Lisa started her show on Friday with a round-up of some local stories. One involved an arrest warrant for two men who have not been arrested yet for an alleged rape in Westport. She also mentioned a story in Stamford, where the town is appropriating $250,000 in order to find the source of the well water taints. Lisa explained that the story is of particular interest to her because she had a friend who passed away fairly prematurely and her main source of water came from a well, whereas the deceased's mother lived until she was 96. The final story in Lisa's round-up, also from Stamford, was about the state's decision to approve the expansion plans for Stamford Hospital. Lisa is not so concerned with how the expansion will be paid for, however, she mentioned the several hospitals already in existence in the area, and how she wonders how this will be absorbed by the community. Also in medical news, a local doctor was instructed to discard 80 thousand doses of the H1N1 vaccine because the dosages were recalled.

Before a news break, Lisa talks about her guest Dani Shapiro, who will be joining her later in the show, and Dani's new book, "Devotion". Lisa commented on her love for reading, especially Dani's books, and on how she eats and reads at the same time, joking about how when she reads an anecdote that aggravates her, she'll eat a bit more than she should. But, as Lisa says, that's a whole other story. Dani's book is a nonfiction memoir about a woman's internal struggle to grasp at G-d, or spirituality, or a practice, that makes her feel balanced and whole in the world. Lisa calls Dani's book deep, and a definite worthwhile read.

Lisa switched gears talking about an update at Yale where school applications would now be bilingual to now include Spanish (Yale Daily News). The bilingual accommodations will extend to the admissions video, which will feature Spanish subtitles. This is part of an ongoing trend, according to the article, for colleges and universities throughout the nation to provide admissions information to Latino students and parents who are not fluent in English. Their dean of admissions, Jeff Brenzel, explained that students must be fluent enough in English to understand admissions materials without translation, and these new efforts are aimed more toward parents.

Lisa asked listeners their opinions on the subject, given Yale's highly regarded position in the local, national, and international context. Lisa says that on one hand, she understands exactly why the school is making these efforts to reach out to as many people as they can, while acknowledging the large population of Hispanic youth in the United States. On the other hand, however, Lisa explains that as a proficient Spanish speaker, she believes in the idea that people who have access to learning a second language should take advantage of it. That being said, she believes that if you are going to go to Yale, you should be fluent in the language of the university. She believes that because language is culture, we transmit our culture through a fluent English language.

After a quick news break, Lisa chatted about her weekend plans which included an "old-fashioned do nothing day" on Saturday, and having family over on Sunday. She jokes that the great procrastinator strikes again, in reference to delving into her taxes.

Looking again at the Yale story, Lisa mentions how Yale says that its actions are part of an emerging trend, and that it is likely that the other Ivy League universities will follow in Yale's path. She stresses that her issue is not with Spanish, she loves the language and its culture, however, she is a believer that English should be the official language. She admits it is a hot-buttoned issue, and references Quebec and its feelings of being a separate country because of its choice to speak French as opposed to English. She explained that other cultures have influenced the English language, which is part of why it is so rich and such a fabulous language, but it's still English. We need to examine, Lisa commented, the message being sent when so many documents are being made bilingual. By making people fluent in English, Lisa believes that we are to some extent doing them a favor, and we're doing us a favor. Lisa referenced a proposition in California where people had the opportunity to vote on whether or not they were in favor of continuing bilingual education. The Hispanic majority actually voted to discontinue it. In New York, which has the second largest bilingual track of education, there was not a similar opportunity. Lisa argues that separate is far from equal when it comes to bilingual education. She also mentioned the topic of immersion and how young children are often able to easily absorb, like a sponge, the other language via immersion.

Lisa took a call regarding the language debate, and the caller commented on his aggravation with the way that Americans speak English. Lisa and her caller agreed that when Americans learn foreign languages, they better learn and understand sentence structure. Lisa believes that because the first piece of paper that universities receive and review is the admission application, the elite universities should require it to be in English.

Lisa returned from another news break talking more about youth and education. This story involved a student from a school in Philadelphia whose parents allege that school officials used a web cam on a school-issued laptop to spy on their 15-year-old son at home. There was a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in a federal court, which states that the principal of the school approached the 15 year old to discuss improper behavior in his own home. This is an illegal invasion of privacy, where the school had the ability to turn on the web cams on these school-issued laptops. The computers issued by the school were Apple MacBooks with built-in web cams. Lisa explained that this was an example of a misappropriation of power.

