Guest Host Lynn Neary reads letters reacting to segments about furniture maker La-Z-Boy leaving the country, an interview with former Senator George Mitchell, who helped negotiate Ireland's peace treaty a decade ago, and a discussion with writer Maya Angelou.
LYNN NEARY, host: Time now for your letters.</s>LYNN NEARY, host: Our interview last week with writer Maya Angelou touched listener Jay Dotson(ph) in Ramstein, Germany. Here's what he wrote: the same weekend I'd learned my uncle had passed away, I listened to an interview with Maya Angelou on your show in which she recited a poem stating: "I shall die but that is all I shall do for death."</s>LYNN NEARY, host: The stubbornness toward death in that poem mirrored the stubborn joyfulness my uncle had about him in life. When I later heard the title of the poem was "Conscientious Objector," its words seemed even more fitting, considering the lives he saved as a medic in the Korean War serving as a conscientious objector. Thank you for giving me words by which to remember him.</s>LYNN NEARY, host: Our segment about the La-Z-Boy company shutting down its factory in a northern Utah town and moving some of its operations to Mexico angered Amy Hadden-Marsh of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. If anyone had any lingering hopes that an American capitalist icon such as La-Z-Boy would have a little compassion for its workers, particularly during what some are calling a recession, your story ends all that, she wrote.</s>LYNN NEARY, host: I find it cowardly and ironic that in the midst of nationwide foreclosures, rising fuel costs and general economic malaise, all-American La-Z-Boy Inc. would pull the rug out from under the comfortable living rooms of its loyal employees and outsource their jobs. I for one think it's time to boycott those companies that would betray their workers, particularly in a time of need.</s>LYNN NEARY, host: Food was very much on the mind of Keith Tucker of Minneapolis when he heard our story about Antarctic cuisine. Your piece on the meals prepared from pickled, frozen, canned and dried products in Antarctica's McMurdo Station was enlightening, he wrote. It's so easy to forget how many choices we have in our pantries and how important it is to keep things different.</s>LYNN NEARY, host: Listener Gwen Harvey of Hillsboro, North Carolina thanked us for our interview with Former Senator George Mitchell, who helped broker the Good Friday accord, ending the violence in Northern Ireland a decade ago. I couldn't help to draw parallels to conflicts of today between Shiites and Sunnis, Arabs and Israeli, and even the public controversies faced by the community I served as a local government manager, she wrote.</s>LYNN NEARY, host: I applauded Senator Mitchell when he said the true political leadership is creating an atmosphere in which people can believe there can be success without foolish optimism but with tremendous hope. That's the spirit of statesmanship the world needs today.</s>LYNN NEARY, host: You can send us your praise or your criticism by going to our Web page, NPR.org. Just click on the Contact Us link.</s>LYNN NEARY, host: This is NPR News.