How do fine artists bridge the gap between creating the work they need to create and earning the living they need to survive? We’ll find out this hour with four artists who are doing just that – Jeremy Fish, Travis Millard, Mel Kadel, and Michael Sieben. They’re all in town for a show “Low Tech High Life” which opens Saturday at Art Prostitute.
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How will a new Secretary of Defense handle the situation in Iraq? What are the bottom line suggestions of the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group? What changes are in store for the U.S. military in the short and long term? Max Boot, senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of “War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History 1500 to Today” (Gotham Books, 2006), will join us this hour.
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You probably haven’t given it much thought, but it’s something we all have to do eventually. We all die and each of us must inhabit some sort of “final disposition.” Writer Michelle Cromer traveled across the country and talked to families and entrepreneurs to investigate the options – from being shot into space to being made into a one-carat diamond. She’ll join us this hour to discuss the creative ways Americans are celebrating the end of life and her new book “Exit Strategy: Thinking Outside the Box” (Tarcher Penguin, 2006).
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The second hour of Think will be pre-empted today to bring you NPR’s live coverage of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearings on the nomination of Robert Gates to be United States Secretary of Defense.
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What can we expect from the newly nominated Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates? On November 15th, we talked with Texas Monthly Senior Executive Editor Paul Burka, who profiled Gates for the November issue of Texas Monthly.
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How does Pakistan view the Pakistan – U.S. relationship? What can America do to help Pakistan control religious extremism, counter terrorism, and forge a lasting and constructive relationship with India? We’ll talk this hour with His Excellency Mahmud Ali Durrani, Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States.
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Can the free-market economy improve America’s health care system? Dr. David Gratzer thinks so. We’ll spend the hour Gratzer, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, whose new book is “The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care” (Encounter Books, 2006).
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We all know the difference between right and wrong, but why do we know that one action is morally superior to another? Philosophers and scientists have long argued that our ability to reason, coupled with our education and socialization have developed the “moral compass” which guides each of us through life. Harvard biologist Marc D. Hauser argues that we are born with an innate “moral grammar” that drives our judgments of right and wrong in his new book “Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong” (Ecco, 2006). Marc Hauser will join us for the hour.
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How will you celebrate the holidays this year? Will you max out your credit cards buying gifts for everyone you know? Will you celebrate an “Alt-Christmas” by baking cookies for everyone or making your gifts by hand? How do you plan to handle the stress of the holidays? We’ll spend this hour with Nicole Berckes of the Center for a New American Dream, and organization dedicated to helping Americans consume responsibly to protect the environment, enhance their quality of life, and promote social justice. The Center has just published its 2006 Holiday Survival Kit at newdream.org.
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It’s been said that every cloud has a silver lining, but what exactly is good about the breakdown of a society and what leads to that breakdown in the first place? Political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon will join us this hour to discuss his new book “The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization” (Island Press, 2006).
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We’re approaching the third anniversary of the Spirit and Opportunity Rover landings on Mars, and the rovers, which were expected to function for a few months at best, are still exploring the red planet and sending stunning photographs home. We’ll spend this hour with Jim Bell, the NASA scientist responsible for the rovers’ color imaging systems and author of the book “Postcards from Mars: The First Photographer on the Red Planet” (Dutton, 2006).
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Is there a problem with the current idea of diversity? Has our cultural focus on identity allowed economic inequality to flourish? Walter Benn Michaels, professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, argues (among other things) that affirmative action in schools has not made them more open, it’s just guaranteed that the rich kids come in the appropriate colors. Walter Benn Michaels, whose new book is “The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality” (Metropolitan Books, 2006), will join us for the hour.
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