The school district tried to defend itself by saying that it would never abuse the security feature attached with the web cams. The feature was implemented as an anti-theft precaution, however in this instance the 15-year-old boy was the rightful user of the device. All 2300 high school students in the district were given laptops by the district after receiving a grant for that purpose. Parents are reacting to the situation with shock, wondering if their children have also been victims.

Lisa said that thing that aggravates her most is that the more we take away civil liberties from our students, the less we teach them about what it means to be free. These are gross violations of civil rights, she added.

On the same thought of privacy violations, Lisa mentioned a story that surfaced in November in California about a man who walked into a Sprint store to purchase 30 BlackBerry devices. A Sprint employee felt that this was potentially a fraudulent purchase, and did not trust the address given, so the man was arrested for felony and identity fraud after searching his iPhone without probable cause. Lisa mentioned how people treat their electronic devices, and how they store such personal information as they grow more capable. Lisa argues that searching through a PDA or cell phone is more unreasonable in terms of search and seizure without a warrant, as opposed to the old law that might allow the search and seizure of a notebook, or something that required less investigation and digging to find a solution.

In other Connecticut news, Governor Rell is agreeing with Senator Duff and is withholding the release of $5 million for Waypointe economic development plan. Lisa feels that if there is a reason to delay the plans, then they should be delayed, because once the development is up, it's up.

Switching gears, Lisa mentioned that next Thursday she'll be at Stamford doing a "tasting of Stamford," where the show will be held live. The event is held at the Stamford Plaza Hotel and Lisa encouraged her audience to come visit and schmooze while tasting the food and participating in the event. Also in local events, Lisa mentioned a political event at the Ridgefield Playhouse, where she'll be a week from Saturday. There will also be a screening of the movie "Rudy".

Lisa returned from a news break, commenting on the dissappointing state of her denim jeans, which she says she buys intact and not shredded, saying that she just realized that they've begun to shred on their own.

Thinking about stories that affect the world, "you and me," she jokes after the grammar discussion she had earlier with a caller, she opened up the debate to talk about the Tiger Woods fiasco. She called this Friday, "Chatty chatt, gabby gabby Friday," where listeners can call and talk about anything that's on their mind.

Lisa transitioned to the Olympics, saying she's an ice skating devotee, and commented on the appearance of the male skaters, and how they look less and less like men. She went on to discuss a skater who has been heavily criticized by PETA for his choice to wear outfits decked with fur. Lisa believes, however, that no one deserves to have paint thrown on them or action taken against them for what they wear, instead people should strive to educate each other about their decisions. Lisa continued to reminisce about the past Olympic skaters, with a little Olympic history. She discussed the 1960s plane crash that killed a host of important Olympic skaters. She went on to explain that Peggy Fleming was one of the most graceful dancers to emerge after that era.

Lisa comically comes back from a news break by questioning her identity and location, only to continue by singing an excerpt from "A Chorus Line" by Marvin Hamlisch. "Who Am I Anyway? Am I My Resume? That is a picture.. of a person I don't know..." Lisa talks a bit about her upcoming guest, Dani Shapiro, and then talks about a news story about the 5 Muslims who allegedly attempted to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson Military Installation. She also mentioned news about the rebranding of the Iraqi war. It is no longer being called Operation Iraqi Freedom, but instead Operation New Dawn, to focus on a change in mission for US soldiers in Iraq. This sends a strong signal, according to the memo, that Operation Iraqi Freedom has ended. Lisa wonders how much this new "logo" for the war cost.

Because of its reporting on the John Edwards' affair, The National Enquirer is up for a Pulitzer Prize. Lisa explained that she has found that everything that has been reported as of late in The National Enquirer has turned out to be true. This wasn't true in the past, but lately, they have been redeeming themselves.

In comparison on the topic of believability, Lisa mentioned Jackie Collins' appearance on the show last week, and how she admitted to toning her writing down because what she writes is not nearly as outrageous as what people actually do.

Lisa returned to the topic of the male ice skaters and their lady-like costumes, Johnny Weir being the topic of discussion.

