It’s pretty impossible to categorize Vance Gilbert’s music. Jazzy? Yeah, he’s got some of that. Pop? You can’t deny it, his tunes are catchy. Folky? Well, he’s got the acoustic guitar.
For the third year in a row, Vance Gilbert returns to On Point for a New Year’s eve celebration of music, laughter, life and a [...]

2004 was a year dominated by the presidential election, from the New Hampshire primary in January to President Bush’s victory in November.
Also in the news in 2004 was the war in Iraq, where shocking abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib surfaced in the spring, and the U.S. death toll passed 1,000 in the fall.
It [...]

October 2, 2004 marked the 100th anniversary of Graham Greene’s birth. Greene was one of the 20th century’s most widely-read, talented, and secretive writers. His dark, globe-trotting adventures, complex Catholicism, and wartime work as a spy for British intelligence, were all echoed in his writing. He was a giant of a man — [...]

Is religion “ignorance with wings?” That’s what author Sam Harris claims in his new book, “The End of Faith.” He sets out to close the door on organized religion and argues for a world without Christianity, Islam or Judaism.
As religious wars and faith-based politics heat up around the world, Harris writes that text-based faiths are [...]

ABC Nightline correspondent Jim Wooten thought he had seen it all. He was north of sixty years old and a veteran reporter of war, famine and disease. Then, in the deep sub-Sahara, he met a little boy, Nkosi Johnson, who brought his hardened reporter’s heart back to life, and awakened the world to the [...]

Personality testing has become a ubiquitous method of categorizing people in pursuits from education to work to therapy. But in efforts to better understand ourselves, are American institutions recklessly brushing over the nuance of human personality?
Proponents of testing assert that by learning more about a persons personality type businesses save money on expensive employee [...]

Earlier this month, some of the country’s best writers met in Cambridge, Massachusetts for the 2004 Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism to share their best work.
Jay Allison recalls the moment when he tells his daughter that her divorced dad is dating again. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Helen Ubinas lashes out with frustration and grief at having [...]

In the new book, “Dylan’s Visions of Sin,” the great British literary critic Christopher Ricks takes on the towering legacy of American singer, songwriter, poet and legend, Bob Dylan.
Click the “Listen” link to hear about the poetry inside the music of Bob Dylan.
Guests:
Christopher Ricks, Oxford Professor of Poetry, professor of Humanities at Boston University, author [...]

Earlier this month, some of the country’s best writers met in Cambridge, Massachusetts for the 2004 Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism to share their best work.
Hank Stuever gives a hilarious inside look at what goes on behind the scenes of the hit TV show, “Trading Spaces.” Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh offers a [...]

A recent Gallup poll says only one-third of Americans regard Darwin’s theory of evolution as well-supported by empirical evidence. Microbiologist Richard Colling is working to change that by winning over some of evolution’s toughest converts — fundamentalist Christians.
A devout Christian, Colling teaches biology and evolution at Olivet Nazarene University, a fundamentalist Christian college in [...]

Evolutionary biologist and thinker Richard Dawkins is a long-time and unapologetic champion of Darwin’s theory of evolution. He is a self-declared atheist and a firm believer in the inherent complexity of evolutionary forces that created life as we know it.
In his bestselling books, “The Selfish Gene” and “The Blind Watchmaker,” Dawkins argued that the main [...]

Hear a roundup analysis of this week’s major news by On Point host Tom Ashbrook and news analyst Jack Beatty:
1) An explosion at a mess hall in Mosul kills 18 Americans. Brig. Gen. Carter Ham says a suicide bomber wearing an Iraqi military uniform is responsible.
2) British Prime Minister Tony Blair announces plans to [...]

In the beginning, there were Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras, the original three tenors, shrink-wrapped for the world. But the world is too big a stage for Mediterraneans only.
Five years ago, Ireland stepped up with a trio and tradition of own. Finbar Wright, Anthony Kearns and Ronan Tynan were plucked from concert hall and hurling match, [...]

Philip Roth struck gold again in “The Plot Against America.” Brian Greene took readers on an unforgettable journey through the “Cosmos.” Ron Chernow explored the psyche of “Alexander Hamilton.”
Many of the authors who made it in the New York Times’s list of 2004’s most notable books have been guests on On Point, where they have [...]

