Hillary Clinton once described herself as a "Rorschach test." People see in her what they want, whether they love her or hate her. In this hour of To the Best Of Our Knowledge we'll talk about the complicated feelings many women have about Hillary, her marriage to Bill, and whether it's possible...Read more
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Episode Archives
How far did your food travel to get to you today? 100 miles? A thousand? Or just down the street. No matter where today's meal came from, there's a story behind it. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, food stories. New York chef Dan Barber faces a moral crisis in the form of a...Read more
Do you ever get the feeling that everyone's reading all the same books and listening to all the same music, and seeing all the same films? Maybe there's a reason why. New York and Los Angeles account for only a fraction of landmass when it comes to the continental United States...Read more
In this hour, we find ourselves surrounded by sound. The sounds of nature, cosmic horror, capitalism, and experimental electronics.
If you want to give our theme remix a whirl, you can download files here and ...Read more
What goes into making new music? And how does hearing new music change the way we listen? From the Avant Garde composers of the 1920s, through Japanese noise music, to punk progenitor Richard Hell, we’re looking at how music - and how we hear it - changes. Read more
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
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
It’s the only musical instrument that’s played without being touched – the theremin. You’ve probably heard its eerie sound in movies like Hitchcock’s “Spellbound” or on the Beach Boys’ hit “Good Vibrations.” In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the intriguing life of the instrument’s...Read more
Let boys be boys. It's a hard thing to do today with concern over violence in schools and the seeming violence of boys' play. But what if, thanks to our culture of fear, boys are slipping through the cracks? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we take a look at the inner world of...Read more
No matter what quiet corner of America you inhabit, you’ve heard about NASCAR. You may not understand it. You may not get it. But while you weren’t paying attention, those cars, driving in circles for hours, became our national pastime. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, car racing....Read more
What do Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise and Madonna have in common? Not much, except the kind of blazing fame that turns relatively normal people into obsessive fans who would walk ten miles through a blizzard just to stand in celebrity garbage. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge...Read more
Boots on the Ground: Stories from the War in Iraq
Part One
Iraq. April 6, 2004. This day marked the Marines' heaviest fighting since Vietnam and was the start of the Iraqi insurgency. By the end of the day more than 40 Marines and...Read more
Boots on the Ground: Stories from the War in Iraq
Part Three
For many soldiers and Marines, war is not fundamentally about the mission. War is not really about the enemy. It's not even about patriotism. War is about the man to the...Read more
When did "fat" become a four-letter word? Leaders of the body acceptance movement say it's time to stop shaming fat people. In this hour, curvy girls and plus-size women talk about the emotional and physical costs of America's toxic obsession with weight and body image. Read more
Wisdom may come with age, but if you want to make scientific history, it pays to be young. Newton invented calculus before he turned 25. Einstein published his special theory of relativity when he was only 26. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, does genius slip away with age? Also...Read more
Say the name "Robert Krulwich" and hard-core public radio listeners start smiling. These days Robert does a lot of science journalism, even though he admits he's no expert. He believes everyone's interested, even though they think it's too hard for them. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
Imagine sipping tea with a militant Muslim and listening to how he set off a series of bombs in a crowded marketplace, trying to kill as many people as possible. Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, an anthropologist describes her visit to a militant training camp in Pakistan. ...Read more
China Mieville’s new novel, “Embassytown,” features sentient beings famous for their unique language and a woman who’s a living simile. Ursula K. LeGuin says that “Embassytown” is “a fully-achieved work of art.” We’ll meet China Mieville, as we explore the language of science fiction. Also...Read more
We all have our good days and our bad days, but chances are they’re nothing like what Andy Behrman has experienced. Behrman would fly from Zurich to the Bahamas and back in three days to balance hot and cold weather. On the bad days, he’d experience tornado-like rages of depression. In this...Read more
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
Fashion photographer David Jay recently sent us a book of his photos. The lighting was perfect, the settings intimate. The women, nearly naked, were gorgeous. Taking in the beautiful images, something stood out – the mastectomy scars.Read more
For journalists, the first days of Donald Trump’s presidency have been a bit surreal. We find ourselves wondering how legendary muckrakers might have reacted to some of these first press briefings. So delving into the TTBOOK...Read more
Thoughts about thinking, including Daniel Goleman on "Emotional Intelligence" and Daniel Kahneman on "Thinking, Fast and Slow."Read more