All Things Considered Sunday

Helen Gurley Brown, the longtime editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, died Monday in New York at age 90.

If Cosmo was her biggest legacy, it was her 1962 best-seller, Sex and the Single Girl, that launched her to fame. She was 40, with a high-paying job in advertising and a recent marriage to Hollywood producer David Brown.

But she was writing for the single girls, not her privileged peers, says Jennifer Scanlon, author of a Brown biography called Bad Girls Go Everywhere.

D.W. Gibson is the author of Not Working: People Talk About Losing a Job and Finding Their Way in Today's Changing Economy.

The bright white Heritage Park library opened up a mile from my house when I was 13, and the first thing I checked out was Roald Dahl's story collection Someone Like You. I should have known what I was in for because of that giant eyeball on the cover; but somehow I saw it as more of a temptation than a warning.

Boston's Debo Band takes inspiration from a golden era of popular music in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in the late '60s and early '70s. During a brief period of cultural freedom in Ethiopia, funk and soul music fused spectacularly with local traditions. Debo Band's debut album both honors and updates the sound of "swinging Addis."

When it comes to connecting with the Egyptian public, the country's new president, Mohammed Morsi, seems to have looked at what his predecessor did, and then plotted a course that is diametrically opposed.

During three decades of rule, the former president, Hosni Mubarak, would sometimes go months without making a public statement. When he did appear, it was almost always a formal presentation that seemed to emphasize the gulf between the leader and the ruled.

In 1990, 78 percent of Americans supported tougher restrictions on gun sales, according to a Gallup poll. A decade later, that number fell to 44 percent.

Part of the reason has to do with how the debate has been framed: one between those who want to ban all guns and those who want to protect the right to own them.

How do a Swedish producer and a Malawian singer end up collaborating? The partnership that became The Very Best was sparked several years ago, when Johan Karlberg stopped into a London secondhand store that was run by the Malawi-born Esau Mwamwaya, and the two started talking music.

Olympic winners like gold medalist Claressa Shields have said the games were a learning experience, but what were they learning? Hard work? Sure. Sportsmanship? Maybe. The metric system? Certainly not.

U.S. judo competitor Kyle Vashkulat competes at 100 kg, which he knows means he weighs 220 lbs. But does he know height?

"We were in a sauna, and the guy's telling us the height of the boxers, and he's like, 'Yeah, this guy's like, 1.7 meters' — and we're like, 'How tall is that?'" Vashkulat says, laughing.

Since Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., came on the scene Saturday, Mitt Romney's rallies have felt different. The crowds are bigger. The audience is more raucous. Lines that used to be a routine part of the Republican presidential candidate's stump speech have become rousing battle cries.

At the NASCAR Technical Institute in Mooresville, N.C., 1,600 people crowded into the room and thousands more swarmed outside.

"I feel like I'm in Woodstock," gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory exclaimed. "There's a parking jam!"

The weekends on All Things Considered series Movies I've Seen A Million Times features filmmakers, actors, writers and directors talking about the movies that they never get tired of watching.

Transcript

GUY RAZ, HOST:

So now that we know who Mitt Romney's running mate is, what about the keynote speaker at the Republican Convention later this month? No word yet. Democrats have announced that San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro will get that coveted spot that has, in the past, served as a platform for bigger things.