Hour 1
Governor Ed Rendell joins Marty in the studio to talk about the challenges facing the Commonwealth and his goals for the remainder of his term.

Filed under: politics |

Hour 2
Jeannette Walls is a writer and journalist who rose to prominence as a gossip columnist for MSNBC.com. Her new book, "Half Broke Horses," shares the courageous life story of Walls' maternal grandmother, who died when Walls was only 8, and left her New Mexico home at 15, riding 500 miles alone on her pony to teach in the frontier town of Red Lake, Ariz. She survived everything from droughts to floods to the Great Depression.

Filed under: author |

Hour 1
David B. Nash, MD, MBA is the founding dean of the Jefferson School of Population Health, on the campus of Thomas Jefferson University. The School of Population Health, which welcomed its inaugural class last month, focuses on Health Policy, Public Health and Health care Quality and Safety. Nash also lost his father in the last year, and has written about that experience – and the light it sheds on our health care system – in a recent Jefferson School of Population Health newsletter.

Filed under: health |

Hour 2
The wonders of life and the beauty of science are what evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins thinks and writes about. An outspoken Atheist, Dawkins tackles proving evolution in his latest book, "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution."

Filed under: author |

What the "balloon boy" hoax says about reality television, the media and us. Our guests are ROBERT THOMPSON, Syracuse University professor of television and popular culture, journalist ERIC DEGGANS of the St. Petersburg Times and writer JAKE HALPERN. Listen to the mp3

Filed under: Uncategorized |

Last week, the United Nations and the Council of Europe released a report calling for improved monitoring of human organ trafficking by national and international organizations. We explore the real and growing problem of selling and buying human organs with Penn ethicist ART CAPLAN who co-authored the new study and NANCY SCHEPER-HUGHES, professor of anthropology [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized |

In 2007, while visiting her mother in Iran, HALEH ESFANDIARI was detained and later charged with plotting revolution. Esfandiari is director of Middle East Programs at the Smithsonian's Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. She left Iran in 1980 at the time of the 1979 revolution. She has written a new memoir "My Prison, My Home," [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized |

Comcast is in negotiations to buy NBC Universal, in the Philadelphia-based cable giant's latest bid to acquire content to fill up the airwaves and send over the distribution network it owns. Joining Marty in-studio to talk about the proposed deal, its effect on the communications industry, local media access and ownership, and how we watch [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized |

The first daughters, Malia and Sasha Obama, are wearing their hair 'natural;' radio host Don Imus' popularity hasn't been restored since his 2007 statement about the Rutgers women basketball team as, "Nappy-headed hos;" and comedian Chris Rock has produced a documentary exploring African American women's issues with their hair called, "Good Hair." Is black hair [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized |

In its first week of its new term, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a landmark free-speech case, the United States v. Stevens. It involves a law that forbids the buying or selling of any image of an animal being intentionally injured or killed, in this case, videos of animal torture. We get differing [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized |