Larry Brilliant is a doctor, co-founder of the digital social network the Well, and he was the first executive director of Google.org. But back in the Sixties, he was a hippie doctor who joined Wavy Gravy's traveling bus caravan and then landed in an Indian ashram in the Himalayas, where his...Read more
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
The Meaning of Life
Part Three
In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we consider the good stuff. Love. Poetry. Pleasure. Chocolate. Art. Beauty. New York Times Art Critic Michael Kimmelman says the beauty of beauty is that...Read more
Mel Brooks’ play “The Producers” is Broadway’s biggest hit in years, but it’s not for everyone – not at a hundred bucks a ticket. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, does theater still matter? We’ll talk with playwright Wendy Wasserstein and critic Frank Rich. Also, Samuel Beckett’s...Read more
What’s the biggest threat to American supremacy? Islamic fundamentalism? China? How about Europe? Today Europe has more people, more trade, and more wealth than the U.S. And the European welfare state offers a potent alternative to American capitalism - and what government’s supposed to do...Read more
Have you ever been to "Reloville"? Or maybe you live there. There's more than one. You can find them in Atlanta, Dallas and Denver, among other places. "Relovilles" are the sprawling subdivisions where mid-level managers and executives live – for a few years before they uproot their families and...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
In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the mystique of Native Americans. We hear they’re close to the land; they have sacred knowledge. But Indian writer Sherman Alexie says that’s bunk, that the “the whole New Age movement is based on as many stereotypes as genocide was.” What makes a...Read more
What do you think of when you hear the word "ventriloquism"? A showman with a wisecracking wooden boy on his lap? There's more to ventriloquism than verbal jousting between a man and his dummy. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll explore the cultural history of ventriloquism...Read more
In February and March of 1974, the legendary science-fiction author, Philip K. Dick, had a series of religious and visionary experiences. He spent the remaining eight years of his life writing thousands of pages of notes to try to come to terms with the meaning of these strange events. In this...Read more
A collection of all of Barbara Ehrenreich's interviews on "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" over the years. Read more
Photographers capture heartache and agony. What does it mean for them? And what does it mean for us, those viewing the photos? Do these images create empathy? Compassion? Or something else?Read more
How much time do you spend thinking about the future? Oh sure, you’ve probably got plans for the weekend or are thinking about how your kids are doing in school.
But how much time to do we spend – as a nation, a global community – thinking about what our lives might look like in 50 or 100...Read more
Every person on earth is unique and special, but some people – maybe one in a hundred – are autistic. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we get to know a few autistic people with Asperger's Syndrome. We'll hear what it's like to try to live in the world when you have visionary...Read more
Julian Barnes is one of England’s most celebrated novelists. He’s fascinated by the ways our minds play tricks with memory, especially as we age. It’s the subject of his Booker Prize winning novel “The Sense of an Ending” – one of several new books that explore the minefield of memory. We...Read more
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
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
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
"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
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
When you think of great movie musicals, what comes to mind? “Singing in the Rain” with Gene Kelly swinging from a streetlight in the middle of a torrential downpour. How about “A Hard Day’s Night” - with images of hysterical fans mobbing the Beatles at a train station. According to Roger...Read more
Racial sensitivity and political tolerance are clearly good, but is it possible to take them too far? This hour, a look at how we talk about touchy subjects -- whether political correctness is about safety or censorship.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
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