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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

When the world turns green again, it makes us all a little giddy!  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll pull on our gum boots and get out into the garden with novelist Jamaica Kincaid, who’s grown a map of the Carribean at her Vermont home.  Sharon Lovejoy, author of Roots, Shoots...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Ira Glass has helped reinvent storytelling on the radio.  But he says it took him years to learn how to tell a good radio tale.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Ira Glass ont the art of telling stories.  We’ll also visit The Moth – the mecca of storytelling in New York City.  And...Read more

cool cat

Who really rules the internet?  Cats, of course.  We can't take the cuteness anymore so here it is -- our first and only show about cats.  Cat videos, superstar cats, cat music, cat history, endangered cats... and a little, tiny bit about dogs.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

After World War Two, existentialism was all the rage in the U.S.A.  College students rebelled by smoking European cigarettes and wearing black clothes and berets.  Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus felt that Americans were too self-confident and superficial to accept this dark, brooding...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Patty Loveless is a coal miner’s daughter.  And a country singer, just like her distant cousin Loretta Lynn.  When Patty Loveless’ father contracted black lung disease the family had to move to Louisville, Kentucky – so Patty’s dad could receive medical attention.  In this hour of To the Best of...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Busloads of Senior Citizens roll onto the Reservation for high stakes bingo.  Lottery tickets show up on people’s shopping lists in 47 states.  Practically every office has a pool on the NFL or the Final Four or the outcome of the latest reality television series.  In this hour of To the Best of...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The US is in the middle of its longest and most expensive war to date.  Not the war in Iraq – the war on drugs.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge – we’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars fighting for a “drug-free” America, yet heroin, cocaine and other illegal drugs are cheaper...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What we eat can often say a lot about us. But why do we consider certain foods more appealing than others? In this hour, we look a the trends and tastemakers who shape our feelings about food.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Your mother always told you money can’t buy happiness.  Well, she was wrong.  And economists have calculated the price.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the high cost of happiness.  Also, why we cry: from crocodile tears to the three-hankie movie.  Writer Andrew Solomon’s struggles...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

In Japan’s ancient Edo period, the math geek was born – but it’s not who you think!  Samurai, women, children and farmers were among the original creators of the sangaku - Japanese temple geometry.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, math for the gods.  Also, can numbers unlock the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Americans change their dining room tables about as often as they change their spouses, about one and a half times in their lives.  IKEA isn’t concerned about your marriage, but it does want to change the way you look at your furniture, and yourself.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Rose O’Neal Greenhow was the Pamela Harriman of her day - the “hostess with the mostess” in Washington D.C.  But Rose ran a Confederate spy ring out of her house.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we get close to some brazen women of American history and popular culture.  And we’ll...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Some people think they just can’t do math, but it turns out our brains are hard-wired for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.  We’re born with a numbers sense.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge celebrating our mathematical minds.  Also, the natural history...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What's the centerpiece of the American Dream? Is it our belief that you can pull-yourself-up-by-your-boot-straps? Maybe it's our rugged individualism? Or maybe, just maybe, it's the lawn. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge the obsessive quest for the perfect lawn. Also, a little bunny...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

When and how did the universe begin? Why is there something rather than nothing? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll tackle the big questions about the universe. From Stephen Hawking's latest ideas about parallel universes and theories of everything to the quantum physics of...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Sinatra swings it, Miles Davis jazzes it up, and Billy Holiday croons it from the heart.  Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, the biography of a great American love song.  In our second annual Valentine’s Day Show the Rogers and Hart hit “My Funny Valentine.”  And our listeners share true...Read more

escape

Have you ever dreamed of escaping?  Your job, your spouse, your country?   This hour, stories of rescue and escape.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Pop culture writer Chuck Klosterman has interviewed some of the biggest names in the celebrity constellation. But getting a celebrity to talk is no easy task. In fact, Klosterman says it's not in the celebrity's best interest to do any interviews at all. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What would you do if being a woman just didn't feel right? What if being a man didn't feel right either?

In the West, a few people are choosing to leave gender behind all together. Call them gender queer, third gender or gender guerillas… people are challenging all of our notions of “he...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Future Perfect: Dreamers, Schemers & Visionaries

Part Two

 

It's not hard to see why economics is called "the dismal science" – after we were blind-sided by the worst financial meltdown in decades. But economics does have its...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

America's gone craft crazy. Everyone's knitting, or keeping scrapbooks; throwing pots or wood-working. And naturally, there are new chains of stores that carry all the supplies these crafters need, or think they do. To the Best of Our Knowledge considers what we mean by the word "craft." Does it...Read more

self help books

Every new year brings a fresh start, another chance to remake yourself. We all aspire to be better people, but following through on our goals can often be difficult.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

As soon as you, or someone you love, has that first "senior moment" – you start to worry. Is this the beginning of the slippery slope of Alzheimer's Disease? Relax! There's something you can do. The good news is that most of us won't live long enough to get Alzheimer's. And the rest of us...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

America was once a nation of readers, but now experts warn that reading is in decline as our cultural life moves online. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, an hour in praise and defense of the book. Ursula Le Guin takes book publishers to task and a beloved children's book editor...Read more

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