The brutal title of the recent play from a powerful drama by playwright John Henry Redwood reflects the bigotry of the Jim Crow South. We meet the Cheeks family and their friend Yaveni Aarohnson, struggling against punishing racism. It’s a story of love and loss, of bonds forged and broken and an unflinching look [...]

Will Bagdad begin the process of disarmament by tomorrow’s deadline?
Guests:
James Bone phone NY
917 689 7689 (cell)
call and get land line

A judicial war in Washington. Senate Democrats are filibustering Bush federal court nominee Miguel Estrada. The president calls it a travesty. Democrats call Estrada a “stealth candidate” for the bench.
Guests:
Nan Aron, President of The Alliance for Justice
Jennifer Braceras, John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Harvard University and appointed to the U.S. [...]

Guests:

Fred Rogers died today. He was 74. For more than 30 years, his television show, “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” was an American institution. Remembering Fred Rogers, and how he changed children’s programming.
Guests:
Gary Knell, President and CEO of the Sesame Workshop
Peggy Charren, Founder of Action for Children’s Television.

Guests:
Gerald Baker, Foreign Policy Correspondent, The Washington Post

War talk, terror warnings, a harsh winter, and job insecurity. A look at the factors that caused the Consumer Confidence Index to plummet this month, dropping to its lowest point in 10 years, and its significance for the economy.
Guests:
Ken Goldstein, Labor Economist for the Conference Board
J. Walker Smith, President of Yankelovich Partners, Inc.
Richard Cooper, Professor [...]

After an eight-month review of Tittle IX, two of the three female athletes on the commission don’t agree with the findings and today will issue a minority report.
Title IX helped more women get into sports, but 31 years later, opponents complain it’s pushing men out. Last June, U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige appointed [...]

Guests:
Bradley Graham, the Washington Post

Life in the maximum security state. Offices and shopping malls could be “soft targets” for terrorism. The answer could be perpetual electronic surveillance and rifle-toting guards everywhere. Is this where you want to live?
Guests:
Matthew Brzezinski, contributing editor for The New York Times Magazine and author of “The Homeland Security State: How Far Should We Go?”
David [...]

Record labels are under attack. From file sharers, performers, even some industry insiders. Why the music industry could be on the verge of a revolution–or collapse.
Guests:
Charles Mann, correspondent, The Atlantic Monthly
John Snyder, President of the Artists House Foundation, a board member of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), and a 32-time Grammy [...]

The goal of American cyber-warfare experts is to win a war in Iraq without firing a shot. But can infromation warfare disarm Saddam Hussein?
Guests:
Eric Schmitt, military correspondent, The New York Times

On Friday and Saturday, seven of the eight announced Presidential candidtes gathered to speak before their party faithful. It was a chance for the candidates to separate themselves from President Bush, and from each other.
The Democrats are ready to rumble but is America listening? Do Presidential politics take a back seat to a nation [...]

The United States, Great Britain and Spain announced a new Security Council resolution today declaring that Iraq had lost its “final opportunity” to disarm peacefully. Is this the final step toward war?
Guests:
Colum Lynch, United Nations reporter, The Washington Post

Squabbling within the Arab League over if and when it should convene its annual meeting has exposed the wide range of sentiments in the Arab world vis a vis a war in Iraq. A look at Arab world view on the looming war.
Guests:
Fawaz Gerges, chair of the Middle East and International Affairs Department at Sarah [...]

Forty-seven years ago, when they were just seventeen, the Kossoy Sisters recorded “I’ll Fly Away” and thirteen other ballads in their first album “Bowling Green”. Nearly a half century later, they’re back with a new album “Hop on Pretty Girls”, singing to a younger audience hungry for the simple, evocative folk songs. [...]

He’s America’s best friend, and he has supported the Bush administration’s Iraq policy from the beginning. Will Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, sacrifice his career end to do what he believes is right?
Is America’s best friend in trouble? Does his stance influence your feelings about war with Iraq?
Guests:
Michael White, political editor the Guardian [...]

