A car accident at twenty-one left John Callahan paralyzed. He’s become a very successful cartoonist -- poking fun at disabilities and the idiosyncrasies of life. His work has been described as “rude, shocking, tasteless, and depraved” – by his fans. Next time on To...Read more
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
It’s Oscar season and Hollywood is once again celebrating the best films of the year. It would seem that we're a nation obsessed with movies. As a country, we spend billions of dollars to watch them every year, and celebrate them with a variety of awards ceremonies. But what separates a...Read more
Mel Brooks’ play “The Producers” is Broadway’s biggest hit in years, but it’s not for everyone – not at a hundred bucks a ticket. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, does theater still matter? We’ll talk with playwright Wendy Wasserstein and critic Frank Rich. Also, Samuel Beckett’s...Read more
Linus has his security blanket. Renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks had the Periodic Table of the Elements. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, My Chemical Life. Oliver Sacks remembers a childhood steeped in chemistry. Also, Primo Levi survives Auschwitz, through chemistry. And,...Read more
According to a "New York Times" poll he's the third most famous person in Japan, right behind Hirohito and Bruce Lee. But the truth is he's not even a person, he's a giant green, radioactive lizard named Godzilla. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we'll explore the history of...Read more
The Meaning of Life
Part Three
In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we consider the good stuff. Love. Poetry. Pleasure. Chocolate. Art. Beauty. New York Times Art Critic Michael Kimmelman says the beauty of beauty is that...Read more
There's something about the desert. Its uncompromising climate makes it a place of thirst and death. But it's also site of myths and vision quests. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge we'll explore the passion and power of the desert. We'll celebrate the desert's poets. And commemorate...Read more
We know the story of our 16th president – born in a log cabin, taught himself to read, led us through the bloodiest war ever fought on our soil, wrote the Gettsyburg address and freed the slaves. What don't we know? We celebrate Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday with a look at the man as well...Read more
Classical musicians don't come with better pedigrees than violinist Anne Akiko Meyers. She's been wowing audiences since she was four, performs all over the world and has commissioned many new works. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Meyers talks about why she chose to record popular...Read more
A restaurant wasn't always a place to eat. It used to be a thing to eat - a cup of medicinal broth to restore your health. These days Americans eat almost half their meals out, so how did the modern restaurant evolve? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the rise of the restaurant. ...Read more
How do you soak in the essence of a city? In New York, writer Colson Whitehead goes walking ... through Times Square, along Broadway, down into the subway. In Memphis, critic Robert Gordon listens to its music - the blues, soul, rock-n-roll. Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll...Read more
Every day you pick up the paper and there's another report about something you either should be eating or shouldn't. Omega 3-fatty acids, soy milk, broccoli - good. Trans fats, soda, fast food - bad. What if instead we just ate what made us happy? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge,...Read more
Henry David Thoreau died 150 years ago, and he’s still a great American icon. But have you ever wondered exactly why? Thoreau wasn’t exactly the model environmentalist he’s often made out to be. And his account of living at Walden Pond is partly fictionalized; he spent nine years writing and...Read more
Andre Agassi says he always hated tennis, even though it's what made him rich and famous. But maybe that's not surprising, considering how his father used to browbeat him into hitting 2500 balls a day when he was seven years old, and later sent him off to a tennis academy, which Agassi calls a "...Read more
The American middle class used to be living proof that the American dream was alive and well, providing homes and modest savings to anyone willing to work. It’s another story today. In this hour, the decline of the middle class. How rising levels of income inequality shattered...Read more
New Orleans is famous for a lot of things...many of them musical. It's the birthplace of jazz, the cradle of rhythm and blues. The home of the brass bands. So it's no wonder that New Orleans is known as "the City that Care Forgot." In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
Canal Street flooded with so much water it looks like an actual canal. People mourning the loss of their homes and loved ones. The Gulf Coast will never be the same after the devastation that Hurricane Katrina has caused. In this hour of the Peabody-Award-Winning program To the Best of Our...Read more
Since the explosion of surfing in the 60s, hanging ten has become one of the coolest sports around. Today, women, children, and seniors surf their way across peaks of blue water. Some of them even find the divine along the way. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we’ll find out how...Read more
The differences among the world’s various religions are getting a lot more ink these days than the similarities. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge stories of common ground. “The Life of Pi,” in which an Indian boy finds magic in three different faiths with the help of a Bengal Tiger...Read more
Electrons to Enlightenment
Part One
Do science and religion have to be at war with each other? Francis Collins doesn't think so. The head of the Human Genome Project, is also an evangelical Christian. But biologist and atheist...Read more
Scientists are discovering how plants secretly talk to each other. How smart is your geranium, and what does a tree know? Today, we're eavesdropping on the secret language of plants.Read more
We are connected -- probably connected in ways neither of us has dreamed of. Forget six degrees of separation; on Facebook we have only 3.74. And that's just today.Read more
You know who they are – the cool kids – those above-it-all taste-makers whose fashion and entertainment choices predict what everyone else will be wearing and doing next year. What’s their secret? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge exploring cool. A frustrated surfer remembers...Read more
What’s the biggest threat to American supremacy? Islamic fundamentalism? China? How about Europe? Today Europe has more people, more trade, and more wealth than the U.S. And the European welfare state offers a potent alternative to American capitalism - and what government’s supposed to do...Read more