The Roman Republic is once again flashing across the American imagination and the American television screen with HBO’s new series “Rome.”
The Senate is divided, the Republic is decaying, Caesar is grabbing for empire, and Americans may be watching to see what they might learn from the Roman story. It seems, some might say, like deja [...]

In New Orleans, residents and emergency teams are struggling with the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Flood waters broke through at least two levees on Tuesday, submerging the city in up to twenty feet of water in places, and rendering the city of nearly a half-million people uninhabitable for weeks.
Damage assessments are worse than expected, [...]

Yesterday, President Bush declared that today’s war in Iraq and wherever terrorists may be found is as great, as desperate, as inevitable as the World War II struggle to defeat fascist Japan 60 years ago.
The 60th anniversary of the end of the World War II conflict with Japan, VJ Day, was actually two weeks ago, [...]

Imagine walking seventy miles, a distance equal to almost three full marathons, non-stop. No big deal? Imagine doing it if you’re only three feet tall, waddling on webbed feet, battling the Antarctic winter, and doing it all dressed in formal wear. That’s what the emperor penguin does every year to reach its mating ground.
The penguins [...]

In the not so distant past, etiquette classes were the domain of the ultra-rich who needed to perfect their country club manners. These days, 20 and 30-something ordinary Jills and Joes are signing up for etiquette classes. Books about etiquette are flying off the shelves and adult education classes are booked to the hilt.
What this [...]

There’s one incarnation of Google that we haven’t touched on yet — Google as poetry. As Danish poet and radio producer Pejk Malinovski tells us, the search engine has spawned a new genre of contemporary literature: Google Poetry.
In this radio diary, he reads poems he’s created using Google’s search engine.
Guests:
Pike Malinovski is a “Google [...]

The search engine Google’s going gangbusters. The world’s hottest tech company just introduced new software — 3D mapping with GoogleEarth, talking over the Internet with GoogleTalk, and a new desktop application that lets you scan your hard drive with a few clicks of the mouse. Now there are rumors that Google is building its own [...]

Yesterday Sunni negotiators, including former members of the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein, publicly denounced Iraq’s constitution presented before the country’s parliament. They have called for its defeat in an October 15 referendum. The denunciation points to what has been an ongoing challenge of bringing the Sunnis on board with the political process, [...]

It is the storm that no one on the Gulf Coast wanted to see. But Hurricane Katrina plowed ashore this morning.
New Orleans residents and more have been evacuated, their homes and city itself imperiled. Crude-oil futures have spiked for the first time to more than $70 a barrel on fear of Gulf Coast destruction.
The insurance [...]

Gary Hart can’t stand the silence. He wants Democrats to make some noise about the Bush administration’s handling of the war in Iraq and about what he sees as the lies that got the U.S. in the war in the first place.
Hart also wants Democrats to stand up and say they made a mistake when [...]

New U.S. census data shows that for the first time ever adults living alone outnumber parents living with kids as the most common household type. From 1990 to 2000, the number of single-person households grew by 21.4 percent and for people ages 35 to 64, a whopping 45 percent.
What’s going on? Is being married with [...]

Tricia Rose is professor of American Studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and a specialist in 20th century American and African-American culture and politics. Soon, she will be making her way back to campus for the fall semester.
With the nation at war in Iraq, events unfolding in Gaza, and the upcoming [...]

College tuitions are climbing to the moon, and everyone has a different explanation of where the problem lies and how to fix it.
Some say that universities are simply charging the maximum that the market will bear. Others say parents and students have higher expectations about what the college experience should include.
The one thing everyone agrees [...]

This past Tuesday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Noman Mineta arrived in a silver Lincoln Navigator sport utility vehicle at a L.A. gas station where he delivered a 169-page proposal for the revision of the country’s auto emission standards.
The proposed plan comes as the first change in three decades. Critics call it inadequate, saying it does little [...]

A smoldering alienation is burning widely in Europe’s huge Muslim population.
According to American writer and intellectual David Rieff, the continent is headed for a crisis. Multiculturalism won’t help, he says. Deportation and hard bans on hate speech won’t do the trick either.
Hear a conversation with Rieff, European scholar Tariq Ramadan, and German news analyst Josef [...]

