Sen. Barack Obama campaigns in Denver, CO.

Source: Getty Images

Last week we talked about women and the candidacy of Sen. Hillary Clinton. Today, we'll focus on African Americans and Sen. Barack Obama. There's no question that his campaign has already made history -- he's the first African American candidate to be included among the front-runners for a major party nomination. But his candidacy also stirs complex feelings within the black community. If you're an African American voter, how do you feel about the possibility that an African American may be elected president? Are you excited? Afraid? Do you feel an obligation to vote for him?

In the second hour, we're focusing on upward mobility, especially among African Americans. As Gwen wrote in her post, a new Pew survey from 2007 indicates that "45% of African Americans who were born into middle class families during the 1960s are currently doing worse economically than their parents."

The show centers on one question, which we're asking our audience at Morgan State University in Baltimore, and you, listening to the radio, reading this blog:

Will you do better than your parents?

If your parents scrimped and saved to pave the way for you to go to school, to get a good job, to go to grad. school, to get a better job, did it pay off? And parents, if you scrimped and saved to pave the way for your kids to go to school, to get a good job, to go to grad. school, to get a better job, was it worth it? What worked? And what didn't?

John Morton, Managing Director of Economic Policy at the Pew Charitable Trust, will join us, to take us through those numbers Gwen cited. Who is doing well? Who isn't? Why is that? And why is the "American Dream" so elusive for so many people? And we'll hear from Ellis Cose, a contributing editor and columnist for Newsweek.

The Morgan State University Choir is it. If you don't know about them already, prepare to be amazed. Their accomplishments are too numerous to count, but they've performed all over the world; sung at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center; and won Emmy's for Maryland Public Television... and that's just the tip of the iceberg. What's more, our very own beloved director Gwen Outen sang there as a college student, under Dr. Nathan Carter, one of the most prestigious conductors, composers, and arrangers in choral music. Pretty great. Feel free to sing their praises in the comments section!

I'm happy to blog about our "coming up" show today, because, as I type this, I am sitting on the campus of my alma mater, where we are broadcasting Talk of the Nation today. Our show will be coming to you from the Carl Murphy Fine Arts Center at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. It's an incredible trip to be here and it's always a thrill to broadcast in front of a live audience, especially when your former professors are sprinkled throughout the crowd. Here's what we'll be discussing today:

For our entire first hour, we will talk about the effect Barack Obama's presidential candidacy has on the black community. We'll be hearing from students in the audience, and we want to hear from you as well. Remember back in the day when you "pshawed" the thought of ever seeing a black presidential candidate in your lifetime? Well, here we are. So now that the moment has arrived, how do you feel about it? What does your dinner table conversation sound like? Are you excited about his run? Downright scared? A little nervous that he may disappoint? What do you hear people of an older generation saying? And what if, after all this hoopla, he doesn't win? We want to hear your thoughts. And we'll try to explore this issue from as many angles as possible.

We recently got wind of a startling statistic. Last year, the Pew Charitable Trust reported that that 45% of African Americans who were born into middle class families during the 1960s are currently doing worse economically than their parents. Not only that, but if African Americans have reached middle class status, they're standing on shaky ground. In our second hour, we will ask you and the students here at Morgan what their hopes are of surpassing their parents... And we'll ask parents what their expectations for their children are. And at the end of the hour, we're going to hear from the Morgan State University Choir. Now, if you haven't heard this choir before, your ears are in for something good!!! And if you HAVE heard them before, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I used to be a member of the choir under the leadership of Dr. Nathan Carter, who passed away in 2004. I was the one standing in the back row with tears streaming down my face because, without fail, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They are now under the direction of Dr. Eric Conway and they haven't lost a beat. The choir is usually around 150 strong, but today, we'll hear the voices of about 50 of them. Please enjoy what you hear. If I may say so myself, Morgan still sounds absolutely glorious!!!!

Eastern Ave. in Baltimore.

Source: Bukutgirl

B-more! Charm City! The Greatest City In America! We're in Baltimore, Maryland, at Morgan State University today -- better known as my home for five years -- I'm an erstwhile WYPR producer, Towson and JHU alumna. There are a lot of connections today -- our fabulous director Gwen Outen is a Morgan alumna herself. I spent the night last night, enjoying old friends, and getting a good night's sleep, but I can promise you, tonight -- sleep is the last thing on my mind. It's the last night you can smoke at a bar in Baltimore. Now, I quit the nasty habit when I moved to D.C.; but I have very fond memories of nights spent over Maker's Mark at a series of wonderful Baltimore dive bars. I was in school for creative writing; there's nothing like a smoke and a bourbon to make you feel literary -- and of course, for making it impossible to actually be literate. A lot of novels were designed and never born in the Charles Village Pub. (Not just novels -- campaigns. Yeesh.) In any case, I'm going to fling myself off the wagon for one night only here in Bawlmor. It's the last night for that particular kind of nostalgia; and I'm gonna get some smoke in my eyes.**

*The last night of "The Smoking Band." One night only.
**It goes without saying -- don't try this at home. It'll kill ya.

After a disappointing finish in Florida, a race that, as Dana Milbank pointed out, wasn't supposed to matter, former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) announced that he is stepping aside.

"Today I am suspending my campaign for the Democratic nomination for the presidency," he said in New Orleans, where he began his campaign. Rudy Giuliani, who had banked on a strong showing in Florida, which he didn't get, is expected to drop out of the race for the Republican nomination soon.

With fewer candidates, there are more questions, of course. Chief among them: Which candidates will Edwards and Giuliani endorse?

In the first hour, Ken Rudin will be here, as he is every week. If you were a Sen. Edwards supporter, will you support Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) or Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)? What did you like about his platform?

If you stood behind Giuliani, to which candidate will you pledge your allegiance? Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), former Gov. Mitt Romney (MA), former Gov. Mike Huckabee (AR), or Congressman Ron Paul? If you live a Super Tuesday state, are you volunteering for a campaign?

It's true -- the famous quote may go, "It's the economy, stupid*," but these days, I feel like I'm the stupid, and don't worry if you're right there with me! It's just incredibly volatile right now, so much so that good advice yesterday may be dead wrong today, and day-old economic news is as irrelevant as yesterday's Britney report. What I've found, though, is that all this change, all these ups and downs, make right now a really good time to learn. For example, yesterday I learned about where the money for the rebates Congress is proposing comes from (nowhere?), and all the housing news combined with the Fed's rate cuts mean I have a new key phrase in my vocabulary: the ten-year treasury note (or T-note -- it affects mortgage rates!). Often I pick up bits here and there that only leave me with more questions, like "the dollar is falling." Ok, but if that's true, won't folks from other countries want to vacation in the States, and then won't that help the economy? How? If you have answers for me, leave them here, but also leave all your questions about housing news, APR's, rebates, the dollar, and all things American money.

*Although that's oft-repeated today, the slightly different original belongs to James Carville

Daniel Pearl, the journalist who was murdered in 2002.

Source: Getty Images

Almost six years to the day after Daniel Pearl was killed, brutally, by terrorists in Pakistan I was a bit surprised to see his father writing in the Wall Street Journal this morning (the same paper his son reported for). More than a memorial for the son he calls, "Danny," Judea Pearl explains just how much really changed that day, and not just for the Pearls:

This new twist of killing journalists for what they represent has changed the course of journalism as well as the rest of society.... His murder proved that 9/11 was not an isolated event, and helped resurrect the age-old ideas of right and wrong, good and evil. Moral relativism died with Daniel Pearl in January 2002.

And Mr. Pearl honors his son with what he calls the "Daniel Pearl Standard of Responsible Journalism:"

To distinguish true from false journalism, just choose any newspaper or TV channel and ask yourself when was the last time it ran a picture of a child, a grandmother or any empathy-evoking scene from the "other side" of a conflict.

Read his full column in today's Wall Street Journal. We'll talk with Judea Pearl today about the standard he's proposing, about the role of journalists today, and about the memory of his son, Daniel.

Hello, BotNers! Sarah here, back to bring you what's coming up in Gwen's absence... she's working hard putting together our special show at Morgan State University tomorrow -- definitely tune in for that! In the meantime, we've got a great lineup today:

In our first hour, we're super-sizing Junkie. The political news is just too much to fit in a regular segment, so we're maximizing our time to talk about it all: At this time, Edwards and Giuliani are both expected to bow out; McCain won big in Florida; Clinton wants delegates for her Florida win... and that's just the last 24 hours! It's an exciting time in politics and we want to have enough air time to take as many of your questions as possible.

In our second hour, another buzzy topic: the economy. It's a similar grab-bag of hot issues: if the Fed drops rates for the second time this month, what the heck does that mean for Joe and Jane American? What does it mean for those of us with balances on our credit cards, or mortgages? How does it affect the American economy overall, at home and abroad? And what about the rebates Congress is working on? We'll try to cover it all. Following that, we'll switch gears and talk to Judea Pearl, father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl. Judea feels that journalists must take responsibility for the effects of their reporting, and cover "both sides." He'll tell us about what he calls, the "Daniel Pearl standard of responsible journalism."

A DC bucket drummer in Dupont Circle.

Source: ceciliaflyer

It's been mild the last couple days here in DC. Unexpected thaws like this always make my step lighter, and as I alight the escalator to the street here in Chinatown, my ears strain for one of my favorite sounds: bucket drumming. I'll probably have to wait till spring's truly here to hear the drummers again, and then I'll know the warm weather's here to stay. In this part of DC, buskers ring the perimeter of our sports arena, pounding empty five-gallon buckets with drumsticks, creating entire kits out of scavenged grocery carts, traffic cones, hubcaps, and whatever else they can find. I'm sure some people consider their art noise, but while the sounds are neither melodious nor pretty, there's something about that pounding rhythm filling the air (and DC's pretty quiet, so the sound carries for blocks) that lifts my spirits. Paste magazine's got a short feature on bucket drumming this month (sorry, no link), and I have to say, I was suprised to see the article start -- and finish -- in Toronto (with short detours to NYC and Chicago). Toronto? I'm no bucket drumming expert, but to ignore DC completely just doesn't sit right with me. While I couldn't claim DC founded bucket drumming (that credit goes to Larry Wright in NYC), the go-go music scene incorporated bucket drumming when the Junk Yard Band formed. As kids, they couldn't afford a traditional set, so they used the buckets, cones, and cans we see the street performers using. Maybe you've heard their hit, "Sardines," but even if you haven't, around here, that go-go rhythm is the one you hear on the streets too. They're so inextricable I can't imagine the kinds of drumming Paste details -- Wright cites Tito Puente and Max Roach as influences, and Toronto's Gus Weinkauf has a punk rock background. They're undeniably talented, but for me, without that go-go beat bucket drumming just doesn't do it for me. So here's to all the DC street drummers, without whom warm weather just isn't the same.

Afghan children play on the ice after a day of work.

Source: AFP/Getty Images

The tone of news stories coming out of Afghanistan changed in the last year or so. 2007 was the country's most violent year since 2001, when the U.S. overthrew the Taliban. Over the weekend an American woman was kidnapped in Kandahar. And we hear more reports of infighting among the NATO allies who are ultimately responsible for securing Afghanistan. J. Malcolm Garcia reported from Afghanistan in 2002, and detailed what he saw in the Virginia Quarterly Review. Recently, he returned, and went looking for six war orphans he met on his first trip:

I left Kabul in October 2004, when Hamid Karzai became Afghanistan's first democratically elected president, when what most of us hoped would be a successful democratic regime was launched in the wake of the Taliban's defeat. As a journalist, I had turned my attention to Iraq, the next immediate disaster and career-making opportunity. Afghanistan, I reasoned, could do without me. There would be much less violence, much less poverty, and my boys, I thought, could do without me, too. Judging by the state of things today, I was wrong. This spring I watched an evening report on CNN about the inroads the Taliban had made around Kabul, and I decided to come back, to see if my optimism had been misplaced. Mostly, I felt guilty. I needed to find those boys.

