Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger Ricochet
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Jay Nordlinger is a senior editor of National Review and the music critic of The New Criterion. His guests are from the worlds of politics and culture, talking about the most important issues of the day, and some pleasant trivialities as well.
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From Rwanda, the Hotel Manager
Across the globe, Paul Rusesabagina is known as “the hotel manager.” In 2004, Don Cheadle portrayed Rusesabagina in the movie “Hotel Rwanda.” (Cheadle won an Academy Award for the portrayal.) In 1994, Rusesabagina was the general manager of a hotel in Kigali. In that capacity, he saved 1,268 refugees from murder—from the genocide. In 2005, George W. Bush bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Rusesabagina. But the hotel manager’s troubles were not ended. In 2020, he was kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured by the Rwandan dictatorship for two years and seven months. Jay has sat down with Rusesabagina at the Oslo Freedom Forum, asking about his life, and life more generally.
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Painter of Our Revolution
Richard Brookhiser has written many books about the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers. He got interested when he went to college—to Yale, where he saw John Trumbull’s paintings. Now he has written a biography of the artist. A wonderful student and explainer and depicter, Brookhiser is.
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A Ukrainian on Ukraine
Illia Ponomarenko is one of the leading war reporters and defense analysts in Ukraine. He himself is Ukrainian—from the east of the country. He went to college in Mariupol, which has now been bludgeoned and taken over by Putin’s forces. Ponomarenko has come out with a book, mid-war: “I Will Show You How It Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv.” Jay talks with him about issues that gnaw at a great many.
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Scholar, and Explainer, of Islam
Mohamad Jebara grew up in Ottawa, Canada, the son of Lebanese immigrants. He, and they, were “cultural Muslims.” But he soon became a scholar of Islam, and a philologist. He is a man of formidable learning, and he has a gift for imparting what he knows to a general audience. From ages ten to twelve, he memorized the Koran. It is still there, in his head. He practices while driving or working out. His new book is “The Life of the Qu’ran.” Jay asks him some basic questions, questions to which many may like to know the answers. An interesting and illuminating confab.
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Law, Economics, and Life, with an Italian Couple
Simone Sepe and Saura Masconale teach at the University of Arizona. He is in the law school; she is in the Department of Political Economy and Moral Science. They are both associated with the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom. He is from Rome, she is from Verona. They are married, with three excellent children. Jay talks with them about their interests (and his).
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Economist of Freedom
Vernon L. Smith is one of the leading economists of our time. He was born in Wichita, on January 1, 1927. In 2002, he shared the Nobel Memorial Prize with Daniel Kahneman. Professor Smith has taught at many universities. He is a classical liberal, in the mold of a Smith of yore: Adam. With Jay, he talks about his life, his findings, and freedom—glorious, precious freedom.