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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Ben Franklin, Henry Ford, Abigail Adams, Elvis Presley. Know what they have in common? They're all on Daniel Wolff's list of great Americans. Wolff explains the unique ways those people learned what they had to know. We'll also take a hard look at IQ and its relationship to race and class, and...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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

As soon as you, or someone you love, has that first "senior moment" – you start to worry. Is this the beginning of the slippery slope of Alzheimer's Disease? Relax! There's something you can do. The good news is that most of us won't live long enough to get Alzheimer's. And the rest of us...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

America was once a nation of readers, but now experts warn that reading is in decline as our cultural life moves online. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, an hour in praise and defense of the book. Ursula Le Guin takes book publishers to task and a beloved children's book editor...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Listen to the experts and they’ll tell you the suburbs are boring, stifling places to live, full of bad architecture.  Well, more than half of all Americans now live in suburbia.  Can so many people be wrong?  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a defense of suburbs.  Also, playwright...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

All the world's a stage! The Play's the thing. Fair is foul and foul is fair. Hardly a day goes by when the words that flowed so easily from Will Shakespeare's pen don't meet and greet us in the modern world. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, sweet William makes his way to the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What do you think of when you hear the word "ventriloquism"?  A showman with a wisecracking wooden boy on his lap?  There's more to ventriloquism than verbal jousting between a man and his dummy.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll explore the cultural history of ventriloquism...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

When the Soviet Union fell, China was poised to take over as America’s next great enemy.  The 9/11 happened and there was a new enemy.  So, what about China?  Next time, we’ll take a closer look at China today and what the future holds for US/China relations.  Also, a talk with Nobel prize-...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

In February and March of 1974, the legendary science-fiction author, Philip K. Dick, had a series of religious and visionary experiences.  He spent the remaining eight years of his life writing thousands of pages of notes to try to come to terms with the meaning of these strange events.  In this...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

What animals will still be living in the year 3000?  Forget about tigers, rhinos and pandas.  They’ll go the way of the dodo bird.  But scientist Peter Ward says rats and coyotes will flourish.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge the future of evolution.  Also, best-selling novelist...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

Bombay is the largest city in the world. And one of the most confounding. Bar dancers, gangs, and Bollywood all call Bombay home, for better or worse. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a Bombay-native takes us inside this Maximum City. Also, the writer of the hit movie "Monsoon...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Brittney Spears – divas?  Nah.  Maria Callas – now she was a diva!  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, two great ladies with leather lungs – Maria Callas and Judy Garland – their triumphs and tragedies from Onassis to Oz.  And other...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

As the Bible famously says, "there is nothing new under the sun." That's pretty bleak. If it's all been said and done before, what's left? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, remix culture. Digital sampling, audio hacking, mash-ups… In today's music and art it's all about mix and remix...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Ask any babbling baby.  Talking’s fun!  At least it is until the grammarians get after you.  But Patricia O’Connor says we can all relax, there’s nothing wrong with splitting an infinitive and there never was.  In this hour of the Peabody-Award winning program To the Best of Our Knowledge we...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Simon Winchester tells the remarkable story of Krakatoa.  The volcanic eruption spewed chunks of land 25 miles into the air.  The blast was heard three thousand miles away.  And it kicked up monstrous tidal waves that killed nearly forty  thousand...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Boots on the Ground: Stories from the War in Iraq

Part Four

 

President Obama says our combat mission in Iraq will end by August 31, 2010. This leaves many unanswered questions. What was our mission in Iraq? Did we succeed? What will...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

An early spring thaw is good news if you live in a snow belt state. But it's not just the snow mound at the bottom of the driveway that's melting right now – the polar ice caps are melting too. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, stories from the lands of snow and ice. What do we...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

When your country doesn’t live up to its own values, what do you do?  Put your head under the covers or man the barricades?  Fighting for freedom means different things to different people. In this hour,  we talk with some of them -- from Wikileaks’ controversial founder Julian Assange, to the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

By today’s medical definition, Brad Pitt is overweight, and Russell Crowe is obese.  The standards are even tougher for women.  But are those extra pounds really that bad?  Maybe it’s time we all lighten up about fat.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, why one expert says America’s...Read more

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

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