REWIND: Islamic Schools, Town on Fire, RunPee App

Published: June 23, 2016, 11 p.m.

What Islamic Schools Really Teach Guest: Charles Glenn, PhD,  Professor of Educational Leadership at Boston University  We’re well into the month of Ramadan – the holy month when Muslims fast from food and drink from sun up to sundown. Only about 1 percent of the US population is Muslim, so imagine the challenge of going an entire month in the heat of summer without eating or drinking during the day while your colleagues and classmates snack and sip away in front of you.  Ramadan is probably a little easier for Muslim kids enrolled in the 230 or so Islamic high schools in the US where fasting at Ramadan is the rule, not the exception. My next guest has spent years interviewing students, teachers and parents involved in Islamic schools to better understand what’s being taught there. Public polls show Americans, in general, are very skeptical of the how committed Muslims living in the US are to being American. Many worry Islamic schools teach extreme ideology. Recycled Hollywood Stories Guest: Chris Hansen, MFA, award-winning writer, director. Director, Film and Digital Media Division of Baylor University’s Department of Communication  The biggest Hollywood blockbusters these days all seem to feel just a little familiar, don’t they? Independence Day, X-Men, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Finding Dory. Why doesn’t Hollywood seem interested in trying something new these days? Conversations About Death Guest: Karl Lorenz, MD, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and at The RAND Corporation; Section Chief for the Veterans Health Administration-Stanford Programs in Palliative Care Here’s a stunning fact to consider – back when Medicare was signed into law 50 years ago, most people died in their homes and the life sustaining treatments we’ve come to consider standard procedure hadn’t been invented yet. Technological advances have helped us live longer. But are we living better? We’re definitely not dying better, according to the doctors and researchers who focus on end-of-life care.  The Town on Fire Guest: Glenn Stracher, PhD, East Georgia State College Professor Emeritus and coal-fire expert  Centralia, Pennsylvania is a modern-day ghost town. Fewer than a dozen people live there now – but in the 1980s, it was a pretty typical coal-mining town with a population of nearly 1,000 people. Today, the buildings are boarded up, the streets cracked and overgrown. An unnerving layer of smoke and smog rises from the ground, much like a scene in a horror film. Travel guides warn curious onlookers of poisonous gasses seeping from the ground.  Beneath central is a massive coal fire that has been burning for over half a century and is likely to burn for at least another 50 years.  Centralia’s is not the only underground fire burning around the world, but it’s among the most famous.  Mexican Immigration Flows in Reverse Guest: Leo Chavez, PhD, Professor, University of California Irvine’s School of Social Sciences  Donald Trump’s talk of building a wall to keep out Mexican immigrants and his questioning of the impartiality of a judge of Mexican descent have focused attention during the presidential race on Mexican immigration to the US. But last year, analysis published by the Pew Research Center found that since the recession, more Mexicans have left the US than have come here. The tide seems to have reversed. We’ll hear why.  When to Hit the Restroom in a Movie? There's An App for That Guest: Dan Florio, Creator, RunPee app  When you want to know whether a movie’s worth seeing, you can check Rotten Tomatoes or Parent Previews or whatever your favorite movie review site is. But where do you turn once you’re at the movie and you’ve consumed that large soda with your high-priced bucket of popcorn and you realize won’t make it to the end of the movie before you’ll need a bathroom break? Dan Florio has come to your rescue with his smartphone app, appropriately called “Run Pee.” It’ll tell you exactly when the best times to sneak out to the restroom are without missing anything too important in the film.