In 1987, a U.S. Marine wrote a new version of the classic “A Night Before Christmas.” His poem celebrated a serviceman spending Christmas far from home. The text was first passed around by mail, later by e-mail, and in 2004, it’s making the round on online blogs.
In this radio diary, hear the poem read by [...]

Thirty-five American soldiers are at the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, following last Tuesday’s suicide bombing at a U.S. base in Mosul. Colonel Rhoda Cornum, head of the medical center, said today that the wounded all had a “reasonable chance of surviving.”
Though soldiers may physically heal, what about the psychological trauma they suffer? Many [...]

The Bush administration has issued a new set of rules for maintaining the country’s national forests that mark the biggest shift in American forest-use policy in decades. The new regulations are being welcomed by loggers and condemned by environmentalists.
Hear Juliet Eilperin, who has covered the shift in forest policy for The Washington Post, explain [...]

With the passage of Proposition 71, California’s three-billion-dollar stem-cell venture creates an independent West Coast “mini-NIH” as a work-around to President Bush’s barring the use of federal money for embryonic stem cell research.
The infusion of cash is a boon to researchers and venture capitalists who see stem cell research as the beginning of a range [...]

More information was released today on yesterday’s massive explosion at a U.S. base near Mosul, Iraq that killed 22 people, 18 of them Americans. At a Pentagon briefing this afternoon, General Richard Meyers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the attack was most likely the work of a suicide bomber.
The findings [...]

The Bush Administration is facing a wave of new allegations that abuse of foreign detainees in U.S. military custody has been more widespread, varied, and grave than the Defense Department has long maintained.
Just released FBI memos allege that prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay in the last two years have been subject to abuse and [...]

Almost one thousand years ago, Pope Urban sounded a call to Latin Christians: take up your swords and take on Jerusalem. Three more major crusades to the Holy Land followed, which culminated with the ruinous sack of Constantinople in 1204.
The medieval Crusades may have taken place a millenium ago but their repercussions still resound in [...]

Last month, the world’s attention turned to the disputed election in the Ukraine. This Sunday, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich faces a run-off election against opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko.
But Ukraine is also known for its great holiday music tradition. The women of the choral group Kitka perform folk songs from many Eastern European countries, including Ukraine. [...]

He has been called the “citizen chronicler” by the Librarian of Congress James Billington. While at Yale as an undergraduate, David McCullough was inspired to become a writer and historian after meeting Thornton Wilder.
Pulitzer Prize-winning David McCullough is the author of books ranging in subject matter from presidential biographies to a history of the Panama [...]

A devastating blast tore through a lunch hour mess tent at the American military camp near Mosul today in Iraq. At least 22 people were killed. Late today, a military spokesman said 19 of the dead were U.S. troops. If that number is correct, it would mark the bloodiest single attack on [...]

A new Cornell University study shines a harsh light on America’s attitudes toward Muslim-Americans. Forty-four percent of respondents said the U.S. government should curtail the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans.
The percentage was higher for respondents who said they watched a lot of television news. Sixty-five percent of self-described “highly religious” people said Islam encourages [...]

President Bush came to the defense of his embattled defense secretary today, telling reporters that he knows Donald Rumsfeld’s heart, and that Donald Rumsfeld cares for American troops.
It was an odd thing for an American president to ahve to vouch for in his secretary of defense. But Rumsfeld is under a torrent of crticism right [...]

So-called “super-aspirins” Vioxx and Celebrex gained a reputation for being safer on the stomach than conventional aspirin. Now, Vioxx has been pulled off the market, and Celebrex is under scrutiny for raising the risk of heart attacks.
Consumers are worried, and a debate has been set off anew about whether the Food and Drug Administration [...]

The American ballad is older than America itself. The tradition harkens back centuries to medieval songs sung while dancing. It evolved to mean any narrative song — the freedom to tell a story free of any defined structure.
Wide-ranging ballads became the medium Americans used to tell each other about themselves. The stories they told [...]

Today European Union political leaders formally invited Turkey to start membership talks. The controversial offer came despite many European citizens’ opposition and with a number of strings attached for Turkey.
Hear George Parker, the Brussels bureau chief for the Financial Times, discuss Turkey’s membership negotiations.
Guests:

Tariq Ramadan is one of the world’s top Islamic scholars with a new vision for moderate Islam. He is also the grandson of the founder of the Egyptian radical group, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Those two worlds apparently collided after he accepted a position to teach at the University of Notre Dame this fall. Shortly [...]

