What is it about certain films, and certain directors, that inspires obsession? Maybe because these directors are obsessed themselves. Like the legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog, who...Read more
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, some of the most critical questions you’ll ever face. Who are you? What does your life mean? And how did you decide who you wanted to be? We’ll hear from Rabbi Harold Kushner, Senator John McCain and novelist Tim O’Brien. We’ll talk about making...Read more
Samuel Adams couldn’t ride a horse to save his life, and had a tendency to drool. As if that’s not bad enough, John Adams was a roly-poly fellow who spent his free time fantasizing about becoming the next American King. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a revisionist’s take on the...Read more
We’re all a little bit wild inside, but how often do we let it out? If you've been spending too much time indoors in front of a screen, maybe it's time for a dose of the real thing. This week,stories of people who found strength, wonder and joy by heading into the wild.Read more
What if our lives were like DVDs? What if we had alternative endings to look forward to, instead of death? We explore our lust for immortality. And we look at the many alternative endings that Ernest Hemingway wrote for his classic novel, "A Farewell to Arms."
Tariq Ramadan has been called the Muslim Martin Luther King, and he's often described as Europe's most important Muslim intellectual. Hundreds of young Muslims turn up at his talks, and tapes of his lectures are widely circulated. He travels throughout the Islamic world, trying to build...Read more
For the first time in American history, young women are choosing independence over marriage. Single women today outnumber married women and have more political power than ever before. It's what Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger and other feminist icons predicted. This hour, how...Read more
Next time you catch an old episode of the Flying Nun, you may want to pay attention. Because today’s convents are closing. The average nun is seventy years old, and even devout sisters often have to bite their tongues when they talk about the pope. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge...Read more
Ronald Reagan had it. Jonathan Swift, Iris Murdoch, and, most likely, Ralph Waldo Emerson had it too. Alzheimer’s disease is on the rise, and scientists predict that up to one hundred million people will develop it in the next fifty years. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the...Read more
Future Perfect: Dreamers, Schemers & Visionaries
Part Four
The happiness industry is booming. And with good reason - everyone wants to be happy. Today, science can light the way. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge,...Read more
There’s a powerful new voting bloc in America. They’re white, working class, and they live in places that have been left behind. We'll talk with "Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance, and country music star Brandy Clark joins us in the studio to play some music and talk about her hometown.Read more
Is the NSA wiretapping story really new? Sure, whistle blower Edward Snowden is all over the news. But people were talking about federal surveillance ten years before leaked documents about “Prism.” In this hour, we take a look at what we know about government surveillance and when we knew it...Read more
Graphic novelist Neil Gaiman has a talent for creating strange and fantastic worlds. His “Sandman” comic books helped spawn the Goth movement, and with characters called Dream and Death, he created a new mythology. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll visit with Neil Gaiman at...Read more
Television used to be formulaic. Today, it’s the best gig around. We examine the explosion of high quality TV, from The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men, and talk with the creator of HBO’s True Detective.Read more
For millions of people, a mosque is a safe haven, a place to worship. But others fear that mosques are a breeding ground for terrorists — especially since September 11, 2001. It's the same building, but has become a marker for so much controversy.
This hour, we wanted to approach the...Read more
As America endures the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the hardships our grandparents and great grandparents lived through are suddenly relevant again. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, stories from the Great Depression – advice from the generation that survived...Read more
Cameron Sinclair has something to say to architects out there: design like you give a damn. The founder of Architects for Humanity says the houses and office buildings we build today will literally shape the world our children inherit. So give a damn. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
What would a secular society really look like? We take an unconventional look at religion, the fiction it inspires, and reflect on why William James' classic book on mysticism, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," still matters.Read more
Eighty per cent of Americans say they believe in heaven. But when they're asked to describe it, many are at a loss for words. Do they think that there's another universe in the sky or do they believe that heaven is something more abstract and metaphorical? We'll explore our enduring fascination...Read more
What are the great country music singles? Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” probably. George Jones’ “slobbing tearjerker,” “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” What about the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women”? and Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay? According to the book “Heartaches by the...Read more
It seems everyone has something to say about motherhood. A lot of people have advice. Others just have... issues. In this hour of To The Best of Our Knowledge -- the tricky topic of motherhood. Linda Gray Sexton remembers her mother, the troubled poet Anne...Read more
Malcolm Gladwell knows how to succeed in show business without really trying -- write a story for The New Yorker about a psychiatrist who studies serial killers. Then a playwright will take some of the words from your article and use them in a Broadway play. Next time on To the Best of Our...Read more
Ever dream of finding buried treasure? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, real-life treasure hunters like the two small-time prospectors who risked their lives in the Canadian tundra, and found one of the world’s biggest diamond mines. Also, hunting for dinosaur bones in the Gobi...Read more