We'll talk with Garcia about what he found, and his reaction to Afghanistan now, four years after he left... and talk about why several NATO countries are questioning their troop deployments in Afghanistan.

Campaign songs may not do much in the way of swaying my vote, but they can imbue campaigns with a little flava flava.* Like those catchy classic rock songs they play over car commercials, a good campaign song will make people pay attention. Often times candidates pick their songs based on the message they're hoping to convey. The interesting times are when they neglect to read the lyrics and take the full meaning of the song into account.** What's your favorite campaign song you've heard this year, or in years past? Of if you're not a fan of any of them, what are your suggestions for the candidates' campaigns?

* Except if your campaign song is "You and I" by Celine Dion.
** Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Takin' Care of Business" is not about takin' care of business: "We love to work at nothing all day." Whoops.

Do you ever get the feeling you don't quite fit in at work? We spent so much time talking about Dov Charney and his defense for wearing underwear -- only -- around the office the other day that we realized we hit on something. Although some things -- true sexual harassment -- are clearly beyond the pale, there are some more grey areas of workplace culture. I started to think about whether there's anything about me that I don't divulge here at NPR, or that makes me feel uncomfortable. And you know what? The answer's yes. For instance, NPR works very hard to be unbiased and respectful in its reporting, and that's reflected in the culture. I personally wonder about the name of my favorite NFL team -- I think it's potentially offensive, and could be changed to something more innocuous -- and because of my own hesitations, I worry that the folks I work with might be offended, so I rarely wear my Redskins hoodie to work. That's probably excessive caution, but the fact is, it affects me even though no one has ever even looked askance at me when I have worn it. What about you? What are the more subtle ways workplace culture has influenced you? Have you ever quit -- or lost -- a job because you didn't fit in?

Got TV envy?

Source: Matt Stratton

I just got a new television -- a post-holiday, pre-March-Madness, I- worked- Christmas- and- New-Years- and- feel- sorry- for- myself, present. It's the biggest TV I've ever owned -- thirty-two inches of LCD deliciousness. It meets with my interior designer's approval, it's great for my favorite old movies (black and white looks awesome), and sports look amazing in HD. I can honestly say, it's the first time in my life I would not be embarrassed to have friends over to watch the big game (though I haven't got a lot of cash left over for the nachos). Which brings me to my next point: 'tis the season for wanting a better, sharper, cooler TV, as the Patriots (insert cheer/and or curse here) and the Giants (ditto) march to Superbowl LVII. It's also Rob Manker's point -- we've got him on today, talking about TV envy. Have you got it? Are you a plasma/LCD/widescreen coveter?

In our first hour today, reporter and author J. Malcolm Garcia will talk about his experiences reporting in Afghanistan. Four years ago, while reporting there, Garcia befriended some young orphans. He left Afghanistan to report on the war in Iraq, and recently returned to the region to find the young friends he left behind. In a piece written for The Virginia Quarterly Review entitled, "All the Country Will Be Shaking," Garcia talks about his search, and describes his anger in discovering that many Afghans aren't receiving aid. After that discussion, songwriter, guitarist and NPR music blogger Carrie Brownstein talks about the campaign music underscoring each of the presidential candidates. At the end of the hour, we'll read from your emails and blog comments.

In our second hour, we will talk about fitting into the culture of your place of employment. Not all work environments are created equal. Is your workplace a perfect fit for you... or are you having a hard time fitting in and conforming to its policies and procedures? Call in and share you story. Then we've gotta talk about the upcoming Super Bowl. I, like millions of people across the nation, am scrambling to figure out which friend or sports bar boasts the largest, widest, highest def TV screen. Finding the perfect seat in front of the perfect television is almost as stressful as watching the actual game. Rob Manker feels my pain... and has a name for it. "Zenith Envy." Is your TV big enough for the Super Bowl? We'll ask him.

In 2000, one of the presidential debates took place at Wake Forest University, in Winston-Salem, N.C., some 80 miles west of Chapel Hill, N.C., where I grew up. Although we didn't have tickets to the event itself, two friends and I scored invitations to Al Gore's post-debate party at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum Theater. If I remember correctly, we used our press credentials, as reporters and editors for the East Chapel Hill Observer, our [venerable] high-school newspaper. (I think we laminated them ourselves).

Although my memory of the debate, which we watched on a giant screen, is hazy, I do recall -- with real fondness -- the Saturday Night Live parody that followed:

I digress. When the debate ended, we waited an eternity for Al Gore to appear. "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet," Gore's campaign theme song, played over and over again. The crowd grew restless -- and tired of Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Indeed, we hadn't seen nothin' -- or anyone. And c'mon, the band is Canadian!

As my colleague, Sarah Handel, pointed out, repetition is the hallmark of the campaign mix tape. On the show today, Carrie Brownstein, of Sleater-Kinney and NPR Music, will talk to us about campaign theme songs. (She mused on them here). Do you have a favorite? Or a suggestion? No BTO! We'll pull the best ones, to play on the show.

The closer this race for president gets, the more the details matter. Unfortunately, the more I read about those details the more confused I get. There are delegates and superdelegates and somehow Hillary Clinton won more support in Nevada, but in the end Barack Obama might actually win more delegates. But we don't know yet. Rudy Giuliani skipped most of the early states, and put almost everything on Florida's primary tomorrow... Again, due to their delegates. But, the Democrats aren't campaigning (not officially, anyway) in the Sunshine State, because they were stripped of their delegates... But now there's a push to give them back, along with Michigan's Democratic delegates.

Huh?

Exactly.

We've got questions, you've got questions... We've also got a good Rolodex. We'll talk with campaign strategists (Republican and Democratic) about how to make sense of all of this. Send us your questions here.

A lady doesn't tell her age, but I'll admit to being close to thirty (I won't tell which side I'm on -- that's why I moisturize). When my parents were my age, they had two children. TWO CHILDREN. Now, my dad was not only in his mid-twenties with kids, but he had hit a lot of other adult milestones as well -- mortgage, wife, graduate degrees, etc. Nowadays, you're much more likely to see a guy playing X-box, than buying one for his kids. (We've done a lot of sides of this issue -- see our Rejuvenile show.) This is, needless to say, frustrating for my single girlfriends -- many of whom would like to find a mate to hit those milestones with -- and according to Kay Hymowitz, it's not great for the man-child(s), either. We'll hear why from her -- but in the meantime, are you a man who can't grow up? Or a woman stuck buying a man-child drinks?

Steven Pinker.

Source: Henry Leutwyler

In "The Moral Instinct," Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, describes a new sixth sense. "The moral sense," he calls it. It's the way we, as human beings, determine what issues are moral or amoral. Take smoking, for instance. Years ago, it was widely considered to be a health issue. Many non-smokers didn't smoke because they worried about how cigarettes could affect their lungs and heart. When scientists determined that second-hand smoke was unhealthy too, smoking became a moral issue.

By Pinker's estimation, there is a new science of morality. Scientists study how we decide what we think is moral, and why and how our interpretation of morality changes. In our second hour, Pinker will join us to talk about our moral instinct. How have you decided what is right and wrong? Has your sense of what is right and wrong changed?

Gordon Hinckley in Salt Lake City in 2005.

Source: George Frey/Getty Images

When the newswire announcing the death of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints president and prophet Gordon B. Hinckley buzzed into my blackberry, I mentioned it to my boyfriend, who grew up in the Mormon church, and wondered who the new head would be. His immediate response? "Thomas Monson." He's right. According to tradition, the former leader's second-in-command assumes the church presidency, but only after the leadership gathers to pray on it. NPR's Howard Berkes will help us remember Hinckley, a man who changed the church dramatically during his tenure, and look ahead to Monson.

Ted Kennedy endorses Barack Obama.

Source: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Usually when I watch political happenings I'm here at work, or in my living room. As it happened, I was stuck at O'Hare airport in Chicago on Saturday night as the results came in from the Democratic primary in South Carolina, and it was a fascinating thing to watch. Not the results themselves so much, but how the crowd responded to the candidates' speeches.
You had the usual low-level murmur of any crowd of about 50 people at an airport gate... white people, black people, hispanic people, asian people, young, old, etc. CNN Airport droned in the background. Until Barack Obama took the stage. People stopped talking, they put down their books and newspapers, and just listened. Some shouted encouragement. And 17 minutes later, when Obama finished talking, a handful broke into applause. Complete strangers at an airport, waiting on a delayed flight, clapping after a political speech. I haven't seen anything like it outside of political events. (I confess for a moment I suspected maybe this was just an extraordinarily civic-minded group of people. But, when John Edwards took the stage several minutes after Obama, most people went right on talking, or reading.)
I won't read more into this than it warrants, but as an outside observer it's clear that for at least one night at one gate in Chicago, Barack Obama owned the room.
Today in Washington, Ted and Caroline Kennedy both came out and endorsed Obama. Have any of the events in the last few days changed your mind, or helped you make a decision about any of the candidates?

In our first hour today, we will talk about how the delegation system works in presidential campaigns. When you try to find answers to how exactly the system works, most are met with blank stares. So today we'll ask two people to explain the whole process and why the delegate count is so vital in campaigns. At the end of that hour, author Kay Hymowitz takes the Peter Pan syndrome a step further and looks at the dude who has happily plopped down in the center of the abyss that lies between adolescence and adulthood. She explains why he's not good for society in her op-ed entitled "The Child Man" that appears in The Dallas Morning News.

In our second hour, we will explore the science of morality... according to author Steven Pinker. In his new book The Moral Instinct, Pinker examines how moral dilemmas play into human behavior. How do YOU decide what is a moral issue...and what is not? Following that discussion, NPR's Howard Berkes will talk about the life and legacy of Gordon B. Hinckley, the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who died yesterday. We'll finish up with some tape from Sen. Edward Kennedy's endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama for president.

Embarrassing confession # 278: sometimes when I think no one is paying attention, I talk to myself -- about everything from the day's goings-on to more general meaning-of-life musings. I've even been known, on occasion, to practice a conversation I'm hoping to have with someone (my boss, a friend, etc.) before I actually have the conversation. But perhaps even more embarrassing, every now and then I read passages from my favorite books and plays aloud to myself in my apartment. Whether it's Fitzgerald's opening to Gatsby, or Wilde's paradoxes in Earnest, there's just something magical about hearing the words and clever turns of phrase spoken aloud. It's really no different than bringing Shakespeare alive in the theatre, except in these scenarios, I'm the actor and the audience. Thankfully, I'm not alone in this odd habit: a recent article in The Christian Science Monitor has couples reading out loud to each other, and loving it. So I'm curious, what are your favorite books and passages to read aloud to yourself or others? Come on, don't be shy...

FBI photo of fugitive Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean.

Source: FBI photo

If you haven't turned on your television lately, Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean, who is wanted by the FBI, has likely fled to Mexico. A grand jury in North Carolina brought five indictments against him this morning. Laurean is a suspect in the murder of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, a pregnant Marine who was killed, burned, and buried last month.

According to Fox News, the "hunt" for Laurean is on. Law enforcement officers -- and America's Most Wanted -- are trying to find the Marine. So far, there have been sightings.

We wondered, "How are they going to find this guy? How long can a fugitive live on the lam? And what techniques do investigators use to find criminals on the run? In the first hour, we'll try to answer all those questions. And whatever ones you have. Guests include law enforcement agents, professional trackers, and a forensic artist.

George Packer, playwright.

Source: Getty Images for Meet the Press

It is eminently possible to become so engrossed in an article that you murmur to yourself "this should be a play!" It is even more possible when that article is written by George Packer -- he of the perfect prose, and riveting research. When I read this article about Iraqis working with the U.S. in Baghdad (by Packer) in the New Yorker, I had that reaction, and voila! He did. We're talking to him about the play today -- and the translation from print to proscenium.

