Abram de Swaan is a Dutch sociologist who studies the politics of language. He tells Steve Paulson that English is the worldwide language of business and diplomacy, though many wish it weren’t.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Amir Aczel tells Jim Fleming that your odds on a coin toss are always 50/50, no matter how many times you do it.
Alex Stone is a magician with a degree in physics. He performs a magic trick over the radio and explains how it works.
To hear one of Alex Stone's favorite bar tricks, listen here.
Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno are The Yes Men. They pose as the World Trade Organization or major corporate entities to pull off pranks as political action.
Ahmed Rashid worked as an advisor to Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special envoy to the Pakistani region and says the U.S. was never really interested in the Afghanistan's real problems when we rush in.
Ana Castillo talks with Jim Fleming about her own Mexican-American heritage and how she uses it in her novel about a flamenco dancer with polio.
Alison Bechdel calls her comic book memoir Are You My Mother? “a comic drama.” The New York Times Book Review calls it “as complicated, brainy, inventive and satisfying as the finest prose memoirs.” Here’s Steve Paulson’s NEW and UNCUT interview with Bechdel.
Anne Allison is the author of "Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination." She talks to Anne Strainchamps about the universal appeal of Japanese pop culture.
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