By host Tom Ashbrook:
He was the golden child of a stern black preacher, grew up singing gospel with the sweetest voice anyone had ever heard and died chasing a hooker from a three dollar motel room in South Central LA.
In between, Sam Cooke conquered the American jukebox of the civil rights era with a gusher [...]

By Host Tom Ashbrook:
While Americans debate human evolution, the pace of evolution itself is about to explode, says acientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil. In this century, he and others say, humans will reach what they call “the Singularity”: the moment when man and machine, humans and their technology, become one.
Kurzweil foresees human intelligence [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
In 1969, a young guitarist named Leo Kottke came out with his head-turning debut album, “Twelve String Blues,” recorded live at the Minneapolis Scholar Coffee House. It was the beginning of a legendary guitar career.
In 1999, as a new millennium came in, the touring sensation Phish, the group “Rolling Stone” called “the [...]

Salman Rushdie has been an international figure for a quarter of a century now, since the 1981 publication of his acclaimed “Midnight’s Children.” He’s been a fixture on bookshelves, on Op-Ed pages around the world, and on podiums speaking up, essentially, for freedom.
Rushdie became a household name in 1989 when Iran’s Ayotollah Khomeini issued a [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
When he came out in 1996 with the bestseller “Angela’s Ashes,” Frank McCourt quickly became an international celebrity. He was 66-years-old, a lifelong teacher with a beguiling story of childhood in Ireland and a killer brogue straight out of Limerick. Or, in his own typically self-skewering words, the “mick of the moment,” [...]

Recently, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan gave a stark warning that housing and stock prices could tumble. That’s just one more thing for the small investor to worry about.
Yale University’s chief investment officer David Swensen is at the top of his class. He manages Yale’s $15 billion endowment, which has grown an average of 16 [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Once upon a time in America, there was the Great Depression and a vast World War, and a soundtrack that shimmered with hot brass and moonlight and romance.
At the heart of the swing era was trombonist and big band leader Tommy Dorsey. He was the driven kid from Pennsylvania coal country [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Jonathan Kozol’s view of the history of race and American education goes something like this: at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement, the country decided that “separate but equal” did not work. It struggled for two decades with integration, busing, mixing up the kids. Then it shrugged, looked away, and let [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Holly Morris had a job, a desk, a career editing books and a serious case of burnout. She had a rising fear of walking through life with eyes open and soul shut. So Holly Morris fled the cubicle for a walk on the wild side.
She hit the road, mapped out her own [...]

For many years, Americans parented with the stick — the lash, the twisted ear, and the spanking. Then came Doctor Spock — spanking went out and well-nurtured self-esteem came in.
Parenting has now switched to giving plentiful praise and rewards for good behavior. But that’s too much emphasis on self-esteem, some say.
Now, parenting consultant Alfie Kohn [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Virtuoso out-of-the box harpist Deborah Henson-Conant is known as the rockin’ bad girl of the harp world. She took the ancient instrument off its pedestal, cocked it on her hip, and made it play everything from Mexican cantina music to Brubeck to gut-bucket blues and sounds like Van Halen.
She’s the rebel [...]

So far, fewer than a third of New Orleans’s pre-Katrina population has returned to the Big Easy. One resident who has yet to make the journey back is singer Delia Nakayama. Medical troubles have kept her in Berkeley, California. But she wants to return to the city that once opened its arms [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
The levees broke in New Orleans, but the damage of Hurricane Katrina swept a much larger swath than just the Queen City. From the Texas border of Louisiana, across the Mississippi delta, into Biloxi and Mobile and miles of towns and coastline in between, Katrina hit ten million Americans.
Many towns and [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
It has been a wild week on Capitol Hill — the Patriot Act, big budget cuts, huge military spending measures, and a hard run at drilling for oil in Alaska.
With the holiday recess bearing down, with news of secret White House spying bearing down, with huge deficits and giant issues of principle [...]

Guests:
Ben Stein, actor, lawyer and economist who wrote a column for the New York Times last Sunday on executive pay
Randall Thomas, professor of law and business at Vanderbilt University who studies and analyzes executive pay.