Imagine if there was an energy independence plan that could galvanize the nation the way Sputnik once did. It could bring Americans back into the sciences and give a strong jolt to the U.S. economy while helping the environment and disentangling the country from the Mideast.
Some of the nation’s leading thinkers in science, education, business [...]

One of the main agenda items at the two-day White House economic forum taking place this week is that of Social Security.
The Bush administration is arguing that without a radical overhaul, the Social Security system will go bankrupt. Critics counter that a simple increase in dedicated tax revenue would be enough to secure the system.
Tune [...]

Responding to the threat of roadside bombings and ambushes on American ground convoys in Iraq, the Air Force is sharply expanding its airlift of equipment and supplies to bases inside the country.
In just the past month, the increased air operations have kept more than 400 trucks and about 1,050 drivers with military escorts off the [...]

Tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Bulge, one of the most critical battles of World War II. Author Alex Kershaw has researched the story of one of the key American units in the Battle of Bulge, the 394th Regiment’s Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoon.
Despite being outmanned, the platoon successfully [...]

It was a defining moment in American history: the 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater as his assassin, John Wilkes Booth, leapt to the stage with his fateful cry.
Yet, what most Americans don’t know about Booth and that historic, horrific April day may surprise them.
Tune in to hear a conversation with the [...]

The Democratic Party will elect a new chair in February. A range of contenders for the position threw their hats into the ring this weekend, from anti-war candidate Howard Dean to centrist Sidney Rosenberg.
Should the Democrats take a right turn and move to the center? Or is their best bet sticking with their progressive [...]

Tonight is the last night of Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights commemorating the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 BC. Despite Adam Sandler’s contribution, the body of Hanukah music pales in comparison to the panoply of Christmas tunes and carols sung each year. But among the musicians who have [...]

Wednesday is the first-day of a two-day economic summit on the economy. Hear Jim McTague, Washington editor of Barron’s, look at what’s on the table.
Guests:
Jim McTague, Washington editor of Barron’s.

The White House’s two-day Conference on the Economy begins tomorrow. High on the agenda is simplifying the overly-complicated U.S. tax code. President Bush has not yet laid out a plan, but he’s not known for taking baby steps.
Bush has already implemented big tax cuts, and some of the proposals on the table include sacking [...]

Bush won Ohio by 118,775 votes, but not everyone is ready to concede. Reverend Jesse Jackson and others are complaining about uncounted punch-card votes, disqualified provisional ballots, discrepancies between exit polling and results, and too many votes counted for President Bush in Ohio. And the Libertarian and Green parties are footing the bill [...]

Gerald Reynolds is the first in his family to graduate from college and then go on to law school. Now, he is Bush’s pick to head up the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and not everyone is happy.
Mr. Reynolds has described affirmative action as a “big lie” and opposes race-based admissions at colleges and universities. [...]

On January 1, 2005, the World Trade Organization is set to lift quotas on textile production. China’s share of the U.S. textile market has risen from 9 percent to 72 percent in the past 2 years.
There are moves to try and level the trade playing field before the WTO quota system expires. The Bush [...]

The controversy over possible steroid use by baseball super slugger Barry Bonds is getting hotter by the day. And it’s leading some people to ask: if the man poised to break baseball’s all time home run record was pumped up by performance-enhancing drugs, what other great accomplishments might be the result of souped-up super [...]

With the deadline for elections in Iraq quickly approaching, at least 13 Iraqis were killed just today from a bomb at the gates of Baghdad’s Green Zone, and at least seven U.S. Marines were killed yesterday alone.
President Ghazi al-Yawer has issued a dire warning that if things don’t change soon, the country will be ripe [...]

Among this week’s major news:
1) Hamid Karzai is sworn in as Afghanistan’s first democratically-elected President.
2) Congress passes the intelligence reform bill, which implements many of the recommendations of the 9/11 commission.
3) Donald Rumsfeld is grilled by soldiers about shortages of armor and other equipment.
4) U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Danforth gives Kofi Annan [...]

The 1966 album “Freak Out” was Frank Zappa’s first record with the Mothers of Invention, and a landmark in rock history. Zappa, who died of prostate cancer in 1993, was savagely critical of the American consumer society and scornful of what he saw as the shallow, posturing sybarites of the 1960s counter-culture.
Though he revered the [...]