They lost loved ones in the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Their search for solace and understanding took them thousands of miles away from home to Afghanistan. From Ground Zero to the rubble of Afghanistan, reflections on war, peace, and healing from the true moral arbiters in the War on Terror: 9-11 families.
Guests:
Rita Lasar, Rita’s younger brother [...]

When it comes to retirement, Americans are on their own. The security of company pension plans? Fast disappearing. In its place? The promise of the stock-dependent 401(k). In the booming market of the 1990s, American workers watched their retirement funds skyrocket. Then, recession settled in. Companies went under, stocks dwindled down to nothing, and thousands [...]

With little fanfare outside Moscow, Russia’s last independent national television broadcaster was closed down this week. Many westerners are seeing this as one more step in Russian premier Vladimir Putin’s clampdown of all opposition. Outside watchers criticize Putin’s dismissal of regional governments and silencing of the news media, but among the Russian people, Putin enjoys [...]

He’s witty, straight-talking, and gets more air time than perhaps anyone in the Bush Administration, including the President himself. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is anything but politically correct. He admitted he would like to see Osama bin Laden dead. He openly said he “did not feel even the slightest concern” about the treatment of the [...]

Most Americans get their history not from history class, but from the bookstore. The genre of “popular history” has undergone explosive growth in the past few years, with books by David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Stephen Ambrose rocketing to the top of the best-sellers list. But Ambrose’s recent admission of plagiarism has fired heated [...]

From its very first days, scientific inquiry has revolved around curiosity. Scientists follow their intellects and probe and test and hypothesize, and every once in a while make a big discovery. World War II and the Manhattan Project introduced the idea of applied scientific research to the world — the idea that scientific research should [...]

Today, the nation observes the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. King was the great practitioner of non-violent and peaceful protest. His philosophy became the backbone of the civil rights movement. But in recent decades, even supposedly peaceful protests have become tinged with violence. This hour, is non-violent resistance dead? After September 11th, the voices [...]

Salman Rushdie once said that, “A poet’s work is to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.” Since the events of September 11th many have turned to the wise words of poets for insight in the troubled world around them. This [...]

The reports from Afghanistan have been replaced with in-depth discussions of Michael Jordan’s divorce and Prince Harry being caught smoking marijuana. To many, September 11th and its aftermath represented journalism’s finest hour. But in January of 2002, many are lamenting that the news industry has returned to business as usual. This hour, we look at [...]

According to this teenager from Marin County, the path taken by John Walker Lindh from that same liberal Northern California County to the deserts of Afghanistan is hardly surprising.
Guests:

As a nation, we work more hours per year than the laborers of any other industrialized country. Much of our identity, our sense of self, and our feelings of satisfaction are derived from our jobs. The September 11th attacks forced Americans to reassess many things — including the role of work in their lives. For [...]

September 11th was not the first time a world power has “received a staggering blow but then scrambled to recover from the wound,” says historian Paul Kennedy. The British struggled with the guerilla tactics of the Afrikaaners in South Africa a century ago. Russia got beaten up by the Japanese around the same time. In [...]

The 1990’s were a golden age for the United States. The economy was booming, crime was down, and the prospect of world peace did not seem to be totally out of the question. But below the surface, trouble was brewing. Militant Islam and anti-American sentiment were on the rise worldwide. Terrorist groups were becoming more [...]

Paul Auster, The New York writer reads from this piece written after September 11th, during the strangest of Autumns in New York.
Guests:

Fifty accused terrorists have been transported to a prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Several of the former members of al Qaeda and the Taliban have vowed to kill Americans before they leave the naval base, according to a Marine general. But although the prisoners being shipped to Cuba are [...]

David Hicks, an Australian who fought for the Taliban and was captured by the Northern Alliance, wrote this poem, which was recently published in Australian newspapers. Read by WBUR’s Ian Docherty.
Guests:

He was a cowboy, a straight-shooter, a President who pushed the role of America as the global policeman. The parallels between Teddy Roosevelt and George W. Bush are many. The current President is reading the new biography of Roosevelt, perhaps to learn from his predecessor who held the office a century ago. “In the Western [...]

The campaign against Afghanistan was not the first test of the war on terrorism, says tonight’s guest, Navnita Chadha Behera. That part of the war was easy. The Taliban already had no friends, a coalition was easy to build, and the United States had a clear reason to begin a military campaign. Kashmir presents much [...]

Fran Leibowitz is the social critic and quintessential New Yorker. Here she reads from EB White’s 1948 book “Here is New York”
Guests:

“If a dozen years ago you had asked an ecologist uninterested in politics to name the countries with the most fragile environments, the most urgent public health problems and the most severe overpopulation (measured against available resources), ” says Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond, “the answer would have included Afghanistan, Burundi, Haiti, Iraq, Nepal, Rwanda, [...]