Episode Archives

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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and...a trip to the mall?  Like it or not, a trip to the mall is an American rite of passage.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge a look at the great American pastime - shopping.  From the Mall of America to the latest new strip mall, Americans spend more...Read more

the thinker

Thoughts about thinking, including Daniel Goleman on "Emotional Intelligence" and Daniel Kahneman on "Thinking, Fast and Slow."Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

poem

“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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Tribute albums, reunion tours and mash-ups.  If pop culture’s all about the new, why is there so much wallowing in our immediate past?  Simon Reynolds joins us to talk about his book, “Retromania.”   Is this retromania a death knell for our own originality?Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Where did we come from, and where are we going? Whether it's the Garden of Eden and Armageddon, or the Big Bang and the Big Freeze, we can't help but ponder our place in the universe. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we consider the universal course of time, from the beginning to...Read more

lily-ads

Brutal storms, rising seas, drought... you've seen the headlines. Our climate changed future seems pretty scary. But do all the messages about climate catastrope keep people from taking action to slow carbon emmissions or prepare for changing weather? What would happen if we...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

From Soup to Nuts

Part Four

They say variety is the spice of life. But let's be honest, spices are really the spice of life. Pepper, oregano, vanilla. . . parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, things get...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Piano lessons. For many of us those two words evoke only bad memories from our childhood. Piano lessons are shorthand for the oppression of children by mean and tyrannical adults. And no one captures this better than Dr. Seuss, the champion of all kids, underdogs and Whozits. In this hour of To...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

His critics called him a war criminal.  Robert McNamara himself has said the Vietnam War was a colossal mistake.  So should he take the blame for leading America’s war in Vietnam?  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, filmmaker Errol Morris talks about war and morality... and his...Read more

forest

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The state of Israel turns Sixty in 2008, but what is its future as a Jewish democracy? The Arab population in Israel will soon outnumber the Jews. Even diehard Zionists are calling for the creation of a Palestinian state. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a look at the role Israeli...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Boots on the Ground: Stories from the War in Iraq

Part One

 

Iraq. April 6, 2004. This day marked the Marines' heaviest fighting since Vietnam and was the start of the Iraqi insurgency. By the end of the day more than 40 Marines and...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Life’s a sim and then you’re deleted.  We always thought the computers would get us one day.  Maybe they already have.  According to one philosopher, odds are we’re already living the Matrix as mere programs in a computer simulation.  In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

How much time do you spend thinking about the future? Oh sure, you’ve probably got plans for the weekend, maybe you’re looking for a new job or 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...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What do Hip-Hop and traditional Delta Blues have in common?  Down in the bijous and hollers of Mississippi - a lot more than you  think. Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, the new revolution in Roots Music. Also, the  debate over what’s authentic country music. And, we’ll talk to Nora ...Read more

a statue

Nearly 2500 years ago, Socrates celebrated the pursuit of wisdom, and famously said “the unexamined life is not worth living.”  But does rigorous self examination actually lead to a happy or fulfilled life?  It didn’t seem to work some of history’s most famous philosophers, including...Read more

guitar

Prominent Evangelical leaders are divided on the subject of Donald Trump and some have gone so far as to say the soul of their movement is at stake. This week we talk about the perennial tension between faith and politics,and the evolution of the Religious Right -- the movement that shaped the...Read more

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