Staffan de Mistura, UN Special Representative to Iraq

Source: Getty Images

On yesterday's program, a writer, a reporter, and a Senator gave us a progress report on Iraq. Today, in the second hour, we'll check in with Staffan de Mistura, who heads the United Nations Assistance Mission there, and is the UN Secretary General's Special Representative for Iraq. On Monday, de Mistura briefed the UN Security Council on what progress he has observed.

In 2003, Sergio Vieira de Mello, a United Nations envoy to Iraq, and 21 of his colleagues died when a suicide bomber killed himself outside of the UN mission in Baghdad. After that explosion, the UN reduced its presence in Iraq by one third. With de Mistura's appointment, the international organization signaled its eagerness -- once again -- to help with the reconstruction effort there. What questions do you have for him?

I see a vision in yellow.

Source: AFP/Getty Images

Sen. Hillary Clinton is an incredibly polarizing figure... when I was helping cover the campaigns on the road earlier this month, I heard basically the same thing from two cabbies, one in Des Moines and one in Manchester: "I'm ready for a woman president, just not that woman." When I asked why, they responded mostly with gut reactions instead of facts from her platform -- much more "I just don't like her" than "I don't like her stance on X." That said, I also covered her caucus/election night events in both cities, and though I was working, I overheard, of course, nothing but praise for her for her strength and her passion. When she won in New Hampshire, some members of the crowd were literally shedding tears of joy and jumping up and down as she approached the podium. While I won't get into how I feel about her as a candidate, I will admit I too am guilty of judging her on qualities other than her ability to lead and her platform: when I saw her (on TV) at the debate in South Carolina in this outfit (love that orange collar) and then in the yellow blazer yesterday, I thought to myself, "Wow, she's really been making some exciting apparel choices lately..." It seems like everyone's got a slightly different take on the candidate, what's yours? Especially women: Do you find yourself thinking more about Hillary than the other candidates? How do you see Hillary Clinton?

How do you track down a fugitive? U.S. Marine Corporal Cesar Laurean, the primary suspect in the murder of twenty-year-old pregnant Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach, is missing and believed to be on the run in Mexico. In our first hour, we'll talk to a former FBI profiler, a forensic sketch artist, and a wilderness tracker about what is involved in a massive manhunt for finding a fugitive on the run. Then we'll talk to New Yorker magazine writer George Packer about the upcoming premiere of his debut play Betrayed. The production is adapted from his piece written last year for the New Yorker entitled, Betrayed: The Iraqis who Trusted America The Most. George Packer is our guest at the end of the first hour.

We'll begin our second hour with Steffan de Mistura, the U.N. Special Representative to Iraq, who will outline the military and political progress in Iraq. Then we will switch gears and talk to the editor and two contributing writers of a new book entitled, Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary, a collection of essays written by female writers and journalists who reflect on Hillary Clinton and her presidential candidacy.

The Gaza breach.

Source: Khaled Desouki/Getty Images

Poetry may seem pretty useless -- it barely even passes the time on the Metro, and who can stand scansion in a moving vehicle? I often get the feeling that I'm doing a puzzle that I can't possibly solve when I'm reading it -- particularly when I'm mired in a language poet (that sounds dirty, but you know what I mean). Today, however, when I saw the pictures of the border breach in Gaza, I was reminded of one of my favorite Robert Frost poems. I'm not taking a position here -- the situation between Israel/Palestine/Egypt/The World is so deeply complex that we often can't get anywhere with an hour show and three experts -- but the experience of walls, fences, borders, is a uniquely human one, and always prompts strong emotion in me whether the wall belonged to Hadrian or East Berlin. And it makes a pretty strong argument for the reading of poetry -- if you don't believe me, here's Robert Frost's Mending Wall in its entirety. Enjoy.

     Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
     That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
     And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
     And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
     The work of hunters is another thing:
     I have come after them and made repair
     Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
     But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
     To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
     No one has seen them made or heard them made,
     But at spring mending-time we find them there.
     I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
     And on a day we meet to walk the line
     And set the wall between us once again.
     We keep the wall between us as we go.
     To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
     And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
     We have to use a spell to make them balance:
     "Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
     We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
     Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
     One on a side. It comes to little more:
     There where it is we do not need the wall:
     He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
     My apple trees will never get across
     And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
     He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
     Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
     If I could put a notion in his head:
     "Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
     Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
     Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
     What I was walling in or walling out,
     And to whom I was like to give offense.
     Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
     That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
     But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
     He said it for himself. I see him there,
     Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
     In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
     He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
     Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
     He will not go behind his father's saying,
     And he likes having thought of it so well
     He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Fred Thompson, before he decided to quit the campaign.

Source: bmcvey

On Saturday night I was at election HQ here at NPR, ready for the concessions, and thank yous, the exit polls, and final counts... But, very little actually happened. Most of the speeches we did hear came after our deadline*, when the final (and very close) tally came in from South Carolina. I suspect that will be a common theme in the states still to caucus or vote... Races on both sides too close to call until late in the night. The exit polls told one clear story, though: That the economy is the most important thing for many voters right now. And given the mess on Wall Street yesterday, that's likely to continue. Is the economy the most important issue for you in this election? Is it driving you to a different candidate than you expected?

*NPR's Super Tuesday special will be live till 3am Eastern, though, so tune in for all the excitement!

Behind the scenes of Oscar.

Source: grebo guru

There was no red carpet, no flashy dresses yesterday morning, but the Oscar nominees were announced in California. Of course Johnny Depp is in there, Cate Blanchett, Sweeney Todd, and No Country for Old Men. What caught some people's eye, though, is who was left out. No Sean Penn, or Keira Knightley, no Tim Burton, or Enchanted, and the list goes on. We'll have to wait till next month to find out who wins Oscar in the end, but today we'll talk with Matt Singer, from the Independent Film Channel. And we want to know: What or who do you think got snubbed by Oscar this year?

Earlier this week, I mentioned an article about Ramadi, published in The Virginia Quarterly Review. I also should have drawn your attention to "Trophy Town," a complementary piece. Its author, David J. Morris, a former Marine, reflects on how much the city has changed.

In the second hour, we'll talk to Morris about his reporting trips to Ramadi, and to Stephen Farrell, a correspondent for The New York Times, based in Iraq. In recent months, he has traveled to Kirkuk and Diyala Province. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) will join us, too. He just got back from his eleventh trip to Iraq.

We're trying to get more insight into how Iraq has changed, and we're turning our attention away from Baghdad. If you have questions for our three guests, leave them here. If you've been to Ramadi, Kirkuk, or Diyala, tell us what they're like -- and how they've changed.

Hearing the right song at the right time can mean the world to me. Usually, the bits of lyrics I've held close in times of need are of the romantic variety -- the Postal Service's "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" hardly needs clarification (Sarah... long distance relationships are not for you), and I remember a much more recent incident when Beyonce assured me I was "Irreplaceable," and I could have another him "in a minute..." Turns out I had nothing to fear, but her words shored up my reserves. One of the best things about songs is how little it matters, at the time, what the songwriter meant by the words -- what matters is how you hear them, and how you use them. A friend of mine from college heard "there's a bathroom on the right" when John Fogerty sang "there's a pale bad moon on the rise," and you can see just how instructive that is! Have you ever gotten sound advice from a song lyric? Did you have the lyric right... and did it matter? And have you ever found out that what the artist intended was different from how you heard it? Did you care?

Hi all. I'm back... a year older and trying desperately not to let it show. Thank you, Sarah, for being a much taller (and younger) me and for holding down the "Coming Up" fort! And speaking of coming up, here's what's coming up on the show today:

So much is going on politically, it's a good thing the Political Junkie is mega-sized. Fred Thompson drops out, the race between Clinton and Obama heats up, and the Republicans are heading to Florida. NPR's Ken Rudin talks about South Carolina with Andy Gobeil, the host of South Carolina's weekly news and public affairs program, The Big Picture. Then we travel further south and talk politics with Lance deHaven-Smith, professor of public administration and policy at Florida State University. Following that, we'll talk with Matt Singer, the host of Independent Film Channel News, about the movies that didn't get an Oscar nod this year but you think should have. And we'll look back on the career of Australian actor Heath Ledger (see today's post entitled, A Sad Day for Tinseltown).

In our second hour, we'll talk with three people how have gone to Iraq to find out if the lives of the Iraqis have improved. They will discuss what they saw and whether or not security has improved a year after President Bush ordered additional troops into the region. And does this sound familiar:

Don't push me, cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head
It's like a jungle, sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under.

That's the chorus from Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five's hip-hop classic The Message. I remember the first time I heard and entirely memorized that song. Once I had choreographed my dance moves to match the song's back beat, I realized the lyrics were giving me a view of a grittier side of life. Author Felicia Pride talks about how hip-hop music has educated and informed the way she views money, loss of innocence, newfound independence and heartbreak (just to name a few) in her new book, The Message: 100 Life Lessons from Hip-Hop's Greatest Songs.

Heath Ledger at the Venice Film Festival in 2007.

Source: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

When I heard the news of Heath Ledger's death yesterday I was shocked. It was the got-sucker-punched-in-the- gut-and-can't-breathe variety of shock -- the same kind I'm sure people felt when they first found out about James Dean and River Phoenix. The disbelief was quickly followed by a deep sadness: my thoughts immediately went to his two-year-old daughter, Matilda, who will never get to know her dad. And then I thought about all the great performances he still had left in him. After all, he was only 28. I feel like we were just beginning to see what he was capable of, with his Oscar-nominated performance in Brokeback Mountain and his dark, disturbing portrayal of the Joker in the upcoming The Dark Knight. Some people might think it's ridiculous to mourn the death of a celebrity. But there are some actors you just feel like you know -- or, rather, you feel like if you did know them, you'd be really good friends. Heath was one of those actors. His performances were multifaceted, and he brought a refreshing honesty and depth to the screen that is normally the purview of more veteran thespians. You can read more about Hollywood's reaction to Heath's death here, and about the cause of death here.

In the Sex and the City episode "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda," Carrie Bradshaw tackled one of the subjects most familiar and least handled in popular culture -- Abortion. In it, Carrie admits that she got an abortion herself after a drunk one night stand over a decade ago. This, for the show that regularly did competely unprintable things with say, wheatgrass, doesn't seem to be taboo, right? Except, abortion is one of those things that women rarely talk about after they've had them -- whatever the reason. It doesn't matter if you're pro-choice or pro-life or in-between -- many women don't talk about past abortions -- even with their dearest friends or family. So today, we're going to do it -- and we're asking you to tell your stories -- whatever they are. If you had an abortion, tell us about it, and how you felt at the time. And why, if this is your experience, you do or do not talk about it now.

Nervous about a bull on Wall Street?

Source: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

I'm not sure whether to stash my cash (or what's left of it) in a mattress today, or start buying up pummeled stocks.... The markets in Asia all but crashed overnight, and the doom and gloom hit Wall Street first thing this morning. Then, the Dow went right back up. Rinse. Repeat. Just don't use that other R-word. To try to avoid/shorten/pick-your-own-verb a recession the Fed dropped interest rates by 3/4 of a point this morning, and congress is all atwitter with talk of tax rebates. Buy? Sell? Refinance? Show of hands now: Who's totally confused? Stephanie AuWerter, with SmartMoney, helped us out last week with some tips on recession-proofing your finances. Given the drama in the Dow today, we've called her back to help answer some more questions about the market swings, and what it all means for you. Send us your questions, and we'll try to get you some answers.

The aftermath of a suicide bomber in Iraq.

