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
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
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
Thoughts about thinking, including Daniel Goleman on "Emotional Intelligence" and Daniel Kahneman on "Thinking, Fast and Slow."Read more
How much time do you spend thinking about the future? Oh sure, you’ve probably got plans for the weekend or are thinking about how your kids are doing in school.
But how much time to do we spend – as a nation, a global community – thinking about what our lives might look like in 50 or 100...Read more
Julian Barnes is one of England’s most celebrated novelists. He’s fascinated by the ways our minds play tricks with memory, especially as we age. It’s the subject of his Booker Prize winning novel “The Sense of an Ending” – one of several new books that explore the minefield of memory. We...Read more
Bees are responsible for forty percent of the food we put in our mouths. It sounds astonishing, but without bees, we could find ourselves facing food shortages and a collapse of the green and flowered world. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a peek inside the world...Read more
Turning thirty used to be embarrassing, an occasion for angst and misery. Today young adults are embracing thirty as cause for celebration. They’re renting yachts, giving speeches and spending thousands of dollars to celebrate the big three-oh. In this hour of To the Best of...Read more
From Boston to Berkeley, people are going raw. Vegetarians, vegans and Atkins followers are old hat – the hottest trend in food is cool. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, why the raw food movement has people turning off their ovens and trumpeting the healing powers of uncooked food...Read more
Most people want to do the right thing. But what if your survival depended on doing something wrong? Something deeply repellent. Something evil. And what if the police told you to? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the consequences of moral choices, from Nazi Germany to American...Read more
The scene is a gritty punk club. Dark and smoky with sticky floors. A crowd shuffles and talks, waiting for the music. One man takes the stage. He sits down and plays – not rock, not techno, but the solo cello suites of J.S. Bach. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, breaking the...Read more
Last week we lost one of the great scholars of religion. Huston Smith died at the age of 97. Smith's book “The World’s Religions” sold more than three million copies and is perhaps the most important book ever written on comparative religion. He also had a colorful personal history. In the early...Read more
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments...” “Because I could not stop for death…”
First lines. Classic poems. But poetry’s no anachronism. It’s pulsing and swelling and beating new rhythms.
From online verse to the new US Poet Laureate, from poetry...Read more
Ten years ago, South African singer and activist Vusi Mahalesela had the thrill of his life. He sang at Nelson Mandela’s inauguration. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the music and politics of South Africa - ten years after the end of apartheid.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
Lace up the hiking boots and grab the bug spray! Spring is here and we're heading Into The Woods. Learn how to read a forest. Unlock the meanings hidden in leaf and bole, twig and soil. And celebrate the woods in fairytale, myth, story and song.Read more
Steve Kissing seemed like a perfect child. He was an "A" student. He excelled as an athlete. He was even an altar boy. But Steve had a secret, a secret so dark he couldn't tell anyone. Steve was possessed by the devil. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, meeting the devil. From a boy...Read more
When Donald Trump described his offensive remarks about women as "locker room talk," he implied that it's normal for men to engage in macho sexual braggadocio in gender-segregated spaces like men's locker rooms. Sociologist Amy Schalet and law professor Terry Kogan trace hidden...Read more
East Meets West
Part Two
A look at America's romance with Eastern spirituality: how did dharma retreats and yoga vacations become part of the Western lifestyle? Buddhist teachers explain what Buddhism has to offer a consumer...Read more
Think you know about kung fu movies? That they’re campy, badly dubbed flicks from the 70s? Sometimes. But they’re also graceful, noble, heroic feats of movie making. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge the tiger, the crane, legends of the Shaolin (SHOW-lin) Temple, and the...Read more
When it comes to religious practice, we don't always end up where we started. For some people, the journey away from their childhood religion is filled with serious, personal strife. For others, spiritual loss can be less dramatic or even – dramatically funny. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
Cosmologist Janna Levin feels cramped. Thirty billion light years just isn’t enough space for her. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we consider the Universe Beyond Einstein. Janna Levin tackles the shape and size of space. Also, we’ll try to catch a gravity wave, marvel at the...Read more
Dave Soldier has an unusual hobby. He teaches elephants to play music instruments...in an elephant orchestra. Ben Kilham does something else that’s unique. He raises orphan bear cubs and then releases them into the wild. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, some remarkable stories...Read more
Vivek Maddala knows how to tell a good story. He can put a lump in your throat or make you laugh out loud. His themes are timeless and universal. Maddala composes music for silent films. In this hour of To The Best Of Knowledge, how to construct a narrative. From writing silent film music to...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