In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, James Bradley remembers his father the war hero, who helped raise the flag on Iwo Jima. Martin Amis comes to terms with his famous father – the writer Kingsley Amis. And the story of a military father who was an officer but no gentleman...Read more
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Episode Archives
Andrew Sullivan is not a Republican, but he calls himself a conservative. He does not believe in using religion to ground political ideals. But he himself is a person of faith. And he endorsed John Kerry, although Ronald Reagan is one of his heroes. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
Lilydale, New York isn’t your average small town. In Lilydale, people say ghosts walk the streets and the neighbors can talk to the dead. No, this is not fiction. 20-thousand visitors a year travel to Lilydale to consult the largest community of mediums in the world. Is it all a gigantic...Read more
Right after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair magazine, declared “irony is dead.” Only a few months later Carter said, with a nudge and a wink, “I meant to say IRONING is dead - not irony.” This time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll look at the rise of...Read more
Rising sea levels, brutal storms and droughts, record temperatures...is there anything we can do about climate change? As world leaders gather at the Paris Climate Summit, we consider a range of proposals - from geoengineering and new green technology to a post-carbon economy. Read more
Muddy Waters grew up on a cotton plantation with an insatiable hunger to play music. He beat on kerosene cans before he finally got a guitar. Muddy Waters went on to become a legendary bluesman. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, why some people grow up musical. Also, pianist...Read more
Somewhere along the way, did we ruin poetry? Have the heartfelt angst of young lovers and the epic elegies of heroes become elitist and academic? But poetry is back, and we have new technology to thank.Read more
Politics has such a bad reputation it’s a wonder anyone would run for office. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll hear from a few people who are out to transform the way we do politics. Also activist Si Kahn talks about the art of the political song. And we’ll look back at one...Read more
Captain William Kidd is considered to be one of the most notorious buccaneers ever to sail the Spanish Main. But apparently history got it wrong – Captain Kidd wasn’t a pirate, he was a sea captain who hunted down pirates. Talk about being misunderstood!. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
For centuries Western travelers have felt the pull of exotic places. Tibet has always held a special fascination. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, is the Western romance with Tibet grounded in reality, or based on some notion of Shangri-La? Also a look at Bruce...Read more
Belly up to the bar as To the Best of Our Knowledge spends an hour with drinkers and drunks. Meet the man who invented the Cosmopolitan. He says it’s a really simple drink. All you need is fresh lime juice.Read more
If chocolate be the food of love, eat on! In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, why chocolate may be the next big health food. It's our Valentine’s Day special: two best-selling romance writers share tricks of the trade. And, listeners share their true stories of love at first sight...Read more
What’s your billion dollar idea? You know, the one that’s going to change the world? America’s the land of invention, right? And it’s that can-do spirit that makes this country great. But America’s no longer the global innovation giant it once was.
Where have you gone, Thomas Edison?Read more
Tom Lutz's 18-year-old son, Cody, spent day after day just lying on the couch, Lutz was surprised how angry it made him that his son was doing nothing. So Lutz decided to do something about it. He wrote a book about the history of doing nothing in America. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
Get your fix of travel and crime fiction in one hour. Today, we explore the latest in international crime fiction -- from Israel, Kenya, Denmark, Spain and more. Crime is the one literary genre that crosses every border and every nationality. Because yes, we're just that bloodthirsty.Read more
“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.” -- Lorrie Moore
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
This may be the century when Americans forget how to cook. We’re too busy and take-out’s too easy, and who needs to cook when you can buy dinner at the supermarket? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the profound implications of the decline and fall of chicken soup, meatloaf, and...Read more
From Facebook to Twitter to Wikipedia, World of Warcraft to YouTube, the life of the community has moved on line. And taken on a life of its own. The power of we, and the move toward collective identity and global think.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
The average American child grows up in a house with three TVs, three Radios, two VCRs, two CD players, a video game player and a computer. That's a lot of media. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge what happens when kids stop consuming media and start making it? We'll meet kids who...Read more
Roast pig may look delicious on the holiday table, but you might pass on the pork if you met Piglet. That famous New Zealand pig swam in the ocean each day, loved the violin and, as the story goes, sang to the moon. But she was more than an exceptional pet. To one man she was an ambassador...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