Source: AFP/Getty Images

Most people have some preconceived notion of a suicide bomber... As a religious extremist, or a young man, or maybe a very poor person. While we may never know why someone would decide to blow himself up in a suicide attack, we are starting to see more details about who becomes a suicide bomber. Karen DeYoung wrote about some of the new facts released on insurgents in Iraq for The Washington Post. We'll talk with her about those profiles. And with Professor Robert Pape, who literally wrote the book (or at least a book) on suicide bombers. We'll also look specifically at attacks by women. At least four women have blown themselves up in Iraq since November. Mia Bloom studies female bombers and will explain what at the very least appears to be a growing number of attacks by women.

In libraries and wood-paneled offices, and in think tanks blocks away from NPR, economists are trying to figure out whether or not we're in a recession. Let's hope that, while we panic, they're coolly parsing data, trying to get us out of this mess. Some people have suggested that a tax rebate may help the economy rebound. Bruce Bartlett, who was was deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, disagrees.

In a new opinion piece, published in The Wall Street Journal, Bartlett argues that tax rebates won't solve anything. "There is virtually no empirical evidence that tax rebates are an effective response to economic slowdowns," he writes. Bartlett cites big names: Keynes, Friedman, Modigliani, Steindel, and Blinder. We'll talk to him in the second hour. Do you agree with Bartlett? What would you like to see in a federal economic stimulus package?

PJs and snow -- did the ritual work?

Source: Bekah Stargazing

It's not the catchiest name, but it's crystal clear: the Pajamas-Inside-Out, Spoon-Under-the-Pillow-Snow-Day Ritual. According to high school English teacher Mark Dursin, his students fervently believe that by wearing their PJs inside out and placing spoons under their pillows on nights with a chance of snow, they can magically conjure a snow day. Around here, we don't get snow days -- the news doesn't stop, so we don't either -- but I really could've used this tip back in my day! I'd heard of the pajamas inside out part, but the spoon's new to me (and could explain the utter ineffectiveness of the PJ part in my experience). Do you have any snow-day-conjuring rituals?

A couple of jam-packed hours today... first, simply, "I Had an Abortion." It's been 35 years since Roe v. Wade, and we thought that rather than focusing on the political debate, we'd get personal stories from women who have gone through with the decision to have an abortion. It's often incredibly difficult for women to talk about that experience, we'll try to have an honest conversation. If you had an abortion, and you're ready to talk about it, please think about how to tell your story and then call in at 2pm, ET. We want to know about who you talked to prior to making your decision, and how -- and if -- you talk about it now. Next, we've invited Stephanie AuWerter back for some more economy talk... the stock market took another dive this morning, and the Fed cut interest rates again. What does it all mean for you?

In our second hour, suicide bombers. As their attacks mount in Iraq and elsewhere, we learn more about the bombers themselves and the Al-Qaida organization as a whole. We'll take a closer look. Following that, more on the economy -- specifically, tax rebates. Bruce Bartlett, a former economic advisor to the first President Bush, thinks it's a nice gesture that won't do anything to keep the country out of a recession. Finally, high school English teacher Mark Dursin lets us in on one of his students' superstitions that's actually remarkably widespread: the Pajamas-Inside-Out, Spoon-Under-the-Pillow-Snow-Day Ritual.

A relatively tame ad on the American Apparel factory.

Source: David McNew/Getty Images

I don't generally drive to work, but when I do, Marketplace makes my commute home much more tolerable, and not a drive goes by without some story sticking in my brain's gears. Yesterday was no exception -- they did a piece on the store so many love-to-hate, American Apparel. CEO Dov Charney's back in the news for sexual harassment. He's been accused four times, but this is the first time the charge has made it to court. A little background: the company has created repeated stirs with its provocative ad campaigns. And in the Marketplace story, reporter Ashley Milne-Tyte talked to retail consultant Patti Pao about the harassment lawsuit... and it's her comment that I've been mulling ever since. She said:

When you go work at a company you have to fit with their culture. The culture doesn't fit with you. I'm not excusing it by any stretch of the imagination, because I think it's actually kind of hideous, but that is part of the culture of the company.

I go back and forth on this, and it created quite a stir in our morning meeting. On the one hand, she's absolutely right -- as Neal so eloquently framed it, you ought not go work at the dirty joke factory if you're easily offended, and American Apparel's porny ads are no secret. On the other hand, there's a tinge of blaming-the-victim there, too, that doesn't quite sit with me. And then again, personal responsibility... and around and around I go. Of course, there's a question of degree here -- what form did the harassment take, and under what conditions. But there's a bigger question that's worth considering, thanks to Ms. Pao -- to what extent are you responsible for choosing a workplace with whose culture you mesh, and, once chosen, where's the line between taking responsibility for the choice you made and unacceptable trespass? Or do you see it in black and white? What do you think?

When Sen. Hillary Clinton attributed some of Martin Luther King's enduring success to the work of then-President Lyndon Johnson, critics accused her of discounting King's works. It made us wonder, though: What effect did the inspired leader have on presidents Johnson, Eisenhower, and Kennedy? We'll talk to some presidential advisors and a historian about it... What questions do you have for them?

For the first time in 35 years, the Los Angeles Times will endorse candidates in the presidential primary, and, later, a candidate for president. The newspaper stopped endorsing candidates after the Watergate scandal with Nixon, whom they had endorsed repeatedly. Fast forward to today: they're bringing it back. Author and former Times staff writer Dennis McDougal joins us today to explain why. At a time when newspaper readership is down and they're struggling to hold their own against other media outlets, one can't help but wonder, how much of an impact will a newspaper's endorsement have on voters' decisions? So tell us, how do newspapers affect your opinion of the candidates?

At our morning meeting, we tried to pin down the definition of "hostage." In the end, we deferred to Neal, who is more of an authority than we. In 1991, he and a few other journalists, including Chris Hedges, then of The New York Times, were taken hostage by the Iraqi National Guard. A hostage, he emphasized, is different than a captive.

After we dispersed, I consulted the dictionary. Here it is -- hostage -- as it appears in Merriam-Webster: "a person held by one party in a conflict as a pledge pending the fulfillment of an agreement;" or "a person taken by force to secure the taker's demands." Absent from that definition is any sense of the intense emotion associated with the term. In the second hour today, we'll talk to two men who were held hostage, and we'd like to hear from you. If you've ever been a hostage, where was it? What was it like?

Yep, that's right folks. "Sexy" and "ferret" in the same sentence. Romance novelists look all sorts of places for inspiration and content; and, turns out, scandal isn't always confined to its steamy pages. In her book Shadow Bear, best-selling romance writer Cassie Edwards allegedly plagiarized the work of nature writer Paul Tolme. He wrote about the endangered black-footed ferret. She writes about quivering membranes and heaving bosoms. It was a union destined to happen, and happen it did: his ferrets were fodder for post-coital musings between the novel's hero and heroine, "hunky American Indian" Shadow Bear and "lusty pioneer woman" Shiona Bramlett. Today we talk to Paul about the fallout from the scandal; and, of course, how to help those struggling ferrets.

Happy MLK Day, everyone! I hope you're sitting by the radio, because in our first hour we've got a great way to remember the great man: a look at how he interacted with, and influenced, Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. With all the talk about King in this year's election, it may be instructive to look at how his ideas translated in real time. Following that, our weekly installment of the Talk of the Nation opinion page... details TBD.

In our second hour, a follow up to our show about the Columbian hostages -- this time, a broader look at the experience of being taken and living as a hostage. We've got two former hostages on the show: John Limbert, one of 52 hostages captured in the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979; and Vincent Cochetel, who was captured while working for the UNHCR and held for 11 months in Chechnya. We'll wrap with a lighter story about the surprising intersection of nature writing and a bodice-ripping romance novel... freelance writer Paul Tolme joins us to talk about how his ferrets showed up as post-coital chat between "hunky American Indian" Shadow Bear and "lusty pioneer woman" Shiona Bramlett in a trashy paperback.

I'm a sucker for first-person narratives, a la Mailer, Plimpton, and Thompson. Reporters, use the nominative singular pronoun! This weekend, two excellent autobiographical pieces, both of which are about Iraq, caught my attention.

In the first, "Ramadi Nights," which appears in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Neil Shea reflects on two reporting trips he took to Ramadi, once called "the most dangerous city on earth," forbidden territory for journalists. It is a riveting read.

For Iraqis, the battle for Ramadi turned on simple questions: Whom do I hate less, the Americans or the insurgents? Who is less likely to kill my family and me? Which is the lesser evil? The residents of Ramadi found their answer in the rhythm of bombings and raids, in the aftershock of executions, in light reflecting off pools of sewage in the streets. The calculation was complicated by honor and history and a shifting set of sensible considerations. But ultimately local leaders made their choice and gave the American government a kind of gossamer victory, something so sheer it seems the desert sun may yet melt it away.

Stark black-and-white photographs, taken by Andrea Bruce of The Washington Post, accompany the article.

In the second story, "Scenes From a Marriage in Baghdad," Damien Cave of The New York Times reflects on his tenure in Iraq, with his wife and colleague, Diana Oliva Cave. Imagine trying to negotiate a new marriage in a war zone! Now on break in New York, Damien Cave writes that "our emotions are still raw, and it may take years to know how the war has affected us."

As Damien Cave points out, he and his wife are not the first couple to report from Iraq. Anne Barnard and Thanassis Cambanis, who worked in The Boston Globe's Baghdad bureau, married in 2005. Do you know of any couples who worked together in Iraq? For the State Department? For a contractor? In the armed services? As reporters? Let us know.

When a parent gets too old to work or drive or live alone, his or her children have to think long and hard about Mom or Dad's future. There are bound to be tough questions. Does Mom need extra help? Does Dad have to move elsewhere? Have they given thought to a will? Or a living will? Have you had a conversation with your parents about their future? If so, how did it go? What worked well? What didn't? If you haven't had it, are you planning to? Are you worried about it? Amy Dickinson, who writes the "Ask Amy" column, and Joseph Coughlin, director of MIT's AgeLab, join us, to take your questions.

Campaigning for president must feel a lot like dating... You try to make a great first impression; go on a full charm offensive; spend a lot of time at dinners and parties; and, after a certain amount of time, try to get people to commit. So I suppose it's little wonder that some of the same online tools people use to find dates are now being used to match you with your dream candidate. But, do they really work? Eric Zorn, the Chicago Tribune columnist, tried out ten of them and says, no they don't. Here are some of the more well-known candidate matching sites... Try them out and let us know, how do they work?

Minnesota Public Radio Select A Candidate

Washington Post Choose Your Candidate Quiz

USA Today Candidate Match Game

Glassbooth Election Quiz

Latinos comprise one of the most hotly-contested voting blocs in the United States. In Nevada, which holds its caucuses on Saturday, more than 103,000 registered voters are Latino. In that state, the Democratic candidates -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards -- are virtually tied.

In the second hour, we'll turn our attention to the Latino vote. Paul Taylor, who directs the Pew Hispanic Center, will join us, to take us through the data. For whom did they vote in the last election? What do polls indicate about the electorate today? And we'll ask Luis Clemens, editor of candidatousa.com, how candidates are wooing Latino voters. If you're a Latino voter, what issues matter most to you?

And, for those of you who want to hear more Obama reggaeton, which we'll feature on the show, you can find it here, thanks to los amigos de Obama.

We're all familiar with the concept of the midlife crisis. It's a time when people try to recapture their youth and reintroduce a sense of fun into their daily diet. And no matter what age it hits you -- 40, 50, 60 -- it's accompanied by the feeling that "Life's short, so I might as well make the most of it!" For some people, the Midlife-C, as I've taken to calling it, manifests itself in a new haircut and wardrobe. For others, it's a different job or a renewed lust for travel and adventure. And yet still for others, it's all about The Car -- fast, sexy and full of snazzy toys. Today, Dan Neil, LA Times Auto Critic and 2004 Pulitzer Prize Winner, talks to us about the cars that make it easier for mid-lifers to face that proverbial crisis. He'll also give us the skinny on the latest in automobile innovation,* debuting this weekend at the Detroit Auto Show. So tell us, what's your midlife crisis car?