For writer John Richardson, family history is the history of the 20th Century. His father Jack was a founding member of the CIA who worked Cold War hotspots in the 1940s and ’50s. His family joined him at his postings, but the truth about his job stayed hidden from his wife and children. Eventually [...]

In 1985, author Bret Easton Ellis who was barely in his 20s and still in college, became the poster boy of disaffected youth with his novel “Less than Zero.” The bestseller about rich kids on winter break in a delirium of partying, drugs and sex in Los Angeles, sent him to the top of A-list [...]

Venezuelan officials reacted angrily to evangelist Pat Robertson’s call for the assassination of President Hugo Chavez. Washington distanced itself from Robertson but the comments could heighten tensions between the two countries already at odds over oil and other issues.
Phil Gunson, stringer for The Miami Herald in Caracas, Venezuela has the latest.
Guests:
Phil Gunson, stringer for The [...]

Jurors in Angleton, Texas have sent a whopping message to the world headquarters of drugmaker Merck in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey. That message says “Pay Up.”
In a personal injury lawsuit over Merck’s one-time wonder-drug, Vioxx, a jury last week delivered a quarter-billion-dollar verdict for Carol Ernst in her husband’s death — blaming Merck for [...]

In California, ten outdoor workers have died of suspected heat stroke since July 13th, prompting the California division of Occupational Health and Safety to step in with emergency regulations.
Constatino Cruz was one of four farmworkers who lost his life to heatstroke this July. Originally from Oaxaca, Mexico, Cruz settled near Bakersfield, California over a year [...]

A new organic movement is taking hold of the country’s death industry, as baby boomers push to reinvent what will define them in death. The so-called “green burials” or “eco-burials” combine simplicity with environmental conservation.
Instead of being buried in cemeteries with manicured lawns and granite headstones, a growing number of Americans would rather be buried [...]

Hundreds of people, including folk singer Joan Baez, have joined anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan in her vigil outside President Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch. But not all parents of soldiers who have died in Iraq agree with Sheehan and her demand that US troops be pulled out of Iraq now.
In this radio diary, Ronald Griffin of [...]

The draft of the Iraq constitution faced another midnight deadline last night without a draft finished and submitted.
Yesterday afternoon, President Bush delivered a speech in Salt Lake City, UT identifying Iraq as the frontline on the War on Terror.
Hear a conversation about what a Constitution will mean for the stability of that country, what it [...]

Guests:
Jimmy Guterman

She was carried in a throne by body builders. He came in on a charriot. And this, was a tennis match like no other. On September 20, 1973 Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs played what was known as the “Battle of the Sexes.”
King, 29, was at the top of her game. Riggs at [...]

Iraqi leaders are hoping to have a constitution approved. The negotiations have been contentious, especially around Shiite autonomy and the role of Islam in family law. Another large negotiating hurdle: how the country’s oil wealth will be distributed. Sunni leaders, who hold only a handful of seats in the 275-member National Assembly because [...]

Ohio just won’t go away. The state that gave Bush the 2004 Presidency, that continues to give fuel for the left leaning who think the election was rigged, and is bound to be a battleground state in 2008, is brimming with problems.
The state’s Republican governor, Bob Taft, is under fire for ethics violations. A major [...]

For the last ten years, Andly Kindler has delivered on a ruthless campaign against what he calls “hack” comedy — comedy that isn’t funny.
Once each year, after poring over the year’s sitcoms, movie comedies, and stand-up shows, Kindler delivers his “State of The Industry Speech.”
It happens at the Montreal “Just for Laughs” comedy festival, and [...]

Outside the settlements in the Gaza Strip where Israeli soldiers in riot gear have been prying Israelis from their homes and synagogues, 1.3 million Palestinians are quietly celebrating what they hope will be the start of a new era — an era where they can reclaim the land and beaches that were once theirs and [...]

The National Geographic magazine, known for its breathtaking photography, decided not to use a picture on the cover of the September issue. The issue is devoted to the complex problems and promise of Africa. It is the magazine’s first cover without a photograph since 1988 - and only the second since it began using cover [...]

The present day hunger crisis in Niger is just the latest in a long line of misfortunes in Africa. AIDS, corruption, civil war, poverty, despotism, and drought afflict the continent year after year.
It was not always so. After its independence a half century ago, the great continent was bursting with exuberance, promise and hope for [...]

