Weekend Edition on KAZU

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Time now for your letters.

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SIMON: First, a correction from last week, when we followed up on Wade Goodwyn's story about a miscarriage of justice in Texas. Michael Morton was accused of murdering his wife in 1986, convicted a year later and put in prison. DNA evidence cleared him just last year. Mr. Morton is pursuing a case against the prosecutor for withholding exculpatory evidence from his trial, not DNA evidence, as we mistakenly said. The Texas Supreme Court has appointed a court of inquiry to investigate.

Most Americans give politicians low marks for sincerity and see every decision they reach as a cold, poll-driven calculation. Often enough, it is. Politicians, after all, have asked pollsters where they should spend their summer vacations.

Yet when pundits and interest groups urge politicians to change their minds and they do, they're assailed for flip-flopping.

Both President Obama and Mitt Romney have faced that charge several times, on several issues, including the president's new support for gay marriage, and Romney's current opposition to abortion. Journalists always have to be skeptical. But I wonder if it's too easy to automatically see political calculation as the only force that changes a politician's mind or heart.

[Roman Totenberg was a child prodigy who became a violin virtuoso, as well as a master teacher who passed along his command of craft and his love of music — and life — to thousands. He was also the man you wanted to sit next to at the table because he was so funny. Totenberg died this week at the age of 101, surrounded by loving family, friends and students. We asked his daughter, Nina Totenberg, for this remembrance. — Scott Simon]

My father's death was as remarkable as his life. Last week, as word spread through the music community that he was suddenly dying, his former students began flocking to his home, driving sometimes hours through the night to get there. We even had to dissuade a Polish violinist and composer from hopping a plane for the States.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.

The French presidential runoff is tomorrow. President Nicolas Sarkozy and his opponent Socialist candidate Francois Hollande represent two different visions for their country.

NPR's Eleanor Beardsley sends this report.

ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: If you want to understand what this French election is all about, you just needed to be in Paris on May Day. May 1st is Europe's Labor Day. No one went to work. Everyone, it seemed, poured into the streets with their hopes and fears about the future.

MARINE LE PEN PRESIDENT, FRONT NATIONAL: (Foreign language spoken)

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Time now for your letters.

(SOUNDBITE OF LETTERS THEME MUSIC)

SIMON: The name that kept popping up in our email box this week was Michael Morton. He was the subject of a report last Saturday by NPR's Wade Goodwyn, who told the story of how Mr. Morton was convicted in 1987 of murdering his wife, Christine, near Austin, Texas. He was innocent, but served almost 25 years in prison.

KEN ANDERSON: As district attorney at the time, and as woefully inadequate as I realize it is, I want to formally apologize for the system's failure to Mr. Morton, and to every other person who was adversely affected by this verdict.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

A famous trio has lost a member. Whether you knew him as Adam Yauch, Nathanial Hornblower or MCA, he brought a distinct sound to a genre-bending band.

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BEASTIE BOYS: (Singing) ...if what you get is what you see, c'mon...

SIMON: MCA was a founding member of the Beastie Boys, a band that helped make hip-hop mainstream. Now, before they rapped, the Beastie Boys were just punks.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TIME FOR LIVIN' ")

SIMON: Then came "Cooky Puss," a song on an album whose title you won't hear on this program - with lyrics that we shouldn't play, either.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COOKY PUSS")

BEASTIE BOYS: Yo, I said I'm calling you late...

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.

When Hilary Mantel's new book opens, the spark has gone out of Henry the VIII's marriage; second marriage, in fact. Anne Boleyn hasn't given him a son. Now, he finds the sharp remarks she makes that used to charm sometimes come at his expense. His roving eye begins to settle on Jane Seymour, another woman at court. But in Henry's time, a monarch doesn't go to a marriage counselor or divorce lawyer, not when Thomas Cromwell is the king's chief advisor.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon. The federal corruption trial of John Edwards continued this week in Greensboro, North Carolina. Government witnesses painted an ugly portrait of the former senator and presidential candidate. But the prosecution may have been less successful in making the case that he deliberately violated campaign finance law. North Carolina Public Radio's Jeff Tiberii was in the courtroom.