* The Mazda Taiki, the Audi R8 V12 TDI and the Corvette ZR1 = muy delicioso!

Quickie but goodie today, folks... In our first hour, Ask Amy's Amy Dickinson returns to chat with us about one of the most difficult conversations parents and kids have. No, I'm not talking about sex... I'm talking about elder care. When and how do you talk to your parents about being too old to drive, or a move to an assisted living situation? It's not easy, and Amy's got advice, plus some company -- Joseph Coughlin, director and founder of the MIT AgeLab. Next we'll talk about those online quizzes that tell you which candidate's views most match your own... it's not always the person you think you want to vote for. You can try the Minnesota Public Radio quiz now, and call during the segment to let us know how it turned out for you!

In our second hour, we're talking about the Latino vote. Much has been made of how women will vote, and how black people will vote because of the Clinton and Obama candidacies. Their allegiances aren't straightforward, and Latinos are no more predictable. We'll talk about the Latino electorate with Paul Taylor, acting director of Pew Hispanic Center, and Luis Clemens, editor of CandidatoUSA -- an online newsletter about Latino politics. Finally, we want to hear about your midlife crisis car: did you buy one? What did you get? Or what did you just dream about? It's Detroit Auto Show time, so Los Angeles Times automobile critic Dan Neil will tell us what's ahead and help us reflect.

Happy Thursday, all!

We know, we know, you're just suckers for that trivia question, and we didn't want to leave you without it... here it is.

Who won the Michigan Democratic primary in 1972, and what major event in the campaign occurred the day before that primary?

Post your answers here -- no cheating please, we all know how to use Google.

In this video, courtesy of Talking Points Memo, Mike Huckabee talks about his secret to winning South Carolina. "He knows how to speak the language," he can eat grits, and he remembers -- with apparent fondness -- how "[he and his friends] used to take a popcorn popper ... and fry squirrel." Did you hear that, John, Mitt, and Rudy? Were they doing that at the Naval Academy? At Brigham Young? (Certainly rodents, fried or roasted, weren't on the menu at Manhattan College).

Ah, the presidential race continues.... And as last night's contest shows, it is still up for grabs. In the first hour, our Political Junkie Ken Rudin will be here to take your questions. If you're from South Carolina, have you made up your mind yet? Are you wondering how Ken likes his squirrel? Later in the segment, Bill Richardson will join us, to talk about why he has dropped out. What would you like to ask him?

MRSA -- it's a highly drug-resistant staph infection that has challenged researchers for years. In the past, it was mainly a problem that spread among patients in hospitals. But now, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, a new variant of the strain that's even more resistant to antibiotics is spreading among gay and bisexual populations in San Francisco, Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. There's been a lot of talk about MRSA recently, and even more questions. Today NPR's Health Editor Joe Neel will break it down for us: prevalence, symptoms, prevention, treatment, you name it. Tell us your questions. And if you or someone you know has had it, how did you treat it? And what measures are you taking to prevent infection?

Drug Enforcement Agency Headquarters, ca 1973: The build-up to the War on Drugs.

Source: Getty Images

If you've ever lived in Baltimore -- heck, if you've ever watched The Wire -- you have a pretty good idea of what the so-called "War on Drugs" looks like. It looks, frankly, like a war on poor people. Every battle costs money, lives, futures -- it is a devastating cycle that feeds on despair. Of course, this is a war that's been going on in earnest for thirty-five years now. Ben Wallace Wells, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, has an update on how he thinks that war is going -- and his particular take makes Iraq look like a success. Don't worry, though, we're getting another take on this, too -- a doctor who's an expert on drug policy thinks that if the war did fail, it's not because of criminalization -- it's because of policy failures. Listen, it's practically impossible not to be drafted into this particular war -- if you're on the front lines in any way -- in the criminal justice system, enforcement, public health, or a drug user, what's your take on this long and costly war?

I knew that spies worked at the CIA, and in embassies, but I didn't realize former spooks worked at places like Wal-Mart. I picked up that bit of information from Doug Frantz's article in Portfolio magazine, Spy vs. Spy. Apparently former agents from the CIA, FBI, KGB, and a handful of other secretive three-letter organizations are taking their skills private, and cashing in. And companies are all too happy to have them... Not only to snoop on other companies, but in some cases to check up on their own employees. Corporate espionage is nothing new, but this is 21st century intrigue with a twist. Does your company use former spies? Do you care?

Hi everyone! I'm Gwen today, and will continue to be, on and off, 'til the end of January. Of course, no one can actually be Gwen, but I'm as close as you're gonna get for a while. So smile pretty and eat your broccoli.

First up, politics with Political Junkie Ken Rudin. There's plenty to talk about now that the actual election season is underway, including last night's results in Michigan and a look ahead to the Nevada caucus and South Carolina primaries. Plus we've got former democratic candidate for president Governor Bill Richardson on to talk about bowing out of the race and what's next for him. Following that, scary news on the drug-resistant bacteria front. MRSA's been making headlines for a while now, and there's a new strain of bacteria that's even more resistant to antibiotics, and primarily infecting gay and bisexual men. We're bringing you Joe Neel, our Health Editor, to answer all your questions about MRSA and this new bacteria.

In the second hour, an update on the so-called war on drugs. Here's a spoiler: according to Rolling Stone's Ben Wallace-Wells*, the bad guys are winning. Finally, we'll wrap the day with an expose of 21st century corporate espionage: Spy vs. Spy. Ex-CIA agents are being snapped up by high-profile companies to dig into their own dirty laundry, and spy on competitors. How far is too far?

*Reminds me of another Rolling Stone luminary, the similarly-monikered Ben Fong-Torres. I was wondering what he's up to, and if you are too, here's an update!

The Anne Frank house.

Source: Getty Images

Last night Francine Prose spoke at the DC JCC (that's Jewish Community Center to you), and being a huge Prose (and prose) groupie, I bundled up and stared adoringly at her for an hour and a half. Prose has been a much lauded guest on this program -- partly because, in addition to being an artist with the written word (she's aptly named), she's also a really good talker. She's charming and funny and smart and provocative and wears her intellectual pedigree lightly -- there are few people who can toss off phrases like "So I had a friend translate it from the Dutch for me," and still be incredibly likable. She's working right now on a cultural and literary history of The Diary of Anne Frank, which, if you're like most people, you read in high school, felt deeply, and then didn't read again. Prose gave me a lot to think about (I'm going to quote her rather liberally here): for one, we take it for granted that what may be the most important Holocaust document was written by a girl, and not just a girl, but a a thirteen year old girl. (I think, as Prose pointed out, that anyone who thinks it's not a Holocaust document should really give some thought as to why on earth she would have been in that attic with her family and four other people.) And second, not only was it written by a little girl -- it was written carefully, calculatingly, and with real precision -- it is a piece of art, and was meant to be one. Anne revised her writing again and again, shaped it, and changed it with the expectation that it would be something lasting. It was a work of intention -- a memoir in the form of a diary.

I saw the revival of the play some years ago, with Natalie Portman playing the lead. It struck me that the Anne of the play was a much less lighter character then the Anne of the diary. I still wept at the end, but I always thought it was a shame that Anne Frank had to be a symbol -- a stand-in for all little girls who were murdered during that time -- and that her innocence, rather then her deep and sometimes dark nature, had to become proof that the Holocaust was so terrible. It was nice to go home and read the diary again, remembering that it is the diary of a real person who was striving to be an artist. I highly recommend re-reading it -- historical document or not, it's also a great book, by a massively talented writer.

US economic news these days ain't good... housing and construction are down, unemployment's up, the dollar's weak, retail sales over the holidays stunk. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says he's not forecasting a recession, but his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, disagrees. Only time will tell who's right, but if the word "recession" gives you cold sweats, you may be wondering what you can do on a personal level to batten down the hatches and weather whatever comes our way. If you have a contingency plan, we want to hear it: socking away money in your mattress to forestall a layoff? Attending night school to transition into a less risky career, just in case? Even if you're just trying not to think about it, tell us why.

Extreme diet.

Source: Thrice 18/3

How many pounds did you gain on your last diet? Yo-yo-ers know what I'm talking about -- after you shed the initial 5, 10, or even 20 pounds, it's only a matter of time before you gain it all back, and then some. We often blame the diet for being too extreme, impractical, or not conducive to our daily lives over the long run. And that's probably the case 9 times out of 10. But maybe there's another culprit behind our dieting woes: the absence of a strong incentive. Well, today we'll talk to one economist (yes, economists diet too) who decided to put his money where his mouth is. In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal entitled, "Dieting for Dollars," Richard McKenzie agreed to pay his friend $500 if he didn't loose 9 lbs in 10 weeks. Too easy, or easier said than done? Listen in to find out. And we'll see if he was able to keep the weight off. In the meantime, tell us, what incentives do you use to lose weight?

This is an awful story: Four young girls - ages 5 to 17 - found dead in their D.C. home, and their mother is charged with the murders. As if that wasn't enough, the bodies had been in the home, decomposing, for at least 15 days and possibly as long as several months. It's impossible to say why a parent would do something like this, but investigators now want to know how it could happen, and how no one noticed. Neighbors feel guilty, the mayor fired a handful of child welfare workers, and a social worker at the school one of the girls used to attend says she tried twice to get the city to check up on the kids. Obviously, in the end it's up to parents to protect their children, but when that fails, who's responsible for keeping kids safe? What happens when you report child abuse? And, how do you investigate such a sensitive issue? We'll talk with a former investigator and a school nurse about how they try to keep kids safe.

Pakistan's troubled Swat valley.

Source: John Moore/Getty Images

In the short-hand of journalese, diplomats summarily told to return home are "png'ed" - declared "persona non grata" - in other words, kicked out. Journalists themselves are simply "bounced." Such was the fate of Nicholas Schmidle, a fellow at the Institute of Current World Affairs, whom the Pakistani government suddenly found undesirable after the appearance of his article, "Next-Gen Taliban," appeared in last week's edition of the New York Times Magazine. Formally, the complaint said that he'd violated the terms of his visa, which was issued to a scholar rather than a reporter. Given the timing, the turmoil following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and the fact that his article documented the loss of government control in the areas bordering Afghanistan, the contention seems laughable.

Not so very many years ago, American correspondents assigned to South Asia or Pakistan made an almost ritual visit to a remote valley in the Northwest Territories to file a story about the "Real Sultan of Swat." Editors believed that readers would chuckle over the comparison between Babe Ruth and a bemused local leader - not a sultan, by the by, but why let facts stand in the way of a nice feature piece.

A couple of months ago, the Swat Valley was home to an open rebellion against the Pakistani government by a local version of the Taliban. Schmidle describes a religious court that issued summary justice, bans on music and a spreading movement that tore down the national flag and replaced it with their own. After months of inaction, the Pakistani military finally launched a counter offensive, but the transition that Schmidle documents from the old tribal, religious and political institutions to a younger and much more ruthless leadership is a story that will figure strongly in the years to come.

Since 9/11, I always keep a small TV in Studio 3A tuned to CNN. I hate surprises. Today though, I may be tempted to hit the remote to watch Bud Selig, the Commissioner of Baseball, and Union head Donald Fehr testify on steroids to a House committee. Sign of the times: the event is being carried live on CSPAN and ESPN.

Retail sales have dropped, stocks are tumbling and the housing market is in a slump. On the increase? Talk of a recession. In the first hour today, two experts will suggest ways to recession-proof your life, your job and your investments and ride out the current economic decline. Yesterday, we were scheduled to air a show about dieting for dollars, but that segment has been moved to the end of today's first hour. So the following may sound vaguely familiar:
Economist Richard McKenzie will offer a suggestion to those of you who want a "lose weight" do-over. It's not too late. If you're feeling a little overwhelmed about HOW to lose the weight, McKenzie suggests turning those pounds into dollars by putting a wager on it. He explains how at the end of our second hour, and in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, titled Dieting for Dollars.

