Our last mid-term election preview October 29
Hour 1 All eyes are on Delaware and Pennsylvania in advance of next week’s mid-term elections.  Two highly coveted Senate seats are up for grabs and the races have been controversial and contentious.  Christine O’Donnell and Chris Coons [...]

A True-Life Story Of and About Conviction October 29
Hour 2 BETTY ANNE WATERS rescued her brother from a life of prison after he served nearly twenty years after a wrongful murder and armed robbery conviction. Actor SAM ROCKWELL is portraying Kenneth Waters in the new film, [...]

The Constitution as an election issue October 28
Hour 1 The constitution, its relevance  and how it should be interpreted has been the matter of some debate during this campaign season.  In question among some candidates is the separation of church and state, the definition of [...]

Historian Joseph Ellis looks at the First Family: John and Abigail Adams October 28
Hour 2 John and Abigail Adams’ marriage was spent apart as much as they were together. Documenting their letters to each other when John was in Philadelphia and Paris and Abigail in Massachusetts is a favorite topic for [...]

Are the Winds Favorable for Renewable Energy? October 27
Hour 1 Google recently announced that it was investing heavily in offshore wind energy.  The company is putting money into a five billion dollar transmission line that would run on the Atlantic seabed from Virginia to New Jersey.  [...]

Haiti's health: Cholera, post-earthquake & going forward October 27
Hour 2 A cholera outbreak in rural Haiti has killed more than 250 people. Though the rate of cholera transmission appears to have slowed, public health experts and relief agencies say Haiti is most likely not done with [...]

Media coverage of the mid-term elections October 26
Hour 1 With the mid-term elections only a week away, we’ll take a look the media coverage of the campaigns, the political ads, and the relationship between the press and the candidates.  Marty talks with EVAN TRACEY, founder [...]

Listening to Music with New Yorker Music Critic ALEX ROSS October 26
Hour 2 When the New Yorker music critic ALEX ROSS, was a teenager he first heard the conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein’s analysis of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. The C sharp 'jabbing' through the key of E flat that [...]

How resistance to white-on-black rape launched the Civil Rights movement October 25
Hour 1 You know one story about Rosa Parks, but not this one: The woman who gained worldwide fame when she “refused to give up her seat” on a Montgomery bus was also a radical activist and a [...]

New Developments in the Battle Against Alzheimer's October 25
Hour 2 Five million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and that number is expected to grow considerably with the aging population.  But there is some good news.  Recently there have been some promising new developments that could lead [...]

Election season politics, with John Nichols & Kathryn Jean Lopez October 22
Hour 1 The mid-term elections are just 10 days away, and many races are heating up. The Senate races in Pennsylvania and Delaware are among the most closely watched races in the country, both featuring Tea Party favorites [...]

Remembering South Philadelphia's Eddie Lang, 'Father of the Jazz Guitar' October 22
Hour 2 South Philadelphia-born Eddie Lang (born Salvatore Massaro) is known as the “Father of the Jazz Guitar.” His distinctive style brought the guitar to the attention of the American public and influenced such guitarists Django Reinhardt, Charlie [...]

Robert D. Kaplan on the building 'Monsoon' of South Asian power October 21
Hour 1 Global power is following population, as influence and capital shift from Europe and the Atlantic Ocean to the countries on and near the Indian Ocean — India, Pakistan, China, Indonesia and others. The Atlantic Monthly's national [...]

Rebecca Traister's 'Big Girls Don't Cry' after 2008 election October 21
Hour 2 Weeks before the mid-term elections, we're joined in studio by Salon senior writer REBECCA TRAISTER, who will discuss her new book, Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women. In it, Traister [...]

The Latest attempt to Repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: The political, military and legal perspectives October 20
Hour 1 Last week Federal judge Virginia Phillips ordered the Pentagon to immediately stop enforcing its 17-year old ban on gays serving openly in the military.  The President, who is in favor of ending the ban, the Justice [...]

Endangered Languages October 20
Hour 2 Languages are vanishing from the Earth.  There are 6192 different languages but half could become extinct by the end of this century.  But two linguists are determined to capture the languages before they disappear forever.  DAVID [...]

Planning Philadelphia's Central Delaware riverfront October 19
Hour 1 The Delaware River remains one of the Philadelphia metropolitan area’s underdeveloped and untapped resources, about a decade after the first steps were taken to gather community input in Philadelphia’s River Wards. But much work is taking [...]

Wasted Food October 19
Hour 2 Americans waste a lot of food.  Some studies say a quarter of all our food gets thrown away while other research shows as much as half gets trashed. Either way that’s a lot of wasted food [...]

Afghanistan update — is there light at the end of the tunnel? October 18
Hour 1 The war in Afghanistan entered its tenth year earlier this month.  The last of the 30,000 "surge" troops have arrived in country and reports indicate that the Karzai government is engaged in talks with the Taliban.   [...]

Why Biodiversity Matters October 18
Hour 2 Did you know that the UN declared 2010 the year of biodiversity to draw attention to the rapid rate in which species are disappearing from the planet?  And today, officials from around the world are gathered [...]

Michael Fitzpatrick (R) & Rep. Patrick Murphy (D), candidates for PA's 8th Congressional District October 15
Hour 1 Democratic Rep. PATRICK MURPHY and former Republican congressman MICHAEL FITZPATRICK are competing for Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional District seat, which Murphy won in 2006 by defeating Fitzpatrick. Listen to the mp3 Listen: [Audio clip: view full post [...]

