Episode Archives

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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

You may recall the story of six young people who reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary in Medjugorje.  Journalist Randall Sullivan talked to one of the visionaries and concluded she believes what she was reporting.  But where does that leave us?  Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge,...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Henry David Thoreau died 150 years ago, and he’s still a great American icon.  But have you ever wondered exactly why?  Thoreau wasn’t exactly the model environmentalist he’s often made out to be.  And his account of living at Walden Pond is partly fictionalized; he spent nine years writing and...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

New Orleans is famous for a lot of things...many of them musical. It's the birthplace of jazz, the cradle of rhythm and blues.  The home of the brass bands.  So it's no wonder that New Orleans is known as "the City that Care Forgot."  In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Imagine that you grow up with dreams of fame and fortune.  You're going to become a world-famous rock star.  The only problem is your childhood friend becomes the world's biggest rock star instead.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Neil McCormick shares his story of being upstaged...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Malcolm Gladwell is living proof that a new hairstyle can change your life. After he grew out his hair, people started treating him differently. He racked up speeding tickets. He was surrounded by policemen who thought he was a rapist on the loose.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge,...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Belly up to the bar as To the Best of Our Knowledge spends an hour with drinkers and drunks.  Meet the man who invented the Cosmopolitan.  He says it’s a really simple drink.  All you need is fresh lime juice.Read more

book

Is Jennifer Egan's book, "A Visit from the Goon Squad," a novel or is it a series of entangled stories? It's a fair question because this polyphonic narrative covers a lot of territory – from satire to tragedy told from a wide range of characters' points of view. And one chapter...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage.  A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”   -- Lorrie Moore

                             Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

From Facebook to Twitter to Wikipedia, World of Warcraft to YouTube, the life of the community has moved on line. And taken on a life of its own. The power of we, and the move toward collective identity and global think.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Is it any wonder boys don’t read?  Too often they’re assigned the books their female teachers loved.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the man behind the GuysRead website says forget “Little House on the Prairie” and bring on Stinky Cheese Man!  And we’ll hear what happened when the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

There’s no English translation for the Dutch word “Gezellig."

Are there things that can never be understood, expressed or experienced outside their home culture?

We’re wandering the unmarked maps of cultural translation!Read more

a man at the end of the world

How many ways can you imagine the end of the world?   To celebrate the end of 2012, we've gathered some of our favorite apocalyptic fiction.  Doomsday scenarios from award-winning novelists and short story writers, featuring  zombie invasions, mutant plagues, fire and...Read more

a woman shushing

Hear that?  It's the soothing sound of silence.  We'll have much more, including "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking"; one man's quest for absolute silence; and John Cage's 4'33." 

And if you are looking to contribute your neighbor story,...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Imagine a country where Islam is the dominant religion but Christians, Jews and Muslims still live together peacefully – a place where philosophers from all three religions talk and debate openly. Well, there was once such a culture in the Middle Ages. For centuries, Al Andalus was the beacon of...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Back in 1933 novelist James Hilton wrote of an earthly paradise hidden in the Himalayas. He called it Shangri-La. But Hilton didn't invent the idea. Myths about Shangri-La go back centuries, and they pop up in a variety of places from Tibet to Kashmir. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more

guns and the forefathers

Guns are a part of our national mythology. Just consider the Western, Annie Oakley, Daniel Boone -- it's hard to deny the role guns had in shaping America.

But what if all those stories were exaggerated at best? What if the gun myth was created in the 19th ...Read more

scientifically perfect comedy (two men in horse masks)

A little laugh goes a long way. This week, we’re taking a crash course in how to be funny. 

From Chicago’s famous Second City, to a humor research lab, this hour's a laugh riot. We also talk with a laughter coach, Canadian comic Mary Walsh, and longtime New Yorker humorist Ian...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Are you afraid of getting old? Most people are, but studies show we're usually happier in our 60s and 70s. Aging often brings wisdom and resilience - and a new creative spark. We celebrate the fine art of aging - and hear about some artists who remade their careers late in life.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

East Meets West

Part Five

 

Tariq Ramadan is a controversial philosopher who believes Muslims can thrive in secular, Western society. Ayaan Hirsi Ali disagrees. She's an equally controversial figure who's living under a death threat...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The physics world has a darling - it's called string theory. The idea that the universe is composed of infinitesimal vibrating strings. String theory has been the subject of bestselling books, popular TV series and countless articles. But is it a dead end street? In this hour of on To the...Read more

a man becomes a living cereal bowl

What do the opening notes of Beethoven’s “Symphony Number Five” and a rabbit named Oolong balancing a pancake on his head have in common?  They’re both examples of memes – units of culture that are imitated and, as a result, copied from one brain to another.  Are memes the driving...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

For all the amazing discoveries that scientists have made, the cosmos is still full of mysteries - from dark matter to quantum entanglement. Will physicists ever explain the universe, or is it fundamentally unknowable? We explore the frontiers of physics and ponder what it means to live with...Read more

A protest at Standing Rock

More than 100 Native Americans nations have come to Standing Rock in solidarity to protest for water rights. This hour we ask a deceptively simple question: Who owns water?

...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Did you know that novelist Thomas Hardy had a second career as a poet? Or that many people don't find their artistic passions until after the age of 85? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we talk about change over time - that is, how change is really a lifelong project. A former monk...Read more

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