Struggling to Speak: Understanding Stuttering December 31
Hour 1 [REBROADCAST] The new movie The King’s Speech is about King George Vl and his struggles to overcome his stammer at the onset of WWll.  It follows the King, played by Colin Firth, and his relationship with [...]

Bottoms Up: On Spirits and Cocktails December 31
Hour 2 [REBROADCAST] Do you have a favorite cocktail?   An Old Fashioned, a Sidecar, a Martini, or a Vodka Gimlet?  Classic cocktails have seen quite a revival in recent years thanks to the popularity of the television series [...]

Salman Rushdie writes a childhood fable December 30
Hour 2 [Rebroadcast] The Booker Prize-winning writer SALMAN RUSHDIE returns to Radio Times to discuss the new fable he has written for his youngest son, “Luka and the Fire of Life.” Rushdie, author of over ten novels, non-fiction [...]

The best (and worst) movies of the year December 30
Hour 1 It’s become somewhat of a tradition at Radio Times to spend our last live hour of the year talking about one of  our favorite subjects—movies.   So tune in when we review the year in film with [...]

Philadelphia news year in review, & Mike Castle December 29
Hour 1 First, we take stock in the year in Philadelphia news, with WHYY's Senior Reporter DAVE DAVIES and Philadelphia Daily News editorial page editor SANDRA SHEA. Then, we'll hear from Congressman MIKE CASTLE, Republican of Delaware, who [...]

Novelist Gary Shteyngart's Super Near Future December 29
Hour 2 [REBROADCAST]  Novelist GARY SHTEYNGART was already a critically acclaimed writer before he was featured in The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” this summer for his debut novel, “The Russian Debutante’s Handbook,” published in 2003. Radio Times invites [...]

Trudy Rubin on Afghanistan December 28
Hour 1 The Obama administration recently released its Afghanistan war policy review, saying that the U.S. is making “considerable gains toward our military objective.” The war in Afghanistan is the longest running war in U.S. history and is [...]

Jay Varner has 'Nothing Left to Burn' December 28
Hour 2 [REBROADCAST]  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, [...]

Packing for Mars with author Mary Roach December 27
[REBROADCAST] Images of rockets blasting off into outer space are pretty awe-inspiring.  But what about the bathroom technology that’s inside them?  Or the food that is specially engineered to be edible in zero gravity?  This is the part [...]

Israeli Writer DAVID GROSSMAN'S To the End of the Land December 27
Hour 2 [REBROADCAST] 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 [...]

Mining the new census data December 23
Hour 1 (correction appended below) By law, the U.S. Census bureau must release and present to the President the results of its national and state population counts by December 31st.  We’ll find out what the new census information [...]

Zak Ebrahim, terrorist's son & peace activist December 22
Hour 1 ZAK EBRAHIM’s father did not die when he was young, as Zak grew up telling anyone who asked. In truth, Zak’s father, El-Sayed Nosair, was imprisoned after assassinating the leader of the Jewish Defense League, Rabbi [...]

Parody, Gender and Gilbert & Sullivan December 22
Hour 2 Brush up on your Gilbert and Sullivan patter: “And his legs will take root, and his fingers will shoot and they’ll blossom and bud like a fruit tree…” Iolanthe is one of the many operas of [...]

Congress: The Lame Duck Session and What's Ahead December 21
Hour 1 There were low expectations for the lame duck session in Congress, but surprisingly some major pieces of legislation have passed, namely the tax cut bill and the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’   And now there’s [...]

Taking the temperature of the debate over who should provide primary care December 21
Hour 2 It is widely acknowledged that access to primary care effectively reduces health care costs. The Affordable Care Act, our nation's new health care law, is expected to add 32 million Americans to the rolls of the [...]

Endangered & imprisoned journalists around the world December 20
Hour 1 The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 42 journalists were slain around the world in 2010, and that there are more journalists imprisoned around the world – 145 – than at any time in the last [...]

Struggling to Speak: Understanding Stuttering December 20
Hour 2 The new movie The King’s Speech is about King George Vl and his struggles to overcome his stammer at the onset of WWll.  It follows the King, played by Colin Firth, and his relationship with unconventional [...]

The Afghanistan War Assessment December 17
Hour 1 The White House released a year assessment on the war in Afghanistan.  In a press briefing yesterday, President Obama said that “we are on track to achieve our goals.”  However, the assessment also said that the [...]

E.T.A Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and The Mouse King as Burlesque Cabaret December 17
Hour 2 A ribbon-adorned young girl in toe-shoes, the Sugar Plum Fairy, ballerina snow flakes flurrying about on stage in costume. Those snowflakes elegantly taking off their costumes down to pasties and thongs…and keep dancing, but with different [...]

The President's game plan: The philosophy and strategy behind Barack Obama's decisions December 16
Hour 1 President Barack Obama has increasingly come under fire from liberal Democrats, who say he is hardly the "change president" they thought they were electing, and that he is moving to the center and abandoning his base.  [...]

An early Christmas for Philly sports fans December 16
Hour 2 Local sports fan got an early Christmas present on Monday when pitcher Cliff Lee rejoined the Phillies.  Add that to the Eagles win over Dallas Sunday night, led by leading Pro Bowl vote-getter and controversial comeback [...]

Retaining Philly's college students: A report card December 15
Hour 1 The Philadelphia region graduates plenty of college graduates. But how is it doing in terms of keeping them here? What causes college graduates to stay, and what makes them leave? On today’s Radio Times, Marty welcomes [...]

