Great Authors Series.  He spoke to a sell-out crowd of 800 about his new book, "The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change." Host Don Marsh introduced Gore and engaged in a discussion with him following the talk.

Is it Missour-ee or Missour-uh?

Those two pronunciations of the state, according to linguist John Baugh of Washington University in St. Louis, peacefully co-exist and are “indicative of all of the linguistic collisions from the rest of the country that happen in our wonderful city.”

Baugh and linguist Cindy Brantmeier of Washington University joined host Don Marsh to talk about how language forms, evolves, and is spoken differently throughout the United States.