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Two days ago, on board Air Force Two, high above the Middle East after his surprise visit to Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney invited reporters up to talk about the power of the presidency. It eroded after Vietnam and Watergate, he said. But he and George W. Bush are bringing [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
In the great turn of the seasons, the days don’t get shorter and the nights don’t get longer than on this day. It is December 21st, the winter solstice and the shortest day of the year. Across the northern U.S. today, sunset comes just after 4 pm. In Helsinki, Finland, [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
There was big noise out of a little courtroom in Dover, Pennsylvania yesterday. After weeks of remarkable testimony on science and Darwin and evolution and intelligent design, federal judge John Jones III - Republican and George W. Bush appointee to the bench - ruled that intelligent design is not science.
Judge Jones said [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Most of us see things as they are. James Carroll sees things as they should be. The former Catholic priest turned Boston Globe columnist and best-selling author of “Constantine’s Sword” and “American Requiem.” cuts through the clutter of news headlines and gets to the heart of matters.
He asks the tough questions: the [...]

No apologies from President Bush yesterday as he vigorously defended the electronic eavesdropping program he authorized the NSA to conduct without first obtaining warrants.
He called the domestic surveillance a “vital tool in our war against the terrorists” and said his action was fully consistent with his “constitutional responsibilities and authorities.” And he said, in his [...]

by host Tom Ashbook:
Moses ben Maimon was born in Islamic Spain in 1138, the successor to seven generations of rabbis. He grew up to be a famed physician to the great and humble, and the most important interpreter of Jewish teaching and tradition in a millenium.
Renaissance admirers called him Maimonidies, the name that still graces [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
“Desperate Housewives” makes its national television debut today in China. But the hanky panky on Wisteria Lane is patty-cake next to the sexual revolution the Chinese themselves are in the midst of.
After centuries of Confucian strictures and decades of Maoist propriety, the new free-market China also turns out to be, by [...]

Many consider Richard Pryor the greatest stand-up comedian in America. His unique mix of irreverent humor, candor, vulnerability, masterful story telling and grace on stage brought houses down.
But life was never easy for Pryor, who died last Saturday at age 65 from a heart attack. He grew up in Peoria, Illinois in his grandmother’s bordello. [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
The super secret National Intelligence Agency (NSA) has been eavesdropping to hundreds, maybe thousands of Americans calling or e-mailing internationally. According to today’s New York Times, the NSA continues this type of snooping without the court ordered warrants required by law for such domestic surveillance.
The practice began with a 2002 presidential order [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
“Any idiot can face a crisis,” said Anton Chekhov. “It’s the day-to-day living that wears you out.” A hundred years after the great Russian playwright breathed his last over talk of champagne, Chekhov speaks with almost painful relevance to modern ears.
The grandson of Russian slaves, the author of Uncle Vanya and The [...]

The price of crude oil dropped this morning, down to just over $60-dollars a barrel. That’s a 14-percent drop from the record high $70-dollar mark passed back in August. Lower oil prices are good news for the US economy. But where America will get its future energy sources is a question that [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
On 9/11, history marched in on George W. Bush. With wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, George W. Bush marched on history. Then, with re-election behind him and Iraq turning bloody, the famously stubborn man in the White House went almost silent.
Soldiers died, things came undone, hurricanes and scandal soured public life and [...]

As the Gulf Coast continues to struggle to recover from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, another struggle goes on in the mountains of Northern Pakistan. The earthquake that ripped through Pakistan and Indian Kashmir two months ago killed 87,000 people. It left 3.5 million people homeless — and the cold of winter is only making matters [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook
When 9/11 came, the Red Cross was there — with mountains of Americans’ donations and support for the stricken. And then came criticism and the ouster of its chief.
When Hurricane Katrina came, the Red Cross was there again, with more mountains of American charity. And again came criticism — more [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook
Tomorrow is Election Day — again — in Iraq, and the voting has never been more important, for Iraqis or for Americans. Six and a half thousand candidates are running for the 275 seats in the country’s first, full, post-invasion parliament.
For the first time, the embittered Sunni minority that ruled under [...]

