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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

An Architect Under Siege in Syria

Not all architecture in the Arab world glitters like a golden dome. Some are being shelled to dust by war. Such is the horrifying story of Homs, Syria.  Once a cosmopolitan and tolerant city of more than one million, Homs has hosted clashes between rebel groups and President Bashar Assad’s forces since 2011. Those clashes have mortared and shelled the city into an oblivion. Thousands of residents have been killed. Most of the remaining have fled. But not all.

Marwa al-Sabouni and her family have stayed. Marwa al-Sabouni has her PhD. in Islamic architecture and wrote a compelling memoir about architecture and destruction in Homs called “The Battle for Home.”

Marwa al-Sabouni spoke with Anne Strainchamps via Skype from her apartment in Homs, Syria.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Anna Rabinowitz on "Darkling"

Poet Anna Rabinowitz found a shoe box full of old letters and photos of family and friends killed in the Holocaust.  She wrote the poem "Darkling" to feature their voices.   We also hear excerpts from the opera "Darkling."

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

A'Lelia Bundles on Madame C.J. Walker

A’Lelia Bundles tells Steve Paulson about her great-great-grandmother’s life and how she was able to build an economic empire out of hair care products for Black women.

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Alan Lee on the Jackson Lord of the Rings Films

Alan Lee’s illustrations for an early edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” landed him a job as a conceptual artist on the Peter Jackson film production crew.

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Allen Long and Robert Sabbag on "Loaded: A Misadventure on the Marijuana Trail"

Allen Long is a former dope-smuggler and the subject of Robert Sabbag’s book “Loaded: A Misadventure on the Marijuana Trail.”  Anne Strainchamps interviewed them a week apart.

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28 Firsts - Whitney Jones

New romances are all about novelty, about breathtaking firsts. Over time, the feel of those firsts can fade from joyful to...

Independent producer Whitney Jones shares First Love and 27 Other Firsts.

 

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Andrew Davies on Screenwriting

Screenwriter and novelist Andrew Davies talks about why Jane Austen is hot again, what he had to do to the “Bridget Jones’s Diary” script, and how he felt when someone else adapted and filmed one of his novels

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Addicted to Adderall

What's the perfect drug for a culture of distraction? Adderall. Sales of the prescription drug have increased exponentially and not always legally, especially to young adults. Casey Schwartz spent her twenties gulping down prescription stimulants to help her get through school and start her career.  She wrote about her experience in a story for "The New York Times Magazine" called "Generation Adderall."

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