The renowned atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has just written a book for children: “The Magic of Reality.” In this NEW AND UNCUT interview, Steve Paulson talks with Dawkins about the difference between supernatural magic and poetic magic, and why atheists no longer need to hide in the closet.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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If there’s one writer who’s identified with the Mississippi River, it’s Mark Twain. He grew up in Hannibal, Missouri — on the river’s edge — and as a young man, he worked as a steamboat pilot. And then he wrote the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” the novel that turned the Mississippi into myth. But it also created one of the most enduring controversies in American literary history: how to depict race relations in America's past. In this interview, Andrew Levy says that "Huckleberry Finn" is actually anti-racist — and when it was first published, the big controversy was about Twain’s depiction of wild children.
K.C. Cole is working on a book about her friend Frank Oppenheimer. Frank was barred from practicing physics during the McCarthy era, and was deeply troubled by the devastation of the bomb.
Lawrence Millman wrote the foreward and saw through the publication of Edward Beauclerk Maurice's diary.
Jim Fleming reports how a new generation of American Buddhist teachers are adapting the Buddha's two thousand year old message for 21st century American audiences.
For centuries, the oddities of nature - like two-headed cats and conjoined twins - fascinated people. Science historian Lorraine Daston says a history of wonders is to some degree a history of pre-modern science.
Jim Fleming talks with Mairin Ui Cheide, a sean-nos singer. Sean-nos is old-style traditional singing where songs usually tell a story.
Keli Carender is a Seattle area blogger considered by many to be the very first Tea Party activist. She tells Steve Paulson what the first protests were like.
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