News of a Washington D.C.mother suspected of killing her four children has made headlines across the country. Authorities say the mother had been living with the bodies for weeks following their deaths without anyone knowing. The mayor of D.C. has since fired six child welfare workers, saying they "just didn't do their job." When a child is reported absent or is believed to be neglected, how is the case investigated? And when should you report suspicions of abuse? Guests in our second hour will talk about the child welfare system and the ways it intervenes and investigates child maltreatment. After that, journalist Nicholas Schmidle talks about the new and more ruthless leadership of the Taliban and explains the reasons behind his deportment from Pakistan last week. His story, entitled Next Gen Taliban, appeared in the January 6th issue of The New York Times Magazine. At the end of the hour we will read from your emails and blog comments.

The official TOTN whistle.

Source: Barrie Hardymon

Last week I had my debut on Talk of the Nation for a segment on college football's BCS rankings, and several of you pointed out that, in a way, we were unwittingly perpetuating negative stereotypes about women and sports. The idea was to have someone who has very little knowledge of the mechanics of football playoffs blow a whistle every time one of the guests said something that sounded like Greek. Well, folks, that someone was me; and I was happy to assume the role of tabula rasa. A sports girl myself, I thought it would be a cool way to learn more about the game; and I relished the thought of being able to one-up some of my guy friends with my newfound understanding.* But, in our excitement over the whistle, we missed the red flag that this could play into a negative stereotype. The thought never crossed our minds. Why not? Perhaps it's because in our office, the women outnumber the men by almost 2-to-1 and (with the exception of the host) probably know more about sports than the many of the men, too.
None of which changes the fact that we missed this one. You blew the whistle on us... thanks for keeping us honest.

* Many of them have begrudgingly admitted confusion over the BCS rules.

We talked with Gwen Thompkins last week about the violence in Kenya... She painted a pretty bleak picture then, and things are no better today. It started as a protest over the presidential election, and quickly exploded into fighting along tribal lines (there are more than 40 different tribes in Kenya, though the fighting is mostly between the Kikuyu and Luo). That word, "tribe," is often misunderstood in the United States, and some argue it's offensive, and smacks of colonialism. And while most Americans know what the term "tribe" means, they have little direct experience with them. What role does tribal identity play in politics, in culture, and everyday life? We'll talk with two Kenyans, and want to hear your stories.

How can one be everything to everyone?

Source: Poppyseed Bandits

This primary season's double-whammy on the Democratic side, which has many voters debating which to endorse first -- the first woman president, or the first black president -- has gotten more contentious with each passing day. I imagine it has both Clinton and Obama feeling a bit lonesome, sometimes... figureheads perched on the prows of ships on rocky seas. Joseph Williams of The Boston Globe got a taste of the contradictions and trials Obama now faces when he ran for student body president in the 70's at Ooltewah High School in Tennessee. For him, it boiled down to one essential conflict: how do you appeal to the wider white population without losing your authenticity among your black peers? Especially when, as he says,

I watched "Soul Train" most Saturdays, pleaded with my sisters to perm my nappy hair into an Afro, and was a member in good standing at Ooltewah High's "black table," where the small group of African-American students ate lunch in the cafeteria. But I had much in common with Ooltewah's white kids, too - a suburban upbringing, a taste for Space Invaders, Monty Python, SCTV, and the Who. And when I talked, I sounded a lot like them.

What do you think? Of course, no one can please everyone all the time, but is it possible to be cross-racially fluent without compromising the self? I'd especially like to hear about successful resolutions of this particular internal conflict, and how seeing Sen. Obama negotiate the divide on the most public of stages has affected your thinking.

Life's a zoo in DC.

Source: alaner79

The tiger mauling at the San Francisco zoo was one of those odd stories that had us inexplicably glued to the TV whenever it came up. It also had us oddly sympathizing with both mauler and maul-ee (I sometimes find the relentless pacing of the lions, tigers, and bears at the (albeit amazing) Washington Zoo sort of sad). So when we found this series of articles in the St. Petersburg Times -- a four year investigative look inside the Tampa zoo -- of course, we pounced. You must read the series -- it's a fascinating, and revealing look at human nature, by way of the animals. Take a break from elephants and donkeys, and tell us how you feel about our nation's zoos.

John Edwards on the campaign trail.

Source: Eric Thayer/Getty Images

This just in -- John Edwards will be joining us in our second segment this hour. Read up on his campaign, his philosophy, and his performance so far; and get your dialing fingers ready to ask him about it all yourself!

Extreme diet.

Source: Thrice 18/3

Stay tuned, we hope to reschedule this segment, but we've bumped it today because John Edwards will be joining us instead.

How many pounds did you gain on your last diet? Yo-yo-ers know what I'm talking about -- after you shed the initial 5, 10, or even 20 pounds, it's only a matter of time before you gain it all back, and then some. We often blame the diet for being too extreme, impractical, or not conducive to our daily lives over the long run. And that's probably the case 9 times out of 10. But maybe there's another culprit behind our dieting woes: the absence of a strong incentive. Well, today we'll talk to one economist (yes, economists diet too) who decided to put his money where his mouth is. In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal entitled, "Dieting for Dollars," Richard McKenzie agreed to pay his friend $500 if he didn't loose 9 lbs in 10 weeks. Too easy, or easier said than done? Listen in to find out. And we'll see if he was able to keep the weight off. In the meantime, tell us, what incentives do you use to lose weight?

Here's what's coming up on the show today:

The controversial re-election of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki enflamed hostilities between the president's Kikuyu tribe, and the Luo tribe of opposition leader Raila Odinga. Talk of tribes has been prominent in the news coverage of Kenya, and while we are familiar with the word "tribe," many of us don't really understand what exactly that means: What role tribes play in family, political, and cultural life. In our first hour, we'll speak with guests who can explain exactly what a tribe is, and why, for some, it is such an important part of defining their identity, but for others it's not. At the end of the hour, Joe Williams, deputy chief of the Boston Globe's Washington bureau, will talk about his op-ed titled Fear of a Black President and why he believes, "...the first black president won't - can't - be a 'race leader,' someone who has stood out front on black issues, made a career of calling white leadership on the carpet...."

In our second hour, we'll pose the question: Do you go to the zoo? Guest Thomas French has done extensive research on the evolution of zoos and the animals who live in them, and will examine if zoos can be beneficial to animals and whether or not it eventually leads to their extinction. Following that, economist Richard McKenzie will offer a suggestion to those of you who want a "lose weight" do-over. It's not too late. If you're feeling a little overwhelmed about HOW to lose the weight, McKenzie suggests turning those pounds into dollars by putting a wager on it. He explains how at the end of our second hour, and in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, titled Dieting for Dollars.

An Iraqi woman and her children walking warily in the streets of Baquba.

Source: Getty/Gianluigi Guercia

The costs of war are myriad -- it's in money, equipment, supplies, manpower. Of course, the only metric that means anything at all -- is lives. We know precisely how many Americans have died in Iraq, but counting the dead on the other side is not only very hard to do, it's deeply controversial. The number of violent deaths can be calculated in many ways. In 2006, a survey by Iraqi and Johns Hopkins University researchers published in The Lancet journal, found the number of Iraqi dead to be greater then 600, 000, which at the time, was more than 10 times the number of deaths estimated by the Iraqi or U.S. governments, or by any human-rights group for that matter. It was widely lauded, and criticized. A new study has just been released -- estimates that 151,000 Iraqis died in the years following the US invasion of Iraq. That study -- conducted jointly by the Iraqi Health Ministry and the World Health Organization, is a quarter of the number that the Johns Hopkins researchers found. The overarching problem here is what the deaths mean -- politically, emotionally. Do higher numbers serve certain organizations or politicians? What do the numbers mean to you?

Polls made a mess of things Tuesday night.

Source: Getty Images/Mario Tama

OK, everyone who thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the New Hampshire primary, say "yea." In a room full of pollsters, all you'll hear is crickets. Just about every one of them called for a comfortable Obama win, and reporters anticipated the subsequent "next big story": a major shakeup in the Clinton camp. Sorry, Charlie. So what went wrong with the polls? Sure, the nice weather may have helped Hillary, whose demographic skews older than Obama's, but that's not enough to account for her surprise win. Pollmaster Andy Kohut says the answer lies in the profile of folks who respond to polls -- which is not the same as who votes. It's got a lot more to do with race and class than gender and age, and it may surprise you. Do you respond to polls? Why or why not?

Dr. Gretchen Berland and Galen Buckwalter at the IFP Market Awards.

Source: Getty Images/Lawrence Lucier

For several years, Dr. Gretchen Berland, of the Yale University School of Medicine, has used film to better understand how her patients live -- outside of waiting rooms, clinics, and hospitals. Her newest documentary, Rolling, centers on three Americans, confined to wheelchairs: Galen Buckwalter, Vicki Elman, and Ernie Wallengren.

Berland outfitted each of their wheelchairs with a video camera. For two years, they recorded hundreds of hours of footage. Each portrait shows a person who wants to hold on to his or her independence, and illustrates how difficult everyday life can be. In the second hour, we'll talk to Berland and Galen Buckwalter. If you use a wheelchair, what don't your friends, family, co-workers, and physicians understand?

Juan Carlos LeCompte, husband of Colombian ex-presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, abducted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), shows pictures of Ingrid's children Lorenzo and Melanie Delloye.

Source: Getty Images/AFP

Two of the hostages held for years by Columbian Colombian rebels are reportedly on their way home. Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, said today that he talked with Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez, and that both are free after almost six years in the jungles of Columbia Colombia. Conspicuously absent in the release is Ingrid Betancourt. She's a former presidential candidate in Columbia Colombia, who was kidnapped while campaigning with Rojas. Betancourt's husband has agreed to talk to us on the show today. Juan Carlos Lecompte will try to describe what life has been like these past six years, and if today's release might be a new sign of hope for him and their two children.

In our first hour today, we'll talk about a recent national household survey conducted by the World Health Organization that suggests the number of violent deaths in Iraq reached 150,000 between 2003 and 2006. U.S. military officials say this estimated figure is much smaller than the number of deaths cited in an earlier survey. We'll hear from guests about the disparity in the numbers and the methods and the challenges of measuring deaths in a war zone. Following that discussion, we'll talk with Pew pollster Andy Kohut about his New York Times op-ed on how and why the polls and the press got it so wrong in New Hampshire.

In our second hour, we'll talk to filmmaker and physician Gretchen Berland about her documentary entitled Rolling, a film that captures the experience of living in a wheelchair from the perspective of the people in wheelchairs. Cast-member Galen Buckwalter will also join us to talk about his story and his involvement with the film. At the end of the hour, we talk about the hostage crisis in Colombia with Juan Carlos Lecompte, the husband of former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt who has been held in captivity for nearly six years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

The remains of the post-NH party.

