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
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Episode Archives
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
We’re off to the scene of the crime. Need a lawyer? Maybe you should find an evidence broker. He’s the guy you go to see when you’ve been accused of a crime and you need witnesses to prove you didn’t do it. At least that’s how it worked in the 18th century. Novelist David Liss talks about...Read more
General Patton wrote in 1943 that, "War is very simple, direct, and ruthless. It takes simple direct, and ruthless men to wage it." In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, simple and direct conversations with the ruthless men who wage war. We'll talk with a machine gunner stationed in Iraq...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
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
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
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
Is it any wonder boys don’t read? Too often they’re assigned the books their female teachers loved. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the man behind the GuysRead website says forget “Little House on the Prairie” and bring on Stinky Cheese Man! And we’ll hear what happened when the...Read more
There’s no English translation for the Dutch word “Gezellig."
Are there things that can never be understood, expressed or experienced outside their home culture?
We’re wandering the unmarked maps of cultural translation!Read more
Our world is increasingly unthinkable. It’s a world of tectonic shifts, strange weather and oil-drenched seascapes. So maybe it makes sense to look to the horror genre to help us think about our unthinkable world. Next time on TO THE BEST OF OUR KNOWLEDGE, we’ll explore the...Read more
The US will pull troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016, leaving behind an enemy they've fought for more than a decade. This week, we explore Afghanistan's Taliban insurgency and find out what motivates them.Read more
"Everyone is on the Internet but they're not all talking with each other. There are groups upon groups out there, but they don't talk to one another. So while the Internet brings everyone into a share space, it does not necessarily bring them together." -- David LynchRead more
Parents worry that their kids spend too much time playing video games, but according to one new study, if you need surgery, you want the surgeon who grew up with a game controller in one hand. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, why the future belongs to gamers. Imagine a...Read more
Have you ever heard of Bibleman, the Caped Christian? This evangelical superhero quotes scripture while fighting villains. There's a Bibleman video series, as well as a live show, toys, and a computer game. Bibleman is just part of the seven-billion-dollar Christian pop culture industry. In...Read more
June 22nd, 1977. Two college women are camping. A man runs over their tent in a pickup truck. Then he attacks the women with an axe. Fifteen years later, one of the women returns to central Oregon to try to solve the crime. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Terri Jentz shares...Read more
Do you think your memory is a record of what actually happened? Chances are, it's not. New scientific findings show that with every act of remembering, our brains...Read more
It's not quite the Manhattan that we're familiar with. "The New York Times" is available in a "War-Free Edition" and there are rumors of an escaped tiger on the prowl in the Upper East Side. This is the setting of Jonathan Lethem's critically-acclaimed new novel, "Chronic City." On this To the...Read more
Wallace Stegner put it this way. “National Parks are the best idea we ever had.” This weekend, the National Park Service celebrates its birthday by making the parks free for a day. We're celebrating with an hour on the history and politics of national parks. And we'll meet some folks whose...Read more
Boots on the Ground: Stories from the War in Iraq
Part Two
On March 20, 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq. More than 6 years later, we're still there. What happened? Were we prepared? We'll talk with the planners of the War in Iraq. From...Read more
In this hour of To The Best of Our Knowledge, Susan Sontag reflects on how photographs help us experience other people’s pain. And, as the country faces war, we’ll hear stories about our great patriotic songs, and find some comfort in the ancient Sufi poet, Rumi.Read more
”My solid pigeon, that drape is a killer-diller, an E-flat Dillinger, a bit of a fly thing all on one page.” Any idea what that means? It’s hipster slang for “My, that’s a nice dress you’re wearing.” In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge the roots of hipster slang – old movies, pulp...Read more
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
-- Mark TwainRead more