Journalist Susan Orlean set out to discover why this night is so special to Americans and tells Steve Paulson about some of her Saturday night excursions.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
You may not know Shepard Fairey but, you probably know his work. In 2008 he created the now-iconic Obama HOPE poster.
Larry Brilliant is a doctor, co-founder of the digital social network the Well, and he was the first executive director of Google.org. But back in the Sixties, he was a hippie doctor who joined Wavy Gravy's traveling bus caravan and then landed in an Indian ashram in the Himalayas, where his guru told him his destiny was to help cure smallpox. Miraculously, his U.N. team of doctors eradicated the world's remaining cases of this terrible disease. He tells Steve Paulson about a remarkable moment in history when anything seemed possible.
Why are Cuba and the U.S. restoring diplomatic relations? Journalist Ann Louise Bardach says Cuba desperately needs to open up its economy now that its patron, Venezuela, can no longer play the role of sugar daddy. And Raul Castro is finally stepping out of the shadow of his ailing brother Fidel.
Olivia Laing talks about her book, "The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking."
Stefan Gates is the author of and a self-described "Gastronaut" – someone who'll stop at nothing to experience a transcendent moment through food, no matter how bizarre.
Democracy, politics and Pakistani rock and roll.
Shulem Deen was a Skverer— a member of one of the most insular Hasidic sects in the U.S. Then he got curious about secular life and the world outside his small village in Rockland County, NY. The community branded him a heretic and expelled him. And his wife and five children renounced him.
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