Source: Chris Nelson

Today's my first day back at NPR HQ after nine days on the road in Iowa and New Hampshire. It was a pretty incredible gig, doing field production with some absolutely amazing reporters, and holding down the NPR fort at both of Hillary's post-polling parties. It was both exciting and terrifying -- even though I'm relatively old-school TotN, I was a complete newbie on the road, and politics is not my regular beat so, I was pretty out of my element. I learned a ton -- everyone was so helpful and patient -- and I definitely have a clearer view of the race than ever before, plus some nascent field production skills I hope to nurture in the future. I'm not going to opine on the race -- we have professionals who do that -- but I do know about music, and boy, if I never hear Mitt Romney or Hillary Clinton's mixtapes again, it will still be too soon. Don't get me wrong, their soundtracks feature plenty of good stuff, but the mix is never long enough to sustain the event without starting over at the top three or four times. Romney's is all about the remix of Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation." I heard it so many times I will link it with the candidate forever . I also heard Brooks and Dunn's "Red Dirt Roads" more than a few times at Romney events, and while the song is about redemption and compassion, I couldn't help but notice the lyric, "It's where I drank my first beer..." While at first it just surprised me to hear, I now think it's actually a nice gesture, intentional or not. On the Clinton side of things, her mix kicks off with Tom Petty's "American Girl," for which I have nothing but praise. That song always gets me, and it's a great way to open an album and a mix. I think I've even done it myself. Rock and roll expert Carrie Brownstein picked up on the music too, to no surprise, and challenges folks to recommend appropriate but unconventional titles for the candidates to play. I echo her call. Surely each campaign could spring $50 for some iTunes shopping and a couple of blank CDs. What would you want to hear? I didn't hear too many female voices over the PA system, so I'll go first, and nominate one I think would be funny for Sen. Clinton, sung by the awe-inspiring Neko Case: The New Pornographers' "Letter from an Occupant." The first lyric? "I'm told the eventual downfall/Is just a bill from the restaurant/You told me I could order the moon babe/Just as long as I shoot what I want." I'd laugh, anyway, and think she was pretty cool for it!

Hillary Clinton and her supporters.

Source: STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images

It wasn't supposed to be close. "Clinton Braces for Second Loss," read The Wall Street Journal. In Newsday: "Clinton fights for her political life." But it was. After hours and hours of tabulating and waiting, the Obama victory pollsters projected didn't materialize. Can we blame it on, or attribute it to, "The Moment." You know, when there was "A Chink in the Steely Facade of Hillary Clinton," as The Washington Post put it?

Now, as the candidates look forward to South Carolina -- and maybe to some well-earned shuteye --, it's clear that the race is close. On both sides of the aisle. Clinton v. Obama v. Gravel. (Just making sure you're still reading). McCain v. Romney v. Huckabee v. Giuliani.

In the first hour, an NPR News special. The inimitable Ken Rudin will join us from New Hampshire to talk about last night's primary. And we'll hear from a chorus of voices from Concord and beyond. Chime in.

Bumblebee at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show.

Source: arex

Here's the deal... Las Vegas Convention Center, nearly 2-million square feet of nothing but gadgets, gizmos, and flashing lights, and about 150,000 people all oogling and ahhing over the shiny new playthings. At this show, what happens in Vegas eventually winds up in your living room... think DVD recorders, flat panel TVs, digital cameras, it's all a part of the Consumer Electronics Show. And this year, tech's gone to the driveway, too. While no product is breaking any new ground, things are getting better, and slimmer, and smarter. Camcorders warn you when you get a bad shot, GPS devices respond to your voice, and cars drive themselves. If there's a downside to CES, it's the attendance policy... The public isn't invited. Thankfully, armed with press passes, Larry Magid, tech analyst for the New York Times and CBS News, and Sean Captain of Popular Science made their way into the door, and will give us a preview of some of the innovative new gadgets we'll see in stores in the coming months.

Former Senator George McGovern

Source: Getty Images

Those of you perusing the Sunday Washington Post this past weekend, may have spilled your coffee at the sight of these words on the cover of the Outlook section.

As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.

Neal Conan is back, and in our first hour he will host an NPR News Special on the presidential race--post-New Hampshire. For the entire hour, NPR's Ken Rudin and political analysts break down what the victories of John McCain on the Republican side, and Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side mean for the all the candidates as they head for Michigan, South Carolina and Super Tuesday.

In our second hour, which will be Talk of the Nation, we'll give you a free pass into the biggest consumer electronics show that's taking place now in Las Vegas. Our guests will introduce you to the latest gizmos and gadgets. Can you imagine a video camera that clips onto your shirt and records up to four hours of footage? How about a driverless car? Man, you gotta love the 21st century. Following that, we'll talk with former senator and presidential nominee George McGovern about his call to impeach President Bush. He stated in a recen op-ed, "President Bush and Vice-President Cheney have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time".

Newspapers no more?

Source: fxgeek

In the United States, professors and media critics like to speculate on the future of newspapers. Venerable dailies cut jobs. Corporations absorb local broadsheets. And editors and publishers try to learn to love the Internet.

In London, where I was on vacation, you don't get the sense that the death of the newspaper is imminent. At all. In England, the golden age of print continues. (To my untrained eyes, at least). When you ride the bus in the morning, everyone has a copy of the Times or the Telegraph or the Daily Mail. In the afternoon, sellers hawk copies of the Evening Standard. And there are free nightly newspapers for commuters.

I kept wondering, "Why can't our papers be more comprehensive, better looking, or easier to hold?"

Al Jazeera newsroom.

Source: ethanz

Recently, some media analysts have put forth the argument that Al Jazeera, the Pan-Arab satellite television network, has become increasingly moderate in its coverage of Saudi Arabia. Today we will put this argument to the test with a panel of journalists from around the world. Up for discussion: the differences between Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as a comparison of Al Jazeera, funded by Qatar, and its competitor, Al Arabiya, funded by Saudi Arabia. And we'll try to get to the bottom of whether or not Al Jazeera really has changed its treatment of touchy political topics.

Since the strike shut down much of Hollywood in November, we've talked with a striking writer, and a big-time show runner about why the writers walked off the job. Another part of this story are the writers who ARE working. John Ridley is a screenwriter and novelist, he wrote the movie Undercover Brother, and has gone "financial core," which means he's still in the union but has gone back to work. His reasons involve old frustrations, disagreements with the union and self-determination. He lays it all out in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times today, and joins us to talk about his decision.

It's a universally appealing fantasy -- you win the lottery and get to quit your job as a beleaguered, put-upon radio producer. Or whatever. But that fantasy rarely works out so well in real life. Lottery winners have a really hard time dealing with the sudden change -- and often, the sudden windfall wrecks their life. Ed Ugel had the sad job of pouncing on these folks once things really got tough -- he worked in the lump sum industry. His stories are really amazing -- and he's got the goods on a system that he says allows nobody to win.

We've been trying to find a way into the election violence in Kenya... and it was right here around the corner. Ken Okoth is a history teacher at the Potomac School outside D.C., but he grew up in the huge Nairobi slum of Kibera -- in fact, he's been trying to get his family out of the country to escape the violence there. (For more on this -- see the BPP, which has been talking to him for the past week.) Today, we'll get an update from Gwen Thompkins, and then we'll talk to Ken about his experiences.

I haven't been able to convince the rest of the crew here to do a show on the Consumer Electronics Show this week (so far, anyway). It's the annual orgy of gadgets and electronica that brings more than a hundred thousand people to Las Vegas for a little "gee whiz" time. It's a tough show to talk about without actually being there (hint to my own bosses for 2009), but talk of incredibly thin TVs, cars that drive themselves, dancing speakers, wireless everywhere, and of course HD everything is worth the price of admission. The consensus again this year is that we're seeing more evolution that revolution, with gadgets getting more powerful, more refined, and smaller, but not necessarily doing novel new things. If you're a gadget-head, here's some of the better coverage of this year's show:

So, what is CES?
Flat-screens are bigger and better
And TVs get bigger and bigger
Gadgets go green
Blow-by-blow product releases
And, my personal favorite news source.

Coming up on today's show, we'll take a look at the Al-Jazeera television network, the largest Arabic news channel in the Middle East. In our first hour, we will talk about the criticism and controversy that has surrounded Al-Jazeera over the years, how some argue that the network is changing, who is watching, and why the network is not more widely available in America. At the end of the hour, we'll talk to Undercover Brother writer John Ridley about why he is ready to cross the writer's strike picket line.

"I've just got to hit that number!" I've heard this line more times than I can count... mostly from people who don't actually play the lottery. But millions of people do, and it's easy to understand why. Imagine hitting that number, being showered by a windfall of money and your wildest dreams coming true. But is this what actually happens? We've heard the stories of lottery winners whose dreams eventually turned into nightmares. Maybe becoming an overnight millionaire is more trouble than it's worth. In the second hour, we'll talk with Edward Ugel, the author of a book about his years working with lottery winners, and Rebecca Paul Hargrove, President and CEO of the Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation, about losing by winning the lottery. At the end of the hour, we'll talk to NPR's Gwen Thompkins in Nairobi, Kenya, and to Ken Okoth about the current crisis in Kenya and the Red Rose Nursery and Children's Centre he runs in his homeland of Nairobi.

How do you decide who to vote for?

Source: Enrico Fuente

At brunch yesterday my girlfriends and I got to talking about politics.* Naturally, the conversation veered toward who we intend to vote for in the presidential primaries. There was a nice smattering of opinion. Some of us are values voters -- things like abortion and religion matter most. For others it's a particular issue -- national defense, health care or taxes. And yet still for others, word of mouth, family opinion, or gut instinct reigns. So tell us, BoTNers, how do you decide who to vote for?

* Always a charming topic for Sunday brunch. I highly recommend it.

Every four years a slew of Presidential candidates step up to a microphone and start making promises... the majority of which can never really be kept. And this is not a new phenomenon. In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Joseph Ellis tracked the first broken campaign promise back to 1800, when Thomas Jefferson promised more than he could deliver... and started a more than 200 year trend. With the candidates talking big in New Hampshire this week, Ellis predicts more of the same for 2008, and says it's almost impossible to know which candidate can make the leap from Joe Citizen to President of the United States. We'll let him explain.

Who's your favorite team?

Source: rdesai

There are few issues as polarizing at the college football ranking system. I believe seriously that it may regularly bring grown men to tears. It's nothing like the easy bracketeering of the Final Four in college basketball. My boyfriend is a Kansas fan (their football team, FYI, hasn't done this well since 1899!!), and I often hear him screeching about it. (It's not "strength of schedule" for all of you KU unbelievers.) Well, this age-old sports radio debate is migrating to TOTN today... and we'd love to have you weigh in, but please -- keep it civil. (And listen for college football tabula rasa Ashley Grashaw at the beginning...)

Say you really wanted to win an election, no holds barred (and no second thoughts about ethics), how would you do it? Allen Raymond worked as a GOP consultant and spent three months in jail for dirty political tricks in New Hampshire in the 2002 election (he now says what he did was wrong, and says he hopes to empty the political bag of dirty tricks). Some of the ideas he mentions in his new book, How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative: Jam your opponents' phone lines on election day (the stunt he did jail time for). Call thousands of voters in the middle of the Super Bowl claiming to represent your opponent. Drum up a phony press release on your opponent's letterhead full of lies and half-truths. And that's just to warm up.
As the race for President really starts to get interesting, we'll talk with Raymond today about his story, and some of the underhanded tactics we might see between now and November.

Today and tomorrow, Neal Conan is away and NPR's Mike Pesca will be in the host's chair. You may have heard him on Day to Day and The Bryant Park Project. This afternoon he makes his debut on Talk of the Nation. We're happy to have him!

In case you haven't heard, there's a serious battle going on in the race to the White House and it's pretty tight on both sides. So when it's time to cast your vote, how do you decide who to vote for? Is it really about rhetoric surrounding the important issues? Or does it all come down to personality? In our first hour, we'll talk about which issues have the greatest influence on voters and how voters react to the ways politicians brand themselves. Following that, we'll talk with Joseph Ellis about his article that appeared in The Los Angeles Times where he outlines why he feels most politicians are not good at fullfilling their campaign promises. His piece is entitled A Promise of Unpredictability.

I'm not even going to begin to attempt to explain our second hour topic. We're going to discuss the debate surrounding whether or not college football playoffs are a good (or bad) idea. Please weigh in if you have any opinion about this one. If, on the other hand, you are like me and haven't a clue what anything relating to college football means, listen closely to our second hour because we're going to explain how college football currently determines which team is the best, and if that system should be changed. I promise at the next football scream-off, you'll sound like a pro (sorry, no pun intended). At the end of the hour, Allen Raymond will join us to talk about his book, "How To Rig An Election: Confessions Of a Republican Operative."

Enjoy!