Teen star Mary Kate Olsen made headlines and tabloid covers last year in her battle with anorexia. Amy Nelson isn’t famous, but the 16-year old from Chicago has been struggling with her eating disorder since she was 12.
The latest data show 2.5 million Americans are now anorexics, and not just the stereotype image of white [...]

The warnings of global warming are high and getting higher. A senior NASA scientist warned this month that the world may be within a decade of tipping into weather patterns it has not seen in half a million years.
Last week in Montreal, with more than 150 nations gathered to discuss next steps on global [...]

by host Tom Ashbrook:
Novelist, essayist and short story writer John Updike is one of the most celebrated authors in America today. At 73, his long career has drawn nearly every honor in literature.
But Updike first imagined himself not as a man of letters but as a visual artist. He studied drawing. He loved oil [...]

by host Tom Ashbrook:
After the spending festival in Washington last summer, the new theme on Capitol Hill is “cuts.” Not nearly enough to offset the spending or close the deficit, but cuts anyway.
And, very broadly, here’s how they tend to sort out: cuts in support for the poor; cuts in taxes for the well-to-do.
Late last [...]

by host Tom Ashbrook:
It’s the holiday season, but if you’re not calling it Christmas this year, watch out. After twenty years of seeing Christmas parades turn into holiday parades, Christmas vacations into “winter break”, and town hall Nativity scenes into snowmen, Christmas crusaders from Jerry Falwell to Bill O’Reilly and more say they’ve had enough.
America’s [...]

by host Tom Ashbrook:
Talk about expecting a slam dunk. When Saddam Hussein was pulled out of his spider hole in Iraq with breakfast in his beard and the blood of thousands on his hands, it was easy to imagine the trial that would come as the ultimate open and shut case.
This week, the world, [...]

by Tom Ashbrook
Crack a book, and the life you save may be your own. When the world is wild and seems a shade too dark, a book may tell you why or might just light the world a different way.
2005 has now delivered its gift of books. This hour, we open these presents again [...]

by host Tom Ashbrook:
It’s been a hard slog for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice through Europe this week.
She wants to talk about broader, deeper cooperation in the war on terror. Europe wants to talk about torture. About the CIA grabbing people off streets in “extraordinary rendition” and flying them around the world, to “black [...]

Guests:
TBA

Kuma Reality Games has developed a series of games based around Saddam Hussein. The series has captured a cult audience, and — it’s not surprising — has provoked heated controversy.
Guests:
Keith Halper is the CEO of Kuma Reality Games, which has produced more than sixty episodes in its series of games surrounding the exploits of Saddam [...]

by Tom Ashbrook.
In the beginning, there was “Pong.” Thirty years later, video games have spread beyond the arcades and basement lairs of teenage boys.
Fifty percent of Americans now play videogames, according to the Entertainment Software Association, and the average player age, they claim, is 30.
Microsoft’s X-Box 360 is making a huge noise this year, the [...]

by host Tom Ashbrook:
In the news this week: Intel, the giant, leading-edge American computer chip maker, will invest a billion dollars in India. Also, Ford Motor Company, on the heels of GM’s 30,000 job cuts, may close four North American plants.
Brace yourself for more of the same, says Edward Gordon. Jobs and dollars are [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
A quarter century ago, Ronald Reagan pulled off an amazing political feat, spanning and binding the don’t-tread-on-me libertarian and moralizing Moral Majority wings of the Republican Party. And the GOP soared to power.
Now, twenty-five years later, the old Republican foes are grating on each other again. Fissures are visible. [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
The U.S. government is now spending a billion and a half dollars a week on the war in Iraq. That’s more than $200 million a day. And nobody is quite sure where all that money is going.
Government audits have found at least $20 billion unaccounted for, and everyone knows a big, ugly [...]

By host Tom Ashrbook:
At fifty, Coco Chanel once famously quipped, we have the face we deserve. Well, maybe. Increasingly these days, at almost any age, people seem to have the face they can afford — with botox, nips and tucks and makeovers of every variety, chin implants and new noses and radio frequency face [...]

More than four years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the 9/11 Commission that investigated the catastrophe says government inaction is leaving the United States unnecessarily vulnerable to further strikes.
Guests:
Michael Isikoff, investigative reporter for Newsweek magazine.