Is morality dictating how Americans vote? Increasingly, the answer is yes–and even more so than in the past. Why American attitudes on sex and religion is becoming a decisive indicator of voter behavior.
Guests:
Thomas Byrne Edsall, political reporter, The Washington Post
Kellyanne Conway, Republican pollster
Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and a senior editor at [...]

A vision of a post-Saddam Iraq. We’ll look a the parties vying for control if regime change becomes reality.
Guests:
Nicholas Lemann, writer for the New Yorker magazine, author of article “After Iraq”
Janine Zacharia, Washington correspondent for the Jerusalem Post
Entifadh K. Qanbar, director of the Iraqi National Congress, Washington Office

In an unexpected outburst, President Chirac derided Central and Eastern European leadership for having signed onto the American policy on Iraq. A look at the emerging rift between New Europe and Old Europe.
Guests:
Keith Richburg, Paris bureau chief, The Washington Post

“Sexless marriages are an undeniable epidemic,” says TV’s Dr. Phil. The latest numbers show more than 40 million Americans are mired in low-sex or no-sex marriages.
Marriage has changed. In the old days, the husband was the breadwinner and wives had the expectation of raising children and pleasing their husbands. That idea has gone [...]

Alone on the Range? The Great Plains make up one fifth of the United States area and yet only four percent of its population and that number is shrinking. Due to a mass exodus of the areas youth, new ideas of “mega-farming”, and a broad feeling of pessimism, many American heartland communities face the [...]

Guests:
Ralph Blumenthal, culture news reporter for the New York Times

America’s children have always been asked to do their part for the war effort. In the Cold War, schoolchildren hunkered under their desks for air raid drills. When polio was the enemy, children obeyed parents’ orders to stay inside the house.
Now, the youngest generation is grappling with its own angst. War with Iraq is [...]

Writer Samrat Upadhyay has been heralded by literary critics as the “Buddhist Chekov of Nepal”. He takes us to Katmandu in his new book, “The Guru of Love”.
Guests:
Samrat Upadhyay, author of “The Guru of Love”

Turkish officials raised their request for a miltibillion dollar aid package in exchange for U.S. use of its military bases, nearly doubling the amount of their original asking price. A look at the stalled Turkey-US negotiations and possible for a war in Iraq.
Guests:
Dexter Filkins, Istanbul bureau chief, The New York Times

If the Bush administration wants to fight the war on terror, it needs to step up action on the economic front, says a new study. We take a close look at American trade policy, and its effects, in the Middle East.
Guests:
Edward Gresser, director of the Project on Trade and Global Markets at the Progressive Policy [...]

On June 25, 1950, the North Korean Peoples’ Army invaded the Republic of Korea, marking the beginning of the Korean War. More than 50 years after “The Forgotten War,” Korean War veterans speak out.
Guests:
General Raymond Davis, U.S. Marine Corps commanding officer, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division and earned the Medal of Honor [...]

If there is war with Iraq, the highest price may be paid by the Iraqi people. A leaked UN report predicts as many as half a million Iraqi casualties. Not soldiers, but civilians. A look at the potential consequences and efforts to contain them.
Guests:
Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
Paul [...]

It was Paul Simon, whose “Graceland” album helped bring the South African a cappella group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo to international fame, and Mambazo’s leader Joseph Shabalala gave Simon the name, Vulindela meaning “he who opened the gate.”
But the home country fame and roots of this 10-man Zulu group go much deeper than Paul Simon. [...]

Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix gave a crucial report to the Security Council today on the progress of inspections in Iraq. What do his speech and the council members’ reactions mean for the looming war with Iraq?
Guests:
Julia Preston, UN Bureau Chief for the New York Times
Jonathan Tucker, former UN weapons inspector and visiting [...]

