BPR Full Show 10/6/20: Writing Straight With Crooked Lines

Dr. Katherine Gergen Barnett offered her medical perspective on the latest headlines around President Trump’s fight with COVID-19, helping parse together exactly how sick the president actually is. Gergen Barnett is the vice chair of Primary Care Innovation and Transformation and residency director in the Department of Family Medicine at Boston Medical Center and Boston University Medical School.

Jennifer Braceras and Michael Curry weighed in on the wider political implications of President Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis. Braceras is a political columnist and director of the Center for Law & Liberty at the Independent Women’s Forum. Curry is Deputy CEO & General Counsel Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers and member of the national NAACP Board of Directors, Chair of the Board’s Advocacy & Policy Committee.

We opened lines to talk ask listeners: is the Trump administration blowing an opportunity to use his diagnosis as a teachable moment?

CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem discussed the growing number of Trump Administration officials testing positive for COVID-19, and the national security implications of having a compromised president.

Mike Astrue discussed the origins of the 25th amendment, his time drafting the first operational plan during the George H.W. Bush administration, and implications for President Trump, now that he’s at risk of COVID-related incapacitation. He also recited some of his poetry. Astrue is former Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, and a former Associate Counsel to the President of the United States. He also writes and translates poetry under the alias A.M. Juster, and his latest book of poetry is "Wonder and Wrath.”

Reverends Irene Monroe and Emmett G. Price III, hosts of “All Rev’d Up,” discussed the lighter tone of some COVID-era funerals taking place on Zoom, and some new local art by muralist Rob “ProBlak” Gibbs. They also reflected on the life of reverend and civil rights activist James P. Breeden, who died in September.

GBH Executive Arts Editor Jared Bowen debated the merits of ephemeral art, in a conversation about conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian.” He also reviewed two new documentaries, “The Sit-In” and “Aggie,” and discussed a new exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum about the Salem Witch Trials.