Episode Archives

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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

It’s Art & Craft week at TTBOOK, but we’re not gluing macaroni to cardboard. 

From the halls of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, to MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms; from a craft studio on the coast of Maine, to "outsider artists" at the Venice Biennale... w...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The state of Israel turns Sixty in 2008, but what is its future as a Jewish democracy? The Arab population in Israel will soon outnumber the Jews. Even diehard Zionists are calling for the creation of a Palestinian state. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a look at the role Israeli...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Life’s a sim and then you’re deleted.  We always thought the computers would get us one day.  Maybe they already have.  According to one philosopher, odds are we’re already living the Matrix as mere programs in a computer simulation.  In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

When’s the last time you were wonderstruck? Would your life be richer for more wonder? What wonder is, how to make it, where to find it and what it does for us... we all get gently awed in this hour.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

There are many ways to live dangerously. Sure, you can take part in a death defying feat like skydiving, but living dangerously also sometimes involves taking intellectual risks, opening up, and being honest with yourself. To the Best of Our Knowledge recently travelled to Salt Lake City to...Read more

guitar

Prominent Evangelical leaders are divided on the subject of Donald Trump and some have gone so far as to say the soul of their movement is at stake. This week we talk about the perennial tension between faith and politics,and the evolution of the Religious Right -- the movement that shaped the...Read more

camera

When disaster strikes, photojournalists run toward it instead of away. Usually, with a camera in hand. Their job is to get up close to tragedy and danger, to document things we need to see, in the hopes of somehow making a difference.  This hour we’re talking with some of the world’s great...Read more

castle

Another season of HBO's "Game of Thrones" is beginning, and the History Channel's "Vikings" is racking up ratings. Why are we so interested in the Middle Ages?Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Last week we lost one of the great scholars of religion. Huston Smith died at the age of 97. Smith's book “The World’s Religions” sold more than three million copies and is perhaps the most important book ever written on comparative religion. He also had a colorful personal history. In the early...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

"Being a man, like being a woman, is something you have to learn." That's what Aaron Raz Link says. And Link should know. He began life as a girl named Sarah. And he started a new life as a gay man twenty-nine years later. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll meet Aaron Raz Link,...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

You’ve seen the Olympics on TV, but do you want to know what’s really happening in Utah?  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a special program recorded in front of a live audience at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City.  From the culture of snowboarding to past Olympic scandals.  Plus...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Ten years ago, South African singer and activist Vusi Mahalesela had the thrill of his life.  He sang at Nelson Mandela’s inauguration.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the music and politics of South Africa - ten years after the end of apartheid.Read more

a city street

 

Oh, city living. The crush of people, the crowd of buildings, the empty lots, the garbage-strewn slums. 
 
More than half of us will be living urban by 2050. How will we manage?Read more
water

Even now, the oceans of the world are terra incognita.  We’ve explored only 5-10 percent of them on a planet mostly comprised of water.  What we’re missing couldsurprise us.  This hour, we explore the mysteries of the deep.  We’ll hear about the oceans’ oddest creatures...Read more

Towering radio

We remember the magical moments of chemistry in certain interviews; the brilliant sound design that emerged from particular studio sessions; the stories that took us places and those that changed us.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Attention all readers of fiction! This is something you really want to hear. To the Best of Our Knowledge devotes itself to some of the great reads of the last year. Colum McCann talks about his National Book Award-winning novel, and we'll hear from fellow finalist Jayne Anne Phillips. We'll...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Has the news of government surveillance gotten you thinking that Big Brother is watching? What can we do to protect our information, online and in the real world? We examine privacy - what it means and how it's changing.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Rehearsing Shakespeare’s tragedy, MacBeth, one young actor found himself in the mood for mirth.  Like a specter rising from the mists, something began to take shape: a new MacBeth for the ages - with fewer daggers and more donuts.  In this hour of the Peabody-Awarding winning program To the Best...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Maybe it hits you the first time you get a mailing from AARP – all of a sudden, getting older isn't just about other people. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we spend time with some people who've chosen to face the rest of their lives in some unusual ways. Poker columnist James...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Politics has such a bad reputation it’s a wonder anyone would run for office.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll hear from a few people who are out to transform the way we do politics.  Also activist Si Kahn talks about the art of the political song.  And we’ll look back at one...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Somewhere along the way, did we ruin poetry? Have the heartfelt angst of young lovers and the epic elegies of heroes become elitist and academic? But poetry is back, and we have new technology to thank.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Worried about your kids spending too much time in front of the television, what do you do? Tell them to turn off the TV. Unless you're Mark and Nancy Jacobson. They packed up their three children and took them around the world for three months. The Jacobsons visited the burial pyres in the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Lilydale, New York isn’t your average small town.  In Lilydale, people say ghosts walk the streets and the neighbors can talk to the dead.  No, this is not fiction.  20-thousand visitors a year travel to Lilydale to consult the largest community of mediums in the world.  Is it all a gigantic...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Rising sea levels, brutal storms and droughts, record temperatures...is there anything we can do about climate change? As world leaders gather at the Paris Climate Summit, we consider a range of proposals - from geoengineering and new green technology to a post-carbon economy.   Read more

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