Busloads of Senior Citizens roll onto the Reservation for high stakes bingo. Lottery tickets show up on people’s shopping lists in 47 states. Practically every office has a pool on the NFL or the Final Four or the outcome of the latest reality television series. In this hour of To the Best of...Read more
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
As Hillary Rodham Clinton prepares to give the most important speech of her life, listen back to the speech that marked her entrance into public political life, now available for the first time in its entirety. On May 31st, 1969, Hillary Rodham became the first student to give a commencement...Read more
Nearly 20 million households in America are one paycheck away from losing their homes. For many of these families, keeping a roof over their head means having to choose between the rent or dinner that evening. This hour, we explore how housing insecurity drives poverty in America.Read more
Your mother always told you money can’t buy happiness. Well, she was wrong. And economists have calculated the price. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the high cost of happiness. Also, why we cry: from crocodile tears to the three-hankie movie. Writer Andrew Solomon’s struggles...Read more
Do you ever get the feeling that everyone's reading all the same books and listening to all the same music, and seeing all the same films? Maybe there's a reason why. New York and Los Angeles account for only a fraction of landmass when it comes to the continental United States...Read more
Is Jennifer Egan's book, "A Visit from the Goon Squad," a novel or is it a series of entangled stories? It's a fair question because this polyphonic narrative covers a lot of territory – from satire to tragedy told from a wide range of characters' points of view. And one chapter...Read more
Cult film director John Waters has been described as the "Pope of filth" and the "King of Trash." To put it mildly, his films have, well, transgressed the boundaries of good taste. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, pushing the limits in film with John Waters. We'll...Read more
How many ways can you imagine the end of the world? To celebrate the end of 2012, we've gathered some of our favorite apocalyptic fiction. Doomsday scenarios from award-winning novelists and short story writers, featuring zombie invasions, mutant plagues, fire and...Read more
What makes a scientific revolution? Thomas Kuhn said it’s when a new paradigm blows the old scientific model out of the water. Fifty years later, we examine Kuhn's legacy, and talk with iconoclastic scientist Rupert Sheldrake, who says science is mired in untested dogmas. Also, stories of two...Read more
East Meets West
Part Five
Tariq Ramadan is a controversial philosopher who believes Muslims can thrive in secular, Western society. Ayaan Hirsi Ali disagrees. She's an equally controversial figure who's living under a death threat...Read more
The physics world has a darling - it's called string theory. The idea that the universe is composed of infinitesimal vibrating strings. String theory has been the subject of bestselling books, popular TV series and countless articles. But is it a dead end street? In this hour of on To the...Read more
Imagine a country where Islam is the dominant religion but Christians, Jews and Muslims still live together peacefully – a place where philosophers from all three religions talk and debate openly. Well, there was once such a culture in the Middle Ages. For centuries, Al Andalus was the beacon of...Read more
Guns are a part of our national mythology. Just consider the Western, Annie Oakley, Daniel Boone -- it's hard to deny the role guns had in shaping America.
But what if all those stories were exaggerated at best? What if the gun myth was created in the 19th ...Read more
Did you know that novelist Thomas Hardy had a second career as a poet? Or that many people don't find their artistic passions until after the age of 85? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we talk about change over time - that is, how change is really a lifelong project. A former monk...Read more
For journalists, the first days of Donald Trump’s presidency have been a bit surreal. We find ourselves wondering how legendary muckrakers might have reacted to some of these first press briefings. So delving into the TTBOOK...Read more
Do you ever think about the way you think? Lately, we've been doing a lot of thinking about what we think about when we think about thinking. Join us as we explore the life of the mind.Read more
When did "fat" become a four-letter word? Leaders of the body acceptance movement say it's time to stop shaming fat people. In this hour, curvy girls and plus-size women talk about the emotional and physical costs of America's toxic obsession with weight and body image. Read more
Say the name "Robert Krulwich" and hard-core public radio listeners start smiling. These days Robert does a lot of science journalism, even though he admits he's no expert. He believes everyone's interested, even though they think it's too hard for them. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
For all the amazing discoveries that scientists have made, the cosmos is still full of mysteries - from dark matter to quantum entanglement. Will physicists ever explain the universe, or is it fundamentally unknowable? We explore the frontiers of physics and ponder what it means to live with...Read more
Do you believe in magic? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we’ll talk with some people who do. Join us for a conversation with America’s favorite witch – Starhawk. And uncover your own inner wizard! What Merlin, Dumbledore and Gandalf have to teach us all about living a life...Read more
Most of us think in words, but not Temple Grandin. She thinks in pictures. Grandin is autistic, and visual thinking is common among people with autism. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Temple Grandin talks about how thinking in pictures has helped her help animals. Also, mark...Read more
According to George Bernard Shaw, the seven deadly sins are food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. This time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll explore the more traditional Seven Deadly Sins. Musician Joe Jackson will tell us how lust, gluttony and the other sins...Read more
Every sixty seconds, 259 new people show up in the world's cities. No one is building housing for them. No government is planning for them. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we'll explore the evolving city in a world of a billion squatters, with another billion on the way.Read more