Bu Tom Ashbrook.
British literary superstar Martin Amis has been the novelist the English love to hate, to haunt, to ogle.
Son of the famed writer Kingsley Amis – bad boy, playboy and snob in the London tabloids – for Martin Amis, writes The Observer – publication day for a new novel is “a carnivorous and gleeful [...]

By Tom Ashbrook.
No one now argues that the war in Iraq has gone well. Far from it. Even the president’s comments are peppered with warnings of failure and nightmare scenario.
But the show-stopper in Washington is what to do… What to do about the worst of scenarios – that now looks all too [...]

By Tom Ashbrook.
Once upon a time, what Americans knew about themselves came from family and friends, legends and literature. Then came the pollster. Never mind Davy Crockett and Honest Abe and Betsy Ross. Now we had public opinion polls to introduce to the “average” American.
The public ate it up. First, in [...]

By Tom Ashbrook.
Chinese president Hu Jintao hits the road in Africa today for an eight-nation tour, just the latest in a flood of exchange between China and the world’s poorest continent.
Across Africa today, Chinese crews are building railroads and schools, roads and bridges and hospitals and fiber optics. They’re pulling out mountains of minerals [...]

By Tom Ashbrook.
Satirist and humorist P.J. O’Rourke is a funny guy from the political right. Acerbic. Edgy. A laugh-out-loud conservative.
In ancient days, he wrote for National Lampoon and Rolling Stone. Now he writes for the Weekly Standard.
In between came books including “Republican Party Reptile,” “Parliament of Whores” and “Give War a [...]

By Tom Ashbrook.
The day before President Bush laid out new plans for alternative energy and global warming last week, the CEOs of ten major American corporations laid out a plan of their own for tackling climate change.
These were big guys. CEOs of Alcoa and Caterpillar, General Electric and DuPont. Names traditionally more associated [...]

By guest host Jane Clayson:
Terry McAuliffe has had a front seat in American politics for the last quarter century. The former chairman of the Democratic National Committee is known as a legendary fundraiser with close ties to everyone from President Carter to Tip O’Neill to good pal Bill Clinton.
He kick-started his career in politics right [...]

By guest host Jane Clayson:
This was an action packed week in the news. President Bush delivered his State of the Union Address. Now, the tough part: selling it to the American people and Congress. The president talked about education, energy, and healthcare but the fog of war looms large.
This week, more suicide bomb attacks [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Hot young black poet Kevin Young was born in Nebraska, raised in Kansas, descended from Louisiana, and now lives in Atlanta and Boston. His poetry – like his life – spans regions, worlds and genres. In “Black Maria” he evoked film noir. In “Jelly Roll” his poetry danced with [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Here’s a question: How do we know when the health care crisis — spiraling costs and millions of uninsured — is really coming to the crunch?
Well, maybe, when it’s getting so bad that our leaders are starting to do something about it. More than a decade after the failed Clinton initiative [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Long ago and not so far away, just a stroll from the opening landmarks of America’s revolution for independence, was born another revolution: the revolution in philosophy and literature of the transcendentalists.
In the middle of the 19th century, in a leafy corner of New England, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Except for the very human part — introducing the Silver Star war hero Tommy Rieman, or the New York subway hero Wesley Autry — it was hard to say if the president’s heart was in the State of the Union speech last night.
Domestic initiatives the White House had telegraphed as bold — [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
The bloodletting in the American newspaper industry just gets deeper. On your doorstep, if you still get one, you may have noticed your newspaper getting skinny, as ads and readers fly to the web. But newsroom staffs around the country are getting skinny too. So are circulation numbers, and revenues.
Some [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
President Bush moves tonight to a largely domestic agenda in his State of the Union speech, but the state of his presidency is defined more than ever, in the latest polls, by Iraq. His call for a surge in troop strength has not caught fire. Former Republican chair of the [...]

by Tom Ashbrook.
From the dawn of time it appears, when the spirit moved them, humans came out of their caves and thatched huts, cathedrals and Latin Quarters, and danced.
With drums and horns and song. For the heck of it. For God. For fun. And when they did, writes the provocative Barbara [...]

by Tom Ashbrook.
First came Katrina. Then the levees failed. Then came the president, with this message… “I believe,” said George Bush, “that the great city of New Orleans will rise again, and be a greater city.”
Today, almost a year and a half after the hurricane, those works echo bitterly across miles of still-desolate New [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Fortune Magazine is out with its annual list of the 100 best American companies to work for. If you don’t work for them, read it and weep.
A few of the perks for the toiling masses at number one-ranked Google? Free gourmet food all the time, all over the company “campus.” [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
A week of flux in Washington and, maybe, Baghdad. Outcomes – unclear. The president’s urge to surge is getting a cold response on many fronts, but no clear move to stop it yet. House Democrats are celebrating their 100-hour agenda success, but the Senate and White House veto threats [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
It’s no secret now. At the end of this week’s season premiere of Fox TV’s anti-terror action drama “24,” the worst happens. There’s a raid, gunfire, screaming, chaos, a trigger flipped — and a tall, horrifying mushroom cloud rises over Los Angeles. “24″ hero Jack Bauer can’t stop it. [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman goes for the big view and the catching phrase. With his global reporting and bracing books — “From Beirut to Jerusalem”, “The Lexus and The Olive Tree” and “The World is Flat” — he has won three Pulitzer Prizes and a raft of devoted readers.
Then [...]