Rep. Jim Gerlach (R), candidate for PA's 6th district, plus political analysis October 15
Hour 2 Republican Congressman JIM GERLACH flirted with a run for Pennsylvania governor, but instead is defending his 6th congressional district seat against Democratic challenger Dr. Manan Trivedi. Then we talk the week in politics with STEVE KORNACKI [...]

Analysis the Chris Coons and Christine O’Donnell debate October 14
Hour 1 All eyes are on Delaware’s senate election pitting Chris Coons and Christine O’Donnell.  Until now, media coverage has focused more on the candidates’ characters than the issues facing the first state.  We get reaction to last [...]

NPR's Michele Norris' Grace of Silence October 14
Hour 2 Asking difficult questions is part of Michele Norris’ job: she’s co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered. After covering race relations in America during the 2008 Presidential election, Norris felt she couldn’t ask others about this topic until [...]

The Foreclosure Crisis October 13
Hour 1 Hundreds of thousands of homes may have been improperly foreclosed on.  Some of the largest mortgage firms have halted foreclosures after allegations that they failed to follow proper procedures before evicting people.  A Bank of America [...]

Darin Strauss October 13
Hour 2 In writer DARIN STRAUSS’ last month of high school, he accidentally killed a school mate in a car accident. Though the girl's parents didn’t blame Strauss, her mother told him he was to do everything the [...]

Bryan Lentz (D) & Pat Meehan (R), candidates for PA's 7th congressional district October 12
Hour 1 To run for U.S. Senate, Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak vacated his seat representing Pennsylvania’s 7th district in the House of Representatives. Squaring off to fill this hotly contested and closely watched seat are Republican PAT MEEHAN, [...]

Campaign Spending and the mid-term elections: Where is all this money coming from? October 11
Hour 1 Campaign chests for some candidates are bursting at the seams. Estimates are that over $5 billion dollars will be spent on the upcoming mid-term elections, a clear indication of what is at stake for both houses [...]

Frank Meeink: A South Philly skinhead's journey out of hate October 11
Hour 1 As a teenager, South Philadelphia’s FRANK MEEINK rose to become one of the most notorious racist skinhead gang leaders, and his violent lifestyle had him locked up in an Illinois prison by age 18. But that [...]

Israeli Writer DAVID GROSSMAN'S To the End of the Land October 10
Hour 2 Israeli writer DAVID GROSSMAN received international attention with his 1987 nonfiction book, “The Yellow Wind,” a personal reportage of interviews of Palestinian residents during the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, which was published a few [...]

National political roundup, with Mickey Edwards & Bob Edgar October 8
Hour 1 For 17 years, the Pew Research Center has been polling the American public about whether they think their representatives in Washington are cooperating and working together on their behalf, or if they are stuck in unproductive [...]

The Science of Studying October 8
Hour 2 Time to crack the books.  Kids are back in school and their backpacks are bulging with homework.  They’ve got to read books, compose essays, calculate equations, and cram for tests.  So, what’s the best way to [...]

The Supreme Court, hate speech, privacy, and a soldier's funeral October 7
Hour 1 Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Snyder v. Phelps, a free speech case that has stirred emotional reactions over the protests tactics of  Westboro Baptist Church at the funeral of a young Marine.  We talk [...]

Religious Literacy: what Americans don't know about the world's religions October 7
Hour 2 A new survey on religious knowledge came out from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.  It shows that a majority of Americans know very little about the world's religions.  Interestingly, the groups that scored [...]

Catching up on Philadelphia news with Paul Davies & Ben Waxman October 6
Hour 1 A Philadelphia news roundup brings two sharp political observers to the studio to help us understand and assess the alphabet soup of Philly's busted bureaucracies from the PHA to the DRPA to the BRT and maybe [...]

Everything you ever wanted to know about the sexual lives of American men, women and teens October 6
Hour 2 Researchers at Indiana University earlier this week published what is considered to be the most comprehensive national survey of Americans’ sexual behavior since 1994.  The study was funded by Church and Dwight, manufacturer of Trojan-brand condoms. [...]

The crisis in education for Philadelphia’s black and Hispanic boys October 5
Hour 1 The dropout rate for Philadelphia’s black and Latino males has reached devastating proportions. Fifty-one percent of Latino boys and 43 percent of black male students fail to finish high school in six years.  JOHNNY IRIZARRY, a [...]

Jay Varner has 'Nothing Left to Burn' October 5
Hour 2 JAY VARNER’s first book is a memoir titled Nothing Left to Burn. In it, Varner tells of three generations of men connected by fire in the small town of McVeytown, Pennsylvania. There’s Jay, a young boy, [...]

Bullying & cyberbullying, especially vs. gay youth October 4
Hour 1 Last week, national outrage and heartbreak greeted the shocking story of a Rutgers University student who jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge, after his roommate posted online hidden-camera footage of a sexual encounter [...]

Sustainable cooking with New York Times Columnist MARK BITTMAN October 4
Hour 2 The New York Times’ “The Minimalist” columnist, cookbook writer and PBS host has created a book of recipes to follow his 2008 “Food Matters” book, “The Food Matters Cookbook: 500 Revolutionary Recipes for Better Living.” MARK BITTMAN has [...]

Pat Toomey, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in PA, plus political analysis October 1
Hour 1 PAT TOOMEY is running for the Senate seat long held by Arlen Specter. Toomey’s strong showing against Specter six years ago, and polling showing he had an advantage in the runup to the May primary, convinced [...]

A review of the fall TV season October 1
Hour 2 The fall TV season is in full swing with new shows premiering and old favorites returning.  There’s “Boardwalk Empire,” “The Event,” “Hawaii Five-O,” “Terriers,” “Blue Bloods,” “Mike and Molly,” “$h*! My Dad Says,” “Glee,” “Modern Family,” [...]