It's All Politics
2:35 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Want Thousands of Twitter Followers? Put A Meme On It

Credit bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com
An image from the Binders Full of Women Tumblr.

Originally published on Thu October 18, 2012 10:23 am

It is now clear that we are living in a world of viral memes that take no sides when it comes to spoofing politicians or debate moderators.

So what's a politician to do as the target of a social media parody?

Run with it.

"By kind of winking along with the electorate, you're humanizing, personalizing yourself, authenticating yourself," says Rory O'Connor, author of Friends, Followers and the Future. O'Connor argues that social media will be critical to deciding who is elected as the next president.

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World
2:31 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Israeli Politicians Look To U.S. For Campaign Funds

Credit Pool / Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly Cabinet meeting at his offices in Jerusalem in October. A new report shows that Netanyahu raised more than 90 percent of his campaign money in the United States.

Originally published on Sun October 21, 2012 8:03 am

It's midday in the cafeteria of the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, and legislators and their aides are busy wheeling and dealing over lunch.

Gil Hoffman, political analyst for The Jerusalem Post newspaper, surveys the cafeteria floor with an expert's eye.

"Never a dull moment in election season," he says. "This is where the politicians, when there is something really important to get across to the press, this is where they do it; this is where they meet and make whatever political deals they need to get ahead."

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Shots - Health News
2:24 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

How The Taliban Is Thwarting The War On Polio

Originally published on Wed October 17, 2012 5:26 pm

Pakistan is one of the remaining corners of the world where polio still lingers. Last year, the government declared a national emergency, and with the help of international institutions, embarked on an aggressive vaccination campaign.

So far, the results have been promising. The number of new polio cases is about a third of last year's total of 198.

But the new campaign, like previous efforts, hasn't been able to overcome one critical problem: getting into parts of Pakistan's lawless tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan to vaccinate the children there.

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Credit Michael Paras

Margot Adler is a NPR correspondent based in NPR's New York Bureau. Her reports can be heard regularly on All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Weekend Edition.

In addition to covering New York City, Adler reports include in-depth features exploring the interface of politics and culture. Most recently she has been reporting on the controversy surrounding the proposed Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero. Other recent pieces have focused on the effect of budget cuts on education, flood relief efforts by the Pakistani community in the United States, the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy, and the battles over the September 11th memorial as well as the continuing human story in New York City in the years since the attacks. Her reporting has included topics such as the death penalty, affirmative action and the culture wars.

Adler did the first American radio interview with J.K. Rowling and has charted the Harry Potter phenomenon ever since. Her reporting ranges across issues including children and technology, the fad of the Percy Jackson books and the popularity of vampires. She occasionally reviews books, covers plays, art exhibitions and auctions, among other reports for NPR's Arts desk.

From 1999-2008, Adler was the host of NPR's Justice Talking, a weekly show exploring constitutional controversies in the nation's courts.

Adler joined the NPR staff as a general assignment reporter in 1979, after spending a year as an NPR freelance reporter covering New York City. In 1980, she documented the confrontation between radicals and the Ku Klux Klan in Greensboro, North Carolina. In 1984, she reported and produced an acclaimed documentary on AIDS counselors in San Francisco. She covered the Winter Olympics in Calgary in 1988 and in Sarajevo in 1984. She has reported on homeless people living in the subways, on the state of the middle class and on the last remaining American hospital for treating leprosy, which was located in Louisiana.

From 1972 to 1990, Adler created and hosted live talk shows on WBAI-FM/New York City. One of those shows, Hour of the Wolf, hosted by Jim Freund, continues as a science fiction show to this day. She is the author of the book, Drawing Down the Moon, a study of contemporary nature religions, and a 1960's memoir, Heretic's Heart. She co-produced an award-winning radio drama, War Day, and is a lecturer and workshop leader. She is currently working on a book on why vampires have such traction in our culture.

With a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, Adler went on to earn a Master of Science degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in New York in 1970. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1982.

The granddaughter of Alfred Adler, the renowned Viennese psychiatrist, Adler was born in Little Rock, Ark., and grew up in New York City. She loves birding and science fiction.

The Two-Way
1:36 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Guilty Plea In Plot To Murder Saudi Ambassador

Credit Shirley Shepard / AFP/Getty Images
Manssor Arbabsiar (front, right) in court last October.

Manssor Arbabsiar, an Iranian-born naturalized American citizen, has pleaded guilty to conspiring with Iranian military officials in a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States, the Justice Department says.

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Books
1:29 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Thousands Line Up For Rare Rowling Appearance

Credit Dan Hallman / AP
J.K. Rowling promotes her new novel, The Casual Vacancy, at Lincoln Center in New York. It was her only U.S. appearance.

Originally published on Wed October 17, 2012 4:09 pm

While much of America was watching the second presidential debate, about 2,000 people — many of them between the ages of 20 and 40 — were doing something very different. They had gotten a rare and prized ticket to the only U.S. appearance by J.K Rowling, as she promotes her new book for adults, The Casual Vacancy.

The crowd was huge but happy — double the number originally planned, forcing the organizers to change venues. Attendees got a ticket to the Lincoln Center event and a copy of the book, which Rowling would later sign.

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Valley Writers Read
1:27 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Anne DaVigo's "Fault Lines" and Lucille Apcar's "Who Spanked J.R. Jr.?"

This week on Valley Writers Read, we hear two stories by local authors. "Fault Lines" by Anne DaVigo chronicles a family's move from near the San Andreas Fault to Fresno. The second story, "Who Spanked J.R. Jr.?" by Lucille Apcar, talks about a teacher who disciplines the son of a powerful judge. 

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Middle East
1:12 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

In A Ravaged Syrian Village, Planning For The Future

Originally published on Thu October 18, 2012 5:00 pm

The rebels of the Free Syrian Army recently retook the small farming village of Khirbet al-Joz, just across the border from Turkey. Soon after, Syrian men who had been in Turkish refugee camps returned to the village to see what had happened to their homes.

Activists from a group called the Syrian Emergency Task Force also visited Khirbet al-Joz and filmed video of villagers as they toured the charred ruins.

One man points to a hole in the wall: "Look, this is where the rocket entered. These are Bashar's reforms," he says, referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

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Book Reviews
1:08 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

These 'Miracle Cures' Are Absurd And Delightful

Originally published on Wed October 17, 2012 4:09 pm

César Aira's The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira is only 80 pages long, but, like many of his books, it reads with the intensity and fullness of a much longer novel. In it you'll find an eccentric flaneur, an evil archenemy, a vicious guard dog, an ambulance that goes only in a straight line.

Dr. Aira, the main character, likes to wander the streets of a town called Pringles. That this happens to be the name of the author's hometown in Argentina may or may not be significant. As he walks, he thinks up theoretical miracle cures to imagined illnesses.

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The Two-Way
1:05 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Man Arrested For Allegedly Trying To Bomb N.Y. Federal Reserve

Credit Andrew Burton / Getty Images
A cornerstone at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in Manhattan.

Originally published on Wed October 17, 2012 2:50 pm

"Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21, was arrested this morning in downtown Manhattan after he allegedly attempted to detonate what he believed to be a 1,000-pound bomb at the New York Federal Reserve Bank on Liberty Street in lower Manhattan's financial district," the FBI confirms an email just sent to reporters.

It adds that:

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