Bottoms Up: On Spirits and Cocktails December 15
Hour 2 Do you have a favorite cocktail?   An Old Fashioned, a Sidecar, a Martini, or a Vodka Gimlet?  Classic cocktails have seen quite a revival in recent years thanks to the popularity of the television series Mad [...]

Michelle Alexander on 'The New Jim Crow' December 14
Hour 1 Legal scholar MICHELLE ALEXANDER argues in her new book that the mass incarceration of young black men in America is the contemporary equivalent to the Jim Crow laws from decades past. The disproportionate imprisonment of African [...]

Is the institution of marriage still relevant? December 14
Hour 2 A recent Pew /Time Magazine poll found that four out of every ten Americans think that marriage is becoming obsolete and unnecessary, but three quarters of people surveyed said raising kids is best done in a home [...]

Debating the DREAM Act December 13
Hour 1 The House narrowly passed the DREAM Act last week but now it has stalled in the Senate. The DREAM ACT, or the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, would grant legal status to illegal [...]

The President's House: Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation December 13
Hour 2 A building that stood about a block north of Independence Hall on 6th and Market streets was the residence of Presidents George Washington and John Adams. Most Americans know the capital was briefly in Philadelphia. What [...]

Debating Net Neutrality December 10
Hour 1 Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski announced a new network neutrality proposal last week.  Net neutrality is the idea that Internet service providers should not discriminate between data or content traveling along their lines but treat [...]

Primatologist Frans de Waal on the evolution of empathy December 10
Hour 2 [REBROADCAST] World-renowned primatologist FRANS DE WAAL has spent years studying chimpanzees, bonobos and capuchins.  While he has witnessed plenty of selfish and aggressive behavior, he has also watched primates cooperate, resolve conflicts, share food, laugh  and [...]

Philadelphia Green 2015, w/Parks commissioner Michael DiBerardinis December 9
Hour 1 Philadelphia has a plan to add 500 acres of green public space to the city by 2015, to make sure that every city resident is within easy walking distance of a local park. The Nutter administration [...]

Philadelphia Cold War Spy Harry Gold December 9
Hour 2 Harry Gold, a low-key South Philadelphia industrial chemist, son of Russian Jewish immigrants, hand-delivered U.S. atomic bomb classified information to the Soviets between 1935 – 1950. He was so under the radar, his obituary wasn’t published [...]

Camden in fiscal crisis December 8
Hour 1 The city of Camden is in crisis, again. Just weeks after it was declared the second-most crime-ridden city in the United States (actually an improvement over last year’s “first-place finish”), Mayor Dana Redd and City Council [...]

Is WikiLeaks good or bad for American diplomacy and democracy? December 8
Hour 2 The release of classified documents by WikiLeaks has raised questions about the state of American diplomacy and the roles of transparency and secrecy in foreign policy.  While most agree that little new information was learned in [...]

Philadelphia's business taxes, w/ Council members Green & Quinones Sanchez & City Controller Butkovitz December 7
Hour 1 It goes without saying that the city of Philadelphia’s taxes on businesses are unpopular among its business owners. But if those taxes are going to be changed, what’s the best way? Philadelphia Councilman BILL GREEN and [...]

First, Obama's tax-cut deal, then internet dating December 7
Hour 2 Marty starts this hour with a 20-minute interview with WHYY's National Interest blogger DICK POLMAN about the tax-cut deal struck by President Obama and Republicans in Congress. Then, in the last two-thirds of the show:  Internet [...]

Reducing the Deficit December 6
Hour 1 The President’s bipartisan deficit commission released its recommendations last week.  Reactions in Congress were mixed.  So what happens next?  Today we’ll take a look at the commission’s recommendations and compare them to some of the other [...]

Shame in Public and Private Lives December 6
Hour 2 Last week, House representatives voted to censure New York Representative Charles Rangel for ethics violations.  Rangel stood in the House chamber while Speaker Nancy Pelosi read the resolution of reproach.  This public shaming is the most [...]

National political roundup, with Chris Hayes & Susan Ferrechio December 3
Hour 1 In this week’s political roundup, Marty chats with a pair of Washington-based journalists about the latest developments in the nation’s capitol, including Congress’ lame-duck session, the Simpson-Bowles commission’s report on the nation’s debt, deficit, and entitlement [...]

Global Jazzman Danilo Perez December 3
Hour 2 Jazz composer, arranger and educator DANILO PEREZ was just nominated this week for a Grammy for his new album, “Providencia” in the “Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group” category.  The Panama-born pianist spends part of his time [...]

Why the Pentagon is prepared to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell December 2
Hour 1 A nine-month study conducted by the Pentagon and released on Tuesday found that there is little risk in ending the military’s policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  The 17-year-old policy requires gay service members to keep their sexual [...]

David and Julie Nixon Eisenhower December 2
Hour 2 Commanding general of the Army and 34th president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, retired in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His grandson, DAVID EISENHOWER, has chronicled this chapter of his grandfather’s life in his new book co-authored [...]

What the Wikileaks tell us about the complex relationships in the Middle East December 1
Hour 1 While the 250,000 state department cables released by WikiLeaks provided few surprises for those who fully understand the complex relationships in the Middle East, some experts believe the information, much of which was secret until now, [...]

The Philadelphia Klezmer Family Tradition December 1
Hour 2 Drummer ELAINE HOFFMAN WATTS is one of the last ‘native speakers’ of Klezmer music. Her father put drum sticks in her hands and taught her to play the folk dance tunes when she was a toddler. [...]