Happy New Year's!!!

Source: mydesignselfstudy

We're only a week into 2008, and already people have stopped talking about their new year's resolutions. Why's that? Because so few of us actually keep them. I'm proud to report that I broke mine the very first day -- just couldn't resist that devil's chocolate cake.* So instead of talking about personal goals, I thought I'd take a stab at something different: Lifestyle Predictions for '08. Here's what I see:

1. Large dogs will replace mini ones as this year's must-have accessory. Think St. Bernards instead of Chihuahuas -- Beethoven instead of Yo Quiero Taco Bell. And celebrity glitterati will commission Louis Vuitton to make ginormous carrying bags.

2. Station wagons will become the new SUV. I'm talking 'bout those clunky whales of a car we saw in TV shows like The Brady Bunch. Buick = the new Hummer. Dig it.

3. Normal, everyday small talk -- often trite and boring -- will be spiced up with song and dance, Hairspray style. Crucial moments in conversation will be accentuated with perfectly choreographed dance routines.

4. Cupcakes -- all the rage in trendy, cosmopolitan neighborhoods like Greenwich (Magnolia Bakery) and Beverly Hills (Sprinkles**) -- will be replaced with moon pies...or meat pies a la Sweeney Todd.

and I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict that

5. The flurry of excitement over the Wii will simmer down to a quiet murmur as youngins across the country discover the joys of playing tennis outside, on -- dare I say it -- an actual tennis court.

Tell us, what are your life trend predictions for 2008?

* What's that they say about temptation and the Devil?
** My personal fave.

It's been a week since Benazir Bhutto was killed in Pakistan, and investigators are no closer to identifying her killers. Scotland Yard is on the case, though only as technical advisors. And there's plenty of speculation and theories, including an accusation from Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf that Al Qaida was involved (which work to counter accusations that Pakistan's intelligence service was involved). In news circles when you mention Pakistan and terrorism in the same sentence, Peter Bergen jumps to mind. He constantly travels to Pakistan, reports on radio, TV, newspapers, and magazines, and literally wrote the book on Osama bin Laden, The Osama bin Laden I Know. He's in Pakistan today, and will fill us in on the murky tribal areas of Pakistan's border where it's believed Al Qaida, remnants of the Taliban, and even Osama bin Laden himself roam about.

Tell me this isn't confusing... Marc Fisher writes in the Washington Post that the recording industry is suing an Arizona man for copying a CD he bought LEGALLY to his own computer. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) comes right out and says, no we're not! If you've ever put a CD into your computer, this is a case you want to pay attention to. And the only way to get to the bottom of things is to go right to the source. What lead to Marc Fisher's arguments? We'll ask him. What is the RIAA's position on ripping your own CDs? Will they sue you for dumping a CD to your iPod? We'll ask Cary Sherman, the President of the RIAA.

Actually, they're not. As far as I can tell, Uggs are here to stay, even with their faint air of Kate Hudson circa "I'm so in love with my hubby" about them. But... how did the damn things get to be so popular? (I have my own theories about the little shoe-puffs -- they are the equivalent of giving your feet a really high dose of euphoria.) Today, we're deciphering trends. How do you know when something has really caught on? 100 calorie packs, Uggs, Wii, the i-Phone (oh yeah, we fell for that one)... how do you know that trapeze dresses are so 2007, and it's time to get a pencil skirt? We'll talk to trendwatchers/spotters, but we want to hear from you. What have you watched/spotted/bought/loved/hated/cut holes in/patched up again?

I took a lot of philosophy classes in college, and one of my professors often joked that "no one in the department can make any decisions!" That's because a lot of philosophy happens in an armchair. Well, not anymore! Our Next Big Thing series continues with Kwame Anthony Appiah, a Princeton philosopher -- and TOTN fave -- who wrote about the next big think in philosophy -- it's called "x-phi," or "experimental philosophy," and it's ruffling some feathers.

In today's first hour, we will talk about the growing instability in Pakistan following the death of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and how the country's volatility could foster the growth of militant groups like Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Following that discussion, Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) president Cary Sherman discuss Fisher's allegations that downloading music from a purchased CD onto your computer could get you sued.

In our second hour, we'll find out what makes a trend. For example, who decides the "must have" color scheme to wear this spring? Or which spices must be included in your kitchen cabinet and savory souffle? We'll talk with trend "forecasters" about where trends actually come from. After that, we will end our "next big thing" series with the next big thing in ideas. Author and Princeton University philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah tells us what new ideas could make an impact in 2008.

Benazir Bhutto's teenaged son.

Source: Getty Images

When Benazir Bhutto was assassinated a week ago, all eyes were suddenly glued on her son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, named heir to the political legacy at a heartrendingly young age. So young, in fact (19), that he should be more concerned with his Facebook news feed then, er...the news feed. Yesterday, Mike Nizza, of New York Times Lede blog reported on another strange confluence of social networking and journalism -- in a desperate attempt to find out more about the unexpected heir, journalists went rushing to Facebook, where they found information on Bilawal, an Oxford student, under an alias --Bilawal Lawalib. That profile itself is pretty interesting -- quotes from and about his mother, as well as some sadly ordinary antics for a young man who did not expect to suddenly be in charge of such a legacy at the tender age of 19. But since there was no profile under Bilawal's full name, another student made an entirely new profile -- with faux quotes, pictures, and a few rather upsetting inaccuracies. Later, the imposter posted these comments, which make him sound like one of those horrible Real Worlders.

I made an account pretending to be him. I've got 44 friend requests in the hour it's been up. Reckon I'll be upto 1000 in a couple days.
It's great cos I saw the news on tv, and since this is basically the first time the guy has come into the public eye, nobody has made an account for him. So I quickly registered one, and just been addin stuff to the profile.
I've recieved loads of letters of condolences for my dead mother too! I'll post up some good ones now. Oh and a ridiculous number of hot pakistani girls added me too (some pics below).

(NONE OF THAT IS MY SPELLING. This guy could benefit from some world travel... Waziristan, maybe?) One odd element that I never would have expected to hear, is that an aide to Bilawal's father, Asif Ali Zardari, is claiming that the bogus Facebook profile was set up by the Pakistani government. (I know the ISI is powerful... but do they have a Facebook profile?) It's odd that in the end, it's nothing that dismal, just a thoughtless kid playing a prank. Sigh. I guess that's even more dismal.

It's Junkie Day around here again, and of course the political news is... Iowa. We'll preview tomorrow's caucuses, and find out what it really means to win that state. The surprise this week, though, is talk of a possible third party run in 2008. Nothing's official yet, but New York Mayor Michael Bloom is scheduled to meet next week with a dozen other pols from both parties. The goal: lay out plans to form a government of unity in Washington. Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman will be a part of the mix, and she'll talk third party politics with us today. And Ken Rudin tables not one but TWO trivia questions! Do you want to see a third party run for the White House? Do you think an independent can win?

I have no voice this week. Literally. When I do talk, I sound a bit like a kazoo. So, shortly after I came in to work yesterday, I was voted out of the office... Nobody wanted me making them sick. In my defense, I'm not coughing, there's no fever, I'm just hoarse, all of which translates in my head to being healthy enough to work. That's the question of the day, really: How sick is too sick for work? WebMD did a whole article on this, and we'll talk with one of their doctors on the show. And let us know, how sick is too sick to go to work?

The tagline to the new (brilliant, though bloody) Sweeney Todd movie is "Never Forgive. Never Forget." Now that I've read this article in the LA Times, I understand why Sweeney looked so darn pale, Tim Burton's black/white/gray color scheme aside. Some researchers are claiming that forgiveness -- considered a virtue (or mitzvah) in almost every religion -- is actually pretty good for your body, not just your soul. But how can you forgive the unforgivable -- Sweeney's solution excepted? Survivors of terrible crimes may just not be able to forgive the people who hurt them. Though, as Josh Billings said, "There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness." What do you think?

If 2007 was the summer of three-peats at the movies, 2008 may be the year of 3D. Beowulf got us started with it's recent 3D release, and in the coming year U2 and Tim Burton have plans to go 3D, and there's rumors that we might see Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker using the force in three dimensions. Of course, it's not just technology that will be the next big thing in movies this year, the writer's strike may have a big impact on the box office, if not this year then likely in 2009 if this drags on much longer. So tell us, what are you looking forward to at the movies this year? A specific actor, or movie, is it the technology, or something else?

The list of overused words and phrases for 2007 is out... "Surge," ""perfect storm," "webinar," even "post-9/11" all made the list. And it's not just words; phrases like "give back" and "______ is the new _____" (as in green is the new black) are so last year, too. The public relations department at Lake Superior State University in Michigan come up with the lists every year, rummaging through a couple thousand submissions of cliches and well-worn phrases. And they give special attention to us media types... Reporters use terms like "emotional", or "decimate" too often, and often incorrectly. The list also throws sports writers who use the phrase "thrown under the bus" under the bus. My favorite, though, may be one that I use myself a bit too often: "it is what it is." The list-makers point out (correctly) that it's completely pointless. All you wordsmiths (another term on the list) out there, what words or phrases are you tired of hearing?

It's a new year, and we want to take one last look back at 2007 today by remembering some of the people we lost. And I don't just mean the Boris Yeltsin and Oscar Peterson and other luminaries. Their obituaries were front page news, but there are countless other people whose lives were just as meaningful, and important, but whose passing we may have missed: A lawyer who fought to change race relations in America; a writer who made world peace feel achievable; even the inventor of Cheez Whiz (you can read more about them, and others, at NPR.org/talk). If you knew someone who died last year, and who deserves more attention for the way they lived their lives, tell us about them. Here are several more remembrances from staffers here at NPR:

Continue reading "Those We Remember" >

I wish I wasn't so darn skeptical about the whole self-help thing. Every time I see a Chicken Soup For Your -- insert person/ethnic group/age group, I want to throw boiling... er... soup on them. However, that's not to say that I haven't occasionally dabbled in gurus -- don't repeat this, nameless internet reader -- but I own the Tao of Pooh in hardback. Hardback! Well, I'm not the only skeptic out there, despite what those shiny self-help aisles are peddling. The irrepressible Beth Lisick was a hardcore skeptic herself -- until she made her New Year's resolution to binge on them. A different guru every month -- I'm talking Richard Simmons, that Mars/Venus guy, and even the Chicken Soup dude. She went for it... question is, have you ever gotten help from a guru? Why or why not?

For baseball fans, 2007 was about record breaking homers, and about steroid investigations. It was about another Red Sox series, and another what-could-have-been for Cubs fans. But for all the ups and downs last year, the fans will undoubtedly be back in 2008. There will be pennant-fever, new records set, and probably more drama, too. The next in our series on the next big thing: Sports. Alan Schwarz, our baseball buddy, joins us to kick off the new year with a look at what's in store for major league baseball in 2008. What, or WHO, do you think is the next big thing in baseball?

Hello 2008! Here's what's happening on our first show of the new year!!!

In our first hour, we will talk to several of our colleagues at NPR about the people we lost in 2007 who made significant contributions, but didn't get the attention they deserved. We'd also like to hear from you. Was there someone who you knew or knew of that made a difference? Call into our program or send us an email. You can also tell us about them on the blog. At the end of the hour, we will read a few more of your emails and blog comments about the best quotes of 2007.

January 1st. A new year. A clean slate. Time to convince yourself that THIS year's resolutions will stick. Really this time! Most of the "must-dos" on your list are no doubt of the self-improvement variety. And there is certainly no shortage of experts who claim they can help. Two years ago, Beth Lisick gave new meaning to the term "self-help" and spent the next year determined to improve every aspect of her life. Her journey has turned into a book entitled, Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone. In our second hour she will tell us whether or not some of the more popular self-help gurus really do help. At the end of the hour, we'll continue our "next big thing in 2008" series with a look at baseball with author and New York Times columnist Alan Schwarz.