[sneeze] narrator the symptoms are familiar. Very likely will come up with a correct diagnosis. Yes, it looks like a common cold. Running nose, headache, achiness, very often a slight fever. Those are some of the symptoms of the common cold. How do we get into that unhappy state . Do we have colds simply because of cold, because of ice, snow, and low temperature . No. Funny thing about colds. Where it is coldest, the inhabitants hardly ever get colds. Explorers tell us eskimos are coldfree, unless they come into contact with visitors from outside their frozen world. Then if it is not just cold weather, what is it that causes so many of us to catch cold . Scientists think that most colds are caused by extremely small microorganisms called viruses. Viruses and there are many different kinds of them can be scattered with each particle of saliva and mucus. When one sneezes or coughs, for instance. But do not think for a moment that coldproducing viruses are spread only by sneezing and coug
Richard norton smith, why did you call your book that you wrote 35 years ago uncommon man . Well, its taken actually from the title of a relatively famous hoover speech about the uncommon man. If you remember, Vice President henry wallace, who was the second of fdrs Vice President s, gave a famous speech in 1942, i believe, maybe 43, about the censure of the common man. And wallace from a leftofcenter perspective was projecting, in effect, the goals and ambitions of the generation that was fighting world war ii. And it wasnt enough simply to defeat the nazis, but to create at home a true democracy, a place where the common man would finally come into his own. And hoover approached this from a different place in the political spectrum. He was in effect making the case for what we might call meritocracy. But some think i shouldnt paraphrase it. But you know, when you get sick, you want an uncommonly skillful doctor. When we go to war, we want an uncommonly able general. You get the pictu
Series of books on the president s and i said, arthur, i dont have time. Im retired. And he said i want you to do one thing. Allen evans have done a paper back that excerpts his diary, his president ial diary. Just take the weekend and read it and tell me no. And i read the excerpts from the diary and i couldnt say no. I was fascinated by the man. Did you know much about him. I knew he was a tennesseean and im a tennesseean. I knew that his grave is behind the capitol. There is no marker in nashville except a plaque on the side of a dirty motel wall. His old homeplace in columbia is preserved and i had been there many times and have been there since. But i knew virtually nothing about him and almost nothing that was good. His reputation was the result of what was to him during his presidency over the mexicanamerican war. Left him a bad reputation. A reputation as a warmonger. And the attacks on him in congress in the latter days of his administration reminded me a great deal of the att
This week on q a, president ial historian Richard Norton smith discusses his book, an uncommon man the triumph of Herbert Hoover. Richard norton smith, why did you call your book that you wrote 35 years ago uncommon man . Well, its taken actually from the title of a relatively famous hoover speech about the uncommon man. If you remember, Vice President henry wallace, who was the second of fdrs Vice President s, gave a famous speech in 1942, maybe 43, about the century of the common man, and wallace from a left of center perspective, was projecting in effect, the goals and ambitions of the generation that was fighting world war ii. And it wasnt enough simply to defeat the nazis, but to create, at home, a true democracy. A place where the common man would finally come into his own. And hoover approached this from a different place in the political spectrum. He was, in effect, making the case for what we might call a meritocracy. I shouldnt paraphrase it, but when you get sick, you want a
Mann, author in residence at Johns Hopkins school of advanced International Studies, he talks about his biography of president george w. Bush. James mann, author of the biography on george w. Bush. If a friend of yours who had never met george w. Bush asked you to talk about him, what would you say . I would say he was a guy who was the son of a president , had trouble dealing with that fact for the first 40 years plus of his life, and then got his own personal life together enough to be a quite successful and shrewd politician to be elected governor of texas, and then became president of the united states. The first thing he would be known for then at the time of his presidency now, and forever more, will certainly be the fact that he was president at the time of the september 11th attacks and chose to wage a war in iraq that turned out to be a disaster. What were his early years like . Well, he followed in his fathers footsteps, and i say that quite literally, because he was forced,