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
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
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
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
We love books. We line them on shelves like totems. We pile them next to our beds in some hope they'll affect our dreams. For many of us, books are sacred objects. And sometimes, just sometimes, they’re even magical.Read more
You know who they are – the cool kids – those above-it-all taste-makers whose fashion and entertainment choices predict what everyone else will be wearing and doing next year. What’s their secret? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge exploring cool. A frustrated surfer remembers...Read more
The thrill of victory… the agony of defeat. And the human drama of athletic competition. We love sports. And every 4 years we get the pleasure to watch amateur athletes, at the top of their game, compete in the Olympics. And that got us thinking about competition. Because that’s what it’s...Read more
Welcome to the digital age. There’s information everywhere but do we know any more than we did twenty years ago? And for all that info... where's knowledge?Read more
Valentine's Day is coming up and we're re-thinking romance. Do you appreciate flowers, champagne and candlelight dinners? Or is it time to toss the old scripts and redefine romance?Read more
It would be hard to imagine a more fundamental American value than democracy. For centuries, disenfranchised people have fought for the right to vote. But would we be better off if fewer peoplevoted - if only the people who actually know about public policy were allowed to vote...Read more
Science fiction offers us visions of histories we don't know -- histories of the future and the past. Today, legendary science fiction writers talk about science, utopia, and the imagination. Plus, the winners of our 3 Minute Futures fiction contest!
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We sang it during the civil rights movement, on marches, on buses, and in the face of violence. We sang it for workers rights, and to protest the war in Vietnam, on the mall in Washington. Sometimes, we sang it hand in hand, our arms criss-crossed across our bodies, swaying. More than any...Read more
When Charles Mingus died, his widow took his ashes to India and scattered them in the Ganges. But that wasn’t the end. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Sue Mingus talks about the legacy of her late husband’s music: his spirituality, his anger, and his love. Also, a conversation...Read more
Robert Olen Butler had a crazy idea. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist wanted to show how writers really work. So he created his own web site, pointed a camera at his word processor, and wrote...every night for three weeks. Believe it or not, thousands of people tuned in for the these...Read more
The parallels between the recent financial meltdown and that of 1929 are striking. In both cases a financial bubble burst and led to a run on the banks. Both times the Federal Reserve made huge mistakes. So how close did we come to another Great Depression? In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
Philosophers get a bad rap - they're written off as too academic, too detached from daily life. But we're seeing a philosophy revival, from philosophy cafes to philosophers as therapists. From the Stoics to Spinoza, an argument for why philosophy still matters.Read more
A poster at Starbucks asks customers to focus on the world water crisis. A congregation asks the faithful to go on a carbon diet. The local grocery now charges for a plastic bag. We've got green cars, green clothing, green investments, and even green weddings. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
Do African-Americans believe Jesse Jackson speaks for them? A resounding 72% between the ages of 18 and 45 say "No." In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the battle between the Civil Rights generation and the Hip-Hop generation. We'll speak to young blacks about who does speak for them...Read more
Plugged into devices, fixated on screens, their world muted by headphones jammed in their ears, college students on campus in Ann Arbor can seem oblivious to risk. Poet Laura Kasischke marvels at their fearlessness in...Read more
Tom Lutz's 18-year-old son, Cody, spent day after day just lying on the couch, Lutz was surprised how angry it made him that his son was doing nothing. So Lutz decided to do something about it. He wrote a book about the history of doing nothing in America. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
Get your fix of travel and crime fiction in one hour. Today, we explore the latest in international crime fiction -- from Israel, Kenya, Denmark, Spain and more. Crime is the one literary genre that crosses every border and every nationality. Because yes, we're just that bloodthirsty.Read more
Ayn Rand didn't know how to make small talk; she lived for big ideas and bold statements. She believed capitalism was the best social system ever invented, and even took to wearing a gold pin in the shape of a dollar sign. Ayn Rand died nearly thirty years ago, but she's now inspiring a new...Read more
Forty years ago the streets of Chicago exploded as police clashed with anti-war protesters at the Democratic National Convention. It's one of the momentous events that defined the Sixties. Or is it? Some historians now say the rise of the conservative movement is what truly made history in the...Read more
Lace up the hiking boots and grab the bug spray! Spring is here and we're heading Into The Woods. Learn how to read a forest. Unlock the meanings hidden in leaf and bole, twig and soil. And celebrate the woods in fairytale, myth, story and song.Read more