Talk of the Nation is one of my favorite radio shows that I catch via podcast. Their segment on the health care debate was the first time I’ve heard an open discussion on the subject with both sides well-represented among the guests and the callers. Talk of the Nation is open to everyone but is consistently even-tempered and actually fair and balanced. This segment was beautiful, especially in contrast with this Sunday’s NBC’s Meet the Press, which was less about “making sense of health care” and “separating fact from fiction” than it was Rachel Maddow and Dick Armey yelling at each other. TotN, on the other hand, succeeded as usual in fostering real, heartfelt, productive discussion, with polite guests who were willing to concede their ground and admit to contradictions, as well as callers (some with southern accents!) who could express serious doubts even though they said they understood the positive points of the legislation. I mean, if you watch television, you’d think people like that don’t exist.
Later, Sir Ben Kingsley, the actor from Gandhi (and some forthcoming film I hadn’t heard about) came on the show. I felt his approach to acting and film and storytelling reflected the best ways I like to think about art. He was really inspiring for a young artist in a different medium. He admitted that his success was in large part due to his good luck early in his career, but he was quite humble, and his passion and zeal for the medium came through really clearly:
I love telling stories. I was born to be a storyteller on the face of this earth. It turns out that I’m an actor, not a writer or any kind of intellectual. I’m an actor, but I love being part of the great storytelling tradition of us human beings.