Two Plays

How does a playwright transition from the page to the stage and back again? Guest host Jerome Weeks will talk this hour with critically acclaimed Tony and Obie Award-winner David Rabe. His works “The Black Monk and The Dog Problem: Two Plays” (Simon and Schuster, 2009) are now out in a single paperback volume. Rabe’s novel “Dinosaurs on the Roof” will be released in paperback next month.

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Try Looking on MySpace

Crystal Riportella-Crose was adopted when she was an infant and grew up in Vermont. As an interracial child in a Caucasian family, she always wondered what her birth mother looked like. So when she got older, she began to search for her, and eventually found her birth mother on the social networking site, MySpace. Crystal tells Janet Babin how she ended up meeting her birth mother in person, and what that odd mix of feelings was like.

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From the Archive: An Army Chaplain's Memoir

From the Think archive – We’ve heard the stories of many returning Iraq combat veterans, and no one can deny the difficulties faced by soldiers re-integrating into civilian life, but what’s the experience like for military chaplains? We’ll hear one such story this hour with former Army chaplain Roger Benimoff, who tells the story of his two Iraq deployments in the new book “Faith Under Fire: An Army Chaplain’s Memoir” (Crown, 2009).

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The Trinity Saga

Where does Dallas stand on the Trinity River Project? Will the recent decertification of the levees delay construction? What about the signature bridges? We’ll get the story this evening with Lee Hancock of the Dallas Morning News and Jim Schutze of the Dallas Observer. Artist Philip Haas will join us for the ArtandSeek segment to discuss his current exhibit of film installations inspired by works in the collection at the Kimbell Art Museum. It’s called “Butchers, Dragons, Gods and Skeletons.”

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The Future of a Radical Price

What will be the next super-successful business model? We’ll talk this hour with Wired Magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson about how giving things away might garner more revenue than actually selling them. Anderson’s new book is “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” (Hyperion, 2009).

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The Border

What is really happening along the border and what role is the Mexican Army playing in the turmoil? We’ll talk this hour with Mother Jones Magazine contributing writer Charles Bowden who’s been documenting Mexico’s drug wars and border clashes since 2005. His piece in the current issue is “We Bring Fear.”

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How Executive Power Threatens Democracy

What is the greatest threat to American democracy? We’ll explore the phenomenon of “aggressive presidentialism” this hour with Peter M. Shane, the Jacob E. Davis and Jacob E. Davis II Chair in Law at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law and author of “Madison’s Nightmare: How Executive Power Threatens Democracy” (Chicago, 2009).

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The Conquest of America's First Frontier

Who invented guerilla warfare and how did the revolutionary strategy influence the birth of our nation? We’ll find out this hour with John F. Ross, executive editor of American Heritage Magazine and author of the new book “War on the Run: The Epic Story of Robert Rogers and the Conquest of America’s First Frontier” (Bantam, 2009).

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