This Saturday is Election Day and one local community will be in the spotlight for an anti-illegal immigrant ordinance on its ballot. Craig Hanley looked into the Farmers Branch referendum and the motivations of supporters and opponents for the May issue of D Magazine. He’ll join us this hour to discuss his article “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Farmers Branch.”
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What was it really like in the Kennedy White House and how did Robert Kennedy cope with the aftermath of his brother’s assassination? According to journalist David Talbot, RFK never believed the Warren Commission’s conclusions and hoped to re-open the investigation if elected president in 1968. Talbot will join us this hour to discuss his new book “Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years” (Free Press, 2007).
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Can economics be “sexy?” Steve E. Landsburg, who writes the “Everyday Economics” column for Slate Magazine, is doing his best to make it so. His new book is “More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics” (Free Press, 2007). Landsburg, who also teaches at the University of Rochester, will join us for the hour.
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Four hundred years ago this month, 104 English colonists arrived in Jamestown, Virginia to establish the first permanent English settlement in North America. Despite incredible hardship and terrible odds, they (or at least a few of them) survived. We’ll explore the environmental changes they wrought and how these changes led to their ultimate success on the continent with Charles C. Mann, whose May, 2007 National Geographic cover story is called “America, Found and Lost.”
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What does the future hold for Dallas Mayor Laura Miller and where does she think the city is headed? We’ll spend the first segment of tonight’s program with Mayor Miller. Sarah Jane Semrad, Executive Director of the La Reunion artist residency program getting started in Dallas will join us for the Scene segment of the show. This archive of the Think television program originally aired on February 16th, 2007.
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According to a census conducted on January 25th, there are 5,163 homeless persons in Dallas and 4,042 homeless in Forth Worth. These totals represent a decrease from the 2006 homeless population across North Texas. We’ll spend this hour discussing the issue of homelessness and what’s being done to help the homeless with Mike Rawlings, homeless czar for the City of Dallas, Cindy Honey, of the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance, and Otis Thornton, homeless coordinator for Fort Worth.
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Who was Harper Lee? The author of what is arguably one of America’s most popular works of literature, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” has long remained a mystery. We’ll learn a little more about Lee and her life this hour with Charles J. Shields, author of her first full-length biography “Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee” (Owl Books, 2007).
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The term “networking” has long been used to describe the good business practice of making and maintaining solid contacts. Today the term can mean so much more. Forbes Magazine celebrates its 90th Anniversary with an issue dedicated to “The Power of Networks.” This hour, we’ll explore the rapidly expanding networks that link us all with Tom Post, Deputy Managing Editor of Forbes.
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Is the desire for collective joy innate in human beings? Acclaimed writer Barbara Ehrenreich thinks so. Her latest work “Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy” (Metropolitan Books, 2007) explores the origins of what was in the past expressed in ecstatic rituals and festivities – activities that are disappearing from the human experience. Ehrenreich will join us for the hour.
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Audubon Texas and the City of Dallas will soon break ground on the Trinity River Audubon Center in Dallas. Will the first major building project of the Trinity Corridor initiative change the way we enjoy our natural environment? We’ll discuss the regional and national Audubon mission this hour with John Flicker, President of the National Audubon Society and Anne Brown, Director of Audubon Texas.
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We often think of ourselves as the pinnacle of life on the planet. But the largest and tallest living organisms are very different from us. They’re the magnificent coastal redwoods of Northern California. We’ll spend this hour with bestselling author Richard Preston, who profiles the trees, their explorers and the lost ecosystems they inhabit and foster among their branches in his new book “The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring” (Random House, 2007).
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How is depression diagnosed? Psychologist Gary Greenberg volunteered for a study on mild depression and was quite surprised, after examination, to be diagnosed with major depression. He writes about the experience in his current Harper’s Magazine cover story “Manufacturing Depression: A Journey into the Economy of Melancholy.” We’ll talk with him this hour.
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