Tens of thousands of US soldiers fighting insurgents in Iraq still do not have the most basic protection — body armor with bullet-resistant ceramic plates strong enough to withstand deadly attacks and the rigors of the battlefield.
The enhanced armor first went to the Special Forces. Then as the insurgency drew out, every soldier needed one. [...]

Truth has always been under attack from liars.But now two philosophers argue that the notion of truth itself is being threatened by more sinister opposition.
It began with a cloistered, academic “relativism,” they say. But now it’s seeped out into the public square. Turbo-charged punditry, pervasive political spin, and a country of divided news consumers and [...]

This morning, Israeli troops began the forced evacuation of Gaza settlers. Unarmed soldiers marched from door to door and ordered people out of their homes. Police loaded protesters on buses and some settlers were carried out of their homes.
Government eviction notices went into effect on Monday and settlers had 48 hours to leave voluntarily. [...]

The summer hurricane season is here and this year has seen a record number of tropical storms. By mid-August, there are usually two storms big enough to deserve a name, but in 2005 climatologists have already named nine storms.
Meanwhile, MIT researcher Kerry Emanuel has set off a storm of debate among his colleagues, with [...]

From film to flash cards, photography and technology have always been intimately related. The greatest photographers were also master technicians in the darkroom, and none more so than Ansel Adams.
Adams, who died in 1984, pushed the bounds of photography as far as mid-20th century technology could go. But Karen Haas, curator of a new Ansel [...]

At one time taking a photograph had an air of mystery — of not knowing quite what would come out until the roll of film went to the developers, and within an hour or a few days, the pictures of a summer vacation, a birthday party, a wedding would be produced. The rise of [...]

Iraq’s parliament has voted to extend the deadline for a draft Iraq constitution. Religion and federalism are two issues in particular under dispute by the assembly. The new deadline is August 22nd.
Peter Galbraith, former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia joins On Point from Baghdad. Galbraith has worked extensively with the Kurdish people in Iraq, and says [...]

Oil prices continue to surge to record levels, forcing gasoline costs to $3 per gallon and more in some parts of the country. Analysts at Goldman Sachs have said that oil markets have reached a “super spike” level, and some say that the price of a barrel could top $100 within the next year.
These numbers [...]

It is perhaps the most famous kiss ever photographed. On August 15, 1945, the Allies celebrated victory over Japan, marking the end of World War II. Over 750,000 Americans gathered to celebrate in Times Square.
One of them, an exuberant sailor named Carl Muscarello, planted a big smooch on a perfect stranger — a very [...]

Blair Tindall had big dreams of playing with a symphony orchestra. And the oboe-player stopped at nothing to make it to the top. That included sleeping with a well-known conductor.
She talks about the high-pressure world of professional orchestras, where sex and advancement play side-by-side.
Guests:
Blair Tindall, journalist and author of the new book “Mozart [...]

Until now, sexual harassment seemed like a simple matter. If a supervisor behaved inappropriately with an employee, that employee could sue.
But a California court ruling just broadened the rules to include “sexual favoritism.” That means that employees can sue if other employees are having sex with the boss and getting preferential treatment. Could this spell [...]

It’s deadline day for a new Iraqi constitution and Iraqi lawmakers said they would be able to meet tonight’s midnight deadline. But crucial sticking points remain, including the role of Islam, the rights of women, and the distribution of power among the Sunni, Shi’a and Kurds. There’s strong U.S. pressure to keep to the timetable.
Chris [...]

Today marks the first official day of the Gaza pullout by Israel — 21 settlements to be evacuated over the course of weeks. For now, the settlers will be warned by soldiers going door to door that they have 48 hours to leave. But after that, leaving will be by force.
The pullout has become a [...]

John Singleton is riding high in Hollywood. He produced and bankrolled the independent hip-hop-toned film “Hustle & Flow” that’s won raves at Sundance and beyond this summer. He’s also directed the lapel-grabbing new film that opens in theaters today, “Four Brothers,” starring Mark Wahlberg, R&B singer Tyrese and OutKast superstar Andre 3000.
It’s the story of [...]

At a press conference at his ranch in Crawford Texas, President Bush acknowledged there were lots of “rumors,” but no decision has been made about whether or not the number of American troops in Iraq would change.
Troops’ withdrawal has become the kitchen table conversation across the country and poll numbers say that the majority of [...]