Also returning to the Tiger Woods fiasco, Lisa plays some of the speech from Tiger Woods' press conference where he spoke in front of a group of hand-picked people and a few members of the press to address his recent indiscretions. Lisa laughs because he sounds like a programmed robot, not very natural. Lisa calls his excuses old, and his sincerity absent. Lisa said if she were Elin, she would take the kids and get away, with a man who has decent values. She says that once trust is demolished, it is very hard to rebuild, especially because these were repeated affairs, not isolated incidents, which would have been bad enough.

Lisa had a caller talk about how the television and cameras change how we receive and perceive people, and how we idolize and demonize celebrities because they are brought into our lives so easily.

Lisa welcomed guest Dani Shapiro. Lisa rarely recommends bluntly that listeners go out and buy a book, but she is making an exception in the case of Dani Shapiro's, "Devotion" (published by Harper, formerly Harper Collins). Dani's original publisher was Knopf, and she moved with Devotion over to Harper. Lisa asked Dani to take over a bit and introduce herself to the audience. Dani grew up in a suburb of New Jersey, right outside of Manhattan, in an Orthodox Jewish family. Her father was from a very devout, religious New York family, but her mother was not from a religious family. They agreed, though, that they would raise their children as orthodox.

She doesn't go as far as to say that her parents had a happy marriage, so much as a contentious marriage. Her mother's decision to be Orthodox was such a tough thing, to live by the very strict rules and rituals, despite not believing in many of those things. Many of their battles, she says, were over how to raise her. She said that she spent her early education at Yeshiva (Jewish parochial school) and attending a prep school for high school. She jokes that her father got the first half of Dani's education, and her mother "won the battle" and got the second half. She talked about the difficulty of adhering to all of the orthodox restraints, one aspect being observation of Shabbat. Lisa shared a story about a friend who was unaware of her Jewish roots until she was in Israel at age 22 and a woman suggested she find out. She confirmed that she was Jewish, and tried to follow a religious lifestyle. She married a man who converted to Judaism and became a Hasid, however, she could not follow the rituals as he became more and more observant, and their relationship ended in divorce.

Lisa transitions to discuss "Devotion", which is a chronicle of Dani's own search for meaning. She asked Dani about yoga, which was a steady theme of the book and in her life. Dani said she found yoga in her late 20s, and loved the physical practice, but then fell into the spiritual aspect of the practice. Because of her religious background, Dani found herself very skeptical and hesitant about anything considered religious or spiritual.

The women discuss the interesting aspect that almost all of the American teachers who brought Buddhism to the West were Jewish. They talk about the "Jew-Bu" phenomenon that many people scoff at. Dani says that there is an affinity between Buddhists and Jews because of the search for knowledge and questioning.

Dani mentions Sylvia Boorstein, whom she spoke with when writing "Devotion". Boorstein is a Buddhist and observant Jew, who sees no contradiction between the two religions, which was so different from the "in or out" rules that Dani had in her childhood upbringing.

Lisa came back from a news break to announce an event that Dani Shapiro has organized with the JCC in Manhattan on March 1st at 7 p.m. The three teachers that helped her along the journey to write her memoir, "Devotion", she jokes that she met, "a rabbi, a Buddhist, and a yogi." She says that she had her eyes open to the people who had something to teach her. Dani and her teachers will talk about what it means to create a spiritual life, and Dani's own journey along that path.

Lisa asks Dani about how she includes religion in the way she raises her son, Jacob. Dani explained that she has infused their lives with Judaism, and that her son does attend Hebrew school and they are members of a synagogue because that is important to her to have in her life and her family's life. She explains that she is proud of her heritage, it just wasn't very relevant to her life.

Lisa explains her family's experience with not feeling like a minority and feeling comfortable in their own skin as Jewish people.

Dani explained that there was once a situation at a private school where her son was the only Jewish kid at the school, and she felt that that was not OK. She wants her son to be at home in the world, feeling comfortable in everything that he is, in every kind of environment.

For Dani's event at the JCC in Manhattan, tickets are necessary and are available on the JCC's Website.

Tune in to the Lisa Wexler Show Monday through Friday 4 p.m.-6p.m. for the latest in news and views on a variety of relevant topics!

Written by Alexandra Kirsch (kirscha2@msu.edu)