When blogger Jenny Lawson recently tweeted about an awkward exchange she had with a cashier at an airport, she couldn't have imagined the flood of responses she'd get from fans recounting their own mortifying moments. The tweet went viral and within a few days she'd received thousands of messages from fans recounting their own awkward stories. The whole affair was proof of something Jenny had long suspected -- that awkwardness can help bring people together.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Stephen Greenblatt tells Steve Paulson he thinks Shakespeare’s father was a drunk, leaving Will with complex feelings about alcohol.
Wangari Maathai triumphed over discrimination and tribalism in her native land and became an environmental activist, planting trees all over her country.
Novelist T. Coraghessan Boyle talks with Jim Fleming about his latest. “Drop City” is set in a California commune in the 1970s, and concerns the activities at one of America’s many private little Utopias.
David Bromberg was once a legendary name in the American folk scene, but then he disappeared. He stopped performing and ultimately discovered a new career as a violin maker and collector. He's since returned to music, put together a quintet, and recorded a Grammy-nominated album. He dropped by our studios to perform a few songs and talk about his journey away from and back to music.
Are political beliefs predetermined at birth? Encoded in our genes? Political scientist John Hibbing does fMRI studies of liberal and conserative brains and says there are significant biological differences. His message: stop yelling at the other party. They can't help what they think.
Is hip hop strictly for the under-30 crowd? Todd Boyd tells Anne Strainchamps it’s a message of empowerment for Black Americans.
Rupert Sheldrake may be the most famous scientific heretic in the modern world. On the 50th anniversary of Thomas Kuhn’s landmark book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” Sheldrake does his own paradigm busting. In this UNCUT interview, he tells Steve why he believes scientific dogmas are preventing real intellectual inquiry.
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