Throughout the mid 1930s, out of work writers set to the South armed with a tape recorder and a list of questions to interview former slaves about their lives before freedom.
Thousands of interviews were conducted and archived. These testimonials captured all parts of slave life from being bought and sold, to brutal punishments, to marriage, [...]

What’s good for your wardrobe just might be good for the country. For decades , American presidents have been urging the nation to shop its way to prosperity.
A new analysis looks at the economic and moral costs of America’s call to the mall.
Guests:
Lizabeth Cohen, author of new book “A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass [...]

Lynne Hughes is the Founder of Comfort Zone Camp, which has been organizing weekend grieving camps for the children of 9/11 victims for the past year and a half. In this radio diary, she says the kids she has worked with are struggling more now than last year:
Guests:
Lynne Hughes, Founder of Comfort Zone Camp

Today, Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspam appeared before a House panel and delivered a stinging blow to President Bush’s hopes for tax cuts.
Guests:
Jonathan Weisman, economic policy reporter for the Washington Post

There it was. Big as life. A full-page ad in The New York Times signed by 450 U.S. economists, including 10 Nobel Prize winners, all lined up in adamant opposition to the tax cuts at the heart of George W. Bush’s economic recovery plan.
This is not a stimulus plan, said the economists. [...]

Tanks are patrolling Heathrow airport. Labour Party chairman John Reid says the threat of a terrorism attack on London is “of the nature” of the September 11th attacks on New York. The latest from the UK, and Downing Street’s reaction.
Guests:
Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor for the Times of London

Bin Laden is back, it seems, in a new tape calling on all Muslims to fight “these despots” preparing to launch a war with Iraq. The war hasn’t started yet, but the battle for the hearts and minds of the Islamic world is raging. Terror alerts at home. The voice of bin Laden–everywhere. We look [...]

This weekend Iran publicly disclosed that its nuclear program to meet the country’s growing demand for electricity. The resumption of an Iranian nuclear program poses a significant challenge for the Bush administration.
Guests:
Peter Slevin, reporter, The Washington Post

More than 90,000 women are incarcerated in U.S. prisons. In 1980, that number was 12,000. Since 1980, the rate for women behind bars has risen twice as fast as men. On any given day, 125,000 children in America have a mother behind bars.
Prison seems like an unlikely place for a best-selling author to spend his [...]

An audio message purportedly from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden calls on Muslims to “unite in defending the Iraqi people.” Is this proof of an al Qaeda link to Saddam Hussein?
Guests:
Bob Drogin, national security correspondent, The Los Angeles Times

A Texas Tech student filed a complaint against a biology professor who refuses to write grad school recommendations for students who can’t truthfully affirm that evolution is at the core of science.
The case highlights a growing tide of attempts by fundamentalist Christian groups to introduce the teaching of religious theories as alternatives to evolution.
Guests:
Dr. Ted [...]

France, Germany, and Belgium today blocked NATO efforts to begin planning for possible Iraq attacks against Turkey.
Guests:
Colum Lynch, covers the United Nations for the Washington Post

Colin Powell has called him an “evil genius.” But what makes Saddam Hussein tick? As the world awaits the Iraqi dictator’s next move, we look inside the mind of the “Butcher of Baghdad.”
Guests:
Dr. Jerrold Post, psychiatrist, founder of the CIA’s Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, and director of George [...]

For the coming weeks, On Point will present live
recordings of the Black Writers Reading series,
hosted by Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for
Afro-American Research. The series launched this month with Andrea Lee, reading from “New Africans,” a chapter excerpted from her first novel, Sarah Phillips — a glimpse into the lives of the upper-crust of the [...]

A slowdown on the Bush administration’s smallpox vaccination campaign. The voluntary smallpox vaccination program for the nation’s health officials is running behind schedule. Is national security at risk?
Guests:
Edward Kaplan, professor of public health, Yale University
Barbara Blakeney, president, American Nurses Association
Patrick Libbey, executive director, National Association of County and City Health Officials
Juliette Kayyem, homeland [...]