Suprabha Beckjord runs as a spiritual practice. She's a follower of Sri Chinmoy, who believed athletics could enhance spiritual enlightenment. So he set up various weightlifting, swimming, and distance running events. His most famous - and most grueling - is the annual Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race. The race, which exceeds the distance from Boston to Los Angeles, takes place around a half- mile loop in Queens, New York. Suprabha Beckjord ran those 3100 miles for 13 years in a row. Her fastest race was 49 days and 14 hours, an average or more than 63 miles a day. Rehman Tungekar talks with her.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Composer Stephen Paulus sits at the piano keyboard and talks with Jim Fleming about how he developed the music for a group of six poems he set for the Festival Choir of Madison.
Journalist Steve Volk believes the paranormal can be studied scientifically and explains why it's also a great subject for journalists. Also, a montage of movie clips about the paranormal.
Sara Lorimer tells Jim Fleming about the Chinese woman who ran an empire of six fleets and eighty thousand pirates, and the Irish pirate who gave birth during a battle.
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Susan Faludi writes about the effects of 9/11 on society, and especially on women.
What would it be like to walk on Mars? Nature writer Craig Childs thinks it would be like trekking in some of Earth's most forbidding environments - deserts and Arctic ice fields.
Iraq War veteran Sergeant John McCary reads an e-mail he sent his family in 2004 about the brutal nature of the insurgency.
How do we mind our mortality without being overwhelmed with morbid thoughts?
Stoically, says philosopher William Irvine. But he says Stoicism doesn't require us to be unemotional about death and loss. Irvine says the Stoics used thoughts about mortality to make our lives more joyful.
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