Episode Archives

Filter episodes by the year they originally aired.
To The Best Of Our Knowledge

When the world turns green again, it makes us all a little giddy!  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll pull on our gum boots and get out into the garden with novelist Jamaica Kincaid, who’s grown a map of the Carribean at her Vermont home.  Sharon Lovejoy, author of Roots, Shoots...Read more

cool cat

Who really rules the internet?  Cats, of course.  We can't take the cuteness anymore so here it is -- our first and only show about cats.  Cat videos, superstar cats, cat music, cat history, endangered cats... and a little, tiny bit about dogs.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

You're driving along a dark road when you're distracted by what appears to be a flight of arrows. You crash into a ravine and suffer horrible burns over most of your body. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll talk to Andrew Davidson about his debut novel "The Gargoyle." It's been...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Have you ever been to "Reloville"? Or maybe you live there. There's more than one. You can find them in Atlanta, Dallas and Denver, among other places. "Relovilles" are the sprawling subdivisions where mid-level managers and executives live – for a few years before they uproot their families and...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The thrill of victory… the agony of defeat.  And the human drama of athletic competition.  We love sports. And every 4 years we get the pleasure to watch amateur athletes, at the top of their game, compete in the Olympics.  And that got us thinking about competition.  Because that’s what it’s...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the mystique of Native Americans.  We hear they’re close to the land; they have sacred knowledge.  But Indian writer Sherman Alexie says that’s bunk, that the “the whole New Age movement is based on as many stereotypes as genocide was.”  What makes a...Read more

Barbara Ehrenreich

A collection of all of Barbara Ehrenreich's interviews on "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" over the years. Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Imagine that you grow up with dreams of fame and fortune.  You're going to become a world-famous rock star.  The only problem is your childhood friend becomes the world's biggest rock star instead.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Neil McCormick shares his story of being upstaged...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

From trance music to ecstatic dance, from Burning Man to psychedelic mushrooms, Americans are awash in weird and intense experiences - and maybe even inventing a new kind of religion. Is this just a bunch of New Age thrill-seekers getting off, or is something deeper going on?  We explore the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Pragmatic.Problem-solving. And non-partisan -- Mayors just might be the next best hope for democracy.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Future Perfect: Dreamers, Schemers & Visionaries

Part One

 

Imagine a poor child in Uruguay. Now imagine giving that young girl a hundred-dollar laptop computer. Imagine the educational opportunities that this laptop will provide...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Everything you know about Indians is wrong. That's the starting point for Paul Chaat Smith, who says it's time to hit the reset button and re-think everything we know about Native American culture.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Comedian Howie Miller says that's what he does as a...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Bottle caps, coins, dolls, rocks. My Aunt Mary’s ceramic chickens. Most of us collect something. It seems to be in our genes. And for most of us it’s a fun hobby. For others, it can get a little time consuming. But for a few, collecting is an total obsession.

Amanda Petrusich is a music...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

It sounds like a deal in the ads - submit your poems, have them set to music, and start a fascinating new career as a hit songwriter.  Of course your chance of success is slim to none and you have to pay for the privilege.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the strange subculture of...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we ask a blunt question: Did we win? We're not the only ones asking. The phrase "did we win the war in Iraq" has been searched over 7 million times on Google. The war has cost an estimated 860...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Jane Scott keeps strange company.  While other women her age spend their time in knitting circles, Scott’s still hanging out with rockers like Lou Reed and Alice Cooper (and showing off her backstage pass.)  It’s her job.  Or at least it was until she retired as rock critic for the Cleveland...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

As Western economies struggle, some Eastern economies are booming.  India and China now threaten to surpass the West as economic – and political – superpowers.   But it’s not just politics that’s changing in South Asia.  Across the region, centuries-old religious traditions are also entering a...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

They can have sex twenty times a day.  Their teeth are harder than steel.  And the ones that live in the city are twice as big as their country cousins.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll talk rats with Robert Sullivan, who spent a year investigating rats in a New York City...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Would you be surprised to know there are more slaves in the world today than at any other time in human history? An estimated 27 million people live in bondage. On this To the Best of Our Knowledge, the new abolitionists – including a reporter who risked his life to document the global traffic...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

"Being a man, like being a woman, is something you have to learn." That's what Aaron Raz Link says. And Link should know. He began life as a girl named Sarah. And he started a new life as a gay man twenty-nine years later. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll meet Aaron Raz Link,...Read more

Pages